#could not have said it better myself king lmao

[genericpuff]

The Extended Mishandling of LO's S3 Midseason Finale Premiere (Pt 2)

Alrighty, I promised a part two back in the first part of this analysis, but found myself busy with Rekindled and my day job, so I'm finally sitting down and finishing this up. If you haven't read that first part yet, please go check it out!

CAUTION: THERE BE FASTPASS SPOILERS AHEAD!

We left off with Hebe and Apollo roleplaying that one scene from The Lion King, albeit with a lot less sense or nuance. Literally all the "drama" so far feels purely manufactured for cheap plot progression and tension and it hardly feels authentic. But now we gotta talk about the second half of this episode, where we finally address the cliffhanger that the FP midseason finale episode left off on - Persephone causing winter.

And what better way to kick it off than with a completely off-base Persephone monologue?

Now, what's shown here is actually a flashback to the job interview scene from S1, when Persephone asked to see the snow in the Underworld. But it's written as if Persephone has some intimate relationship with snow as a whole, as if she's experienced more than this one time which... she hasn't. There was nothing "romantic" really about that scene following the job interview, she literally just wanted to go out and see something she hadn't seen before.

But that calls into question - why does Persephone constantly act like she has an intimate relationship with snow when it doesn't occur in the Mortal Realm? She even says in the honeymoon episode that it's hot all the time in the Mortal Realm, and the temperature only drops every now and then during rainy days... and she somehow makes this about Hades when it literally has nothing to do with him lmao Persephone monologues are some of the worst /r/im14andthisisdeep moments in the series because she's constantly using word salad to describe feelings we never saw or scenes that never happened.

And this scene is no different. She says that snow is something that's interwoven with her most 'treasured moments' but all the visuals have to show for is that one scene from S1 that, again, didn't even come across as a 'treasured moment', it was just her seeing the snow for the first time, there was nothing 'romantic' about it in a vacuum. All the moments from the series you could call ACTUALLY TREASURED milestones of Hades and Persephone's relationship - and Persephone's supposed "love" for the Underworld - are scenes where snow was completely absent (ex. the scene of Persephone and Hades talking about Sicily in Zeus and Hera's garden, Persephone and Hades spending the night in the cabin during the trial arc, etc.)

But then, to make it even more confusing, she goes on to describe her losing her powers and causing winter a "betrayal". As if the concept of winter owes her anything. As if Erebus owes her anything.

The allusion to Erebus itself in the visuals implies that she feels "betrayed" over this happening, as if it wasn't made ABUNDANTLY CLEAR TO HER that she would have to sacrifice something. She's gone SO LONG without knowing or caring about what she could have possibly given up, that by the time it finally revealed itself, she's acting all shocked Pikachu because there's finally something she can't just have. Everything that could make her seem imperfect has been washed away, from her SA trauma to those pesky green hands. Now we finally ARE seeing her affected by her own choices and she's basically waxing poetic about how sad it is that her actions have consequences.

That said, she does seem to have a moment of self-awareness here... but I can't be confident it will actually amount to anything seeing as how all the past attempts at 'growth' have been overshadowed by her vanity and ego.

This line is really confusing / weird in the way that it's written but I think she's trying to say that the source of the cold is from her, she can't pin it on any sort of 'big bad' like she could with Apollo and Kronos. It's just her.

And again, this could be a moment of realization for her that her actions are her own regardless of whatever she wants to pin it on-

But she rejects it instead. She's still not capable of acknowledging that her choices affect others, that her actions have consequences, that she's finally paying the price for something she knew had a cost.

If this were any other comic, I would accept her rejection of this, I would have confidence in knowing she may recognize it eventually. But this is LO and we're three seasons in, she's technically already gotten her happily ever after in the form of becoming Queen and married to her 'true love', so all of this feels like a very last-minute attempt to paint Persephone as this "struggling" character. But she's not "struggling", she's just finally experiencing karma catching up to her and as expected for a person like Persephone, she's already cracking under the pressure of realization that she can't have everything she wants.

Again, in any other comic, this would feel satisfying or endearing to see her fall on her own sword, but to me it just feels frustrating in the context of LO because we've spent five years seeing her get everything she wants with barely any real struggle that wasn't manufactured - with all of it painted as a GOOD THING - while still getting away with treating the people around her like shit.

And when I say she rejects this concept of having humility, I don't just mean through her monologuing, but also through her actions.

If I were to critique LO the same way I would an actual functional series, I would say that this should be the point of realization, the point where we see her crumble under the weight of her not being perfect, not being able to "fix" everything. It all stems back to her entitlement as a bratty main character, someone who can't fathom not being the main character or the "hero".

Because she's not the hero. Demeter is - or at least, she tries to be.

Again, it's hard to know if this is intentional or if this is yet another attempt to present Demeter as an "overbearing mom", but Persephone here looks and sounds like she's been reduced back to the state of a child crying for her mother in the face of her own failures. Despite now technically being a mother herself (through literal babynapping sigh) Persephone is still not a mature adult. Aging her up 10 years and giving her a husband and baby will not make her an actual functional independent adult who's capable of taking care of themselves or making the right decisions... unlike Demeter who is still, ultimately, more skilled than Persephone. She is an actual experienced and mature adult who's capable of rationalizing and decision making, and knowing when it's time to put aside your ego, walk away and let someone else who's far more qualified take care of things.

What Demeter has is something that one can only gain through true hardship, failing, learning from one's own mistakes, and experience, all of which Persephone does not have because she transitioned from a cage of her own imagination where hard work and responsibility was a virtue, into a gilded cage where true hard work can be passed onto someone else whose efforts she could take credit for while sitting on a throne and buying anything and everything she could ever want.

Despite everything Persephone and the narrative claims to have 'earned', she's still a child. The adults have to take over.

And like a child, she doesn't let them.

This is not an 'anime moment'. This is not a moment of redemption. This is immaturity and irresponsibility in its most visible form for Persephone - refusing to let go of her ego and shortcomings to "prove herself", even if it means making things worse.

And Hades enables it.

I want to make it clear there is a massive difference between not being controlling over someone, and actually enabling them.

This is not some small hill to die on. Persephone is literally causing winter, which could very well kill the Mortals. As we've seen in that prior Hebe scene from the first part of this essay, the snow is showing up in Olympus. This isn't something that's happening in the isolation of this single scene, this is happening everywhere and instead of taking the L, Persephone is trying to make things 'better' by simply 'trying harder' which is just not the solution here, Demeter knows this, but Hades is playing the "girlboss" version of a "good husband" by not even bothering to try and convince her to do otherwise. Hades above everyone else should be the one stepping in because he'd likely be the only one she'd actually listen to, but he's refusing to because he has to be the "good husband" who doesn't control the actions of his wife.

So he flat out enables her instead by not even bothering to try and reason with her, to help her see that what she's doing is not helping. Not even so much as a "Persephone, I know you want to help but it's clear something is wrong and if Demeter can figure out what to do to fix this, we should let her", just him saying to Demeter who wants to stop her that he can't stop her from trying... ignoring the fact that he should at least try.

And that's the difference between being controlling and being an enabler. He's not keeping her from doing something that benefits her and doesn't harm him or others. He's not micromanaging her decisions or trying to tell her she's not capable. Now, don't get me wrong, there are definitely things that make Hades a walking red flag especially when it comes to him being a groomer, but when it comes to directly controlling Persephone, most of the time she's doing things of her own accord convinced that it's "the right thing" (which is still just a side effect of the obvious grooming because I really doubt S1 Persephone would have done this shit lmao).

Here, he's not stepping in to even try to reason with her because "well I'd be a bad husband if I stepped in", completely ignoring the fact that it makes him a terrible person, period, to not at least try to calmly reason with his wife and explain to her that her 'help' is not going to help here. Just like when he rewarded her with sex for abusing a nymph in her own home, he's completely complacent to Persephone's actions and doesn't step in to try and help because, according to Wattpad and TikTok, a "good husband" is someone who looks the other way while his life partner does whatever she wants regardless of the consequences to herself and others. "Happy wife, happy life, who cares if the wife wants to be an actual piece of shit to people if it makes her happy".

And thus she makes things worse in her pursuit of "happiness", while Hades stands idly by, watching it all unfold as if he's just an innocent bystander who can absolve himself of any responsibility in this situation. As if she didn't become this way because she ate the pomegranate to be with him and a part of his world.

Now, there's one other sort-of-blatant smoking gun that I want to talk about that I haven't really seen anyone else mention since this episode went up. Granted, this might be me reading far too much into it, but hey, that's what this blog is for and I think it's something that absolutely needs to be mentioned.

Persephone goes on about how her powers aren't just gone, they've been replaced, all she can create is decay, and more specifically-

Now... think of the context of LO's narrative, what it's told us both literally and through subtext, intentional or not.

What does this sound like?

Hades lost his ability to produce children when he ate the pomegranate. He can no longer "create life".

And now, Persephone is finding herself in a similar situation, unable to "create life" the way she knows how. I'd like to think this isn't literal, but it really feels like there's a metaphorical implication here that Persephone losing her ability to create life is meant to be taken literally, that she not only can't create flowers and plant life anymore, but she's lost her fertility entirely. You can go even further back in this when it was established Persephone didn't eat six seeds, but nine, which originally felt like a weirdly random choice, but now seems intentional. I know some people have theorized that it has to do with her possibly being pregnant, but I don't think that's the case, I think it's the opposite - that the 9 months was a metaphor for the 9 months of childbearing that Persephone can no longer do.

And if that's the case... LO truly is no longer a "feminist" piece of work. It barely was before, but if the point of all this winds up being an attempt by Rachel to give Persephone a "flaw" by taking away her ability to bear children... that'll be a punch to the gut.

That said, if it does go somewhere, maybe the point will be Persephone learning she doesn't need to be able to reproduce to have value as a woman. But considering LO's track record with these sorts of plotlines, I can't be confident in the slightest that's where it'll end up. What I can be confident in is that Persephone will likely not stay this way. Like her green hands, she'll likely get her powers back, maybe after the resolution that she's still a real woman deserving of love even if she can't reproduce. I can't possibly know at this point where it's going, all I do know is that LO hasn't done a great job at resolving these sorts of deeper narratives so this just feels like another dart on the wall of bad ideas. Because it's, again, all being framed through Persephone being the "perfect woman", without there being any actual subtext throughout the narrative to imply that this may be a flawed ideology to have, it's just what Persephone has to be and it's sold in the narrative as a positive.

There's one term to describe this with that's rather consistent throughout LO when you peel back the layers of both the comic and Rachel's past work - white feminism. Despite LO's attempts to be "feminist", it's still ultimately being written through a heteronormative male gaze, that women are only "valuable" so long as they're youthful, that any goals or dreams a woman may have should be dropped as soon as they fall in love with a rich and powerful man, and that "other women" who don't fit into that mould of being rich, white, and heterocis are not worthy of love, empathy, or understanding. It's hard to trust that LO will actually challenge these norms when it's been practically enforcing them for five years.

But ultimately, that's a very loaded topic and right now, we don't know where this is going... I'm just not so sure I want to see it after all the missteps the series has pulled over the past half a decade. Like the miracle of childbirth, it's gonna take a miracle for LO to actually stick this landing.

Now, I'm assuming you read this line of dialogue, and you understood it. Yes? You positive? Okay, great. Why am I asking you this question as if you're an infant who doesn't understand what being "passed out" means? Well, you'll see what I mean in a minute.

Now, again, like with the whole "I can't bring life to anything anymore" thought process I just went through, I can't know exactly what they're trying to do here, but Demeter is fully in the right. I want to make that abundantly clear that Demeter was right the whole time and it's pretty telling that even a lot of the people reading the comic in good faith are pointing this out in the discussion circles they can actually access.

Now, in case anyone hasn't noticed, it's clear that Demeter herself is drawing upon the fertility magic of Gaia or Rachel is just alluding to Gaia for some reason. At first I thought it was supposed to be her form of "wrath" until I remembered that (unfortunately) Eris was the only reason for Persephone's wrath, so this is clearly meant to be some allusion to Gaia. Considering the fertility powers were passed down purely through Gaia and Ouranos, this means Demeter is a descendant of Gaia, which... calls into question Rachel's attempts to "remove the incest" from LO, but that's for another topic.

Either way, Demeter is fully in the right here. Hades is a fucking idiot - a useless lump - for not only enabling the shitty actions of his shitty wife, but for not taking even any amount of accountability for the fact that Persephone found out about the pomegranate through him.

"But Puff, she had to eat the pomegranate to beat Kronos!" Did she? Or was that purely manufactured for Rachel's sake because she just had to have an MCU Evil-Robot-Jeff-Bridges villain despite the fact that this FANTASY ROMANCE series didn't need one? The fact that it was written purely to 'force' Persephone into doing something she already wanted to do was completely redundant, it wasn't a 'sacrifice' she made, it was made pretty clear in Episode 165 that she wanted to eat the pomegranate as soon as she found out about it and while that decision is certainly her own, that does not absolve Hades of responsibility for not questioning his future wife's fascination with it or realizing that he unlocked the inner Pandora's Box of Persephone's mind.

And so, Demeter holds him responsible. As she should.

Okay, you read that, right? But remember that line I asked you about before? We should all know Demeter doesn't mean this literally. We have brains and we should all have a minimum amount of media literacy to understand that Hades was telling the truth when he literally said Persephone was "passed out".

We finish the episode on this panel, which I swear to christ I couldn't tell you in all of my own divine wisdom of the arts what in the world is going on in this panel. I'm literally looking at salad.

Is it Demeter and Persephone? Just some dying plants? I have no fucking clue, your guess is as good as mine.

But we're not done. Because we have one more glaring issue to talk about with this episode, and it comes in the form of an author's note that was inserted at the end of the episode. It is truly, despite EVERYTHING we've talked about in both parts of this analysis, the dumbest, most airheaded and egregiously pretentious thing I've seen in this entire episode.

Rachel quite literally put in a fucking disclaimer telling her audience what Hades already told us point blank in the comic - "Don't worry, audience members, Persephone is not literally dead, it's a metaphor for her spring powers being dead!"

I literally can't even express to you how pretentious and shitty this is of her to do. I can't tell if it's legitimately her thinking her writing is "too smart" for even her older audience members to grasp, or if she just wants to dispel the theories that people would want to make about this, or if she completely misconstrued the criticism about her writing not being "clear enough" and thinks that THIS is what people meant. Pardon my tone because I've kept it together relatively well throughout this post, but this is some 2009-era Fanfiction.net level of author's note bullshit.

If she thinks her writing is "too smart" for her audience to grasp, I'm sorry Rachel, but you're just wrong and this is incredibly shitty of you. You think the 14 year olds in your community aren't also reading other webtoons that have deeper writing than LO? I read Death Note when I was fucking 14 and I knew exactly the point of what the story was getting at by the time it was over, despite all the other stories I read at that age that completely flew over my head. And you think LO is somehow more complicated than Death Note, baby's first introduction to the grey areas of morality and justice?

If she's trying to dispel the theories... that actually holds some merit because not only is Rachel notoriously bad at not letting her fandom just talk about their theories without her swooping in to "um actually" them (even if it means killing the fun of theorizing), but the official FP page on FB was closed to new submissions in the hours following this episode and it since hasn't posted any new content. Is it because people aren't posting? Absolutely not. The mods are quite literally holding these posts hostage through the submission and approval system. People are legitimately trying to submit only for the mods to block it entirely from going through. If this is Rachel's attempts at trying to "protect herself" from the criticism this episode has surely earned, then all she's really doing is punishing her own fans who want to talk about it. It doesn't matter anymore that the discussion groups are finally back from 3-4 months of being shut down over the hiatus, they're still not being allowed to operate. The best there is now is the Discord and it's undoubtedly just as heavy moderated as the FB groups.

And as for the third possibility, this also feels like an attempt at Rachel trying to make her writing "more clear" without actually putting in the work of writing a good story. She's undoubtedly seen the criticisms towards LO as a whole that it doesn't express itself clearly, that it constantly flip flops on character motivations and information that has been established, and that any monologuing that's done implies things or events that we've never seen unfold on screen (case in point, the Persephone monologue from the start of this episode) but she seems to have either misconstrued or ignored the point of that criticism entirely by solving it with a quick and shitty author's note at the end explaining her intentions with a scene that was already clearly laid out to us. Instead of putting in the work to write a concise story to explain the things that are a bit more under-developed, she's slapping in a spoonfed explanation for scenes that literally don't need explaining and that ultimately cheapens the scenes that are TRYING to have impact, bringing them down to the same level of mediocrity as the scenes that never had the impact they intended to have to begin with. "You've killed the Goddess of Spring" was plenty clear after Hades said she was passed out, Rachel. Taking the time to explain it in a note at the end is just sad and it really goes to show what you think of your audience, especially when it comes to how you treat your fans in regards to community accessibility in the official discussion groups.

"The haters" didn't set this comic onto the path that it's on or ruin the fanbase experience, Rachel - you did.

[k4marina]

— ii. Dragon Rider || Heart of the Dragon

synopsis: a new routine in a new world

warnings: idek lol. unedited and not properly read (i kept falling asleep lmao)

series masterlist

~ 2.5k word count.

game of thrones x modern!fem!reader

[gif found on pinterest]

Never in my life have I regretted anything more than I did now. 

“Me and my big fucking mouth,” I grunted, getting up from the ground and dusting my leather pants. Gray Worm looks at me with a slightly amused expression. Of course he would, he just dropped me onto my ass for the fifth time today. 

It had been almost two weeks after the Small Council meeting. There had been a few more since then, but no major topics were discussed, other than Varys begrudgingly backing what I had said about Cersie having scorpions when asked if his little birds had any news. The new armor and weapons for the Unsullied are also being made. After a few talks with Daenerys, Gray Worm, a few Unsullied commanders, and I, the new armor design was decided on. Surprisingly the Unsullied were very artistic people and had great ideas. 

And, within the past two weeks, I’ve been tortured everyday, my limbs aching all the time, threatening to fall off. Everyday, I’ve been woken up at four in the morning for my sword lessons with Gray Worm for five hours a day. When I said I wanted to learn, I didn’t mean I wanted to train to be the world's best swordsman of all time. 

“You’re enjoying this way too much,” I say towards him, wiping away the sweat on my face. 

“I have no idea to what you are referring to, My Lady.” Gray Worm says, feigning innocence. 

“You can’t call me ‘My Lady’ and then drop me on my ass for the fifth time.” I pointed out. 

Gray Worm smiled and got into a fighting stance and I mirrored. “Your defense has gotten better; however, your strength and stamina is lacking.” 

He gave the signal and charged towards me, going to swing towards my left. I sidestepped and blocked the hit with my sword before knocking it back. This time, I went for the attack, but Gray Worm expertly blocked me and knocked the sword out of my hand. The sword clattered against the stone ground, landing a few feet away from me.

“Maybe it’s best we stop for today.” He says, picking up the sword and placing it back onto the rack. I let out a sigh of relief and walked over to the inches, grabbing a towel and wiping the sweat away from my face and neck. 

“Be honest,” I said, turning towards him. “Am I a lost cause?” 

He snorts out a laugh and shakes his head. “Apologies, My Lady.” Once he’d composed himself he answered, “No, I do not believe you are a ‘lost cause’. It may seem difficult now, but it will get easier later on.” 

“Wow, wise words,” I said sarcastically, taking a swig of water from the canteen. “They should call you ‘Gray Worm the Wise’.” 

“I’m pleased that you think I am someone with wisdom.” He says, giving a small bow, making me chuckle. 

After the lessons, I took a bath in my room, this time with the help of the servants. The first few days I would have them leave so I could bathe myself, but I guess over the days it just naturally happened. Once bathed and dressed in a white dress with gold embroidery and pearl beads before I made my way to the hall to have breakfast with Daenerys. 

Not only was it a good way for us to get to know one another (mainly her learning about me) as well as discussing future events and how we would maneuver through it. However, not all of it. I had made the decision to not tell her about Jon Snow or the White Walkers, I think that’s something she should organically go through. All she knows about Jon is that he’s the King in the North is Jon Snow, Ned Stark's “bastard” and the former Nights Watch Lord Commander who came back from the dead.  

The doors to the hall were swung open for me and I walked in, spotting Daenerys at the head of the table, looking through some documents. The sound of the doors closing, snapped her out of her thoughts. When she saw me she smiled, which I returned. 

“What did I say about bringing work to the dining table,” I lightly scolded. She gave me a sheepish look and protested, “it can’t be helped, it's important work. As Queen I’m expected to do this and more.” 

I walked over to her, carefully taking the documents and setting them off to the side. “Dany, you’ve been a Queen since you married Khal Drogo. You need to step back and take some time to just be Daenerys. Otherwise you’ll grow overworked.” 

“Alright, alright. If you’re so sure.” She nodded towards the servants to begin serving the food. Like always, an array of food was laid out for us to eat. We both began to eat, making small talk and updating each other with any new updates. 

“Gray Worm has been telling me that you’re quite exceptional with a sword,” She teased. 

I playfully rolled my eyes, groaning, “not you too.” She let out a laugh, teasing me some more. “What? He says you’re a fast learner. He says he’s never seen someone land on their arse five times in a row.” 

“Right, that’s it.” I huffed. “I’m running away.” 

Daenerys laughed some more and I tried to hide my smile. Truthfully, she reminded me of my younger cousin in Volantis, Mera. Both of them had a heart of gold and an innocent child-like soul deep down. 

“The servants told me that you refused to have your hair braided.” Daenerys points out. She’s not wrong. Instead of braiding my hair I opted to leave it in a ponytail or let it down. 

“Well, I haven’t won any battles.” I said. “Each one of your braids represents a battle won, I haven’t won anything.”

“So if you win you’ll braid your hair?” 

“Sure, why not. Why? Do you not want me to?”

“No, no. Actually, I would quite like that.” She smiled. 

I eyed her suspiciously, “don’t tell me you’re planning on putting me in the frontlines.” 

She shrugged. “Maybe. Your lessons with Gray Worm are going well. Who knows, by the time we’re ready for war you’ll be a master swordsman –or rather swordswoman.”

The rest of the breakfast went fine. Daenerys and I decided to take a stroll around the castle ground claiming she has something to show me. She dropped off the papers in her office before taking me through the back of the castle to the open fields in the back. The wind swept by us, carrying the saltiness of the ocean and the fresh scent of grass. 

“Where are we going?” I asked as she led me deeper into the field. 

“I just wanted to show you something. They’re right over there.” 

We stood atop a hill and at the foot of the hill on the other side resting were Daenerys’ dragons. I felt my heart stop. No way. What the actual fuck. My mouth ran dry as I looked over the three dragons. Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion, all in their full glory. I looked over to Daenerys who was already looking towards me. 

“You’re serious?” I ask. She smiles and nods. “What if they don’t like me and decide to eat me?” 

Daenerys laughed, her cheeks turning pink. “They will do none of that sort, I swear. I have a strong feeling that they will like you.” 

Carefully she led me closer to the three dragons. With every step they just grew more and more. They towered over the two of us and stood with immense power. And to think that these three are just a small fraction of the size of Balerion and the rest of the Targaryen fleet. 

We stood a few feet away but I could still feel the heat that they emitted from their bodies. Their majestic eyes that were probably the size of my head watched me carefully. Shiny scales adorned their bodies that looked to be about the size of my hand or bigger. Their one claw nail was the same size as my limbs. 

Holy fuck was this crazy. I’d read about these dragons and even saw a few drawings made by people who’d seen them in textbooks, but being this up close and personal with them was a whole other experience. 

Oddly enough, for such dangerous creatures, they seemed to emit a sense of calm. 

“You feel it too?” Daenerys eyes my reactions to the dragons. “Their calm.” 

I nodded. “I thought my heart would be doing somersaults in my chest, but it’s not.” After the initial shock, I felt my body relax. 

“They’re so beautiful.” I said to no one in particular. 

We hung around them for some time, allowing me to get used to their presence while Daenerys told me stories about her and her dragons. 

I looked over the dragons. Drogon, named after Daenerys’ husband Khal Drogo. Rhaegal, named after Rhaegar the Dragon Prince. Viserion, named after Viserys the Beggar King. 

Daenerys followed my gaze to the cream and gold scales dragon that laid on the grass alongside his brothers. Viserion and Rhaegal seemed to play fight while Drogon watched. 

“Despite their playful nature, those two are the oldest.” 

“What? 

The dragons carefully made their way over to where we stood. Drogon moved towards Daenerys, moving his tail around her as if giving her a hug. Rhaegal moved around behind us, opting to lounge. Viserion, however, moved closer to me. His green eyes bore into mine, as if it was trying to communicate with me. 

He brought his face closer to me, like a dog wanting to be pet. I glanced back at Daenerys who nodded. 

Viserion tilts his head when I carefully bring my hand up to stroke his gold and cream scales. A deep purr comes from him, nearly startling me. He nuzzles his head into my palm and purrs some more. It wasn’t like a cat's purr, more like a deep bass. 

“Would you like to fly him?” Daenerys asks. 

“Yes,” I replied without a thought, too entranced at the dragon in front of me. 

She moves around Drogo, standing to the side of him. 

“Stand like this,” she says. “This is what I find the easiest.” 

I mimic her stance, standing besides Viserion. Drogon crouched down and Daenerys carefully stepped up, using his scales and spikes to seat herself atop the dragon. 

I copied her, being careful to not hurt Viserion (not that I’d be able to) and sat myself on top of the gold dragon. It was uncomfortable, almost like riding a really large horse with spikes and scales. How Daenerys was able to ride her dragons without a saddle or harness was beyond me. 

My hands gripped onto the spikes on Viserions back, holding on tightly as the gold dragon began to shift around from a crouched position to fully stand. My hands gripped onto him tighter as I tried not to fall off. I peaked over its massive body to see that Viserion was getting ready to take off. 

“W-wait!” I looked towards Daenerys who was watching from atop Drogon. “Why is it taking off? What do I do?” Panic filled my voice. 

There was no way in seven hells that she thinks that I can fly, right? 

“Hold on!” She grins just as Drogon takes off into the sky. VIserion gets ready and I can already feel myself slipping off. He takes off just as I adjust my position, hunching down and tightening my grip onto his spikes. 

Wind rushes past my ears and my hair flows all over the place. Instinctively, I closed my eyes while Viserion flew in the air. I could hear Daenerys call for me from across the sky. 

“Open your eyes!” She says. “You’ll be safe, I promise.” 

Carefully, I opened them. It was brighter up in the sky than on the ground and had a lot less clouds. I could hear the, surprisingly, gentle flaps of Viserions wings. I cautiously looked down, seeing that we were miles off the ground, so far up that we could see Dragonstone Island and I could feel my stomach start to buzz. 

“Don’t look down,” I look up to see Daenerys. “When it was my first time I was terrified, as well, but you cannot let your fear control you or else it will transfer to your dragon.” 

I nodded, taking in her words and sitting up straight with confidence. Despite still feeling uneasy I managed to get my grip on things (literally). Daenerys’ words rung in my ears. 

“Your dragon,” 

I’d read of Dragons bonding with non-Targaryens or non-Valyrians, case and point being Hugh Hammer riding Vermithor during the Dance of Dragons. But it would make sense if I could bond with Viserion in light of recent findings. 

“Alright, let’s see what we can do.” I said to Viserion and I. 

—

Daenerys and I spent the rest of the day riding our dragons. It was challenging, especially the part where you literally have to hold onto for dear life, but rewarding in the end. 

In the end Viserion and I had truly bonded. He would know what I was thinking or how I was feeling without even saying a word to him. At first I thought it was just the two of us getting the hang of each other, but Daenerys explained that this was what she and Drogon felt. It was hard to believe that I was a Dragon Rider. But then again, this past week has shown that anything could be possible. 

Getting off the Dragons was harder than getting on, my dress snagging on its scales, but not ripping entirely. 

“I can help you with your riding,” Daenerys says as we walk back into the castle. 

“I’d like that.” I replied. “I’m sure we can find books in the libraries that can help us too.” 

“Have you uncovered anything else?” She asks, expectantly. 

I shook my head. “Nothing of significance. I’ll keep reading and let you in on my findings.” 

We split off so we could clean ourselves up and get ready for dinner. The bathtub was already ready for me when I entered the room. I pulled off my dress and sunk into the steaming hot water. The tension in my shoulders loosened and I dipped my head back to rest on the edge of the bathtub. 

The weight of my necklace lay heavy on my chest, a firm reminder of my… predicament. I tried not to think about it all, otherwise I’d just spiral into some rabbit hole. Some days I wonder if it’s all some sort of dream. A long, vivid dream that I can't wake up from. A knot pulls at my chest, and my throat closes. My eyes flicker up to the ceiling, tears threatening to fall. I took a deep breath, the only thing I can do is take everything in day by day.

And then I fully submerged myself into the water.

a/n: finally, it’s here :) mb if there’s any spelling mistakes, i tried to proofread it but i kept falling asleep and couldn’t be asked anymore 😭 i’ll fix it later, trust 🙏.

comment to be on the taglist!

@wotcherpeak @music-luver25 @your-favorite-god @radiantdanvers @cluelessteam @daenerys713 @ministark @laanswife @idohknow @jromanoff

[meraki-yao]

RWRB: A list of thoughts on the Campfire Scene

Ok I went to sleep for another hour to calm myself down and now I can form coherent thoughts about the scene and not just scream and squeal

It's a three-minute scene with two shots. The first shot is a little over two minutes

When Alex asks his question, Henry, who was looking into the fire, tilts his head towards Alex as if to listen better. After Alex finishes, Henry looks up towards the sky, like he's wondering how to answer

Alex doesn't really react to Henry's "Once upon a time" even though he's not directly answering Alex's question. He just listens, and that's such a beautiful thing

Nick deserves a round of applause for this scene, his monologue was two minutes long, and monologues are really hard to perform because it's just you who keeps talking, you don't really get to react to other things or people, it's just you, so Nick is a fantastic job

Nick's delivery and tone, and the way he sometimes ends a sentence a bit like a question (ex: "acutely") makes it sound like Henry's been thinking about this story/ metaphor for a while but this is the first time he ever verbalizes it, so while he knows what he wants to talk about thus he doesn't need to pause a lot to think of the story, he does occasionally need to think of the next word or line because again, he never actually said any of this out loud before, and Nick does that so well

@pippin-katz pointed out that Nick misspoke and said "sent the suit a prince of armour" which is hilarious, and while because movie, this shouldn't happen, realistically we all have moments where we mix words up so it almost feels more... authentic? Also, I didn't pick it up but now that Pippin mentioned it I'm really aware of it lmao

Also Henry/Nick's voice here is so soothing? I can almost imagine him telling bedtime stories to his and Alex's kids like this in the future. I wonder if Henry would write children's books because it feels like it'd be something he do and something he could write really well, if this clip is anything to go by. Plus I stumbled across an audio of Nick reading "The Emperor's New Clothes" before (I literally have no context of why he was reading that and it was literally just audio, not sure if I can find it anymore) and it was so soothing and calming that I fell asleep to it one night. Besides the full-cast RWRB audiobook that I'm practically demanding at this point, I wonder if he would be interested in doing more audiobook/narration stuff. He's really got the voice for it

The King sending a suit of armour to protect the prince's heart kind of further proves my point of the King being a much more loving grandparent to Henry than the queen in the book, and him worrying more about Henry himself than the image of the crown. He noticed that 1, Henry is an emotionally sensitive person, 2, Henry is gay, and both of those things could be turned against him easily, and he will get hurt. He does love Henry, just not in a way that's good for Henry. If we get a sequel I do hope we can see them reconcile in one way or another. It'd be a nice example for people in the same positions.

The "Nothing will ever happen to him" line!!!! I wrote a whole essay about Kensington and this line because somehow this line was one of the most powerful ones to me, but to know that it was originally Henry's word just adds another level of pain to the Kensington scene

You can see Henry's face light up when he starts talking about the peasant boy. And Alex's quick eyebrow raise and deep chuckle. It's so beautiful, I wanna cry

We talk about Alex's heart eyes, which, yes, but Henry's look of pure adoration and love at Alex when he says "Truly Alive" makes me want to melt

I yelled a little at Alex when he started to lay back down (as in I verbally shouted "DAMMIT ALEX LOOK AT YOUR MAN") because I felt like if Alex saw Henry's face in the following lines he'd figure out Henry has issues earlier? But then I saw a take saying the shot was framed like theatre where Henry's both centre stage and in the spotlight so the focus is on him, so Alex was designed to lay back down on the timber bench to make the entire space for Henry

Henry's look of sad longing when he talks about the peasant boy pulling apart his armor is heartbreaking

I wonder if this was originally planned to be the changing point from Alex's POV to Henry's POV? Because in that case I do think the lake scene worked better as a changing point

I also wonder how did Henry end the story in his head up to this point? Because as hopefully as the last line is, at this point in the story, Henry still doesn't believe he can keep this

I get why scenes are cut because when you're putting together a movie, there are a lot of things you don't see for individual scenes until you put them together. This is why as much as I want the cast and crew to get the premiere they deserve to have, I don't really want an extended cut of the movie, because things were cut for a good reason

That being said, if the cornetto scene and this scene proved anything, is that the scenes themselves are fascinating, and I WANT THEM ALL

[feyreandhercourt]

My thoughts on HOFAS, ft. SPOILERS

Overall, I will say I think this was a very well "written" book craft-wise. Like better than HOSAB and ACOSF, imo.

Okay Bryce telling Hunt “thinking about you getting tortured was hard for me!!!” was a… choice. If fated mates could divorce, I’d be filing

Honestly all around. They are my least favorite but before I attributed it to just not being into Hunt. But honestly they just seemed to be on different pages.

Where was Fury?????????????????????

Okay the hand thing was brutal but well played

Lidia was great. Also I recognized the Brann thing when he was introduced and was very proud of myself because I never make the connections lol

But I did think he might be like OG Brannon… the fact he’s not still has me interested

The bonus chapters were decent generally. Az and Nesta were likeable in them which makes me hopeful because Az’s LAST bonus chapter was Not A Good Look (tm)

Tell me how Feyre beat the Midgardden wyrm or whatever with a bone and yet Az and Nesta couldn’t. Nothing but respect for MY high lady

Speaking of, Theia really went the tradwife route and said no more high ladies tee hee only men should rule, huh?

Did Sigfrid or whatever even matter?

Ariadne felt like the opposite of Chekov’s gun. You have a DRAGON and a lot of fire and girlie is MIA

Ithan becoming Prime when the boy has zero main character energy was… meh.

Getting their powers back was AWESOME though am I forgetting something or did that not happen to Bryce? It felt like a copout but maybe I missed it?

The Theia/Silene reveals were interesting but lmao Nesta and Bryce kept talking shit during them which was both funny and just… repetitive

Bryce seemed to CONSTANTLY making inappropriate wisecracks. Like I don’t mean with the king but like when Lydia’s sons were captured or whatever??? not necessarily that but similar. Like girl there are times to be serious.

Ruhb SHOOTING LYDIA IN THE LEG while they are in enemy territory was one of the DUMBEST things going. But ya know what I need a couple to root for and Juniper/Lydia had no page time so they get a pass

Um. So we’re just not gonna address the Rhys/Ruhn twinsie connection?????

Tharion really made the bold choice to just… exist.

Also not the book’s fault but the video thing lmao would SO be disbelieved with where AI is today and that was all I could think when they released it

The Urd/Wyrd thing was a facepalmer that I liked

Wehb ACOWARA came out, a blogger (who posts great takes) was annoyed Feyre reused the starfall dress because that was a major royalty faux pas. That’s how I felt when Bryce used the mask.

People said things felt “too easy” but I don’t think that was an issue. Like QOS was “easier” but it’s one of the most beloved SJM books. I think the real issue is people didn’t feel connected and SJM had a few too many instances of explicitly saying “they didn’t know what they were doing but they did it by instinct”

GIVE ME MY FIRE BREATHING BITCH QUEEN WITH HER POWERS BACK PLEASE

SJM is 100000% going to write another TOG book and I am so ready. Those do. Not. Miss.

As ever, (and I had the same issue with Marvel) the issue with these multiverse things for me personally is I read some really fantastic theories that make a TON of sense, get excited for them, and then when they’re either not present or not present but with no explanation or a worse one, I wind up disappointed.

I’d say this is my second favorite CC book. I did think it was well-written though. And I know some were upset not to have ACOTAR POVs (okay me too lol) but I do think it makes sense to keep it as Bryce’s book. Except it’s more “Bryce and Friends” than Bryce.

[intothecometverse]

in honor of february ending, here's what i manifested this month!

🐬 this one time i was practicing a bit later than usual and i was like FUCK ION WANNA EAT DINNER AND THEN GO TO ORCHESTRA REHEARSAL WITHIN HALF AN HOUR THAT'S NOT ENOUGH TIME and then i got an email for the rehearsal schedule and i got at least half an hour more than usual until i had to come. funny enough i was thinking to myself like plz don't make me come until later plz plz plz plz plz plz and then i got the email for the rehearsal schedule so yippe

🐬 going on to that i had to fucking take a shit and ended up arriving to the rehearsal room ON THE DOT (which is late for orchestra standards 💔) but luckily there were still ppl waiting outside while the conductor was dealing with the basses and cellos only (which was the reason why ppl who weren't basses and cellows didn't have to come until half an hour later) so i wasn't late woo! and on my walk there (i was speed walking lol) i was affirming to myself i'm not gonna be late im not gonna be late there are still gon' be ppl waiting outside then boom that happened??? like im god hello??

🐬 having dinner + getting to go on a mini walk with my goth sp (i asked them and they said yes)

🐬 also manifesting conversations with my goth sp just by thinking about experiencing it seconds beforehand

🐬 oh ja and i also manifested being released early from orchestra rehearsals thru just thinking abt it seconds before too 😭😭

🐬 manifested seeing another sp during my regular day activities (their dorm room is around the corner from mine so we see each other a lot xD) like whenever i think abt them boom they pop up 😭. manifesting interactions next 𓆩♡𓆪

🐬 (me personally i think this was my most putting-my-foot-down manifesting moment) i overate one time and felt like throwing up, like i was feeling ALL the symptoms i usually do before i throw up so i was like "I'm not gonna throw up im not gonna throw up, remember who's in control. I AM in control, nothing else! the 3d will conform, because i said so, IT'S GOING TO CONFORM, NOW" and then i felt fine, just like that :D

🐬 not needing to get out of bed and take a piss one night when i was rly tired (affirmed "i don't need to piss" until i fell asleep 😭)

🐬 my room being opened one night when i got locked out at like 1/2 am

🐬 my grade in jazz history being raised from a D to a B- (and hopefully an A by the end of the quarter)

🐬 also i have all As in all my other classes

🐬 getting to have a fun hangout before February ended lol

🐬 having friends my age who live in dorms near me xD

🐬 my eczema getting healed without special ointment or anything

🐬 birf control (technically manifested it way back in December bc that was when i got a confirmed appointment but wtv. i got the implant this month so xD)

🐬 clearer skin

🐬 i have super long hair and the ends didn't dry out (technically this is like a continuous manifestation but i just wanted to mention it. basically I've been affirming "the ends of my hair is immune to split ends and drying out as it gets longer" and it worked!)

🐬 being better at trumpet :D (i told my trumpet teacher how much i practiced during one lesson, and continued to play during our lesson even when i surpassed my usual amount of time playing during an average day and he said I've gotten stronger due to playing for so long yet still sounding relatively fresh. and recently I've kept playing for longer amounts of time during the day and I've still been fine so yippe

what i'm looking for manifesting-wise in march:

🦞 shifting lmao

🦞 being successful in my job

🦞 being successful in all areas of life actually

🦞 getting to hang out with both sps + them getting along as friends so we could be a whole trio :3

🦞 my sps texting me first along with me texting them first (like yk how they say it should be like a 50/50 thing with who starts the convos and shit)

🦞 supernatural shit like powers, wings, horns, and like those king sombra kinda smoky eyes

🦞 WORLD. PEACE.

hope this inspired you, and remember, anything is possible, and u are loved!

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

[inventedfangirling]

BEST of BL's in 2023 [Thai edition]

(more accurately my favourites from 2023, so that i have something to show for the 100s of hours i spent watching them lmao)

I Feel You Linger In The Air - Head & Shoulders above (almost) every single piece of queer media i've ever watched. Khun Yai and Jom will be forever icons. That drunk poem confession will NEVER be topped. Also LESBIANS AHHHHHH also the way the show explored intimacy AHHH just end meeee

2. Moonlight Chicken - Aof strikes again. Gave me Uncle Jim, Heart, Li Ming and my baby boy Gaipa- the music, the cinematography, the writing, the found fckin family - i will recommend it to EVERY one on the planet if i could.

3. Be My Favourite- I did not expect to enjoy this show as much as i did. I loved what they were tryna say. I LOVED the queer undertones in EVERYTHING. if not for the asexual erasure and Not being an absolute asshole this would have been quite the perfect show. And man is Gawin so darn sculpted perfection, LOOK AT THAT FACE, how to not admire!? Also Pearmai my beloved. AND THAT POEM in episode 11 ARGHHH

4. Bed Friend - I know this was a polarizing series in a lot of ways and I agree to some of the complaints raised BUTTTTTT NET MY FRENZ NET! How am i supposed to not melt into a complete puddle watching King pretend to not be absolutely in love with Uea, and treating him like the babygirl he is, when he looks like THAT. I'm but a mere mortal.

5. La Pluie - I kinda liked the show and disliked it in equal amounts. Saengtai annoyed me quite a LOT towards the end BUT his brother Sangtien - Suar Kritsanaphong had me in the palm of his hand. Him and his kiss with Lomfon is etched firmly in my brain. It HAD to be on this list.

6. Only Friends - Gawd. The Promise. The Promise of it all. Thats what maddens me THE MOST. There was just SO MUCH that they could have done. Even if they stuck with a lot of their similar choices i would have still put it higher up on the list if they hadn't undone all the good work they did in the final episode. I couldnt even bring myself to rewatch anything from this one cos of how disappointingly it ended. That being said - FirstKhao KILLED it as usual, i CANNOT wait for their next one, BOSTON deserved better and my MVP- Mark Pakin AHHH i NEED him on EVERY SHOW EVER but also in ways concerning to me GAWD WHAT A TALENT AND WHAT A FACE.

7. Laws of Attraction - Charn you guys. Charn and his utterly deranged expressions and his even more deranged ex. And ofc everything else the show offered. The drama. The mystery. The family. The romance. THE LESBIANS!!!!? Few things not to love. Especially the finale with all the domestic husbanding going on. Precious af.

8. Hidden Agenda - Far too much nonsensical plotlessness going on here for this to claim this position BUT i'm just a girl watching Joong swoon over his man and losing it in the corridor and proceeding to do that myself cos man he's so damn good in these kinda scenes. I think he'd be good in more serious ones too but I would much prefer it if it was with somebody who could offer more than Dunk (no shade he very cute himself)

POTENTIAL FAVS

The following is a list of shows i loved/liked it a LOT but still watching/running so I can't fully judge

(in no particular order except the first one cos who am i to put an aof show not at the top of any list)

Last Twilight [BEST THING EVER I AM WHOLLY AND IRRETRIEVABLY IN LOVE IM GONNA REWATCH IT LIKE ITS MY JOB PLS I NEED IT TO STICK THE LANDING SO BAD]

Love in Translation - episode 4 what a beauty, one of my fav episodes of any BL in 2023 ever- just LOVED the whole fake date thing - it was EVERYTHING

Wedding Plan - Leads are cute. Lesbians are cuter. Made me laugh. Also CUTENESS hello

Night Dream - Who doesn't love a long unrequited but actually totally requited love story?

The Sign - nothing i can ever say is gonna be enough to encompass just how mind-blowing this series is from concept to execution to CGI to costumes to the gorgeous leads with fckin electric chemistry AND the PINING and the will they won't they arhhhh- TOP TIER STUFF

Cooking Crush - i went into this with minimal expectations, the trailer didnt do much for me BUT oh my gawd i had SO MUCH FUN with each episode, i laughed SO much and i am very much looking forward to the rest of it

Cherry Magic - TayNew back again together. Karan and his gorgeous existence. Loved the og. The trope where one believes they are hard to love & someone who loves them like it’s breathing- its literally made for this show and i am SUPER excited where it goes. PLS PLS PLS let them keep the aroace character aroace PLEASE!?!?!?

[ev-arrested]

Reading the Grayson comics is like reading a manifestation of Michael Bublé’s version of “Santa Baby”

I will elaborate:

Santa Baby by Michael Bublé has to be one of the most “no homo” songs I have ever heard. I’m serious, just listen to it rn. The thing about it is that it doesn’t just sound gay because he didn’t change any of the lyrics. Nonono. That would have been better, lemme assure you. The thing about the song is that he tried to. “Santa Baby” suddenly becomes “Santa Buddy”, and, even more hysterically, “Santa Pally” and “Santa Poppy” LIKE—

You’ll certainly still get lines like

“Santa buddy, a sixty five convertible too Steel blue”

And then followed up with a line calling Santa “dude”

“I'll wait up for you, dude”

And then the “no homo” is IMMEDIATELY undone by

“Santa buddy, and hurry down the chimney tonight”

With every changed lyrics trying to make it less gay (and ironically making it more hilarious and not any less gay), you’re sitting there scratching your head like, “Michael…if you didn’t want to sing a song that sounded a bit gay, you totally could have just…not.”

That’s what reading the Grayson comics is like. Tom King said, “Dick Grayson is straight”, and the thing about that is that I could suspend my disbelief. I could certainly successfully delude myself and pretend that he is for a comic—if Tom King wasn’t writing the gayest shit I’ve ever read.

Most of the gay shit you see in this comic is very much just gaybaiting. To me, that’s fine. I’m over it. It doesn't really interfere with my delusion of Dick being straight. But it’s the little things that Dick Grayson does that just make him come across as so closeted that Tom King definitely did not intend. Like look at this panel from the second annual.

Grayson Annual #2 page 26

What the fuck is this huh

I get that this is supposed to be a reminder to the audience that he is in fact straight amongst all the gaybaiting, but the thing about that, King, and I cannot emphasize this enough, is that dropping lines like this makes him less straight, not more.

Y'know what would make him more straight? Leaving out the gay shit entirely so you don't have to compensate like this lmao. You don't even have to compensate in the first place, actually.

I'm hardly mad at this--quite the contrary, I think it's funny--but man. King, if you didn't wanna write a Dick Grayson that came across as less than straight, you could have just. Not lol.

Anyway, this has been my weekly post of begging my followers to read the Grayson comics. It's like 20 issues and it's a fun time...even if they're bad.

[katasstrophy]

this is my official public statement that i will never, not even on my deathbed, nor a hundred thousand bajillion years later when i’ll merely be a squiggly skeleton in my cozy little coffin, or for that matter under any other circumstance, really, will I EVER forgive mr best football player in japan, boy prodigy Itoshi FUCKING Sae for what he did and/or said to Rin in chapter 148.

that being said, bllk manga spoilers under the cut !

Just,,, just fucking LOOK at these panels

it’s already very much apparent from his posture and gritted teeth that Rin is devastated by the outcome against the U-20 team. Okay, devastated might be a strong word here but he’s definitely unhappy about it—and Blue Lock won. Rin won—or, well, in his eyes, did he?

the first thing that’s reflected in Rin’s eyes is Aiku’s handshake with Isagi after the game ended with Isagi’s winning goal. By congratulating him and admitting their loss, Aiku is acknowledging Isagi—his talent as well as the threat he poses. Which is all fine and dandy, go off Isagi good for you buddy honestly BUT!! Rin has done the exact same thing in the first half. He was the first Blue Locker who could stand toe to toe with Aiku, outsmart him, and score a goal against him—an important one, too! Yet he’s not even getting half the recognition Isagi is.

And the sad part about it is that it makes perfect sense. Of fucking course Aiku’s not gonna saunter over to shake Rin’s hand while the game is still undecided—he full on believed his team was going to emerge victorious, why go on congratulating losers? (I know Rin wouldn’t have accepted Aiku’s handshake anyway lmao that fucking gremlin but that’s NOT THE POINT HERE!!!)

The point is what comes after.

Rin’s not one to go fishing for praise. He was Blue Lock’s first ranked player after the 3rd selection; he’s very much aware of his own abilities. And he has been acknowledged multiple times before by others, which he proceeded to completely brush off because, wait for it, he thinks they’re not on par with his level. Why would he need acknowledgement from lukewarm players?

Rin thinks NO ONE’s better than him at football, EXCEPT for his older brother, Sae.

Which is what makes Sae saying Isagi’s the first good striker he’s seen Japan produce—the striker who will forever change the Japanese football scene—even more heartbreaking.

Like I can’t take this pls do you SEE his face ??

This is right before Sae HIGH KEY implies that he’s finally about to acknowledge his little brother’s talents. There’s so much hope in Rin’s expression he almost looks like a kid again. There’s an honest to god little blush on his cheeks. There are fucking SPARKLES (!!!) in his eyes like EXCUUUSSEEE MEEE

even though there’s a shit ton of resentment between them, Rin really just wants to be good enough to play football with his bro again. He wants Sae to be like “yupp my bad you are a good striker”

god i cannot wait to find out what happened to sae in spain to make him such a piss baby

BUT INSTEAD we get Sae acknowledging Isagi—which fine, whatever, it’s a trend in the Blue Lock universe who am i to judge EXCEPT !!!! The whole ass reason Isagi could “incorporate luck into his play” is because he full on believed with his chest that Rin would steal the ball from Sae. WHICH HE DAMN WELL FUCKING DID

Sae sure as hell thought that was NOT gonna happen. Not even a possibility in his careful little calculations. I mean come on—

The man was too stunned to speak !!! Bitch got his ass thoroughly kicked !!!

Basically:

Couldn’t have said it better myself king

and yet. AND YET

like literally what was the reason. Why go on and declare that you acknowledge Isagi, but not Rin? I know there was a fat chance of it happening anyway—but then why not just stay silent? Sae is also pretty much aware of his brother’s abilities (besides that surprise one-up). He knows Rin’s smart enough to eventually figure out what his flow state reveals about himself—reveal what he’s missing. So why? Why declare it to Rin’s face?

Why do this to him?

At this point, there’s no more room in Rin for devastation and feeling like a disappointment. That’s all he’s been feeling for the past years. He’s done. All that’s left after this is bone deep hatred.

Unless I’m colossally missing smth, or this action will be redeemed in the next 200 chapters, Sae’s just cruel here. The only outcome I can discern from this is that now Rin’s and Isagi’s rivalry isn’t one-sided, but I genuinely fucking believe that would have been achieved regardless of Sae’s bullshittery.

SO IN CONCLUSION:

thank you for coming to my ted talk.

also @ugh-tsumu i hope you don’t mind i used your itoshi rin supremacy meme. it is spectacular <3 the other one is made by me lmaooo ART i tell you

[with-love-from-hell]

Heyy Storm 👉👈

I hope you're doing better again and that you can get some free time to rest too. I've been thinking about writing comfort headcanons for myself for a Mc with hypermobility but I feel like it'd be even nicer if someone else were to write it for me and I thought of you! Of course, there's no pressure and I won't be upset if you say you don't want to or can't for some reason /gen

My idea was writing smth about how they would try to help/take care of Mc when they get hurt because of their hypermobility, especially Beel and Barbatos for obvious reasons hehe. I do feel like it'd be really soft with Lucifer as well tho, and Simeon!

In case you're not sure about hypermobility, it means (in my case anyway) that I can bend/move my joints more than the average person and my cartilages are softer than usual too. Thus, they are more vulnerable and my joints can get dislocated easier, (I should only use 3/4ths of my strength) and sometimes even just a simple movement turns out wrong somehow and it hurts and click clacks. Especially my knees are a big problem because I struggle walking when they're hurt and they get hurt the most with me, which I do have support bandages(?) for but you'd still see me limping down the street tryna not cry :')

I am in another Lupus flair up, which is why my writing has been scarce, but I'm not flu-ish anymore! I can absolutely take this on, Oji! I'll try my best! (I hope you like it 🥺)

Mc with Hypermobility

Genre: Headcanons, Comfort Characters featured: Barbatos, Beelzebub, Simeon, and Lucifer Wc: ~ 1.9k Written for a Gn!Mc (you/yours) CW: mentions of disability and injury, some mentions of the boys helping you bathe/clean yourself, a little bit of over-protectiveness

Barbatos

First of all, don't expect anything less than utmost one-on-one attention, no matter the circumstances.

Obviously he has to serve Diavolo, but after your relationship solidifies, you are on par with his diligence to serving the future king (if not more important to him)

If he doesn't already know what hypermobility is after you disclose your condition to him, he will research the hell out of it to ensure he knows everything there possibly is to know about your condition and your needs, and will ask pointed questions about how your condition affects you as he feels the need to, to fill gaps in his research.

He knows how fragile humans already are, and he is already very careful and cautious about things that will cause you harm, but he can't predict everything (though sometimes it really seems like he can) and accidents happen.

When you do eventually get hurt for whatever reason, he will drop whatever he's doing to tend to you. It doesn't matter what or when or why or how, but he will make you his #1 priority.

Be prepared to be doted on for a very long time. You wont have to cook, clean, or do really anything on your own unless you are very insistent about it. He will even help you bathe unless you draw a firm line with him about it.

He will do what he can to mitigate any pain, and probably try to talk Solomon into finding a cure for your ailment using magic if he can. Obviously, you wanting said cure after it's discovered is up to you and he won't force it on you, but he doesn't want you to have to live in pain.

He will be more than willing to massage you or give you any sort of help with moving, doing his best to ensure he's well educated on the things he's doing to help. If you insist that it isn't his duty, he will at the very least help you get access to whatever care would be helpful in the human world- no matter the cost. (Also expect him to come with to every damn appointment and critique the PT or OT on what they're doing and how it could be better. lmao)

Beelzebub

Beel is a very active and motivated demon, so sometimes he forgets that his routines for exercising and other interests, as well as just his sheer strength and size, may take a lot out of a human- especially one who has hypermobility.

Despite the occasional air-headedness though, he always checks in to make sure you're okay with what you're doing when your with him, whether it be walking to a restaurant, helping him with his workout, or even just watching a movie and cuddling.

You are one of two most important people in the world to him, so he tries to be careful when he's doing anything with you, but he's not perfect, and neither are you, so sometimes you'll end up overextending or hurting yourself around him.

No matter how many times it happens or how often you reassure him that it's not his fault, Beel will still feel guilty whenever you get hurt- even if it wasn't involving him at all.

Because of the guilt he feels, Beel will often try to make up for it by essentially making it so you dont have to do anything. Like, ever.

I'm talking carrying you anywhere and everywhere, getting anything you need so you don't have to get up, or even feeding you.

Generally, after you're injured, Beel is extra cautious with you and ensures he treats you especially gently. He will also get very protective, and may even growl at one of his brothers if they are being too rowdy near you.

Expect lots of check ins- especially surrounding food. Are you thirsty? Do you want a snack? Are you sure you don't want a second helping at dinner? Oh, did you want this very specific condiment? He'll grab it, don't worry.

Simeon

Simeon is already so gentile by nature, but once he learns of your hypermobility, he somehow becomes even -more- gently with you.

Expect him to constantly hover where you are. Not suffocatingly so, but he's always within earshot, so if you call him he'll be at your side in a second.

He knows how dangerous the Devildom can be for any human, but it can be 10x worse for a human with a condition that makes them vulnerable. He has an inherent need to protect you, so he'll try his best to ensure you are safe from harm.

Unfortunately, he can't prevent -everything-, so there will be times where you do over-extend or get hurt. You've had the condition long enough to where you probably know how to handle it, but Simeon will be a difficult person to convince of this.

At first, before learning more about your condition and your needs, he will bombard you with questions of how he can help you. Once he learns though, the actions become second nature to him (You may have to remind him though that consent is important before he tries to pick you up and carry you somewhere lol)

Generally, he will try to be around you more when you're injured. It may take a lot of convincing for the brothers to let him spend the night, or allow him to bring you to Purgatory hall for a few days, but he probably wont take no for an answer and cart you off anyways, as long as you're willing. The brothers can be rowdy, so he wants to make sure you have a respite wherever you are.

He will dot on you lots, and get you anything you could possibly need- and then some. Often he will convince Luke to bake some extra sweets if you injure yourself, and you will always find him trying to do things to make you smile during times where the pain is really bad- like writing you a poem or doing something to make you laugh

Lucifer

Lucifer was already sort-of protective and helicopter-y over you before he would learn of your condition, but after you talk with him about your hypermobility, its going to be near impossible to get rid of him lol.

He tends to mother you quite a bit, and sometimes it can come off as nagging, but he generally does it because of how anxious he is. It might not be lectures, but just small reminders so you don't injure yourself. Ask when you need something in a difficult to reach place. Stretch frequently when you sit in odd positions. Make sure you don't push yourself too hard.

Lucifer constantly has an eye on you if he can. He will insist on doing any homework, projects, or cleaning in his company, though he cant watch you -all- the time, of course.

When you ultimately do get hurt or over-extend yourself, Lucifer's first instinct is to find out exactly where you're hurting, and do his best to tend to the area. His second instinct, though, will probably be to lecture you- especially if something that caused the injury was preventable with one of his many...many... reminders.

Despite the bit of callousness he may display when lecturing you, he will immediately take on a nurturing role afterwards.

Don't expect to really have to do anything. Often times you'll find he's already done the things that needed to be done. Any homework or projects will magically be finished, any chores or cleaning will be done with no mention of it, and there will always be plenty of your favorite snacks, desserts, and drinks within reach, even before you know you want them.

He will also neglect his own work to spend time with you when you're recovering or in any pain. He will distract you by playing a round of chess, or playing some music for you- either on one of his records or live in the music room. He will either constantly be in your room, or constantly have you in his. He wants to make sure you're as comfortable as possible.

He will also do any personal grooming for you if you allow him. Whether it be bathing, getting dressed, brushing/combing/styling your hair- any of it. He is more than happy to tend to pretty much any of your needs.

He may be a bit dictator-y about your time and activities while and just after you've been injured though. He will scold his brothers when they are too rowdy around you, and try to prevent you from getting involved in any of their activities out of fear that you may get hurt again.

His over-powering attitude toward your care can sometimes be annoying, but it definitely comes from a place of worry for your wellbeing. He hates seeing you hurt or in pain, and wants to prevent it as much as possible.

[the-cult-of-russo]

Such a Softer Sin (Part 23)

Pairing: Billy Russo x Reader

Warnings: I’m not specifically tagging this one, if you’ve seen the show, nothing will shock you. Smut will happen eventually so minors DNI, thanks.

A/N: This one’s on the shorter side and I’m on the fence with posting the next one right after or not. There’s only five chapters left, the last one being more of an epilogue that’s short too and I’ll be posting that one right after chapter 27. I don’t want to rush posting these last few chapters but I always feel bad when the chapters aren’t quite that long lmao 

It doesn’t help that I told myself I would start on my next Billy fic as I’m posting this one so I get a nice head start on writing it, but I haven’t written a goddamn thing since I started posting it lololol So I know when this is all over, there’s gonna be a wait until I post something else. 

—-------

You made your way down the hallway, smiling at the staff as they passed by and thankfully, only a few bowed their heads. You were hoping they were getting used to it. You’d been back a few days now and everybody had celebrated the return of their King and Queen. Billy seemed pretty much back to normal now he seemed to grasp the fact you were here with him and you were thankful for this whole ordeal to be over. With everything now in the past, there was something playing on your mind and you decided to speak to Billy about it. You pushed open the office door and walked inside, Billy glancing up from whatever he was writing to give you a warm smile. You closed the door and hovered uncertainly and it made him look back at you with a raised brow.

“What's up?” he asked curiously.

“I wanna ask you something,” you admitted and his lips twitched into an amused smile.

“I got that part… Why you so nervous?” he asked, eyes narrowed a little as you shifted on your feet. He frowned then as he tilted his head, dark eyes pinning you in place.

“You know you can tell me anything,” he murmured and you nodded, licking your lower lip nervously as you moved to sit in the chair opposite him at his desk. You really weren’t sure just how he’d react to what you were about to ask him, you knew it was a big deal and a part of you hadn’t wanted to bring it up, scared of his reaction. But the part of you that wanted this won out and now, here you were as you toyed with your hands in your lap and he watched you warily.

“It’s the full moon tonight,” you said softly, glancing at him.

“I know, everyone’s pretty excited about it,” he replied, his tone confused as to why you were bringing it up. You nodded, looking down at your hands as you willed yourself to have the courage to ask what you wanted.

“What’s wrong, Y/N?” he asked, now slightly concerned by your silence. You heaved a breath, forcing yourself to meet his eyes. This was Billy, your Billy, and while what you were about to ask him was a big deal, he could always say no, it wasn’t like you’d be upset. You’d understand. 

“I want to shift at Anvil,” you started and his brows raised a little at your request. 

“And I want you to shift with me,” you added quickly, heart beating a mile a minute. His brows raised so much at that statement, they almost flew right off his head and his eyes were wide. 

“Anvil is safe, so you wouldn't need to worry about shifting there. I enjoyed spending time with your wolf last time, even if it wasn't for long. I… I really want to share this with you,” you admitted nervously. He didn't say anything, just looking at you with that deer caught in the headlights look and you kicked yourself.

“It doesn't matter, I’m sorry,” you rushed out, shaking your head with a frown. You should have known better than to ask him to shift voluntarily like that, not with how he fought so hard against it. You stood up quickly, feeling guilty for even bringing it up and feeling a little stupid as you hurried to the door to make a hasty retreat.

“I’ll do it,” his voice stopped you just as you got to the door and you whipped around to face him. He was standing at his desk now, his dark eyes warm yet shining with so much vulnerability that it made you breathless.

“You really don’t have to, not if it makes you uncomfortable,” you frowned, not wanting him to do it because he felt bad. He moved around his desk and walked over to you, cupping your cheeks as you blinked up at him. 

“It doesn't… The idea of shiftin’ together… I want that. If I was gonna shift voluntarily for the first time in a over a hundred years, I’d wanna be doin’ it with you,” he murmured and you felt your heart swell as a smile painted your lips. You knew this was a huge deal and the fact he was willing to do it made you happy. 

You both set off to Anvil before it got dark and you felt excitement clawing at you. Your last shift had been forced and given the circumstances of it, you hadn’t been able to enjoy it. The full moon used to be a very special time for you since it was the only time you’d be connected with your wolf, but even now you were reconnected, you were excited for the shift. 

“Will shifting be any different now?” you asked curiously, wondering since you were a little different after the ritual if it would change things. Force shifting was a lot quicker than a normal shift, so quick that you didn't have the chance to really take in the pain of shifting. Shifting under the full moon was usually a little slower and more painful, not like how some people thought it was where you felt each bone slowly breaking one by one, but enough to feel the shift take place instead of a quick burst like force shifting. 

“It’s kinda like a force shift but not dangerous,” he explained, looking at you warmly and you nodded, feeling yourself get even more excited. You couldn't wait to just let the wolf free properly, to really enjoy it. And you couldn't wait to share it with Billy, for your wolves to really spend time with each other in your other forms. Once you got set up in Anvil, Billy made dinner before the moon was full. He had a nervous energy about him the whole time and after you’d eaten dinner and were just sitting on the sofa together, you almost couldn’t take the anxiety you were getting from him.

“You don’t have to do this, you know? I won’t blame you if you don’t want to,” you said carefully, looking at him with worried eyes. His eyes snapped to yours, wide and focused as he rolled his shoulder. 

“I want to, it’s just been a long time,” he admitted and you heard the nerves making his voice tremble. You shifted closer to him, grasping his hand and bringing it to your lips, placing a soft kiss there that made him relax a little and give you a smile. 

“We’re safe here, it’s just you and me. You can let yourself be free and I’ll have your back,” you murmured. His smile widened as he leaned down and captured your lips in a sweet kiss. 

“I love you, you know that?” he whispered against your lips, kissing you again and you smiled into it before moving away.

“You tell me like ten times a day, I’m definitely aware,” you muttered cheekily and his mouth dropped open, mock offense all over his face and it made you laugh.

“I love you too,” you grinned impishly at him and he scoffed, shoving you lightly. 

“You’re a real asshole sometimes,” he huffed and you snorted.

“And yet you're doomed to love me for the rest of eternity,” you shot him a toothy grin, and he pulled you closer again, peppering your face with kisses that tickled you and you laughed, trying to free yourself from his grasp.

“Not doomed… blessed,” he smirked, nipping your cheek and you smiled widely.

“Such a sap,” you teased and his hand gripped your jaw, his lips crashing to yours in a kiss that left you breathless. His tongue commanded all of your attention and it felt like your brain forgot everything but Billy. When he pulled away, he had a satisfied smirk on his face by your dazed face.

“Only for you, always for you,” he grinned and you rolled your eyes playfully, a smile on your lips.

You could feel it as the moon started to become full and the pair of you stripped off naked and walked outside. You took a deep inhale of the cold and crisp air, excitement and anticipation swirling around you and you felt like you could taste the electricity in the air around you. You turned to Billy, watching as he just gazed at the moon and you grabbed his hand, pulling him closer as you leaned up to kiss him. He smiled at you when you pulled away and you could feel he was starting to get excited too. You weren't sure if it was because he was feeling how excited you were and it was affecting him or if it was the prospect of finally letting the Lycan out of his own free will, but you were happy he was more receptive of this now. You readied yourself as you started to feel it building up inside you and quicker than before, except your force shift, you turned and a large white wolf was now taking your place. You turned your golden eyes to Billy then, seeing a gigantic black wolf stood beside you. Silver hues locked on to gold for a long moment before Billy’s tail started to wag and he jumped, playfully nipping at your feet. You lunged at him, knocking him over as you both started to playfight and nip at each other. You bit his tail and he let out a startled yelp before you took off running quickly, quicker than you’ve ever moved before. Anvil wasn't as big as the castle but it was still quite big and had a lot of land inside of the grounds. You ran a circle around the cottage, the wind whipping past your face as you felt exhilarated, Billy hot on your heels as he chased you. You couldn't remember feeling this free since you were younger, playing with Kos and Atti when you’d shift. He pounced on you, pinning you to the floor and you wagged your tail as you looked at him mischievously. He leaned up, licking the side of your face and his tail wagged so hard that you heard it thumping against the mud. You spent the night chasing each other around, playing like a couple of young pups before you wound up curling up together and falling asleep. 

The next morning, you woke up to find yourself now in bed but as you rolled over, Billy wasn’t there. You got out of bed, stretching with a yawn before you grabbed the sleep tunic you had here, slipping it on before you padded out of the bedroom and downstairs. You found him making breakfast and you stood there and watched him for a moment, completely in awe at the overwhelming happiness that was coming off him in waves. He turned then, smiling when he saw you and you couldn't help but smile back as you walked over to him. When you reached him, he grabbed the back of your neck, his lips connecting with yours smoothly. It was a brief kiss but it still made butterflies swarm your stomach. 

“Are you okay?” you asked him after he’d pulled away and you moved, hopping up to sit on the counter next to him as he continued on breakfast. 

“More than okay,” he grinned and it made you smile.

“I uh… I loved last night. I never thought I’d want to shift again in my life after everythin’ that happened but you changed that for me,” he said earnestly, his dark eyes imploring as they went to you and you felt warmth wrap around your heart like a blanket at his words.

“It was always so hard to keep the wolf at bay, it made me fuckin’ miserable. But now I… I wanna turn with you every full moon, let my wolf out in a safe way like that,” he admitted and you grinned at him. You were over the moon about it, happy you’d allowed him to start healing from all the trauma he’d been through and that had haunted him ever since. You watched as he plated up the food before he turned back to you, walking over and settling between your legs where you were perched on the counter. 

“You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met and every day I wonder how the fuck I got so lucky to have you as my mate,” he implored and your chest felt tight, face hot as you blinked at him, a shy smile tugging at your lips.

“I think you’re pretty amazing too,” you smiled and he grinned at you, picking you up before setting you on the floor. He grabbed the plates and you both walked into the living room to eat.

After food, you snuggled into him on the sofa, just enjoying him and the calming atmosphere here at Anvil. You really liked it here. You wondered if this would be where you moved with him after you’d had kids and they were old enough to take over. The thought of having that with Billy, having kids with him, you found you wanted that now. You didn't feel any of that worry and anxiety like you had the last time you’d thought about it. The threat was gone and things were finally settling down and you felt in your bones that you wanted that with him.

“I’m ready,” you blurted, making him look down at you with a confused face and you moved to sit up so you could look at him properly.

“We talked about having kids before the war and I was a little… anxious. But I’m ready now, I want that with you. It doesn't have to be right now, but I’m ready if it happens,” you clarified. A surprised but pleased grin spread across his face and you felt his happiness. 

“You sure?” he asked, eyes so full of hope and you knew you wanted to give him anything he wanted. 

“I’m sure,” you smiled and he let out a delighted laugh, moving to plant a firm kiss to your forehead. 

“I love you,” he murmured, cupping your cheek as he tilted your face to look at him.

“I love you too,” you smiled, closing your eyes when he rubbed his nose against yours affectionately. A thought hit you then and a small frown graced your face.

“I’ve never… I’ve never been in heat before,” you admitted and surprise colored his face. You knew you needed to be in heat to get pregnant. 

“Never?” he asked in shock and you shook your head.

“I figured it was something to do with the lack of connection to my wolf or something. I never really minded it because I was happy not to go through all that, especially without a mate,” you murmured. You felt a little weird talking to him about this but he was your mate and you knew you could tell him anything. You’d never really thought about the implications of never having heat before or what it might do long term to your body. You’d always been glad to miss out on it after seeing the other women in your pack go through it and you knew without a mate, it was even worse. 

“You could use the medical facility if you want, we have doctors there for that kinda thing,” he offered softly.

“Not yet. I’m connected to my wolf now so maybe I’ll go into heat soon. I want to see if it happens on its own before resorting to medication,” you smiled at him and he nodded, reaching out and taking your hand. You idly worried that never having heat before might have messed up your body and what that would mean for you both. 

“What… what would happen if I couldn't give you children?” you asked worriedly, your heart faltering in your chest. He frowned, his hand tightening around yours.

“It wouldn't change how I feel about you,” he answered.

“But it would hurt you, right? You’ve longed for a child just as much as you had for your mate,” you pressed, your chest feeling uncomfortably tight. He looked away from you looking uncomfortable and the tightness in your chest increased. His obsidian gaze turned back to you then, determination shining behind them.

“Yeah, I have longed for one, but I have you and I’m more than happy with that. I do want a kid but if that don’t happen, it wouldn't make a difference,” he implored vehemently and you nodded, swallowing thickly as you looked down. 

“We could always adopt if it came to that,” he suggested, drawing your eyes back to him. You knew as King, Billy oversaw all the wolf orphanages and made sure they all ran well and that the kids were well looked after. It was an option you were willing to consider if it came to it but you realized you were jumping the gun quite a bit. You’d wait it out and see what happened first, see if you went into heat or if medication could help you if you didn't. It did touch you that he’d still love you anyway, that he wouldn't be upset with you or resent you for it. It didn't make you feel any less worried or guilty though. 

Taglist: (if you’ve been asked to be tagged and aren’t here, it wouldn’t let me tag some people.)

@firexfate

@blanchedelioncourt

@on-ya

@sunshinedaisies-anddeath

@snowkestrel

@music-indie-tv

@idaofinfinity

@sweetserendipity65

@ramadiiiisme

@k-marzolf

@celestialams

@woowwwee

@noortsshift

@rainbowgoblinfan

@mysweetlittledesire

@promnightbinbaby

@intothesoul

[theroundbartable]

You said to ask you about your takes about Merlin, and I always find it interesting to find out which angle people approach an ot3 of, so which edge of the triangle arthur/merlin/gwen was the first you shipped? Or was it the full ot3 right away? 👀

Ah, yes. When I started watching Merlin back in 2019, the very first thing I shipped was Merthur.

I usually don't start shipping right away, I start looking at the different dynamics and wait where it may take me. And the very first episode left all dynamics open. So, I wasn't an instant Merthur fan but I could tell that this was where I was heading.

Even though I wanted to ship Merlin x Gwen first because Gwen had a crush on Merlin and Merlin was oblivious and Arthur was an arse in season 1. I still knew I would end up a Merthur main.

Back in 2019 I was still working through a lot of stuff when it comes to relationships, sexuality, identity, trauma, etc, It sounds weird but what I needed at the time, was characters that I couldn't "be" and that also couldn't be attracted to me. The reason for that is too personal to post here but that's why I distanced myself from female characters in ships at the time. That's why I knew Mergwen wouldn't be where I'd end up. I didn't hate them, I just couldn't deal with certain things.

And then came the Elena episode in which Merlin tells Arthur that he will be a better king with a woman by his side whom he loves. I was already lowkey shipping Merthur by then, but THAT scene burned itself into my DNA and changed me forever. I LOVE that scene! If I ever had any doubts until then, they were gone the moment Merlin hands Arthur the sword and says: " I think you're mad."

I knew from the beginning that Merthur wouldn't end up canon, and that without looking at spoilers. The show is from 2012, I just knew. In fact, I was delighted with how FAR they took it despite that!

And I absolutely loved how the canon ship actually made sense. And Ioved how it was a learning curve for me too, to see them grow to make sense. In the beginning it felt a bit sudden but when I watched the show again, I realized just how many moments they actually had.

Plus, Gwen wasn't a mere love interest, she was a real character. Basically, she passed the bechdel test, lmao. I love that she's a blacksmith, that she had her own story arc, her own tragedies and losses, a full family that we SEE in the show, etc. And I loved her dynamic with Arthur growing from awkward to genuine. I always thought that relationshipwise, they were one of the best portrayals of lovebirds I've seen in a series in a long time. And BBC merlin is PG so that was a bonus. And they always had space for Arthur's friendship with Merlin. (This is very important to me, as an ace person who used to think they would lose their friends due to their relationships)

And well... years have passed and I slowly got over my trauma through writing fanfiction and some mild confrontation therapy. There was one fic especially, that paved the way for Mergwenthur. I think that one was Wired... (2021) in which time is a circle and Merlin lives long enough to see Arthur be born again. In that one I tried to be as close to canon as I could, while also writing a Merthur story. Originally, Arthur was meant to choose Merlin, but during the darkest hour, in which the story begins, he's already head over heels for Gwen. And the more I tried to grasp Arthur's feelings after the magic reveal, the less possible it was for me to not see Mergwenthur.

As Arthur starts realizing his fellings for Merlin, his feelings for Gwen don't change, because why would they? The feelings were different but they were both of love. And when I tried to characterize Gwen, I ended up thinking of their three person date in season 4(?) in which Arthur says:" Isn't it nice to be here? Just the two of us?" And it's GWEN who says: "you mean, the THREE of us. " When I thought of that, I just couldn't imagine that Gwen didn't already know and accept Arthur's feelings. And I couldn't imagine Merlin wanting Arthur to choose him over Gwen. While at the time, Mergwen wasn't really on my mind, I thought this was where the story was naturally progressing, so I let it.

I've always been a multishipper. But this dynamic is important to me. I've analized their relationship a couple of times and come to the conclusion that Gwen is the better Queen (some people like to call Merlin Arthur's queen). Because her relationship with Arthur is build on mutual goals and their future vision of Camelot. Their relationship is reasonable and healthy. I think their love is very soft but strong. While Merthur is just unhinged soul bond, ready to sacrifice everything for each other, including Camelot. Merlin would be a terrible Queen, like, seriously. Camelot would be destroyed the moment Arthur gets abducted once. Their love is intense and fickle in the sense that they can't live without the other. And Mergwen should have had more moments. Gwen was always the one person picking up that some things about Merlin were a bit odd, like the Lamia episode, or servant of two masters, etc.. I feel like Mergwen is a ship that's friendship first and can be both wholesome and completely mad, depending on which of the two indicates the action.

So, it was a bit of a curve for me. I ship them individually, I ship them together, apart, with other characters, everything. But the more I look into the show, the more sense Mergwenthur makes to me. Regardless of whether they are platonic or not, I can't unsee them. And why would I? they are fun.

Haha, this answer was very long, but I hope it answers your question :D

[seven-stars-in-his-palm]

okay but hold me like you scared to sounds so good already (they all sound so good tbh but this one piqued my interest lol) what's it about? and for the fanfic questions 32, 50 and J :))

@frappe-the-peppermint WE GOT ONE 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 ahem oh wow who said that. anyway ill do the questions first then get into fic discussion…

32) Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

i listen to SO MUCH MUSIC!!!!! it depends on what im wrting tbh but i just queue up a bunch of songs in my liked playlist and write and write until it ends or im no longer on that flow. and well my music taste is an absolute mess so there isnt any one definitive band or genre that does it for me (i only pay attention Sometimes) but i suppose artists like mitski and queen would be a decent summary of my taste 😅

50) How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

gravity falls, no stop. the first one that ever piqued my interest was versability (originally on ff.net me thinks) and god damn it HOOKED ME!!!! gravity falls was already getting me up but wow that just got me SO MUCH HIGHER. i have a few authors i started binge reading like thesnadger and pinesinthewoods, i started extracting fics from reccs from tumblr artists, soon discovered ao3, and never looked back. and as for writing fic,,,,, well frankly it was the search for the cure’s original form that got me GOING!!!! it originally had crappy ocs as the forefronters but i soon changed that lmao (im definitely not saying theyre bad in general, just those… no) and i wrote So Much For It on my notes app. i didnt realize i culd actually show people until way later, in which i did, and realized that it could actually be better. thats why i reversed back to part one, made the story a part two, scapped the ocs, and…now we’re here. i still love it and gravity falls, i dont really show it here anymore. i really should, man. i need to write for them again!!!! it still excites me!!!! and the prose that im weaving now,,,, id DEMOLISH THE GAME!!!!!!! :)

J) what your favorite fanfic trope? have you written it?

honestly i think just showing you my favorted ao3 tags will paint a very detailed picture. here:

though i suppose if i had to pick one here…god its between time loop and presumed dead (and grief/moruning but idk if thats a trope so much as it is a theme). MMMMMMMM. mmmmm. just YES. the psychological affects of both being a time loop and thinking someone you love is dead but they arent actually are DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!! they are a MUST HAVE. i daydream constantly, but i havent written time loop yet because while i love it, i havent hadthe motive to write such a thing myself. reading is chill ✊ and presumed dead well i try to throw it is as much as i can, the most recent ive used being a west end town and my favorite being that one kid from jersey ! i need to do more of these fr. its just so GOOD!!!!!!

okay. its finally time for the brainwashing discussing of the fic ! i can tell you alllll about that story and it will be my pleasure sonny 🫡 its a very long story. but short verison in case you dont want to go on: its a Titanic epic . april 1912. iceberg. ive read a few that are AMAZING, but i wanted to write one that catered it allll to Me. it has lesbians, heaven sucking ass, flood parallels, and a king of the world AND draw me like one of your french girls scene. very nice 🔥

okay now its time for the long story. so a super super long time ago for a post i cant even remember (i really wanna find it 😭😭) i for someone reason went on a tangent about the titanic. i had just read this fic called sinking into the sea which was tbh VERY GOOD (and i would read it again fr fr ) but at the time, i was kinda bummed that aziraphale and crowley never actually Interacted when i had expected. aziraphale didnt even know crowley was there!!! it left me feeling melancholy, and realizing that all of the titanic fics ive ate up to that point didnt HIT hit the spot (i didnt find this after this realization, but again, theyre not even on the boat 🤧) so i was feeling a bit incomplete. i started ranting and ranting it was a wholeee wall of a text of what I would do with a titanic story and i realized oh wait i can Do Something with this because i haev free will and actual (somewhat) coherent skill. pepper jumped on the wagon, REALLY REALLY encouraged which i cant thank enough for, and….we’re here. its brewing. i had a very large interest in the titanic for a long time before this tbh, so being able to insert it into The Interest just JUMPSTARTED my brain and it still does to this day. now for the plot….

its 2020, a year after the apocalypse (no pandemic). anathema, newt, brian, crowley, and aziraphale have been assigned to plan adam’s 12th birthday party—they shenanigan, as you do. on the day of the party (adam’s birthday) anathema and newt find a chest in jasmine cottage’s attic full of titanic relics, including a pack of polaroid photos (handheld cameras did indeed exist in 1912, i checked !) which kinda might sort of have a photo of aziraphale and crowley!?!?! it was sent to them about six months before. but after the whole Second Volume fiasco, anathema just sort of wrote it off in that way and Hid It. but newt was curious, he found it, and god it was writtent his way wasnt it. (well, not by the nutter they were thinking of actually). anathema confronts them about itsoon after, and they all sit down to hear the story of the titanic in a sort of rose dawson beat. then its 1912—50ish years since the holy water incident and almost a century since the resurrectionists disaster. aziraphale has been assigned to take this trip to new york for Some Reason (we found out why later) and happened to invite crowley to come along to attempt to make amends after Allat (he really does feel bad, but he will NOT do the holy water thing yet </3) shit occurs, but history atlarge will not be rewritten. it does change their story, though. adding a sprinkle of interest in the device family line. agnes prophec(y)(ies), dancing on deck under the stars, playing cards with humans and winning by a Lot, aziraphale’s artistic skills are put to use at one point—ughghgufhits just so DEAR TO ME!!!!! and of course the conflict will come later, especially considering the religious connections to the titanic sinking—“not even God can sink this ship” type conversation 🥰 aziraphale can and will be made uncomfortable. its for the character development dont worry about it. i even have a playlist for this fic (it sorted by the way the tone shifts thru the story, some songs are silly but they had to stay). pep has also made some song covers to some of the songs that ive heavily connected to the fic and I REALLY FUCKING LIKED. LIKE A LOT. THEYRE AMAZING YOU SHOULD LISTEN IF YOU WANT TO!!!!

the point of all this is that i like titanic fics and im trying to throw my hat in the ring even if its just for me and my friend 🔥🔥 because while others have fed me, i havent seen ones that have documented like Every Single Day on the titanic that aziraphale and crowley would theoretically have as well as developing aziraphale and crowley’s relationship while taking into account whats happened before (insert the story into a part of the timeline seamlessly i think thats how i’d describe) AS WELL AS connecting the reason why the titanic was such a freak tragedy and how the world is not fucking fair instead of just “oh whoops the thing sank 😞” i want NITTY GRITTY DETAIL!!!!!! I WANT GUILT!!!!!!! I WANT CHAOS!!!!!!!! I WANT TALKING ABOUT GOD!!!!!!! I WANT AZIRAPHALE IN A MENTAL CRISIS!!!!! I WANT CROWLEY JUST WANTING TO FUCKING LIVE FUCKING PEACEFULLY!!!!!!! I WANT LESBIANS!!!!!! i need to get on this,,,, so much to do. i love it all and TY FOR THE ASK!!!!

[thatumbrellaoni]

part 1

short part 2

ygo stuff from my japan trip, which Im back from. also it rained in Nara and I ate too many sweets (part 1 isnt even half of it), so I got a cold and a sore throat. but Im on the mend. Im no longer (too) down with the sickness.

starting with the doujins! it aint much because Im very very very very picky but after several considerations, I grabbed these bakubaku and a marimari of sorts (those last two doujins arent shippy as you can see on the label "all chara" but theyre my boys so I got them).

the upper right one (gift) is by high mode, the circle who did the infamous and hilarious intensive care series!

the lower left one is a novel anthology. I was on the fence, and the only reason I convinced myself to buy it is the r18 label. I was like, I already have too many hobbies, do I have time to read this... hey the bakubaku sex contained within could be worth it!!! might post summaries (or full translations of it) when I get to it.

this was the ygo section of one of the shops I went to. but all of them had the same ungodly amount of seto/jounouchi books. this could be your heaven.

everyone else was relegated to "others" lmao bakura icon for the label

this was the only genre that mattered to me, but yall really need to separate your bakuras. both bakuras were under that label when thats only supposed to be ryou 💢

I was watching ygo on jp netflix and the subtitles also didnt consistently differentiate between the bakuras. disappointed, infuriated, and upset by this continued injustice.

as doujin artist screaming machine gun-san once said in 2009,

“Hey, commentators… Can you please separate Bakura Ryou, Thief King Bakura, and self-proclaimed ‘Zorc’ Dark Bakura? You can separate your burnables but not this chaos!? No matter how chaotic these three are, this is not chaos!”

also visited the popup shop in shinjuku.

and bought satan cuz my ryou standee was getting lonely at home.

tbh this art style leaves much to be desired... I mean, compared to jf2023 ryou... ryou is super cute. do better, satan. I almost didnt buy you.

but I did. among others for fun. the seto birthday postcard was a tokuten for actually buying at the shop. the three bookmarks were also tokutens per each item you bought. the can badge was a random pull. seto always a good surprise.

the priroll can badges I love to bits. he is so cute. I wish I could eat him again.

[trevanent]

I think one thing I will say about the finale was that the most problematic aspect of the concept of the show was how it feels like they had to use the Fionna and Cake plot to Trojan horse a resolution to a swathe of loose ends Simon and Betty's arcs had. They pulled it off even better than I ever wanted to let myself hope for for the most part but I would say my main issue if anything was how cramped the finale felt when I think they could have left a lot more up to season 2 speculations (especially with the resolutions for the alt universes, they didn't really feel necessary when they basically just had to egg Scarab).

I feel I liked the understated melancholies of seeing Simon recontextualized and kinda infantilized in that temporary form hosting his mind, and some people have said the Casper and Nova thing felt hamfisted but I thought the vibes were too cute to care that it wasn't particularly "efficient" as far as metaphors go, but that does slow down the pace which probably crunched the ending a little harder :'). But it also worked in further showing the sad side-effect of the crown on Simon's relationships, including that of stunting his ability to have ever matured in his understandings of love and his relationship with Betty. I also think their last scene in the memory worked because it was Simon reconsidering how he viewed their relationship for the first time, even if his attempt to do for Betty what she did for him would have just been an inversion of their original flaw, the scene rests on them understanding it's unchangeable anyway, so that decision doesn't matter so much and it's not something for Simon to dwell on.

I also feel I liked the scene a lot in spite of how scarce it felt in the finale was because of what was most conspicuously unaddressed, which was just the sheer logistical impossibility of any different choices they made having possibly been any "better." It sticks out because Betty says they could have made better choices, which kinda seems to situate their relationship in a vacuum as if there wasn't a very high likelihood had they done anything different at that crossroads, they would have just been literally nuked into orbit regardless. Sure, it seems like enough time had passed for them to have worked out their relationship better at least and then died, but that kinda seems better by an arbitrarily less tragic amount, and really it seems the least tragic possibilities ever were either that they conceive their relationship more healthily, Simon finds the crown and protects Betty from exploding somehow and also doesn't warp her to the future, and they live some terrible survival life but at least they get a chance to live something kinda fulfilling and Betty probably would have taken care of Ice King decently for the remainder of her life once Simon was gone while also having a better understanding of what had happened to him. The only other hand would be that she also was still warped to the future he finds the crown but Simon had not enabled her self-sacrificial tendencies and so she becomes less undividedly obsessed with saving him and instead integrates into Ooo more properly and also accepts what had become of him (I find it hard to think she would have just let him die either way though lmao).

That all said, they had been around a long time to have reflected over everything. I think it is a bit of an issue that they don't really allude to that, but I find it easy to believe that they did recognize how thwarted a happy ending would ever be for them by all angles of their reality, yet they still had that tender ache of that simple and small tragedy just between them two that still exists within the torrent of catastrophe that engulfed them and the breadth of their fate. So much horror in their lives but they reconnect and find themselves primarily concerned with that last regret of not having been able to make the ideal relationship they quite thought they had.

[baconcolacan]

S I g h

You

You know the swapping au (regimen and stay) asksssss

Well what if the kings crossing au and regimen/stay swap their Tom’s and Tord’s? Or meet eachother? Or live through eachothers daily lives for like a day or two?

I hope this to much of a hassle for you to answer, personally I had a brain stroke trying to type my question out — take your time with ur other projects at hand and health :]

LKJHDSFHJ MY GOD. We need more room on the conference table. Stay: >Thomas >Tord Regimen: >Tom >R.L. Kings: >Blue >Red

Note: Not doing the swaps between Stay and Regimen because we've done that dance a million times before lmao. Kings: Thomas - Red was very familiar. He was a haughty man, arrogant, prideful, and so self-indulgent, at first he made him feel irritated, ah not again, not another version of his beloved husband gone down the sewer hole. Red seemed entirely intrigued with him (he tried not to feel smug about how many versions of his husband would turn their heads at him.), and proceeded to try and goad some sort of reaction out of him by being a pest. Ugh. "Nice try kiddo." He said. "But I've seen all your moves before, frankly, my husband can do better." And suddenly, he stopped. His eye widened, something moving behind it, an emotion that Thomas was surprised to find familiar. "Your...husband..?" Ah. He knew that tone of voice. "My Tord." Thomas replied, tilting his head just so in curiosity, subtly watching Red's expression in interest. "Your..." Red's voice shook a little, unnoticeable, but not to him. Thomas could wager that Red's own version of him wouldn't have missed it either. He smiled, albeit sadly this time. "Yes, my Tord, my elskede."

Red's face seemed to shatter at that. Oh...this poor man....he was just his husband, wasn't he? Not like the other. An actual version of his husband that was so close to him, but it seemed something terrible has happened, or maybe, that sadness he could see in his eye was a result of a life that might have been less than kind. Suddenly, he didn't feel too inclined with antagonizing Red anymore. - Tord- Blue felt very familiar. He was cold, withdrawn into himself, listless, and grieving. He felt himself shatter at the knowledge that it seemed, no matter where he was, in another life, his husband was always going to be grieving something, and it was such a terrible grief that it robbed him of all his colours, of all his life. He's always hated seeing him cry. It was in this moments that made him doubt if he was ever any good to his husband, if it seemed that in every other life, he was the epicenter of Thomas' pain. He knew he was terrible in his youth, and that his attitudes could have worsened if he didn't try to better himself, but it was sheer agony knowing that he could have dragged the love of his life down with him, if he never accepted change.

This was his hell.

Blue seemed to soften at the sight of him.

"Do you have any regrets?"

Though his voice seemed kind, there was a sharpness to them that Tord could hear.

"....many..." He could always admit that. He had apologized so many times, lost sleep for years and years, cried and begged to be forgiven for things he should have done better.

Thomas, his beloved, had somehow always forgiven him, and in his heart, he always felt that he was never worthy of it.

Blue's expression twitched minutely, but Tord could see that he was startled.

"...Really?"

Tord smiled, sad, grieving.

"I could never bring myself to lie to you, you know?"

Blue crossed his arms, though it looked as if he was trying to hold himself together. He turned his head to the side, his eyes downcast.

"No...actually, I don't...." He chuckled softly, but it was painful to hear. Blue looked back up at him, his smile seemed too broken to be real. "But....you seem like you know what things are worth so, I hope you're happy with whatever you chose."

Tord wanted to say something. He couldn't find the words.

--

Regimen:

Tom - Okay...he's really starting to get a headache with all these weird dying thoughts. So, Larsin, Old Tord, he was nice. He was kind, fun, a little fidgety, and definitely a little sad, but....he was a good man. Part of him missed him dearly, which he could freely admit, Larsin was a kindness he needed right now, amidst...everything. Red though. Ugh. Okay, he might be a dick, but the moment he landed eyes on him he knew right away this guy was a prick. Same air about him, same self-assuredness, same self-justifying swagger. Ugh, its just Tord all over again. But then....Red took one look at him. And paled. "Th-"

"Call me 'Thomas' and I will fucking gut you."

Surprisingly, Red shut himself up. Though there was a flicker of irritation in his expression, which Tom happily took in with pride. Red crossed his arms and rolled his eye. "Oh how eloquent as always, Thompson." Red sneered, "No doubt many people find you very endearing, I'm sure. What with your stellar social skills." He smirked at him, giving him a once over. "Though, despite your...less than appealing presentation, I'm happy to see that that cute little ass of yours is still present." He clicked his tongue with a wink. HUH?!

What the fuck?!

DID THIS FUCKING ASSHOLE JUST- "What the fu-"

"You know there's more words in the english language than 'fuck' right? Unless you're asking...?"

"Hey bitch-"

"Ah, his vocabulary grows."

Despite himself, Tom actually lets out a guffaw, even if it was just out of surprise.

Red's grin widened at that, and he snickers into his hand.

Tom...well, now he's not quite sure what to make of him.

And yeah, he was kind of being a dick, but somehow, he didn't seem to be malicious about it.

In fact, it just felt like he was exchanging jabs with a friend.

Huh.

Thats new, at least.

-

R.L.- This Thomas was...interesting, to say the least.

He was much like his own Thomas, of course, but just like the headache of a man he met, this version of his dearest possession carried himself with grace and pride, not quite like their older counterpart, but still evidently present in the way he moved.

His uniform almost matched his own, badges of honor decorating the outer most layers. He could spy hidden holsters and caches on his clothes, not unlike his own uniform.

Blue looked down at him from his nose, smirking as he sized him up. Oh.

Suddenly it clicked.

This man was a military leader.

Ah, how fun.

"I assume you're averse with my calling you Thomas?" He said lightly as Blue stepped closer to where he stood, but he stopped at an arms length, happy to have enough room between them, but just so, which would enable both of them to reach out and do some harm if they wanted.

He found that incredibly alluring.

Blue tapped at his lips with a finger, smiling up at him.

"Why would I be offended with you calling my name?"

"It seems many versions of you are not fond of me being too familiar."

"Hmm, forgive us then," Blue swayed a little on his feet, tilting his head as he looked up at him. "We don't often get along with our versions of you either."

"Is that the truth?"

Blue laughed airily, waving his hand as if dismissing the thought. "It's an unfortunate theme I'm afraid. We just find you too irritating."

He hummed, watching the way Blue conducted himself, but still keeping weary, seeing as, he was very much aware of how the other leader was putting up a front. A familiar bloodlust was present in his gaze, and yet, well...seemed something else accompanied that. Something very....familiar.

"And what about you?" He asked, watching every move the other leader made as Blue hummed. "What are your thoughts on myself?"

Blue laughed, biting his lower lip. "Well...for sure, I fucking hate you...." Then he sighed. "Buuuut, admittedly...." He leered, batting his eyes. "I don't mind if we have a bit of fun now and then."

R.L. paused at that. Oh. This man was dangerous. He likes that.

[ink-flavored]

ask game ask game! 🐙🧠👩‍💻

thank you! gonna do P&J since it's what I've worked on most recently

🐙 share a snippet where the character is being a brat/smartass

Envy narrowed her eyes, ashy smoke pouring over her flawless platinum curls. “Listen, I didn’t come here to bitch, but I’m great at it.” “Oh, please,” Pride scoffed. “I can bitch way better than you. I’m the bitchiest. I can bitch you in circles. Bitch.”

I used to have a joke about "the Bitch King of Angmar" in there before I realized Pride wouldn't know what Lord of the Rings is.

🧠 share a snippet where the character realizes something important

“I also have a good time goading people into public arguments. Come on, you knew who you were inviting.” “I know, I guess I…” Justice leaned against the wall, brow furrowed. “I was trying to prove something to myself.” “Like what?” He didn’t answer right away, picking at his nails. “I know you don’t want a relationship with God,” he said, slow and deliberate, “and that’s fine. I would never ask you to. But I don’t think that means you have to be abandoned by me—by us. We can still get along, we don’t have to be separate to coexist. Does that make sense?” Pride worked his jaw for a second or two. “Not really.” Justice slumped, wearing a resigned smile, and he rushed to add, “But thanks. You know. For trying.”'

Pride realizing people care about him for real <3

👩‍💻 share a snippet that you worked on for a long time or struggled with

Problem is that most P&J things I have written are in a partial state of completion—but here's the most recent thing I've written that I've wanted to write for a long time but for some reason just didn't until like last night lmao

Pride rolled the offered cigarette between his lips, letting his lack of lungs make up for the fact that he didn’t know what to do with it. The woman slouched back, sighing a cloud of smoke, and carded a hand through her short, electric blue hair. He inspected her a little more, up close and personal with a human he didn’t immediately despise for the first time. Sitting next to her, the blunted tips of spikes on her the shoulders of her jacket came into view. All the colors and odd shapes were patches sewn into the leather. A flag with rainbow stripes sat on top of her shoulder. Another flag on the opposite shoulder had pink, blue, and white stripes. A small white circle on her chest read SHE/THEY in black thread. He scanned the collection of patches he could see—ACAB, read one. NAZI PUNKS FUCK OFF, read another. PROTECT TRANS KIDS, “QUEER” AS IN “FUCK YOU”, symbols with arrows, fists, and a large “A” in a circle. Pride had only the vaguest idea what any of it meant. “What?” she asked, guarded. “Nothing,” Pride replied. He tried to copy her, blowing a cloud of smoke. “I like your jacket.” Whatever she’d been guarding behind her intensity, it melted away. “Thanks. I made it myself.” “All of it?” “Most of it—basically anything with a picture I had a friend help me with, I can’t draw for shit.” She pointed to the patch with the drawing of a fist, raised to the sky. Pride nodded along. “Cool.” “Yeah, thanks.” She stuck out a hand suddenly. “I don’t think I ever got your name. I’m Olivia, friends call me Ollie.” He took the hand to shake. “Pride.” It must have been a weird thing to say. Olivia gave him a funny look. “’Pride’ like—” “Like the sin.”

[send me a snippet ask]