#every time she does some ninth house shit shes like damn this is some ninth house shit :

[lunaicfantastic]

fav part of gideon the ninth is for the first pre-canaan house chunk of the book, she's all "ugh I'm so normal surrounded by all these weirdo goth freaks when I blow this popsicle stand everyone will see how cool and normal and charming I am" and then she gets to canaan house and realizes that while she might have been a normie jock in the ninth house she is not exempt from being a goth weirdo who hides important doors behind tapestries and sneaks around in the dark so she doesn't have to talk to people. like we talk about her being a jock forced to be goth but nature v nurture babey she's not shedding that bone freak skin anytime soon

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 316: We've Had One, Yes, But What About Second Explosion

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all “[powers up like whoa because it’s time to end the fight]”, and he saved Overhaul from getting not-shot, and then smashed up Nagant’s arm with the power of his new rechargeable super knees. Nagant was all “yoooo this kid is crazy strong whaaaat, it’s like he’s some kind of protagonist or something.” Deku was all “I AM A PROTAGONIST, ACTUALLY, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN FORCES AND FIGHT BAD GUYS WITH ME?” Nagant was all “ah shit why the hell no -- ” and then AFO was all “SURPRISE” and everyone was all “?!?!?!” and AFO was all “TIME TO EXPLODE NOW” and made Nagant explode because he’s an absolute fucking dick. And then Hawks showed up, because Horikoshi just wanted to stuff as many plot points as humanly possible into a single chapter I guess.

Today on BnHA: Hawks is all “good job giving motivational shounen redemption speeches Deku but I’ll take it from here” and screams very earnestly right in Nagant’s face until she finally wakes up. Nagant is all “oh hey it’s my successor, you seem surprisingly unfucked-up from your own HPSC tenure, how did you manage that?” Hawks is all “fandom is going to love hearing this one, but basically it’s because I’m very upbeat and also I had the world’s best role model Endeavor to look up to,” and I swear this man stirs the pot on purpose, but damn it I still love him so damn much. Overhaul is all “HELLO AGAIN, JUST A REMINDER THAT, THE BOSS!!” and Deku is all “MAYBE TAKE TWO SECONDS TO REFLECT ON HOW YOU TORTURED A LITTLE GIRL,” which, thank you, lol. Nagant is all “btw AFO’s hiding in a house in the woods”, and so Deku and the gang go to the house in the woods. Video recording!AFO is all “hi I’m AFO welcome to Jackass” and blows up the house. Sometimes I wonder if this manga is just a weird dream.

I am once again reading the Bean version because I think it was actually the best out of all three translations last week. and that is surprisingly including Viz’s. “faux” is not nearly as entertaining as “knockoff”, and also I have literally no idea why Caleb thought Deku was saying the Third’s lines lol

oh hey, Endeavor’s here too! not that you’d ever be able to tell from this first panel lmao

glad you received All Might’s call, mysterious unidentified glowing smudge

oh snap he says he’s weaker in the rain. is that why AFO told Nagant to attack then?? except that as we discussed the other day, I believe that AFO fully intended for Nagant to lose the fight, so him giving her info that would give her an advantage doesn’t really fit in with that. maybe he wanted Deku to be separated from Endeavor and the rest for maximum angst, though

btw Deku’s eyes are unsurprisingly back to the new normal here

alas, the angst continues. I say, pretending like I’m not totally eating it up each and every week and writing essay after essay about it lol

anyway so apparently Hawks can’t actually fly lmao. he was just yeeting himself with style

for some reason this is the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen omfg. wave to Hawks, kids! say “bye, Hawks!”

j/k of course Deku is catching them. -- except???

wow so he was just running on fumes there at the end. well, good to know there is actually a limit to his shenanigans, particularly regarding this new “knockoff” 100% OFA. it will definitely not alleviate any of the discourse, but it’s good for my own peace of mind because it’s solid confirmation that he still needs his pals in order to win this thing

anyway, but on to the rest of this conversation, which is basically Deku deducing what we all deduced last week -- AFO implanted some sort of trap into Nagant when he gave her Air Walk. though I’d still like to get the actual details from AFO and/or Horikoshi, because this was particularly wild even by quirk standards lol

omgggggg

she still has a face after all!! so it’s confirmed, Horikoshi has no idea what “blowing up” actually means. we might have guessed, based on what happened to Toga in the MVA arc, and also based on everything Katsuki does ever, but shhh

so now Hawks is all “NAGANT PLEASE WAKE UP, IF I SHOUT MY NAME AT YOU WILL THAT DO THE TRICK”

this is actually kind of touching though because even though we all know (or most of us acknowledge at any rate) that Hawks is a pretty caring person, it’s rare to see him actually panic over someone’s welfare like this

oh shit Horikoshi is really doubling down on it

I wonder how much Hawks knew about what really happened between Nagant and the HPSC. regardless, he probably sees her as a kindred spirit of sorts, and I’m more than happy for Deku to pass the redemption torch onto him now that he’s on the scene. like no offense Deku but they actually know each other and stuff lol

DAMMIT NAGANT CAN’T YOU SEE HOW LOUD HE IS YELLING

apparently being freed from his HPSC shackles has finally given Hawks the space to embrace his own inner shounen protagonist. is there anything more shounen than trying to motivationally scream someone awake when they’re lying in your arms inches from death?? 100% guaranteed to work

!!! IS THIS NAGANT’S POV OMG

SO SHE IS ALIVE. THANK GOD. Horikoshi doesn’t want to meet with my emotional distress lawyer today after all

love how she’s all “just gonna stir up the weekly Hawks Discourse pot here by implying that he probably committed a lot of Atrocities just like I did, so now people can get all hopped up about that, even though there’s no evidence he’s ever killed anyone aside from that one horrible ‘damned-if-you-do...’ situation with Twice.” no one asked for your provocative speculation young lady!! trust me Nagant, our rabbles don’t need the rousing lol

but nice save there with the “so how are your eyes so untainted” well you see it’s because even when he was following the HPSC’s orders he always went to great lengths never to go against his own moral compass. which just to be clear was incredibly difficult, and led to a ton of pain and suffering on his part, because the life of a spy is basically just one impossible situation after another. but in spite of that he never stopped trying to do his best to help people. I don’t really know where this tangent came from or is leading to, lol, but anyway p.s.a. I love Hawks a lot and he’s a good kid dammit

oh shit??!?

how is the League always able to swing all these fancy forest mansions. where do they find them. how many do they have

so Deku’s dropping them -- very roughly, not sure if he was reacting to finally getting AFO’s location, or if his energy really is giving out -- and now Nagant’s saying that AFO hired other villains as well. well of course he did. gotta keep chipping away at OFA’s ninth successor little by little

now Nagant is asking Hawks how he’s able to keep making “that” face. I assume she’s again talking about the fact that he somehow didn’t let the HPSC wear down his spirit

oh my god???

thanks for stuffing this chapter to the brim with good nutritional Hawks Feels, Horikoshi. what a good. he just keeps on trudging forward undeterred no matter what bullshit comes his way. what a steadfast little guy. I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM DISCOURSE MY SWEET SUNSHINE

lmaoooo

“SPOTTED THIS DUDE JUST CHILLING OUT THERE ON THE ROOF WITH NO ARMS, SEEMED PRETTY SUS” good job Endeavor

anyway so you don’t really need me to tell you that Overhaul is immediately starting in with the “BUT THE BOSS WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ME TO THE BOSS YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD TAKE ME TO THE BOSS” stuff again. but I will go ahead and tell you anyway. so yeah. he’s doing that

OMG YOU GUYS LOOK AT DEKU’S “of all the fucking assholes to just randomly drop in on my life once again why did it have to be you” FACE THOUGH, OMG

fun fact, if you go back to chapters 124 through 160, there was an entire story arc where Overhaul imprisoned and tortured a little girl. yeah, I know!! suuuuuuuuper evil. anyways just an interesting little anecdote for you all that’s somewhat relevant to the current situation

OMG, YES. FUCK YES, DEKU

THEN WHAT ABOUT SPARING ONE FOR HER!!! YES!!! EXACTLY!!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, SOMEONE GETS IT

HERE’S THE PANEL OF DEKU SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING I’M SAYING LOL

(ETA: so apparently there’s some discourse about this because some people are interpreting this as Deku saying “you should apologize to Eri”, which would obviously be a terrible idea even if Overhaul actually wanted to do that, because Eri shouldn’t ever have to see him again. however I just want to point out that there is a HUGE difference between saying “it would be nice if you could direct that feeling of regret/being sorry towards Eri as well”, vs saying “you should also apologize to her.” all Deku is doing is rightfully pointing out that Overhaul has hurt way more people than just his boss, and if he really is remorseful, then he should extend those feelings of remorse to Eri and the rest as well. it’s not a directive to take any specific action, and I’m 1000% sure no one at U.A. would let Overhaul within 100 miles of Eri ever again.

tl;dr “try feeling remorse sometime” =/= “do you want me to fly you over to U.A. right now to surprise the little girl you traumatized”, lol.)

[slings an arm around Deku’s shoulders] you’re a good kid. I like you. I don’t know if I tell you that enough, but it’s true

meanwhile here is Overhaul’s “spare... a thought... for Eri...???????” face sigh

the struggle is real y’all

(ETA: and that’s... the last we ever saw of Overhaul, I guess? well all right then. I assume Deku will make good on his promise, so we know he’ll get that little bit of closure before going back to jail or whatever, and I confess I’m more than fine with leaving the rest of it open-ended, especially given his character’s history. I think this was pretty generous all things considered.)

lmao holy shit

All Might what did you do to those tiki torch guys?? did you thrash them. did you give ‘em those hands. did you deliver their own asses to them complete with a sticker reminding them Amazon Prime Day is on June 21. we missed out goddammit

so Endeavor, who wasn’t the one he was asking, is telling him that they captured (well let’s be real, Deku captured, give the credit where it’s due) Nagant and Overhaul. and so I guess they’re going to take Nagant to the ER now

fire is no one’s weakness

-- oh my GOD I scrolled down and audibly gasped

[is politely but firmly approached and asked to remove my arm from Deku’s shoulder by the physical manifestation of all this Dekuangst] “we’re sorry, he’s not allowed to have visitors right now” oh shit, my bad. [goes to stand behind a police barricade]

lmao what. did you run out of room on the previous page

what an exaggerated fade to black lmao

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I actually can’t see what he’s reacting to so maybe I’m just seriously jumping the gun here lol, but THE HELL WITH IT. the next panel appears to be a cut to Haibori Forest, so I’m just gonna go ahead and declare that Deku ran off on his own all wounded to go have more Dekuangst, just like I manifested. now go call Katsuki goddammit

[scrolls three more inches down] oh

yeah so like I said, Deku is walking very slowly a few feet in front of Endeavor, who’s telling him to wait up. yep. we’ve all gotta be so careful to not just jump to conclusions. I know we’re excited but still

anyway, so! welcome back to Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods (ARE YOU GUYS DATING) and Edgeshot! have fun walking into this obvious trap lol

dammit Deku why are you so determined to tempt fate

[monkey puppet meme faces]

OH MY GOD THIS IS PURE GRADE-A CHEESY COMIC BOOK VILLAIN 101 SHIT AND I’M HERE FOR IT

that’s such a weird way of clapping who claps like that

unlike certain other people who shan’t be named, AFO doesn’t feel the need to inexplicably take his shirt off when recording sinister villain monologues. I think we’re all pretty grateful for that

high fives to everyone who called it!! yep yep

anyway so this whole scene has major booby-trap vibes, which I’m enjoying immensely even though I don’t think anything is really going to come of it lol. probably just another long-winded AFO Speech. but wouldn’t it be funny if like the ceiling started lowering down to try and squish Deku afterwards lol

(ETA: well the explosion was still pretty funny too ngl.)

ffff

[“Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies]

anyway so yeah. he’s just hitting up all of his usual villain talking points. we get it, you’re so smart and you see right through the thin veneers of society and people who don’t conform are left to fend for themselves and labeled as villains and history is written by the victors, and blah blah blah dude are you just jumping randomly from one soundbyte to another lol. literally what are you talking about. what does this have to do with you blowing up Nagant

-- holy shit??

[”Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies MORE?????]

LOL WHAT

BRO. WHAT IS WITH YOU. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO LAY ANY OTHER KIND OF FUCKING TRAP GOOD LORD

“YOU’RE NEXT” THE CALLBACK?? THE PARALLELS?? THOUGH WHEN ALL MIGHT POINTED HE MADE IT LOOK WAY COOLER. AFO’S POINTING JUST LOOKS LIKE SMOKEY THE BEAR

HAS ANYONE CHECKED IN ON KAMUI WOODS I HEAR HE IS WEAK TO FIRE?? THE ONLY ONE WHO IS, APPARENTLY

r.i.p. to this particular forest mansion. don’t worry they have a ton of backups

remember last week when I said maybe AFO thinks explosions are gauche. well never mind. he fucking loves explosions

anyway so that’s the end of BnHA, everyone. hope you enjoyed. it was a good ride while it lasted. see you all, good luck in your travels

[recurring-polynya]

Do you ever think about the fact that the ninth runs the Seireitei Bulletin, like I just imagine Kuna and Shuuhei going around trying to journalist. Maybe they drag Kensei along and he just stands in the background staring disapprovingly.

Yes, of course. I think about Shuuhei running that damn newspaper constantly.

The Seireitei Bulletin might be my favorite world-buildy thing about Bleach. I love it. I love that nearly all the captains write columns for it, and half of them are extremely unpopular and the other half are batshit insane (You will never convince me that Unohana's Every Nook and Cranny is not a sex column). I love that the special Ryouka Invasion Issue claimed that Orihime's "offenses are odious" and that Captain Zaraki "fell victim to her poison fangs." I love that there was a filler episode where Shuuhei tried to drum up drama at a Kite Festival for the purposes of getting a juicy story. I love the shitty promotions they are constantly running to try and get people to read it (free sake-flavored rice cakes?? I guess I would take a newspaper if it came with a dessert?)

I do have a little difficulty picturing Kensei running this thing in the TBTP era, so here's my personal headcanon regarding the Bulletin. Please note that I have not and will never read CFYOW, and also I am not a hard-core 9th aficionado, so I am probably wrong about this, but I don't really care.

The Bulletin has allegedly been around for over 1000 years, but I like to think that it used to be a smaller operation, probably run under the 1st Division, and that it was basically just a Gotei propaganda machine. I can definitely see Tousen, upon becoming captain, deciding that he wants to take it over so that he can shed an impartial light on the happenings inside the Seireitei. It’s also possible that Aizen came up with the idea, because it helps him control public knowledge/opinion, but I really prefer the idea that this was Tousen’s brainchild, it seems Very Tousen to me.

Fun fact! Tousen used to write a column called The Path of Justice, which everyone hated, but he refused to cancel. He eventually turned it into a cooking column which was beloved by many female shinigami. Personally, I like to believe that Tousen is also the one who taught Hisagi to cook.

I think Tousen was, in general, too hardcore for most people. He had principles and he stuck to them, and many people found this very tiring, but it’s actually a Big Chief Editor Mood. Like, Len Downie, the legendary Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Post refused to vote, because he felt like he needed to remain so unbiased that it would be immoral for him to pick a candidate.

However, I think that Hisagi both admired Tousen’s attitude as Editor-in-Chief, but also loved the Bulletin as an entity. I think the two of them built this thing into an embodiment of their twin visions: hard-hitting investigative journalism, Truth Above All Else, but also, we gotta fund this baby, so let’s throw in some ads for sunglasses and an Agony Aunt column.

By the time Kensei arrives, it’s there. It’s an institution. I actually wrote a bit in a fanfic where he finds out that his division runs a newspaper from Kenpachi of all people, during the shit-shooting that precedes a Captain’s Meeting, and he is horrified because he thought Hisagi was trying to have one over on him. 

So, while I think that if you had asked him up front, Kensei would have categorically refused to publish a newspaper under the auspices of his division, the fact is, it’s already happening. They’ve already got all this staff, they got printing presses, and Hisagi takes care of 99% of it anyway, so he just lets it... keep going. After all, he’s got two lieutenants, one can run the newspaper and the other can...do... whatever it is Mashiro does. Of course, what Mashiro does is nothing, so Kensei is constantly forced to hear about the newspaper from his functional lieutenant and he gets kinda fond of it. I feel like Kensei is the sort of guy who tries to avoid taking things on, but once he has accepted a task, he wants to do it well. He doesn’t micromanage the Bulletin the way Tousen used to, but he gives Hisagi the resources he needs, and will use his clout as a captain to protect his reporters or to get access to information. He takes over Tousen’s cooking column and there’s a picture of him in a little apron. It is, once again, extremely popular with the female shinigami.

Mashiro can’t be depended on for anything, but she will sometimes throw a bunch of handwritten copy on Hisagi’s desk and then walk away. It might be a shocking expose on the illicit activities of one of the Noble Houses or it might be a ten-page review of a vegetable stand down in the Market District. It takes at least three copy-editors working together to turn her work into something readable, but Hisagi prints everything she has ever written.

Bonus: Here’s the fanfic I wrote once where Rose and Kira write a restaurant review column.

[enby-enderdragon]

Dude please tell me abt ur mc worldbuilding

Mx Elliott Whycraft, my beloved, I would give you the biggest hug right now if I could

Okie, okie, so its mostly just a pantheon of gods that I’ve made, but I do also have some ideas for, like, holidays and things that would happen on those holidays and things that certain followers of certain deities would do, but I digress. I’ll just tell you about the deities I chose mostly since I don’t wanna be too rambly. I can save the other details for other asks if people really wanna know about that. This is gonna go under a cut bc this might end up being a long post. Like I said, unfortunately for you guys, I’m very autistic and religion worldbuilding is a special interest of mine.

Uhhhhh, warning, possibly some bits that could be considered Slimecicle Cinematic Universe spoilers if you haven’t seen “The HARDEST Minecraft Difficulty” yet??

So, the first deity I chose, of course, is DreamXD, shortened down to XD. He’s the big king of the gods and he has the epithet of “the Prime” since he’s one of the bigger and more worshipped deities in the pantheon. Things like Church Prime in the DreamSMP and Techno’s channel member bell fall under his domain. XD is specifically the god of order and life so, as mortals began to worship the pantheon, it felt natural for XD to rise to the position of God King. XD is also the protector of the Dragon’s Realm. It’s his job to make sure that, if the Enderdragon ever has to die, that she is only killed A) she absolutely has to be because he’s very attached to his Dragons and B) he always makes the the Dragon has a successor.

The second deity I chose was Drista. No one is really sure how old Drista is, not even the other gods, because she’s the goddess of chaos, so she’s XD’s counterpart and has to have been around since the first chaotic thing happened in the mortal plane, but she appears very young compared to the other gods and she’s referred to in the mortal scriptures with the epithet of “the Young”. Drista falls under with the duty of being the protector of childhood and children in general, which only adds to her epithet. Aside from all that, she’s also the guide for souls of the dead into the Afterlife.

The third deity I chose was Grizzly. Now, a lot of mortal scripture about Grizzly was lost because his stories used to be burned when people would try to write them. A lot of people passed his stories around orally, but still, a lot of the scriptures were lost and mortals can’t truly now a lot about what happened with him. The biggest things that survived history of his stories is that he is the god of the forge and of mischief, but one day, he had a falling out with the other gods and they cast him out of the Pantheon Proper, which earned him the epithet of “the Fallen”. Nowadays, stories say that Grizzly is the King of the Damned, but no mortals know for sure exactly what that means.

The fourth deity is Condi. Condi is one of the oldest gods in the pantheon, even older than XD by millennium. Condi is the god of magick, so he was the deity that separated the Three Realms from each other. There’s rumors of a secret fourth realm that Condi uses as an escape from the other gods, but again, those are just rumors. No one has ever been able to craft a proper portal to this secret realm, but still, the realm of the Aether is mentioned too many times in scriptures for it to be a coincidence, right? Anyway, Condi also the Weaver of Fate, so, as you can imagine, he’s a very busy god. He has the epithet of “the Wise” because, if you’re gonna have this much shit going on as a god, you’ve gotta be wise.

The fifth deity is Bizly. Bizly, even by the other gods, is considered weak and useless, as he’s the god of animals and monsters. Most of the other gods will ignore him and couple of the other gods can be outright mean to him for no reason. This earned him the epithet of “the Dismissed”. Because of the way that the other gods treat him, Bizly took it upon himself to be the protector of the weak and underdogs. To mortals, he also become equivalent with the start of spring, so a lot of mortal stories call him the “bringer of new starts”.

The sixth deity is Foolish, of fucking course. He’s the god of storms and the seas and, even though his domains are usually very rough things to mortals, he himself is a very chill god (these days) and he doesn’t really interact with the other gods unless he ABSOLUTELY has to. He tends to spend most of his time as the protector of Mizu, a legendary city that is said to live under the deepest parts of the mortal oceans that houses only the most holy artifacts and important scriptures of the gods. There’s a specific rune that was created that is said to be a sigil of Foolish and it’s supposed to bring great wealth to a person if they draw it on themself. Foolish has the epithet of “the Undying” because I’m uncreative cgvhjbkgv

The seventh deity is Kristin, the goddess of death, because I have to. Again, she’s a goddess that doesn’t really like interacting with the other deities if she doesn’t have to. She tends to spend most of her time tending to the souls of the Afterlife, making sure everyone is happy and cared for and with their loved ones if they can be. The only deity that she has constant contact with is Drista, since the younger goddess helps her collect the souls of the dead. Kristin is known to take pity on a few souls that have no one every now and then and she’ll make them into angels and let them roam the mortal worlds again until they die and then they’re dead for real with no take-backs.

The eighth deity is Irene. She’s a very flighty goddess, not known to stick around in one place for long. As the protector of the Mortal Realm, she does her best to make sure that every mortal has a happy and healthy life on the earth. She’s typically the goddess of medicine and family in most portrayals of her scriptures, but there are a few places that will cast her as a more “dark” (using that word lightly because I can’t think of a better one) goddess of apathy and discord. Those mythos as that “darker” goddess are very rare, however. She has the epithet of “the Matron” and she’s the only recorded goddess to be referred to with the title of “Lady”. The other goddesses don’t seem to like that title.

The ninth deity is Herobrine. He’s the god of both the sun and the moon, so a lot of mortal legends say that the sun and moon are his glowing eyes and he’s watching over the mortals and he’ll punish any greedy or malevolent mortals. Because of that line of mythos, Herobrine earned the epithet of “the Watcher”. He’s known for collecting wayward souls that are stuck between Grizzly’s Damned Kingdom and Kristin’s Afterlife and he’ll make a wayward soul into an assistant of sorts to help him watch over the realm and punish mortals. Sometimes, his Watchers can get a little overzealous and will take in souls that aren’t ready yet, but Herobrine never forces a soul to stay if they don’t want to and lets them go back to the mortal realm.

The tenth and final deity is False. Yes, Miss False “Supremacy” Symmetry herself is a goddess. Specifically, she’s the goddess of war and blood. She, again, is a goddess that doesn’t much like the other gods and stays away from them as much as she can. In scripture, she’s never referred to by name because legends say that, if you speak her proper name, she’ll appear and kill your entire land or family or whatever. Most texts and stories refer to her either as “the Blood God” or by her epithet of “Animus”. She’s considered the herald of the winter months and she’s also the protector of the Nether Realm.

[findingnemo19]

Because of Seaweed (Percabeth AU)

A percabeth AU fanfic. That I had originally made because my friend didn't believe my writing was good, and now he's refusing to read the damn thing. Oh well. You guys will read it. That's more than enough. And, Shout out to my friend, Isha. She helped me with the plot to this fic. For this (mortal) AU, Malcolm is 2 years younger than Annabeth. Annabeth and Malcolm are Athena and Fredrick’s kids. Summary: Annabeth froze. She’s heard the 8 words multiple times in a teasing voice from her brother and her friends. She’s replayed the time she’d meet her soulmate in her head multiple times in multiple different ways. But never had she thought her soulmate would manage to get seaweed on one of her favorite books.

Read on AO3

She matured early, according to her parents.

Since Annabeth was 8, she hated the idea of “soulmates”.  Why does she have to spend her life with someone? Why does she have to fall in love with someone? And why isn’t it her choice?

Of course, her parents tried explaining it to her, ( “It is your choice. The soulmate idea is like… telling the future.”) but she wouldn’t have any of it.

Unfortunately or fortunately, the fateful 10th birthday of Annabeth’s rolled around. Most people would wake up on their 10th birthday, immediately looking at the inside of their dominant hand wrist. Annabeth on the other hand avoided even letting that side of her right hand in her line of sight until her dad came back from work right before dinner.

Both her parents and her 8yo brother, Malcolm, were fed up with Annabeth delaying to look at the words her soulmate will tell her. Rolling her eyes at this, she turned her wrist over, “‘ You’re more worried about your book rather than yourself? ’” She recited the words slowly to herself, the bold cursive writing, murder on her dyslexic eyes. “‘ You’re more worried about your book rather than yourself?’ ” She spoke more clearly, looking up at her family around the dining table. “That’s what it says.”

Athena let a teasing smile across her face as Annabeth’s father and brother burst out in laughter. “Fitting. Very, very fitting.” Annabeth scowled at her mom, “Be quiet.” she grumbled. Stabbing her fork in her noodles she took a bite, stuffing her face with food.

->->->->->

She’s in middle school, and maybe she’s stopped absolutely loathing the soulmate idea. Not that she’s 100% ok with Fate deciding her relationship or anything. But maybe she didn’t hate it.

Plus, the 8th-grade halls are (oddly enough) filled with people asking each other out, and then arguing over the fact that “YOU’RE NOT MY SOULMATE.”

Apart from that, at least Annabeth has friends now. (Read: Piper, Frank, Hazel, and Reyna.) And thank whatever god is up there, her friends aren’t the annoying 8th graders fighting over soulmates in the hallways.

She’s happy and content. Apart from the assload of homework she gets, content. Content with her family, her friends, her classmates, and teachers-

(Ok maybe she wants to stab that “Caleb” guy in the eye with a very sharp pencil if he says anything about Annabeth being “a dumb blond” one more time. And her Science teacher. If he says “Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” one more goddamned time-)

->->->->->

Annabeth unlocked the door to her house, wincing a little in reaction to the yelling between her parents from the inside. She shook her head, stepping inside, praying that her parents aren’t near the stairs so she wouldn’t have to face that. God must have decided to be nice to the blond-haired girl, because her parents were arguing in the living room, and couldn’t even see the staircase from there.

No. It’s not out of the ordinary for her parents to fight. They’ve been doing it almost every day now. However, Annabeth hasn’t been able to understand why they fight. But they do and it bothers her. Let a girl and her brother in high school get some rest, would you?

About an hour later, she was typing up an essay that she completely forgot about, that's due the next day, when there was a loud sound from downstairs, the sound of someone running up the wooden staircase, and a frantic knock on her bedroom door. Confused and slightly concerned, she said, “Come in!”

As the door opened, Annabeth pushed her chair back across the wooden floor, cringing at the sound. “Malcolm?” Annabeth stood up as her brother shut and locked the bedroom door behind him. “What happened?”

Malcolm rolled his eyes, sitting down gingerly on Annabeth’s (for once unmade) bed. “I went downstairs to ask mom a question about homework, started talking before getting down the stairs, and she threw a plate- I wouldn’t say at me but pretty much at me.”

Annabeth raised her eyebrows in shock. “That's- that’s new,” she muttered under her breath.

Her brother scoffed, “No shit, Sherlock.”

Annabeth chuckled with no humor, saving her word document before sitting down next to the blonde-haired boy. “You ok though?”

Malcolm rolled his eyes fondly, “Yeah I’m fine, Beth.”

“Good.” A beat of silence passed between them before, “You could’ve just asked me for help instead of going to mom.”

He pondered this, “I guess.”

Annabeth chuckled, flopping down back on her bed, covering her eyes with her arm, “I’m tired.”

Malcolm fell into an almost imitated position, staring up at the ceiling, “Of what?”

Annabeth sighed, “Everything. It’s so stressful. Homework, essays, finals coming up, college applications, our parents fighting practically 24-by-7. It’s just too much-” Her voice cracked and she silenced herself.

“Yeah, I get it. Ninth isn’t much easier. Oh god, I forgot to tell you. Remember Calissa? From middle school?”

Annabeth nodded, “Mhm. The middle school ‘Bitch Girl.’ Why?”

“She asked me out today.”

Annabeth took her arm off her eyes and sat up looking at her brother with an unreadable expression. “ What?”

“Whoa, whoa Annie. Don’t go all “protective older sister” on me. I’m 15, I can handle this stuff myself .” Malcolm sat up as well. “I told her I’d think about it.”

Annabeth raised her eyebrows, crossing her arms at her chest, “You’d think about it? Malcolm this is the same girl who bullied 75% of your middle school. Including you. Are you-”

“Beth. Breathe. I’ll say no. I just said that at the moment.”

Annabeth scoffed, getting up from the bed and walking to her desk. “You better say no.” Malcolm hummed in response, getting up from the bed and leaving the room.

The sound of a ceramic cup breaking made Annabeth flinch (don’t ask how she knows what it was. She’s a little clumsy ok?). She bit her lip, turning to face the half-closed door, “Malcolm?”

“Yeah?” her brother’s muffled voice answered.

“Work in my room.”

->->->->->

Annabeth loved reading at the beach. The light wind messing up her hair, the random, delicate spray of water refreshing her; it was calming, relaxing, soothing...As long as she was a solid 30 feet away from the surfers.

Yet today was a different day, for Annabeth had actually come down to the beach with her brother and Calissa. Turns out, Malcolm ended up saying yes to go out with Calissa because he hasn’t “actually dated anybody.” So great.

To get her mind off things, she had decided to bring a book down to the beach like she always did. Picking up “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” for the 7th time in her life, she opened the book to where she left off.

She was engrossed in her book when she heard the loud splash before she felt the water.  Gasping, she stood up, facing a boy only slightly taller than her, maybe the same age. He had raven hair, which was splattered across his face from the ocean water. His eyes were a startling sea green color. Annabeth, with all the people she knew, had never come across someone with that color of green eyes.

Shaking her head slightly to get the seaweed out of her hair (and maybe that slight trance the guy in front of her left her in.) Picking up her book from the ground where it fell she winced, “What the hell!? You got seaweed on my book, damn it.”

She saw the guy in front of her rolling his eyes. “You care more about your book than yourself?”

Annabeth froze. She’s heard the 8 words multiple times in a teasing voice from her brother and her friends. She’s replayed the time she’d meet her soulmate in her head multiple times in multiple different ways. But never had she thought her soulmate would manage to get seaweed on one of her favorite books.

“Well shit.” She heard from in front of her.

Laughing humorlessly she ran her hand through her hair, “yeah shit.”

“Annie!” Annabeth looked over to her right, seeing her brother and Calissa walking over to them. “Found your soulmate?”

“Malcolm. Were you spying on me? You’re on a date, aren’t you?”

“We got bored.”

The raven-haired boy in front of her chuckled. “Annie.?”

“It’s a nickname.” She snapped. “That I will not allow you to call me.” Annabeth sighed, putting her hand out in front of her. “Annabeth Chase.”

The guy smiled, slipping his hand in Annabeth’s. “Percy Jackson.” Percy Jackson. Jackson. She recognized the name. Percy must’ve read her expression, for he laughed and said, “Yes, Sally Jackson’s son.”

Annabeth’s eyes widened, “Oh my god, her writing is beautiful. Her characters are so well written. The way she carries the series, oh my god it’s incredible!”

Percy laughed. From beside Annabeth, Malcolm gave Percy a look, “She's a little obsessed with Sally Jackson’s books.”

“A little?” Percy asked, teasing.

Annabeth glared at him, “Whatever.” My soulmate is Sally Jackson’s son. Oh my god.

Percy cleared his throat, “Uh. Sorry about the seaweed and everything. I lost control for a bit.”

Annabeth hummed absent-mindedly, wrinkling her nose in annoyance at the realization that her book was covered in saltwater and seaweed and she probably won't be able to save it. “Well, one of my favorite books is now soaked but I guess I’ll forgive you.” She then added, “But only because you're the son of one of my favorite authors.”

Percy laughed lightly, “Not surprising. All my friends love my mom more than me.” Percy reached his hand out and brushed off a piece of seaweed from Annabeth’s hair. Suddenly, it seemed like she forgot how to breathe. Annabeth saw Percy’s eyes search her face, his hand delicately resting on her cheek.

Too soon, Percy pulled back, and Annabeth wasn't sure why that bothered her. He glanced at the setting sun, “I should get going before my mom gets worried.”

Annabeth blinked, “Uh yeah, yeah ok.”

Percy smiled, turning, grabbing his surfboard from the ground, and yelled to some people in the distance, “Hey, Thalia! Jace, Neeks, we gotta go.”

“Don't call me that, Jackson!”

Annabeth smiled. “Hey, uh, Percy?”

Percy looked back at her, a smile still on his face, “Yeah?”

“Could I- Could I have your number?” Wincing, as she worried she might’ve stepped over a line.

Percy’s smile only grew, “Of course.”

->->->->->

She was happy. More than happy. In the past two years, a lot happened.

A few weeks after the beach incident, Annabeth had called Percy, asking to go out on a date, because, “we’re soulmates anyway, might as well.” He agreed. 2 weeks and 4 dates later, they had their first kiss. Under a street light that was already dying out, with a leaf or two, landing on Annabeth’s head, which Percy teased her about for weeks. ( “It was just a leaf Annabeth.” “We were kissing. Can you blame me for getting startled?” “No one’s blaming you. I’m just teasing you, Wise Girl.” “Yeah, I can tell, Seaweed Brain.” )

Oh and the nicknames. They’re stupid because they’re cliché. ( “But clichés are only clichés because they work, sweetie.” “Sure, Mrs. Jackson.” “Sally.” )

And Percy’s mother is a gem, and so is his half-sister, Estelle Blofis. Apparently, Percy’s parents are divorced, and Percy’s mother remarried, to an English teacher, Paul Blofis. Percy’s friends are great too. Thalia, Nico, and Annabeth immediately hit it off. Percy met Annabeth’s friends as well, at some point, and she found it cute how nervous he was.

Also, she got accepted to Queens College. And better yet, so did her boyfriend.

->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->

Thanks for reading!!

[beatriceeagle]

I'm more of a fantasy than sci-fi person, but consider my interest piqued. Why should I watch farscape?

Okay, the thing is, every Farscape fan’s pitch on Why You, Yes You, Should Watch Farscape ends up sounding very similar, and that’s because Farscape is a black hole that sucks you in and does things to your brain, and after you’ve watched it you are never, ever the same, which incidentally is basically the plot of Farscape.

I would summarize the basic plot for you, but that’s work, and luckily, the show’s credits sequence includes a handy summary that I will provide instead of doing that work: “My name is John Crichton, an astronaut. A radiation wave hit, and I got shot through a wormhole. Now I’m lost in some distant part of the universe on a ship, a living ship, full of strange alien life forms. Help me. Listen, please. Is there anybody out there who can hear me? I’m being hunted by an insane military commander. Doing everything I can. I’m just looking for a way home.“

So let me break down that monologue into its component reasons you should watch Farscape.

1) Some of the strange alien life forms are Muppets.

Farscape a co-production with the Jim Henson Company, and while there are many aliens played by humans in make-up, there are also a considerable number (including two of the regular crew) who are Muppets. By which I do not mean Kermit. I mean really gorgeous, elaborate works of art.

Also, even a lot of the humans-in-makeup aliens just look cool, and incredibly weird. Here’s an alien who appears in a single episode of season 1:

Not that there aren’t, you know, occasional Star Trek-style “these guys are just humans with weird hair,” or whatever, but in general, the aliens on Farscape look really alien. And that’s more than an aesthetic choice; it’s Farscape’s driving narrative principle. The aliens look alien, they act alien, they have alien values.

You know how a lot of sci-fi shows will have a stand-in for “fuck,” like Battlestar Galactica has “frak”? Well, Farscape has “frell.” And also “dren.” And yotz, hezmana, mivonks, loomas, tralk, snurch, eema, drannit, dench, biznak, arn, drad, fahrbot, narl. Some of those are swear words, but some of them are just words, never explicitly translated, that the alien characters will pepper into their speech, because, well, why should translator microbes be able to completely translate all the nuances of an alien culture? You’ll pick it up from context. One time, in passing, a character mentions that he’s familiar with the concept of suicide, but there’s no word for it in his language. I cannot emphasize to you enough how fleeting this moment is; the episode is not about suicide, we’re not having a great exchange of cultural ideas—at the time, the characters are running down a corridor in a crisis, as they are about 70 percent of the time—it’s just that the subject got brought up, and this character needed to talk around the fact that he literally didn’t have a word, in that moment. Things like that happen all the time, on Farscape.

Because more than anything else, Farscape is a show about culture shock. John Crichton is this straight, white Southern guy, at the top of his game—he’s an astronaut! he’s incredibly high status!—and then he ends up on the other side of the galaxy, where none of his cultural markers of privilege hold any meaning, where he doesn’t know the rules, where he literally can’t even open the doors. And he has to unlearn the idea that humanity is central, that he is the norm.

2) John Crichton, an astronaut, is pretty great.

A show that’s about a straight white guy with high status having to learn that he’s not the center of the universe could easily be centered around a really insufferable person, but one of the subtle things that makes Farscape so wonderful is that Crichton is, for the most part, pretty excellent. He has a lot of presumptions to unlearn because almost anyone in his cultural position would, but he’s also just a stand-up guy: compassionate, intelligent, open-minded, decent, forgiving, brave, hopeful.

And the galaxy tries to kick a whole lot of that out of him. It doesn’t succeed, mostly, but if Farscape is about anything other than culture shock, it’s about the lasting effects of trauma. How you can go through a wormhole one person, and experience things that turn you into someone you don’t recognize.

That’s kind of grim-sounding, but ultimately, what I’m trying to say is that Farscape is almost fanatically devoted to character work. Crichton is not the only character who sounds like he should be one thing and ends up being another. All of the characters—all of them, all of them, even the annoying ones—are complicated wonders. And you don’t have to wonder whether the events of the episode you’re watching are going to matter. They will. Everything that happens to the characters leaves a mark. Everything leaves them forever changed. Whether it’s mentioned explicitly or not—and often enough, it’s not explicit—the characters remember what has happened to them.

3) The living ship houses a lot of excellent women, among them the ship itself.

Ah, the women of Farscape, thou art the loves of my fucking life.

There’s Aeryn Sun, former Peacekeeper (that’s the military that the “insane military commander” hails from) now fugitive, currently learning the meaning of the word “compassion” (literally). She will break your fingers and also your heart. John/Aeryn is the main canon romantic ship.

There’s Pa’u Zhoto Zhaan, a priestess of the ninth level, current pacifist, former anarchist. Sorry, leading anarchist. She orgasms in bright light! (Oh my god, Farscape.)

There’s Chiana, my fucking bestie, a teenage(ish? ages in Farscape are weird) fugitive on the run from a repressive authoritarian state. Chiana is like a seductress con artist grifter thief who mostly just wants to survive so that she can have fun, damn it. Characters on Farscape do not really discuss sexualities (sex, yes, sexualities, no) and it would be fair to say that several of them do not fall along human sexuality lines generally, but I’m gonna go ahead and say that Chiana is canonically not straight.

Then there’s Moya, the ship herself, and it’s hard to get a straight read on Moya’s personality, since she mostly can’t speak. But she definitely has opinions, and things and people she cares about. And she moves the plot, though that gets into spoiler territory.

Past first season, further excellent women show up: Jool (controversial, but I like her), Sikozu (I once saw a Tumblr meme where someone had marked down that Sikozu would lose her shit when someone pronounced “gif” wrong, and that’s absolutely correct, and it’s why I love her), and Noranti (who is incredibly weird, and incredibly hard to summarize, but man, you gotta love her willingness to just show up and do her thing). Plus, there’s a recurring female villain, Grayza, who I could write probably multiple essays about. (I don’t know how you will feel about Grayza, as not everyone loves her, but I think she’s fucking fascinating, especially because she’s not actually the only recurring female villain. We also get Ahkna!)

(Side note: I should mention, here, that the cast of Farscape is really, really white. There is one cast member of color, Lani Tupu, but he pretty much represents the entirety of even, like, incidental diversity in casting for the series.)

Anyway, Farscape is full of awesome women, and also awesome and unexpected men, and it really enjoys playing with audience expectations of gender roles, generally. Literal entire books have been written about the way that Farscape fucks around with sex, sexuality, and gender. It’s a little weird because it was the late 90s/early 2000s, and sometimes that does come through, but Farscape’s guiding principle was always to try not to present American culture of the time as the norm, so like. It is not.

(An aside on Farscape and sex: Literally every character on Farscape has sexual tension with every other character. If you are a shipper, this is a Good Show, because no matter who you ship, there will not only be subtext, you will get a Moment of some kind. Multiple characters kiss the Muppet. Farscape is dedicated to getting into the nitty-gritty of the galaxy—I like to think of it as showing the guts of the universe—so a lot of the show is kind of squishy. They live on a biomechanoid ship, instead of androids there are “bioloids,” there’s a lot of focus on strange alien biologies, and lots of weird glowing fluids and things. I think the sex thing is kind of part and parcel of the larger biology focus: Farscape is really fascinated with how we all eat and evolve and live and die and, well, fuck. Which is in turn, kind of part of its focus on making everything really alien.)

4) Other stuff you should know.

Farscape as a whole is excellent, but it was kind of the product of creative anarchy—an Australian/American coproduction (oh yeah, everyone except Crichton speaks with an Australian accent) that was also partnered with the Henson company, whose showrunners were based in America but whose actual production all took place in Australia, and who was just constantly trying new things. So individual episodes can vary wildly in quality. It really takes off in the back half of season one, but no season is without a few off episodes.

It is extraordinarily funny, and I really think I haven’t stressed that enough. It’s one of the shows I want to quote the most in my daily life, but almost all of its humor is really context-dependent, and if you just wander around going, “Hey Stark? What’s black and white, and black and white, and black and white?” people look at you really funny.

It’s very conversant with pop culture generally (although obviously sci-fi  specifically, and Star Trek most specifically of all) and really enjoys deconstructing tropes, often to the effect of, “Well, Crichton really does not know what to do here, does he?” but sometimes just to be interesting.

There are also a lot of themes about science, and its uses and misuses.

The whole thing is fucking epic, and if you get invested at all, will take you on an emotional ride.

This show is weird. I know that that’s probably come across by now, but I think it’s worth reiterating as its own point: Farscape is so weird. Like, proudly, unabashedly, trying its hardest, weird. An amazing kind of weird.

If you’re into fantasy, you should know that there’s a recurring villain who’s just a wizard. Like, they don’t bother to explain it any more than that, he’s just a fucking wizard.

In summary: You should watch Farscape because it is a weird, wild, emotional, epic romance/drama/action/allegory full of Muppets and leather and one-liners and emotional gut punches and love, and if you let it, it will worm its way into you and never let go, which, now that I think of it, is another Farscape plot.

Send me meta prompts to distract me from my migraine!

[amateurasstrologer]

THE PLANETS #3 MERCURY (IN THE HOUSES)

Sweet Mercury. Our baby celestial, dying to be understood. There’s more to little Mercury than meets the eye, so listen up.

If you take only one thing away from this shit, let it be this: Mercury represents an internal process - where Mercury falls points towards where you’re using your brain. Bullshit Astrology will try to convince you that Mercury shows how you communicate and how you express yourself. Yes, but also no. Don’t succumb to this basic ass understanding, people!! Mercury is deeper than this - literally. Mercury gathers up the goods and sets up shop inside your mf brain. Yes, communication and your ability to small talk stem from your thought process, but all that shit is secondary. Stick to the primary source you little history babies.

The best way to think about Mercury is to think about Venus. These two are peas in a damn pod. Why? They’re both judgemental. But. While Venus is your typical mean girl, Mercury just sticks to the fucking facts.

For example, take this given: the sky is blue. Mercury looks at the situation and says: okay, the sky is blue, the sky is not green. Venus looks at the sky and says: I love the color blue, green is fucking ugly good thing the sky isn’t green. They’re both making a judgement call, but Mercury’s call is a purely objective understanding, and Venus’s is based on a personal preference. Mercury sits in your brain and helps you differentiate between this and that; Venus sits wherever tf she sits and helps you respond emotionally to shit that you value.

Put another way: why does Mercury rule Gemini and Virgo? Judgement calls. Gemini is all about you discovering yourself. The Mercury influence there helps you differentiate between “you” and “not you” - Gemini goes out and does all these things to figure out who it even is and Mercury is behind the curtain going, “yes, you hit on something real there,” and “no, that wasn’t really you bitch, drop the act.” Same shit is happening with Virgo. Virgo is all about self-improvement - we need Mercury behind the scenes, making the “yes, this will move us forward” or “no, this will set us back” decision or else we aren’t improving shit. A Mercury judgement is objective - it takes in all the facts and makes a call. It’s not personal, it’s all business.

Mercury represents how we understand the world, mentally. Mercury is the sweet little computer in our brain that’s taking stock and running metrics and not giving a fuck because there are no feelings involved in Mercury’s process. Mercury is black and white, yes and no, this and that. No in-between. The only time Mercury goes from “right on” to “completely wrong,” is when it trades in objective analysis for personal taste. Stop. Leave the feelings to Venus. Mercury works best when it’s calm, cool and collected.

As always, particulars for the party people:

MERCURY IN THE FIRST (1) YES: these sweet freaks are unleashing the beast on their inner life - every thing that has ever happened to them getting analyzed to the point of no return; they believe they’re different than everyone else and they are gonna prove it. NO: one day decided all facts were irrelevant and took up permanent residence inside their own mind, made it their job to feel intellectually superior to everyone else.

MERCURY IN THE SECOND (2) YES: these sweet freaks are testing out every belief system and mental approach ever used to solve a problem, choosing the most effective ones, and thinking their way through every challenge they come into contact with without even breaking a sweat. NO: fucking rude, totally intolerant of everyone around them, deep-throating Traditional Thinking & Outdated Values’ dick for no reason - get over it.

MERCURY IN THE THIRD (3) YES: these sweet freaks are seeing straight though your shit, because they can find patterns in everything. When they’re not fixing every problem in their vicinity with practical solutions they’re adjusting to their environment like a damn chameleon good Lord where are they are they even still here? NO: using their mega-rationality to justify gross behavior, taking zero responsibility for their actions, denial level 10000.

MERCURY IN THE FOURTH (4) YES: these sweet freaks are getting in touch with their values, and once they do look out because they will not deviate from what they feel is Right. These deep, creative minds are hot-wired to find connections between all people, places and things. NO: too scared to figure it out, falling back on thinking that’s culturally/ socially/ religiously narrow-minded, RIP to their sense of self.

MERCURY IN THE FIFTH (5) YES: these sweet freaks are getting their fucking feelings out and everyone is loving it. Their sweet little brains are made to create and they are ready to relate, no one can express themselves like these bitches. It’s just the truth. NO: can’t just have a regular fucking experience because they’re too busy thinking about how they’re gonna sell that shit later, overly self-conscious, stop it you’re doing way too much.

MERCURY IN THE SIXTH (6) YES: these sweet freaks are a whole new kinda leader - their brains are totally focused on dealing with personal changes and social issues, crystal clear thinking let’s these babies soar through emotional shit with clarity and an organized plan. NO: True Life: Living Without A Backbone, self-sabotage level 10000, lacking the inner-strength to look at their shit objectively - get it together dammit you should be fixing the world.

MERCURY IN THE SEVENTH (7) YES: these sweet freaks just have a really strong mental approach to life, they’re lookin at all kinds of shit without getting in their feelings about it, they’re out here chatting it up, down to participate in life and always open to learning from other people’s experiences. NO: took it way too far, fucked around and isolated themselves in a sweet mind prison, one day decided different viewpoints were useless and totally lost sight of reality.

MERCURY IN THE EIGHTH (8) YES: these sweet freaks fucking love relationships (of any kind, don’t have to be human-to-human) - their brains are locked in on seeing past surface level shit and into the core of their connections, working through relationship issues is their favorite pastime. NO: one day decided you weren’t trying to cooperate with them and got fucking ruthless on your ass and/or completely lack the sense of self to apply their resolution abilities, let everything go to shit, then blamed you for it.

MERCURY IN THE NINTH (9) YES: these sweet freaks worship clear thinking and objectivity, they’re fucking ready to plan and discuss their goals, your goals - all the goals all of the plans all of the values - these bitches are going to write about them, sing about them, whatever. It’s going to be real and it’s going to be good. NO: the most closed-minded to ever live, picked the wrong hill to die on, bleeding out over some shit they don’t even understand, lost in the sauce.

MERCURY IN THE TENTH (10) YES: these sweet freaks can focus (I mean, for real, they will not be deterred) and focus they will on solving complex social problems and adjusting to meet the intellectual needs of their crew. These babies are quick as a whip and got serious intellectual versatility. NO: second-guessing every decision they’ve ever made, zero accountability for their social position, completely emotionally repressed mess. 

MERCURY IN THE ELEVENTH (11) YES: these sweet freaks got intellect and they are not afraid to use it (to work through all kinds of cultural issues), on the look out for other smarties to check out all those beautiful, imaginary-but-hopefully-not-for-long horizons and ponder progressive ideals with. NO: never focused a day in their life, acting clever laughing everything off but actually dying inside and refusing to do anything about it.

MERCURY IN THE TWELFTH (12) YES: these sweet freaks are flipping the script and revamping every outdated collective ideal that crosses their mind - a healthy level of seclusion let’s these babies speculate way out into the future, so that they can formulate fresh social attitudes and actions. NO: Academy Award for Victim of Their Own Self-Created Loneliness, "what’s the use” oh my God shut up already and just try to change. Just try it.

Happy Charting, bitches. Unleash your brains.

XO BULLSHIT FREE ASTROLOGY

[passivenovember]

If Snow Loves the Trees and Fields.

Billy's job at Willowbrook Elementary is the only reason he puts up with this weather at all.

His hatred for winter, a season which hardly existed when he taught in the Valley, morphs and becomes something violent on the first Monday after Christmas break.

He wakes up feeling like his toes have gone missing, frozen black and blue with the cold, and after his phone tells him it's below zero outside, with wind-chill, his heart stops beating.

Hawkins is -10 degrees, to be precise.

And it leaves him feeling like that's gotta be illegal, or. He could for sure call all the scientists on Earth and have a law passed that clarifies: those born and raised in a Southern climate get a free pass on days when Hell is actively freezing over.

But it's not snowing today. And all the ice on the street has been scraped into terrible, disgusting drifts that block his driveway, and Hopper would immediately call bullshit. All, gonna have to suck it up if you wanna live here, buttercup.

So Billy decides to be an adult, or whatever. He spends another five minutes on his phone definitely not stalking his ex Instagram before rolling out of bed to get dressed.

And, like.

Even his underwear drawer is stiff from the cold so Billy decides to bundle the fuck up--a trick he learned from Max last fall, during the coldest year Indiana had ever seen. He manages to stack five layers in total; one pretty pink thermal set just brushing his his skin and a button down shirt to stave off the goosebumps. A sweater and jeans for professionalism. One Grateful Dead hoodie, because it makes him feel like he's not a total sell out, and a thick winter coat, sent special from the snow capped mountains of California this Christmas.

It still smells like his mom's pikake lei perfume.

Billy tries not to think about that, of home, on a day when he'd give his left nut for a ray of sunshine.

Instead, he spends ten minutes filling his thermos with coffee. Boiling the rice milk more than once so it'll stay warm on the ride across town. He sticks his pinky under the lip after his third go, and fuck that shit is so hot it will burn his mouth tomorrow, before checking the weather app again for closures.

Hoping against hope that something has changed in the last five minutes.

Of course, nothing has.

The superintendent believes that everyone in Hawkins is somehow used to temperatures that makes their eyelids freeze shut in the thirty second walk to the car in the morning. Billy jams a knit cap on his head and seriously considers calling in.

A last ditch effort to quell the rising fury in his veins, that like.

He's gonna have to scrape his windows, and freeze his dick off, and deal with the neighbor.

The one who looks like he doesn't mind the cold so much because he carries the sun with him, fucking asshole.

People shouldn't be wandering the streets when their eyelids could freeze shut, right?

Billy checks his phone one more time, frowning at a text from Joyce to pick up some coffee on your way in, and tosses his bag over his shoulder before he can change his mind.

--

It's so much worse than expected.

Billy's lungs seize up on his second intake of fresh air because no one should be huffing sulfur or gaseous ice or whatever the fuck this shit is first thing in the morning. On a Monday. The first one after Christmas break, and.

"God damn, holy shit, holy shit,"  Billy bounces the whole way to the Camaro, breath coming in short, comical bursts of steam that make his nose run. He swipes dramatically at his face, struggling to get his keys into the lock while balancing his thermos on one arm and his messenger bag on the other.

Billy's in the middle of forcing the door open, its hinges are frozen solid with ice goddammit, when Steve fucking Harrington appears like a cloud on the wind.

"Howdy neighbor," Steve says. Like they're cowboys in a shitty film from the 1970s. The wind kicks a lock of brown hair into Harrington's face and he shivers. "Wow, it's really blowing out here, huh?"

Midwesterner's love doing that.

Pointing out the obvious.

Billy grumbles a response, flinging his car door open and jamming the keys into the ignition.

Steve's saying something.

Talking like always, about his cat or maybe the beer they keep saying they'll have together, and generally Billy puts up with it but not today. He isn't going to freeze to death for a pair of legs.

The Camaro roars to life, clearly pissed at having to work on such a disgusting day, and. Alright. Letting your car "warm up," is something so Midwestern Billy can't even talk about it.

It takes him all of two minutes to scrape his windows, electing to carve holes in each wall of ice rather than clear the whole thing. The metal handle of the scraper Max got him feels like the ninth circle of hell against the peachy skin of his fingers.

He should've bought some mittens.

Joyce is always saying he needs mittens, he should've asked for some--

Billy tosses the scraper into his back seat and climbs in, slamming the door shut behind him and cranking the heat up to high. Steve's watching from next to the fence in a fucking pea coat, and a scarf with care bears on it and.

Nothing else.

Fucking asshole.

Steve waves at him, like; hey I'm talking to you. Frantically, like the mouse Mr. Bane caught last week is important.

But Billy's too busy trying to back out of the driveway with five layers of shit restricting his movement. He cranks the music up and cautiously pulls onto the street. Nice and smooth like he's seen Steve do effortlessly, even with three inches of ice on the ground. Fucking asshole.

Billy makes it halfway before he hits something.

The wind kicks hair into his face as he assesses the damage.

"You should've scraped your driveway last night." Steve says helpfully.

He's got a cigarette hanging from his lips, stark in contrast to the weird home made scarf he's got folded around his neck. Billy tries not to think about Steve's lips as he makes his way to the back of the Camaro to see that, yup.

Of course.

His baby is stuck in the snow. Billy kicks the tire. Like that'll fix anything.

"That's not gonna fix anything." Steve says, leaning against the fence.

"Jesus, fuck. I know, Steve." Billy scrubs a hand across his face, gesturing to the Care Bear scarf. "Why the hell are you wearing that thing, you look like a fruit."

"I am a fruit."

"Well you look like the whole goddamn bowl, pretty boy." Billy digs around for a cigarette. "My kindergarteners don't even fuck with the Care Bears enough to own scarves." Billy squints, assessing Steve from head to toe, delighting in the awkward squirm of his limbs. He clicks his tongue, disappointed. "Couldn't look any fruiter if you tried."

Steve shrugs his shoulders, like. Don't yell at me, this isn't my fault.

And okay.

He's cute.

Billy gets struck by that every time he sees the guy, all over again, like. His profile is perfect. Sharp nose, pretty eyes. Thick lips.

Steve holds out a cigarette.

Billy takes it.

"One of my residents made it for me. He's learning how to flat pattern." Harrington says shyly. "Well, he made it for his grand daughter, but. It turned out worse than he expected so I offered to take it."

Billy squints. "The fuck does that mean?"

"Just means I was trying to be nice--"

"No, the." Billy grins in spite of himself. "The flat patterning, what's that?"

Steve shrugs again. "I'm not sure, I think it's like. A sewing term. Or something." A pretty blush the color of Steve's scarf spreads across the bridge of his nose. It looks like strawberry ice cream and Billy.

Has to look away.

"My mom sews," Billy says gruffy. "I've never heard her say that."

"Well, maybe she drapes?"

Billy squints again. "What?"

"Draping. That's another thing people do--"

Billy stamps the cigarette out and kicks his tire again. Steve jolts, like. Billy tried to kick him or something, which just makes the situation worse.

"God, they should've cancelled classes." Billy states. Well, screams, to no one in particular. "Who wants to go to work in the snow, who fucking. Likes this white bullshit?"

Steve leans against the fence and looks thoughtful. "I love the snow."

"You're not helping."

"You asked."

"No, I didn't." Billy shoots back. He digs his cellphone out and shakes his head. "Why are you still here, Harrington? Don't you have old people to take care of?"

Steve chuckles again. Light, like Christmas bells. "Don't you have screaming brats to teach?"

"My car's kinda stuck in the snow, you fucking dick." Billy's so focused on trying to order a lyft that he doesn't waste time on pleasantries. He expects that to be the end of it, when the wind picks up and he swears again, but. Steve just moves closer.

"Let me drive you." Steve says.

And.

The moment sort of hangs there.

In the two years that Billy's lived next to the guy, they've never hung out. Never house sat for each other, never spoken outside the occasional could you make sure your idiot friends don't block my driveway, and empty promises to grab a beer sometime.

So the offer catches him off guard.

Billy glances up from his phone, confused, to find Steve looking everywhere but at him. Harrington's shifting his weight, like. He's fucking nervous, or something.

Or maybe hoping Billy will say no because he's just being polite.

Billy glares.

Of course he's just being neighborly. Charitable. That's what Midwestern assholes do.

Billy waves his phone in the air, like, "I'm ordering a lyft." And it comes out sharper. More aggressive than he means it too, but Steve doesn't seem to notice.

"Just ride with me, it's on the way."

Billy points at the screen. "Jason will be here in ten minutes."

"What's Jason got that I don't have?" Harington quips, and.

Billy just wants shit to go back to normal. He shakes his head again, "Nah, 's okay, pretty boy. Thanks anyway." Before turning back to his phone like he's got important shit to worry about.

Steve stands.

Stares.

Waits, for longer than is necessary, before clearing his throat. "Okay, well. Happy first day back." He says.

And if Billy didn’t know any better he'd say Steve sounds almost.

Disappointed.

--

When Billy gets off of work that night the snow is gone from his driveway.

--

Billy still has bad days.

They always start before dawn. With the claws of his nightmare leaving scratches down the lining of his throat. It's like Billy's carrying an anchor around his neck, or his veins are filled with playdough the color of the sun on those afternoons. He feels lazy and sluggish and like if someone looks at him for too long he'll break. Snap and crackle, like an open flame against fresh skin.

Billy still has bad days but they don't come unless he's been slipping for a while. Like forgetting to take his medication, or not writing his letter every night before bed.

The one to Neil, that his therapist says will help him work through the last of the road blocks that stand in the way of, "ultimate healing."

Billy used to think it was horseshit.

But Neil. Everything that happened, everything that still happens--when Billy goes home for Christmas, or when Susan calls and he can hear the slur of hate on the other end of the line--is standing in the way of something.

There are so many letters.

So much he wants to say.

Written on anything Billy can find, like. Napkins and the backs of take out menus--old drawings that the kids send home with him after Art class on Fridays.

The pages are kept in a binder.

His therapist says it's important to decorate the binder with, like. Stuff that makes him feel good. Words and phrases, stickers, pictures of the people he loves and drawings of all his favorite things. The folder is supposed to act as a visual reminder of the blanket of love that surrounds him, or something.

Melvalds only had brown folders when he went to pick his up, so.

The folder is brown. Disgusting.

And so far the only decorations he's been able to stomach are one of those fancy stickers from Redbubble that depicts his favorite episode of Daria, and a picture of him and Maxine with underwear on their heads.

Billy thinks it could be sad to some people.

That a poor, little abused boy only has two things in life that protect him from the shadow which falls with the setting sun, but it's the truth. Life is hard and fucked up. Billy has trouble letting people close, letting people in, so he sticks with the basics. The tried and true.

Maxine and his gravity bong.

Billy Hargrove is a simple man.

--

So it's two weeks after Steve shovels his driveway and Billy tells his therapist, like. "This fucking guy just. Did something nice for me."

And she clearly wonders what's wrong with him. "Did you say thank you?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because," Billy tries not to get defensive about shit these days, because. It's only a hop-skip-and a jump from defensiveness to downright aggression and Megan, his well meaning shrink, doesn't deserve that even on her most annoying days.

His leg bounces under the table, thwacking against its mahogany edge loud enough that Megan can hear it over the fucking phone, so she says, "Billy. Stop."

Because they have a deal about nervous ticks.

Billy is supposed to say his safe word when he starts to feel anxious, but.

He fucking hates that shit. Hates being babied. Hates feeling like he's a goddamn basket case that needs to be rooted in reality when his trauma rears its ugly head. Billy smiles, the whole thing falling flat against his face. "I'm stopping."

Megan sighs. "Why haven't you thanked Steve for his act of kindness?"

"Because, like." Billy's shaking his leg again. Softer this time; it's a secret. "How do I know he isn't trying to, fucking. Get information out of me. Or out me to the community, or. Make fun of the way I'm a grown man who can't shovel his own driveway after a snowstorm--"

"I think you're internalizing your fears, Billy."

"Yeah, no shit." He snaps. Billy feels bad for half a second but then she's giggling, like she always does, which makes him feel less like the big bad wolf and more like one of the three little pigs. The guy with the straw, maybe?

Billy sighs, scrubbing at his face. "What does that even mean?"

Megan makes a noise on the other end of the line, like. In the six months that Billy's been in therapy he should've learned this by now.

Dude's got a short attention span, sue him.

And, sure enough. "Twice a week we meet over the phone and you don't know that internalizing your fears means you're trying to write the ending to a story you haven't even read yet?"

"Like, uh," Billy says intelligently. "What's that shit you're always saying? About seeing a book on the shelf and--"

"Guessing the ending. Yup, that's right." Megan sounds pleased. Billy ignores the bloom of happiness in his chest, because like. He doesn't really deserve it. She doesn't give him time to dwell, though. "Steve did something nice for you. Maybe he has suspicious intent--"

Billy sucks in a breath, like.

Dramatic. Loud enough that Megan snorts and says, "Hold on, you're jumping to conclusions again."

Billy really fucking.

Hates how perceptive she can be.

Megan keeps talking and Billy listens, because he pays her after all. "If you're really worried that his intentions are cloudy, do something nice for him in return."

"Something nice," Billy repeats. Like he's never heard of such a concept. "Something nice, like. Buy him flowers?"

Megan snorts. "Do you want to buy him flowers?"

"No, why would you think that?"

"Because you--" His therapist sighs. Billy embraces the feeling it gives him, yanking her chain a little bit. "Listen. I don't know this Steve person, and I've never heard you talk about him beyond this beer you're supposed to have together, like. Never. But has he ever given you a reason to think he's out to hurt you?"

Billy thinks back over two years and a million one-dimensional interactions.

Steve never loses his temper.

Not when Billy calls to have the cars that block his driveway towed, not when Billy bitches about the daisy bushes shedding into his yard in the fall, and Steve always picks up Mr. Bane's cat shit from Billy's front porch when the Gremlin actually goes outside.

Always with a smile and a sweet little, I think Mr. B likes you.

And, like.

It was pretty nice of Steve to offer Billy a ride that morning.

And shovel his driveway after work, just because he knew Billy probably wouldn't do it.

The whole thing, it. Fills Billy with something he can't quite express, a warmth he only ever feels when Max calls a dozen times to remind him to eat dinner when he sends a few intense messages.

Megan takes his silence, as always, like a breakthrough.

"So," She says, clearly satisfied. "Same time next week?"

--

Billy spends three days waiting for Steve to make it easy for him.

Because Harrington's a home owner, and there's always something, right? A problem he needs help with, like. A leaky pipe that needs fixed, a cup of sugar for a recipe that he didn't account for, ghosts in the attic. Typical HOA bullshit.

Billy stares out his window at the lovely split level next door and decides he'll take anything, do anything, to get this fucking anchor of guilt off his back for the whole driveway situation. The opportunity never presents itself.

The ducks never fall in a row.

Steve just leaves the house every morning, same time as Billy, same as always, with a gentle Howdy neighbor. And a smile tugging at his pretty pink lips, hair perfect and windswept because he's a fucking asshole and it only takes two days.

Forty-eight hours before Billy's hatching a plan to pay Harrington back and inventing problems to solve, like some sort of demonic Bob the Builder.

He calls Max on Thursday and comes up with a list. Something tangible, like breaking Steve's garage window with a ski ball. Or trapping Mr. Bane in a sweater and pretending like he's gone missing so Steve will have to round up a search party, but.

Billy knows Megan would call that instigating, antagonizing, and causing trouble, which Billy's trying not to do anymore.

So he brings up flowers again, because.

Fuck it--maybe he's wanted to see Steve behind a bouquet of Lilies of the Valley for months now.

And Max goes all soft.

And quiet, too, before whispering, "I'm really proud of you, you know? For getting better."

Then suddenly Billy can't breathe because there's a lump in his throat.

Because he is trying to get better. To live honestly, to lead with love--whatever hippie-dippie bullshit Megan is always spoon feeding him, so.

With Max's blessing, Billy's about to, like. Knock on Steve's door with a plate of pot brownies and a shitty thanks for being a decent human card when Mr. Bane leaves a dead bird on Billy's porch, the third one in a month, and Billy hatches an idea.

--

Steve's front door is yellow.

Like. Sunshine yellow. Valley girl yellow.

Which Billy used to think was charming but now thinks is kind of annoying, when coupled with Steve's perpetually sunny disposition. And okay. Maybe it sort of pokes and prods at that piece of him that's always missing home.

Maybe it makes him a little bit sad, like. He'll never really feel at peace anywhere else.

But before Billy can dwell on it, or raise his fist to knock on the door, Steve's opening it and preparing to step through. He's using his foot to stop Mr. Bane from running out into the yard so he doesn't see Billy right away, which.

Also means he's going somewhere.

Which inherently means Billy's caught him at a bad time. Billy holds the paper bag closer to his chest and feels the words bubbling up before he can practice his breathing, or. Stop them. Because this is his third biggest fear after arguments and spiders.

"I've caught you at a bad time, I'm sorry, I'll just come back la--"

Steve breaks out into a grin so big. So bright, that it rivals anything Billy's ever seen before.

"Howdy, neighbor!" Steve says.

And Billy shifts nervously from one foot to the other, like. "Is this a bad time?"

"No, it's not a--"

"Because I can come back later." Billy nods, already turning on his heel to escape, and like. Fly into the sun. "Or not at all. I can just mail it to you, that's. Yeah, I'll just stick it in the post or something."

Steve grabs his elbow.

Billy looks at the hand on his elbow, and down at Steve’s feet. There aren’t any shoes or anything, so.

Billy's overreacting.

Fuck. He swallows, raising his eyes with caution to see Steve smiling again. Even wider than before, if that's possible.

Harrington licks his lips. "Whatcha got there?" He says, nodding to the bag, and Steve.

He's wearing glasses today.

Billy feels like someone hit him on the back of the head with a ski ball. Steve looks so soft, in white stripped overalls and a green sweater, that Billy doesn't know whether to fluff him like a pillow or fucking.

Punch him in the face.

Billy holds out the paper bag. "It's for you."

Steve looks at him strangely but he's still smiling, which.

Is good.

Billy thinks it's good but then he knows its good when Steve giggles. "I gathered that. What is it?"

"It's a, uh. You know." Billy tries. "You know one of those things? Where it's, like, a thing but you aren't supposed to know what it is?"

Steve blinks at him, cheeks turning pink like they always do. "A surprise?"

"That's the one." Billy snaps his fingers, like. Ah-ha. Except it isn't a surprise, it's just. "It's a way to say thanks. For the whole," Billy concludes, gesturing vaguely to their front lawns, to. "The driveway."

Steve blushes even harder. "You didn't have to get me a present--"

"It's not a present."

"That was just me trying to be nice." Steve leans against the door jam, eyes searching. "It doesn't call for a--"

"It's not a present." Billy says again. Steve doesn't look like he believes him, so Billy, like. Shoves the paper bag to his chest. "Look, open it now or don't. Fucking, throw it away for all I care, it's fine."

Billy turns on his heel because fuck this.

Fuck trying to pay back nice with nice and fuck Steve for starting this whole debacle to begin with. Billy makes it down one step and then Steve is laughing so hard he can't stand up straight.

Which just makes Billy feel worse, because.

"You're laughing." Billy gapes. "I bring you a present to say thanks for not being an asshole, and you're laughing."

Steve doesn't answer, he just.

Keeps on laughing, and okay.

This is Billy's third greatest fear. After abandonment and fighting. Fists covered in blood--his or someone else's, it doesn't matter. He frowns, turning to leave again when Steve straightens and coughs once into the palm of his hand.

"Thought it wasn't a present," Steve quips, and he's looking at Billy with, like. Sparkly eyes. He shrugs. "I'm not sure what it means."

Billy doesn't get it. "It doesn't have to mean anything--"

"No, like." Steve peers into the bag again, clearly holding back tears. "Why did you get me a bag of dead mice?"

"You can get them at the pet store." Billy says, because. You can, alright? He fiddles with the sleeves of his winter coat. "They're for Mr. Bane."

Steve just stares at him, eyes twinkling like two polished diamonds in his head.

And he's not saying anything, or. Laughing anymore, he's just. Watching Billy fall to pieces on his walkway as he tries to defend himself.

Billy focuses on the clouds that inch across the sky. "Mr. Bane, he's. He's always catching shit, like. Dead shit and leaving it on my porch. I just thought if he wants to eat dead things I can just. Buy him a pack or whatever. Like a normal person."

Steve grins. "You know they do that because they think you can't feed yourself."

Billy wrinkles his nose. "Well I fucking appreciate it, but I don't want to eat dead mice and birds and shit."

Steve chuckles once before staring again.

Like he's memorizing Billy's face, or like. They're having a competition that Billy doesn't know about.

Billy gestures to the bag again. "Would you just accept it, Steve? Please?"

Harrington looks down at the mice in his hands and nods slowly, like the decision is really requiring some thought.

Billy feels stupid.

This was so fucking stupid--

"Sure, Billy." Harrington says. Soft, and. Sweet. "No one's ever given me such a thoughtful gift before, so. Thank you."

And Billy feels like the tin man getting oil on his joints after a year of rusting in the forest, when Steve accepts his weird ass gesture. He nods, mouth lapsing into a thin, unamused line. "Okay, then. See ya 'round," Billy says.

And then he's turning, and.

Leaving.

Before Steve can say anything else.

The clouds inch like caterpillars across the bright winter sky and Steve's walkway seems so much longer on the journey home.

[falcon-eye]

Part 3? of the story for my OCs for @inexplicifics Accidental Warlord AU! I intended to only write like the opening paragraph for this today but now it’s two hours later and the whole thing is typed out. Oops.

At some point this will all be on AO3, I promise! But until then, should I do a tag list? Would people want me to tag them as I write these in the meantime? Please let me know!

(Also points to whoever can guess what Veko’s talking about when it comes to colors and smells and things! I also have it, though not exactly like Veko does)

(Also bonus points to wherever can figure out what real life goat Ren is based on lol)

———————————————

Unfortunately, Veko wasn’t able to return to Eloise for a few more years. Between simply not being in the area, not having time between hunts, his brother Hamra almost being disemboweled one year, and his own injuries, he just hadn’t been able to make his way to her little town in Temeria.

This year, he was determined to go back, though he wasn’t sure why. He chalked it up to being able to stay somewhere comfortable, with actual good food, for free, but even he knew that was a flimsy excuse. Eloise fascinated him, for lack of a better word. She hadn’t been afraid of him—quite the opposite! From the get-go it was like she had tried to intimidate him, and godsdammit it worked. But she was so nice to him, and despite what she said, her food was quite good. Or maybe everything Veko had been eating recently was just that awful.

Veko swung down off of Nine—his new gray mare after Eight became wyvern food (rest in peace you prick)—and hitched her to the fence post outside Eloise’s house. For some reason, he was nervous to see her again. Was it because it had been so long (for a human anyway) since he’d been here? He didn’t want her to think he wanted out of their deal or anything.

Veko brushed as much dirt and grime off of his armor as he could before knocking on the door. A moment later, it swung open and Eloise stared up at him with wide eyes.

Veko scratched his burns. “Uh, hello Elo—“

Eloise threw herself at him, arms around his neck. “Oh my gods!” she cried. “You fucking prick! Where have you been?!” Veko faltered for a moment before tentatively wrapping his arms around Eloise’s, but she immediately pulled back, giving him an icy glare. “Well?!”

“I, uh, I’ve been... busy,” Veko replied, but for some reason, Veko felt awful despite it being the truth.

“Busy!” Eloise exclaimed. Holy shit, she’d really been upset about this.

“I’m sorry,” Veko said, staring down at his boots. “I really am. And—and I really was busy. I don’t want you to think I was trying to get out of the deal or anything, cuz I wasn’t—“

“You think I’m upset because of the fucking deal?!” Eloise shouted. Veko blinked at her and she pinched the bridge of her nose. “For Melitele’s—get in here!”

Eloise pulled Veko into the house and slammed the door. Despite the few years that had gone by, not much inside had changed. There were more paint supplies strewn around the house than last time, but that was about it.

Veko scratched his scars again and Eloise slapped his hand away. “Sorry,” he said automatically.

“I thought you were dead!” Eloise shouted, poking a finger into Veko’s chest. “You’re a bloody Witcher! That’s what happens, isn’t it? You fight monsters, and then you die. Well godsdamn you I thought you died!”

Veko was horrified when the salty smell of tears began tickling his nose; something must have showed on his face, because Eloise rubbed her eyes quickly, not letting any of them fall.

“I’m sorry,” Veko said again.

Eloise glared at him again before suddenly hugging him. “Fucking git,” she hissed. “Send a letter or something, at least! I don’t know how to get ahold of you but I’m always here!”

Veko hesitated again but hugged Eloise back. This time, she didn’t pull away. “Sorry,” he said into her hair. “Just, every time I was in the area, something would come up, or my brother was hurt, or I was too injured to travel—“

“Are you ok now?!”

“Oh yeah, all healed up now.”

“And your brother?”

Veko smiled sadly, remembering the blood on his hands and the horrifying look of resignation on Hamra’s face. “Touch and go for a bit, but yeah, he also made a full recovery. I just couldn’t leave him like that.”

Eloise finally pulled away and crossed her arms. “Well damn,” she grumbled. “How can I be mad at you now?”

Veko chuckled, feeling like a weight had lifted off of his chest.

—————

During lunch, Eloise filled him in on how things had been going since they’d seen each other. Lennart was still a bastard, but after being slapped in front of the gods and everyone by a lady at the tavern, he’d been officially removed from his position. A local woman had taken the title of alderwoman now, and things had been a lot better. A few of Eloise’s goats had had multiple babies, though a wolf problem last year had taken a few of them. She still had one of her original nanny goats, though, and apparently this particular goat was about as stubborn as they come.

“She actually chased one of the wolves off, even!” Eloise explained. “Charged it head on. I’ve never seen a wolf roll like that in my life.”

“Remind me not to piss your goats off, then,” Veko chuckled.

Eloise seemed to pause for a moment. “I actually have to go feed them,” she said. “Plus, your horse has just been... well, outside tied to my fence. Come with me?”

So that was how Veko found himself leading his horse to the tiny barn behind Eloise’s house. He could see a couple goats that were obviously youngsters immediately rush over to the fence, bleating loudly. From within the barn, a huge tan goat trotted out and fucking screamed.

Veko flinched and even Nine pulled back. “Sorry, sorry,” Eloise said. “That’s Georgina. She’s... special.”

“I’ll say,” Veko grumbled. “This our wolf chaser?”

Eloise shook her head and pointed to another goat on the opposite side of the paddock. A little black thing, shorter than the others, with huge, curled horns. Eloise whistled and the goat immediately charged—and slammed horns first—into the fence.

“Ren,” Eloise said, crouching down to scratch the goat between the ears. “She’s harmless. Mostly.”

Veko looked at Nine and seemed to almost share a stare with the horse. A ‘can you believe this shit?’ moment that got Veko chuckling despite himself.

“Whatever you say.”

Eloise led Veko and Nine into the barn and into a small empty stall. “This was my father’s horse’s stall,” she explained as Veko began undoing Nine’s tack.

“Where is your old man, anyway?” he asked as he heaved the saddle down.

Eloise looked away. “He, um,” she cleared her throat. “He passed, um, a few months after you left.”

Veko dropped the saddle. “Fuck,” he said. “I’m—I’m so sorry. Fuck, if I’d known—“

“Veko,” Eloise put a hand on his arm, “my father was sick. Even I didn’t realize how badly until a week before he went. But it was... it was peaceful, at least. I’d made him dinner, he wished me goodnight, and I found him in the morning.”

Veko honestly didn’t know what else to say. Death was a weird subject for Witchers, after all. He continued grooming Nine while searching desperately for something to say that wasn’t ‘sorry’ again.

“Did he have... a funeral?” Veko asked. He could’ve slapped himself. Of course he had a fucking funeral.

Eloise seemed to sense Veko’s fumbling, because she smiled gently and nodded. “A very nice one, too,” she said. “I’ll go get some water for your horse.”

As Eloise walked away, Nine looked at Veko again. What was it with this horse? Veko pointed a warning finger in his face; Nine simply huffed and turned away. Somewhere, Hamra was laughing, Veko was sure of it. His brother had always had a good relationship with his horses.

Eloise returned a moment later with a bucket of water. Veko immediately took it from her and poured it into the empty trough.

“What’s her name?” Eloise asked. If he could blush, Veko would’ve been scarlet.

“Nine,” he said.

“‘Nine’?” Eloise repeated. “Does that mean something in another language or like, the number?”

“The, uh, the number.”

Eloise slapped Veko’s hand as it reached for his scars. “Why?”

“She’s my... ninth horse.”

There was beat before Eloise burst out laughing. “You’re something else, you know that?”

Veko smirked to cover his embarrassment. “So I’ve been told.”

Eloise rolled her eyes and headed over to the opposite end of the barn. The far wall was lined with bales of hay. Before she could even reach for one, Veko rushed over and hoisted one over his shoulder. Eloise put her hands on her hips.

“You know I’ve been doing this for years even before you showed up, right?” And she had a point; what was wrong with him?

“I, uh,” he looked anywhere but at Eloise, trying to find an excuse. “I figured it’s... been a while since I’ve been here so I, uh, owe you. I guess.”

“Are you telling me or asking me?”

“Yes.”

Eloise laughed. “Ok then,” she said, heading back out of the barn. “I’ll get the gate at least.”

Veko followed Eloise to the paddock and held Ren by a leather strap around her neck while he made his way through the gate. The other goats immediately began following him. As soon as the hay hit the ground, the goats descended. Eloise let Ren go and the other goats parted to let her through.

“I never realized how scary goats were,” Veko said as Eloise latched the gate closed.

“To be fair, I have quite the herd of characters,” she replied. “Most people have a rooster to wake them at sunrise; I have Georgina and her screaming. Ren is like my own personal guard hound. Sometimes she gets out and chases off anyone who gets near the house. The others are still young, yet, but they’re slowly starting to show their personalities.”

“I’ll stick with horses, I think,” Veko said. “They’re enough trouble as it is.”

“Apparently!” Eloise laughed as she and Veko made their way back to the house. “Seeing as you’ve had nine of them!”

“This is a dangerous job!” Veko defended, but the tone was joking. “Plus in the grand scheme of things, nine horses hasn’t been a lot for how long I’ve been on the Path.”

Eloise’s brow furrowed. “How old are you?”

“Old.”

Eloise scoffed and started gathering some of her paints. Veko followed her into her art room, not sure what else to do at this point, and found the walls covered in different paintings than the last time he’d been here. One in an ornate frame was her father, exactly as real as if he was standing before them.

Eloise picked up a few leather straps from one of the tables. “Help me with something,” she said. “I’m going to repaint the goats’ collars and I don’t know what color to give who. I want you to help me decide.”

“Ok?” Veko said, taking a seat. “Why?”

“Something you said to my father, when you saved him,” Eloise replied. “It always confused him. He told you he lived in the house with the blue roof and you said it suited him. Why?”

Veko went to scratch his scars, but instead balled his hand into the fabric of his pants. “Well, it’s, uh,” he hesitated. Of all things for that old man to focus on!

“My father was always fascinated with color,” Eloise said, as if sensing Veko needed a minute. “That’s how I got into painting. He was never content with something being the original color it was. Hence, the blue roof. He said that you saying the blue suited him kind of, I don’t know, validated him.”

Veko’s chest felt tight. Now he felt fucking terrible for not being here before. Maybe Eloise’s father would’ve understood, or at least found it interesting that—

Veko cleared his throat. “So, sometimes,” he began, staring down at his hands. “When I think of things, or names, or... well anything, really. I get these senses.” When he looked up, Eloise was enraptured. “Like, your father, just looking at him, the color blue came to mind. I don’t know why.”

“Just colors?”

Veko shook his head. “Smells, sometimes. Like when I think of you... I, uh, I think of the smell of your paints.”

“That’s... that’s fascinating, Veko,” Eloise said. “Tell me more?”

Veko gestured to the collars. “Well, you’re trying to figure out what color for what goat. As soon as you said Georgina, green came to mind. I don’t know why. And Ren is red, but not because the name and word are close. Uh, sometimes when I picture my supplies in my pack, I see them like they’re all laid out on the table, lined up side-by-side, despite the fact that I know damn well they’re a jumbled mess in my bag. And in my head, the order is always the same. I kinda do the same thing with months. I see them lined up like squares on a wall.” Veko grimaced. Fuck. “No, ‘see’ is the wrong word, cuz I don’t—I’m not hallucinating or anything!”

“I believe you,” Eloise said softly, taking one of Veko’s hands in hers. And she was telling the truth. Veko felt the tension in his body release.

“It’s weird, I know,” he said. “So I don’t normally say anything. When I was younger the trainers thought my head got fucked up by the mutagens but it’s just the way I’ve always been.”

“Does your brother have this too?”

“No,” Veko chuckled. “But he’s been the most receptive to it, even if he doesn’t understand it. Like, his favorite color is green, but when I think of him I think of like an indigo color. And I’m red, but I don’t know why.”

“What about me?” Veko met Eloise’s gaze and held it. The look on her face was one of honest curiosity and interest. She smiled at him and squeezed his fingers. “What do you see when you think of me?”

Veko swallowed. “I see turquoise, like the color your dress was the first time we met. I don’t know if it’s because that’s what you were wearing or what, but when I think ‘Eloise’ I think of that faint turquoise color.”

“Does it work for family names?”

“Sometimes. What is your full name, anyway?”

“Eloise Calold.”

Veko cocked his head to the side. “Yellow,” he said. “Calold is yellow.”

“But not because of anything I’m wearing,” Eloise said, gesturing to the paint-stained brown smock she was currently wearing.

“Guess not.”

“Veko,” Eloise breathed. “That is the most fascinating thing I’ve ever heard of. So you see colors? Or, think in colors? I wish I had that. I wonder how it would affect my art. I wonder how it would affect your art.”

Veko pulled away and put his hands up. “Hey, whoa, who said anything about me being an artist?” he said.

Eloise laughed. “I bet you’re better than you think,” she said.

“I bet not.”

Eloise smirked. “Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll drop the subject if you do something for me.”

“Name it?”

“Let me paint you.”

Veko again was struck silent. She wanted to paint him? Apparently his mouth was hanging open, because Eloise tapped his chin to close it. “Why?” he managed.

“Because,” she replied. “We’re... friends. Or I like to think we are. And in case... in case something happens to you...” she gazed at the painting of her father, smiling down warmly at them, “I want you to be immortalized with him.”

What the fuck could Veko say to that? “Oh. Ok,” he said dumbly. “Uh. How do you want me?”

Eloise jumped up and ran for a blank canvas. “Whatever’s comfortable!” she called. “It takes a while.”

Veko just... sat there as Eloise began setting up. He turned this way and that, never quite settling, before Eloise huffed and dragged an armchair over. Veko abandoned the stool he’d been on and sat back into the warn leather.

“Better,” he said. He turned, scar facing away, and immediately Eloise’s hand reached out to turn him back. Her fingers grazed the puckered mess that was his cheek and he flinched.

“I’m sorry,” Eloise said gently. “I just—I want to see it.”

“Why?” Veko whispered.

“Because it’s a part of you,” Eloise replied. “And gods know I’ve kept you from scratching it enough.”

There was a moment where neither of them said a word. Veko’s heart sped in his chest like it hadn’t in many years. Eloise gazed over his burn scars and gently brushed her fingers over them again. Veko didn’t flinch this time, but just barely. Her fingers were cool against the phantom heat of his burns, and as she traced the expanse of them along his jaw, he couldn’t hold back the full-body shiver the touch elicited.

Eloise pulled back and Veko scrambled to find something to say before she said anything else about them. “So—so how does this work?” he asked. “I, uh, I just sit here?”

Eloise nodded and finally pulled back. “Yes,” she said, not meeting his gaze. Now that he was out of his own head, Veko could hear her heart hammering in her chest. “Just, um, get comfortable, relax, and um, don’t... don’t move, if you can help it.”

Veko grinned. “Ok.” Eloise nodded and began mixing a few paints.

Veko just... watched her. As brush met paint and paint met canvas, he could almost see the cogs turning in her head. Instead of sticking her tongue out, like he’d heard some artists do, she made faces. A stroke here and her mouth pinched to the side; stroke there and her mouth opened in a little ‘o’.

Veko wanted to slip into meditation, as that would be the best way to sit still for her, but he found he just couldn’t. As much as Eloise was watching him for her painting, he wanted to watch her. He couldn’t help but think of the last time they’d seen each other, and what he thought of her then. She wasn’t all that attractive, merely plain by any standards. Her laugh was unladylike and jarring. She intimidated him. She swore. She—

She made him dinner. She let him sleep in her home. She told him stories and listened to his in turn. She wanted his opinions. She found his mental crap fascinating. She worried for him. She cried for him!

She called them friends.

As Veko sat, watching Eloise paint his portrait, a warm weight settled in his gut. He didn’t want to leave in the morning. Hells, he didn’t want her to ever finish this bloody painting. And although emotions aren’t exactly a Witcher’s strong point, he had a sinking suspicion that what he was feeling...

Fuck.

[adarlingwrites]

Restraint

noun: control over the expression of one's emotions or thoughts

Given the circumstances of their relationship, with Charon being the Lone Wanderer's patient, and the Lone Wanderer being Charon's employer, acting on any attraction they had for one another would be out of the question.

Still, they kept each other in their thoughts.

II - Pillow Talk

(Part I)

How did it get to this?

A few months ago he was rotting in his corner in the Ninth Circle, and now he’s living with a smoothskin girl in a house in Megaton.

It’s not that Charon was complaining. No, he’s thankful for her. No employer of his gave him this much respect and freedom. Percy’s been an angel.

And that’s the problem.

Being brainwashed into his contract, Charon never knew friendships, much less romantic relationships. Percy calls him her friend but he had never known what that was. Slow and steady, her words and actions teach him friendship.

So whenever he feels aroused at the sight of his mistress, he feels confused.

Was it normal for friends to experience this?

Charon feels dirty, looking at her while she’s bent over that motorcycle she’s been trying to get up and running. His eyes trace the curve of her ass, clothed in that stupidly tight Vault-tec jumpsuit, and he felt himself harden under his armor. She turns around, pointed nipples poking through her sweaty, grease-stained shirt, and gives him that damn smile of hers.

He shouldn’t be thinking of her in such a way. This employer of his gave him free room and board, ammunition, and above all, privacy. If she finds out that her hideous ghoul bodyguard is thinking of her in such a way, she’d probably get rid of him. He’d lose the one good thing that came into his sad excuse of a life.

So, after acknowledging her silent greeting, he tears his eyes away from her and goes up the stairs, into his room, closing the door shut.

Charon sheds the pieces of his armor and puts them in a neat pile beside his mattress. Head against the pillow, he closes his eyes, planning to take a nap. Maybe it would take his mind away from the shameful thoughts he has about his mistress.

The problem was, the pillow smelled like her.

Percy found a cleaner pillow a few days ago, so she gives him the one that she had been using ever since she moved in. At that point, her scent is imprinted on it.

As much as he tried to will it away, thinking of his unsavory experiences with other employers, or literally just Ahzrukhal’s ugly mug, his thoughts always go back to Percy, and his dick isn’t going limp anytime soon.

It must be the damn pillow.

Grabbing it, Charon looks at it with a frown. It’s soft, just like Percy.

He remembers a wet dream he had about her, sweating like the real one a floor under him, desperate to be touched. Of all the fucking dreams to have...

Fuck it. If he is granted privacy, he might as well make use of it.

The ghoul unzipped his pants and released himself from his boxers, the cold air making him hiss. A drop of precome has already formed at the tip, and he smears it all over his length, thinking of his mistress’ fingers in place of his.

In Charon’s mind, Percy is eager, and he thought that it’s what made the fantasy dirtier. Humans and ghouls don’t fuck. At least, that was the norm. Bigots would lynch both parties. So, imagining this pretty smoothskin girl going crazy over ghoul dick amped up the perverseness of the fantasy and made his cock get harder.

The ghoul would run his tongue against his smoothskin mistress’ neck, and feel her shudder underneath him as he sucks on the pale skin on her throat. He’ll kiss and lick every inch of her body.

Percy would moan and sigh his name. An angel like her deserves all that attention.

Then, Charon continued where he left off in the dream: his cock, skin rough and some tissue underneath exposed, poised to service his mistress.

Pressing the pillow against where his nose would be if it didn’t fall off from his ghoulification, Charon inhaled Percy’s scent. In his mind, he was sneaking some licks and bites on her nipples as he slowly rocked her.

Her small hands would pull at what little hair he had, begging him to go faster, and using the word “please”.

But he was made aware of reality by his rough hands, and he felt disgusted at his own touch.

Sighing, he lets go of himself, and puts the pillow down.

“Dammit,” he cursed to himself, member twitching and still eager for stimulation.

How will he make this work?

Sitting there unsatisfied, Charon was even more frustrated than when he started.

Eyes flicking to the pillow, an idea forms in his head.

His rough hands reached for it, and he shoves it under his crotch, pressing his hips against it. The pillow’s now pressed against the mattress, and Charon’s pulsing cock.

Performing an experimental roll with his hips, he grinds himself against the pillow. Soon enough, he finds a steady rhythm, and he closes his eyes. In his mind, Percy’s ass was in the pillow’s place, slapping against his hip as he fucked her raw, dick stretching her virgin pussy.

Their size difference would make things look even more depraved. The mental image of a cute and petite smoothskin getting penetrated by a monstrous ghoul twice, or perhaps thrice her size would make anyone dizzy.

His mistress would writhe and whine under him, and he’d toy with her clit before shoving his digits in her mouth, making her taste herself on his fingers.

The imaginary Percy looks up to him with a lustful gaze, and tells him, “Charon, I want you to be rougher, please?”

And he would oblige. He would flip her over, place her legs over his shoulder, and fuck her deep and hard. Charon would reach to grab her tits, rolling and pinching her nipples, and allowing it to bounce as he fucked her.

Percy would say his name, over and over, and her muscles would clench and pulse around him as she comes, milking his cock of his own orgasm.

But he wasn’t done yet.

The ghoul would flip his mistress over again, and this time, he’d make her ass feel good, too. Imagining Percy lying on her stomach, he’d prop her up, and he’s ghost his fingers over her back entrance as he continued to fuck her from behind, balls slapping her clit.

He can imagine her voice.

“Charon, please, put it in.”

And he’ll obey. He would put his thumb in the vaultie’s ass, the tight ring of muscle clenching and unclenching around his digit. It’ll drive her crazy, moaning and crying under him as he pounded her. Then, he’d remove his thumb, and make her whine for more.

The imaginary Percy then presses herself against him, allowing him deeper entrance.

“Charon, finish inside me, please.”

Eyes screwed shut, Charon’s thrusts become rougher, more precome staining the unfortunate pillow, pouring his frustrations into every single one.

“Fuck, Charon, make me yours. Please, make me yours.”

In his head, he’s curling a large hand around Percy’s neck, pressing her against his chest possessively. His other hand would fondle her tits, or reach for her clit, he wasn’t sure. One thing he was certain about is that he was hers and hers alone, and in his fantasy, she belongs to him too.

Oh, he was so close.

Wild, dark eyes would look up to him. The imaginary Percy’s pink lips parted, and her cheeks were flushed. She’d reach up and wrap her arms around his neck. She’d give him that look the real Percy does; the one that’s filled with trust and devotion, but it would be tainted by shameless fucking desire.

“Charon, please. I need you. I love you.”

With one violent thrust, Charon shudders and comes, his thick, radioactive cum staining the unfortunate pillow. He started to slow down, eyes still closed, imagining how his seed would both paint his mistress’ inner walls white, and how it would leak from the tip of his member to her smooth belly.

Breathing hard, Charon opened his eyes.

He made quite a mess.

Shit, how will he clean this up? The entire thing is soaked in cum.

Poor Charon is mortified. Maybe he might need to throw this damn thing out after all.

While dressing himself and trying to figure out what the hell he’s going to do, something about his earlier fantasy made him stop.

Did he just get off at the thought of his employer telling him she loves him?

Oh, he’s in deep trouble now.

[kingofterrors]

I was tagged in this ask by @inktog - thank you!

I’m not great at tagging other folk, but if you see this and you fancy doing it, consider yourself tagged! Also, by the way, if anyone seeing this really likes being tagged in these kind of things, let me know! I will tag you in future!

This was hard. At first I was like, “I’m not sure I can even name ten relationships I ship”, and then had far too many as soon as I thought about it for more than ten seconds. So here we are. :)

First, list your top 10 ships without reading the questions below.

1.      Luz Noceda / Amity Blight – The Owl House

2.      Harrowhark Nonagesimus / Gideon Nav – The Locked Tomb Series

3.      Sabran / Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra – The Priory of the Orange Tree

4.      Caleb Widogast / Essek Theyless – Critical Role Campaign 2

5.      Beauregard Lionett / Jester Lavorre – Critical Role Campaign 2

6.      Harrowhark Nonagesimus / Ianthe Tridentarius – The Locked Tomb Series

7.      Kara Danvers / Lena Luthor – Supergirl

8.      Amity Blight / Boscha – The Owl House

9.      Korra / Asami – The Legend of Korra

10.  Percy / Vexahlia – Critical Role Campaign 1

Then answer the questions.

Do you remember the episode/scene/chapter that you first started shipping 6?

I’m going to be honest, it was from the very beginning of Harrow the Ninth – the Prologue, where we get that amazing moment of Ianthe kneeling down and taking Harrow by the chin. I’m going to quote, because this scene just marched up to my house, kicked my door down and stole my entire mind.

You were shocked into opening your eyes when you felt the girl opposite cup your chin in her hands – her fingers febrile compared to the chilly shock of her gilded metacarpal – and put her meat thumb at the corner of your jaw. For a moment you assumed that you were hallucinating, but that assumption was startled away by the cool nearness of her, of Ianthe Tridentarius on her knees before you in unmistakable supplication. Her pallid hair fell around her face like a veil, and her stolen eyes looked at you with half-beseeching, half-contemptuous despair: blue eyes with deep splotches of light brown, like agate.

Looking deep into the eyes of the cavalier she murdered, you realised, not for the first time, and not willingly, that Ianthe Tridenatrius was beautiful.

Dude.

Have you ever read a fic about 2?

Yup! More than one! I don’t generally seek out smut for my ships, for whatever reason, but I freely admit that I sought out smut for these two. And found it. Found it with quality in spades. Praise be. Is this a good spot for recs? If so:

Sleepless by pugoata

Like a Lullaby by SweetScentences

Has a picture of 4 ever been your screensaver/profile pic/tumblr?

Nope. I tend not to change my pics very much, and they tend to focus on single characters rather than ships, again for whatever reason.

If 7 were to suddenly break up today, what would your reaction be?

Yeah… Well of course they’re not together in canon. I ship supercorp foolishly, helplessly, knowing all the while that the chances of it becoming reality are vanishingly small. That said, we don’t ship purely for canon, do we? So if Kara and Lena were together and then were to break up I’d be disappointed, but I suspect they’d find their way back to each other. These two have a history of being separated, then rediscovering their love and coming back together. I give it a couple of weeks. :)

Why is 1 so important?

Man, I don’t know! It snuck up on me! I think there’s something here about firstly, the context for Lumity. Amity’s crush on Luz was just presented as normal, as something fine and good and natural, and that meant so much to me. There’s a softness here that I love so much. I also heavily empathise with Amity – the trying to live up to expectations and feeling that you have to hide yourself behind emotional walls – and the thought of her finding love with someone like Luz who is so open and emotionally giving does my heart good. I want Amity to find acceptance and openness with Luz. I want Luz to find herself seen and valued for exactly who she is by Amity. I want to see them finding strength and security in each other. I just love them, you guys.

There’s a bit in this wonderful YouTube video essay, which I recommend to the moon and back – watch it if you haven’t! (“The Owl House is Great and Here’s Why, by Film Freak”) Where the essayist concludes their section on Lumity by saying: “I don’t know if Disney will chicken out in the future with regards to Lumity or any other queer rep, but for now I’m cautiously optimistic. Maybe I just have rose-tinted goggles for how soft this ship is, but whatever, let me stan just once.”

And… yeah. That.

Which one has the strongest bond?

Wow, tough one. Probably Sabran and Ead. They’ve gone through everything together, and are prepared to wait for each other in the end. Their bond is strong enough to take that and more.

Which ship has lasted the longest?

For me or the ship itself? For me of all of these probably Korra / Asami. Shipped ‘em first time I saw LoK, and haven’t stopped.

How many times, if ever, has 6 broken up?

Have they ever gotten together? If they ever did get together they’d break up every couple of days. These two are a mess, and their relationship is a toxic trainwreck. Still ship ‘em though. Can’t help it. Sometimes ships are just fascinating. If this was real life I’d want them to not come within shouting distance of each other. In fiction I’m riveted.

If the world was suddenly thrust into a zombie apocalypse, which ship would make it out alive: 2 or 8?

Definitely Harrow and Gideon. Those two have fought through apocalyptic situations before, and my money would be on them to do it again. Plus they are the quintessential battle couple. Can you imagine Harrow’s bone magic and Gideon’s martial expertise being unleashed on zombies? Those two would save the whole damn world.

Amity and Boscha would put up a good fight, I think, but I can see them disagreeing on key decisions which might hurt their chances.

Did 7 ever have to hide their relationship for any reason?

Given that Kara is a whole secret identity, we could say they are continually hiding their relationship when Kara is out there as Supergirl? I could also see them hiding their relationship at Lena’s insistence to protect Kara from Lex before she realised Kara was actually Supergirl. She might even want to do that afterwards as well, on reflection. Lena is very protective of Kara, ironically enough. :)

Is 4 still together?

Right now? This is another non-canon ship. That said, this is one I’m genuinely hoping for a canon appearance from. Their relationship might be put under strain from the fact that they’re both mages, and mages tend to get selfish and power hungry (or at least these two claim that’s how it goes). I think they’d work through it though. These two talk big about their own selfishness a lot, and then in practice are very caring and protective of others. I can see that extending to each other. Just kiss already.

Is 10 canon?

Yup! My token het ship are still very much together, growing old and having babies.Good for them. :)

If all 10 ships were put into a couple’s Hunger Games, which couple would win?

This is an invitation to go into huge depth, but my initial feeling is that Harrow and Gideon would again have it hands down. Those two are world-endingly powerful. Although that said, Kara and Lena might give them a run for their money. Pure power ranking? Let’s see…

1.      Harrow / Gideon

2.      Kara / Lena

3.      Korra / Asami

4.      Beau / Jester

5.      Caleb / Essek

6.      Percy / Vex

7.      Harrow / Ianthe

8.      Sabran / Ead

9.      Amity / Luz (no shade, but these guys are literal children. Grown up they’d put up a better showing, I’d bet)

10.  Amity / Boscha

Has anyone ever tried to sabotage 5?

I mean… Fjord? I wonder sometimes what would have happened if Beau had genuinely put in a play for Jester, rather than stepping back to let Fjord make his move. She very obviously decided that Fjord should have a free shot, and I wonder how it would have worked if she actually decided to compete. Would Fjord have stepped back to let Beau make a try for Jester if he was aware of her feelings? I don’t know. A genuine competition would have been heartbreaking but oh so interesting to see.

Do you spend hours a day going through 3’s tumblr tag?

Not hours, but I have put some good time into finding fanart for these two. There is some good work out there!

If an evil witch descended from the sky and told you that you had to pick one of the ten ships to break up forever or else she’d break them all up, which ship would you SINK?

Amity / Boscha. Sorry you two! I wrote myself into shipping Amity and Boscha, when I fell in love with Boscha and decided she could actually be good for Amity in a snarky, take no shit kind of a way. I would still love to see more of them. (Halfway through that one-shot btw.) But if it was them or everyone else? Sorry guys. :(

[nvcturnes]

rafa... it’s okay king ... go into the light

good evening to bilingual short kings, soccer haters, aerosmith cover bands, owners of orange 1972 competition fender mustangs, Gays™, bicons, ghosts that are in a band, band members that are not ghosts, radio assistant hopefuls, sad boys, rock fans, mechanics who will change your oil for a bag of doritos, supportive parents ( deceased ), and supportive parents ( alive ).

i’m emily & in addition to spending my days as a bio research tech, i will be ur host for the evening. i’m 22 for for 13 more days, i use she / her pronouns, i’m from the est timezone, & i am deeply sorry in advance.

u can find rafa’s full app here & his pinterest here if ur so inclined ! trigger warning for death bc he is, as we know, dead.

THE BASICS !

skeleton. nocturne.

full name. rafael medina.

age. twenty-four.

gender / pronouns. cis man, he / him.

faceclaim. taylor zakhar perez.

THE BACKGROUND ! 

now it’s time for what you missed on glee <3

baby rafa was born to a single mom named beatriz in london & she was a dancer for the royal ballet ! p much as soon as she was cleared to dance after giving birth, she dragged him along, so he grew up watching ballet 

he was always a lil bit of a scamp but he knew to be polite around the dancers and musicians, Especially during rehearsals

one day he wandered into the pit while they were playing and was in Awe of the first chair violinist

his name is alexei and we love him <3

five yr old rafa asked a million questions abt his violin & basically said okay magic man ur coming to my house for dinner to show me more of your crazy techniques... but lemme ask my mom first

beatriz debby ryan hair tucks and says yes 😌

spoiler alert they get married 🥺 a happy family 🥺

rafa grows up... gets better at the violin... makes first chair in high school... has a gay awakening when he sees abs in the locker room for two (2) seconds

strike one: the teen magazine that rafa stole off some girls told him his crush is “hot like burning” and he got so stressed he threw it away. strike two: his crush kissed him in the MIDDLE OF GYM CLASS. nasty. strike three: when rafa tried to talk to him in the hallway he said ‘do i know you’. ouch

so anyway ladies theydies and gaydies never trust a man

i’m so sorry to do this to y’all but just when rafa is about to play with the royal ballet orchestra for the first time as part of an internship... his parents die before ever making it to the performance :/

rafa... does not take it well and i do not blame him

he moves to the US to get away from all the memories & buries himself in as much work as possible to distract himself from his grief

some of the only things he brought with him were alexei’s violin & beatriz’s pointe shoes but he can barely look at them 😔

fun fact he gets fired from his job at the times square olive garden ( also known as the ninth circle of hell ) for telling a customer to go fuck himself after ordering his 15th round of unlimited breadsticks. king shit

anyway he eventually moves from nyc to la to get even Farther away and after making some friends, he eventually stumbles upon photography !

he’s surprisingly good at it, and he especially loves combining it w his love of music when he starts photographing shows and music festivals

eventually he meets this big indie artist named phoenix, whose music style is, as i recently described to admin a, “absolute hipster asshole fedora bastard” bc this was 2013 after all

*tolerate it by taylor swift plays*

spoiler alert: we still don’t trust a man :/

rafa gets caught up in all the allure of fame and thinking he’s in love, even though phoenix is the Worst kind of self-absorbed asshole who won’t even call him his bf

eventually he’s like hey ! this is bullshit ! and decides to break up w phoenix after a show that he’s shooting that night 

except he uhhhh gets robbed at knifepoint but refuses to give up his camera and d words

but it gets WORSE bc phoenix writes a whole ALBUM about it and goes on TOUR for that album while rafa’s ashes sit in a cheap urn in a closet in his house in la

this dude is shitty i’m telling u

final edition of Rafa Gets Bamboozled: he gets SCAMMED out of his soul bc this kind-looking dude that reminds him of alexei promises to help him figure out his unfinished business but just straight up steals his soul instead

so sorry to that man... i know i did this to him but at least i’m sorry abt it

THE PERSONALITY !

GAY. big gay. yes this is a personality trait

usually Gruff and Not Fun but like... can u blame him damn

he does have a heart underneath it all but every time he’s attempted to have a connection with someone it’s ended in disaster so he’s not really trying to do that anymore :/

absolutely not a fan of opening up to anyone for any reason ever. if he had ever gone to college i think he would’ve physically fought his orientation leader for like... asking where he’s from SDGDSLKJG

sarcasm and dry wit r the name of the game babey. if u catch him making a pun the rafa u know is dead and gone ( for real this time )

in conclusion he needs to be loved

congrats u made it through the chaos ! now it’s time to plot xoxo

[jordanrosenburg]

Big Mouth Season 3 - Very Much Still Important

Review of Season 2 and 1 , major spoilers ahead

Alright, I finished watching season 3 the other day, and I have to say bravo to the writers, because they always manage to leave us wanting more. What truly awaits these pre-teens this summer? I’m happy that they’re done with seventh grade, but will the next season be about summer vacation, or will we get to see them go right into eighth grade? There’s been news of a spin off about the world the hormone monsters live in, will that be what holds us over until season 4?

Right from the first episode, I knew it was going to be a good season. The show continues to have a good balance between what is happening to both girls and boys at this age. I remember being in the seventh grade, and second guessing every single fashion choice I made. I didn’t really have a figure until ninth grade, but there were other girls that were already blossoming, and I felt self-conscious. Was I pretty enough? Am I frumpy? Is my hair too frizzy?

This season did another great job of showing not only what boys are going through at this age, but also the girls. Because the boys can’t control themselves, and because no one tells them to, the girls are forced into an absurd dress code by this scum bag:

I think we have all had a Mr. Lizer in our lives at some point. The guy who comes off as nice and caring is really just misogynistic and creepy. He mutters under his breath about he hates the girls, especially Jessi. Not to mention that he made Lola think the foot rub was all on her. At 13 of course she would think, how would she know any better? What he did was disgusting and wrong, and I’m glad he got fired. 

I’m proud of the girls for taking their bodies back. It was brave of them to take a stand and show that the dress code was stupid. They may not have done it in the best way, but they still proved a point. 

Nick and Andrew are a topic I’d like to discuss. We’ve know since season 1 that these boys have been best friends for a long time. We also know that they’ve been growing apart since season 1. Andrew was the first to go through the hormonal change, and Nick was left to catch up. In season 2 Nick went through three different hormone monsters while trying to figure things out with a girl he liked. Andrew stayed hung up on Missy, and somehow got involved with Lola, which just messed up everything else for him. He slowly started to realize that he was becoming a lot like his father. This season Nick got obsessed with his phone, and even though Andrew made many attempts to talk and hang out, he realized that Nick really is just a douchebag. They had their seasonal fight, and instead of becoming friends again, Andrew expressed how he really felt. Nick stopped being there for him. I don’t think Andrew is in the right, but he did recognize that their friendship had become toxic, and enough was enough. 

The only time Nick was there for Andrew this season was when Andrew started to lust after his cousin. I’ll say it - that shit was messed up. I was grossed out that they went there, but this could be some real shit that boys go through, idk. And Nick kind of encouraged it and didn’t at the same time. The whole thing was weird. 

Nick was wrestling with the fact that Jay was basically living in his house. That’s a major change to go through. He also betrayed Andrew by kissing Missy, and then lying about it. Andrew doesn’t own Missy, and she can do whatever she wants, but neither one of them thought about how the kiss would hurt the people around them. And then when Nick realized he didn’t like her like, he just cast her aside. 

Missy went through a lot this season too. She finally got a hormone monstress.

Side note, did anyone else feel sad that Connie didn’t say bubble bath once this season? No one else? Okay, moving on. This new monstress pushes Missy out of her comfort zone. Missy is able to keep some of her boundaries, but something about acting in that play opened something up for her. I loved when her and Jay wrote the fan fiction together. I can’t remember when I first started reading fic, may have been in seventh or eighth grade, and I always thought it was weird thing for me to like. Then I had mentioned it to a friend in ninth grade, and she’s still my best friend ten years later! I was happy to see that Jay didn’t make Missy feel weird or ashamed. I wished we could’ve seen more of this new friendship. AND Missy was the one to get the uniforms disbanded by wearing her same old clothes. I hope she’s able to find a balance with her newfound self. 

And poor Jay, he is one of the funniest characters on this show. You never know what he’s going to say, but it’s usually obscene. I lost it when he said something like, “my balls are going to shit”. 

We get another close look at Jay’s home life. His family leaves him at home for spring break, and he tries to not let it bother him. He embraces Nick’s family, and becomes a better person by living with them. They discover that he has ADHD and just needed aderol. Unfortunately, Jay sells his medication to his friends, which makes him go back to the way he was. TAKE YOUR MEDS MY FRIENDS! Jay eventually goes back home, and shows what he can add to his family, and they finally accept him. Jay too also comes to terms with his sexuality, and discloses to everyone that he’s bisexual, and he’s okay with it. But no one takes him seriously. He has a heart to heart with the new girl Ali, who told everyone she was pansexual. I know Andrew Goldberg has apologized with how he went about this, but I’m just gonna say that Ali came on a little too strong. All sexualities and gender are valid, periodt. 

Jay also called out his friends for fetishizing the fact that it’s “hot” that Ali likes everyone, but it’s not as cool when he comes out as bisexual. He felt hurt and unvalidated. We see you Jay! 

Now it’s time for our girl Jessi. 

This girl CANNOT catch a fucking break. I was happy to see her figure her body out. That can be straight up awkward, and it can make you want to give up. I love how they showed it with a water rapid, good use of metaphor. And she has been such a good friend to Matthew, covering for him with Adrian. But who is there for Jessi? At one point it was her, Andrew, and Nick, and one of them said, “At least we have each other. Virgins til college”. At that age I can see how that might be a bad thing, but I know a lot of people who were virgins in college. They didn’t graduate that way, but they came in that way. That was the most I saw of the three of them really interact this season. It’s crazy that these last three seasons are all things that happened over the course of a school year. 

I need space to say, I am fucking done with Jessi’s mom. Jessi has been more than gracious with letting her mom become who she is. Shannon should be able to explore, and it’s okay that she got divorced, but she has not gone about anything in a good way, and now she’s just starting to be selfish. When Jessi hears her mother orgasm, is it hilarious for us as the audience, of course, but as a 13 year old girl, I would be so mad and mortified. Not only does Jessi have to deal with Shannon and Cantor Dina breaking up, but her dad has begun to see someone new, and now her mom wants to fucking move?! I would have been so pissed off. Again, Shannon should be able to live her life, but she has a young daughter. Couldn’t she wait to go to the city until Jessi is at least in high school? College? Why not let Greg move back in to live in the house with Jessi? 

Jessi comes to terms with it at the end of the season, and I think that’s really big of her. I’ll be sad if she ends up getting uprooted. That damn depression kitty needs to leave her alone too. Not one of her friends bothered to check on her about it either, and Nick and Andrew knew she was depressed! That shit doesn’t just go away. 

THE FAB FIVE

I was living, henny! I didn’t know which episode they would be in, but this was just amazing. I am so glad they all made voice cameos for this. JVN stole the show of course, and it was so funny to hear they all swear. When Bobby went off about how little the other guys do while he did a whole “fucking” room renovation??? HE WAS RIGHT AND HE SAID IT! And the bird noises Antoni made??? Incredible. Would have loved to see him shrieking into the microphone. I do think the funniest line was when JVN said, “the dumb ones pound the hardest, henny”. I fucking died. They really lightened the mood, and what a great redemption for coach Steve! I am so glad he got his job back. 

There are many other things to get into with this season, but what I’d like to end on is that the kids really grew up. People don’t stay friends forever. I had friends in middle school that I did not stay friends with in high school. Even high school I didn’t keep the same friends. Obviously we want to see these kids make things work, but I still think it was very grown up of Andrew to tell Nick he forgave him but didn’t want to be friends anymore. I think when we’re kids we stay friends with people, or keep ourselves in certain situations because we want to be around cool people. I’m very curious to see where this show takes us in season 4. They all went through a lot, and 7th grade really is the most awkward year of them all. So who knows, maybe 8th grade will be better. They’ll have had a whole year of new hormones under their belts. What do y’all think is in store for our friends next? 

[luminisvii]

anyway i’ve been playing three houses on maddening lately because i hate myself, and i also hated looking at tier lists that put some characters who are actually quite bad for high difficulty up top, i made my own tier list of suggested feth characters for if you do a maddening run. this is really just so i can scream about what characters i think are best (spoiler alert: it’s lysithea)

so, here we go, tell’s three houses tier list!

disclaimer: based on personal experience, not all characters have been used on maddening, but i have played the game like... eight times. on my ninth run. so i have some pretty decent data on majority of the characters. 

tier is determined by how easy a character is to use, how much investment they require, and stat growths. crests+relics also influence this, since people who can use relics effectively are better. the game tells me not to judge based on crests, but come on! 

lords are not included, jeritza is also not because he’s CF post skip exclusive, but come on, we all know where he’d place anyway

the real tier list is this: if you’re playing on normal or hard, literally anyone is fine. follow your heart. invest in who you like. on maddening, you unfortunately need to be a little more discerning. and sometimes, you just get rng screwed, even with the best, so rip lmao 

TOP TIER (FOR COOL KIDS ONLY)

-lysithea: the coolest kid, doesn’t need a bed time. obvious bc her spell list and stats and access to relic are great. also look at her. shes bappy. she says so herself in her support with cyril (the only valid cyril support) all jokes aside, she can go down the basic mage line and mow down anyone who comes within her insane range. she also does well as a valkyrie, but with the speed penalty, i don’t recommend her staying in the class for long. just get uncanny blow! then hades will never miss! 

-felix: he may be a shadow the hedgehog motherfucker but he has one important thing that shadow doesnt: crest of fraldarius. i guess shadow has a gun, though. felix is just straightforward gameplay baby. you send him at something and it dies. go crest boy go!

-mercedes: im legally obligated to put mercie in here because of her personal, her crest, and fortify. although restore is also super neat! miss mercie is just plain reliable as a healer. easily goes through the priest line to gremory.

-balthus: extremely helpful early game, doesn’t fall off later either. his personal skill of str/def +6 when below half health means he can either straightforwardly tank or just punch shit so hard it doesn’t have a chance to strike back. also gets a relic, healing focus, and a major crest that allows him to heal, so he’s a one man army. he does one thing really well and that’s use his fists to liquefy his opponents. also gets rally strength if you care about that. my favorite strategy with him is to let the damn poison strike archers knock his health down and then just go to town, combined with vantage for REAL fun. forget war monk, this guy should just go to war master

-sylvain: this little slut will join you if you’ve got boobs so he’s real handy to have around. plus he’s got some great qualities: flexible, strong, free relic, and maybe kinda hot i guess. you could make him a paladin, but you should give him a giant lizard. he can basically become any of the master classes with ease, although i would not recommend putting him into magic classes that much unless you wanna do a wholly mage sylvie build. will still perform just fine as a dark mage even without dedicated magery. but seriously, dragon

-petra: you want crit??? you got crit!!! this little lady can not only crit like hell but also dodge tank really well. i had fun making her a falcoknight once and just watching her line it all up and tear it all down. petra is reliable and stronk and also horrible to fight against so just. recruit her, please

-constance: entirely here because of bolting. for the low price of her reason being A you can nuke enemies from across the map. while you could make her the canon class of dark flier, i for one think the warlock line is better, because that’s four uses of bolting and even more if her crest activates. she also has a similar statline to lysithea and hits like a truck with other spells, and with bolting can supply long range support, so really, what’s not to love? the rest of her spells are good too. i go for gremory over dark flier bc while the mobility is great, x4 bolting is even better. 

PRETTY GOOD TIER

-ingrid: extremely reliable, only down here instead of in the cool kids category bc her strength kinda sucks. i love ingrid though! she’s got a gambit gimmick and a crest+relic! ingrid with the chalice is super funny and i highly recommend it. i watched her fucking OWN every single siege tome user like that

-ignatz: some will say he sucks. some would argue his utility as a debuffer and rallybot. i will argue this ungodly crit. ignatz is a very luck man, blessed with great opportunities and a base crit value beyond any other. the little man will strike you down in the name of the goddess before you even know what’s going on. with a little help his strength will match the others and if you slap as much crit up on him as possible then it’ll never end. ignatz could be a one man army if he could crit more than one person at once. unfortunately he’s stuck to one divine judgment at a time. you can either use his 55% luck growth and archer level dex to gamble on a high crit rate, or you can stack his personal with another hit +20 to basically never miss anything. if you play deer, this man is a must.

-hilda: the usual, a crest, a relic, good times, a nice personal, but also like. she slaps. in general. pretty sick with an axe but works nicely as almost any physical class (i haven’t tried sword, though) because she naturally goes down the warrior line she can get some real fun times going. or just give her a lizard! women love swarms of lizards. she is a delicate little flower who will end a motherfucker

-ferdinand: fairly reliable as a cavalier class, and comes with some natural dodge tanky capability and access to seteth’s spear of assal and ochain shield which make him restore health like crazy and his personal will stay on. also a counter attack block is nice! he’s got some nice combat arts too. just a pretty straightforward cavalier. good times

-seteth: and while we’re on the crest of cichol, seteth is gonna make sure you never raise a finger against him again. you won’t survive. the only prepromote i use. he has good base stats, good growths, and he just does really well at what he does! he may come in a little late but he’s strong as fuck and is shredded. i tend to favor him over ferdie for the cichol linked items, but also i’m biased towards this anxiety dad, so take that as you will

-marianne: she tends to get left out of the healer talks because like most of the deer, she’s kind of weird. i will make an argument for her. what she lacks in utility she makes up for sheer raw power. while her crest won’t be of much use until very late and even then her sword prowess is not what you should be using her for, her spell list is all high power and she also comes with easy access to silence, which can nicely stall for some time against powerful mage enemies. she also gets a heal to herself if she’s standing next to an animal since all her friends are horses. still kinda slow as most healers are and not as much of a res tank, but a formidable edition nonetheless. blutgang is a good pinch hitter relic as well

-caspar: like most gauntlet users, caspar is good at one thing: punching. he is just really good at it. he’s perfectly geared towards being a war master. and he’ll perform that very well. he gets healing focus as one of his arts, so he can run off on his own if he wants. solidly reliable, will work at just. punching. go short king!

-yuri: the man’s utility is unrivaled. he’d go top tier if it weren’t for the fact that he’s got unreliable strength/magic growths. he could go either way as a physical attacker or a mage, but he naturally fits well in the assassin class along with trickster, and even dancer if you like (i’m trying that and honestly the male dancer animation is so sad. like. why can’t you put as much energy into it as the women.) but this man can go. hes fast. he’ll fuck you up

-hubert: while not as hard hitting as lysithea, the man still fucks things up with dark magic like she does. he lacks her double crests but he makes up for it by still smacking people’s nuts clean off and with the added bonus of range and debuffs dark magic provides. even better, you can make him a dark mage/bishop! however points off because they won’t let me stack fiendish blow. love u vampire man!!! unfortunately locked to CF so rip.

NICE TIER: 

-lorenz: i adore him but hes a little unreliable as things go. in house, hes the better paladin than leonie, and his personal grants him a nice damage bonus with a battalion. lorenz shines as a dark knight the most, he has a heavy hitting spell list and if you really want to, thyrsus is technically his relic even though everyone puts it on lysithea! i really like him and he can perform really well but unfortunately like most of the deer he is Weird and this can put him in strange places with his growths. tis a cruel world, being a lorenz stan!

-dorothea: also suffers from strange statline. for some reason they’re pushing sword with her. honestly, because she’s outperformed by other mages, even on black eagles i tend to put her into dancer and kinda forget about her. she has quite a bit in heavy hitting spells and her personal skill grants a very nice mini heal to people around her, but honestly, i usually favor lysithea over her. she functions best as pure support but can still pull through on the offense. sadly, the competition is really rough.

-ashe: does his job, and does it well. not as heavy of a hitter as some of his fellow archers, but still good nonetheless, and has access to deadeye for extra range (although don’t count on it on maddening). his personal means he can unlock things no matter what class he’s in, so you can focus on others! i personally think that, you guessed it, he should get a giant lizard.

-annette: she does well, sadly outperformed by other house mages. functions as a rallybot and gets crusher if you care about that. i missed crusher completely in my first lions run, whoops, and then in my second one i had constance so uh. sorry, annette! she’s so very sweet, but her spell list has her down here.

-leonie: im hiding before the leonie stans get me. sure, like sylvain, she has his ability and shared flexibility for any class, but unlike sylvain she lacks power, a crest, and a relic. i see people keep arguing that she’s a massive damage dealer, but i honestly never see it. she falls off damage wise really quick, even if she’s got more than enough speed to deal with it. she’s basically just a lamer sylvain or ingrid without the crest abilities that those two have to make them stronger. what? the game keeps TELLING me crest = bad but as far as i can tell, all the best characters have one! on maddening GD, she’ll be good at first, but she’ll drop.

-dedue: i would rank this man higher since i simply adore him but he’s SUPER difficult for me to use. his defense is unrivaled, this man will flinch at nothing, but his speed is almost always shit and he tends to get nuked from orbit by mages. i love him, i really do, but man he can be a lot to manage. he does really well early game but can’t keep up. which is a shame, i really like him :(

-flayn: she has quite a bit of capability with rescue and fortify, and her major crest means her healing is even more potent. however she’s a little slow, extremely fragile, joins low leveled after you’ve already invested in a different healer, and is not very strong. she IS a res tank, though, and learns seal magic, which adds to her res tanking capability. she also synergizes with the caduceus staff, so she can be very self sufficient, and hit from farther away! flayn does very well. the major penalty is a lackluster spell list and significant investment buy in.

-hapi: she’s… weird. i like hapi quite a bit but she’s got it worse than lorenz in terms of stat growth. her personal ability makes her an extreme aggro target for monsters and she can’t even avoid their attacks, and the bonus damage it grants unfortunately isn’t better than fellow DLC mage constance, who hits harder just out of sheer momentum. for having a healing crest, she doesn’t have a particularly interesting white magic line. her dark magic grants her utility similar to hubert, but she’s slower and can’t quite strike like he does. sadly miss hapi has to be down here. id like to put her higher but boy did she struggle

-raphael: well, he’ll do his job. he’s only beat by caspar since caspar has a little bit better tools at his disposal, but they’re basically the same character. raph will do very good at punching the living shit out of things. starts off better than caspar, but unfortunately in my current run i have balthus so raph had to get benched

YOU CAN DO BETTER TIER

-bernadetta: she’ll work alright, but only with lots of attention, and her personal doesn’t seem to make up the difference. for a sniper she seems to have far less hit than her rivals in ashe and ignatz, especially since ignatz makes him more reliable. her crest doesn’t actually grant her much since it has such a low trigger rate and by the time it does work she probably already can double. also she gains no levels between pre and post skip which is hilarious but like. HELLO? ive also been told she has the worst starting stats. personally, i only use her on BE runs. i know she’s a popular character and a lot of people rank her highly for persecution complex and the fact that she learns both encloser and deadeye, but deadeye is unreliable in maddening and she’s a lot of work to keep up with the others.

-cyril: he can become a killer, he honestly does really well, but he starts so far behind you need to invest a significant amount into him. i don’t recall him having a particularly stellar combat art line either, but if you choose to put in all the work of catching the kid up, he will do well. but it’s not worth it most of the time. i use him on church route runs bc it feels right. on other runs, you’ll already have someone who fits his niche--the guy becomes a wyvern rider, and the likes of sylvain can do much better in this line.

-linhardt: kind of a shittier flayn, without fortify or rescue. lackluster spell list for both black and white, and terrible growths. he’ll do fine if you play eagles, but if you’re going to import a healer, mercie or flayn is the better option. 

-anna: oh lord, anna is difficult. her offensive stats are horrendous. flayn hits harder than her. with her unique stat line, inability to get supports, weakness in authority, and all around just odd set up, anna is not a reliable character and you should use yuri instead. they’ve basically got the same crest.

DIDN’T USE SO NO OPINION TIER: 

-hanneman

-manuela (heard she’s not good anyway)

-alois

-gilbert

-catherine

-shamir

(yes there’s a trend to this which is past FEs have trained me away from using prepromotes!)

and there we go! im still biased towards GD but the characters who do best are the ones who have a clear class line to follow and a statline that matches it. 

[the-minyard-twins]

Andreil Fic Rec

I’ve always wanted to do a fic rec so here we are! I’ve read a lot of Andreil recently and these are my top 28 favorite Andreil and AFTG fics

1. Trust Fall (And Welcoming Arms) by SpangleBangle

85k | Explicit

Life goes on after the Foxes win the championship, and for Andrew and Neil it’s uncharted territory with only each other for guides. Maybe it’s time to put away some of those hard edges, and learn how to touch more softly, and speak more honestly. And if they falter, they have their family to help them get back on their feet.

2. Learning To Feel (When You’ve Forgotten How) by thegirlwiththeprettybrowneyes

43k | Teen | No Proust AU

On the night before his first day of therapy at Easthaven, Andrew blows out his legs and decides he isn’t going to bury his feelings anymore, consequences be damned. In return, he gets a schedule change, and a very strange new therapist. /////// “Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t blow you,” Andrew finished, looking anywhere but at Neil’s face. Neil looked like he had just realized the sky was blue. “You like me,” Andrew sighed. “Yeah,” he said, resigned “Yeah, Neil, I like you,” /////// No Proust AU

3. Broken by Jeni182

34k | Explicit

Andrew attempts suicide and he and Neil try to navigate his recovery and healing together.

4. Waves by Jeni182 (sequel to Broken)

94k | Explicit

Broken Part II - Neil and Andrew try to navigate life post Andrew’s suicide attempt now that he’s in Denver and Neil’s in his last year at PSU.

5. Funky Happenings with the Fox Family by dobbypussypopper

29k | Teen | text!fic

naughtygayweedcrime: did I rlly just see neil say woke

naughtygayweedcrime: what a surreal timeline we live in

dumbfool: allison is trying to teach me how to meme so I can get hip

naughtygayweedcrime: bless your poor soul

davidwymack: sometimes I regret living

davidwymack has muted exyllent, damnwilds, + 7 others for 30 minutes

6. Something in Return by reaching _my_summit

31k | Mature

“Andrew Minyard, how will you celebrate winning your final college Exy championship?”

“I’m going to Disney World,” Andrew deadpans.

- - -

Andrew’s final year at Palmetto State comes to a close. His future is upon him and there are plans to be made. Years ago, Neil asked Andrew to stop smoking in exchange for something. Andrew finally knows what he wants in return.

7. The Unloved Kids by AlrightDarlin

35k | Not Rated

“I intend to treat them the same. I need strong athletes, not toddlers,” Wymack starts, but sits back with a sigh, running a hand over his face. “But hypothetically, if I had to look after a bunch of toddlers on the weekends…”

Betsy’s eyes crinkle with her smile. “Are you asking advice?”

“They’re screwed up enough,” Wymack says, “I’m not trying to make it worse.”

(David Wymack takes his little nightmares and does his best to corral them and love them within an inch of their lives. He can’t change what happened to them, but he can be there for them now.)

8. Turn it Off by elawless

10k | Mature

“It hurts…so much…too…much” He choked out between breaths. “I want to let go so…bad. I am so close”. He lifted his head to look at Andrew and saw no blue in his eyes and believed Andrew was real, but the rest of the pain was. It was just enough for him to trust Andrew with what he would say next.

“Stay. Give me Neil back. Don’t leave.” Andrew could no longer cover all of his desperation, his voice seemed to crack on the last word.

“Just let me turn it off. Just for today. Neil will come back. Bring him back, for the both of you.”

9. VW Actually Means “Very Weird” by exyjunkies

15k | Gen

If it was just going to be the two of us, then why bring the Volkswagen?

So that if I end up murdering you on this road trip, I’ll have enough space for clean-up.

Neil and Andrew take on the Pacific Coast Highway over the span of two and a half weeks, with a surprise for one of them at the very end.

10. Puzzle Pieces by Nikotheamazingspoonklepto

59k | Explicit | Series

Neil’s life is a puzzle, the people in it are the pieces that give everything meaning. Together they make a picture of happiness.

11. diet mountain dew by reaching_my_summit

2k | Teen

neil thinks andrew is very pretty. he tells andrew exactly that.

12. For Science by ClockworkDragon, DeyaAmaya

8k | Explicit

“Here’s what I propose: we’ll play a game, and I’ll even let you pick which one, but we’re going to set some stakes. I’m not going to let you talk big and walk away free of punishment if you lose.” Without hesitating, Kevin asked, “Fine, I choose Trivial Pursuit. What are the stakes?” Allison put a finger to her lips and tilted her head, as if she was actually thinking of a response and didn’t plan this whole thing days ago. “Hmm, did you know the spirit store recently added fox themed thigh-high socks to their stock? They’ve become quite popular amongst cheerleaders.” This statement seemed to throw Kevin off because he just stared blankly at Allison until she continued. Andrew was not, however, an idiot. He could see where this was going. “How about whoever loses has to wear the socks for an entire school day; including morning and evening practices?” “Holy shit,” Nicky whispered. “You are one devious bitch.” Allison winked.

13. ain’t no rest for the wicked by dearhappy

8k | Teen | Lucifer!AU

“You really expect me to believe that?“ Neil asks, "Especially when his girlfriend said that he’d always been worried about what you’d ask for in return, and that he called you the Devil.”

“I don’t lie,” Andrew says simply. “You can think whatever you want.”

“Why was he so worried if that was all it was?”

“He made a deal with the Devil,” Andrew says, “Tell me you wouldn’t be worried about that.”

14. Not Damsels, not Knights by my_unlikely_hero

93k | Mature

Neil is not a damsel, Andrew is not a knight, Riko is not a dragon. Nobody gets saved. Not really.

Or: Riko goes too far, and Neil is left in pieces.

15. The Continuing Adventures of the Nine-Nine by gluupor

48k | Gen | Series | Brooklyn 99!AU

A series of short, ridiculous, mostly plotless stories featuring the Foxes as the cops of the Ninety-Ninth Precinct.

16.  Not Only You and Me by orphan_account (part of a series)

18k | Explicit | Porn!AU

Andrew, Neil and Kevin film Foxy’s first gay threesome porn scene.

Cue the feelings.

17. High School Science by fuzzballsheltipants

30k | Teen/Explicit (parts 1-3 are Teen and part 4 is Explicit) | Series 

High School!AU

18. False Equivalence by sunrise_and_death

22k | Teen

Some part of her had known it would come back to Neil. He was the one who had cracked the twins the first time. Of anyone, he was the most likely to have a solution for this as well.

Although the events of the previous year resolved a lot of issues, Katelyn quickly discovers that not every problem has been addressed. As she attempts to map a future in which Aaron has both her and his family, she finds herself once again working with Neil Josten—to unexpected results.

19. trans andrew by aceaaronminyard, autisitcandrewminyard

30k | Explicit | trans!Andrew

a fanfic series for a tfc au where andrew minyard wasn’t registered into the system as andrew doe but as erin doe.

mostly set post-tkm. mostly porn.

20. Advice and Amusement by Autumnalhogwarts

11k | Teen

After a series of failed attempts to woo Renee, Allison turns to Andrew for help. As Renee’s best guy friend he’s in a unique position to offer advice. However, that doesn’t mean he’ll be willing to.

21. Kidnapped by Shell_Writes

21k | Explicit

Neil and Aaron get kidnapped by four deranged men while the team is on a camping trip. shit happens and they have to escape this horror house. together.

22. Return of Dad!Mack by SensationalSunburst

14k | Gen | Series

Dad!Wymack & Mom!Abby

23. For He’s A Jolly Good Felon by gluupor

4k | Teen | Felon!Neil

What’s a guy to do when he’s forced to go to his conservative, homophobic aunt and uncle’s for Thanksgiving dinner?

Why, invite along his ex-con, tattooed, argumentative roommate as his fake boyfriend, of course.

24. make my heart shake (bend and break) by WaifsandStrays

4k | Explicit

Aaron develops a fascination with Kevin’s dick, has a sexuality crisis and feelings and fails to process any of it.

25. Across the Water by transandrewminyard

13k | Teen | trans!Andreil

Perhaps several years too late, or maybe right on time, Neil Josten runs away from home and tries to dream a new life for himself. How poetic that his first night out on his own would deliver him to a stranger who seems to understand everything he’s been through, and then some?

26. Prompt: Andrew and Neil get to babysit Sophie by orphan_account

14k | Mature | part of a series

What it says on the tin, basically.

Aaron and Matt leave for a few days and ask Andrew and Neil to babysit Sophie. Baby-sized exy is involved. Also lots and lots of angst. But there is a happy ending!

27. Salt Bros and Roller Derby Vixens by moonix

14k | Teen | Series

Roller Derby!AU

28. Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder by priorwalter

12k | Teen | Felon!Neil, Author!Andrew

“So,” Neil asks as he washes his paint-covered hands in the kitchen sink, “Christmas.”

Andrew glares and says nothing. This year, Neil and Andrew are spending Christmas with Andrew’s brother, Aaron Minyard. Aaron Minyard, Andrew’s twin whose existence was unknown to him until two months previous. Aaron Minyard, an orthopedic surgeon with a wife (an oncologist, naturally) and two daughters. Aaron Minyard, who grew up with a mother that chose him.

**

Andrew Doe has survived until age twenty-nine without any biological family, and his life turned out pretty good, considering all of the reasons it shouldn’t have. At age twenty-nine, Andrew’s book becomes a bestseller and leads his long-lost twin brother to him. Familial drama ensues.

[artificialqueens]

Queen of Hearts (Branjie)- athena2

A/N: So this is based off a writing prompt that @writworm42 shared on tumblr: After coming home from a failed date, you find a stranger drinking and sitting on your sofa. With an annoyed expression, the stranger explains that he’s cupid and he’s about to get fired because of your inability to get a second date.

So here it is! Thank you writ for sharing this and beta-ing! Hope you enjoy!

Any feedback would be amazing!

It’s almost midnight when Brooke’s ballet-toned legs get her up seven flights of stairs and through her apartment door. She heaves a deep sigh, wanting nothing more than a shower to wash that disaster of a date–the ninth this month, and by far the biggest failure–right off her body.

She can still feel the woman’s wine-chilled hand on hers, a hand Brooke had shrugged off immediately after the woman said something mean about her friend Nina, Brooke escaping to the bathroom and calling a Lyft a minute later.

Her bag thuds on the floor, her heels quickly following, and she throws her black jacket on the kitchen table, the tension in her shoulders going with it. She’ll get these clothes off and then maybe have some ice cream–

Brooke stares hard into her living room, blinking once, twice, three times, to make sure this is real.

There’s a woman on her couch.

—

She was seven and unwilling for her first kiss. One of the boys in her class ran up to her and shoved his lips against hers during recess, and Brooke didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all. Her skin was itchy, like bugs were crawling over her, for the whole day.

That was the first time she thought something was wrong with her.

—

“Who are–what–who the fuck are you?” Brooke demands.

The woman has her thigh-high black boots propped up on the coffee table like she owns the place. She’s sprawled out among the pillows, her red silk dress popping against Brooke’s tan couch and with just enough of a deep-V to let Brooke’s imagination run wild. Nestled on either side of her are two balls of fur–Brooke’s cats. She took her cats? The thought vanishes as she notices the woman’s wide, red lips that, Brooke admits, look very kissable. The woman pulls something from a bag on her lap and crunches loudly, chasing it with a gulp of wine right from the half-empty bottle.

“That’s my good wine,” Brooke moans, distracted. “And those are my chocolate-covered pretzels! And my cats!”

“Sorry about the wine, but you kinda owe me. I’mma lose my job ‘cause of you. And the cats jumped right on me, I couldn’t get ‘em off.”

What the actual fuck is going on? Did she hit her head or something? Brooke frantically probes her skull, hoping to find a bump that can explain this all away. “How could I-I don’t even know who you are!”

The woman stands up, setting the bottle on the coffee table with no consideration of a coaster. “Right. I’m Cupid.”

—

Her second kiss was wrapped in the unholy awkwardness of a middle-school dance, when another boy pulled her into the corner and stared at her like she was under a microscope. There was a lot of fumbled groping and foot-shuffling, and then his lips covered hers and she was choking on a cloud of cologne before she could even think if she wanted it. And she still didn’t like it, but she told her friends she did because she didn’t want them to think there was something wrong with her.

Though Brooke was almost certain there was at that point.

—

Okay, she definitely hit her head somewhere. Or maybe she’s high. Did she eat anything weird today? She managed an apple for breakfast and half a salad for lunch before worry over the date devoured the remains of her appetite. Could you get high without knowing?

“I’m sorry, what?” Brooke bites out. “Cupid?”

“Well, Cupid’s just a title, my name’s really Vanessa-”

“I don’t care what your name is! Why the hell are you in my apartment?”

Cupid–Vanessa–whatever her name is–holds up her hands. “Look, I can explain this. Please sit down. Please.”

Brooke finds herself listening, armchair sinking under her weight as Vanessa reclaims her couch position. If Vanessa truly is–and Brooke can’t even believe she’s going along with this–Cupid, maybe she has some sort of power. Some sort of power that’s making Brooke want to listen to every word formed by those lips. Some sort of power that’s making it hard to take her eyes off Vanessa, making her stomach do backflips as Vanessa fixes her wavy hair.

“I could call the police, you know,” Brooke says.

“You could,” Vanessa agrees cheerfully. “But I don’t think you’re going to.”

Brooke is silent. “You better talk,” she warns finally.

—

Brooke was 16 when she realized that she did want to be kissed–she just didn’t want those lips attached to a boy. Not that it made things any easier in the kissing department. She would stare at the lips of the girls in her class, covered with a rainbow of lipsticks and sparkly, sticky, glosses, wondering how they would feel against hers.

But wonder was all she ever did.

—

Vanessa finishes the bottle and starts talking. “Right. So, I’m a Cupid. There’s a whole group of us, love messengers, try to find a match for people, you know the drill.”

“And what does that have to do with me?”

Vanessa shoots her a fiery glance as if to say, this has everything to do with you, bitch.

“You have no idea, girl. None. We’ve been trying to get you a match for years, Mary. People that are harder to match are worth higher points, so us Cupids been fighting to be the one that matches you for a long time.”

Brooke crosses her arms. “So, you’re telling me I’m so unmatchable the love messengers of the universe are fighting over me to get a fucking promotion?”

This isn’t real. There is no way this is real. Any second now she’s going to wake up in bed. But it somehow makes sense. All the bars Nina had dragged her to, all the girls Brooke had noticed that somehow, as if by magic, came up to her and asked her out. All the instant yeses she’d given. But obviously it wasn’t working, given the creeping out of various beds each morning after, not even taking their numbers, because she just didn’t like any of them enough for a relationship.

“Well, not totally like that, but yeah.” Vanessa’s face softens. “Look, I’m desperate here. I don’t normally make house visits, but my ass is on the line, bitch. My numbers this quarter are lower than ever and you were my last chance. We dropped getting you a match and just went to getting you a second date. My friends Silky and A’Keria gave up already. Even the top dog Yvie gave up after that date last week with the boring-ass insurance lady. I’m the only one still fighting for you. I had until tomorrow to get you a second date and now I’m gonna get canned.”

“They were all you,” Brooke breathes. “All those dates…”

“Yeah, I sent you 8–no 9, that was tonight, I can tell from your face it was a shitshow–9 damn women this month and you wouldn’t go on a second date with a single one of them! I mean, that lady with the ear fetish was kinda creepy, but they weren’t all that bad!”

Vanessa shoves a handful of pretzels in her mouth and keeps up a scowl while she chews.

“So none of those people actually liked me?” Maybe she really is unmatchable. Maybe she’s just plain unlovable, even though Nina’s told her several times that’s not true. But how can it not be true when Cupid can’t even find her someone she wants to hold at night and kiss in the morning and laugh with?

Vanessa bolts up. “No, no, they did! I didn’t explain that, shit, I’m sorry. I don’t want you to have any self-steam issues. We don’t force you to love the first person you see and we don’t make people love each other. That’s messed-up. No, we help people that like each other say it. They wanted to ask you out, believe me. I just gave the push to make it happen.”

Thoughts are moving so fast she thinks her head might catch on fire. “Can you, um, give me a minute?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Brooke runs to the bathroom, hoping cold water can stop the furious heat in her cheeks every time she looks at Vanessa.

—

She was 21 when she kissed a girl for the first time, buried in homework and fueled by coffee, as 2 am came and went. And for the first time, she liked it. She knew that this was how a kiss was supposed to feel, and she went back for several more, finally knowing what it was like to kiss someone you wanted to kiss. But something was still missing.

It made her warm inside, made her face flush, made her happy, but it didn’t have that spark like kisses always did in the movies.

She’s yet to have a kiss that did.

—

She pats her face with a towel and lets her deep breaths fill the bathroom.

So Vanessa has been helping women that liked Brooke ask her out, hoping to get her a second date. But something–it was probably Brooke’s fault, these things always were–wasn’t letting it happen.

Brooke thinks of all her dates this month–dinners, mostly, a couple bar trips, all except tonight ending with an inevitable finale in the bedroom. She sweated and fidgeted through small talk, trying to make herself more interesting than the Brooke whose idea of a good night was pizza and a season of Schitt’s Creek with her cats. She enjoyed herself in the bedroom, always did, but she knew, as her date slept and she lay awake, Brooke never able to sleep with someone next to her, that it wasn’t enough for her to do this with them again.

Brooke needed her personal space and solitude and was all but sure before each date started that she would still have it the next day. She knew it would have to be a very special woman for her to allow inside her safe little world, and she had all but given up on finding her, one-night stands her way to fill the void and give her some company for a while. But now, Vanessa was going to be fired if Brooke couldn’t get herself a second date by tomorrow, and she didn’t know why, but she really didn’t want Vanessa to get fired. Vanessa’s been fighting for her all this time. It’s not fair that she should be punished for Brooke’s issues, and she should apologize at least.

“You fall in the toilet or somethin’? I’m already getting fired, I don’t need people thinking I murdered you too!” Vanessa yells and Brooke actually laughs out loud, her snort a sound she hasn’t heard much lately.

She heads back to the living room with a smile on her face.

“You’re dedicated, huh?” Brooke asks, sitting back down. “I mean, you’ve been working on me a while.”

Vanessa shrugs. She’d opened another bottle of wine while Brooke was gone and sips slowly. “Yeah, I guess. Silky gave up a while ago. A’Keria gave up after your 3rd date this month. They told me I was an idiot. They’ve been roasting both our asses since the summer. Calling us “Cupid and the Unmatchable” like we a damn rom-com. They even started the office bet on whether I was gonna get you a second date or not. But everyone deserves love. You too, Brooke.” Her name tumbles from Vanessa’s lips for the first time and Brooke’s heart skips a beat and she doesn’t even care how Vanessa learned it.

“Just makes me happy to see people happy, you know?” Vanessa continues. “Helping people love each other? It’s nice.”

Brooke nods. “Do you, um, love anyone?”

Vanessa takes a deep gulp of wine. “Nah. I’ve been trying. Can’t seem to make anything last past the night.”

“Seems like we have the same problem.”

Vanessa grins and passes the bottle to Brooke wordlessly. Their fingers brush and Brooke’s whole arm jolts like she’s been electrocuted, bottle almost tumbling to the floor.

“Whoa,” Vanessa gasps, jumping back. “You felt that too?”

Brooke can only nod. She takes a long sip. “I’m sorry about your job. I didn’t mean to make you waste your time on me. I wish I could’ve done better or something. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. I’ve been watching you a while. You’re smart, and funny, and real beautiful. Don’t you be feeling bad, there’s nothing you could’ve done. The love you’re meant to be with just wasn’t in any of those bars. Maybe you need a bigger circle for the magic.”

“What do you mean, a bigger circle?”

“That’s another thing. We don’t make people run across the country and get hurt going after the one. Sometimes people died chasing after their match back in the day. We don’t have that kind of power anymore. We do a circle around people in one area, like a bar, to focus the magic and see if people match in it. Cases like yours, where you need a bigger area, that’ll go to the Fates at some point. They’re higher up than we are. They’re the ones that bring matches in different countries together and all that.”

Brooke turns the information over in her mind. She can’t believe how easily she’s believed all this, but she knows Vanessa’s telling the truth.

One second she’s thinking about how long Vanessa’s eyelashes are and the next the idea pops into her head, taking shape on its own. It’s possible the Fates are working right now, giving it to her.

Maybe she doesn’t need a bigger circle. Maybe she just needs the person making it to step inside.

“Use your magic on me now. I want to see something,” Brooke says firmly.

“You’re sure? It’s just me and you here.”

“Do it. Please.”

Vanessa shrugs. “If you’re asking.” But her voice turns up with hope at the end.

Vanessa stands up. Brooke follows after her, hands fidgeting with the hem of her white button-down. Seconds tick by as Brooke bends forward and peers into Vanessa’s brown eyes. Just like in high school, she drifts down to Vanessa’s lips, the deep red blaring like a siren, not a smudge anywhere…she forces herself to focus.

“So you’re gonna…shoot me with an arrow?” Brooke asks, noting the way Vanessa shakes her head back in forth like she’s trying to clear water out of her ears. She hopes the arrow won’t hurt too much, but she thinks she can take the pain it if this goes the way she’s praying it will.

“Well, it’s not a real arrow, it’s a metro–meta–it’s one of those things you say about something that isn’t really true,” she huffs.

“A metaphor,” Brooke interjects.

“Yeah! They stopped the arrows back in the 70’s, I think. Too many deaths. Besides, we can’t be walking around with a giant-ass bow and arrows. This ain’t the south.”

“Right. So, here I am,” Brooke gestures to herself, feet digging into the carpet.

“Here you are,” Vanessa muses with a smile. “Just try to stay still, okay?”

Brooke nods. Vanessa twirls her fingers around and a tiny red spark of light speeds across the living room and settles into Brooke’s chest, warming her from her head to her toes. All the blood in her body rushes upward and she thinks it might lift her off the floor. She looks at Vanessa but there’s two of her, one hazy around the edges. Brooke squeezes her eyes shut as her legs stop working–

A warm hand on her arm stops her from hitting the floor and guides her to the couch.

“Shit, sorry! It makes people dizzy sometimes. You okay? Want some water?”

Brooke forces her eyes open. Only one Vanessa is in front of her, eyes wide with concern. “I-I’m okay,” Brooke says. She looks at Vanessa and everything falls into place, a blurry picture coming into full focus. “I think it worked.”

Vanessa’s eyes light up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Brooke pulls Vanessa closer, finally pressing those lips to hers, and she understands now that her kisses haven’t been missing something. They’ve been missing someone.

This is what a kiss is supposed to feel like: her entire body coming alive, heat pulsing through her veins, the rumble of cars outside silenced, her work stresses melted away, time itself ceasing to exist.

Vanessa pulls away suddenly and stares at Brooke with a wide-open mouth. “Maybe I shoulda put myself in the circle a long time ago.”

“Mmm,” Brooke mumbles, hands gripping at Vanessa’s sides.

“Bed?” Vanessa asks.

Brooke lifts her right off the couch and runs to the bedroom with Vanessa giggling in her arms.

Vanessa tears her boots away and pulls off her red silk dress, exposing smooth tan skin. Brooke sheds her shirt and throws it beside the dress.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to wear a diaper?”

“They got rid of those in the 40’s. Get with the times, Mary.” Vanessa grins as Brooke scoops her up and tosses her on the bed.

—

“So I’m thinking dinner tomorrow,” Vanessa says, cuddling closer to Brooke. “For our second date. I don’t care where we go, but they better have mozzarella sticks.”

“Of course,” Brooke agrees.

Vanessa sighs in content and falls asleep against Brooke’s chest in less than a minute.

Brooke places a hand on Vanessa’s back, her finger tracing patterns on the soft skin, the motion soothing.

For the first time ever with someone next to her, Brooke is carried away by a peaceful sleep.