#excerpts from a book i may write

[tellherium]

I change with the seasons, and by that I mean when things start growing I start cutting people off // MAYDAY

poems about may, poems about june

[miscent]

i am borne of malice and distrust and spite. stay a little longer though, you might just agree: even glass is washed smooth by the sea. || [x]

[corazon-sanador]

20.05.23

If the lord himself were to take every single thing I disliked about people and put it into a person. It would be my beloved. Yet I cannot seem to walk away. There is no poetic way to put that, no string of words that could make the sting of that reality any less painful.

[bookwomansoul]

The language of the sun

The sun speaks to me in how it touches my hair at 7 in the morning

When the window above my sleeping head, warmly welcomes the morning rays

My sleeping head, that always turns towards the right by habit, soaks in the gracious light and turns warm to the roots

It is then time to open my eyes and be greeted by a brand new day that waited for me to open my eyes, once again

And thus, as I live for the rest of the upcoming day, I speak the language of the sun

Welcoming time, warming things I touch, greeting new experiences that I waited for.

-Anneysha.

[aestheticplacibo]

He traced my collar bone with the tip of his fingers and rested his hand around my neck. He pulled me in to a sweet kiss and rested his forehead against mine.

"I will never be able to love again."

And he meant it.

[flanaganfilm]

Midnight Mass - excerpt from the original 2010 novel

A few people have asked about Midnight Mass back when it was a novel. That was my first stab at telling the story of Crockett Island back in 2010. I made it a ways into the book before pivoting and trying to write it as a script, and then broke it again as a series in 2014, more half a decade before we'd finally start making it for Netflix.

I dug up the old, unfinished manuscript from 2010 (some day I may try to finish it). It's got some spelling and grammatical errors, but I was surprised to see that some of the early scenes made it all the way to the screen relatively unaltered. Here's a little taste of what those pages looked like, and how at least one scene arrived in the series a decade later almost entirely unchanged...

[crippleprophet]

i don’t understand how people can be so fucking cruel about people who can’t read much (including people who aren’t literate, though this post is from my experience with chronic illness). like, one of my main motivations behind posting excerpts of butch+femme writing on my main (@campgender ; it’s fine to go through my bookshelf tag but please only followers age 18+ on that blog!) is that it is fucking hard to read a full book!!

my reading comprehension & stamina decreased drastically when i developed ME, & while i’m overjoyed that i’ve recently regained a lot of that particular ability since getting blackout curtains, there are absolutely still texts i can’t even begin to parse that i once would’ve loved digging into — texts that it would be actively dangerous for me to attempt to struggle through because it would break pacing.

idk i’m not trying to be self-congratulatory here or whatever but like. the second i could access information through this means again, the focus of my (very fucking limited!!) energy has been giving it back to my people. my life has been unquestionably, deeply shaped by tumblr users who share excerpts of theory & memoir & poetry because they were providing labor of which i was in need & incapable.

finding, selecting, transcribing, formatting, & at times contextualizing passages takes a lot of fucking time & energy, but in order for me to encounter certain concepts, experiences, & histories, it’s work somebody else had to do, because i couldn’t read 200 pages of research or anthology in order to encounter the 10 that would change my life — but posted 2 or 3 pages at a time, i could save that in my drafts to get through on a good day, & quotes that were only a couple lines i could usually read right when i encountered them.

so, in memory of the years i spent unable to access theory through anything other than excerpts & secondhand summaries,

and in anticipation of the years to come where i will live the same,

and in acceptance that the brain is a muscle, in love of we the exercise-intolerant,

to you, dear reader — whatever form & frequency & duration that reading may take, even if it’s no further than this post — i make my motherfucking covenant: the issues i discuss around pulling quotes will be about the political act of the ellipse and the ethics of transcription, not shaming people for the methods of accessing information that are available to them. as often & as long as i am able, people can ask me to explain something or summarize in plain language and i will meet them with respect, interest, & effort. if someone’s looking for information on a particular topic, identity, experience & doesn’t have the energy to find it, i’m gonna give what i have towards filtering through the bullshit for the gems.

according to our abilities. according to our needs.

and the next time somebody tells you it’s not ableist to say everyone has to read [whatever work], tell them to go put their precious ability to better use in making it more accessible.

[sideprince]

Eileen Prince

I'm relentlessly curious about how a witch from Slytherin, a house that values cunning and ambition on paper, and bloodlines/nobility in its culture, ended up living in a muggle slum.

Unfortunately for me, she's a barely mentioned character written by an author who consistently fails to portray female characters with depth or dimension. The women in Harry Potter are portrayed as either maternal or villains, or, in Ginny Weasley's case, as redeemed by their masculine traits (because Rowling's Thatcher era feminism dictates that equality for women = emulating patriarchal ideas of manhood). About as much as you can expect from an author who's as unable to acknowledge the personhood of trans women as she is to write women as actual people. This leaves a lot of room for interpreting or delving into what Eileen Prince's life may have looked like, and how that would have affected her son's development.

There are three direct mentions of Eileen in the text :

“The picture showed a skinny girl of around fifteen. She was not pretty; she looked simultaneously cross and sullen, with heavy brows and a long, pallid face. Underneath the photograph was the caption: Eileen Prince, Captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones Team.”

HBP Ch. 25

“I was going through the rest of the old Prophets and there was a tiny announcement about Eileen Prince marrying a man called Tobias Snape, and then later an announcement saying that she’d given birth to a" “ — murderer,” spat Harry.

HBP ch. 30

“Harry looked around: he was on platform nine and three-quarters, and Snape stood beside him, slightly hunched, next to a thin, sallow-faced, sour-looking woman who greatly resembled him.”

DH Ch. 33

(Shoutout to Harry James Potter, who didn't recognize Eileen's fifth year photo despite her resemblance to Snape, the teacher whose classroom he got his used Potions book from. Shoutout also to Harry James Potter who didn't connect the dots between the Prince's handwriting and Snape's, a teacher who regularly wrote instructions on the board. "I needed to make the plot work, ok?" - JK Rowling, probably.)

Other relevant excerpts:

“Snape staggered - his wand flew upwards, away from Harry - and suddenly Harry’s mind was teeming with memories that were not his: a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner ”

OoTP Ch. 26

“Harry delved into his trunk and pulled out his copy of Advanced Potion-Making before getting into bed. There he turned its pages, searching, until he finally found, at the front of the book, the date that it had been published. It was nearly fifty years old.”

HBP Ch. 16

Supplemental material re: Gobstones from JK Rowling:

"...it remains a minority sport within the wizarding world, and does not enjoy a very ‘cool’ reputation, something its devotees tend to resent. Gobstones is most popular among very young wizards and witches, but they generally ‘grow out’ of the game, becoming more interested in Quidditch as they grow older.  ... Gobstones enjoys limited popularity at Hogwarts, ranking low among recreational activities, way behind Quidditch and even Wizarding Chess." [There's an additional sentence on the Harry Potter wiki's Gobstones page: "...it is also known as 'the thinking wizard's Quidditch.'"]

A few conclusions can be drawn from what little information we're given about Eileen:

She's described as "cross and sullen" around the age of 15, and as "sallow-faced, sour-looking" when she's older.

She's captain of the Gobstones club around her fifth year, so she likely marched to the beat of her own drum - given that Gobstones isn't particularly popular - and owns it proudly enough to take, or even seek out, a leadership role.

The sport is described as "the thinking wizard's Quidditch" which would imply Eileen was more interested in intellectual challenges and was clever (and can be paralleled with a young Severus' comment about "if you'd rather be brawny than brainy" to James Potter when they first meet on the Hogwarts Express).

Her marriage and the birth of her son are both announced in the paper, which might mean the family she came from was of some importance or note, or perhaps something else... but we'll get to that.

If we assume that Severus' secondhand copy of Advanced Potion Making was originally Eileen's (reasonable, though there is no textual evidence) then its publication date is likely around the time she was a sixth year, given that this particular text was specific to students beginning to prep for N.E.W.T. exams. Harry begins his sixth year in 1996 when the book is "nearly fifty years old," so we can assume Eileen was 16 years old sometime not long after 1946. Severus was born in 1960, which would mean Eileen was in her mid-late 20s at the time.

Her marriage was dysfunctional at best, abusive at worst. As per a Pottermore post that is still up on WizardingWorld.com: "...the desperately lonely and unhappy childhood [Severus] had with a harsh father who didn’t hold back when it came to the whip." Based on this, we can assume Tobias was abusive, and given Eileen's cowering as he shouted at her, she presumably feared him.

From these bits of information emerges the image of a woman who either had a surly personality, or at the very least was guarded, though perhaps just formal. There isn't really any difference in how her face is set when she's in an everyday setting like King's Cross, or when she's having her picture taken for the Gobstones Club. It's possible she was a stern, unsmiling person, but it's also possible - given that her wedding and child were announced in the paper - that she came from a family of some standing and was raised to conduct herself with hallmarks of British class, such as dignity and unaffectedness. After all, there are several wizarding families - such as the Potters - who are wealthy purebloods with social standing but are not part of the Sacred 28. Additionally, the Gobstones Club portrait would have been taken around the mid-1940s, when portraits were formal and their subjects did not often smile, and given that we see only a snippet of Eileen, we don't have enough information that she was unhappy or sour. It's also important to remember that we see her portrait and Snape's memory of her through Harry's perspective and, like his perception of Snape himself, this may convey Harry's biases.

We also know from the text that Snape had a house in a deserted part of Cokeworth, a fictional Midlands town that presumably had a collapsed milling industry, at the end of a street called Spinner's End. There's a great thread that goes into details about the kind of 2 up 2 down house it would have been, and we can assume that this is Snape's family home given that we know he and Lily grew up in Cokeworth. For all intents and purposes, the conclusion we can draw from this being the Snape family's home in the 60s is that they were working class and cripplingly poor. Most estates like this had been cleared by the 60s, and no longer exist today.

This begs the question: how did a witch from a possibly well-off family end up in an abusive marriage in an irrelevant slum?

Buckle up kids, we're leaving the world of textual references and veering into deep meta territory now. I won't label any of this as head canon because I'm not set on these interpretations, and am just drawing conclusions from the text, but some of it may be a bit loose even for meta.

If Eileen was 16 years old not long after 1946, then she would have finished school in the late 40s, possibly even 1950. While some people (including past me) posit the theory that Tobias may have been injured in WWII and his injuries debilitated him, forcing him to go on the dole and affecting his mental health, I'm increasingly skeptical of this theory. It would make more sense if Eileen had known him before he was drafted/enlisted and had committed to a relationship with him, which would then have changed when he came back from the war and was altered. If we assume Eileen's age based on the idea that it was her own copy of Advanced Potion Making Severus used, then she would still have been at school during WWII (which makes an interesting parallel with Severus' own experience of spending the bulk of the first wizarding war against Voldemort as a student at school).

I do think, however, that there's merit in the theory that Tobias suffered some kind of altering injury and that he wasn't necessarily abusive before Eileen committed herself to him. It makes little sense for a Slytherin graduate who was confident and self-posessed enough to be the face of an unpopular club to be drawn to a partner so abusive his shouts caused her to cower and who whipped his child freely. If, however, he was a charming, happy man when they met who suffered a life-altering injury, the trauma of which left him a shell of his former self, then someone like Eileen might stick around for the sake of the parts of his old self she can still see in him.

It's interesting that she didn't seem to use her magic to protect herself or her son, or even to dress her son in clothing that fit, but we know from the text that depression can cause a wizard's powers to wane:

“...it is also possible that her unrequited love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers; that can happen”

HBP Ch. 13 (Dumbledore talking about Merope Gaunt)

The fact that the Snapes retained the house in Spinner's End seems to indicate that they continued to live there even when the local industry dried up and the slum was cleared as workers were moved to other parts of the country where they were needed (presumably what happened given *gestures at British history*). The most likely explanation for this would be that Tobias wasn't able to work, and perhaps did suffer an injury, only it was at work, and not during the war. This would mean the family lived on the dole (ie. welfare) and also that he would have spent a lot more time at home. It would also explain his anger and frustration that led to abusive behavior (which isn't to say that disabled people are abusive by any means, but it would have been emasculating for a man who considered himself the breadwinner in the 60s, and chronic pain coupled with limited abilities would give anyone a short fuse).

Moreover, this living situation seems to indicate that there is no additional support coming from anywhere. Where is Eileen's family? Why were they not helping? There's no indication in the text that there is any connection with them at all. We can infer from Snape's memories that, as a child, he learned what he knew about the magical world from his mother. This implies that she talked to him about it a fair amount, and his conviction that he and Lily were going to Hogwarts well before they got their letters also implies that Eileen expected him to go there and was set on her son having a magical education, despite how little she seemed to use her own powers.

Severus knows a lot about the wizarding world as a child, including that prisoners are sent to Azkaban and that it's guarded by Dementors, Hogwarts' house structure and what to expect when he and Lily get there, and about the Statute of Secrecy and the laws around it. When Lily asks him if it makes a difference being Muggleborn, Severus hesitates before replying no, presumably because he's aware of pureblood bias being a part of wizarding culture.

Perhaps that's the reason Eileen's family doesn't seem to be in the picture. My own theory is that Eileen hadn't planned to commit herself to Tobias long-term, and Severus was an accidental outcome of an innocent tryst in which a young Eileen, an educated witch from a well to do pureblood family, was having fun slumming it with a working class muggle and ended up pregnant. While we don't know the wizarding world's attitude around pregnancy and abortion, we do know it's a conservative and classist society that parallels muggle British culture fairly closely, and that the late 50s/early 60s were a time when an out of wedlock baby would have been considered a disgrace.

Add to that the anti-muggle bias of a pureblood family and it sounds like Eileen was disowned her for her mistake (and don't @ me, but even though I know that not all Slytherins are purebloods, it does seem to be a persistent cultural value of the house reaching back to Salazar Slytherin himself, so Eileen's being sorted into it can reasonably be taken as an indication of her blood status). Perhaps the marriage and birth announcements in the Daily Prophet were put in by Eileen herself, if she was a woman from a family where this was customary. It may have been her way of letting her family know of the events, or even of asserting herself and even deliberately defying them, announcing to the whole wizarding world that a Prince married and had a child with a muggle. It makes sense that the girl who wasn't just in the Gobstones club, but became captain, would also say to herself, why shouldn't I have my marriage announced in the paper like everyone else in the family?

It's worth noting that mid-late 20s is pretty young to have a baby in the wizarding world, where the life expectancy and child bearing years are much longer than they are for a muggle. According to the Harry Potter wiki:

"Wizard life expectancy in Britain reached an average 137¾ years in the mid-1990s, according to the Ministry of Divine Health ... Wizards in general have a much longer life expectancy than Muggles, usually living two or three times as long as their non magical counterparts, some living even longer than that depending on circumstances. In addition, seeing as James Potter's parents had him "late in life,” witches likely have significantly longer childbearing years than Muggle women."

Although we see several characters in Severus' generation getting married and having kids not long after leaving school, there's a mention in the text that a lot of people were doing this during Voldemort's reign, as the fear he inspired made people more eager to get a move on with life since they thought they might die any day (I think Mrs. Weasley says this but I can't find the quote, @ me if you do). It's clear this wasn't the norm in the wizarding world. Eileen was a Slytherin, a house that values cunning, ambition, and strong wizarding heritage. Something must have gone very wrong in Eileen's life for her to end up having a child so young and living in a muggle slum.

And so it's possible Eileen Prince found herself pregnant and alone, having been disowned by her family to save face in light of her disgrace, and dependent on the only person she was still close to, the father of her child. It's the kind of storyline that Rowling would write, and it would parallel fairly closely the story of Voldemort's mother, thus adding another to the long list of similarities between Voldemort and Snape.

Lorrie Kim makes an interesting point when she talks about how Snape has a strong reaction to other people having a love life or romantic experiences (the context being Rowling's intention of his love for Lily being romantic and unrequited), but doesn't react particularly strongly to mothers sacrificing themselves for their children, whereas Voldemort does. Her insight, and I think it's a reasonable one, is that Severus accepts the idea of mothers making sacrifices for their children, whether it's Lily giving her life for Harry or Narcissa risking all she did to ask for his help in protecting Draco, because his own mother protected him from his father as much as she could.

There's a lot of room for interpretation on what Eileen's relationship with her son looked like, and what it says about her own state. She may have prioritized not angering Tobias to protect Severus, who as a child might have perceived her actions as a form of rejection. At the same time, she seems to have prepared him thoroughly for life in the magical world, perhaps in the hope that he would find his place in it and escape home. Perhaps she missed it and told him so much about it so she could live through her own memories.

The only time we see her argue with Tobias, in Severus' memory, she's cowering as he shouts. We know from JK Rowling that Tobias used corporal punishment liberally, which implies Eileen didn't stop him despite her magical abilities. We also see in the text, however, that while at school Severus stood up for himself against bullies and fought back, and that he was an exceptionally clever and powerful wizard. As an adult he was brave enough to face Dumbledore when he betrayed Voldemort, and later fought against Voldemort right under his nose (or lack thereof). So it stands to reason that at some point Severus began to stand up against Tobias too.

How much of that was Eileen's influence, or the result of Severus seeing her acceptance of her fate and rejecting it for himself, is hard to say. As for what happened to Tobias and Eileen that their house was Severus' by the mid-90s and they were nowhere in sight, I don't think there's enough information in the text to infer.

[girlreblogger]

the annoyance with blk y/n and the stories she’s in is hilarious. her characteristics might be the problem one day or her side characters the next. it legit feels like we may never get to a balanced solution on what to do with our own representation since the wrong ppl always talk about it and create it. we have mean and shallow ppl who take over the conversation, ppl who really self hate but try and cover it up with “i just don’t want her to be a stereotype” and then the ones who probably love and support tyler perry movies.

the bottom line is the ppl who do write those niggafying, toxic (it’s a buzzword but that’s what they are) or smutty fics (not talking abt the actual good ones with a blk reader though 🧎🏽‍♀️) can do wtv they want and owe you nothing. that’s why they get so frustrated. i don’t think all the times those should be crucified for what they write when other groups of ppl (or our own) write all kinds of other crazy shit.

and.. i know a lot of ppl who don’t want to say it but y’all keep bringing up the smut and niggafying as the main problem, but i think it’s some of the ppl writing it and their underlings. it’s just no one wants to say anything.

an excerpt from a draft of mine

“a lot of ppl on here be weirdos or mean asl. so when someone block you don’t be like “oh what i did” “they that mad cause of my (internet—fictional—digital on screen) presence”

like nobody got time to go to your acc and say “i don’t like you” who cares. oddly some miserable ppl do actually but still. the lack of awareness is ridiculous. that’s why ppl don’t f with y’all.”

i was talking abt all of tumblr and every other app but it applies here.

from what i see on here, some are just straight up weird, cliquey, and chiesty (if that’s how you spell it) and that’s why ppl be so mad abt those types of books 💀. we also have to acknowledge the amount of overwhelming & honestly damaging blk yn fics (not to be confused with ppls screwed ideas of stereotypical) there are. i understand why ppl write them for personal reasons but when it comes to our own reflections of ourselves as blk women it’s almost hurtful to read some of the things people put “her” through. i mean even her with a white man that use aave and has cornrows is hurtful.. 😔 (i’m trolling now 💀) naw but fr. i personally don’t like reading blk women just being written for smut or going through crazy situations or kinda like.. i don’t wanna say unfulfilling but like.. idk i can’t think of the word. (edit: ppl write blk yn to be in unfulfilling situations) but girl i can watch a tyler perry movie for all that.

again. ppl write these stories for there own personal reasons, relate to them and enjoy them for those reasons as well. that’s why depending! on what it is i don’t think blk writers should be bombarded with hate like that. also ion think smut should be banned like y’all go to far can we just slow down on it … there are some nice ones out there i promise 🧎🏽‍♀️

but in all seriousness there are many other reasons why i feel toxic and smutty fics are popular for blk yn but i don’t think anyone cares to hear that and the conversion will prolly go back to nigga eren somehow which is crazy cause y’all be arguing over a fictional white man.

oh! 😒 i almost forgot 😒 the ppl who are against “ghetto” y/n to try and advocate for more fluffy or like.. normal (healing) stories and from what i see the ppl who are the most up in arms about it in my personal opinion seem to dislike certain parts of blkness that i appreciate personally and so i just straight up disregard their opinions. y/n doesn’t have to “act” (😒) blk but i see ppl get mad about her protecting her hair….. with a bonnet….

sigh, anyway but yeah we need more soft and sweet fics or just like calming ones? but someone gon have to write it! i don’t like this app or my writing all too much so i gave up a while ago.

just like many other blk writers….

gaspp! we should also do like a fluff challenge or sumn where writers do like fluff … march? girl idk so maybe that will trend and all the ppl who spend time arguing and going back and forth with ppl who write stories they don’t like can like idk look for other writers who write soft, normal, fun stories and reblog them or make a list of them. or maybe like possibly write their own stories too????

everyone says the smut fics gets the most likes and they do. that’s why you keep seeing them. so maybe support or refreakingblog the fics that are comforting to you so others can be as well.

i actually made this page to repost softer fics because i was tired of blocking certain tags so i can avoid heavy smut and subtly abuse fics. also pls leave the ppl who niggafy anime characters alone they will not be stopped. i mean we still have ppl who have been calling chris evans jamal since 2020.. calling him that to this date. married and all.

sigh… 2 more days until blk history month ends. maybe next year we can find a balance between “dramatic” and smutty fics and soft and slice of life ones for blk y/n next year. remember this is tumblr too and the ppl writing aren’t even getting paid for this but it’s for the ppl yk.

ppl who are respectful and reblog tho.

muah

[moonydustx]

So I have this thing...

I need more Law x Reader fics pleeeaassee (；ＴДＴ)

Anyway...

May I ask a reader (up to you what gender) reacting to law proposing to her? Which I doubt canon law would even do but I guess since it's fanfiction, who cares if it's Canon, right???

OMG, this is incredible, hold my hand and I'm with you on this, thank you so much for the request. In my HCs on the Law (I will still post them) I think if it was important for him to do it without even blinking. Surely it would be something more discreet, a small ceremony between just two? I don't know, I might be rambling too much.

Apologies because I didn't have much time to review and maybe I got carried away writing it. I hope you enjoy!

Important: italics are for flashbacks and character readings aloud.

The proposal - favorite moment (part 01)

Part 02 - Part 03

Law counted the minutes until night arrived, it was one of his favorite moments. That was when you would sneak around the submarine and end up knocking on the door on it. In most of these situations, you didn't get out anytime soon. He's not much of a follower on the calendar, celebrating each month together - and come to think of it, everything happened so naturally that it was decided on which day it started to be difficult for you to be a boyfriend.

Like so many other nights, you found yourself doing what was one of the only things Law could name as a hobby. You were nestled between his legs, your body resting on his chest as you attentively read another book. He found himself leaning against the wall, one of his hands resting on his body while with the other he tried to leaf through one of the new editions of Sora comics that he had picked up on the last island he visited.

He had already lost count of how many times the two of you had wasted hours tangled up in his bed reading and something else he was used to hearing you sniffle at something, like you were doing this time. His eyes looked away from the painting and went straight to where you were reading, just out of curiosity. The other times you were sniffling, he had found you reading about some character who died, some reunion, some couple who got together. This time, from what he could see, it was a marriage proposal.

He already knew it was an important topic for you. He also knew that if he had to choose to spend his entire life with someone, it would be you. Law had thought about the hypothesis a few times and when reading the small excerpt from the book, he let himself think about the idea.

"Wow." your feet were planted in front of an immense showcase. Dresses were stacked side by side in various sizes and textures, some with huge trains and others full of silk.

"Don't tell me you're one of those marriage freaks." Ikkaku planted himself next to you, next to Bepo.

"They are beautiful." the bear confirmed, touching the glass.

"Not freak…" you tried to find the words, you really didn't want to sound like a crazy person. "I mean, marriages are two people coming out in love to the world, to the government, to whatever god they may believe in or to no god at all, as if nothing could intervene or separate them."

"Okay, insane then." Shachi appeared behind you, mumbling.

"Actually, that's a nice way of thinking." Ikkaku replied to him, watching you just shrug. "And I won't deny it, they are beautiful dresses."

"Time to go." The captain's voice echoed closer than you imagined, as if he had been there the whole time listening.

Seeing the crew members move forward, agreeing to the captain's request, Law took a few seconds to evaluate the display that had distracted everyone. He could just be daydreaming, but one day you would look incredible wearing a dress like that along with the new name you would carry. Ms. Trafalgar.

From that day on, the idea of ​​proposing to you never left his mind, Law just needed to find the perfect opportunity and it appeared before his eyes.

"Okay…" your choked voice took him out of his reverie. "That's enough tears for today and I'm getting sleepy." you closed the book, turning towards him and snuggling even closer against Law's body.

"Do you mind if I keep reading some more?" he asked and you just mumbled no. His hand got tangled in your strands of hair and it didn't take long for unconsciousness to take you away.

Law gave himself a week to put the plan into practice. The small room at Polar Tang was tidier than usual however you could notice Law more tense than usual behind his back.

"Everything is fine?" you asked, quickly turning to face him. Law seemed distracted from the book in his hands.

"Everything amazing." his lips quickly touched the top of your head. It was now. All the other battles he had faced had not even come close to the anxiety he felt at that moment. "That book you were reading last week?"

"Ah, it's this one. I'm almost done. It's a period romance, princess, knight and all the little things that involves." you laughed, knowing that from your description he would hate the book. "There's no point trying to convince me to read Sora, this one is much cooler."

"So cool you were crying the last time you read it." he said in a teasing tone.

In a casually planned way, even if it went unnoticed in your eyes, he placed the comic he was reading on the bed.

"It's because he was so sweet to her, made an amazing statement."

"Really? Let me see." He moved even closer to your back, looking for space on your shoulder to follow the written words and find the perfect cue.

"Here. Can I read it?"

"Please." he asked, feeling his hands sweat cold.

"Of all the countries I've visited, I don't think I've ever found a home except in you. You've been my home, my safe haven." You started reading, already feeling yourself melting with those words. At the same time, Law took out a small box hidden behind one of the pillows. "So let me be the sword that protects you, the heart that loves you infinitely. I thought happiness would only find me in the next life until I found myself lost in you. What do you mean by that, my love? So, the The knight fell to his knees, the wounds of the battle he faced seemed not to bother him, not when Annya's eyes rested on him. Annya then heard the four words that carried a lifetime of promises…"

"Would you marry me?" Law's voice echoed alongside yours.

Before you could ask what he thought, a small black box appeared in your field of vision. Inside it, a golden ring with a small heart symbol glittered. The book fell from your hands, finding your lap, as you turned to your boyfriend.

"Law?" at that moment, your voice was not the most reliable. As shaky as she was, your vision was blurred by what you suspected were tears. Your hands covered your lips, still not believing what you were seeing.

"Maybe my sword heals you more than defends you, but that doesn't mean I'll let anyone hurt you in this world. You're my home, my safe haven and I can't wait for you to be my wife. I'd even kneel, but It's a little complicated." he smiled, seeing you still paralyzed on top of him. "So, would you marry me?"

"Yes." the first time came out as a whisper. "Yes Yes Yes!" with each new time the word left your lips, you allowed euphoria to take over your body.

Law took your hand, placing a small kiss before putting on the ring and repeating the gesture, as soon as the jewel was in the place where it belonged. His hands pulled you so your legs were around his waist.

"That's…" you even tried to speak, but it was impossible to put everything you felt at the moment into so few words. You saw him pull out a ring that was the same color as yours, without all the details. "Let me do it."

Before he could put it on his own finger, you took it from his hand and repeated the same thing he had done to you. He placed a small kiss between the tattooed fingers and let the jewelry take its rightful place.

"I don't believe." You looked at your hand and then at him. "Law, that was so amazing."

"You're incredible. I can't wait to see you become Mrs. Trafalgar. My beautiful, smart, a little crybaby…" he wiped away your tears, bringing a laugh from your lips. "My dear wife."

"I love you so much." you cupped his face, taking his lips to yours.

Even though it was full of emotions and promises, it was a calm kiss. Law, like you, wanted to record every second of that moment, every inch of skin kissed, every touch.

In the end, Law was also a marriage nut - just with his dear Lady Trafalgar.

----

Little extra:

Law was never a big fan of public displays of affection, but that morning he had made an exception. Seeing you happy, showing off your new ring and the promise of marriage, ideas of what to do on the date, honeymoon suggestions. He couldn’t deny it, it was amazing to see how happy you were with the whole situation.

His happiness was short-lived when he saw three sullen faces - one of them looking like a bear - sitting in front of him.

"So Law, my friend." Penguin began.

"Shut up, it's me."

"But I'm his best friend." Bepo grumbled.

"What do you want?" he asked, trying to understand what the three were discussing so much

"Which of the three of us will be the best man?" Shachi warned and Law watched the three in front of him cross their arms and wait for a response.

Before he could respond, Law felt two arms slide and lock around him.

"We haven't decided that yet guys. We can talk about it later." you asked and watched them begin to argue among themselves who would be what.

"Thanks." Law muttered, making you laugh. You bent down to his ear level.

"And you, I'll be waiting for you in the room. I got someone to cover my duties today, now I want to continue feeling what my dear fiancé can do for me." In contrast to the whispered and sexy voice that left your lips, you left a chaste kiss on Law's cheek and left towards the dorms.

[yumeka-sxf]

My thoughts on Spy x Family: EYES ONLY Guidebook (English ver) - part 3

Continuing from my previous two posts, this will be my last post discussing the English version of the SxF manga guidebook "EYES ONLY." I'll discuss some of Endo's and Lin's comments on specific chapters, some of the included concept art for the series, all the Twiyor tidbits the book has to offer, and conclude with a couple things the English version of the book omits.

Endo's and Lin's comments on specific chapters

There's at least one comment from Endo and/or Lin on every chapter of the manga from when the book was originally published (up to chapter 61). Unfortunately I can't cover every single comment, but I did want to highlight a few (more will be covered in the Twiyor tidbits later on).

So Bond wouldn't have actually died from Yor's cooking then? Good to know her cooking isn't that bad, lol. Also that's a good question, Lin, maybe you should ask Endo? 😅

Lots of great info about the cruise arc. Makes sense that they had to plan it out many months in advance and keep revising it to patch up plot holes. All that work definitely paid off! Interesting that they almost considered not having Loid on the ship at all. Glad they didn't because otherwise we wouldn't have gotten one of his best outfits! 🤣 (can't wait to see this piece of work in color in the anime!)

Incidentally, the scene Endo mentions where he "managed to make Yor look pretty cute" is this one (she does look pretty cute here).

My favorite comment of Endo's about any chapter has to be this one for chapter 56. Never change, Endo 😂

And lastly, some good comments about chapter 59 (Becky visits the Forgers).

This is one of my favorite stand-alone chapters so I'm glad it was well received. Funny how they kept going with the joke instead of ending it "normally"...but when you have such great characters and setups, good comedy writes itself!

Below is Endo's commentary about Henderson, not a specific chapter, but thought I'd point it out since he mentions Henderson is the only character he's done a shower scene for...not anymore!

Also, while not related to a specific chapter, I do like what Endo says below about Loid and Yor's "dark sides."

He enjoys drawing them this way, which is cool, but he's also cautious about not overdoing it and saving those expressions for important situations.

Concept art

Most of the pre-serialization character designs included in this book were also in the exhibition pamphlet, which I already discussed thoroughly here (wish I had remembered these were in the fanbook so I wouldn't have put so much effort into trying to read Endo's scribble notes). So I'll just mention a few of the most notable things.

As I discussed in my post about the pamphlet, Franky was at some point intended to be the uncle of the family. Though I do think it would have been fitting to make him the uncle, I also like the main focus being on just the "nuclear" family, with the uncle and other characters having supportive roles.

An interesting note about the beta version of Yor is that she seemed to be more like Fiona - she was in love with Loid right from the start, to the point of trying to eliminate Anya! I doubt this is something she would be doing all the time as it would have been difficult to make her a likable main character if she was always trying to kill her daughter...in all likelihood, she would have tried to kill Anya at first before eventually learning to love her as a daughter. While I see how this could work for an intriguing character arc, I'm glad Endo decided to make Yor a loving mother to Anya right away, and not make her feelings for Loid an obsessive "love at first sight" kind of thing.

Twiyor tidbits

Being the shipper that I am, I tried to see if I could pinpoint any Twiyor subtleties throughout the book, as vague as they may be! 😂

Below are excerpts from Loid and Yor's character pages where we're given info on their current stance about each other.

Love the emphasis on their bond of trust ❤️

Below are excerpts from chapters 14 and 35, probably the most Twiyor-heavy chapter pages in the book.

This confirms that Loid did indeed interpret Yor's kick as her not having any romantic feelings for him.

Below are comments by Endo and Lin for chapter 30, where Fiona is introduced.

Endo's line is a little ambiguous here, but I think he's saying how people sympathize with Fiona because she's "doomed to lose," which is...telling 😅 (does Fiona's loss automatically mean a Twiyor win?)

Endo says he likes the "You're strong, Yor" conversation, one of the most Twiyor-ish scenes in the series so far! 😊 Lin also mentioned how they got to use that theme again during the Becky chapter.

Weird that he chose to highlight this line of all things as Loid's "Family Comment" for chapter 10. Could this and chapter 79 be more foreshadowing for an eventual "Twilight vs Thorn Princess" showdown? 👀 Or maybe he just likes teasing fans because he knows it's something they fantasize about.

English version omissions

There's an additional Endo interview that's missing from the English version of the book: an interview with him and Kazumi Takayama, a former idol of the group Nogizaka46.

At first it seemed very odd that they would leave out just this interview, but after discussing it with others on Discord, I realized it's because it has to do with an idol. Apparently getting licensing rights for anything that has to do with a Japanese idol group is very difficult, which is further hindered by the fact that Takayama isn't even part of that idol group anymore, which makes getting the content green lit for official release overseas even more taxing. So probably Viz decided it wasn't worth the trouble and just left out that interview. But thankfully u/Nemshi on Reddit posted a fan translation of it, which you can read here. They talk a bit about SxF, but most of it is just general questions they ask each other.

And the other thing missing from the English version that I really can't understand is the inside cover! Another great 4th-wall breaking joke from Endo (I added a quick translation of the Japanese version below).

Unlike the Takayama interview, I have no idea why they didn't include this. They include the inside cover as an extra page in all the English volumes, so why not here? Very weird.

---

And that's all I'm going to share for the "EYES ONLY" fanbook! Honestly, there's so much great content in the book that I didn't touch on, like info about East/West relations, about Eden Academy, Endo's comments on all the designer chairs for the volume covers...and lots more. So definitely get a copy yourself if you can! It's a must-have for any SxF fan 😁 Books like this aren't officially released in English very often, so the fact that Viz thought it was worthwhile to make this proves how much of a hit SxF is!

<- Return to Part 2

[theygotbitchesinmedia]

okay so here is her review: https://arkadymartine.wordpress.com/2015/09/27/the-traitor-baru-cormorant-a-reviewresponse/

admittedly its from 2015- i haven't poked around to see how she may have changed how she feels about it, and i know she did blurb seth's recent scifi novel (Exordia), so there's no bad blood there or anything. it's also a positive review, in general- she ends with this sentence: "I highly, highly recommend this book; I have not thought so much about something I read in a long time."

i am also coming into this as someone who has read all of seth dickinson's work for the game destiny, where he was near-singlehandedly responsible for a good oh… 80% of the interesting women (& overall interesting concepts lol!) in the game, and his writing of one of those characters in particular as a complex and flawed character got him bullied viciously off of all social media. if you've tried to find his social media presence and havent found anything, that's why. so i mayhaps have a little more emotion in the game.

THAT SAID. here are some specific parts from her review i find really fucking annoying! and color the way i feel about Memory & Desolation, despite them being so incredibly targeted at me as a classics person AND someone who fucking loves the specific sub-genre of scifi her novels are.

"[Traitor] asks a question which I find compelling as a student of an empire and as a queer woman. That question is: what do we gain by complicity? What do we – we barbaroi, we women, we queer people, we imperialized – what do we get when we say yes? When we say yes I will hide my true nature? When we say yes I will subsume myself into the beautiful machine? When we say can we speak English? Or the literature I love just happens to be written by straight white men – and mean it, too, mean it with the kind of depthless love that a person can have for a text that speaks to them, which holds up a mirror to them?"

i dont think the use of the greek word for barbarian does anything here (she also keeps coming back to the greek term orthos in her review, which also pisses me off lol), i dont think empire is a "beautiful machine," and i don't think the invocation of identity politics is useful. like. i know she's a byzantine scholar but if your first association with empire is purely a finite Historical Empire instead of, like, modern US imperialism, or British colonialism, you are going into this discussion with a certain set of values and opinions! a set of values and opinions that let you call an empire a "beautiful machine" in all earnestness. this claim probably seems unsubstantiated and nitpicky now just from this excerpt but ill come back to it with more i promise. on the idpol front, she also says immediately after this that she does believe that straight people can and should write queer people, but that they should listen to queer people when they point out those errors. she then continues:

"But then, critique: there are two points on which I think Dickinson’s portrayal of a queer protagonist has faltered, and I think both of these errors arise from the fact that he isn’t part of – as far as I know at the time of writing this review – a queer community. Firstly, I disbelieve Baru’s awareness of her own desires… …For the first portion of the book, her queerness felt more like a character trait assigned to her for reason of plot than a naturally built part of her as a person… Secondly, I wonder where queer people in Falcrest are…"

theres more to these excerpts, but. i personally didnt find the depiction of baru's desire to be unrealistic, and also this was a review of Traitor, specifically, so where on earth would baru have heard about queer people in falcrest? and more importantly, why should we care so much about queer people in the imperial core? moreover i think the way seth does it with svir is very very well done, and illustrates the hypocrisy of empire in a way that does NOT seem like what martine is asking for here!!!

"Why am I invested? I myself am a student of empire. I’m a Byzantinist. My academic work is about empire and its seductions; it is the animating principle of my professional life. And: I am myself someone who loves order over disorder. Who looks for systems in all things. Who is comforted by structures; who is concerned deeply with propriety. But here’s my real criticism of this book: I don’t buy the seduction of the Masquerade. And I think if this book fails, it’s there: in that its empire is too easily read as undesirable. As profane, unethical, fundamentally wrong. It is really overtly evil." … "The Masquerade isn’t civilized. It’s civilization, but I don’t recognize it as civilized, and this is a problem with a constructed empire. An empire relies on itself as the definition of civilization – I would footnote here Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch as a SFnal example of an empire which is built on this principle, and which, for this reader at least, achieves the facsimile. (But then my ancestors were not enslaved, we were exterminated; not annexed, but exiled. Perhaps I like the Radch better than the Masquerade because I can find a place for myself in it, and cannot imagine a place within the Masquerade someone like me would ever be safe –)"

and THIS. THIS RIGHT HERE IS MY BIGGEST PROBLEM. critiquing the masquerade as not "seductive" enough, calling it too evil to have people join it- how does someone miss the point THIS badly??? like. are you FUCKING serious??? how do you read a book about the immense violence of colonialism and your problem is that it is boohoo too violent for people to join willingly. google literally fucking anything the US has done ever!!! and the invocation of the concept of "civilized" as an objective quality, despite the recognition that the empire constructs what counts as "civilization" is so fucking unserious/simplistic/juvenile! why do you need to imagine yourself a place in the empire? in the imperial core specifically!

and i think this particular approach bleeds into her books. i read them at Least 2 years ago, so this is mostly vibes-based, and i will avoid spoilers.

there is such a focus on the allure of the imperial core, on the "beautiful machine" of the empire as she calls it. there is violence done, but it is abstracted away from the wealth of the imperial core. there are no economics there. the empire sees her independent station as a backwater, and there is some cultural tensions there, but there is no realistic violence and exploitation! it is not clear at all what maintains the empire, besides some abstract idea of trade. i also don't know what her Point is with the naming & language conventions, which are very clearly inspired in part by ancient Mayan- e.g. the empire and core planet are called Teixcalaan. and idk this may be reductive of me but i think if you are going to pull features from civilizations that have been colonized and use them to inspire fictional colonizing forces, you ARE saying something there! idk! and like, the ancient Mayan

and on the ~representation~ front, i also don't think she does a better job than seth tbqh!!! i felt like the characters getting together came out of nowhere and felt anticlimactic- there is also not the tension i think there should be with the main character being an ambassador-ish and the love interest being… idr. junior intelligence officer iirc? idk! and for all her critique of baru's desire for women not feeling "real" or present enough, i do not remember the main character in Memory having any real focus on it!

i enjoyed Memory just fine, but i don't think it says anything interesting or novel or even critical about empire, and i found her review of Traitor extremely shallow and useless, if very revealing about her own outlook on empire lol!!!

this has been at best Minorly proofread and edited but im not like, writing an academic essay on the matter and so i apologize for any inconsistencies.

oh man thanks for this this is really interesting. i went and read the whole thing and i agree a ton with your critique. i'm going to stick my thoughts below the cut because i went on for a bit here, in typical fashion.

i personally didnt find the depiction of baru's desire to be unrealistic, and also this was a review of Traitor, specifically, so where on earth would baru have heard about queer people in falcrest? and more importantly, why should we care so much about queer people in the imperial core?

NO BUT EXACTLY... for starters this is explicitly a novel about colonized people taking place in a colony where none of the major characters are from the empire. where, when, and how would we take the time to explore what queerness looks like for them and more importantly, like you've asked, why the hell should that be a priority for the narrative in this case.

in terms of 'i found this to be an unrealistic depiction of queer desire' 9/10 times i feel like what that means is 'i found this to be an unrelatable depiction' which is an entirely different critique. i know i'm working with two additional books worth of context that martine isn't working with here. but even taking into account just the characterization we have for baru in traitor i think this is suuuuch an unfair complaint. i'm gonna pull the entire quote she says about baru's sexuality here because i have additional specific gripes with it.

Firstly, I disbelieve Baru’s awareness of her own desires. In the first portion of the book, I do not ever feel the weight of Baru’s own awareness of her sexuality; there is an absence of carnality, a kind of intellectual version of lesbian desire which is, to me, inconsistent with the sort of desire I expect. Not until the introduction of Baru’s eventual lover Tain Hu do I get a sense of Baru as a woman who loves women. Further, considering how very much the Empire of Masks and Increastic philosophy criminalizes the sin of queer desire, I wish Baru had struggled more with the nature of her desire. For the first portion of the book, her queerness felt more like a character trait assigned to her for reason of plot than a naturally built part of her as a person. This markedly improved in the second half, where Baru notices women in a way she does not notice men.

For starters, it is insanely hypocritical to me to complain that her desire both isn't carnal enough and she processes it too intellectually, but that she isn't struggling enough with it. Baru intellectually processes things! That's her entire character from the getgo! She also has a difficult time conceptualizing other people as fully realized beings with their own agency. These character traits paired together don't make for a particularly passionate and carnal relationship to her sexuality. She is also, at her absolute oldest in this book, 21! (Or 22? I can't remember. I know she spends 3 years in aurdwynn) and has spent her entire youth being groomed to be a scholar. Of course detached intellectualism is her primary way of navigating all things. Why wouldn't it be?

Baru primary motivation is to save taranoke, she wants to save the taranoki way of life, and part of that way of life includes an acceptance of nonhetero nonmonogamous relationships. Sure, a different character arc may have involved baru actually internalizing and then having to break free of the trappings of race, gender, and sexuality that the empire tries to impose upon its citizens. but that's not baru and acting like this is a writing flaw rather than a character choice is insane to me.

There's absolutely no reason for Baru to lie awake at night pontificating about how wrong and dirty of her it is to want to have sex with women because we are never lead to believe even for a minute that Baru puts any emotional weight in incrasticism. She doesn't conceptualize it as sinful she conceptualizes it as illegal!

And "Not until the introduction of Baru’s eventual lover Tain Hu do I get a sense of Baru as a woman who loves women. " is killing me in particular because like. Yeah. Tain Hu is baru's first love. thats the point. But beyond that this is just not being able to see anything other than what she's looking for because i think the chapters covering baru's childhood make it pretty clear that her feelings for aminata and cousin lao (im not double checking the name but im pretty sure it was this) are deep and strong. the fact that they're not as explicitly and straightforwardly romantic and sexual as her relationship with tain hu doesn't change that, and in fact, points to baru's struggle with/development of her sexuality that she claims was somehow missing in this book.

like i just simply can't see anything here but someone who is seeing an emotional landscape they can't relate to and assuming that means it's flawed writing. skill issue frankly.

She's also fucking insane for acting like the masquerade is too cartoonishly evil to be appealing. once again im going to post her full quote here because i think its important to see

its empire is too easily read as undesirable. As profane, unethical, fundamentally wrong. It is really overtly evil. It punishes sexual “deviants” with mutilation and death. It murders children callously. It inflicts plague and withholds vaccines. It lobotomizes its own emperors for the sake of convincing its populace that the emperor is just. Most of all, the Masquerade is a eugenicist empire: it is explicitly founded on not purity of bloodline but on purification of bloodline, on making people useful to it. It makes people: it breeds them carefully, it indoctrinates them through schools, it uses drugs and operant conditioning to transform their minds and make them into automata tools. It commits every atrocity that a modern Western reader recognizes as abhorrent. This is a problem. It is a problem because we are asked, as readers, to believe that there are reasons besides blackmail that a person would willingly become an agent of the Masquerade. We are asked to imagine that the Masquerade is a beautiful machine.

for starters. "It commits every atrocity that a modern Western reader recognizes as abhorrent." MODERN WESTERN EMPIRES DID, AND OCCASIONALLY STILL DO, MOST OF THESE THINGS!!! THIS IS US! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!!! I FEEL INSANE!!!!

I think the book makes it more than explicitly clear why the empire is appealing??? it has all of the capital???? its building schools and sewage systems and importing food and goods and teaching reading and writing??? baru's own internal narrative often shows her own strife at the fact that the empire has made genuinely incredible scientific advancements that offer significant improvements in quality of life to many, many people. martine actually acknowledges this in the next paragraph of her review, and then brushes it away as not being good enough. why? what about that doesn't convince you?

she is seeming to hugely ignore the fact that in the case of aurdwynn specifically, the bureaucracy of the empire is coming in to unseat feudal aristocracy! what the masquerade offers may not be particularly tempting to most of that ruling class, but its economic opportunities are more then believably appealing to the common people. i think this is made pretty clear when baru's ploy to use the fiat bank to make loans to the aurdwynni people and basically lessen the massive tax burdens from the duchies wins her huge favor with the public.

and frankly even for the ruling class the potential economic benefits are massive too if you're willing to participate in the empire properly. yes the empire doesn't have Moral appeal. it doesn't fucking have to. it owns pretty much every economy outside of the oriati mbo. the fact that that's not enough for her is as you've pointed out really really showing her biases and blind spots. 'no reason besides blackmail' MONEY!!!! MONEY! IT'S MONEY! THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT ACCOUNTING! HOW DID YOU MISS THAT!!!

and the invocation of the concept of "civilized" as an objective quality, despite the recognition that the empire constructs what counts as "civilization" is so fucking unserious/simplistic/juvenile! why do you need to imagine yourself a place in the empire? in the imperial core specifically!

And this is really it for me too, yeah. It's gross. It's absolutely gross. "An empire isn't believably appealing unless I, personally, find it appealing" there are people alive who are eugenicists, who love community policing, who believe in race science. the masquerade is an empire for them. the thing about empires is that they are only actually empowering for an incredibly small subset of people, and the fact that You, Specifically, Arkady Martine can't imagine being one of those people in this instance doesn't make it not believable. This is a shatteringly individualist way of engaging with a work.

As for your points about the way she handles empire in her own book obviously i can't have anything to say there because i haven't read it yet, but i do absolutely agree with you on this bit:

and idk this may be reductive of me but i think if you are going to pull features from civilizations that have been colonized and use them to inspire fictional colonizing forces, you ARE saying something there! idk! and like, the ancient Mayan

1000% i don't think this is reductive of you. whether or not you're consciously saying anything is one question but it's a choice that absolutely doesn't exist in a vacuum. out of curiosity i googled her to see if she was of mayan descent or anything and maybe she chose that due to some personal ties to the subject matter but she doesn't seem to be. which of course i don't think means she can't or shouldn't draw any inspiration from there but i do think all of these sorts of choices are meaningful

i don't really have much to say here to round off a conclusion but. wow. deeply deeply telling review that does not particularly make me want to read anything she has written beyond this.

[miscent]

these hands perform cheap parlour tricks; i disappear instead. [x]

[ghostedcas]

Ok so like, I really like ghost and könig....I was wondering if you could do a not so safe for work story for me? I don't really mind how it plays out as long as you could maybe put some knife/gun play in there and lots of teasing...would mean a lot to me

knifeplay and gunplay🤭🤤 i am such a whore for these it's so sad

i hope you eat well darling 🫶

könig x afab!reader x ghost

wc: 896

tw: SMUT SMUTTY SMUT SMUT, knifeplay, gunplay, penetration with an inanimate object, a lil bit of a blood kink (just a teensy bit), poorly translated german

MINORS DNI

a/n: i had the most evil lil smirk on my face when i read this request, i love it sm. when i tell y'all i was smirking uncontrollably as i wrote this?? also can y'all tell what petname i like the most lol

a/n 2.0: i tried to make this relatively gender neutral but reader is described with female genitalia

--------

"schatzi, can you come here? ghost and i have something we want to discuss with you." you hear könig say, beckoning you into his and ghost's shared quarters. his tone sounded rather serious and it made you fear that perhaps you may have done something wrong.

however when you entered the room you knew that that was not the case, or so you hoped anyway. in ghost's hand you saw your journal. it was no simple journal though, no, this journal contained all of your dirtiest thoughts an fantasies.

"nice of you to join us, love. we found quite the intriguing... stories in this little book of yours." ghost says, you can practically see his smirk behind his balaclave.

"oh my go- i can explain!" you say, trying to think of a defense for the things written in that book. things that may or may not have involved some very filthy deeds between yourself and your two boyfriends, things far filthier and taboo than you had already experienced with them.

"no, no, maus. we don't want an explanation, we don't want to hear your pathetic little excuses, dirty little thing..." könig says with a chuckle. "there was one entry both ghost and i found rather... intriguing. something that we would love to make a reality, our süße schmutziges mäuschen."

he pulls you over to the bed and has you sit next to ghost who begins to read off an excerpt from your journal. you can feel your face begin to heat up in embarrassment as he reads, making sure to emphasize every dirty little detail.

you wanted nothing more than to sink into the bed and disappear, this was so embarrassing that words couldn't even describe how embarrassed you were at the moment.

"you naughty little minx, writing down all your little fantasies in this little book. i bet you wanted us to find this, hm?" ghost asks qith a smirk. "you knew exactly what would happen, you knew we would find this book filled with all your filthy little thoughts."

"no! no, i didn't!" you protest.

"knives and guns? my, my maus... you have quite the imagination." könig chuckles deeply.

"sweetheart, if you wanted to try these things, you could've just asked us." ghost adds.

the next thing you knew you were tied down to the bed, clothes discarded as ghost and könig sat on either side of you, könig tracing a large hunters knife gently down your torso as ghost ran one of his pistols across your cheek, caressing your face with the gun.

"hold still maus, wouldn't want to cut your pretty skin... unless? would you? would you like to bleed for us schatz?" könig asks with a dark chuckle, you can feel your heart skip a beat at the suggestion. it was hard to tell if he really would or not, especially as he ran the blade of the knife across your skin so slowly and carefully, if he pressed any harder he would definitely break the skin.

"maybe another night little love, for now, just enjoy our teasing." ghost says with a smirk, mask still on, but you could hear the smug smirk in his tone of voice.

"just lay there nice and pretty for us maus, our good little maus, ja?"

and so there you laid as your two boyfriends ran their weapons across your body, slowly and agonizingly teasing you with them, it was torturous, agonizing even. but in the most pleasurable way possible.

just as you were getting used to the sensations they were subjecting you to, you felt könig's cold blade lift away from your skin as ghost trailed the gun down your torso. the next thing you knew you could feel something solid press to the entrance of your cunt. the handle of könig's knife.

without much warning he slowly began to press it into you, watching your face as it contorted in surprise and pleasure, soft gasps and moans escaping your lips.

as könig thrusted the handle of his hunter's knife in and out of you, you felt ghost bring a hand up to your throat, wrapping around it just so.

"that's it love, just lay there and take it. lay there and let us take care of you. we'll make all of your little dirty fantasies come true." ghost mutters as he leans down, whispering in your ear.

you felt ghost bring his other hand down to rub your clit as könig continued shoving the handle of his knife in and out of your cunt, your orgasm building a lot quicker than you anticipated it would. and your boyfriends could tell.

"go on maus, let go for us. cum for us like a good mäuschen..." könig demands.

"yes sweetheart, that's it, just let go. that's a good good mouse." ghost encourages as your orgasm washes over you, body shaking under their touches.

as you come down from the intense pleasure, the two clean you up. ghost hands you a bottle of water after untying your wrists from the headboard and massages some lotion into them as könig wipes your release from your thighs with a warm, damp towel he retrieved from the bathroom.

"you did so good baby, so so good." könig smiles.

"we hope we lived up to your filthy little written fantasies," ghost adds. "because we have many more stories to recreate."

[bookwomansoul]

On melting with Grief, more than one tear at a time:

Everything is here to go away, to leave an empty existence behind

"Everything is yours! Nothing is yours!", whispers Wind,

and passes by.

The message stays, like names of people on lips, stale from remembrance and alive.

Lips quiver, hands clasp and the eyes borrow rivulets from the Ocean.

Everything flesh and bones pulsates with Grief,

I spill myself on the red floor,

Now hot with my molten core,

A mannequin sits with a bloodied heart in its hands.

The Wind visits again.

"What begins, must end.

You, my dear, are still beginning.

Do not end.

Be!

Be!

Be!"

And so I am. Again.

-a.

[momtaku]

Excerpts from Shingeki Fly

I finally had time today to look closely at my copy of Shingeki Fly. I used my cell phone to translate bits of the interviews, so mileage may vary, but I am fairly confident the gist is more or less correct.

About the Shingeki Fly Color Art Book

Since Isayama prides himself on not being an excellent artist, he wanted the color art book to highlight the work Mr. Nakao, his colorist since the beginning of the series.

I really like this reflection regarding Mr. Nakao on his first chapter of Attack on Titan:

This is the first color manuscript that a presumptuous amateur, a newcomer who doesn't really know how to hold a pen left or right. The composition, panel layout, and everything else is terrible, but the way you colored it so nicely made me think that maybe I can make a living as a manga artist, and that manga doesn't have to be created by one person alone. I remember feeling hopeful that I would be able to participate in the unknown series that was about to begin.

Isayama's experience at Anime NYC in January 2022:

Isayama talks about how happy he was to visit Manhattan. Because he can't be normal for two seconds, he mentions that seeing the skyscrapers at night reminded him of the 1998 GODZILLA movie.

He also talks about the fan panel. My translation app says something like this: By actually seeing the crowd I was able to realize that Attack on Titan,'' which I had been drawing while holed up in my room in Tokyo, was connected to people far away from Japan and overseas. I was very happy to be able to see each fan's face and think, ``How happy are they?''

(I was able to attend that fan panel in person so I can attest how emotional he was by seeing us all there.)

Isayama's experience at Anglouleme in France in January 2023:

Being in France made him feel very far away from Japan because the city and architecture were so different from what he was used to. He described walking on the streets by the Eiffel tower in the middle of the night as thrilling.

While he set the landscape of Attack on Titan as French, German and Italian architecture, he understands now it was all from his Japanese perspective. Seeing the city is person was completely different from what he'd imagined.

How it felt drawing Levi after such a long time

Here is something I didn't know. At first Isayama was going to write a prequel set 100 years before the main story, but after meeting the fans in France he realized the idea of a one shot was to make them happy. Instead of an original idea, he settled the tea cup story, which is something he'd intended to write but had never had the chance.

He said is was surprisingly easy to draw Levi again after such a long break. The only thing he really had to think about is what Levi would sound like as a 10 year old.

"Bad Boy" was also his first time drawing manga on an iPad. Because he wasn't used to it, he had three assistants helping him. I really want a good translation of this bit because it seems funny. He mentions something about how what should've been digital remote work was more of an analog training camp. He said is was fun to reminisce about his "war era" when he would work while chatting with his assistants about trivial matters.