#i wanted to base Tilly's outfit off of like

[dailypearldoodles]

if you'd like something more challenging, maybe a wolf pearl with human tilly?

Day 259

Oh this one really tickled me. I was thinking that Tilly would be an old lady and like, really motherly, but I also wanted her to be a warrior and she has her fair share of battle wounds and stitches. She's also really big. She big lady. Like, Luisa size. She's also maybe like semi immortal? Her husband has died of old age and all her kids have grown up and moved out, so she's just chillin in her cottage.

Pearl, I decided to base her off of those more brownish wolves. She got either separated or abandoned by her pack when she was still an adolescent, and Tilly found her and took care of her. She's also cursed to cause misfortune to those around her. That doesn't deter Tilly tho. The red bandana that she wears used to be Tilly's :D

[yaymiyas]

ISEKAI!YANDERE!CROWN PRINCE INTRODUCTION

warning: female reader, his name is saer…just so you can follow a bit lol, isekai lol

a/n: it’s structured a bit differently than my other introductions, do note that yes this is x reader but you had gotten isekai’d into a novel so….i do say her name but…..you’re also you…..if that makes sense, also he is hardly in it but its like….an introduction to the story bc its…an isekai and i needed to layout how i wanted everything to be

its not like you didn’t realize something was up. bright white lights blind you right when you open your eyes. maids coming in and out, calling you ‘miss’ and telling you not to sit up because ‘it will harm you even more’. granted, you were very thankful for their words because, around ten minutes before they came in, you attempted to sit up and gave yourself a headache. even though nobody was explaining anything, you remained quiet, trying to gather as much information from the surrounding maids as possible. the red-haired one with tight curls and an everlasting smile was amanda. she seemed to like you much, more than the other two, and tended to you more carefully. maybe she was your personal maid,or maybe she was just good at her job, but she never let up and called you your ‘name’.

admittedly, none of the other two maids called you your ‘name’ either. it was all just ma’am or miss from them. you just expected a hint of your identity from amanda, based solely on her care for you. selfish? maybe but you needed more hints. the other maids are named cynthia and tilly. the former of the two had long black hair slicked into a low bun, with a small maids hair on top to finish the look. it was a cute detail, if you must say, since the other two didn’t wear them. cynthia hardly spoke above a shout, coming off as more soft-spoken than the other two. she wasn’t really rude, nor did she have an attitude while tending to you, but she wore an expression of indifference that made you think she would rather do anything else.

tilly, on the other hand, was more bold than the other two. still not outwardly rude, but she tested your patience a few times. the main one that got to you though, was when she was rubbing your face. while she was washing off your face with the washcloth, she rubbed against your cheeks too hard, and upon this ‘realization’ she gave you a malevolent grin. her thin lips formed an o shape, mimicking the action of saying ‘oops’. luckily, it seemed as if amanda and cynthia didn’t really care for this ‘prank’ of hers. they both scoffed in disgust, continuing to pick out outfits for me to wear for the day ahead.

a soft but stern knock was heard at the door, revealing a man with black slick back hair and yellow eyes to put the look all together. he reminded you of those webtoon male leads that were cold but female audiences loved. being a sucker for those types, you raised your neck up, making sure to keep your body in the same supine position. the man standing at the foot of your bed looked down at you with an expression that you couldn’t read. an expression that wasn’t scary but wasnt welcoming. tapping along the footboard of the bed, he let out a low sigh out that resembled a growl and turned around to leave. tilly, amanda, and cynthia didn’t acknowledge the man. neither did he to them. the only thing that could resemble an interaction between the four of them was when tilly and amanda gave small bows and the slight side eye cynthia gave before going back inside your closet to look for something.

“madam,”

thats a new one.

“lord saer would like you to have breakfast with him today.”

lifting your head enough to turn your focus towards amanda, you started to guess your facial expression was a bit too expressive because amanda started to giggle. the pain in your body wasn’t really high; it was more the numbness that bothered you. moving your neck and head didn’t really take much strength, it was attempting to move your legs that was the problem. walking towards you in a shift movement, amanda placed the rich, deep purple hair piece down on top of the dress set she had picked out for you. upon arrival, she softly removed your blanket and shifted your body into a sitting position. you felt like a doll.

“okay now miss, i will be lifting you up to wash you now.”

placing her right arm underneath the backs of your knees and her left arm supporting your neck, she quickly moved you to the area you’re assuming was the bathroom. the door to the large room was already open, since once she had lifted you up, cynthia had pushed the door open and walked in herself. the room was massive, twice the size of a normal person’s kitchen. the walls and floor tiles were both the same shade of pale pink, matching the sleeping set you had on. amanda sat you down in a chair and started to strip you down. while she was doing that, the other was running the bath water and testing if it was safe enough. every time the water was a bit too hot or too cold, you saw cynthia’s eyes squeeze shut.

“alright madam edina,”

cynthia sighed, standing up from the clam shaped tub.

“it’s all set for you. please do not make it hard as you have always done.”

not sparing you even a small look, she and amanda were already picking you up and guiding you into the tub. quietly instructing you to lay back, wet, cold liquid found its way both on your scalp and on your legs. edina? are you sure thats what she said? the only edina you knew of was the villainess from the hit novel “obsession falls”. you never really read the book, but you knew of the characters and the content that surrounded it. it was rather controversial for how obsessive and dangerous the male lead was. he had stalked the female lead for years, and it didn’t stop once he got married. with a wife so dismissive and uninterested, the male lead was given all the time in the world to go hunt his prey.

unfortunately for him, once edina randomly started to care about what her husband was doing during the day he had to slowly stop. losing the love of his life to the second male lead, alastair. due to this very random string of events, saer had grown irritated by the events his wife was clumsily stringing together. he then decided to take care of his wife, edina. the night before he was to go and kill alastair, he had poisoned the dinner he had helped make for his wife. from your memory, this was one of the few times in years he had asked his wife to sit at the table and eat with him. she would usually just take her food into her room separately. this night, edina came into the dining room with her most expensive jewelry and dress. she thought this was the night her husband was going to admit his faults and leave the female lead for her. however, what actually ended up happening was that the moment she took a bite out of her steak, her vision went black and her head banged on the table.

focusing on the soft brushes of your hair, you start to put the pieces together. you don’t remember the faces of any of the characters in the story, you just remember the basic blot and conflict. if what cynthia said was true, that you are in fact edina tudor gwynn then that means the reasoning for your stiff body was because of your ‘husband’ trying to kill you. sharply sucking in some air, you seek strength within your legs. even though the lower half of your body was still partially numbed, the feeling of pins and needles filled the tip of your toes to the back of your knees. not wanting to cause much of a scene, even though you were sure she wouldn’t care much, you looked up to check to see if your maid was paying you any mind. cynthia was too focused on rinsing your body, while amanda stopped brushing your hair to grab towels for you.

“cynthia,”

it was amazing how you could even get that out. due to the affects of the poison, your throat had become overly dry and it hurt you to even swallow. that was mainly one of the reasons as to why you hardly spoke to them this morning. stopping in her tracks, she lazily turned her head into your direction. the woman didn’t have much of any emotion on her face. her eyelids halfway down, making it appear that she was tired or just bored. her lips were in a thin line. you had hardly seen her smile or really speak, so you started to believe this was just how her resting face looked like.

“why did he poison me?”

tilting her head a bit, cynthia’s facial expression changed. it was as if your question intrigued her. her low eyelids raised a bit, along side her eyebrows, as she tried to tame the smile that was creeping on her thin lips. this was the most expressive you have ever seen her. she began to part her lips when amanda came back through the door with the towels.

“perhaps this conversation will need to be revisited, my lady.”

[wildflowerdoeeyed]

𝑀𝑜𝓁𝓁𝓎 𝒪’𝓈𝒽𝑒𝒶

(the character overlook)

♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧⋆⭒˚｡⋆

these are all my opinions, totally open to the conversation about molly’s character also totally fine with people fact checking me, anyways i’m starting to fw o’shones

in the words of @krayzie-jelli the autism is autisming (don’t cancel me i have referrals to get tested 😔😔)

♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧⋆⭒˚｡⋆

small credit;

the red dead fan wiki

@/reaperqween on tik tok (for the almost ten minute tik tok about mollys outfits which i ate up)

^ her tumblr is @river-of-wine send some love yall want 💕

colour analysis & general observations

🪞💋🍓🌹🍰

colour theory is heavily used based on honor, the best example of this is dutch, he consistently wearing red, mostly on his back until guarma when the red is on the front, when dutch’s true intentions become more apparent, anyways onto molly.

🩰𓈒⋆⑅˚₊୨୧

COLTER

(i went quite quick through colter so im actually unsure how she is with dutch, but from what i remember she doted on him a whole ton, constantly staying at his side and at one point saying “dutch is all the company i need”)

💋though a lot of people relate the red in different characters with low honor i think the fabric, the pattern itself points back to her privileged past

💋the necks scarf being green, i feel like it doesn’t imply much at this point but as the game continues it implies way more

💋the rest of the outfit being blue means a lot to me, there’s never anytime molly oversteps or is aggressive to anyone (obviously except from the obvious with karen, i’ll go back to this later)

💋i’d like to note that she’s still doing her makeup freezing and starving in the mountains

🩰𓈒⋆⑅˚₊୨୧

HORSESHOE OUTLOOK & CLEMENTS POINT

(i honestly will end up mixing these up so i grouped them together)

(tbh my honest opinion is horseshoe is one of the best chapters based on the relationships in camp (tho sadie’s still going through it, you can’t have everything))

💋her first outfit has a good amount of blue in this outfit, her necklace has its first appearance with the red (i always got the vibe that dutch had gifted it to her as it’s more shiny than a lot of the metal in her outfits and it’s like a part of him)

💋she wears a thick belt with this outfit and the brass (?) seems worn, even coming from a wealthy background she holds onto clothes that look old and worn

💋she always wears white boots, she’s doesn’t have to do any work, and she’s not expected to do anything

💋the majority of the mornings in game, molly is constantly checking herself in a mirror

💋i’m going to be honest i hate this shirt

💋but i’d like to think this shawl has always been with her and that she holds it close to her

💋her outfit is quite shapeless, and i think that’s how she liked to dress personally

💋i would love to talk about this outfit

💋does this eat? yes, but i don’t think this was a honest choice for her

💋this outfit mirror mary-beth’s a lot, who seems to be dutch’s new interest

sorry for the bad quality i used my own screenshot for this

💋this outfit particularly ^

💋there’s now a lot of cleavage in her outfit and she’s dressing more akin to other girls in the camp

💋and the gold in her outfits bright, and with mirroring marybeth, I also think this mirrors dutch’s style, with more red and gold incorporated

🩰𓈒⋆⑅˚₊୨୧

💋her relationship with dutch is starting to crumble, i heard a voice line where she says that she loves him and he thanks her (?!) you wouldn’t see me again personally

💋but to contrast that there’s some scenes were dutch kisses her hands and they’re all giddy and cuddly, and they eventually dance when sean’s rescued from blackwater

💋she’s also not well received by a lot of the gang, we get the first glimpse of that when you take mary-beth, tilly and karen to valentiene and karen says that molly’s “too high and mighty” to come with them

💋she attempts a to interact with numerous members

💋she also attempts to talk to tilly, tilly quickly brushes her off as she’s working and molly isn’t attempting to help her

💋i also saw an encounter with dutch and molly where, he approaches, and honestly he could be covered in shit and molly would still look up to him like he’s a messiah. dutch says “should i compare thee to…” he quickly cuts himself off asking her what he should compare her with, even asking arthur if you pass by (he actually says that dutch could compare her to an idiot if she actually believes dutch cares about her)

💋 throughout clements point, dutch talks down to molly as if she’s a child and then will quickly back himself up by calling her dear (to which if arthur intervenes when she goes off at him, dutch says she’s just leaving and she’s stomps away)

💋when she approaches abigail about the subject of dutch, abigail tells her “dutch don’t love you, not in the way you want to be loved”, molly gets defensive saying that she doesn’t get what she’s talking about, to which abigail says she does (implying drunk john?) and molly stomps away

💋i think this is the first time molly actually goes a bit crazy about dutch, she calls him a degenerate liar and stomps off when dutch wont argue back and (i think) goes to sleep, he at least turns away from her

💋i think people who discredit mollys character (men) don’t realise that her and dutch’s relationship show early signs about how manipulative dutch can be, he dumbs down what she says then calls her dear, eventually he only calls her miss o’shea, which she obviously goes off at him for

💋adding onto this i’d love to talk about her character item request of a pocket mirror and her asking arthur if bad lucks a thing, i feel like this is meant to reflect how young she actually is, like how kieran still referred to his parents as ma and pa, and that she genuinely seems nervous asking arthur for a mirror and the superstition of a broken mirror giving bad luck (which i guess you could say she had

💋and i feel like her vanity that the gang and from an outsiders perspective that she’s self absorbed but i think she’s more conscious about how she looks, she doesn’t have to lift a finger and not having much to do around camp because everyone distances themselves from her (i’ll obviously elaborate more when i get to writing about shady bell) i think she’s left alone with a mirror, which i feel is more implied that she’s had for a long time, i’d say since childhood, you become more conscious the more you look at yourself and if your man seemed to be going for someone younger than you, you’d loose it too

(tl:dr - molly doesn’t deserve any hate, the girls that get it, get it, men don’t, im so ready to talk about chapter 4&6)

The poem

-

Uaibhreach

(the irish gaelic word which means “being proud and arrogant to the extent that it alienates & isolates you from those around you, leading to loneliness)

I was a girl - until your call

(i’m not going to annotate this everytime but the religion of this actually makes me feel like my hearts being ripped out)

Commanded me to cross the sea.

(she was driven out of ireland looking for freedom and adventure and she was enthralled by dutch’s charm, to be honest i always saw her “privileged upbringing” being her family owning a big farm, or in a big industry, a lot of irish people immigrated to canada after the potato famine, then crossed to america)

I've nothing left. I gave you all.

(i think she means this in, like, every sense)

My darling Liffey was so small.

Your land and love are vast and free.

(‘MERICA)

I was a girl until your call.

You stood so strong, and dark and tall.

You stole the heartbeat out of me.

I've nothing left. I gave you all.

Your lips enchant, your eyes enthrall,

Your empire is of ecstasy.

I was a girl until your call.

Your parasites and lackeys crawl,

(now do i think this is the gang or her fault that they don’t like her, i think its a mutual thing, they see her as a spoiled woman and she doesn’t help that opinion but i think she’s a young woman manipulated by an older guy, and that she thinks they’re all just jealous (which im sure she even says a few times)

Mocking a love they dare not see.

(going back to when she try’s to seek abigail’s help, or when she confronts karen later on and that she can’t see that he’s really not interested in her)

I've nothing left. I gave you all.

I sit in solitude and scrawl

These wretched words, and wait for thee.

I was a girl until your call.

I've nothing left. I gave you all.

[send-me-a-kae-via-subspace]

finally made a pearlo design line up!!!

thought process + alt ver under cut

hermitcraft s8 - idk i just wanted her to be a little goofy. llama everywhere, yknow. i tried to get a few of the swaggon colours in there just to be a little rad

empires s1 - i wanted to just, delete her dress. shes a jacked farmer and i wanted to get that across in the design. her design started up a little fatter, b/c i wanted all of my pearls to be visually distint, but i ended up giving that form to legacy (i had to scrap it b/c i didnt know enough about the series. so if you knw abt what she did there that would be super rad!!) anyway tank top, flowy clothes, etc. i really like the pointy crown though. and the warm colours w green i think worked out pretty well.

hc s9 - made her creacher. what else do you want. also tried to make her outfit like. a mix of suit and cleaning lady garb. the colour choice was like, orange and purble and teal. because complementary colours, and those were like what made her base. pop out to me yknow. also insect-like connected joints

limlife - comfy cosy outfirt. flowy jeans and frogge hoodie. idk what to say here tbh. i saw all the frog hoods and thought. yeah no she WOLULD wear that

last life - there is. no reasoning for this one. wanted to do someth based off of the base pearl skin . so i gave her the sans treatment (fur hoodie)

double life - i tried to give her the most sexy and attractive look i could muster. she is like the bad boys of dl. to me. leather pants, flowy hoood, and lots and ltos and lots of bows. also high heels to step on people. i really like this design but lets be honest i just took the colour red and ran with it. except for the little gold medalion. thats to match with tilly. we stay silly :3

santa perla - oh yeah this lady right here. really inspired  by toh collector. i just. mmm moon face amirite. the rest is just pointy bits and shroud of light (kinda? insp by bdubs skin from empires crossover?)the part on the right comes from pixs santa perla statue !!! pointy wing beloved. aslo shes glowing. because magic and god and something

evo - i know. nothing about evo. i just looked at her skin, saw bright teal and stripes, and ran with it!

hardcore - i jjust gave her all the hashtag survival stuff. and a moon on her shirt b/c i dont think you could tell shes pearl otherwise

[sweetlittlegingy]

Deep In Her Heart, The Thunder Rolls

♤ Next Chapter | Blue Jeans Masterlist

♤ Pairing: Rhett Abbott x Y/n "Tilly" Tillerson

♤ Word Count: 2.2 K

♤ Warnings: Fluff, Cuddly!Rhett, Horny!thots, Angst..

♤ A/n: It's just a blurb, a bit of setup for part 3...

♤ Library | Main Masterlist

To say that Rhett Abbott was sweet on you, was the understatement of the century. You left Wabang for college a year and a half ago, and though you “broke up,” the two of you remained faithful to one another.

I wasn’t that you had promised each other that you wouldn’t have sex with anyone else. No, you just could never find anyone that seemed better than Rhett. You were still in love with the man, and the fact that he came up to Bozeman at least once every 6 months, kept you more than satisfied.

The both of you had decided to keep your situation on a need-to-know bases, as in no one else needed to know. It wasn’t out of embarrassment, no it was more the fact that you were just both very private people, especially when it came to each other. Rhett had come up with an array of excuses to tell his family about why he was constantly going to Bosman.

From circuit business, to needing a new Stetson, to events, nothing was off the table when it came to seeing you. You thankfully had your own dorm room, meaning that no matter when Rhett showed up, he always had a place to stay. His appearances became so regular, that the dorm building security guard had come to know Rhett by name and would hold a conversation every time he visited.

Most of the time, Rhett’s visits ended with the two of you locked in your room for the whole weekend. Only ever coming out when you’d ordered food, or to go on the occasional date night. It wasn’t that you were to sex-crazed individuals, which you were, but the deep need that you both had to just be in each other’s presence was overwhelming.

You and Rhett were like a part of each other’s souls, as if at one point you’d been so deeply intertwined, that when you parted it was as if you could barely breathe. You had etched your mark on each other’s souls, and there would be no removing it.

…

Rhett was coming up for the weekend, and while you hadn’t seen him in two months, you talked every day. You had been working through your assignments, wanting to have everything finished and turned in before he showed up. The massive write-up for econ, had been time-consuming. The actual writing of the paper had been easy enough, though the hours you spent researching the economic downfall in the 1930s had been studious and mind-numbing.

You loved school, really, but between the tutoring and honor society, you were more than ready for a chill, relaxing weekend with Rhett.

Clicking submit on the paper, you glance at your phone, and two unread messages flash across the screen. One from Rhett stating that he was just pulling into the dorm parking, and the other from Daniel, a guy that you’d been “helping” in classes.

Hey T, did you finish up that chemistry assignment? It's due Sunday.

Alright, so maybe you weren’t just helping, but Daniel was a busy guy and paid you well for the work you did.

Yeah, I emailed it to you this morning, but my venmo isn’t working. I need cash.

You type out the message and hit send, throwing your phone back onto your bed as a knock sounds at your door. You're up and moving without a second thought for the outfit you're wearing, the booty shorts barely peeking out from under one of Rhett’s oversized hoodies. Your hair in a clear mess atop your head, barely being held up by the claw clip.

You pull open the door swiftly, only to find Rhett talking with your neighbor, the bitch. Every time Rhett was over, she made goo-goo eyes at him. Clearly trying to get in his pants, you’d think she would have gotten the message after hearing you scream Rhett’s name during every visit.

Rhett turns to you when you open the door, though your eyes are focused on Danica. Your hand grasps at the shirt Rhett is wearing, and tug him harshly into the room. Your eyes never leave Danica as she glares at you, a fake smile plastered on your lips before you rudely slam the door in her face.

“Tilly, that wasn’t very nice.” The teasing, yet cocky tone in his voice has you rolling your eyes.

“I don’t like sharing, Abbott.” Your voice clipped and harsh, as your eyes soften when looking up into his own.

One hand settles to rest on his abdomen, as the other wraps up around his neck. You deliver a harsh tug, pulling Rhett down and slotting your lips against one another. You can feel Rhett’s smile against your lips, his hands drop down around your waist, slip beneath the hoodie and tap your ass, signaling you to jump.

You waste no time in wrapping your legs around his waist, both arms curling around his neck. One slipped up to grasp the Stetson atop his head, pulling away from the kiss for a second and tossing the hat onto your desk. The idea of your lips being apart is clearly displeasing to Rhett. As one of his hands slips from underneath your ass, to grasp your cheeks in between his thumb and forefinger, pressing his lips back against yours.

Your lips work against each other, hot needy kisses pass between you. Your tongues work in tandem against each other, pushing and pulling in a network of want and passion. You don't even notice that the pair of you have moved until Rhett has you pressed against your mattress.

The pressure of his belt buckle against your cunt has you bucking your hips, and a wanton moan slips past your lips.

“Hold on, sugar.”

Rhett pulls away, his hand slips up to cradle you face, thumb brushing against your swollen bottom lip.

“Just let me look at you.”

Your face nuzzles into the palm of his hand, kissing it gently. The blue in Rhett’s eyes shines bright, and the small specks of green peek out from behind his iris. His stare makes you blush, it was always like he could see right into your soul. Moments like this were always more vulnerable than any other time, even in moments when you were naked and exposed.

“I missed you.”

The comment slips past your lips, so quiet and gentle. Though it causes Rhett to smile, before pressing a small against your lips. Foreheads resting against one another, the weight of his body settles against your own.

“I missed you, Til.” Noses bopping against each other, before Rhett is standing. Slipping the button-up off his shoulders, the clank of his buckle releasing sounds, as he pushes his pants to the floor. He motions towards you to sit up, his hands reach for the bottom of the hoodie, slipping it from your form.

“Think this is mine, darlin’.

“Did you bring me a new one? It doesn’t smell like you anymore.”

He laughs slightly at your question, reaching to tug your shorts off. Leaving the both of you in your underwear and pulling you to lay on his chest as you settle on the bed.

“Don’t I always?”

Your head nods against his chest, knowing that every time Rhett came up, he brought you a sweater that he’d been wearing. You told them that the smell of his aftershave had comforted you and had made you feel like you weren’t so far apart.

The warmth of his body seeps deep into your bones, and your eyes start to drift off. The stress of the week fades from your hold, as Rhett runs a single hand up and down your spine.

“Sleep Tilly.”

The last thing you remember is a soft kiss being placed against the crown of your head, both yours and Rhett’s breath settling out into a slow rhythm, encased by sleep.

…

The loud knocking at your door wakes you and Rhett up, stretching up to place a sweet kiss against Rhett’s lips, you slowly move from the bed. Though Rhett reaches out, holding on to your waist, as he whines into the crook of your neck. His breath tickles you and you can’t help but to giggle.

Your bubble is once again, popped as the knocking ensues again. Rhett finally releases you, so that you can pull on the hoodie and shorts. Glancing back over your shoulder you laugh at the sight, Rhett laid out on your bed, arms tucked behind his head, in nothing but his boxers. The sight makes your toes curl in want, your eyes racking up his form. To find a wide smile directed at you, his baby blues shimmering with mischief.

“Y/n, open the damn door.”

Daniel's voice has you moving again, grasping the handle of the door and ripping it wide open. Had you ripped it open so wide, in hopes that Danica would once again be lurking and see an almost naked Rhett spread out? Yes, though your hopes are dashed away when you see it’s only Daniel.

 “Hey D, come on in.”

His eyes move behind you, settling against Rhett who waves a hand slightly. Not moving an inch from his spot, clearly comfortable in his skin.

“Baby, this is Daniel.” You motion between the two, eye’s finding Daniel’s. “D, this is Rhett.”

Each of them exchanging pleasantries, though nothing more. You push off the door, where you had been leaning, and reach under your desk in search of the chemistry binder from last year.

You find the worn binder and toss it to Daniel, eyes tracing to see if you have anything else that might help him.

“That’s all my notes from Granger's class last year. More than enough to help you pass tests and I can finish out the papers. But I want extra for the final, I’m gonna have a packed schedule with just my work.”

Rhett silently watches you, his sweet girl is hard-assing this massive guy and making demands. He always liked it when you were bossy, he thought it made you look hot. That fire in your eyes, always set him a light.

Daniel slips two crisp hundred dollar bills in your palm and glances back to Rhett, who only smiles wider. You laugh at him, your eyes rolling, and then look back toward Daniel.

“That’s fine,” He shakes the binder at you slightly, with a grateful smile. “Thanks, for this too.”

You give him another smile, and move to open the door for him. Trying to be polite, but more than ready to be back in bed with Rhett.

“Alright, it was nice meeting you.” Another wave passes between the two men, then Daniel is out the door. Calling a ‘thanks again’ over his shoulder as he leaves.

You turn around on your heel, and a smile spreads across your face seeing Rhett in your bed. Before he has time to react, you’re moving for the cowboy, jumping up in his lap and snuggling up against his neck.

“Quiet the criminal, aren’t you?” his teasing tone has you laughing in his neck, arms, and legs wrapping around him like a koala.

“Daniel doesn’t have the time, and I like the extra cash.”

Rhett hums against the crown of your head, his arms wrapping around you in a tight grip.

“Long as you’re being careful, baby. Don’t think I missed the tattoos, I’m not stupid darin’.”

A heavy sigh is released from your chest, you pull away from Rhett so that you’re sitting in his lap. His hands automatically find home on your hips under the hoodie, gentle circles from his thumb rubbed into your hip bones.

“Look I know. Daniel is into some shady stuff, but he’s always been nice to me and if I called him for anything, he would be there.” Your fingers spin in your lap, a nervous habit. “It’s just nice to know that without you here, I have someone else that has my back. I don’t trust guys in general, but especially on campus.”

Rhett notices your slight nervous nature, and the tone you have when you mention the guys living on the campus. He’d seen them enough and known right away that they were douchebags, but you had never mentioned having trouble.

“There something I need to know about baby?”

The term of endearment has you glancing up, loving how sweet the tough cowboy could be with you.

“I had some problems when I first moved in, but Daniel ended them almost instantly. I didn’t wanna worry you, you already have so much going on.”

Your eyes causally avoid Rhett’s, already feeling bad that you’ve kept it from him. Rhett moves you sit up, and pulls you so your flush with his chest. So close that your eyes can’t help but to look at each other.

“Tilly, I don’t care what is going on in my life. You tell me from now on, please?”

It was rare to hear Rhett ask anyone ‘please,’ and the tone in his voice makes your stomach clench in pain. The thought of hurting him, even if it was on accident, was the worst possible thing you could think of happening. He was your person and you’d only ever kept it from him because you thought you were protecting him.

“I’m sorry baby, never again.”

The placement of your lips against his is out of the pure need to express your love, to prove how much he really meant to you.

“Promise?” The question whispered against your lips.

“I promise.”

…

I was a promise that you kept,

until you couldn’t.

[angelicspaceprince]

i love lysander! can you please write us a character profile thing so we can know more about her?

You most certainly can! Thanks to @blueberry-9-pancakes and @sapphic-florals for your help with this!

Please note our lore for the conglomerate is slightly different from others.

Ly, first and foremost, travels. A lot. She never stays in one place for too long. For her, it’s a protection method. You can’t hurt her if she is always on the move

She is a don, but not in the same way the other dons are. She works in a little bit of everything, just like her magic, but its always to help others. She’s into loan sharking, but if you are desperately in need and it’s clear you’ll never be able to pay her back, she will just grant you the money. If you’re a rich guy who didn’t need the money and could pay her back, but refuse to, that’s when you are punished.

Dabbles in sex work but its more to provide sex workers a safe place to actually, ya know. Work. You want to go down this line of work? She won’t judge, she will just make sure you’re not going to get hurt because of it.

Born in 1348 in London, kidnapped from her parents by Juno and raised by her

In a fit of rage, she attacked Ly and sliced her vocal cords. She now can’t speak. She spent years in silence, writing out what she wanted to say, before learning how to sign and used that as her way to communicate. She died about a decade after, having run away from Juno at that moment and never looked back.

Her clones can speak, but it hurts and is awfully gravelly. They tend to sign as a result and only talk when they need to.

Speaking of clones, they have different names! Mostly so she can tell the difference between her clones and the boys.

Bee: Bre, Chamie: CamCam, Cici: KeKe, Jay: Phoebe, Jazz: Jasey, Lex: Lulu, Ren: Renée, Wasp: Tilly

Keke, however, changes their name on the reg. Mostly to fuck with Zhuk, he never gets their name right and that’s intentional.

Additionally, more on communication - they are all touch-telepathic! 

Ly, in particular, uses it to determine whether or not she trusts you and it becomes a means to easily communicate with you. But only if she really trusts you or if she has to

When she’s angry, she always resorts back to sign because her voice becomes so loud it can damage your mind, so she pulls back and signs instead.

On that, holding her hand? Rarely. Only if she trusts you and has spent a lot of time with you. If you’re the sort to hold her hands in an attempt to calm her down when angry? She will never hold your hand again

Effectively, you’re silencing her when you do this. And, again, holding her hand, in general, is silencing her because, as much as she loves to communicate telepathically, she prefers to sign. So if she holds your hand, know that you’re special.

As for when she met the dons - a fic is coming with this to explain her hatred of the young Zhukary, but for the time being:

She met Bajo first, in the 20s. Right after he died, he was partying in the same place she happened to be. At first she wasn’t keen when he tried to pull her into the dance floor, but once he realised she was mute and didn’t treat her awfully as a result, they became fast friends.

She met Cia next, through Bajo (who kept in contact with her through letters as she travelled). The two hit it off right away, Cia and her enjoying teasing Bajo and talking about things that happened in the UK in their lifetime, basically ranting about how shitty the English were in different eras.

Scarabee was next. She came to the manor to visit Cia and Bajo when Bee found her and the pair hit it off right away, both talking about magic and him helping her out with a spell she had been stuck on for quite some time.

When she officially ‘moved’ into the manor in the 60′s - as in, she set up base there after having been a part of the Conglomerate for nearly a decade -  Scarabee tried to take Ly under his wing, them being the only two Black people there. He was shocked when Lysander was, in fact, much older than him.

Zhuk and Gio were next, fast-forwarding to 1954. Ly decided to visit the boys again, only this time, everyone was there.

Zhuk instantly assumed that she was just a fuck buddy of Bajo’s and was free for anyone to woo.

Lysander did a scan of his brain and found it repulsive. He was overly traditional, even by the 50s standards, and saw women as things, as he desperately tried to find someone to dote on but to the point that they were more doll than person and equal.

He also talked over her, dismissed her ideas, and attempted to take over her mafia in an attempt to ‘help her relax and take care of herself’.

Lysander, a raging feminist and as stubborn as anything, decided there and then that he was beyond saving and was not worth her time.

Zhuk changed over the years and now has a giant crush on the woman, but the damage was done. It’s unknown if they will ever end up together, as much as Zhuk would want it, he also knows he royally fucked up. And has reserved to a life of possibly never winning her favour back.

That being said, she is still civil and is able to spend time with him alone. She works with him and helps him where needed. It will be a miracle for her to form a romantic attraction to Zhuk.

Demipansexual and demipanromantic, but poly. She rarely feels sexually attracted to people until she’s known them for a while and they have already formed some kind of bond. Still has a sex drive, obviously, but it takes a while for her to trust someone enough to actually have sex with.

She’s six foot even

Highly competitive

As I stated before, she is a magic-user, but she takes knowledge from different practices to form her own form of magic, having blended it with the magic all demons are granted.

I haven’t done an official face claim but I’ve always been torn between Lupita Nyong'o and Janelle Monáe for face claims.

Dom-leaning switch, but soft dom. Only goes hard ass on the other guys, never on breathers.

Has pegged Zhuk on more than one occasion. Bajo asked for tips because how? Especially when she hates him? but he gets nowhere. It’s mostly hate fucking, when things go wrong and she just needs the physical release? Pegs and tops the fuck outta Zhuk, who allows it because he enjoys letting go and the aftercare that follows.

Has done some modelling for Gio, and sometimes he will call her to come and be his muse for his next collection of outfits and dresses that he wants to make.

Favourite colour is bright yellow or dark gold.

Ambidextrous.

[shesawriter39049]

BTS -HS-HEADCONS

(Slightly NSFW ) ..JUST A LIL

Mkay ..disclaimer this is all in good FUN, I’m also a fellow 94 liner, so if the boys were in the US, we would’ve been in HS together!

This is Obv very Westernized and I’m writing this as if they aren’t the art school AU’s people typically write

(EDITED 8/5/2020)

Jimin-

-A whole thot thot, I mean don’t get me wrong he’s a total sweetheart but he’s still a walking  thirst trap, no cap, no filter! He’s kinda ”famous” on social media(Prob like 15-20k) Snap, IG, FB, you name it...for some reason he always seems to work out shirtless. LOVES to take pics so you KNOW he worked out shirtless!

-Please don’t let any form of R&B play at a party...It’s a wrap, what you tryin to see? Some grind work? A little hip roll action? You want a lap dance? Tongue out and all! The Asian alllll the black girls girls love(Obviously not just black girls but lets be real..it takes a certain...appeal..and Jimin has it!) 

- Gives off that whole “My dad owns, about 5 nail salons and beauty supplies in the hood” kinda vibe! (Meaning hes comfortable around different walks of life,he doesn't feel out of place easily, hes the type of person that everybody can gravitate towards) The boy has swag and he knows it…got everybody from Megan to Brian thirsty as all hell! 

-Will win best hair his senior year..without a doubt, well if he doesn't fry it first!... Looks like a walking Pantene commercial, yes, more so because he can’t go two seconds without running his fingers through his scalp!

-KING of subtle shade...knows all the tea but acts like he doesn't as he slowly sips his Starbucks. The type to honestly forget he’s told 3 different girls they could wear his jersey/Letterman jacket! Until they all text him Thursday night ....

-A jock that’s cool with everybody! The type to cuss out his fellow athletes that are total dick wads and bully people... I feel like he’d be a damn good running back, he has the right height a muscle build up for it. 

-Owns a pair of buffs, don't lie to yourself you know you could see it too...wears skinny jeans with Timberland's 😒, still wears 3878374 rings. Believe it or not he gives me like Tilly’s/Zumiez/PacSun vibes!

-Drives a red obnoxiously loud scat pack that’s tinted way past the legal shade! He drifts on the weekends. Jimin would be your local plug IDC,IDC,IDC...LOL I said what I said, got a whole eighter hiding in a fake bottle of orange juice!

- Just flirting his way through high school living his best life… will fuck someone up if need be, has a slight temper, sassy as hell, can roll his eyes with the best of them. ”Would it be ...too extra if I changed outfits and dates during the dance?..Serious question guys! ” 

- He’d be the one that all the girls say gives the best head ...I mean..those lips..that tongue..HELLO! Stroke game on point...I feel like he’d have no filter when it comes to talking about sex publicly. No shame, loves to tease you, at the worst times, down to sneak off to the bathroom, or the janitors closet! Will bend you over behind the bleachers after they win a football game...if your down...gang, gang!

Namjoon-

-An Asian with light skin tendencies ...the one that low key may think he’s black (I’m joking!! lmao,,,maybe) 

-He’s that one person that legitimately everyone likes...no matter how hard you may try..you just can’t dislike him! 

-He actually is class president!

-Hangs out with all the basketball players and has the freshest Jordans..but can’t hoop! He’s on the school newspaper..writes the sports column...is still that free spirit telling you to live your best damn life.  

-Either looks like he’s going to a business meeting or like he just picked out damn near everything from Champs there’s no in between! 

-Makes and sells beats on the side, would also have a strong social media presence! He’s be the type to have a ton of followers on Sound Cloud and Spotify!

-The type to try and talk is way into and or around everything “I understand hats are against the wardrobe but I’m just trying to express myself and I think it’s right to give everybody self expression” Wears glasses, though none of us really know if he needs them forreal forreal…. Wears a snowman on his wrist (A big iced out watch). 

-Drives a white BMW 430, puts cones around his car in the parking lot..Yoongi and Jimin kick the cones...faithfully..everyday!

-Don’t let his niceness fool you, will cook your ass in the blink of an eye if need be! Prefers a good verbal situation though, the king of a good word battle will have you all types of trying to check the dictionary to understand what he just said! Got you standing there like a misplaced student in honors English… 

- If shit get’s physical well..we can’t let the president fight soo...he’ll call Yoongi or Jimin to handle it for him…. Because...well his Jay’s are brand new..and only 10 other people have them...sooooo..OR maybe it’s lowkey because he can’t fight all that well...baby’s not coordinate OKAY!? Don’t @ me! 

-Oophfff daddy long leg! Lmao nah but you know he’d be the one...the one that every girl says he’s packin..and he is...He’d be little more reserved..and modest when it comes to his skills but he’s damn sure not shy! Would deff skip lunch, for a quickey at the park..yes the park.....would leave for lunch in a suit...come back in some joggers....real subtel....

Yoongi -

-The unexpected jock ...the one who can kick your entire ass in basketball, one of the stars on the team! Shooting Guard, has a championship ring from every year he’s played!

-Picks and chooses when he wants to be social. Just judge his mood based on his  face that day!

-DJ’s every party and school event. Often gets into trouble for not playing the clean versions of songs!

-He’s on the morning broadcast with Jimin and Jin...also forgets to censor himself. I.E “Peter Pan opened last night and it sucked actual ass!” 

-Lowkey highkey funny AF, king of sarcasm and one liners!

-Purposely owns an old school Chevelle instead of a new car, also drifts on the weekends.

- Lives in like the flyest loungewear...joggers, hoodies,Jays..doesn't look like he tried but still looks bomb AF. 

-Another one that will creep up on you when it comes to his skill in bed, the one that girls say there surprised with how passionate and attentive he is! In contrast to how  hard his exterior can be, the type to take his time and make sure your more than satisfied….

 -Always, ALWAYS has his headphones in, lives and breathes music! He raps on the side, competes in underground competitions, and win’s without even trying! Refuses to ever participle in the schools talent show because he can’t swear therefore they are hindering his creative flow! 

-Constantly looks like he’d rather cut his own testie off than be “here” right now. 

-Will walk out if you don't let him go to the bathroom when he feels like it, actually he’ll just walk out period…”Yoongi where are you going!?” . 

“Oh I need another espresso shot before I sit through this extremely falsely sugarcoated reality of how Columbus “discovered”  a place that was already there!” 

Jimin: “Aww man, sit down I got you! I was just about to have Pizza Hut sent to the office, you wanna add into my postmates order!!?” 

😩😂😂😂...I canttttt ..maybe I’ll do the other four!? Again all in good fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I often wonder what the boys would be like if they were born in the states. Then I realize the lack of filter they’d all have especially JIMIN and I’m grateful for the cultural differences that come with them being Korean born !

UPDATE- 7/29...I think I might turn these headcons into a lil sum sum...writing these reminded me that I actually enjoyed HS (For me my “shitty” period was like elementray and part of middle school) But I made HS my bitch, and had so much damn fun lol !

7/30- PART 1

[starfleetdoesntfirefirst]

(Discovery Season 3 Episode 4 “Forget Me Not” Spoilers)

Greetings disco friends, here is my attempt at a fix-it fic.

What I mind most of all was them showing his graphic death scene, whether it’s partially-temporary or completely-temporary, after doing the same with Hugh and Michael’s then-death scenes. As far as the future of Gray's plotline goes (this season and into the next, since we know the actor is filming Season 4), I think there's a chance (especially given that GLAAD was helping them write the storyline) that he'll be completely brought back from the dead like Hugh and a chance that he won't be brought back fully but rather will continue to hang around noncorporeally like he's doing now. But either way, as with Hugh and Michael's graphic then-death scenes, that doesn't change the fact that they showed that in this episode.

I think I've reached the point of hard 'no’ on continuing to watch the show myself. (Though of course I completely support y’all in watching or not watching the show, as works for you!) And I’ll still be around here, writing fic based on Season 1 through to this episode.

Also, I’m currently brainstorming ways to put something affirming into the fandom this season while not watching, since I won't be writing fix-it ficlets and…obviously I know no one ~depends~ on my fix-it ficlets, but this community means a lot to me and I guess I want to feel like I'm putting something into the fandom even as I'm (aside from continuing to make content for older season stuff) walking away, if that makes sense? (Maybe some book giveaways of sci-fi books with trans characters, tho that may or may not work logistically/financially, or something like that.) Please let me know if you have suggestions! <3

Dreampt Of More Things

Other, F/F, M/M | Teen And Up | Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings | 2,600 words

ao3 link in a reblog since Tumblr still seems unpredictable about when posts with links are allowed in the tags

and/or, full fic + tags here:

Tags – Jett Reno, Jett Reno’s Wife, Michael Burnham, Hugh Culber, Ellen Landry, Philippa Georgiou (original Captain version), Adira Tal, Paul Stamets, Gray Tal, Sylvia Tilly, Tracy Pollard Adira Tal/Gray Tal, Jett Reno/Jett Reno’s Wife, Ellen Landry/Amna Patel, Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets Grief (Ellen’s) and mentions of Lorca, no serious injury since again we are sidestepping that but very brief description of Adira’s joining surgery, Gray Tal Lives, Jett Reno’s Wife Lives, Philippa Georgiou Lives

Note: This is not an Amna Patel Lives universe (Ellen Landry’s fiancée from Star Trek Online), as I am Making A Point about how no, it’s not that queer stories about loss and grief are bad or that I personally don’t want to write/read them; it’s about context, and how many characters have died over the course of your franchise, and the nature of your franchise, and what to portray versus not portray onscreen (in the context of your show), and how you’ve advertised your characters, and reading the room.

***

“Burning the midnight oil, huh?”

Jett looks up as Michael steps closer to her workbench in the corner of Engineering, raising an eyebrow, as Michael had known she would.

“Here to check my work on your outfit, Commander?” she asks, laconically, before bending her safety-goggled face back to her work.

Michael grins despite herself as she pulls out a chair opposite Jett. “I’m entirely confident in your work, Commander.”

“So you’re here to pester me because…?”

“Because I’m curious to see the work-in-progress. And, more importantly, because I ran into your wife on her way to turn in for the night, and she told me to tell you that she’s taking you out on a fantastic date when all this is over.”

“Where’s she think she’s gonna scare up a place to go out on any kind of date in the ass-middle of the 32nd century?”

Michael grins again. “I think it was a ‘looking for a way to take my wife on a fantastic date and if I cannot find one I will create one’ kind of thing.”

“Yeah, that tracks.” Michael can hear the smirk in Jett’s voice as she fiddles with the wiring on the angel suit’s chestplate.

“Don’t stay up too late, Commander,” she says as she stands. “We’re still gonna need you on shift tomorrow.”

Jett grunts in acknowledgement, and Michael smiles as she walks past the spore cube and towards her quarters for the night.

***

“How are you doing with all this, Landry?” Hugh ventures, after a few days of deliberation, when he and Ellen have a quiet moment alone together at the end of a meeting.

Ellen takes a minute before answering, dropping a PADD into her bag. “One of my security lieutenants said it seemed implausible that we’d be able to find a way to send Burnham back in time, once again, especially with the way the Burn affected ability of the time crystals on Boreth to interface with the suit even if we are granted one.”

Hugh raises an eyebrow and waits, silent.

“I told her that if she thought implausible was going to stop this crew, she must've not been paying attention to half the weird shenanigans they’ve pulled off.”

Hugh smiles wryly. “‘More things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” he quotes.

Ellen gives him a look, and he holds up his hands in surrender. “Maybe I’ve been spending too much time around this ship’s surprisingly high number of Shakespeare fans.”

“And we’ve already dreamt of more things, haven’t we?” Ellen asks simply, pausing and leaning a hip against the table. “At this point, it’s just a matter of choosing philosophies.”

High raises an eyebrow again. “That's an interesting way of looking at it, Commander.”

Ellen folds her arms. “Yes, thank you, I am a font of excellent observations, at least when I’m not busy misreading dipshit captains and making the worst choices in the universe. You can stop giving me the sympathy look, by the way.”

Hugh watches her, silent.

“Yes," she tells him in a sing-song voice, "I have in fact experienced one or two emotions while helping prepare for a mission to bring someone back from the dead and knowing I can never bring my own fiancée back.” Her tone drops back to a flat command. “The only person in my, this, situation who actually deserves your sympathy is Amna, and she’s not here to receive it. You’re a busy man; you’re needed all over the place. Go do something clever and medical somewhere.”

Hugh watches her for a moment longer before he says simply, “I’m so sorry. For your loss.”

“Don’t. No.” Ellen’s voice is firm, though without rancor. “Those words are not for me. I am not a good widow. Do you understand that? Instead of honoring my fiancée in any substantive way, I went off and got manipulated by some dipshit. And what’s worse, if it hadn’t been for the manipulation and the secretly evil part, I might not have ever figured out to regret it. Do you understand that? Can you understand that? You’re a good person. Your partner is a good person. Do you know what it is to not just not be able to save her but to get even grieving wrong?”

For a long moment, Hugh considers what to say.

“I think your actions in helping Lorca were wrong,” he says. “I don’t think it’s possible to grieve wrong.”

Ellen, eyes dubious, grunts in a way that could be dismissal, acknowledgement, or something in between.

“Take care, Commander,” Hugh says quietly, heading for the door.

He is nearly in the hallway when Ellen speaks.

“This is part of hers.”

Hugh pauses, turning to face her again. “Hers--?”

“Amna. This mission would have been part of her philosophy.” Ellen’s lip twitches in what could be the shadow of an exhausted smile, voice still blunt and the expression in her eyes still characteristically direct. “Without question.”

***

When Georgiou returns from Boreth, she discovers that Adira has slipped down to the shuttle bay to meet her.

“How did it go?” they ask, hesitantly, eyes wide with some unknown emotion.

“Successful,” she tells them, as the two of them make their way out of the bay together. She pats one strap of her pack. “We now have a time crystal.” Given that Gray’s life rests on having a crystal to power the suit, it’s unsurprising that Adira has been worried.

“No, I mean—I knew you’d be able to do it,” Adira tells her, as if this is obvious, a trust and confidence in their eyes that makes Georgiou’s heart ache. “But, I just, I do talk with the rest of the crew, and they talked about how Pike was so f—messed up by whatever he had to go through to get the crystal, like it was really really…bad. And I just—” They stare at their feet as they walk, sneaking a quick glance sideways at Georgiou. Georgiou knows she probably looks like shit. “If I’d never come to this ship, you wouldn’t have done that for Gray. For us.”

Georgiou stops walking, turning to face Adira, and Adira watches her, their face pinched and anxious.

“Listen to me, Adira.”

Adira nods.

“This might not be something you fully, truly understand until you’re an adult yourself, but when kids are hurt or in danger, it’s us adults' job to protect you. That’s one of the most important parts of being a caring adult Human. Caring adult person,” she corrects herself. “Maybe the most important thing.”

Adira nods uncertainly.

“Saving Gray is the most important thing right now,” Georgiou says gently, as the two of them resume walking. “To all of us. You arriving on this ship was a very, very good thing for so many reasons, Adira. Saving him is one of them.”

“And that’s a go, Burnham!” comes Paul’s voice in Michael’s ear, and she launches herself upwards from Discovery’s stationary hull, the soft interior padding of the red angel suit once again surrounding her as she hovers in space, programming her coordinates.

“Jump commencing in thirty seconds,” she reports.

“Take good care, Commander,” Paul says, his voice gentle in her ear against the silent cushion of the vacuum around her.

“I will.”

A pause of a few seconds. “Adira says ‘good luck.’”

Michael can picture the two of them as they were when she flew out of the shuttle bay, Paul standing at his portable console in the shuttle bay's cobbled-together mission control, one arm around Adira.

“Tell them—” Michael swallows. “Tell them thank you. Tell them that I’ll—tell them that we’ll be back soon.”

“I will.”

The countdown completes, and Michael falls forward into a bright shower of instants.

***

Outside the generation ship, Michael shifts reality out of the timeline with a wave of one Jett-Reno-enhanced suit hand, glancing at the two figures inside the viewport in front of her before tractoring the asteroid off its course. After confirming its trajectory away from the ship, she punches the personal transporter on her chest, materializing inside.

Gray and Adira startle, each making as though to stand protectively in front of the other.

“I mean you no harm,” Michael says quickly. “And you’re both going to be safe. I am going to make sure of that. My name is Michael Burnham, and the next year is going to be very difficult for you, Adira,” she continues, feeling the words tumble from her lips as quickly as she can say them, “but I want you to know that when that year is over, you’re going to see Gray again. Gray,” she says, holding out the unpowered exoskeleton of a second timesuit, “I need you to put this on and come with me.”

Gray steps closer to Adira. “What? No, I—”

“Your name is Gray Tal, and your last name was Senna Tal, and when he was a child his favorite thing to do was to read books to his collection of plush tribble toys,” Michael says.

Gray’s eyes widen. “That’s—“

Michael continues, rattling off former Tal host facts as quickly as she can, before explaining, also as quickly as she can, about the asteroid they’ve just seen her deflect, and the symbiont, and the Discovery.

“Adira needs to have the symbiont,” she explains, “in order not to cause a time paradox. But the modified time crystal in my suit will allow me to shift you—” she nods at Adira—“back into the real timeline in time for the medbots to give you the symbiont. I just need to do it at exactly the right time, so that Gray doesn’t actually die, and you snap back just as the medbots are holding the symbiont.” Do medbots hold things? Hover them? Whatever; she’s getting the point across. And Gray is putting the suit on.

“Luckily, my amazing crewmates have worked out all the timing,” she continues, “so I just need to transport us back outside and then snap the timeline back to the right instant. And, yes, there will be two Tals in the galaxy when you see each other again and I’m sure that will make things very interesting. Ready to go?”

She holds out a hand, and Gray takes it. “I love you, Adira,” he says, as Michael reaches for the transporter.

“I love you too—” Adira says, and Michael and Gray reappear meters away in space. Adira is standing watching them, and standing watching them, and then with a motion of her hand Michael slams them back into the timeline and Gray puts a hand to his mouth over his suit visor as he watches the medbots complete the surgery and place a blanket over Adira, flying the newly-joined Human slowly away down the hallways and out of sight.

“You’ll see them again,” Michael whispers, “in just a minute.”

“Them?” Gray sounds puzzled.

Oh, right. Well, in just moments, there will be ample time for explanations. “Adira. You’ll see Adira, who’s going to be so very, very happy to see you. It will have been a year,” Michael adds, as she pulls up the angel suit controls, “and Adira is going to be so glad to see you again.”

They fall forward into sparking and sparkling time together, and all at once they’re dropping back into the timeline, floating easily in the vacuum in front of Discovery’s shuttle bay.

“Ready?” Michael asks.

Gray nods. “Yeah. I mean—of course I’m ready. I’m ready.”

Michael smiles, floating them into the bay as the forcefield ripples obligingly to let them enter and landing them both on the smooth floor, steadying Gray as his feet make contact.

“Gray?”

Adira is pressing their own hand to their mouth as Michael and Gray release the visors on their suits, and then they take a step toward him, staring as though they don’t quite believe he’s real.

“It’s me,” Gray says quietly, smiling nervously at them. “I’m here.”

This appears to be all the encouragement Adira needs to dash forward, wrapping their arms around him. He hugs them back, eyes closed as he buries his head against their shoulder. Adira is smiling and crying at the same time.

“I’m here,” he whispers to them again.

Michael steps away from the two of them, leaving them to it, and Sylvia hurries forward to wrap her arms around her. “Welcome back, Michael,” she says.

Michael hugs her for several long seconds before releasing her to accept a hug from Philippa and then a pat on the back from Paul as Tracy steps forward to scan her with a medical tricorder. “No adverse effects of the jump,” she reports, smiling.

Hugh is stepping over to do the same for Gray as Gray and Adira finally—though, Michael suspects, temporarily—pull apart. Paul echoes his motion, heading for Adira and rubbing their back before wrapping a supportive arm around their shoulder as Hugh reports that Gray is fine as well and the two teenagers grin exhaustedly at each other.

Michael watches the four of them for another moment, smiling, before turning to glance at the place where Ellen stands at her own console, studiously powering it down. Her eyes flick up just briefly toward the reunion in front of her before she lowers her gaze again, turning and slipping out the doors of the shuttle bay. Michael catches Tracy’s eye, and the two of them walk after her as Sylvia steps over to power her and Paul’s consoles down in turn and Philippa begins the process of packing the rest of mission control up.

***

At 20:00 hours in an undisclosed location on the starship Discovery, Jett’s wife leads her, eyes closed and complaining happily, into a room that has been decorated to a degree that resembles an explosion in a paper snowflake factory, while a few decks up on the bridge, Philippa settles into the captain’s chair for the night shift. Tilly climbs into bed, pulling out her PADD with its book on 30th century Earth, and at the table next to the viewport in Discovery’s rec room, Michael and Tracy sit beside Ellen in silence, keeping her company in her complicated grief. Hugh hums to himself while he brushes his teeth, and Paul yawns as he finishes slipping on his pajamas, stepping forward as Hugh sets his toothbrush back in its holder and wrapping his arms around him, humming deliberately off-key. He garners an eye-roll for his trouble, and two decks down, Gray and Adira sit in Discovery’s mess hall, gazing into each others’ eyes as Adira lapses into silence after explaining how Paul found them in the Jefferies tubes in orbit over Earth.

“You’ve had so many adventures all this time,” Gray says, grinning. “Adira Tal.”

Adira half laughs, shrugging one shoulder. “I guess so.” They look up at him. “I think my adventures are about to get even weirder, Gray Tal.”

Gray grins again. “You know, I didn’t think I or anyone I know was ever going to have the chance to visit the pools. What was it like?”

“Yes, I suppose you would have to ask me what it’s like, since it’s one of the memories we don’t share,” Adira comments with a mischievous grin of their own.

Gray laughs, shaking his head, and they beam at each other in shared exhaustion and confusion and joy as Adira begins their story and the Discovery floats onward through the night.

[blankdblank]

Save the Date Pt 2

…

“Please get me out of here.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“If I have to stay around these people for one more minute, I’m going to rip someone’s throat out…. with my teeth.”

…

“Please get me out of here.” The words read across his phone screen from the text message Thranduil got that had been sent from his mother.

“Why? What’s wrong?” He replied.

“If I have to stay around these people for one more minute, I’m going to rip someone’s throat out…. with my teeth.”

“On my way.” Rolling his eyes Thranduil left a set of bills on the table saying, “It’s on me. How would you like a tour of your new office?”

Playfully you sighed out in response, “If you insist.” Standing up with purse in hand feeling your skirt settling over your thighs again in his quick pop up.

He glanced at the pair beside you and said, “See you Sunday.”

Dis grinned at you both, “Of course, see you soon, Miss Pear.”

You nodded and gave them a quick wave turning to join Thranduil to the door feeling his quick glance over you taking in each detail of your formerly stunning outfit now set apart from the others sold like it in the unique half secured pocket over your right breast. He had seen the publicity photos of you and your sister, always sleek and professional with a sassy style full of color always accentuating the curves you weren’t afraid of showing off. And he could already picture the look on your face, when you had reached that point, of his being able to purchase you lavish gifts when the relationship progressed, the dresses he had absently found himself browsing through to try and gauge how expensive your taste was. Surprisingly all from another sister’s clothing line ridiculously affordable for how extravagant some of the looks got depending on the occasion.

Glancing up at him he flashed you a grin saying, “If you wish I can replace your top.”

You shook your head saying, “No, it’s alright.” Glancing over to your right you said, “I’m in the blue one if you have a moment? I can change my top.”

“Absolutely.” Two more stoops and you turned to hop up the steps to the front door where with your keys drawn you opened the front door. In the open doorway he said, “I’ll be here.”

Smirking up at him you replied, “If you prefer, three minutes.”

Stealing a glance inside at your leaving the door cracked he watched you head to the end of the hall to turn right unbuttoning your blouse. Easily you tugged the base of it out from under your belted skirt you loosened, pulling it off to toss onto the floor of your closet and you grabbed your ruffled sleeveless polka dotted blouse you swapped it with. Tucking it into your belt you made sure it was smooth around your hips and you turned flicking your ponytail over your back and grabbed your purse again to head back to the door. Still outside you found him and grinned stepping outside, “Sorry,”

He shook his head, “Least I could do.” When your door was locked again he wet his lips watching you bounce back down the steps to follow him through the streets just a few blocks the opposite direction from your old building shining all the brighter. The lowest floor filled with indoor gardens and the Elves in the counters between sections dividing elevators to certain wings all stole glances at you both on your way to the one in the back. Straight to the 10th floor button his finger went and he hummed, “After showing you the office my Naneth wished to speak to me if you wouldn’t mind my pause in the tour.”

You shook your head, “If you need to speak with her first I can wait.”

Shaking his head he led you out of the elevator, “No at all. I will show you to your office first, no telling what those sponsors are up to.”

“Sponsors?”

Flashing you a quick grin he replied, “Oh, for an annual charity ball. Masked this year. Their usual demands lists have grown again.”

A bare thirty by twenty room wrapped in glass had you turning to look at him again asking at his grin looking you over, “This is our office?”

“Do you not like it?”

You scoffed at him, “It’s three times our old office!”

He nodded, “I noticed. Either way you will be needing space to entertain your clients, a small lounge area opposite your desks and sketch tables and all else you require.”

“When were we supposed to do the paperwork?”

“Tomorrow should be fine if you could come in again.”

“Sure,” wetting your lips in a glance out the window his eyes sank over you again taking in the sight of you in the sunlit room casting a golden glow around you. “Did you want me to leave?”

“No, not at all. This should not take long, and we can go to the film after.” His hand extended motioning you to the door you led the way through, “Just to the other end of the floor.”

You nodded and walked through the floor of passing people all grinning and sharing hushed conversations in seeing you being escorted to the boss’ office. Inside you saw a group of people across from a woman with her honey colored hair pulled up and containing a pencil to keep the bun aloft. One of her brows was ticked up until Thranduil stepped through the doorway that you remained on the other side of, a few minutes of his speaking with those in the chairs and laughs filled the room in their rise to stand, each shaking his and his mother’s hands on their way out. All of them passed you with inspecting glances over you from head to toe stirring approving grins onto their faces.

Looking up again you caught Thranduil’s head tilting welcoming you inside. Grinning again you entered and crossed the room, “Miss Pear, it is lovely to meet you, I am so pleased my son was able to convince you away from Lyon.”

Weakly you chuckled saying, “Well, with his friends it left little to admire about working with him.” You said accepting her handshake, in which she tilted your hand inspecting your bruised knuckles. “Had a lovely chat with one this morning.” Making her chuckle at your playful tone about it in releasing your hand, looking to Thranduil she said, “I see the tour has begun, any plans for the next portion of it?”

Thranduil, not noticing the opening door behind him with an older Elf you guessed to be his father with a young boy at his side, said, “We were actually off to a movie after this.”

The boy wide eyed rushed over saying excitedly, “We’re going to see Grolick?!”

Glancing down at the hands on his leg his lips parted, “Um,”

The boy bounced on his feet saying with a grip on his pant leg, “Come on Ada! Let’s go! We have to get the best seats!”

Thranduil peered up at you unable to help but grin in your playful smile repeating softly, “Come on Ada.”

His father moved to his wife’s side as Thranduil crouched saying, “Alright,” lifting the boy up to his hip saying, “Legolas, this is Miss Pear.”

“Hello,” glancing between you two he asked, “Is she coming too?”

Thranduil’s lips parted and you answered for him, “Not if you don’t want me too.”

Legolas sighed and said, “Fine, but I get to pick the seats!”

Smiling at him you replied, “Of course. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Apologetically Thranduil looked you over and got a shake of your head in response and he led the way down to his car. In the back seat Legolas kept looking between you and his father wondering what was going on simply biding his time until he got to see the film on his favorite show of a detective cat and his gang of friends. Parked outside the theater Thranduil let the boy out and propped him on his hip again and stole another glance your way ensuring you weren’t uncomfortable. Straight to the line you followed and peered up at Legolas with a grin saying, “I don’t know about you but I’m excited to see if Garthmong has his blue costume in this one.”

The boy’s eyes landed on you sharply, “Garthmong doesn’t have a blue costume.” His arms crossing over your chest making you shift your weight and lift a brow at him in a playful challenge making Thranduil look you both over.

“I beg your pardon, but episode 27 in season four when they go to rescue Lady Tillie and he has to hide in that hall of amazement he shifts his brown suit to blue to blend in, and it pops up in the next season four times too. Mainly the one with the Orca colony.”

“You watched all five seasons?” He asked slightly stunned.

After a quick glance at Thranduil you answered, “I have 11 siblings and 27 nieces and nephews, of course I have seen all five seasons, and the three films and six holiday specials they’ve had for it. Trust me, I am just as excited to see this as you are, especially since,” you leaned in making the boy and his father smirk in acting like you were sharing a secret. “Kuo is supposed to be coming back to make things right with Luma. Personally, I hope she punches him.” Making the pair chuckle.

Tickets were bought, you and Legolas chatted away and in the concession lines an extra box of candy and a wink from you to the blonde Elf behind the counter who snuck it in your pile had Thranduil glancing between you until he noticed the pear decorated fake gauge in the middle of his left ear matching yours he took marking you as relatives. Right to the first row on the raised section behind the bars right behind the handicapped section was where Legolas led you and chose to sit on his father’s lap instead of you having to sit a few feet away from his favorite pair of seats with mini aisles around them. Through the film Legolas swung his feet happily snacking on the popcorn while the tapping fingers on Thranduil’s hand on the armrest between you had you claiming his hand to rest in yours on your lap. The interlocked fingers revealing his steadying pulse the longer he got to keep hold of yours while you snacked and stole the chance to feed him a few of your extra candies.

.

The theater led to the restaurant Legolas had chosen where you animatedly talked with the boy and his father all through the meal and ride back to your place. Parked outside Thranduil wet his lips still silent distracted by the pounding of his heart and spinning brain as for how to try for a kiss goodnight after the over all enjoyable introduction between you and his son he would have tried to put off until he was certain you were interested in deepening the relationship with him. A cry snapped his mental trip, “I gotta pee!”

Giggling to yourself you glanced back at the boy saying, “Come on up then.”

Climbing out you shouldered your bag then watched Thranduil get out to let his son out and guide him up behind you to your front door. Opening it you let them through pointing at the second door on the right, “Straight through there.” Legolas hurried through the door and you turned to look at Thranduil who was already looking at you anxiously. “I had fun.”

“Please know, I didn’t plan on our date being taken over-,” The sound of the stool being pushed closer to the toilet echoed through the cracked door.

You shook your head, “No, it’s fine. My nephews are younger than him and I can barely get through the films quietly to understand what goes on.”

Inching closer to you he hummed, “So, does this mean I get a second date?”

“Depends, do I get to supply the surprise guest next time?”

Inching closer he hummed, “Absolutely.”

A tug on his tie he didn’t realize you had grabbed landed his lips on yours. The gentle kiss melting into something more in a tilt of his head and part of his lips to fold around yours as he cupped your cheek. The flush was missed and it was the creak of the door revealing the curious boy peeking through it to you both split apart and looked to the door with spreading grins. Legolas stepped out licking his lips anxiously and at your side asked with a rock of his foot, “Are we going to dinner again?”

Crouching down at his clearly asking you he licked his lips again sheepishly looking you over, you answered, “Only if you want to.”

He nodded making Thranduil’s grin inch wider, “Next time we can get pizza and see the dinosaur movie.”

You nodded and said, “Alright, and I have an offer of my own.” He nodded again, “Two weeks is my nephew’s birthday and we’re all going to Rimbo World,” his mouth fell open, “And you see, I’ve got three tickets, so I was wondering if you’d help me out, take two off my hands and come with me?”

Sharply he gasped and his eyes shot up to his father, “Can we, Ada?!” Playfully you smirked mouthing the question to him and he chuckled.

“How could we refuse the offer?”

Your gaze dropped again in Legolas’ body crashing into your chest making you giggle and hug him back in his fevered thanks, “You are the one doing me the favor.”

When he pulled back he rushed to his father’s side and you stood again when he was lifted up. Locking his eyes on yours again he hummed, “I will see you tomorrow.”

You nodded in his back step to the door, “Yes you will.” Following him to the doorway he opened you replied to Legolas’ goodnight and caught Thranduil’s smirk your way before he trotted down the steps to his car again in closing the door. Nipping at your lip you giggled in his drive away remembering his blunder in locking the door and turning to your bedroom. Leaving your purse on the bed you sat to remove your shoes and gave Trix a call. It went straight to her voicemail but you left a simple message all the same, “Hey Trix, enjoy your night with Glori, just wanted to say we’ve been offered a job at The Greater Greenwood Event Planners. Huge office, pay raise, I’ll text you the address to meet me at tomorrow morning. Oh, and I had a date. Love You.”

Hanging up you sighed and dropped your second heel and laid back across your bed mumbling, “Did not expect a date today.” The ring of your phone had you smirking in a roll onto your side in answering your sister’s call for a full recap of all she missed.

.

An early doorbell tore you from your morning bagel you left on the plate on the table, a check of your teeth in the mirror along the way later and you opened the door seeing Thranduil with a flinch of a grin saying as he extended a handful of daisies. “I forgot to ask for your number. But, I thought, a stop for coffee on the way to work, I might convince you?”

Accepting the flowers your fingers brushed along his and when your eyes met he inched closer again aching to kiss you again. Blindly feeling the top of your fingers on his tie again he closed the distance cupping your cheek in another kiss, through which he bumped the door shut behind him with his heel. Drawing you closer to him in the easing of your hands up over his shoulders. A few moments was all you had, then the frantic ringing of the doorbell followed by knocks had you splitting up so you could answer the door. Your mirror image was on the other side of the door and fell silent in a pleased smirk glancing between the daisies in your hand and the Elf nipping at his lip behind your back. “Hey Trix, this is Thranduil Greenleaf, son of our new bosses.”

 All –

@himoverflowers​, @theincaprincess, @aspiringtranslator​, @sweeticedtea​, @ggbbhehe4455​, @thegreyberet​, @patanghill17​, @jesgisborne​, @curvestrology​, @alishlieb​, @jogregor​, @armitageadoration​, @fizzyxcustard​, @here2have-fun​, @lilith15000​, @marvels-ghost​, @catthefearless​, @imjusthereforthereads​, @c-s-stars​

Hobbit/LotR – @abiwim​, @jotink78​, @pastelhexmaniac​

X Thranduil - @evyiione​, @sweetlytenacious25​, @tigereyesf​, @pastelhexmaniac

[scooperkin]

I made these a long while ago (as you can see it has the old way drew Baby) as sorta model-sheets for how I  want to make the Funtimes feel, act, and move like because it’s important for me to have references for drawing scene-related content to make sure I’m getting personalities or poses right. Funtime Foxy is the most fun considering she has barely any hints to her personality. Baby’s is missing some personality inspiration since we know a lot about her.

Figured I share it cause they’re kinda fun to look back at now plus some never posted sketches.

Image sources, credits, and explanations below:

Ballora

Wind-up Toys and music boxes: Wind-up Ballerina by  Colin Neu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEiCkS1hpeY, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAomWJ9LIz8, https://www.amazon.com/Play-Platoon-Ballerina-Music-Girls/dp/B07BNNYX11

Sally from “The Nightmare Before Christmas” :http://the-nightmare-before-christmas.wikia.com/wiki/Sally/Gallery, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rivTGBzBMM,

The body design and poseblity of Ball Jointed Dolls: http://www.ruddypeachbjd.com/site/MakingOf/

Ballet/ballerinas: https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/the-dancer-gm451897621-29639694,

Movements and design of, Jordan Wolfson’s art piece: (has facial recognization)  http://shop.neukos.com/blog/2014/04/12/una-bailarina-robot-causa-furor-en-la-red/ ,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVTDypgmFCM, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy2N0_GDN5M, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9J1p-i7hn4

Clown/Performer Type: a cross over a Pirouette and Ballerina + Acrobat.

Circus Baby

Circus Giantesses: Miss Kate Keithley: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/88756859/kate-keithley Anna Haining Bates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Haining_Bates, Mary Alice Wade: http://www.sideshowworld.com/81-SSPAlbumcover/Fat/2013/Alice/Dallas.html

Child’s Player Animatronics and puppeteering [MODERN] (body movements not facial): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i2aSyj7D2U, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv8bV9qh5ng

Clown/Performer Type: Whiteface Clown (The most powerful of clowns): http://peachtreeclownalley.com/be-a-clown/types-of-clowns/,

Funtime Freddy

Rolfe and Earl (movement, mechanics, set piece: https://www.showbizpizza.com/rae/characters/rolfe.html, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp9EGSkE0pU, (Humor and stage interactions) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ekedD2jCeM&t=4s

Circus Bears: http://infoabad.com/novosti-turkmenistana/moskovskii-cirk-vnov-raduet-turkmenskih-zritelei.html, http://aldoandleonardo.blogspot.com/2013/09/bear-cans-my-sierra-safe-deposit-boxes.html.

Henry from Country Bear Jamboree(Movement): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l76cQpCVTjU

Yogi Bear (character design): http://yonderhill.com/

Freddy Figure image sourced from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqZN6tmZw04

Clown/Performer Type: Character-Clown (based off Freddy Fazbear), Comedian, Puppeteer

Funtime Foxy

Ringleader: https://www.flickr.com/photos/slave4britney/3476925475, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringmaster_(circus),

NiGHTS Journey of Dreams character and outfit design, and certain personality traits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_NnCkXt7KQ,

Fantastic Mr. Fox: http://fantasticmrfox.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Fox,  

Helen Henny, movement and certain personality traits: https://www.wordbrothel.com/helen-henny-first-female-role-model-robotic/, https://youtu.be/S9eLjiMb_c4?t=129,

Jennifer Tilly, personality and voice: http://criminalcasegame.wikia.com/wiki/File:274186_1248625340938_full.jpg, https://gazettereview.com/2018/05/jennifer-tilly-net-worth/, http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/28/entertainment/la-et-mn-jennifer-tilly-conversation-20130929, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCuzi1qlnwU

Clown/Performer Type: Trickster, Character-Clown (based off og Foxy), Ringleader

[suirenshinju]

Stuff I Still Want From Sofia the First

King Magnus and Rudistan Episode: Rudistan is in a crisis since all of King Magnus’ staff have quit. Lesson about being a good boss, dangers of being impractical, not appreciating employees. Greylock and Slickwell redemption?

Overworking Episode: Sofia has princess duties, a call from the library, and a protector mission all on the same day. Lesson about having it all, but not all at once. Dangers of multitasking, overworking yourself.

They could also make some episodes from storybooks: Pearl the unicorn, Lucinda’s rabbit Hexie, Hildegard being turned into a mouse, Vivian’s house for Christmas (not Wassailia).

Just other questions I want answered, worked into other episodes or their own stand alones: -Birk Balthasar’s fate (pretty sure being a sailor he was lost at sea, but would like confirmation) -Roland’s first wife, the twin’s mother, and her fate (also think she’s dead, but need that confirmed. It doesn’t make sense that she and Birk are never mentioned. Modern families being what they are, pretending the bioparent never existed isn’t helpful to kids ((excepting if the parent was a deadbeat but Disney just likes to have them dead))) -Why Baileywick dislikes Cedric -How Goodwyn and Winifred got together -Cedric quits being Royal Sorcerer to become Headmaster of Hexley Hall (don’t stay in a toxic job) -Sofia decides to go to Hexley Hall to become a sorceress (I still feel this makes the most sense storywise given Sofia’s relationship with magic - I thought that her obvious third thing in the School Fair episode) -More amulet related bits. Again, it’s getting back to the show’s “roots” in a sense. The Amulet of Avalor is supposed to be so powerful but it’s not utilized enough. Pocahontas is due an episode, and I guess Moana now too (tho not necessary).  -Ivy’s sister and her kingdom. -Maybe Sofia is called by the amulet to a problem when Tilly wore the amulet? Or called to a point in the future where we get a glimpse into Sofia’s own fate. Something sweet like she helps her own grandchild or step-niece.  -Sofia revealing the amulet’s powers to her family either by telling them herself or having Cedric tell on her for her own safety (like about to run off on another dangerous mission). Maybe he even gets in trouble again for keeping the secret from her parents. -Sofia and Miranda’s life in Dunwiddie village. The pilot made it seem like after Roland and Miranda met he told her to go home and get her things cuz they were getting hitched immediately.  -Cedric without his robe. (I’d also like a different outfit, but I dare not dream too big) -Desmond’s kingdom and which country it’s based on (holds true for other princes/princesses) -Magical rules (as it seems stf really skimps on this - ideally I’d want a Cedric spin-off that focuses more on the magic in the stf/eoa magic set in Cedric’s early teens/early evil days) -Cordelia’s kingdom and husband/Calista’s daddy (she doesn’t live in Enchancia but does live in a castle... so is she a royal sorceress somewhere else or independant?)

[justanoutlawfic]

Mr. Rabbit: A KnightRook Ficlet

Plot: Objects protected by true love can transcend realms. Mr. Rabbit is no exception.

Just a tiny ficlet based on the plush rabbit we saw at Alice's birthday in the tower and then again in her cottage at 7x18.

Also on AO3

Alice had many toys. Killian spoiled her-well, that would be an understatement. He just wanted to make sure that her time in the tower was the best that it could be. One toy that she always seemed to drift to, however, was one she was given on her first birthday. A plush rabbit, stitched together by a woman in the nearby village. When she was little, Alice would suck on its ear while she played. As she got older, he became a prominent guest at their tea parties. She couldn’t sleep until it was safely tucked under her arms.

 Killian worried it would fall apart, but for the 11 years that they were together, it stayed intact. When she got her own cottage, he checked it out one day while she was out getting wood, just to make sure it was safe. He found all sorts of things from her adventures spread out along with a few of her old objects. There was her chess board, her tea set…and Mr. Rabbit. It brought a tear to his eye, thinking about how long that ratty thing had lasted and the fact that she still wanted it. He placed a kiss to the top of its head, hoping that somehow, the love of it would pass over to his little girl.

 “Take good care of my Alice, Mr. Rabbit.”

 Rogers hadn’t known what to expect when Tilly brought by the rest of her things the day after she moved in. She told him that she didn’t have much, just a few outfits, her watches (he was going to have to convince her to get a real job at some point, a detective having a thief for a roommate was sure to have people talk) and a few other mementos from her life.

 She came through the next morning with two boxes. He stood in the doorway of his spare room, watching her unpack. She put her few outfits into one drawer of the dresser (making a note to take her shopping for more), set up the chess set he gave her on a table and put the watches in a different drawer. After displaying a tea set on top of the dresser, she pulled a final item from the box.

 It was a plush rabbit, that looked as if it had seen better days. It didn’t look like any stuffed animal he’d seen around the Heights, most of them were those God awful Beanie Babies with the eyes as big as their head.

 “Where’d you get that?” He asked, gesturing to the rabbit.

“Oh, um, I’ve had it for as long as I can remember,” Alice said with a tiny shrug. She picked off a piece of lint and stroked its ear. “My father gave it to me, it’s the only thing I have to remember him by.”

“Weaver told me you lost him. I…I’m sorry.”

“It is what it is.” Alice set the rabbit on the bed. “It may seem silly, grown woman holding onto a stuffed animal…”

“It’s not silly at all. It’s nice to hold onto things that help us remember.”

 (Neither of them would understand the irony of that one until the curse broke.)

 “Well, that’s that, then,” Alice said. “I’m hungry, gonna go make myself a sandwich.”

 She skipped out of the room, but Rogers lingered behind. He walked over to the bed and picked up the rabbit, taking it in. A part of it felt so familiar to him and when he lifted it to his nose to smell, it seemed to have a sweet baby scent. Almost like despite its old appearance,  it was brand new. He gently kissed the top of its head, for a reason he didn’t understand.

 “Take good care of my Tilly, Mr. Rabbit,” he whispered, before gently placing it back down.

[erhiem]

For their SS22 collection, GmbH’s Benjamin Alexander Husby and Serhat Ik ask: What does ‘white’ dress mean? Written, which can be read as an unnecessarily incendiary question – ‘But I don’t see the color!!’ – An opposing jib of the post-identity era. Since ancient times, however, white fashion designers have seen the color. They have alienated and belittled other deemed wholes, filtering rich cultural heritage through myopic Western-centric approaches to create outfits suitable for anything other than racist cosplay. At all times, in fashion, at least, whiteness and its associated cultural capital have remained relatively immune to appropriation—until now, that is.

This season, the Berlin-based duo present White Noise, a body of work that evokes the archetypes of whiteness with elegance, humour, sensuality and wit. This creates a subtle undercurrent that runs through their AW21 collection – an investigation into how items such as jodhpurs and riding boots, Fair Isle knits and luxurious furs become coded as assets of a social environment – rich white posho, basically – and the subversive power of putting gray and black bodies in those clothes.

If the pair with subtlety backs their point and then slips under your radar, then, darling, you sure as hell won’t miss it anymore. The white typologies he studied are hardly esoteric—cropped, ruched knits styled with white double-zip-fly denim jodhpurs and calf-swaddling riding boots deliver the full polo-player fantasy, While the sweaters are unintentionally slung over tight shoulders, the poplin shirt tied across Daisy Duke’s front shows Tilly and Rosie watching the match from the sidelines. The clean denim look gives off a nostalgic, blue-jeans Americana air, blended neatly by baseball stripes, and sandy shirts worn with brown vegan leather trousers that call to mind a Midwestern sheriff. keep.

As you will probably have noticed from the description above, for all the seriousness of their chosen subject matter, Benjamin and Serhat’s work has a lightness—that is to say, it is steeped in satire and camp. The fundamentalists he invokes are, for all intents and purposes, very hysterical. Through them, however, they manage to parody the ethnographic strategies of white social institutions in a way that “almost drag, isn’t it,” Benjamin says. “It reminds me of this scene” Paris is burning where the category is ‘Town and Country’.”

Of course, GmbH does not in any way use fashion as a means of questioning, appropriating and destroying the cultural right of whiteness. Among the most notable people to do so in recent memory are the heroes of 90s hip-hop and R&B culture, who took on brands, looks and even clothing that once ‘aspirated’ white ideals. and made them his own—think Aaliyah and Destiny’s Child in Tommy Hilfiger, or Mary J. Blige’s iconic cut denim look. The collection’s closing chapter pays homage to this chapter in fashion history, a suit of denim and pastel faux-fur outerwear in the viral décolleté-bearing ‘Revenge Dress’ silhouette, which they launched last season, which Inspired the creation of GmbH’s Demi. clothing line.

That it’s given a collection with cerebral heft, but for all its cleverness, it doesn’t get lost in the concepts. The clothes we see emerging from the white haze in the presentation film directed by Matt Lambert are accessible and, above all, really fucking hot. Here, Benjamin and Serhat fill us in with the thoughts behind one of the standout menswear collections of the season so far.

So, white noise. Tell me about the title.

Benjamin Alexander Husby: It was partly inspired by this Don DeLillo book that I recently re-read. It touches on a lot of the volatile suburban themes surrounding death and the mediocrity of everyday life, which now feel very connected to our lives. On a more thematic note, however, our collections have always been very responsive, reacting to how we felt and what was happening in the world over and over again. This time it was more about an interest in studying what whiteness and white culture really is. As BIPOCs, we constantly have to deal with our own brownness, our blackness – we have to constantly defend and investigate it – and white people don’t have that. They don’t need to think about whiteness cause it’s right are you there, it’s just supposed to be the default.

Serhat Isik: It’s an exploration that we actually started last season, but not many people picked up on the codes we were alluding to – horse riding, skiing and all these activities that, in general, are not well reserved. but are known to be part of upper-class white culture.

Bah: Yes, That Very WASPy, Country Club Fantasy

and: Somehow, it wasn’t really clear enough for people, so this season is basically making it clear to us! GmbH as a project has always been about freeing our minds from colonization through fashion and in collaboration with our community. We’ve always been expected to describe our own cultures – and that’s a big part of what we do and what we’ve done so far. But the culture we are looking for here is what we were born in, and yet it has always been said that we are not a part of it. We wanted to find out what it looked like for a brand like GmbH to flip things over and suit white culture.

Bah: However, it’s important to say that it’s done with a bit of twisted humour. And also it’s not just about whiteness – trying to understand the tropes and archetypes of this American Dream ideal of white culture was our starting point, but then we went back to something we were always interested in – Exploring how brown and black people have historically appropriated or distorted white culture. It was pretty obvious to grow up in the 90s, it became a very influential thing in music culture, for example

Yep, there’s a switch around Look 20 where it started to remind me a little bit of Janet Jackson and Mary J Blige. But what got you interested in knowing how those kinds of figures are associated with whiteness in the ’90s next to the wealthy white fanatics we see before?

and: For me, it was really about shifting the narrative. Working in the post-identity era, I feel like there’s so much noise out there that I almost wanted to step back for a moment and focus on doing something there that was before we started GmbH. Get out of the conversation. We always say that fashion is a tool we use to raise awareness or talk about things we want to talk about, so we need a moment to regroup and rethink. How can we do it without doing the same thing. This is what drew me personally to continue researching the topic and really turn it around. Even if someone came along and said, “Oh, now they’re enforcing white culture?!”, that’s already a different conversation, and it’s the one I’m interested in hearing because It plays. I instead say, ‘They’re celebrating their culture! I love Middle Eastern patterns!’, because that’s what’s always expected of us. And it’s beautiful, sure, but now, let’s fuck things up!

Bah: I think we are all tired of constantly battling with our identities.

and: There is also a point that I get bored with it. It’s almost like we’re hoping to play into this narrative of introducing one Middle Eastern, quirky-inspired collection after another. But now we’re saying: No — let’s talk about you. Let’s talk about whiteness. Let’s talk about how we’re adapting to your culture, and see how you respond.

Bah: And if we talk about race and colour, one thing has to be acknowledged that we did not name ourselves ‘Brown’ or ‘Black’. This nomenclature is the product of a white colonial culture – so maybe whiteness is the problem. Maybe that’s what we need to understand and explore.

Here you do this by looking at the white typology, but you do it with a fairly light touch. Some of it is really camp – there’s the reality of varsity polo matches, baseball players, cowboys, Daisy Dukes… What drew you to the specific ideals you sought?

and: In some ways, it was because they were so obvious. And because codes are so important in what we do, especially codes that are used to oppress people of color, it’s also about investigating where the power lies. On another level, though, we just wanted to show everyone how we can make these archetypes really sexy in a way that might not be expected.

Another key feature of this season is your collaboration with queer Palestinian label Trashy Clothing. Tell us a little more about it and how you started working together.

BAH: It is run by Shukri Lawrence and Omar Brika, two Palestinian people based in Jordan. They reached out to us a while back, and we started a conversation about doing something together. They’ve done a lot of research into Palestinian graphic design, both political and non-political, and we’ve decided it makes sense to do something on our show – for a very visible T-shirt called Free. is Palestine. The T-shirt is for charity, but I think it’s important to point out that this is not what Palestinians are primarily asking for; They are demanding solidarity and visibility, and their voices be heard. We realized that making a very simple statement at a fashion show was one of the ways we could help keep that conversation going. This is a very serious situation, and for the first time in my life, I feel that the mainstream narrative is changing. We want to continue that conversation and momentum, no matter what.

and: That’s what’s great about fashion, and that’s one of the things we love about it — there’s a banter to it, but it’s very immediate.

.

The post GmbH SS22 collection review – i-D appeared first on Spicy Celebrity News.

[enixamyram]

Weird Conversation

Summary: AU: Robin's cursed persona is still in Hyperion Heights when Tilly comes off her pills and they have a strange conversation. Curious Archer. Robin’s POV.

Based off of my own post.

  My shift at Roni's didn't start for another few hours, but I always liked getting there early. It was always fun hanging out with her, listening to her stories and advice, and watching as she showed me how to make the best drinks in the most flashy way possible to keep customers thoroughly entertained – it also got bigger tips if you could make pouring the drinks seem more complicated than was needed. Sometimes, if there wasn't too much preparation needed before opening, then she even let me have a go at creating my own drinks, and while they didn't always turn out right, it was great fun and even greater practice for the future. At this point, I was sure I wanted to own my own bar just like Roni. She was so cool.

  I wished my mum could be as cool as Roni. It was like everything that Roni was, mum was the complete and utter opposite. She didn't like half of what I liked and was always nagging me to be more like the snooty girls at my school. The kind of girls who did long extra credit works and had one friend who also did extra credit and had no job and therefore no money to spend with their one friend. So, in other words, mum wanted to be more like her.

  On my way to Roni's bar, I took the long way in order to avoid running into mum while she was picking up some shopping from the grocers. While she had yet to be able to stop me form going, she made it very clear she didn't like when I worked with Roni at her bar. If I ever made the foolish mistake of bringing it up to her, she launched into long rants about my future and why I shouldn't be working at a bar, how I should be focussed on my studies, and if I really let her get going then she always ended up just insulting Roni. And sometimes she could get really mean and even a little petty. It was funny at first, but it quickly got old and now I would do anything to avoid it, even taking a ridiculously long walk passed the ugly troll bridge despite it adding another fifteen minutes to my journey.

  Of course, even the ugliest of things could have something pretty sitting on top of them. And sometimes that pretty thing was worth slowing down my walk for.

  “Hey, Tilly.” I could feel my face brighten immediately when I saw her, a reaction I never consciously made, before I walked quickly over to where she was lounging on the troll, rubik's cube in hand.

  Despite the fact that we didn't even go to the same school, or live in the same street, or even walk in the same social circles, I always found myself enjoying whenever I saw Tilly out and about. I couldn't say if the feeling was mutual, but for a girl who mostly kept to herself (when she wasn't helping that creepy Detective Weaver) she always had a smile for me when I stopped for conversations and today was no different.

  And it was a pretty smile. I had yet to have a serious relationship but if I ever did, I wouldn't mind ending up with someone like Tilly. And not just because of her looks (but while on the subject, I hope she never stops wearing skirts) but just... Her. I couldn't even describe it. It was an odd feeling, but it was like I already knew what kind of date Tilly would be like, and it was exactly the kind of thing I would be looking for... Or maybe that was just a teenage girls daydreams taking over. Yeah, probably just that.

  Of course that was all dreams for another time. At the moment I was just focussed on working at Roni's and having some much needed fun without the drama of a relationship to confuse things. I could think about dates and dating later in life when I was ready to be a bit more serious. However that didn't stop me from occasionally flirting with a select few people stuck here in the Heights, Tilly included.

  “Good morning, beautiful.” Tilly beamed, bouncing slightly from where she was stretched out and grinning widely at me as soon as she heard me call her name.

  “I heard you gave Victoria a scare this morning,” I grinned, remembering the story that Roni had shared with me over text when I was feeling a little moody thanks to mums daily nag. Just as she predicted, the idea of Alice jump scaring Victoria in her own car did a lot to cheer me up.

  Tilly rolled forward, cube quickly forgotten as she dropped it at her side when she leaned forward slightly to look down at me, still grinning that cheeky way that always made me laugh. She was such a minx! It was a refreshing bit of fun in my otherwise boring life.

  “Now would I do something like that?” Tilly asked, batting her eyes innocently at me.

  That was too much. I burst out laughing as Tilly continued to bat her eyes, standing up and holding her hands in front of her like an innocent child caught doing something naughty, which just made me laugh even more. That was what made Tilly such a great person, she could always make me laugh, no matter how I was feeling before I saw her. She wasn't afraid to be silly and act – as mum would call it – immature in order to enjoy life a little. I wish I could spend some more time with her, but it just never seemed to work out. If I was superstitious person, I might even claim that something in the world was purposely keeping us apart. But the truth was, we just weren't the kind of people to actually hang out with one another. It was a shame but life's a shame sometimes. Not much you can do about it.

  When I finally calmed down enough to catch my breath back – it had been a while since anyone had made me laugh that much – I saw Tilly looking at me with a big smile of her own. She was always a little proud when she managed to make others laugh but now she seemed especially pleased. In return, I felt a little happy myself. It was like an endless circle. I was pleased, that she was pleased that I was happy. It's so crazy that we don't spend more time together. Why was that again? Oh yeah, life.

  Aw well.

  Still giggling a little at her earlier innocent act, I turned to look at her and tried to put on a half scolding expression but managed little more than a slightly less entertained smile. “You know you're going to get in serious trouble one of these days.”

  And just like that, the mood was ruined so fast, I almost got whip lash from it. Her smile dropped off her face so fast that if I hadn't just seen it a few seconds ago, I would have assumed this girl had never smiled before in her life. On top of that, the pleased spark in her eye that lit her up was suddenly dull and miserable. She looked almost downright depressed. You'd think I got up on the troll and kicked her at some point mid sentence. I hadn't, yet I still felt suddenly so guilty for her dip in mood.

  I silently cursed myself, wondering what I had said that could affect her so quickly and drastically. Even I didn't flip emotions that fast, even on my worst periods when I was the most stereotypical girl with the most dramatic and exaggerated issues with the world. In fact I'd never seen Tilly act like this before. It was more than just leaving me feeling guilty. It was leaving me feeling worried for her. She wouldn't even look at me for a second. Her gaze turned down to her shuffling feet and her fingers clenching and tensing slightly at her side, flexing like she was trying to relax them but unable at the same time.

  I must have hit a nerve with something I said... Oh of course I did! She freaking broke into Victoria's car, of course she was already in serious trouble, and here I was, rubbing it in her face and tormenting her with it. Wow, now I felt like a serious ass.

  But then Tilly spoke up. It was quiet, and I wasn't sure I heard her at first but it sounded like she said: “I already am. We all are.”

  Okay, all my guilt was almost immediately replaced with confusion. I could understand why she would be in trouble – the idea of scaring Victoria was hilarious but what Tilly did: breaking into her car and such, was downright criminal – but why would we all be in trouble? And who did she mean by 'we' and 'all'? Did she mean all of Hyperion Heights?  In which case, again, why would everyone be in trouble.

  I decided not to play mind games with myself and just do the sensible thing and ask her. “What do you mean?”

  “Don't you worry, love.” Tilly said, looking down at me with hard eyes. Eyes like someone who had seen a great deal of crap in their lives and was just ready for it to be over. And, wait, did she just call me 'love'? That was a new one. Beautiful, yes. Cutie, yes. I even once got a sexy out of her when I passed in one of my more flashy outfits on my way to the bar for an evening shift but she'd never called me Love before. That was a bit more on the serious relationship side of things. You know, something we most certainly were not. “I promise, I'm going to fix everything.” Tilly went on firmly, standing tall and looking fierce. If I wasn't so puzzled by what she was saying, I might have been a little turned on.

  But I was very puzzled, so instead I found myself staring up at her, letting my forehead dip into a short little frown. This conversation went from fun and flirty to weird, real quick. What did she mean that she was going to fix everything? Fix what? What was their to fix? Victoria? Well she was definitely a Queen Bitch type woman but I didn't exactly think that warranted 'fixing'. And what would fixing even entail? If it were anyone else I might think they meant something dangerous, but Tilly was a good girl deep down. She's hardly the type to get her hands on a gun and go around shooting people.

  I wanted to ask her what she meant (maybe bring up the 'love' mention earlier) but for some reason, I felt like I could tell just from her expression that she wouldn't tell me anything. And that just made me feel even more confused. I didn't know Tilly that well, but right now, I had no doubts about how this conversation would go if I pushed it. And the answer was: Nowhere.

  Finally I gave Tilly a little smile and shrugged. “Okay then. I better go. Good luck with Victoria and... Everything. Hope you can... Fix it, or... Whatever.” Wow I was awkward. “Bye!”

  Suddenly Tilly had moved, kneeling on the edge of the statue and reaching down to grab the hand I had been waving with. She didn't hold it painfully tight, but firmly enough that I couldn't easily pull away. I probably could have if I tired, but her sudden movements were so surprising that I found myself hesitating, staring up at her. For one crazy second, amongst my confusion and slight worry, I couldn't help but note how ice cold her hands were. They were freezing! I had a desire to reach up and clutch her hand between mine, to offer her my heat and warm her hands with my own.

  Luckily I resisted and kept from making a fool of myself. Not that I was exactly being very smooth, just standing and staring up at her the way I was. In fact, my mouth had even fallen open a little. Real attractive.

  “Uh, yeah?” I asked, trying to ignore how soft her fingers felt, wrapped around mine, or the way her thumb ran across the back of my hand in a single movement that made me want more... Okay, that was the weirdest thought I'd had yet. It seemed Tilly's bizarre behaviour was rubbing off on me.

  Tilly stared down at me, her eyes were so intense. I got another feeling like I was looking into the eyes of someone who had seen some stuff, who had suffered through so much, and who was tired of it. It made me want to comfort her, but I was so lost I found I couldn't move. Even my breath hitched slightly as I stared up at her. Why was I feeling like this?!

  “Tilly?” I said quietly, forcing my lips to move, and forcing my eyes to blink, trying not to get distracted by just how consuming her gaze was on mine. “Did you need something?”

  “Yeah... But I don't think it would be appropriate.” Tilly said quietly. She tried to smile cheekily at me but instead she just looked so incredibly sad.

  “What?” I frowned, squinting up at her.

  “I'll see you soon,” Tilly said suddenly serious, giving my hand a squeeze and another smile (still so damn sad for some reason) and finally letting me go. She said something else but it was so quiet, I couldn't hear it.

  I hesitated for a moment, about to ask what she said, when suddenly my phone began to go off. It sounded ridiculously loud in the hard silence that followed Alice releasing my hand, and I actually jumped at the noise. Without thinking I pulled it out and checked the number on the screen. Mum. Of course it was her. She had some kind of sick sense for when I was more interested in other things.

  I glanced back up at Tilly but she had moved away. She had resumed her earlier position, half lying back down against the troll statue with the rubik's cube back in hand, twisting it with a intense concentration that almost matched the way she had been staring at me just a few seconds ago. I felt a heavy feeling in my stomach (did I wish she was still staring at me like that?) and had to use a surprising amount of will power to turn away from her, pressing the answer button as I started to walk.

  “Yeah?” I said, not really listening as mum broke into a rant about my whereabouts. Instead I glanced over my shoulder several times while crossing the road and continuing in direction of Roni's bar. Most of the time when I looked, Tilly was still firmly focussed on the cube, seeming like there was nothing and no one else in the world.

  But then, at the very last glance I tossed back, just before I rounded the corner and was out of sight, I saw her staring up at me again. She smiled when she caught my eye and it wasn't sad or cheeky or even just your normal friendly. It was... Something more.

  If I didn't know any better, I'd say she was looking at me with genuine love.

  Weird.

  That conversation definitely didn't go the way I was expecting.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

New thoughts on The Orville and Star Trek Discovery

This post contains spoilers on both series up to “Cupid’s Dagger” for The Orville and “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” for Discovery. As I’ll probably get wordy, I’ll throw in a page break.

Before the break, though, the tl;dr is The Orville continues to be great (though this week’s episode is a bit controversial to some); meanwhile, approximately three episodes ago, Discovery finally became, for me anyway, proper Star Trek. And the renewal of both series is a cause for celebration.

I’ll start with Star Trek Discovery. Up to and including “Choose Your Pain”, the episode that reintroduced Harry Mudd, I was starting to lose hope in Discovery. It was too dark, too unlikeable, the characters were not gelling either as a team or as TV heroes, the Klingon subplot was - save for some unexpected in-show shipping of two Klingons - dull as an economics textbook. It was fading. And I speak as someone who gave both Voyager and Enterprise more than a year each to find their voice. The “icing on the cake” was having two characters unnecessarily utter the F-word for no other apparent reason than to justify the episode TV-MA rating. I was already saying to people that I gave it two more weeks and then I was probably done.

And then came “Lethe” and something great happened. It felt almost like having Stamets and Tilly drop F-bombs caused the show and its writers to snap to attention and snap out of whatever TV-MA/streaming cliches rut they’d fallen into. Maybe hearing two people in Starfleet uniforms make like Malcolm Tucker made them realize they’d taken things too far. Because all of a sudden we began a run of episodes that truly felt like Star Trek, the characters snapped into place as a team and as TV heroes, the plots were interesting, Michael dropped the woe is me routine (for the most part) and even the Klingon stuff became less boring. OK, the tech is still too advanced, the Klingons look awful, and there are a few other problems, some of which (like the fact it’s a prequel) cannot be fixed ... but the show felt like Trek, finally.

“Lethe” gave us some valuable insight into Sarek and Michael’s backstory. And while I still wonder how they’ll reconcile not having any past reference to Spock having an adopted sister (maybe Sybok will show up and whisk her away somewhere), and the new abilities related to the mind meld are coming close to deus ex machina territory, it still seemed to work. Having Canadian actress Mia Kirschner as Amanda - who resembles both a young Jane Wyatt as well as Abramsverse Amanda Winona Ryder - was a bonus and I hope we see her again.

Then came my favourite episode so far, “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”. Hopefully this episode will silence those Discovery fans who keep harping about The Orville borrowing/stealing/revisiting storylines and concepts from Trek considering this episode was basically a remake of the classic TNG tale “Cause and Effect” with a touch of Battlestar Galactica 2004′s “33″ tossed in for good measure - and even hints of Doctor Who’s “Heaven Sent”. And it works. Stamets finally became a character I enjoyed watching, and Tyler also became more interesting. Some are complaining about him and Michael becoming an item but, again, this is Star Trek and while TOS never went there, all the other shows had on-board romances. The time loop was intelligently played and out and Rainn Wilson was terrific as Mudd though I hope his cold-blooded killings early in the episode were done with his assumption that time would reset and everyone would be fine - I’m OK with Wilson playing Mudd as a darker character (so far he’s been the best part about Discovery), but making Mudd a cold-blooded murderer crosses the line. It’s also a shame they couldn’t put Mudd in the title of this or the Choose Your Pain episode, as that’s always been a bit of a tradition in the franchise, but they obviously didn’t want to give the surprise of his appearance away.

“Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” was not as much fun as the last two, but it gave us some valuable character development for Saru, making him less of an Odo clone. And the subplot where the female Klingon operative teams up with and then appears to betray Admiral Cornwell was interesting. I think there’s more there than we think. By the way, I’ve been a fan of Jayne Brook since she was in WIOU back in 1990 so I’m glad to see her on this show. I hope they don’t kill her character off.

So, yeah, Discovery suddenly got good three weeks ago (and to be fair, “Choose Your Pain” was a good episode too; they just didn’t need to have the juvenile swearing; I was reminded how in one of Torchwood’s first episodes they had Jack announce he was taking a pee mainly because that was something they couldn’t do in Doctor Who. It just served to cement some folk’s negative first impressions). If it keeps on going this way, it’s going to become appointment viewing for me.

The Orville, meanwhile, continues to go from strength to strength. After the surprisingly grim “Krill”, we had “Majority Rule”, which tweaked today’s knee-jerk “like-dislike” culture. (Don’t let that stop you from clicking that little heart at the bottom of this article, though! 😂) I’ve heard people compare it to Black Mirror. Having never seen Black Mirror, my comparison is actually more towards The Outer Limits. It raised some interesting questions and right after watching the episode a friend sent me a video of Katy Perry doing an “apology tour” type TV appearance for some indiscretion of hers, much like LaMarr has to do in the episode. I enjoyed seeing the crew in (sort of) modern day outfits, too.

Then we had “Into the Fold”, a great spotlight episode for Penny Johnson Jerald (formerly Kassidy Yates on DS9) with the surprising reveal that she’s a single mom raising her two boys on board the Orville. The fact we’ve already been introduced to the concept of families on board a starship both with Bortus and his husband - and in TNG before that - makes it less of an ass-pull than such a sudden introduction might usually appear. And it works really well as a character builder for Isaac as he becomes the boys’ surrogate father when Dr. Finn goes missing. I have some issues with Dr. Finn’s rather violent escape (I don’t think shooting the guy was justified) but the episode holds together well otherwise.

Last night’s episode, “Cupid’s Dagger,” was the first overtly comic episode of the series, and it rubbed a few people the wrong way. The same way comedic episodes of TNG and DS9 often did. (Two decades of brain bleach have yet to wipe away the memory of Quark’s head superimposed atop a woman’s lingerie-clad body. 😱) There are also those who questioned the wisdom of an episode about a Deltan-like race that causes anyone who comes in contact with them to become sexually infatuated airing during a time when so many people are accusing or being accused of sexual misconduct and assault. I won’t go into those arguments. I’ll just say the episode was a very strong character building episode once again which gave some closure to the scene in the pilot where Kelly cheats on Ed, while raising more questions. We also saw some resolution to the Finn and Yaphit relationship (uh ... yeah ... I’ll just leave that with a “no comment”), some great Alara moments, and an interesting resolution to the episode’s B-plot involving preventing a war. We also get to enjoy the first appearance by one of Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy co-stars, as Mike Henry appears in a very funny running gag about an alien who wants to start piping elevator muzak into the Orville’s turbolifts.

Next week’s Orville is looking to be another dramatic one, and if the promo images that have been released are anything to go by, it might be an Alara-centric story, and more Halston Sage is never a bad thing.

---

So basically where I sit now is that The Orville is still amazing, a lot of fun, and still gives off classic Trek vibes with a little modern edginess, though “Cupid’s Dagger” probably pushes the show as far as I’d like it to go in terms of the comedy. Discovery, meanwhile, appears to have undergone some sort of slight internal reboot/reset after its initial set of episodes. Which is good because I want to be able to enjoy both shows, both for the remainder of their first seasons, and into next fall, too.

As a side note, it’s been announced that a book on the making of The Orville is going to be published in January 2018: The World of the Orville by Jeff Bond.

A North American DVD release for Season 1 of The Orville has also been indicated on Amazon, though no date has been announced yet. I’m assuming sometime early 2018, though with Season 1 ending in early December there’s always a chance they might try to sneak in a release for Christmas.

As for Discovery, a novel based on the show is already out in Canada and the US and IDW is gearing up to start publishing a spin-off comic or two. No word on a DVD/Blu-ray release. Being a streaming series doesn’t disqualify it from physical release (Netflix issues most of its shows on DVD eventually, with House of Cards and Orange is the New Black usually coming out within months of their release - though I wouldn’t be marking any calendar dates re: House of Cards at the moment) but I wouldn’t expect to see anything until at least fall 2018 assuming they release the complete Season 1 at once.