#if we somehow became wealthy... i know so

[anyu-blue]

~

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

[vidavalor]

Jane Austen & the South Downs cottage...

I know the idea of Aziraphale already owning the South Downs cottage is a pretty commonly-discussed thing but I don't know if this aspect of it has been. Apologies if it has. I think S2 might possibly be hinting at the idea of the South Downs cottage maybe having ties to Crowley & Aziraphale's past a bit via Jane Austen and the timeline and backstory they established for her.

In real life, Jane Austen lived the last 8 or so years of her life in the village of Chawton in Hampshire in the South Downs. She died pretty young, even for the time, in July 1817. Her books only became successful a few years prior to her death so much of her literary fame is posthumus. One of the reasons Crowley doesn't know she's a writer (still, somehow lol) is that it sounds like the era in which he knew Jane personally was prior to her becoming a famous writer.

Crowley says that he knows her as the brains behind "The 1810 Clerkenwell Diamond Robbery"-- an event that Good Omens made up but gave a year to that's kind of specific on the timeline of Jane Austen's real life history. Even though Clerkenwell itself is part of London, Jane Austen was living in the South Downs in 1810 when she was crossing paths with Crowley and Aziraphale, as she lived in Chawton from 1809 until her death in 1817. Since Aziraphale associates her with regency balls so quickly (and because there's no way that if we ever get a Jane Austen flashback after Aziraphale's whole ball/meeting in S2 that the flashback won't involve a Regency-era ball lol), it's likely that even if Jane was running her criminal empire through London, at least some of the setting of a flashback would be at a ball at a cottage (estate) in the South Downs.

This would then help to fill in how both Crowley and Aziraphale knew Jane Austen and know the other knew her (implying they were around her together at one point.) By 1810, Aziraphale is a wealthy London land owner and businessman. Does he get invited out to one of Jane Austen's balls or go with her group to one of her neighbor's ones, where he crosses paths with rakish Regency diamond thief Crowley? Does he spend half the night pretending not to moon over him, pining for a dance he doesn't get until 2023? (Probably safe to assume yes lol.)

Did he and Crowley have some romantic moment that night on an old estate in the South Downs-- or some significant near-miss of one-- and then Aziraphale just went and bought the cottage at some point a billion years ago and didn't tell Crowley because this is Aziraphale's 'maybe someday' pipe dream and he was never going to tell Crowley unless they'd evaded all possible Armageddons and there was a chance they could have this? Why disappoint Crowley more, right? And he doesn't tell him after S1 because they both know it's not really over so he just still hasn't as of S2 and that would set it up for being part of the end of S3.

It would be very sweet if the cottage isn't a new idea and was actually a place that has significance to them.

Crowley's been through a lot. Let him find out Aziraphale bought Pemberley for him in 1810.

[runnning-outof-time]

Hello! I know you're not taking requests right now, but I still want to share with you a somewhat strange idea❤️

What if the reader was Tommy's wife in an arranged marriage? She loved him, he might have had warm feelings, but still cheated. And what if the reader accepted his child after the infidelity? She had just given birth to Tommy's baby herself, literally two weeks ago, when he brought home a newborn from another woman. And what if Tommy saw the reader breastfeeding his son from the infidelity in the middle of the night, tenderly caressing him as his own child.

I'm not very good at describing things and not strong in English at all. Thank you!

Hi there @alimosblog ! Thanks for stopping in and sharing this with me! 😊 you described this wonderfully…I was clearly able to picture it as I was reading through it!

This is such an interesting idea! — I just had to dive into it under the cut!

Bless that woman’s heart for sticking with him after he went and not only cheated with, but also had a baby with another woman whilst being married to her .. then she took that baby in (I wonder if the other woman then found out about him being married and dumped the baby on them in exchange for money or something? 🤔🤔 because I’m imagining this being later in the series, when he’s amassed some power) … and so she’s got these two children who are so close in age that it’s practically like she’s raising twins and she has to bring the baby in….it’s a baby, it can’t do anything for itself and she has a caring heart that goes out to it.

Now we need to dig into why she’s even decided to stay with Tommy after his unforgivably crass actions … So it’s later in the series, Tommy has wealth and power. I’m can’t seem to choose whether (Y/N)’s family is more powerful/wealthy than his, or if they somehow crossed the Shelbys in a way and this marriage was how things became neutralized again.

Either way, I think that she’s pressured to stay in this union because of external circumstances … I also think she’s lost love for Tommy because of his actions, so she decides to devote herself to the two children so that they have the best lives that can be given.

And so when Tommy sees her nurturing this baby that he had with his mistress it kind of breaks his brain — how can she love a child that was brought in under the worst circumstances? But he doesn’t know that she’s already made peace with it all (because she has to given her family and their wishes…she’s not getting out of this marriage) and has dedicated herself to these children.

She stays at Arrow House for the children and raises them up. I’d like to think that the child that isn’t hers doesn’t know that (while they’re young and growing at least) and for the most part they’re a cohesive family unit. She tries her best to make it seem like she and Tommy are happy in front of the children, but those actions don’t just erase themselves and so it’s never 100% not an act — it helps that Tommy’s off working for most of the time though.

I’d also imagine that those children are the apple of her eye and vice versa when they get older — there’s such a deep love there that it transcends everything else.

———

I hope you liked my little musings on this amazing idea! Thanks so much for sharing it with me and trusting me with it! 🥰 — I’m sorry that I didn’t write out a full request with it, but it was fun to dissect it and imagine it this way. Feel free to drop in anytime! I’m hoping that I’ll be able to open my requests soon so that you could share any other ideas you may have!

[draxeanlxia]

More LU!Warriors headcanons!

I decided to also post (and repost when it wasn’t coming up on the search bar) this. I'm sure some of us LU!Warriors lovers have seen @sirassban's post on Albino!Wars and I'm sure a lot of us adopt it as our own. Some because it's so cute, and some because that means new ways to torture him. Don't even try and deny it, we love to angst that boy. So here's my own headcanons on Albino! Wars though this is mostly about his backstory that I created. Though it also works in other universe where he isn't albino.

Note that I did do some research on albinos to try and make this accurate. If lif it turns out I am wrong, well whoops. Also note, I am going to add more military ranks than the normal Hylian captain and general we see in the game.

Link and Linkle are fraternal twins but with a bit of makeup, some heeled boots for Linkle, and some clothes, they look identical. Only Link is albino, Linkle is normal blonde self.

The twins were actually separated when they were a few months old. Their parents were very wealthy, kind nobles but their father died the day they were born. Their mother was killed on the orders of other corrupted nobles, who wanted their wealth despite the laws saying they would have to wait about two decades, in order to claim that wealth if there are no heirs. The servants save them at the cost of them being separated.

Linkle was given to an old farming couple who adopted her as their granddaughter, as they had no children and grandchildren, but always wanted some. (They're basically Hylian versions of Eustace and Muriel from Courage the Cowardly Dog.)

Link was first adopted by a retired knight turned baker and his Gerudo seamstress wife. They loved and raised him as their own until he was 13 when his town was burn to the ground by bandits. He is the only known survivor.

After that, he somehow managed to find his way to CastleTown. More specifically the stables of Hyrule castle by CastleTown. He hid in the stables due to not trusting people because of the bandits.

Before his village was destroyed, Warriors loved helping out at the local farms that had horses and became quite adept at taking care of horses.

He helped take care of the horses in the stable when the stablehands weren't around. They didn't know he was there.

He took great care of Epona when she was born. Especially since her mother rejected her and the stablehands decided this was a good enough reason not to take care of her, saying there must be something wrong with her if her mother rejected her. Epona was born completely healthy. Her mother rejected her due to stress and being a first-time mom. Which is unfortunately not that uncommon.

When Epona was a few months old, she alerted the stablehands and her sire's rider to Link's presence due to the fact that Link fainted. He suffered severe malnutrition to the point the stablehands thought he was dead. Epona's sire's rider thought otherwise and took Link to the castle's infirmary.

The rider eventually decided to foster Link once he learned about Link's situation.

He's the Lieutenant General, I mentioned in the other post.

Link eventually made a full recovery. He was weary of his foster father at first but grew to accept him as his father. He never forgets his adopted parents and honors them and his birth parents when he learns who they were.

After the war started and meeting Linkle, the twins learn about their birth parents and managed to claim their inheritance before the time limit ends. The twins are now incredibly wealthy.

Out of the Chain, only Wild is richer than Warriors. But he's not allowed to spend lot in one setting because he will ruin his Hyrule’s economy if he does.

And I'm ending it here. Enjoy!

[elapsed-spiral]

Pre-season 2 OFMD fic list

It's less than two weeks till we get our ships wrecked, so here's my (presumably) final pre-season 2 fic list. Have a read if you wanna pass the improbably long days before the season premieres!

This list got out of control so I added some handy symbols: 🎧 = podfic available 💜 = personal favourite ⭐ = fics you may have heard about? I don’t know, I don’t have a sense for this stuff.

Cool collaboration(s) you should read immediately:

🎧💜Work Experience: what if Ed went to meet Stede when the Revenge ran aground? And what if Ed became a member of Stede’s crew? And what if things kept escalating and… Canon AU. Mature. Co-written with Shearwater.

Really no excuse for how stupid these ones are:

Watch Out, Here I Come: what if Stede had been intentionally seducing Ed? Teen

Once More, With Feeling: what if Frenchie just fixed the season 1 finale fiasco because he’s the most capable guy on the ship? Teen

Talent Show: what if Ed was crass about his sexual preferences? Explicit

Capsize on Your Thighs: what if Ed rebounded onto Calico Jack at the end of season 1? Ed/CJ and Ed/Stede (but Ed/Stede is endgame, natch). Explicit

🎧💜Your Feedback is Important to Us: what if Stede started holding open cabin hours to allow the crew to air their grievances (but was also very repressed and horny over Ed)? Explicit

Oh no Ed’s working through gender/class stuff (but make it funny):

Finery: Ed gets to wear a dress, Stede spontaneously combusts. Explicit

Tell More Tales: Stede isn’t the only writer aboard the Revenge. Explicit

🎧💜Lovers and Madmen: Ed is hellbent on marrying Stede. Explici

🎧 Save the Date: Ed 'attends' a wedding. Unfortunately, so does Stede. Short S2 alternative reunion fic. Teen

AUs no-one asked for:

Novel/novella length

🎧💜Restructuring: modern AU where Stede loses his fortune before meeting Ed, but Ed’s still got more money than you can shake a fucking stick at. Only problem is, Stede lies and says he’s wealthy and Ed lies and says he isn’t. Like the show, it’s a romcom about trauma. Explicit

🎧💜⭐Baddy Zaddy: Bridget Jones’s Diary style, former porn star turned sex shop owner!Ed/still unfortunately landed gentry!Stede. Novel length modern AU. Explicit

💜⭐Prize Every Time: You’ve Got Mail-y secret pen pals but also business rivals. Novel length modern AU. Explicit

Conflict of Interest: lawyer!Stede/businessman!Ed (read: gangster). Modern AU. Explicit

Shorter uns

Intergalactic Tango: Space Waltz AU. Mature

🎧💜Trade Descriptions Act: bailiff!Ed/estate agent!Stede. Identity theft but make it meet cute. Modern AU. Teen

Your Favourite Song: locksmith!Ed/museum curator!Stede. Kinktober fill that somehow isn’t E rated. Modern AU. Teen

⭐Draft Letter to Restaurant Downstairs: Google Docs AU with a (slightly) interactive element. Modern SMAU. Teen

Blind Date: Stede and Jeffrey Fettering go on a blind date at Ed’s restaurant. I think you know where this is going. Modern AU. Explicit

Different Dimension: ficlet that crams four and a bit AUs into 850 words. Modern AU. Teen

Stuck Still: British holiday resort AU feat. events manager!Stede and bartender turned fairy!Ed (it makes sense in the story I swear). Modern AU. Explicit

💜On the Job: “kidnapping” meet cute (but not actually. Again, I swear it makes sense in the story I swear). Modern AU. Explicit

Starring Jason Statham: another weird meet cute, courtesy of Jack and the Fast and Furious franchise. Stede/Jack, Ed/Jack and Ed/Stede (Ed/Stede is once again end game). Modern AU. Teen

West Ham Is for Lovers: Lucius has a new job. It’s going fine. Completely, totally fine. A meet cute fic about meet cutes. Ed/Stede but also Lucius/Pete, Lucius/Fang, Lucius/Izzy and Lucius/Olu/Jim. Modern AU. Teen

💜Conventional: back in the 00s, Ed was in a very famous movie franchise. Nowadays, he does the convention circuit. Modern AU. Explicit

🎧💜Proud: Ed attends Pride to get free mum hugs, Stede attends Pride to give free dad hugs. Modern AU. Teen

KrakenAir: Stede and the crew are heading to Benidorm to celebrate Stede coming out. That is, if Stede’s all expenses spared KrakenAir flight ever departs. Modern SMAU. Teen

Very Poor, Becoming Good: aspiring Gentleman Backpacker Stede Bonnet is adventure bound when he meets fellow traveller Ed Teach at an empty hostel. Now if they could just find the owner… Modern AU. Explicit

💜Stolen by the Gentleman Thief: Ed is a lonely gay guy in his late forties whose favourite book is historical softcore porn. Luckily, there’s a weird meet cute about to happen. Modern AU. Explicit

Live Sex Show: Columnist Ed Teach recommends that Stede Bonnet shake up his monotonous life by doing something weird. Modern AU. Teen

💜Continue Making Progress: Kraken Driving School has a terrible new student. Luckily, Ed and Stede both have a lot to offer one another. Modern AU. Explicit

Oh no there’s been a containment breach (aka non-Blackbonnet fics):

💜We Do What We Like (and We Like What We Do): a brief history of Ed and Jack. Explicit (Ed/CJ)

Fealty: Stede and Izzy make one another even more miserable. Mature (Stede/Izzy)

💜Contra Proferentem: Ed is a high powered lawyer and Professor of Law at the University of Cambridge. Lucius is not a high powered lawyer but he is a lecturer of English Lit at the University of Cambridge. Stede own a very nice cafe. Explicit (platonic Ed/Lucius, Ed/Stede, no cheating involved)

[estherdedlock]

Of course, now I can’t stop thinking about where the remains of our Greek class would be today.

The trouble with this exercise is that we’re not sure how old they’d be, because we don’t really know when the events of The Secret History take place. Donna Tartt does a good job of giving us almost no chronological milestones to ground the book in a particular year. Richard is narrating from nine years after Bunny’s death: since TSH was published in 1992, that would put the story’s setting in 1983. But references to certain things in the book would suggest a later time. Richard goes to see a Vietnam War movie starring Charlie Sheen with the fictitious name of Fields of Shame: its real-life counterpart, Platoon, was released in December 1986. Later in the novel, we find mentions of compact discs and laptop computers, which would place the story in the late 1980s or even the early 1990s (part of me thinks that these were editor’s suggestions to make the book feel more up-to-date).

Since Donna Tartt attended Bennington from 1982 to 1986, she would have started her junior year in 1984. Richard transfers to Hampden at the start of his junior year, so I’m going to use that as my benchmark and say that the action of TSH takes place between the fall of 1984 and the spring of 1985. Francis is 21, so he would now be 58. Richard and the Macaulays would be 57.

Francis is the easy one, because Donna Tartt herself told us what became of him. In The Goldfinch, he makes a brief appearance as one of Hobie’s wealthy New York friends/clients. There’s no mention of “Mr. Abernathy” having a wife or children, so we can assume that Priscilla has been out of the picture for quite some time. Francis appears to have a reasonably good life, even if, as Theo Decker says, he seems to have “some ill-articulated scandal or disgrace in his past.” (Such a tease, that Donna Tartt!) This is what Francis was up to in 2013, at least---unless he got very sick or started a relationship with someone, there isn’t any reason to believe that he’d be doing anything different by now. 

Richard, I think, predicted his own future when he was speculating about Henry’s: “I had always pictured Henry teaching Greek, in some forlorn but excellent college out in the Midwest.”

(I’ll briefly pause so we can all recover from the terrifying prospect of having Henry Winter as a college professor.)

Whew, okay. Moving on...

I can’t imagine that Richard would have stayed in California, not when he hated it so much. And yet, I can’t see him returning to New England, or anywhere in the Northeast: too many memories. The Midwest would be a perfect place for Richard to have landed...and for some inexplicable reason, I’m specifically thinking Wisconsin. Of course he’s a professor: his education hasn’t really trained him for anything except academia. But not Greek---English literature. He’s rumpled and tweedy and still rather boyishly good-looking. At least a quarter of his class has a crush on him. He may have been married at some point, but no longer. He doesn’t have any children.

I’m probably getting too Sebastian Flyte-ish with Charles, but I’m sorry to say that I think he’d be dead by now. I think he may have committed suicide, or just let himself decline so far into alcoholism and eventual drug addiction that it was basically a slow suicide. Or it may have been the sort of accident that plagues troubled people: a car wreck, a house fire, a bad fall down the stairs. But then again, you never know. If Charles somehow managed to pull himself back from the brink, I think he’d only have been able to do it with the help of some kind of religion---not because of his substance abuse issues, but because of his guilty conscience. I don’t see him getting deep into Christianity, though, maybe something like Buddhism. Perhaps he’s up in the Himalayas, with a shaved head and orange robes. And there we’ll leave him.

Camilla is a novelist. She would have needed to make money somehow, but I don’t see her doing blue-collar work or embarking on a corporate career (for which she would have had to go back to school, anyway). When we last saw her in TSH, she seemed to have committed herself to taking care of her grandmother and eking out a living on whatever was left of the family money (so Southern Gothic!). That would have given her ample time to write.

Funny thing is, I see her being financially successful but not the sort of writer who’s a  darling of the critics or a household name (she doesn’t write under her own name at all). Maybe she’s had a career like Andrew Neiderman, who’s been writing as “V.C. Andrews” since the real Andrews died more than 30 years ago. Or maybe she reliably churns out cozy mysteries and romances, the kind that you buy at the drugstore, read at the beach, and then leave for someone else at the laundromat. This is by choice: Camilla doesn’t want to be famous. She wants to be comfortable, and left alone. She still owns the family home in Virginia, which she’s beautifully restored, although she doesn’t spend much time there. Mostly, she lives at the beach, where her well-appointed bungalow is peak Coastal Grandmother aesthetic.

She’s not a grandmother, though, or a mother, and has never been anyone’s wife. She is as solitary in her habits as she ever was...no, more so. She takes long walks on the beach, alone. She goes to mass every Sunday and holy day, but never receives Communion. She reads Greek in the evenings, listening to the waves roll in.

She has never stopped loving Henry. 

[marksbear]

may i pretty please request spencer reid x an unsub reader 👹 i'll leave the smut or no smut up to you, i'm a very indecisive person 💀

You can love. knock yourself out😘❤

Editor bear: OKAY im literally an idiot! 💀 I thought you were asking me not a full ass request LMAOOO bro my bad fr. Hope you enjoy 💀 and here my good friend @justagenderfluidstuff

SPENCER REID X UNSUB MALE READER

warnings! Killer reader, K/n=killer name, blood, gore, clueless Spencer, manipulator y/n, two faced reader.

This case has been passed around for years. Different states the unsub attacked two times each month. And this time the unsub attacked Quantico, Virginia. The cops and FBI immediately knew who had done the brutal murder.

It was the infamous K/n. His murders became Americas most wanted serial killer in such short time. He wanted others to know the things he did. Two times a month he will kill and display the victims only most serial killers and crazy people will only understand. He always left his name K/n in his first dead victims left thigh.

He will kill up to ten to twenty or so people then open their stomach remove all of their guts and replace them with fish guts. And leave the victims body by a nearby pond

If the victim was rich he would put their head in a fish tank and somehow sneak the to a tank into a pet shop waiting for someone to find it.

What made it harder for the cops to catch him is the people he chooses are random. The only thing they found out is he kills the poor/ standard people in the first week then kills the rich/wealthy on the second.

As Reid reads all the information on the flies he asks "How do we know they're a male?" "Well because he told some reporter a few months ago when she assumed he was a girl." Gideon answers

"The way he told her is that he had sent some fish to her house. With the bone still inside and a human eyes inside of the bone spelled HE. And when she moved the fish off the plate the plate had his name carved in it." Hotch answers the question in everyone's mind.

"And! To make sure everyone believes him he carved "HE" Into every single victim's chest." Penelope answers.

"So the man we are looking for is a well known marine biologist. At first the other FBI thought he was a regular fisherman until he used a dumbo octopus guts in one of his victims. That means hes a pro with sea animals and has access to go in the water that deep." Gideon gives everyone a run down.

"Hey pretty boy you been real quiet today." Morgan says making everyone's attention go to him.

"I know someone who's a marine biologist. He should know more about this..." Reid accidentally blurts out. "Oh oh who you know pretty boy? " Derek teases seeing Spencer's red cheeks. "Can we meet him?" Hotch asks. "Yeah he should be home now."

TIMESKIP.

Once the Bau arrives at the strangers house they get in awe. "Hes one rich man huh Spence." J.J Says looking at the pool. Spencer digs in his bag for the spare keys and unlocks the door letting the team in. "Wow. Do the guy you know think he can hook me up?" Morgan teases his friend looking around the house.

The team follows Spencer upstairs and Spencer opens the door that says "Working ❤" The team stares at the man who has a lab coat on and gloves holding an eel. The music in the room plays soft and cool like they were underwater. "Does the music help the animal calm down?" Penelope is filled with curiosity looking at all of sea animals.

"Well he doesn't know if he calms them down but it calms down some but it mostly calms himself down as he works." Spencer answers to his co-worker.

Y/n turns his head around seeing Spencer with a few more people who have serious expressions on their face. Y/n puts the eel back in their tank before taking off his gloves and putting them in the trash and washing his hands.

"Hi love. And his co-workers." Y/n says slightly irritated to be interrupted during work. "I'm sorry to barge in like this while you are working but we need you."

2ND POV

You already knew what this was about the moment they stepped in and Spencer worried face like a warning. You already have your alibi just in case they suspect you.

I mean you and Spencer planned this. A few months ago he went with you to keep you company during one of your business trips in a different state. You thought about just going off the script and just skipping the kills that month. But your ego overcame you because you didn't want anyone to think that you were weak or scared. But sadly as luck would have it Spencer had followed you and saw you kill those people.

Once you found out he saw you brutally kill and display those people you acted innocent and scared manipulating him slowly that you didn't mean too you were only scared and you didn't know really what happened that your mind acted on its own like you were a different person. You acted like that with him but with others you were a blunt stone cold man who didn't care about anyone besides his boyfriend and sea animals.

Spencer knew one day you may be a suspect so you both plan out alibis every month just in case something like this was gonna happen.

After the Bau asks you hundreds of questions about your job and fills you in about the K/n killer and any clue might fit this picture. You gave them wrong ideas and they ate it up believing you since you are Reid's boyfriend. "Guys you know hes working from home right and he has his own work hours." Reid tells the team reminding them they're holding him up from working.

The team says their goodbyes but not Penelope shes begs Y/n to see an animal. Y/n sighs and tells the team to follow him to a guest bedroom. "All my guest bedrooms have their own theme about the animals here so this room is about seahorse. Her name is bugs shes currently two and she has a thats pregnant mate in my office"

Y/n says looking at the beautiful sea creature. Wow the team stares at awe before saying their real goodbyes. Y/n walks them out but grabs Spencer's wrist stopping him shutting the door.

"Remember Spence~ Stay calm and collected don't hint or say anything about me unless you have to. And the main thing to not forget is?" Y/n says to Spencer giving him an evil smile.

"I was with Y/n the entire time during his work trips and I have proof."

"Good boy doctor~"

THE END lemme know if you want a pt2!

[vodika-vibes]

Once Upon A December

Summary: 20 years ago a coup in a neighboring nation led to the entire royal family getting executed. Captain Keeli of the ARC Knights of Mandalore has been tasked with investigating the rumors of the survival of the youngest Princess.

Pairing: Captain Keeli x Reader

Word Count: 3164

Warnings: Mentions of child death, but nothing detailed

A/N: This is an Anastasia twist. The title explicitly stated from the movie.

Tagging: @trixie2023

Divider by Saradika

Once there was a small kingdom that bordered Mandalore. It was a small, landlocked, kingdom that was very wealthy due to the abundance of natural minerals and ore that were found there.

And, for a time, the wealth was shared. Miners were treated with all of the respect that they were due, treated with the same reverence as the King himself. 

But slowly, over time, things changed.

Safety measures were cut, paychecks were cut, more mines were opened, and the miners were less trained…and all of that money flowed up to the ruling class.

The Kingdom still looked wealthy, but the people suffered. There was not enough food or houses for everyone to thrive. Schools were shut down, and businesses were handed over to the government, and then one of the mines collapsed, killing over 2 dozen people.

It really was only a matter of time before there was a coup.

The people, led by disenfranchised soldiers, broke into the palace. They killed indiscriminately. Men, women, children…it didn’t matter, all members of nobility fell to the blade.

And the following morning, the sun rose over blood-soaked halls, and a people who dreamed of freedom. It became known as the Night of the Bloody Banquet.

Of course, that’s not exactly what happened. And slowly the people who supported the coup, realized that things aren't getting better. In fact, things started getting worse. And, eventually, Mandalore was forced to intercede, absorbing the kingdom into its borders.

And though the kingdom no longer exists, one rumor from the old kingdom persists. The rumor is a simple one, that the youngest princess of the Old Regime survived the massacre somehow, and is just waiting for the day she can return to retake her throne.

Of course, the rumors had been investigated time and time again, and the results were always the same. The Crowned Princess died with her family on the Night of the Bloody Banquet. 

That had been almost twenty years ago, and still the rumors persist, in spite of everything the Royal Family of Mandalore has done to put the rumors to rest.

***********

“So, have you heard?”

You glance away from your textbook, your pen halfway to your mouth, as your best friend leans over the table and into your personal space, “Have I heard what?” You ask.

“King Jango is assigning a group of his sons to investigate the Lost Princess.” 

“The Lost Princess? The one who died twenty years ago with her family?” You ask with an arched brow, “Come on, Pansy. We both know that she died with the rest of her family that night.”

“They never found her body,” Pansy counters.

“They never found a lot of bodies, Pans. It doesn’t mean that they’re all alive.” You reply, “Come on, Pans. That coup orphaned both of us, shouldn’t you be hoping that one of your parents survived instead of a Princess?”

“Ooh.” Pansy sweeps her hand through her hair, ignoring your words, “Maybe I’m the lost princess,” She poses dramatically, “I’m ready for my close up!”

You let out a laugh, and lean across your desk, and hold your pen out like a microphone, “Tell me, princess, how do you plan to end the war with Serrano?”

“Oh, ew…responsibility.” Pansy replies with a scrunched up nose, and you dissolve into laughter, and Pansy grins at you, “Come on. Be real now, what little orphan girl doesn’t dream of being a princess?”

“Uh, this little orphan girl.” You reply easily, “It sounds a lot like work.”

“Says the lady studying for vet school,” Pansy says with a laugh, “But, seriously babe, you never once dreamt about a family member coming to adopt you? I mean, I did.”

You shrug, “I mean, sure. Who doesn’t? But…no one was ever going to come.”

Pansy sighs deeply, “How is it that you open your mouth and Sister Matilda pops out.”

“It’s my super power.”

Your best friend grins, “That’s a dumb super power.” She throws a ball of paper at you, “Now, go back to your studying, and stop chewing on your pen! You’re going to ruin my portfolio!”

“That’s my other super power,” You quip, and then you yelp when Pansy pushes you out of your chair.

Later, much later, after Pansy has left to go on a date with her girlfriend, you’re still at the cafe, with your nose buried in your textbook. You like studying at the cafe, it’s not quite so deafeningly quiet as it is in your apartment. 

Surrounded by people, yet totally alone. Story of your life.

You look up when there’s a knock on the table, “Room for one more?” You smile up at the familiar figure of Captain Keeli, who’s favoring you with a small grin.

“What are you doing here, Keeli?”

He drops a kiss to the top of your head and then pulls out the chair next to you, “I am a Captain in the Mandalorian Army, I can go where I want.” Keeli replies.

“I mean, I thought you had a meeting with your dad today,” You counter.

“Oh. That.” He pauses and swipes your mug, which was just refilled, and he folds his hands around it, “I did, it was a very interesting meeting.” He takes a sip of your caf, “Mm…hazelnut?”

“Yeah. It’s my favorite.” You reply, “So, what did you guys talk about? Are…uh…are you being deployed?”

He flashes a soft smile, “No. No deployment, you don’t have to worry about that.”

“...wasn’t worried.” You mutter.

He laughs and reaches out to tap your nose twice, and then the spot between your eyes once, “Were too. It’s okay, it’s cute.”

You duck your head and shake it once, “You always say that.”

“That’s because you’re always cute. It should be illegal how cute you are.” He rests his elbow on the table and then rests his chin on the palm of his hand and just stares at you.

You flush and slide down in your seat a little, “Keeli, you’re staring.”

“Yup.”

You flush a little deeper, “So,” you say, “So if you’re not being deployed, then what job do you have?” 

Keeli doesn’t take his gaze off your face, “I was asked to look into the Lost Princess of Zoist.”

“Oh not you too,” You lean back in your chair, “You have to know that she must have died with her family, right?”

“I know that. And you know that. And literally everyone else knows that, but some people don’t, so I have to investigate it.” Keeli replies with a shrug, “It’s a pretty easy job, all things considered. Easy enough that I’m going on my own.”

You frown thoughtfully, “well…good luck then.”

He grins, “I’m not leaving until tomorrow, cyare. How about we get this cleaned up and you cook me dinner.”

“Why do I have to cook dinner for you?”

He grins, “Because you love me.”

You narrow your eyes at him, “Fine.” You sniff, “But only because you’re leaving tomorrow.”

Keeli grins and quickly cleans up the table, “And maybe a kiss? For luck.”

“You don’t need luck, Keeli.”

“Okay, then a kiss because I love you and you love me?” He shoves all your books into your bag, and swings it over his shoulder, all the while pinning you with a hopeful look.

“You know, Keeli. One day you’re going to say stuff like that and I’m going to believe you, and then what are you going to do?”

“Uh…take you out on a week-long date, and kiss you until you’re breathless.” Keeli replies promptly.

You shake your head with a laugh, and get to your feet, “Come on, Keeli. I need to buy some food if I’m going to feed you.”

He sighs and his shoulders slump slightly, “How much more obvious do I need to be?” He grumbles under his breath, before he chases after you, “Hey, wait for me!”

“Keep up, Captain!” You call from the door, a bright grin on your face.

He falters, and a curse falls from his lips, unheard, “Stars, I love you so much-” He says quietly, before he shakes his head and chases after you. “I want to choose what we’re having for dinner.”

“Ugh, bossy!”

Keeli just laughs and falls into step next to you, “My going away dinner, my choice, cyare.”

*************

Three weeks later, Keeli decides that he hates this investigation.

Actually, he just hates the Capital City of Ziost in general. It’s nestled right up against a mountain range, and it’s miserable. All of the precipitation must fall on the other side of the mountain range, as Ziost is largely desert. 

Which means hot and miserable…or cold and miserable. With no inbetween.

“I can’t believe King Jango is still humoring those madmen,”

Keeli smiles politely at the stern older woman he’s following through the orphanage, “Well, he’s just doing what he has to to keep people happy.” He replies, “And we do appreciate your assistance in this matter.”

“Yes, yes.” She waves her hand, and side steps a child, “What do you need to know?”

“You were the Matron here twenty years ago? The night of the coup?”

“Indeed I was,” The woman replies, “A horrifying night, we saw the fires from here.”

“Did any young girls show up the following morning?” Keeli asks.

The woman hums thoughtfully, “We had a bunch of children delivered over the following days, so many people died…but…hm…” She casts a thoughtful gaze out the window, looking at an old swing set, “However, two days after the coup, a guardsmen brought a young girl, around the right age, here.”

“What was her name?” Keeli asks.

“She didn’t remember. She had no memory of her name or her parents or what happened.” The Matron replies, “Mouthy little thing. I regretted taking her in within days of accepting her-”

“Did you ever name her?” Keeli interrupts.

The matron blinks, and then rolls her eyes, and offers him a name. And Keeli blinks in surprise. He knew, of course, that his cyare was an orphan. That was never a secret, but he hadn’t known that she was an orphan of Ziost.

“Thank you,” Keeli says, distracted, as he turns and leaves the orphanage. He pulls his comm mirror out of his pocket and he automatically finds the link that allows him to call his cyare.

There’s no response for a moment, and then the screen blinks to life, and a grin crosses his face when he sees your sleepy face on the screen, “Mm….Keeli?”

“Did I wake you, cyare?” Keeli asks warmly.

“S’early, Keel-” You yawn, and bury your face in your pillow, “How’s Ziost?”

“Hot and miserable. I hate it.” Keeli says with a grin, “I’m about to check out the palace and then I’ll be coming home.”

“Did you find anything?” You ask as you slowly wake up.

“Mm…I met Sister Matilda at the Orphanage you grew up in.” Keeli says, “Charming woman. She called you mouthy.” He pauses, “Didn’t know you were from Ziost, cyare.”

You sit up slightly, “Didn’t seem important.” You yawn again, and Keeli smiles softly.

“I’ll let you get some rest, cyare.”

“Mm, I’m awake now.” You sit up fully and stretch your arms over your head, and then you grab your mirror and smile at him, “Happy hunting, Keeli. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah, have a good day.” You beam at him and the connection cuts, and Keeli sighs as he stares at your name, “I love you.” He pockets the mirror, and turns to his guide, “Alright. All I need to do is see the palace.”

The guide beams, “Perfect! I love exploring the palace. Most everything of value has been removed, but the paintings of the royal family remain.”

“Why’s that?” Keeli asks as he climbs into the carriage next to the older man.

“Felt wrong after the massacre. Removing the paintings was like…pretending they never existed.” The older man shook his head, “I know people like to think that the Princess survived,” He adds, after a moment of silence, “but I hope she didn’t.”

“Oh? You’re the first person I met with that thought.”

“Yeah…she was a good kid. Kind, peaceful. She loved animals and plants and that’s about it.” The old man says with a laugh.

“You knew her?”

“Oh, aye.” The old man smiles wistfully, “My wife was her nanny. She used to bring her out of the palace and we’d pretend, for an afternoon, that she was our daughter.”

“Can I ask…?”

“My wife? She died in the massacre. Her and the other nannies tried to shield the children when the soldiers came.” The old man shakes his head, “The kids didn’t deserve that.”

“None of them did,” Keeli replies.

“True enough,” The old man nodded, “But that little girl…she was so sensitive. The idea that she lived that last twenty years knowing that she was the only survivor of the massacre…it would kill her as surely as a blade.”

“I see…” Keeli murmurs thoughtfully.

Several minutes later, the old man comes to a stop, “Here we are.” He nods at the worn gate, “I’ll let you explore on your own.” He pauses, “But the most recent painting of the royal family is at the top of the grand staircase.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it, lad.” The old man pauses once more, and then he shakes his head, “I’ll be waiting here for you.”

Keeli watches him, curiously, for a moment and then he nods, “Alright. Thanks.” He hops off the carriage and walks up the overgrown driveway.

The palace doors swing open effortlessly, and in spite of the passage of time, everything seems to be in good working order. Mostly in the sense that he doesn’t have to worry about falling through the floor.

He activates his light orb and directs it to float over his shoulder, and he heads for the staircase. Keeli hurries up the stairs, and his gaze is immediately drawn to the massive painting covering a whole wall.

The King and his Queen, and their seven children.

Keeli searches the faces in the picture for a moment, before his gaze lowers to the youngest daughter. And his breath catches in his throat. Slowly, automatically, he pulls a photo out of his pocket, unfolds it, and holds it up to compare to the painting.

He didn’t need the picture to confirm what he knew as soon as he saw the painting though. Keeli would recognize his cyare even as a formless infant. 

His cyare. His clever, beautiful cyare is the lost princess of Ziost.

Fuck.

Keeli’s eyes squeeze shut. He should tell his father what he discovered. His cyare would be moved to the palace of Mandalore. She would get the training she should have gotten as a child. She would be given a place in court-

Her life would stop being her own. She’d have to drop out of vet school.

She’d stop smiling. She’d hate him.

And it’s that last thought that stops Keeli in his tracks. He had the power, right here and now, to completely ruin her life. And she’d hate him for it.

He stares at the painting, and something in his gaze hardens. He pulls a lighter out of one of his pouches and he steps towards the painting…and he lights it on fire.

He watches the painting burn for ten minutes, and then he turns and walks away.

The Lost Princess of Ziost died when she was 6 years old. Let her stay that way.

***************

You’re bored. You’re also supposed to be studying, but for some reason, you’re not able to focus. Instead you tap your pen against your books and stare out the window.

You know why you’re distracted. You’ve not heard from Keeli since that one call when he was in Ziost, and you’re worried.

Oh, you’re sure he can take care of himself. He’s very competent, but you still worry about him. Ziost has a long and bloody history after all-

You jump when your doorbell rings. 

Though you aren’t expecting any company, so you’re careful about opening the door, though a bright grin crosses your face when you see who’s on the other side.

“Keeli!” You open the door more and allow him into your home, “Welcome back! I was worried-”

Your words are cut off, as he drops his bag at your feet, and then pulls you into a deep kiss. His arm slides firmly around your waist, and his free hand tangles in your hair, holding you tightly against him. Your hands press against his chest, your fingers curling into his shirt.

“Keel-” You aren’t even able to finish saying his name when he breaks the kiss for breath, before his lips are back against yours. This time he walks you backwards into your home, and you’re vaguely aware of him kicking the door shut behind him.

Your back bumps against the wall, and his grip tightens around you, and you whine, low in the back of your throat. Your hands move from his chest to cup his face.

Your touch, and the noises escaping from you, seem to snap him out of whatever daze he’s in, because he breaks the kiss, and presses his forehead heavily against yours, “Keeli?”

His gaze locks with yours, “Cyare.”

“What-?”

“I love you.” He murmurs, his lips just barely brush against your own, “But you never seemed to believe me, so I decided to show you instead.”

“I thought you were just teasing me,” You breathe out as you try to lean into his lips, but his firm grip around you keeps you from moving.

“Not about this.” Keeli says, like it’s a promise. His gaze is serious, “Stars, you have no idea how much I love you.”

“I think I’m beginning to,” You whisper.

He grins and kisses you again and again, “I love you,” Keeli murmurs.

You smile shyly at him, “I love you too.” You try to lean into him again, and release a huff of air when you realize that you still can’t move.

His grin is mischievous, “I’m not done just yet.”

“W-what about,” His lips steal your words again, “your-” and again, “Investigation?” You manage to gasp out.

Keeli pauses, something serious flickering through his eyes, “You were right. The Lost Princess is dead, she died with her family.” He says quietly, he tilts your head back, “My cyare. My beautiful princess,” His lips quirk into a small smile, “I love you.”

You smile up at him, lovingly, and he chuckles and slowly scoops you into his arms, slowly enough that you could stop him if you wanted. But you have no desire to stop him.

He kisses you again, and carries you through your home until he gets to your bedroom. You still have no desire to stop him.

As it happens, Keeli doesn’t leave until the following morning. And soon after, he’s essentially living with you.

[ystrike1]

Only Hope - By Choseung (7/10)

Time travel is a hard concept to work with. It sounds easy and simple to understand on paper, but it's boring and the incoming twist here isn't enough. The art is wonderful. I like the two main characters, but the plot is sub-par. Sadly, that's the most important component.

The first three chapters are incredible. Eunhye is the unhappy daughter of a wealthy man. She's an adult with her own life. Her father hates her for unknown reasons, and her stepmother is a stereotypical jealous hag.

Her father is dying, and he still wants nothing to do with her. Eunhye has never had a normal family, and now she never will. Her own father doesn't want her to come to his funeral. Her husband, Dojin, gets hit by the evil stepmother character when he tries to pay his respects.

Eunhye defends her husband. She's not a spineless little girl. She lived in an abusive household, and now that she's out she has healthy boundaries. It was incredibly refreshing to see. It is sad that Eunhye will never have a relationship with her father, but we get to see how she became a strong adult in her introductory scene.

Dojin is a doctor. He's successful. It's implied that she is too. Their marriage is perfect. They get along great, and Dojin is very attractive on top of being a doctor. The beginning of their romance was like the first chapter of a novel.

Dojin seems too perfect.

Eunhye goes to their cabin. Dojin is late. She finds a basement room full of criminal things, and a horrible video. It's a man, begging for his life, before someone off screen sets him on fire. She knew nothing. Dojin made the secret basement without her knowledge. Then, fire burns their romantic cabin to the ground. Then, a masked man slashes Eunhye open. Eunhye grabs his pant leg and demands to know who he is, before she dies.

She fights until she can't move anymore.

I was hyped. Absolutely loved Eunhye as the main character at this point.

Eunhye wakes up. It's the one year anniversary of her mother's death. It's also the day she met Dojin. He's sweet and kind, and he helps her. Their romantic meeting is the same as before, but she's afraid. Dojin is somehow involved with her death. The evidence in the basement points to that. Especially the video, which proves that Dojin is somehow connected to gang related crime.

I think Dojin is a great potential villain. It kind of doesn't matter if he killed his wife. What does matter is his true self. Is Dojin a criminal? A serial killer? Does he enjoy his grim work? Why did he marry someone outside of his world? Was Eunhye just a paycheck? Did he put a ring on it to get cash? Is she a target? How does his career as a doctor fit into his daily life?

Fascinating questions. So many of them too. I expected Eunhye to start fake dating Dojin, who was clearly interested in her.

She doesn't.

Eunhye stalks Dojin, even though she knows he's dangerous. He catches her, which is a given because SHE already knows he's not a normal guy! Not normal guys notice when they're being tailed! Ugh. It gets worse. Within the first ten chapters Eunhye tells him, to his face, that she had a prophetic dream about him. One where he dies, and she wants to protect him, even though they are complete strangers in this timeline.

Eunhye KNOWS that telling him she knows the future is stupid. The idea is presented as a joke at first....but then she does it...and Dojin goes along with it. This plot direction kills alot of the tension.

Most of the plot becomes:

"I know what will happen today and I have to stop it."

Not:

"Did my husband kill me or cause my death with his shady business?"

Dojin has a sad past. His house was set on fire and his mother was killed maybe? He ended up in the hospital as a kid. He's a jaded and violent guy, but he's also a doctor with a good personality. We still don't know what parts of him are real.

Eunhye comforted him when he lost everything. This points towards the yandere route. Dojin can't remember her well, because he was traumatized, but it was definitely her. The timeline is confusing and not in a fun way. Dojin doesn't recognize Eunhye yet. We only get hints, but how did any of this kill Eunhye? It's interesting, but the fake dating route would have been a million times better. It's cute that Eunhye wants to trust her loving husband, but the plot is alot less thrilling...because most of the scenes are just Eunhye waiting for something interesting to happen.

[chryso0]

Was the Sudo born with honor and status?

Nothing in canon indicates what his backstory is, But there are some clues here and there over what Sudo’s back stroy is. Especially, through his odd relationship/friendship with Sakazaki. But from that — i think we can somewhat assume that Sudo was not from any elite family or came from wealth, or status.

Its cannon that Sudo and Sakazaki the two have known each other for a long time — they were childhood friends. I can not see Sakazaki as being from a well bred family (LOL HE’S A GORRILLA!) so I’ve got to say that Sudo and Sakazaki where probably from the same class.

I don’t necessarily think there is any indication they were object poor— this line Sakzaki says about them being punks may suggest that they were once street delinquents, which does make them sound like maybe they were poor. BUT remember Akihito too has some delinquency past, even though he seems to be from a middle class family. But I think its safe to say Sudo was definitely not in the same circles that Asami and his family was in.

If I had to guess I would say I believe Sudo worked his way up from the bottom, his story arch points to him being a self-made man who possibly started with nothing. One who became extremely ambitious and greedy — if he was already rich would he feel the need to want to prove himself and be as greedy as he’s shown to be? It’s still possible he could have a secret backstory. But I think his behavior has shown us that he DESPERATELY wants and seeks out that status and honor.

The other reason i think this is because he kinda screams — new money. I dont know compared to Asami who is a kinda relaxed wealthy - quiet luxury if you will. Meanwhile Sudo was first introduced to us while he was driving a porche with its top down in the middle of winter. He is shown to us as kinda flashy type!

The club he manages as well, Dracaena, is also said to be not the same as Asami’s Club Sion. It was said that Club Sion is classy and for older elite crowd (OLD MONEY crowd!) Whilst Club Dracaena was more youthful, glitzy, and hip (Aka. New Money Crowd). The connections he made were maybe not with tokyo’s elite — like asami but with other wealthy types (NEW MONEY AGAIN). Which also i think tells me he is not from wealth. His business did well because he targetted a different audience of wealthy people.

Obviously this is just my speculation given what we know. There could be some back story to him that made him this way — like he was from a wealthy family but they lost everything and thats why he’s desperate to get back in the “in crowd”. Or some other villian troupe like a rich person who can never have enough and still wants more and more!

I sorta think it suits him more, and maybe it makes me respect him a little bit, if he was someone who clawed his way up to his position and thats why he’s so desperate to hold on to everything that he can. Holding on to some delulu idea that Asami could somehow cement his place in the upper echelons of society.

It’s his ambitious granduer is what ultimately is his undoing.

[46ten]

Rethinking the narrative of Hamilton as a poor child held back by illegitimacy

We’ve outgrown a number of the myths that Chernow invents or embellishes from Flexner and Miranda ran with, but AH as a humble child in the West Indies, struggling with poverty and the stigma of illegitimacy seems to persist, no matter the lack of initial evidence for that narrative and the excellent scholarship over the past 10 years or so that flips it on its head. 

AH’s maternal grandfather was very wealthy; Rachel Faucette’s inherited wealth was what supposedly attracted John Lavien. 

James Hamilton (b 1725 or so) was notably not wealthy. Though a “gentleman” from a respected Scottish family, as a younger son he went to make his way as a merchant at the Caribbean, and pretty much failed at every business venture, as far as we know. In 1765, he was hired to settle a matter in St. Croix, and at some point Rachel and their two kids, James and Alexander, either joined him or made their way there independently. It’s not at all clear that James “abandoned” the family or what happened - it seems just as likely that Rachel, perhaps realizing that their sons’ best options were getting involved in trade, decided to stay where she had an extended wealthy family who could also support her as a merchant/shopkeeper. AH started working really young (he’s 9 if you believe the 1757 birthdate), which was a pretty fantastic way to gain knowledge and experience, especially if his parents realized - and they likely did - that he was intellectually gifted. 

Upon the death of his mother, who owned 5 enslaved persons, had silverware and leather chairs and a decent collection of books - definitely middle-class-ish - AH initially goes to live with his uncle and cousin, who were the two wealthiest people on St. Croix. As mentioned above, he was also already working as a clerk, ascending to what can best be described as the business manager by the time he leaves for NY, earning a pretty tidy sum as a single-man - he was likely upper-middle class. [A brief note: at no point does Edward Stevens or Thomas Yard, his brother-in-law, state that AH or his brother ever lived with the Stevens family. That conjecture comes more than a century later sourced to a census of the Stevens family that they had two male servants around the ages AH and his brother would have been. But I think if AH lived with the Stevens family, that would have come up well before the 1920s.] His first cousin provides him with what Newton calculates as 196 pounds sterling at that time, when the average British and American worker made somewhere between 10-15 pounds sterling PER YEAR. AH arrives in the colonies and lives with either the comfortably middle-class (Mulligan) or the wealthy elite (Elias Boudinot and William Livingston) before beginning his studies at King’s/Columbia College. There’s also no note about any difficulty in him getting into Elizabethtown Academy or King’s - no one was holding it over his head that he was a bastard. 

So the facts of AH’s life 1768-1779 don’t really seem to be what’s shaping the narrative. Instead, it seems to me that two things are interfering with the interpretation:

1. AH’s 1769 letter to Edward Stevens in which he gripes “I contemn the grov’ling and condition of a Clerk or the like” which makes him seem somehow downtrodden in poverty. But there’s no evidence that that was the case, or that AH wasn’t just annoyed by being a clerk and thought a different job - or a war - would better employ his talents/allow for greater study for him to become a leisurely gentleman. 

AH may have started working for Beekman and Cruger as early as 1766, at the age of 9-12 years old, perhaps having previously worked in his mother’s store. JCH writes:

The little leisure which he could command from his mercantile duties was devoted to study; his knowledge of mathematics was enlarged; he became fond of chemistry; and although his proficiency in it was small, he often urged it as a pursuit well adapted to excite curiosity and create new combination of thought.

Among the books to which he had access, he preferred those which treat of some branch of ethic. His favorite authors were Pope and Plutarch....

He often also, at this time, exercised himself in composition on moral topics, to which he afterwards occasionally resorted as a relaxation from the arduous labours of his professional life; and thus, by his varied studies, his mind became rich in materials awaiting his call. The Life of Alexander Hamilton

Although AH wrote to Edward Stevens in 1769 that "I contemn the grov’ling and condition of a Clerk or the like,” and Nathaniel Pendleton would later write that Hamilton “conceived so strong an aversion to [clerkship] as to be induced to abandon altogether the pursuits of commerce”, according to JCH, his father also felt his time as a clerk was very important:                      

This occupation was the source of great and lasting benefit to him; he felt himself amply rewarded for his labours by the method and facility which it imparted to him; and amid his various engagements in after years adverted to it as the most useful part of his education. The Life of Alexander Hamilton, my emphasis. 

Other biographers have speculated that AH’s time as a clerk was probably critical for his understanding of commerce and finance and to the development of both his leadership and writing skills.

JCH also writes:

With a strong propensity to literature, he early became a lover of books, and the time which other youth employ in classical learning, was by him devoted to miscellaneous reading, happily directed by the advice of Doctor Knox, a respectable Presbyterian divine, who, delighted with the unfolding of his mind, took a deep interest in his welfare. The Life of Alexander Hamilton

This role for Knox is doubtful; Rev. Hugh Knox first visited St. Croix Sept/Oct 1771, and did not come to reside there until May 1772, only a few months before AH would leave for NY.

2. AH, in 1779-1780, certainly is sensitive to his lack of advancement in the army while others with less ability/experience advance thanks to nepotism. He doesn’t have the family connections, true, but he’s far from the only person frustrated by the way appointments are handed out - James Monroe also left the army because he couldn’t get a command. 

And at no point does AH’s illegitimacy ever seem to hold him back - in fact, up until he made a number of political enemies, no one seemed to care. Illegitimacy was not at all uncommon, particularly in the West Indies; Newton offers up another example of a couple pretending to be married. There’s no record whatsoever that AH was ever taunted about being a bastard as a child, adolescent, or young man (the first recorded innuendos about it actually date from the late 1780s - he’s 30 or older). Likewise with the loss of his mother - a lot of children were orphans. These were just not life details that put him outside any veneer of respectability. 

He’s able to rise to the level of aide-de-camp for Washington and married into a wealthy Dutch-American patrician family with, based on the lack of comments on his birth, not even a shrug. JCH does note that marrying into the Schuyler family was one of the most important events of his father’s life, but one never gets the impression from AH’s own writing that he thought they were inherently superior to him - no, this was the class of people whom he had always belonged with and rubbed shoulders with. 

And perhaps other than the times he was in school, I’m 90% comfortable stating he almost always had servants - while living with his parents, his mother alone, his cousin, as a clerk, in the colonial American households, and then perhaps with a brief break while studying, he also had at least one servant in the colonial Army and for the rest of his life. 

Hamilton’s St Croix education 

More about Hamilton’s Faucett relations with links to Newton’s discussions

A summary of the amounts Anne Mitchell (and Peter Lavien) provided to AH. 

[earthbovndmisfit]

I've been seeing lots of takes lately with people feeling hatred towards part 2 Speedwagon for being a greedy capitalist who probably exploited people and done some shady stuff to become wealthy because there was '''no way he could have become rich just from oil money'''... thoughts?

it's so disappointing to see some bad takes about the Speedwagon Foundation being some "acshually nasty organization" and about Speedwagon supposedly becoming some heartless rich man popping up again. And like, I shouldn't even be surprised at this point considering how the average "Jojo fan" mistreats Part 1 and 2 and alllll the misinformation they love to spread about them and about some characters in particular, often bastardizing them into wildly out of character versions and pretending those fanons are canon for whatever reason (being Speedwagon one of the characters that gets bastardized like that the most), sometimes just to make Blorbo Of Their Choice look better by throwing every other character under the bus, sometimes just because people can't be bothered to pay attention to the og if there are no punching ghosts on sight (and even then, Jojo parts featuring stands get misinterpreted a lot too).

This is gonna be long, so let me start by saying that if y'all really believe that Speedwagon somehow became some nasty ass rich man, then you're completely misinformed and you (and I say "you" in general and not specifically you anon) might benefit from rereading/rewatching the source material and actually paying attention to the plot and details this time.

Like, I've seen people assuming that the Foundation only researched the stone mask and eventually stand stuff, and completely forgetting that one of the literal main goals and also one of the biggest things the Foundation does is seeking for the betterment of the planet as a whole (preserving nature, wildlife, etc) as well as for the betterment of medicine and health care, actually seeking for the best for all humankind, this in addition to all the secret branches it has for the research of supernatural phenomena like stands, stone masks, pillar men, and so on in order to prevent as many incidents with them as possible and prevent the loss of as innocent lives as possible.

Sure, the people working for those latter branches might get into deep trouble sometimes whenever some jerk with a stone mask or a stand starts some shit, but, another thing jojo fans tend to conveniently forget is that those employees are working for the secret/non-public branches of the Foundation. We as audience know about them because we are let into seeing them working as part of the narrative, however, the public in general within the story DO NOT KNOW about the existence of those branches or what they do. Pillar men, stone masks, stands and the research around them are kept in secret in order to prevent any sorts of chaos and ensuing panic, among other safety reasons.

The people working for those branches are specialized or at least have some prior knowledge on those fields they work in (you'd think it is a MUST considering they are being let in on sensitive information that could be super detrimental for the planet and for humankind if it fell in the wrong hands), meaning that those employees already know and are fully aware of the kind of stuff they're going to deal with there from the start. They weren't deceived into it, and the fact that the employees remain loyal to Speedwagon from start to end and respect and follow his will, even long after his death, denotes that there was some deep and mutual respect and appreciation there, something you can't earn through exploitation, and definitely something these people wouldn't have done had Speedwagon been the heartless tyrant rich old man some people with a lack of media literacy want to believe and make others believe he was.

If people paid just a wee bit more attention to earlier Jojo parts, they would have realized it was all spelled out from the beginning too! Speedwagon expressly states from the very start his disgust and hatred towards the rich, being the Joestars the only exception to that due to them being genuinely kind persons, unlike most other wealthy people out there. He was also implied to have been dirt poor for most of his life and was also stated to have lived in the slums at least up to PB's main timeline. There were never any indications or signs that showed that he ever betrayed those roots of his by siding with the rich against the poor over the years. Instead, he's been using his funds to make the whole world a better place for everyone, not only by improving health care and access for all people as well as the environment (which would actually show a sense of duty from him as he is counteracting whatever negative impact his oil company may have had on the planet), but also providing all the aid he can against supernatural threats.

And not just that, but he's also kept some of his connections with the crime world over the years. However, rather than using those connections for selfish goals, he makes use of them to workaround the system in cases like Lisa Lisa's, where he used all those influences he had to help her go successfully into hiding after killing the zombie that murdered George (an undercover zombie that was actually a higher up within the army and who everyone believed to be a regular human, hence their chasing after her to make her pay for that "crime" she had supposedly committed). Additionally, if you know anything about big companies and organizations, you'll know that the law is also not always there to protect regular people, and sometimes, it will cater to the more profitable goals, as well as some businessmen actively being shady af and "hindering" their rivals for their own benefit. The Speedwagon Foundation being an organization that vouches and actively works for the wellbeing of people would have probably ruffled countless feathers among those who seek for a personal gain, to say the least (think of the hijackers that tried to kidnap him, as shown in the flashback in BT, i.e). This is also where those connections he keeps with criminals come into play, as there are never any mentions about Speedwagon doing shady stuff through them nor using them to pursue some personal goal, which hints at the fact that he keeps and uses those nexus as means of protection against actual enemies. Defense rather than offense, if you will.

Also, lets not forget that Speedwagon found his reason to change his ways when he met Jonathan, and that a lot of the things the Foundation does are things Jonathan himself would have gone into had he not passed away (the archaeological research, the deep studying of the stone mask -which eventually led to the discovery of the pillar men just in time before their awakening-, all in order to prevent more incidents like the whole thing with Dio from happening, and so on). It's downright silly to think Speedwagon would even think of betraying Jonathan and his memory by using not only the second chance he received from Jojo himself, but also using the literal monument Speedwagon built to honor the deep bond and mutual affection the two had back when Jonathan was alive for some selfish goal.

And also, lets not forget how disgusted he was with Dio and every single vile thing he did to everyone. Do you really think he would want to follow a path similar to his, in which people are just another step for him to walk all over?? If so, then you sure are completely wrong about who Speedwagon really is like.

Those "he became some nasty capitalist lol", pretending that Spw became some heartless and selfish wealthy man along the way for no reason, all despite the heaps of constant evidence the canon has presented, even long after Speedwagon's passing away in the story, that shows that that was never the case only go to show that people are lazy and that paying attention to the story and the details in it is just something some Jojo fans will actively refuse to do and then will make the worst bullshit takes up about it.

Also?? People do realize that it's possible to become rich and not be some piece of shit?? Like, sure, I do agree that most wealthy people irl ARE shit and scummy af, but there will always be a few exceptions, you just don't always see them because the real kind ones don't go around telling everyone about every single kind act they do, they just put their money to good use to make their own employees lives better, or invest/donate money every chance they get to some organization of their trust and so on. Adding to this, do you all even realize people can't just throw money out of the window and that as a business person you always need to keep some capital to actually make your business thrive and so you can continue helping other people out in this case where BIG SUMS of money are being put to use in favor of actual civilians and people from all walks of life??

((Edit to add yet another Very Obvious display that Speedwagon never sided with the rich, not even in his older years: Smokey Brown! The kid is literally a mirror of Speedwagon’s own younger self in that both were criminals from the streets in a large city (London in Spw’s case, NY in Smokey’s), immersed in crime and poverty and most likely having to resort to crime as a mean to survive in a society that was even more classist (and also racist, and this can actually be seen in BT when one of the mafiosos starts spewing shit towards Smokey due to his skin color) than it is nowadays, both having no known parents or family either and having been most likely orphaned/abandoned. Had Speedwagon been this nasty ass rich man, he could have simply ignored Smokey or treated him poorly, or could have even turned him to authorities, considering Smokey’s criminal record just for the sake of “preventing him from stealing from him” or whatever. There was literally nothing Spw could benefit himself from by keeping Smokey around like he did, which is a core trait in abusive/exploitative people. However, he never did any of that. Instead, and despite the reigning classism and racism at the time, Speedwagon along with Erina always embraced Smokey from the start and basically became his godparents, never letting the kid go back to his life in the streets, providing him with everything he needed and making sure he received a proper education, which was something very few people of color (black people, specially) could receive. And yet, Speedwagon and Erina made it happen, very likely using some of Spw’s influences to allow Smokey go to the school (and eventually college too) of his choice without any stigma or trouble at all and covering all expenses for him. -end of edit-))

If this was, idk, the Metal Gear series or some other media that revolves around the topic of politics, then the whole "cRaPiTaLisM!!! >:O" thing would have some weight and be plausible as it directly impacts the main plot of the story. But here?? In Jojo's?? Where the main focus as stated by it's author himself is the strength of the human spirit overcoming obstacles in the face of actual evil??? Try harder.

And, before I get That One Type of fans yelling at me that "people don't just get rich without exploiting people in real life!!"… do you guys realize we're talking about animanga series where vampires, funky stone masks with spooky powers, pillar men, stands, people who can use some ancient sunpowered martial art, plankton that can turn into a sentient person, and so on can happen, right? And yet I don't see anyone whining that "tHaT DoEsN'T hApPeN iRl!!".

And like, if this whole claim stems from disliking Speedwagon, just say you don't like him and move the fuck on. You don't need to try to justify your disliking for him or for ANY other characters, let alone making up wildly out of character bullshit about them to try to prove to yourself and to everyone else why according to you the character is "bad". I promise you it is not a big deal to simply not vibe with a character.

[foxes-that-run]

https://twitter.com/sapphiretears17/status/1777716991152857121?t=G6jKjabkUnGGj6BHW4ehHw&s=19

You mentioned gorgeous was written before met gala. Could this be why? I saw many responses mentioning she had met him before that and had connections to gigs as well.

I did a post on this the other day, but it was buried at the end of one about 29 April, so copied here, with a comment on the Met Gala ticket below.

Joe Alwyn, the Bowery Gastropub & Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk "reshoots"

A Reddit and Toe-Tumber version of this story is:

Joe was in LA for BLLHW reshoots and was with co-star Garrett Hedlund, who's friends with Caleb Followill who is married to Lily Aldridge who was at Gigi's party where we know Taylor was. There is a pub named the Bowery Gastropub on Sunset and Vine so of course Taylor met Joe there because 6 degrees of separation. It somehow makes sense that Tayvin continued and Hiddleswift happened and that she wrote in the lover journal that Toe started dating 3 months before January.

Issues with this story:

This story hinges on a screenshot from an office assistants LinkedIn claiming to have worked freelance on reshoots for the film for 2 months March and April 2016. If you search the words in the screenshot the Linkedin profile does say that. However if you look at profiles for editors, videographers and producers on the film they all ended mid-2015. Perhaps the freelance office assistant was working on a different film, or listed the wrong task.

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk had no reshoots. They had no budget for them and shot specifically to avoid them. It was also not shot in LA.

Footage for the film had already been debuted on 16 April 2016. They were definitely not still shooting a low budget film 2 weeks later when it was being screened and was released in November

Joe was in London on 20 March 2016. There is no reason to think Joe was in LA.

Joe and Garrett Hedlund did attend the Met Gala - however as a C/B lister Garrett would not have a plus one, more likely he was Lily's plus one!

Caleb Followill, and his brother and bandmate Nathan Followill go way back with Harry - Nathan has a matching tattoo of the other half of Harry's broken heart tattoo! Harry (and Taylor) were last seen together at a Calab Followill's 2015 birthday party. If the Followill connect/ Bowery gastropub is true at all, it was not a no-name friend of a friend who was in London! 😂 It was a BFF who was in LA and flirting with his ex-GF.

This story reminds me of this quote Taylor gave Rolling Stone in 2014, about the snowboarding accident and OOTW:

"People think they know the whole narrative of my life, I think maybe that line is there to remind people that there are really big things they don’t know about."

How did Joe get a ticket to the Met Gala

Firstly, Joe was already modelling, had been at fashion week and appeared in a few films, he was from a wealthy family, his father was also a filmmaker. He may have just bought his ticket and been approved by Anna Wintour as a model. In 2016 that was $35,000 USD. Kate Upton paid to attend for the same reason Joe would have - to build their profile.

Another possible scenario is that he was part of the Tom Ford table. At the end of the year he was working a lot with them and later became a brand ambassador.

I think any scenario where Taylor paid or he was a plus one of a C-lister co-star are bogus. Only A-listers get plus ones, who are vetted. Taylor using Anna connections and paying for the ticket at that stage - then leaving with Tom Hiddleston, who she was at Anna Wintour's house with the night before the Met Gala is far fetched from a romance or PR POV.

[dirtydragonthoughts]

Transformers Yuletide Literary Fest - Day 10

Welcome to the Transformers Yuletide Literary Fest! I’ll be recommending one or two fics every day until Christmas. Feel free to join in if you’d like (I’m using the tag #tylf2023 for this.) All fics are complete!

(If I can easily find a Tumblr account for the author I’ll tag them. If you know of an author who has a Tumblr account and I didn’t tag them, please let me know so I can add it! )

Fics in my recommendations will come in two different flavours: tangy and spicy. 😄 As always, curate your own online reading experience, and mind the tags if necessary for your own safety. ♥

Tangy

Title: Spec Ops Mission 98: Jazz's Interrogation at Soundwave's Pedes

Author: @kc-anathema

Rating: Teen (contains plug-n-play interfacing)

Wordcount: 195, 290

Summary: Surrounded by the torrid fiction of his fellow Autobots, Jazz uncovers a Decepticon plot hidden amidst their written fantasies. Can the Spec Ops commander turn this plot of high treason into a narrative…of love? OR Jazz is surrounded by a bunch of perverted writers, and wouldn't you know it, one of them is a Decepticon.

Why I love it: This story left me stunned... in a good way. I started reading it as a WIP because the premise sounded hilarious (hahaha, the bots and cons are writing RPF fanfic about each other, hahaha). But as the story went on, it turned into a LOT more. It became a story about love and trust, and forgiveness and boundaries, set against the backdrop of a brutal war. And then when it ended and we got the wrap-up of all the threads that we hadn't even known existed... Wow. This was an amazing story, and I will definitely read it again someday.

Spicy

Title: The Angel Breaker

Author: @altraviolet

Rating: Explicit

Wordcount: 62,452

Summary: Mysterious, deadly creatures descend on the population of Cybertron, spreading a disfiguring, brainwashing disease. The wealthy retreat underground while the rest try to survive a dangerous and disrupted aboveground society.

Years after suffering a great personal loss, Drift works for Flatline doing menial tasks. But when Flatline sends him to find someone who has done the impossible – survive an attack – Drift finds himself swept up in a continent-spanning plot. To save the Cybertron they love, Drift and his allies must find out what these creatures are, who made them, and if they can be stopped.

Why I love it: One thing that I've always loved about Altraviolet's work is the worldbuilding. (If you've been paying attention at all to my recommendations over the past 10 days, you'll know that I LOVE me some good worldbuilding. 😄) This story has a wonderful amount, specifically focused on geology and botany, and their relation to culture. BUT ALSO it has a gripping story that sits on top of all that worldbuilding, with a "rare trio" that I never would have thought of myself, but it really works well here. The author has an excellent way of making sure each character has their own voice, and motivations, and hopes and fears, and then wraps it all up in story that somehow wouldn't feel out of place in a Mythology of Cybertron collection.

[elapsed-spiral]

OFMD fics (so far)

Time to update my fic list again (again, again), check it out under the cut.

Currently posting:

Restructuring: modern AU where Stede loses his fortune before meeting Ed, but Ed's still got more money than you can shake a fucking stick at. Only problem is, Stede lies and says he's wealthy and Ed lies and says he isn't. Like the show, it's a romcom about trauma. Explicit

Cool collaboration(s) you should read immediately:

Work Experience: what if Ed went to meet Stede when the Revenge ran aground? And what if Ed became a member of Stede’s crew? And what if things kept escalating and… Canon AU. Mature. Co-written with Shearwater.

Really no excuse for how stupid these ones are:

Watch Out, Here I Come: what if Stede had been intentionally seducing Ed? Teen

Once More, With Feeling: what if Frenchie just fixed the season 1 finale fiasco because he’s the most capable guy on the ship? Teen

Talent Show: what if Ed was crass about his sexual preferences? Explicit

Capsize on Your Thighs: what if Ed rebounded onto Calico Jack at the end of season 1? Ed/CJ and Ed/Stede (but Ed/Stede is endgame, natch). Explicit

Your Feedback is Important to Us: what if Stede started holding open cabin hours to allow the crew to air their grievances (but was also very repressed and horny over Ed)? Explicit

Oh no Ed’s working through gender/class stuff (but make it funny):

Finery: Ed gets to wear a dress, Stede spontaneously combusts. Explicit

Tell More Tales: Stede isn’t the only writer aboard the Revenge. Explicit

Lovers and Madmen: Ed is hellbent on marrying Stede. Explicit

AUs no-one asked for:

Conflict of Interest: lawyer!Stede/businessman!Ed (read: gangster). Modern AU. Explicit

Intergalactic Tango: Space Waltz AU. Mature

Trade Descriptions Act: bailiff!Ed/estate agent!Stede. Identity theft but make it meet cute. Modern AU. Teen

Baddy Zaddy: Bridget Jones’s Diary style, former porn star turned sex shop owner!Ed/still unfortunately landed gentry!Stede. Novel length modern AU. Explicit

Prize Every Time: You’ve Got Mail-y secret pen pals but also business rivals. Novel length modern AU. Explicit

Your Favourite Song: locksmith!Ed/museum curator!Stede. Kinktober fill that somehow isn’t E rated. Modern AU. Teen

Draft Letter to Restaurant Downstairs: Google Docs AU with a (slightly) interactive element. Modern AU. Teen

Blind Date: Stede and Jeffrey Fettering go on a blind date at Ed’s restaurant. I think you know where this is going. Modern AU. Explicit

Different Dimension: ficlet that crams four and a bit AUs into 850 words. Modern AU. Teen

Stuck Still: British holiday resort AU feat. events manager!Stede and bartender turned fairy!Ed (it makes sense in the story I swear). Modern AU. Explicit

On the Job: “kidnapping” meet cute (but not actually. Again, I swear it makes sense in the story). Modern AU. Teen

Starring Jason Statham: another weird meet cute, courtesy of Jack and the Fast and Furious franchise. Stede/Jack, Ed/Jack and Ed/Stede (Ed/Stede is once again end game). Modern AU. Teen

West Ham Is for Lovers: Lucius has a new job. It's going fine. Completely, totally fine. A meet cute fic about meet cutes. Ed/Stede but also Lucius/Pete, Lucius/Fang, Lucius/Izzy and Lucius/Olu/Jim. Modern AU. Teen

Oh no there’s been a containment breach (aka non-Blackbonnet fics):

We Do What We Like (and We Like What We Do): A brief history of Ed and Jack. Explicit (Ed/CJ)

Fealty: Stede and Izzy make one another even more miserable. Mature (Stede/Izzy)

Contra Proferentem: Ed is a high powered lawyer and Professor of Law at the University of Cambridge. Lucius is not a high powered lawyer but he is a lecturer of English Lit at the University of Cambridge. Stede own a very nice cafe. Explicit (platonic Ed/Lucius, Ed/Stede, no cheating involved)