#it's very hard for me to read poetry in a second language

[fortunatelychaoticphantom]

I highly doubt that hardcore Tolkienians don't know this, but if any of you haven't noticed, many of the peoms in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have a basic meter of an avarge English/Irish/Scotish folk song.

So, you can actually sing poems like Far Over the Misty Mountains and The Fall of Gil-galad on the tune of songs like Star of the County Down as well as The Wellerman shanty and most cursedly - Drunken Sailor.

Enjoy this information.

[moondirti]

Who from the 141 speaks the best arabic do you think? From one arab girl to another, it’d be so hot if any of them were fluent 🫠

if my memory serves me correctly, we get a bit in the first campaign from price. to me it seems to be a basic knowledge. a few sentences he picked up on the field and memorised to make his job easier. evac orders, cardinal directions, how to ask for water, food, medicine. that kind of stuff. pure utility, though that’s his approach to most things.

i like to believe (call it bias or whatever) that gaz is fluent. this ties in to my headcanon that he’s the only member who attended and graduated uni, but he strikes me as someone intensely curious about everything. introducing him to something, be it language or cuisine or a skill he hasn’t mastered yet, is like knocking down the floodgates. it’s his time in urzikstan that does it. hearing the way it rolls off farah’s tongue (let’s ignore doumit’s canon pronunciations), or how she’s able to translate a long, winding, clumsy sentence to something short. beautiful.

there’s a word for everything, he finds. one for the state of gossiping with your friends over morning coffee. one to congratulate someone on their cleanliness after a haircut. one that means may you be the one to bury me, for it would be unbearable to live without you – that is used so casually in conversation, kyle is stunned when he learns the true meaning. it doesn’t hold the same expectation, the same trepidation, as it does in english, though it retains its weight all the same. he wonders what makes a language so special that its intrinsic devotion has found a common place within its cultures, and he sets to find out.

this turns into a thing. more rambling under the cut.

the largest learning curve is the alphabet. the sounds that don’t exist in his mother tongue. he’s especially hard on himself when it comes to enunciating them properly – half the beauty is in the way words flow together, and there would really be no point in indulging in arabic’s more lyrical aspects if he’s off pitch. he gets the hang of it eventually, of course, one too many vocal exercises later.

the weathered dictionary he picks up at a second hand store teaches him that most words have three letter roots, and that it isn’t so easy as to look them up alphabetically. picking up new vocab becomes infinitesimally harder, then. for twelve million choices, the distinction between some words comes down to diacritical marks. necklace, decade, contract, held, complicated, and knots are all spelt the same way, yet pronounced ever so slightly different — a fact he learns the hard way when he tells the cashier at the kibbeh place he frequents that he likes her decade.

reading. reading is what helps him get over that.

(he probably should touch on basic grammar first — nouns, verbs, particles, sentence structure, that sort of stuff — but figures he'll pick it up as he goes, basing his methodology on an inability to remember any rules for the english language. he grew up hearing it, reading it, watching it, surrounded by it, so it just is what it is now. why work so hard on task books made for kids, then, when he can just get right into the meat of the matter? acclimatise through force.)

he picks up stacks of books upon books upon poetry. naguib mahfouz. ghada al-samman. al-mutanabbi. mahmoud darwish. it takes him a month to get through the first, and another month for the second. which only means he really takes his time with them, roving over the same line until it's etched into his memory. the cadence, the beats for pause, the way a word he has to punch from his throat is followed by one that lilts, all sing-songy. eventually, he starts to (inadvertently) mimic that sweeping manner of speech, employing it in contexts which certainly don't call for it.

the cashier — the very same one whose age he mistakenly stressed, despite the fact that she couldn't have been much younger than him — is far too nice to say anything about it, smiling instead, endeared, while he waxes poetic about meze.

farah calls him out immediately the next time they catch up.

apparently, no one speaks in classical arabic anymore, go figure. it would be like talking in shakespearean english, she tells him. he imagines it, iambic pentameter and all, and cringes, newly determined. his own research unearths (though it wasn't really a secret) the fact that there are roughly 25 different dialects belonging to different regions — and while some are pretty similar (syrian and lebanese), others could classify as a whole other language on their own (moroccan).

reddit tells him what he already knows; that the best way to learn is through exposure. there are no dictionaries for patois. and farah, despite her total enthusiasm at his interest, is far too busy of a woman to help.

(really, it just gives him an excuse to finally do what he's been meaning to.)

the next time he's craving kibbeh, he's fixed on not making a fool of himself when he asks the cashier out to lunch.

[crippleprophet]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

according to our abilities. according to our needs.

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

[eternalove-a]

random notes about gemini venus 🌻💛

attracted to intelligent and quick witted people

they enjoy early stages of relationship - getting to know each other, experiencing things for the first time with that person and even the nervousness

if they love you, your opinion and point of view is really important to them and they take your advices seriously

very attracted to people’s voices

words of affirmation is probably their main love language

quotes, poetry, love letters >>

they actually listen to song’s lyrics

of course physical attraction is important to them but they fall in love with people’s minds, that’s what makes them stay

“the love of my life” - they say about 20 different people

they can be crushing REALLY HARD on someone for a long time and then, out of nowhere, the crush changes into disgust and they’re like “how tf could i ever find them attractive” 🙄🥱

wanting to know everything about their person but at the same time not because they enjoy that ‘mysterious’ side - it keeps them curious

they don’t have a specific type, not really - the people they fall for can be each other’s polar opposites

they value honesty

arguments can turn them on (think the rain scene in pride & prejudice for example)

“the way their voice sounds, or the words they speak, i can never decide what pulls me in more”

keeping their crush a secret is hard, they want to talk about it with someone

crushing on actors, writers, singers, youtubers, twitch streamers etc. is super common

flirty friendship and/or friends to lovers trope >>

they want to be their partner’s best friend

“i fell in love with your soul before i could even touch your skin”

gemini venus natives on quieter and more shy side can become more talkative with their loved ones

they’re probably the type to laugh in serious situations (while trying not to)

falling asleep to their loved one’s voice - i think they wouldn’t be against the idea of their person reading a book to them while they’re falling asleep

having goosebumps (and being turned on) when you whisper in their ear - be it sweet nothings or threats 😏 iykyk

they enjoy teasing, flirting and joking around with people they are comfortable with - even if they’re not interested in them romantically (although they’ll probably end up catching feelings one day)

+ it’s very possible some of their friends actually have a crush on them

gemini venus ♡ books

i think gemini venus natives are most likely to question their sexuality at some point and be confused, because they really do fall for people’s mind the most (everything else comes second)

dreaming about love all the time 🥰

being in actual relationship 😬

when the person they’re interested in patiently explains something to them it’s the most attractive thing to gemini venus

they can fear of being seen as dumb and stupid - they find smart people attractive and they want to be seen as smart too, especially by their love interest

holding hands is a big deal for them

they want to feel important, they want their partner to rely on them (you know when the main character have companion they trust, respect, view them as equal and keep them informed about everything)

so they want that partners in crime relationship 👆🏻

people often think they’re flirting even if they’re not

they actually like the idea of love at first sight and soulmate kind of connection

they find intense eye contact hot, and again, it can easily turn them on - also stealing glances at each other 🫦

they want to meet their person in more interesting way - like falling for an assassin who was sent to kill them for example.. lmao sorry but it’s true, they want the thrill, drama, adventure, everything 🤌🏻

even if it doesn’t seem like that, trust me when i say they’re probably dying inside when you’re flirting with them - sometimes simple words can make them melt

their mindset is literally ‘what if i can find someone even better?’ and that’s why they’re not really a fan of commitment

but they’re actually very loyal once they find their person

enjoy reading and even writing fanfictions

making weird noises and giggling like a little kid when it comes to love 🤭

stand up for their loved ones no matter what - they have powerful voices and use it to their advantage, charming way with words - they know exactly what to say and are not afraid to do so (especially if that means to protect people they love)

if they like you, they love talking with you - about anything, at any time

sometimes they don’t even know what they’re talking about, but still keep the conversation going because they want to talk with you

they love showing off their knowledge and they will learn about your interests as well to impress you and show you they care

if gemini venus person is interested in you, they will remember every random thing you once said - you said you don’t like green couches? 🤣 they’ll probably remember for the rest of their life, even if it’s the stupidest thing

they don’t like people that take everything too seriously and don’t understand their jokes

they have no problem to end the relationship if they’re not happy, it can hurt - sure, but they usually have high standards and won’t settle for less

giving pet names is one of their love languages too

there’s just something about the way they smile and laugh that’s so attractive and charming

also, they can laugh/smile a lot while talking

they need someone with whom they can discuss anything that’s on their mind and who can catch up with them on conversation - and someone who will challenge their minds

playful relationship, challenging each other in a playful way

“are you flirting or starting a fight?”

that’s all for now,

sending lots of love and hugs to everyone ❤️

-A

[frenchoravocadotoast]

Basim Ibn Ishaq headcanons

Basim Ibn Ishaq x GN!reader

Word count: 1003

Basim is an “actions speak louder than words” man. He’s kind of reserved by nature and has spent many years mastering the art of controlling his emotions during his time in Alamut.

That being said, his love language is definitely acts of service.

It starts off small – you both have a passion for literature, a common ground he has yet to realize. He’s talking to Fuladh about a recent poem he’s just read, reciting his favorite lines, when he hesitates at the end. He’s trying to remember the final verse when you jump in and quote it for him, and Basim shoots you an amused look.

“Since when do you enjoy poetry? ”

He tries to surprise you sometimes – he likes to lend you his favorite books, and if you indulge the man, he’ll even rant about his favorite poets/poetesses and their works. It becomes a bonding mechanism between the two of you, and it might look corny to an outsider; but you see how excited Basim gets when you say you liked the book he gave you, and suddenly, it’s like their opinion doesn’t even matter.

When the life of a Hidden One keeps you up at night –whether that be because of a nightmare or a stress-induced fever– Basim keeps you company. He knows the feeling all too well and refuses to leave you alone, unless that’s something you want. He will sneak into your room with a bowl of fruit and a book in hand.

“May I offer you a poem in these trying times”

Boom you’re sold

It’s a secret of his, but he likes writing poetry, too. He’ll die before admitting it though – and anyone who dares read his work will have to pry it from his cold, dead hands.

That being said, he might let you read something here and there (only the poems he’s revised a hundred times), but you have to swear that you won’t tell anyone.

You don’t mind. It’s like your little secret anyway.

Despite his preference for acts of service, he’s going to try to compliment you every now and then. You can always tell he’s being genuine, and when you thank him, he grants you a warm smile and a courteous nod.

He’s a very good listener. You could be talking about anything and he’d be listening intently, nodding along and asking questions. And nothing escapes him, really – he’s got an amazing memory and will remember your birthday, your favorite food, the friendly camel you met two weeks ago, or even the day you first saw fireworks. 

He remembers that day well. The bright lights were sizzling and popping in the sky as you watched them, transfixed. You’d turned to face him with a big grin on your face, and in your excitement, asked him an obvious question: “Did you see that?”

He smiled and nodded, because of course he did.

He didn’t. He was looking at you.

But besides that, nothing escapes him!

He has a habit of shielding you from the elements. When it’s scorching hot, he hovers his hand over your face to keep the sun from your eyes. When it’s windy, he likes to use his stature to shelter you from the breeze. And on rainy days, he cocoons you in scarves and cloaks to keep you from getting wet.

Basim starts laughing more around you, and you both become incredibly closer. You have so many inside jokes that it’s hard to keep track of them, and perhaps it’s starting to get to the other Hidden Ones too. Roshan just sighs as she watches the two of you because you’re both oblivious fools.

He definitely starts coming out of his shell with time, even dropping a pick up line here and there. The first time it happened it caught you so off guard he panicked and lost all sense of his training in three seconds.

“Well, – Nehal is calling me. I’ll see you around.” and he tailed it out of there, tripping over a vase before regaining his footing and scrambling away.

He wouldn’t approach the subject again, and if you were in his proximity he would be as stiff as a board – until you made a move too. You flirted with him out of the blue and he just widened his eyes and pointed at you.

😳🫵🏽

Things change from there and he tries to flirt more (and he’s so dorky he makes everyone within audible distance groan and leave). You’re organizing the books at the bureau, the one place you probably frequent more than your own home, when he comes in.

“You come around here often?”

You give him a deadpan expression, because he can obviously do better than that, and he grimaces.

“Yeah. No more of that.”

Biggest supporter ever. If you speak another language other than Arabic, he wants to know all about it. He’s a smart man, he can learn a couple of expressions quickly, and pretty soon you’re having simple conversations in your tongue. 

That being said, if you cuss someone out in said language he’ll probably try to remove you from the situation. He’s not keen on confrontation, especially with civilians, but if they wronged you in any way, he’d be all like “Yeah, what they said!” “And you better remember it!”

An absolute sucker for forehead kisses. He’s not very fond of PDA but he always kisses your temple when he has to leave or walk past you. It’s a ghostly touch, you almost don’t notice it, but it makes your cheeks flush every time.

Likes to hold your face in his hands and just look at you. It can end with him either smiling and kissing the corner of your mouth (on a good day) or pulling your hood down to blind you and ruin the moment (when he’s feeling a little silly). You call out his name and he just barks out a laugh as he climbs onto the rooftops.

He’s actually a little shit (affectionate) (derogatory)

[nkhrdstyvskrrtskrrt]

📎 YOSANO AKIKO ANALYSIS

UNDERSTANDING & ANALYZING BUNGOU STRAY DOGS YOSANO THROUGH THE LENSES OF THE REAL YOSANO AKIKO'S LIFE

WC. 4,000

DISCLAIMER: I am no historian or literary expert I am just obsessed and mentally unwell, if u cannot tell, teehee <333 If this will ignite any hate or hostility (not this post’s intention), please set your sights elsewhere and just scroll. I made this because I love her character and BSD in general to a bone-shattering degree. I hope you have as much fun as I did while researching and writing this, enjoy!! (also English is not my first language forgive me for any grammatical errors ty)

There might be a part two for this, but for now, this is all my tiny brain could offer >:))

IMPORTANT NOTE: There will be a lot of omitted, summarized information that has been subjectively extracted or abridged. This is not a complete, rich historical account but research done to make connections and parallels to better understand and theorize about BSD Yosano’s character. I did not finish reading the entire biography, which is why this is only the first section of a bigger whole.

However, if you desire to dig deeper about her in an unabridged manner please kindly refer to the source I will list below. One last thing, please don’t hesitate to add your own thoughts, I am encouraging you to do so, I will appreciate it so much actually!

My primary source;; Janine Beichman - Embracing the Firebird_ Yosano Akiko and the Birth of the Female Voice in Modern Japanese Poetry-University of Hawaii Press (2002). [pdf can be downloaded for free @/libgen]

Allow me to initiate this observation with a passage directly extracted from her biography (the one named above): 

“Yosano’s father Òtori Sòshichi (1847–1903), was the second-generation owner of the Surugaya, a well-known confectioner that specialized in yòkan (sweet bean paste) and sweet dumplings.”

With this passage in mind, I’d like to remind you of this scene in the manga that hinted at BSD Yosano’s circumstances and background prior to being selected as Mori’s assistant at the fortress. In this panel, she mentioned that she was tending to a candy store before getting drafted. 

Now, drawing from the passage we read regarding the real Yosano Akiko and applying this to BSD Yosano—it’s not far-fetched to assume that the candy shop she was tending to was run and owned by her family. Normally, we could say that familial separation, especially at such an early stage of childhood would be quite hard on the child. However, if we consider the following facts from the real Yosano Akiko’s childhood and parallel it to BSD Yosano again, we could conclude that the separation wasn’t as difficult nor emotional for her when Mori selected her, because she was called in this book an ‘infant exile.’

Starting from the very birth of the real Yosano, her father was severely appalled by her because she was a girl. Moreover, he deserted their home for a week without even looking at his daughter’s face. Her mother became distressed because of the week-long absence of her father, (fainted, even) and couldn’t breastfeed her properly, resulting in the infant Yosano being sent to a maternal aunt accompanied by a wet nurse.

Two years later, due to convenience rather than the will to come back, Yosano returned to her familial house because her aunt had a new baby of her own to look after and raise. Though at this time, a new baby was born, too, at the Otoris. And this baby grew up to be the brother to whom the adult Yosano dedicated her poem ‘Thou Shalt Not Die.’ 

Since the arrival of this baby boy, Yosano’s existence has become easier to tolerate—see this actual snapshot from the passage I am referencing:

‘ while at the Òtori home a baby boy had finally arrived, making it easier to tolerate the unwelcome girl.’

As if to rub in the author’s title for the real Yosano Akiko (infant exile) even their servants and relatives had a distaste for her and her personality, viewing her as the ‘difficult’ child in the family. Here’s another direct quote from the biography book:

‘The relatives chimed in disapprovingly: “‘The younger brother is better behaved; his older sister is a little much.’ From the apprentices to the little uncle on my mother’s side all predicted better things for my younger brother than for me. Having to listen to all that didn’t feel very good.” Even the servants rubbed it in.’

Additionally, Yosano Akiko herself wrote that she never knew the warmth of a mother or father’s lap and that her parents had an inherent antipathy towards her that was not inflicted on her siblings. She wrote, that other women are troubled concerning their in-laws, and how to operate as human beings alongside them but this same worry is her very reality in her own family’s household—blood and flesh—she served her parents as if they were her in-laws and endured hardships by their hand and in their name. Here’s a snippet from the biography:

‘“Other women become brides and struggle to manage a household, but for me it was the reverse: from the time I was a young girl I served my parents as if they were my in-laws, and endured emotional and physical hardships.”’

Another possible factor that enriched an equal sentiment of apathy within Yosano was despite the extremely young age of three she was coerced into attending school—which, as made clear in the biography, was something she disliked. What gave her parents this idea? Well, her father was quite the ardent enthusiast of the science of producing superior human beings. With this belief in mind, it’s no surprise that when he mistook the large forehead of the young Yosano as a sign of intelligence, he sent her to study immediately. 

But Yosano was too young, too passionate, and excited still to engage in play with other children, to have fun with her friends because she was hardly above infancy, only three years old. Despite the awareness of the adults around her that she’s not of school age yet, she was shamed for her disagreement—as said to her by one of her maids: “See what a good girl Miss Takenaka is. Aren’t you ashamed of skipping school?” 

Are you seeing a parallel? BSD Yosano, although just 11 years old, was chosen by Mori to be the core of his immortal regiment plan, because similar to the real Yosano’s situation somebody (her father) saw something urgent and, perhaps special or advantageous in her which is why she was pushed into studying—in BSD Yosano’s case Mori saw this potential within her and incorporated her into his plans, and drafted her from what seems to be her family’s candy shop.

One thing I’d like to emphasize again is that in this drafting of BSD Yosano, the fact that she agreed or at the very least went along with Mori even if it meant being separated from her family, is because she (if we parallel it once again to the poet Yosano) was never really seen as important or someone capable in her family, they did not have faith in what she can do or her future, they did not have confidence in her character. Regarding this sentiment here are two excerpts from the biography: 

‘The restrictions themselves (which were not uncommon then, at least in Sakai) did not hurt as much as the misjudgment of her character and what she might do were she free: “It goes without saying that in a house with many employees, and particularly in a morally lax city like Sakai, a daughter had to be strictly supervised. But there was no need to go that far with a woman who took as many pains to protect herself as I did. I thought the lack of understanding of my feelings that my parents’ attitude showed was outrageous and when alone I often wept over it.”’

And: 

‘Like her parents, the teacher hurt her pride by assuming that she was less intellectually and morally advanced than she actually was, but politeness kept her from objecting. 

And as stated by the creature in Frankenstein (see how I always find a way to mention it haha): “And tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me?” 

Why should she nurture deep affection for her family—relatives and servants too, even her teacher—when they will not reciprocate even a pittance of the same love and care? Or even respect. Take a look at this paragraph from the document:

‘But the results of this parental coldness were not entirely negative. Just as 

ignorance of her ancestry liberated Akiko from the weight of family tradition, 

so multiple caretakers and the lack of parental affection weakened her sense of 

filial obligation. 

‘What gave her the strength to defy her family’s expectations 

and flee to Tokyo in her early twenties? Surely, the intensity of her love for 

Yosano Tekkan and her own literary ambition were most important; but would 

a more cherished daughter have been able to make the break so decisively? The 

seeds of the later revolt were planted in the infant exile.’

For this very reason, I conclude that if anything, being drafted by Mori was, in the 11-year-old Yosano’s eyes, an opportunity to prove her competence and worth and realize her goal—saving people’s lives (although in this, she has been failed). As a matter of fact there is a compelling possibility that this conviction to save lives was another element of the real Yosano’s personality and beliefs. It has been written in the biography that Yosano Akiko’s father was a fan of stories of heroism, stories that involved the act of protecting and saving, and what makes this relevant is that he also loved sharing these stories with his children.

From a young age, her mind was fed with these noble stories, and children are impressionable. That said, the young Yosano Akiko inherently possessed a special empathy and protectiveness over life, in support of this let us read through another snippet from a passage;

‘One summer when Akiko was around eight she was sitting up there in the evening cool with her siblings and some cousins, when one of the older children remarked, “A night when the moon and the stars are close means fire.” When the others had left, Akiko gazed up at the vastness of the sky. Feeling sorry for the children in any house that might burn and worried that the fire might reach her own house, “I tried to think of some way to increase the distance between the little star and the moon.”’

As additional support, kindly read this excerpt as well:

‘In the morning, Akiko’s parents returned from her sister’s house. As their own manager politely expressed his relief that the Takemura home was unharmed, Akiko thought sadly to herself, “I wouldn’t mind having the Take-muras’ storehouse burn down if only the Gusei girl had not turned into a charred corpse.”’

And the last addition to further highlight this:

‘So much in this story of the great Sakai fire is typical of Akiko’s view of the society in which she grew up. She shows us all the negatives of the situation: People turned out in force either because they wanted to keep the fire from spreading to their own houses or because they enjoyed a good disaster as long as it was someone else’s. Even her own family thought it natural to rejoice that their daughter’s storehouse had been spared rather than grieve for the dead Gusei girl.’

The young poet Yosano Akiko, even compared to the adults in her environment bore within her a deeper reverence for life, the actions of the adults and their selfish concerns did not amuse her, she thought very negatively of them. The grief and pity she felt for the single casualty, the girl, meant that the loss of life be it a loss of what people consider an insignificant person, mattered to her. For her, every death is worth grieving. And should never be a source of entertainment or material for gossip (the villagers made festivals and dances inspired by the incident). Taking all this into account, it’s not much of a shock that BSD Yosano was so driven to save lives, why it mattered to her so strongly, why, she was also so severely devastated about what her ability has been used for. 

A brief interlude before further digging into the real poet’s early history, I’d like to draw more emphasis on the previous points made—specifically how she’d rather have the storehouse burn (despite having a mother who’s from a lineage of merchants, and Yosano running the candy shop business as well) if it meant seeing a girl she didn’t know too deeply, live—leaping to the future, the poet’s adulthood, for a moment, to affirm further BSD Yosano’s principles regarding the preciousness of life above all else.

In her most, as called in one article, ‘inflammatory’ poem which is ‘Thou Shalt Not Die’ I want us to focus on this particular line in the poem:

For you, what does it matter if Port Arthur Fortress falls or not?

The poet Yosano Akiko was so adamant in stopping her brother, Port Arthur be damned, because it was common knowledge at that time, false or not, that serving the military was volunteering for your own death—there were rumors of the Japanese soldiers being sent to suicide missions—and for what cause, even? Well, that’s not the right question to ask, let’s correct it to what 11-year-old BSD Yosano expressed in her refusal against Mori’s command to continue healing: Should any cause matter over human life? 

Remember, she disagreed when he (Tachihara’s brother) told her that her ability could change the world. She hoped only to save those she could reach. She was aware, of her limits, of the consequences, and that she could not and should not aim for such causes.

Alright, now that we can clearly see how the real Yosano Akiko’s qualities reflect onto BSD Yosano. Back to the early past.

As young as eight, Yosano Akiko tended and shouldered a huge portion of their business’s management, because, as said in the biography her mother was “sickly” while her father was “irresponsible” so she felt that she had to shoulder their responsibilities, here’s a direct quote: ‘ So Akiko felt that she “absolutely had to” stay home and help her parents, managing both the store and the household.’

But because of this, she earned a position of authority in the household, (additionally, by the age of eighteen, she has salvaged the losses from her father’s stock investments.) analogous to—as she stated herself—how a servant acting on behalf of the master can carve out his or her own sphere of autonomy. 

Our Yosano, if we again, try to see her in the real author’s light, must have been reminded of the corner she was driven into in her younger years. Reminded, of how the adults around her could so easily burden her with duties disproportionate to her age and how powerless she was after all amidst all of it.

This time though, she had hope; hope that she could start anew and could finally leave behind a life riddled with mistrust, and belittling, that she could choose for herself what she would labor for and dedicate her efforts to.

That—in the absence of her hometown and the people she grew with, the absence too, of admiration and belonging would change. 

For a brief moment, it did. 

The soldiers adored her, praised her as an angel, and treated her as someone capable—one made her good coffee, drew her a portrait, and Tachihara’s brother even created a present for her with his ability. She was needed not as some fallback for responsibilities nobody wanted. She was necessary, in a way she approved of. She was not a better-than-nothing exile anymore.

Furthermore, quiet acceptance didn't shackle her speech and response to the adults surrounding her in the fortress. The author, Yosano Akiko during her time running the business, often had to put on a polite face and way of speaking to the customers and called out herself when she seemed childish; moreover, she had to endure the incredulity of the prominent figures in her life, and deal with its damages internally. Take this excerpt, for example:

‘Like her parents, the teacher hurt her pride by assuming that she was less intellectually and morally advanced than she actually was, but politeness kept her from objecting. Among her friends, Akiko could be open about her ambition and her pride, but with adults, she apparently felt she had to choose between a pained silence and outward disrespect, and the latter was impossible for her.’

Meanwhile, in the fortress, she could allow herself to be less restrictive with how she interacts with them. 

Even with Mori, her superior, she let go of the hesitation to speak her mind. It’s no surprise then, that by the end of it, her spirit was broken.

This opportunity for change—to make a change, meant the entire world to her. At last, she was able to help in the way that matters to her and appeals to her heart, she did not choose to be there because there were no other options. She was there for a purpose she believed in. Her service was met with gratitude, they accepted her presence, not simply tolerated it.

Until things went south. 

And it did in ways that reignited the severity of an existing fear within our Yosano. How, and why is this the case? 

The poet, until about fifteen years old, nurtured within her as she wrote, an ‘irrational anxiety about death,’ which ‘shaped her inner life.’ As if to fuel her unease, rumors circulated in Sakai (her hometown) about a certain family’s daughter who died bathed in blood after suffering for three days straight. This rumor made the young Yosano Akiko weep, imagining such a kind of suffering. And with these thoughts haunting her, she came up with a specific way in which she would accept death:

‘“If I am to die, let it be at night, so no one will see. I don’t want my suffering exposed to the light of day. I want to breathe my last alone at night in a dark room, letting death’s cruel hands claim me with lips firmly sealed, not a hair of my 

head out of place.”’

She even contemplated suicide, since it is the only way for her to die on her own terms.

Oftentimes, though, she’d take what she could to stay distracted from her mortality, which is mostly done by reading:

‘So here, in addition to the intellectual curiosity, the pleasure, and the inner

rebellion that motivated Akiko’s early reading, is another motive: escape from 

anxiety about her own mortality.’

She attempted to pacify her thoughts and emotions about death, through religion. However, despite her consideration, she ended up rejecting it. From the age of three or four, she hated the scent of incense being burned, going as far as to rush past the many temples that burned them. She disliked, too, sitting beside her parents with her hands clasped in prayer. Affirming and elaborating more on this, allow me to show you this passage:

‘The Buddhist teachings and legends they told her seemed no more than “fairytales for grownups” that could be of  no help to her in “preparing for death.”

Once she “asked if Gautama Buddha had really existed and, if so, what country he had been a citizen of ” and was told that she “would receive divine retribution” for her impertinence.

Every month her mother and her friends heard a lecture by a priest, but as soon as 

the lecture was over, the priest would join them in “ordinary gossip, speaking ill of people behind their backs.”

Akiko “realized that these believers were not even one-tenth as serious as I was about... life and death and that even after twenty or thirty years of visiting temples and praying they were still not saved.” If they had no hope, she reasoned, how much less had she. And so she 

concluded that it was “useless” for her “to expect to be helped by Jòdo Shin-

shû.”’

What did encapture her, and attract her (as said in the biography) then?

Alongside the stories of heroic virgins in Japanese myths, she too was moved by Sokkyò Shijin which was the Japanese translation of The Improviser, translated by—guess who? Ougai Mori. Yes, him. Now I want you to witness this excerpt from the biography:

‘“I envied the pure, noble life of virgin empresses like the goddess Amaterasu. The imperial virgins of Ise and Kamo also filled me with longing. When I look back now on how I felt then, I think that, while squarely facing reality, I flew off and thought of my future in beautiful, idealistic terms, and wanted to stay a pure, undefiled virgin, like an angel, all my life.”’

Considering the new information, we can once again connect it to our Yosano and conclude that BSD Yosano also shared the poet’s fear of death and mortality. Besides her disconnect with her family, she wanted to prevent others from experiencing the fear of dying in a gruesome and undignified manner, which is why she allowed herself to be drafted for war. If you’ll allow me to speculate further, I’d say dying for her (at least she believed) should be a choice, or at the very least should be aligned with the personal preferences and ideals of the person dying—and this principle of hers, augmented the horror she has felt and has bestowed upon the soldiers because what exactly did the weaponizing of her ability bereave the soldiers of, exactly? The control they have over their own death. 

She wanted to save them from death, and she did. Until they didn't want to—until, she didn't want to, anymore. But she, a child, never stood a chance against what she was actually there for. She was there as a tool to convey a new age of weaponry which were abilities.

The scene with Kaji must have allowed these memories to resurface, he called the train bombing incident an experiment, and in a sense she too was an experiment—like the soldiers, she was there to further the idea and be the evidence that abilities were the weapons of the future that will completely change the battlefield, without any guarantee that she or the soldiers would achieve success, or leave intact.

And they didn’t—not them, not her.

For now, this is all I have for our Yosano.

Or is it? Before we end this I’d like to speculate even more about the significance of Mori as a figure in our Yosano’s life—the poet was moved, her heart attached to the real Mori’s use of language in his translation, in how he wrote the nun—perhaps, BSD Yosano put an equal amount of trust and faith in Mori, his intentions, his treatment of her. Given the real Yosano’s experiences and applying the same to our Yosano, she has every reason to be distrustful and skeptical of suddenly being drafted out of all the older, more experienced people by another adult. So there must be something about BSD Mori’s language, too, that persuaded her and moved her the same way the real Yosano was affected by it. For the first time she believed—relied on him, despite experiencing so many disheartening memories dealt to her by older figures in her life.

Okay, I’m serious now, this is the end. I hope you enjoyed and most of all I hope you appreciate her more as a character, that would be the greatest achievement this post could make.

my main is @ice-devourer jic u wanna talk more abt this, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING OMG!

[daechwitatamic]

My Feet to Follow, and My Heart to Hold || KNJ || Masterpost

(banner by @/itaeewon)

Title: My Feet to Follow, and My Heart to Hold (Complete!)

Rating: NSWF - minors dni

Genre: college!au, roomie!au, angst, s2l, slow burn, eventual smut

Pairings: KNJ x female reader, unrequited KTH x reader

Summary: You know a lot about the many types of love thanks to Kim Taehyung. You love him as the only person you see as “family”, you love him as your very best friend, and you love him as the beautiful, funny man he’s become. But when a twist of fate during your senior year has you rooming with his good friend Kim Namjoon, you just might find that you have plenty left to learn about love. 

Lesson One: there are such things as a right way and a wrong way to love and to be loved.  Warnings: pov changes - some scenes are namjoon’s pov, conversations revolving around the past loss of immediate family members, language, drinking, angst, a LOT of poetry sorry, eventual smut - sections will have individual warnings

Author's Note: huge thank you to @/kookstempo, @/casuallyimagining, and @/toikiii for beta-ing and listening to me talk about this series a LOT!!! Second thank you to @/jeonqkooks for the gorgeous banner and ALSO for listening to me talk about this way too much lolllll

Series Teaser:

Namjoon peers at you through eyes squinted in suspicion. “How drunk are you?”

You consider this. “Enough that I want to kiss you again, to hell with the consequences. Not too drunk to remember that there would be consequences.”

The playfulness leaves his face; it’s too obvious not to notice. “Consequences like what?”

It’s a challenge. He knows you know it.

“Namjoon,” you say, a little pleading. Don’t. 

“Consequences like Taehyung would see?” he presses. His voice has gone hard.

I. Your Wild-Running Heart | 7k

II. My Devotion's Been an Ocean | 7k

III. So I Speak Your Name | 7.5k

IV. Something Has to Change | 7.5k

V. Say What You Mean | 6k

VI. Don't Think About Him | 6k

VII. Supposed to Be With You | 6k

VIII. Nothing Grows Here | 5.5k

IX. Heedless and Willful | 8k

X. So I Follow | 7.8k

XI. All of It | 8K

--

Extras:

-> The apartment's layout

-> Section II Poetry Analysis

-> Section III Poetry Analysis

-> Section IV Poetry Analysis

-> Section VI Poetry Analysis

-> Section VIII Poetry Reading and Analysis

[yuu--dachi]

a joy to be hidden, a disaster to not be found

hewwo! it's my first fic in a while and also the first fic on this blog. wahoo!! and it's.... an x reader fic which i've also never done before!! and also for genshin!! wahoo!!

ships: alhaitham x reader / you (gender neutral)

content: hurt/comfort, fluff, lowkey pining from alhaitham, reader experiences a panic attack, written in reader's pov but switches to alhaitham for a bit at the end, alhaitham says Sorry cus i like to make him do that 😎

words: 4k (help girl how did i let it get this long...)

synopsis: in which a haravatat scholar realises that everything is not as simple as it is, our body betrays us at every second of every hour, and the three times alhaitham finds you, no matter what.

this reader is for all the babygirls (gender neutral) out there who feel things so deeply and we are all crybabies. i see you, i hear you, and i love you!! we're all bad bitches who are easily moved and touched by the world around us and that's lovely!! keep shining your light on this world, friends!

i'm taking requests for drabbles and quick fics or poetry! whatever inspo strikes me 😴

---

the first time he finds you, alhaitham says:

“the solution is quite simple.” 

and you find your fist in wanting of purchase in his face. 

“this wouldn't be a problem had you realised your limits before your entire body broke down. surely, i don't have to cite research papers for you to understand that it is important to take note of one's mental health accordingly, as an adult with agency in your own life? then you don't have to find comfort in the mouth of a beer mug.”

he was surprisingly chatty today, and at any other time you would have loved to relish in making him speak for so much for so long. getting him to talk so much was like trying to scrape the bottom of the jar for the last smidgens of berry jam, and you savoured it just as well. 

but not today.

“alhaitham, you're not in my shoes, so stop trying to make me walk down the same path you do.”

he tipped his head, confused. “what's wrong with my path? i have no relationship problems—”

“because you don't maintain any.”

“—no financial burdens—”

“because you don't spend it on anything.”

“—and no personal problems.”

“because you don't bother with anything you don't care for,” you sighed out. 

“if i didn't maintain any relationships, then why am i here? and if i didn't spend any money, then why is the bill under my name? and if i didn't bother with anything i don't care for, then why am i with you, right now, instead of reading at home?”

he flicks your nose; you sniffle in response and bury your face into the hard table, slightly damp from your tears.

“i don't know,” you whispered, the words leaving you without a thought. “why are you here, alhaitham?”

“if i follow your reasoning, it's because i'm bored, have money, and don't care to be anywhere else. does that answer satisfy you?”

a silence between both of you, even though the tavern was filled with the sound of chatter and the tinkling of dishes and cutlery. “...no.”

“then why upset yourself?”

you remove your face from the table and look at him, despite your eyes red and puffy from crying, nosy runny, and a wood grain pattern imprinted on your cheek and forehead. “i just wanted to hear you say it.”

he hums, thoughtful.

(despite his demeanour, he was rarely thoughtless about anything. even if he didn't make decisions you would've done.)

“because i care about you,” he let the words out slowly, like testing how they roll off the tongue. like learning a new language. “is that alright?”

you plant your face back into the table, all too-aware of your red eyes that must've sparkled, your lips that wanted to become a songbird in return for such simple words. “mm-hmm. thank you.”

“you're very welcome.”

***

the second time alhaitham finds you, you are under a table. 

“go away for a bit,” the words come out of your mouth clumsily, like tripping over your own feet in haste. “this one's t-taken.”

your humour probably didn't land as well as you hoped. the stuttering of the heart in your chest beating like a butterfly's wings in flight, like it had ambitions of flying out of your chest instead of remaining behind your ribcage where it belonged. to your credit, it was hard to think of a joke in the middle of everything that was happening in your body. you would've rated yourself fairly well, all things considered.

alhaitham didn't seem to agree, although he didn't frown at you. he tends to voice out his disagreements vocally rather than through things like body language—you know, like a machine would when you press the wrong button? 

if he knew what i'm thinking right now, he would probably say that it's one of the virtues of studying under haravatat—classic alhaitham!

instead of saying anything immediately though, he sat cross-legged in front of you, his eyes wandering, seemingly…. observing? what was he looking at? you're sure you could've tell if your mind was clearer, but you couldn't at the moment.

“does it not hurt?” he asked, then, from your face dipped over your hunched knees, you heard two raps of a knock on the desk. “this is the desk made with athel wood, isn't it? it's very durable, but it's difficult for the city craftsmen to make full use of them right now because of how hard it is. the edges don't look sanded enough.”

“i-it's fine,” you choke out, and then breathed in and out for a proper response. “i don't mind it so much.”

he raised a brow in return. oh, you think, so now he's going to use body language, is he? 

too bad you couldn't savour it this time too. 

“as long as it's pressing against me, i'm… okay.”

you hear him hum in understanding, like he does when he reads a well written proposal. 

“is that why you chose this desk in particular? the others were too high and wide and you couldn't make contact with the wood?”

before you realised it, it was easier for you to speak now, even though your heart was still pounding, and your skin felt raw. you didn't usually try to talk when you were experiencing… whatever this is. 

“yeah. i just need… to feel safe.”

before you realised it, your face was no longer tucked between your knees, but instead resting on them as you avoided looking him in the eyes. 

“i see,” he said, and he paused before saying: “would you mind if i tried something?”

you hesitated, and your eyes finally meet. “i don't know, what are you going to do?”

“i'm going to hold you in my arms,” he said, and switched from sitting cross legged to having his knees tucked under him, arms open and his hands stretching for yours. “if you don't mind.”

in any other situation, you wouldn't have minded. you'd say: maybe it'll start snowing in the desert today! should we start preparing for the oncoming winter?

but now….

you were a mess—just like you were in the tavern that night, too. red ringed on your puffed-up eyes, sweat drenching your clothes and making your back feel as humid as the rainforests at night, and you could barely eke out a word before seemingly using up every bit of air in your lungs, like a newborn babe that only knew how to cry.

you didn't know how to tell all of this to alhaitham. sorry, can i go change into better clothes first? can i save this hug for another time when i'm completely sane and sober to take full advantage of it? can you wait till i ice my eyes so i can look at you properly?

instead, what came out of your mouth was: “i'm disgusting right now.”

he hummed, and you weren't sure if it was his i'm-considering-how-to-reply-to-this-idiotic-situation hum or i-see-where-you're-coming-from hum.

“i can see why you'd think that, but that's irrelevant.”

ah. so it was both.

“why do you want to hold me?”

“i want to see if i can do a better job than a desk,” he says, and you feel a smile ghost your face, only because you see him wearing one too. a small smile, simple like him. 

“i probably smell really bad. i'm sweating so much right now.”

“that's fine. i'll stop breathing through my nose.”

“my eyes are really red too. it's not that i don't want to look at you, it's that i'm too embarrassed to.”

“i can just close my eyes.”

“my heart is pounding really painfully right now, and it's hard to talk.”

“i'll ask questions that are easy to answer then.”

finally, you relented. “...is it really okay?”

“yes.”

after you confirmed that he couldn't smell you and couldn't see you, you slowly inch from under the desk and into his lap, where he then wrapped his arms around you. not tightly or passionately, but a sort of reassuring grip—like he wouldn't let you fall.

“how does it feel?”

“you're probably better than my desk,” you laughed out, and the sound felt strange to your ears, just moments after you were alone and crying and hyperventilating under a desk in a room by yourself.

“glad to be of service.”

you laughed again. “i don't think even the other sages from the akademiya can ever get you to say those words.”

“because they can't. if any of them leapt into my arms asking for a hug, i'd redirect them to doctor zakariya.”

you laughed again, and you were glad you made him promise to close his eyes. the sight of alhaitham smiling slightly at you, and the sight of your smile looking at him would've convinced anyone that you were starstruck by him. you didn't feel up to being publicly humiliated at the moment. 

the two of you spent the next few minutes—which felt like hours—in each other's embrace (well, yours in his, mostly), and soon your breathing steadied. from the high tides and low crests of your chest rising and falling asynchronously, it returned to the rhythm of the afternoon tides of port ormos.

although it was a difficult question to ask, you asked anyways. “are you not going to ask me what happened?”

“one of the six sins of any scholar under the akademiya is to interfere in human evolution,” he began, and you felt a smile coming before he even finished. “i assume it was your body's way of protecting you against a threat. although—” 

he opened his eyes, and you would've tried to stop your smiling by any means before he could see you, but he was wearing a smile of his own, and you couldn't help but dig your fingers deeper into his arms. 

“—the nature of the threat and it's scale remains unknown to me still. you have a way with handling problems, after all.”

you gave him a big smack on his chest, fists closed for maximum impact. “ouch!”

how did that hurt you instead of him?

“a good rule of self defense is hard parts against soft targets, and soft parts on hard targets. you shouldn't have closed your hand. a slap would work better.”

“how was i going to know your chest was literally rock hard?!”

“i thought you might have some inkling. i've noticed your stare a few times before.”

you wanted to throw yourself into the abyss.

you couldn't, so instead, you took his hand and bit his fingers as the next best thing. 

a small ouch sounded from him, though you couldn't tell if it was genuine or for the sake of making you feel better. you laid your head back against his chest, arms now wrapped around him in return.

“thanks, alhaitham.”

“you're very welcome,” he muttered in response, and you almost didn’t hear him.

“you’re not going to tell me that the solution is simple, or that i was the one that caused this thing in myself?”

he hummed.

“no,” he started, and you wanted to collapse in relief. “i am a scholar of haravatat, not amurta. i don’t understand the subject matter enough to say in any confidence or plausibility that the way your—or anyone’s—body works is simple. if it was that simple, then we wouldn’t have an entire field dedicated to it. and i do wish it were that simple, sometimes. then perhaps so many scholars wouldn’t have written audacious sounding proposals that i’d have to read thoroughly just to reject.”

you snickered. “what does haravatat’s wisdom has to say about me?”

for a moment, you see his eyes soften, straying away from yours.

“that your body failing you is not a moral or intellectual inadequacy on your part. that we do not have full control of ourselves, even if we would like to. that, perhaps…”

“perhaps?”

his gaze returns to you. “...perhaps, we are all more fallible than we see ourselves.”

“only you see yourself as infallible. i know very well how my body betrays me every second of every day. it’s one of the things that comes with being in touch with my own emotions, don’t you know?”

the teasing was meant to be lighthearted, as you knew he didn’t mean anything he said before in a dogged way. his words was not thorny on purpose like a bramble bush, just rough to the touch like a tongue’s cat. there were days where his words striked too much like an arrow through you, and days where the coarseness only brushed your ankles like standing in sand. you loved and cared for him despite that.

suddenly, he pulled you tighter against him, and you squeaked. “alhaitham? Is everything okay?”

no answer. you shifted in your position to make yourself more comfortable, and with whatever left strength you could muster, you rub your hands over his back in calm, soothing circles. “there, there.” 

your voice reverberated through your body, and you continued to hold him reassuringly, hoping that enough exposure to having him be so close to you would cure your racing heart and your voice, almost crumbling at his touch.

it was good how self conscious of yourself you were. then, you wouldn’t be able to tell that his heart was racing, too. 

***

the third time he finds you, it was not so much being found as it was being chased.

it was just one of those days that went wrong in every way it could’ve gone wrong. you stubbed your toe after getting out of the shower, your research project was going nowhere despite your multiple reminders to your groupmates, and even the way the sticky-sweet baklava clung to your teeth annoyed you.

worst of all, you had a fight with alhaitham.

now that you think of it, it could hardly be called a fight. you’ve seen full-grown adults in akademiya gowns act pettier in a structured debate, and you were sure that if you had asked alhaitham—truly asked, with no contempt or malice—he would’ve presented to you a perfectly reasonable explanation why he didn’t act like an asshole and moreso sounded like one.

right. the only person that was taking things too seriously was you. it had always been you.

it wasn’t that you wanted to be less emotional. you had spent too much time in your formative younger years denying the fact that you simply felt things more deeply, more quickly, than others. it was difficult to accept that you simply had thinner skin than most people—that, on a bad day, the veil of privacy that stood between your emotions and the outside world was nothing but sheer silk that fluttered all too easily with an evening breeze. 

the ‘fight’ was nothing spectacular, either. It wasn’t as if you two were having an intellectual discussion as two scholars, rigorously going through peer review on a research paper. it wasn’t as if neither of you would come out of it having respected each other a little less.

but, like the person that you are, so tethered to the heart that it kept your feet frozen sometimes, it had hurt you deeply.

it truly was nothing spectacular. you simply wanted to vent about your terrible groupmates, and you thought that it would be nothing more than a venting session over drinks, getting sober, and then buckling down to do the job once you were ready again in the morning.

but it escalated. he, also seemingly irritable that night, kept bringing up questions, solutions, to your dismay. at any other time, you would’ve let it slide and shelved it as simply alhaitham being alhaitham—a man who wanted life to be simple and easy, fixing problems before they sprung. however, what you needed that night was not a fixer or a tinkerer with all his haravatat wisdom. you needed alhaitham the drinking buddy, the one that would foot the bill, the one that held you in his arms and wanted to be of more comfort than the desk you hid under.

“i just wish you would just—listen!”

“i am listening. it’s just that it’s difficult to keep my words to myself, seeing as this problem can be easily fixed, if you weren’t so fixated on unnecessary things.”

“unnecessary? i don’t like them, but it doesn’t mean that i want to snitch on them!”

“what’s stopping you? they clearly don’t respect you. who else can they blame but themselves as the logical consequence of their actions if you do tell on them? they are adults in their own capacity, and the akademiya is not a place for people to loiter around, seeking for forgiveness for one’s own incompetence. their lesson is theirs to learn.”

“i have my own way of fixing things, alhaitham. you may not care about other people’s feelings, but i do! and i’d rather work it out clearly with them rather than resort to underhanded tactics just to have my life go a little smoother.”

“then tell me, why hasn’t your way of fixing problems worked? only an idiot would employ the same methods over and over again, hoping it’ll work the next time.”

he didn’t call you an idiot directly, but he didn’t have to. the insult found its way to you just the same. 

even if you did, you couldn’t fully deny it either. in the perspective of alhaitham, perhaps everyone else other than him was a dimwit full of hot air. the thought that the same applied to you, who you thought had a pretty close relationship with him, stung the most. 

he had tried to talk to you and reach out multiple times (although, by your estimates, his attempts were somewhat weak and clumsy), and you kept him out of your house with a badly made sign that said ‘TRESPASSERS BEWARE’ above an aranara carving that looked—in your opinion—pretty scary.

on these days, it was difficult. you couldn’t touch yourself, feeling so raw that you feared that wherever your hand brushed, you would come away bleeding. 

there were at least some good news though: your groupmates finally decided to cooperate with you for the project, and you were extremely thankful for it. it turns out that they all had personal issues that made it difficult to speak out on, and now that they realised that you wouldn’t judge them for whatever excuse they may have, they confided in you, and everything went as smoothly as you could hope for.

the four of you celebrated at the tavern, drinks in hand at 3 p.m. in the afternoon. the boss, seeing this particular group of inebriated students, simply shook his head and smiled defeatedly. by the time the sky changed colours, only you were left sitting alone at your table after having escorted the other three to their homes to get some well-earned rest. you would have left soon after, if not only for the fact that you had ‘bumped’ into alhaitham and he ordered a drink to have at your table.

“i was right,” was the first thing you said to him, and you enjoyed the look on his face when the words left your mouth. “i was right. everything turned out like i hoped it would.”

he tilted his head. “surely you can’t expect for luck and fortunate circumstances to befall you every time?”

“i don’t. i don’t, but… i’ll keep doing what i’m doing. i like it when everyone is happy. things won’t always go the way i want them to, but i’ll keep doing it, because it’s important to me that i try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, that i don’t walk the easy road if it means i’ve passed by something meaningful just to suffer a little less in my own life.”

“you sound like kaveh.”

you chuckled. “that sounds like a compliment to me. thank you.”

when his drink arrived, alhaitham nudged it your way across the table. you raised a brow. “what’s this for?”

“to say i’m sorry.”

“words aren’t enough for you?”

“words are only enough for people who trust others to tell the truth,” he paused, then added: “and i don’t.”

you hummed, then leaned back in your chair. “pretend, then, that we are two people who trust each other to tell the truth, and that we would believe in each other no matter what. what would you say?”

his green-red eyes flickered, and you didn’t know from what. if it was with other people, you could hazard a guess, sure—but alhaitham was different from the people you’ve met, and you did not want to presume what his heart feels.

(even if he claims that it’s only there to keep him alive.)

“when i couldn’t see you, i still thought of you, and i didn’t know what to do. i want to apologise for insulting you with my words, even if i didn’t mean to. i failed to calculate the exact way they had sounded until it reached my own ears and i saw how hurt you were.”

you said nothing, but nodded slightly as a go-on.

“i like it when things are simple, but that didn’t mean i wanted you to be simple. i just wanted things to be simple for you, and i unreasonably tried to force my perspective onto yours and ended up hurting you in the process. and for that…” he seemed to have trouble wrangling the words out of his throat, and you would’ve laughed if he didn’t look so pained. you reached out for his hand on the table, resting yours atop his. “...and for that, i am deeply sorry.”

you hummed. another moment to savour. 

there  was still one more thing you needed to clear up, though.

“...do you think i’m an idiot?”

unlike mere moments ago, the words shot out of his mouth before he even tried to rein them in. “no. not at all. i’ve never once thought you were.”

you smiled at him, somewhat self-deprecatingly. “but you don’t like how emotional i am.”

“it’s not a matter of liking or disliking. your emotions serve a purpose in your decision-making. it’s simply that… i do not like the experience of having to see you go through things that hurt you, even if you’re willing to do so.”

ah, so that’s what it is.

“alhaitham, do you care about me?”

his eyes, previously unfocused, darted back to meet your unflinching gaze. “have my actions indicated otherwise?”

you couldn’t help it. you snorted. “alhaitham, the line between caring for a person’s wellbeing out of courtesy rather than concern is a very thin line. at least, for the rest of us who you might call ‘drama queens’ and ‘fake socialites’.”

maybe he didn’t realise it, but his brows scrunched under your scrutiny, and you couldn’t help but feel joy at the fact that you made alhaitham, someone so aloof and disenchanted, truly perplexed.

“do you not know the answer already?”

“i do,” you say, and you were sure that your smile was infuriating him now. “i just wanted to hear you say it.”

a silence between both of you, even though the tavern was filled with the sound of chatter and the tinkling of dishes and cutlery. 

“i do care for you. deeply. does this answer satisfy you?”

“yep!” you smiled, and alhaitham wasn’t one to offer prayers of gratitude to the sevens above, but he was glad that you were so self-conscious of yourself to be blind to the way he leaned forward in his seat, his one hand tightly clutched under the table, and the way he wished he could bottle your smile and indulge in it on a rainy day, if he could.

ah well, alhaitham thought, tomorrow is another day without them realising. 

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

Everyone's Fate Is Up To The Saints, Except Hers - Tolya Yul-Bataar

Prompt: “If you wish to keep your fingers, I’d take your hands off her.”

Warnings: Canon Compliant Threat

This is really just a drabble but what can ya do.

Not proofread because "no beta we die like men"

Had anyone asked, Tolya would have made it very clear that he 'never doubted her for a moment', that 'her capability was easily beyond that of the task at hand' and he knew, given the opportunity, 'she would've likely taken it on alone'. But Sturmhond, in a brief moment of clear insight, had drawn the conclusion that Tolya would have been very little help carrying out his duties if his mind had been following someone out on the mission. Waiting, wondering and worrying were three things not very conducive with carrying out duties to their requirement. So Sturmhond sent the both of them. No one questioned him, everyone else because he is the captain, but Tamar because she held the same knowledge that Sturmhond had based his call on: her twin for all his openness and cheer, was not letting on quite how deep the river of his care flowed when it came to one particular crewmate.

The she in question, had picked up a pace while Tolya had been somewhat lost in his thoughts.

"Falling behind there sesh?" You ask, turning around with a wicked grin, continuing to walk in the direction you both were headed, but now watching Tolya instead of the path. Walking backwards was something you had gotten very good at with the years of sword training, if you lean to step back with balance enough times, learning to follow the pattern is easy. Yet now, it was certainly more to show off than for practical use.

"You're still not using that correctly," Tolya smiled, an abundance of laughter in his voice. His shadow was being cast by a far off light and the distance made the silhouette looking deceivingly small, compared to the reality. Tolya was just as tall as he was handsome, which is to say more so than anyone really hard the right to be.

"Well if you gave in and told me the word I am looking for," you tease, the sentence hung in the air, feeling unfinished and incomplete. But the years have taught Tolya that sometimes you spoke in half, and it was up to the one hearing the words to decide if it was their turn.

"I will not teach you words in Shu just so you can mock me," he means the words he is saying but his tone is far from mean.

"I'm not mocking you," you defend. "I'm attempting to describe you."

"Describe me in your own language," he pulls his graze away, hoping that maybe if he stops staring, you might start looking where you're going, but to no avail.

"So you'll read me poetry in a language I do not know, but you shall not teach it to me?"

"Not when I know your interest lies in different intent, if you wish to understand the poem I'll happily explain it-" he is suddenly silence by a quiet and quick whistle, a signal that stops him in his tracks.

You look on edge, looking around the dim lit street with such concentration and apprehension that Tolya notices how small it makes you look, the fear. He isn't used to seeing you look afraid.

"Sorry," you say pulling yourself back in, raning it back and composing yourself. "I didn't mean to interrupt you when it's about poetry."

"I don't take it personally," he says. "You know Tamar well enough."

"Exactly, I try to let you talk about it as much as possible when there is no one to tell you to stop," the comment is offhand and absentminded, you hadn't meant much by it. It was a truth, and you did not choose to shy from the truth often, but it wasn't something you had meant to declare in any kind of way. Yet the look in Tolya's eyes makes you run the words back, trying to find the secret of the universe, the strangely powerful compliment that had to be hidden in the words you'd spoken without a second thought.

"Thank you," he says, his voice so soft, it hits like whisper.

"There's no need, there are few ways to show someone how you matter to them, and this is mine," if you had to break it down, the moments before, the reasons that this moment unfolds, you could lay out each factor in pieces. The light being so low. The quietness being so rare that sound is a welcome visitor and therefore can lull into a false sense of security. Maybe even your own foolishness, having not turned around despite your previous scare. But if you were honest with yourself, truly honest, it was not your ego or your environment that betrayed you in this small moment. It was your heart. Had you not been searching for something tangible in the unspoken distance between the two of you, there was no way someone could have gotten close enough to place a blade into the small of your back before you reached for your weapon.

"I wouldn't try it," the blade is pushed closer as you move for the weapon, the voice is dark and quiet, but the accent isn't from around here, and there's a gruffness that shows the man's age.

"I am guessing you are exactly who we are looking for," you reply. Tolya reached for his own blade the moment the assailant had stepped out of the dark, he holds it tight and his eyes are fixed over your shoulder. "We aren't here for a fight."

"Tell that to your friend," the man replies.

"Tolya," you say calmly. Tolya is reasonable, Tolya is smart and above all Tolya knows better than most, much better than his twin, when there's not a need for a fight. But he doesn't look willing to backdown.

"Perhaps I might be more inclined to step down if you remove the blade from my friends back," Tolya says slowly.

A hand grips your shoulder tight, and the blade moves from your spine to your side. A much more defendable position, but a still a threat. "Better?" The man asks.

"If you wish to keep your fingers, I’d take your hands off her.”

You watch him and your heart, against your practiced calm, races in your chest and his eyes flicker to meet yours. It dawns on you why he hasn't calmed the situation, why he is defensive and not quite like his normal self. He senses your confusion, your fear and he is not used to that in you. He isn't paying attention to the man's heartbeat or his emotions because he is still fixed on you. And that realisation makes your heart jump in a way you should know better than to let it do, and Tolya feels it. "He won't repeat himself," you tell the man, and he drops the blade to his side. "We were sent to get you, alive was the preference."

"Who sent you?" The man asks.

"Sturmhond," Tolya explains, listening to his heart now, sensing the fear, the anger, the loss. "We are here to help." Tolya's expression softens, he has been in the world and really seen enough of it to know that there's danger in the most unexpecting of places, but one of the many things about him that is never unsurprising, is how he still sees the opportunity for kindness and grace amongst them.

Sturmhond stares at the two of them and is quick to dismiss Tolya, who walks out on the deck and is soon shoulder to shoulder with Tamar.

"You seem tense brother," she muses, eager to hear what had happened.

"I shouldn't have gone," he thinks aloud. Tamar frowns.

"How did you come to that ridiculous conclusion?" She asks, pulling at a piece of the bread she is eating.

"Because it was my presence that made her vulnerable," he explains. "She was scared, I've not seen her scared before."

"Are you sure it was fear, and not anxiety?" Tamar asks nonchalantly. "Besides, Everyone's fate is up to the saints, is it not?"

"Not hers," Tolya says without pausing to think. Tamar gives him a side glance and he shoves her shoulder.

"Not hers?" Tamar echoes. "Not if you can help it."

[freshlyrage]

Running Like Water

Chapter 24

pairing: Javier Peña x OFC (written as xReader)

fic warnings: NSFW Explicit Smut (18+ MDNI) language, strained family relationships, mentions of drug abuse, discussions of insecurities and body image issues, daddy and mommy issues

fic tags: Best friends younger sister, Life-long crush, Friends to lovers, Unrequited love, slow burn, Push and Pull, Small Town Dynamics, Secret Relationships, latina MC, Fluff and Angst, OFC!Jessica Alba face claim, sorry Lorraine I'm bringing you into this, Time jumps, 2 year age gap, pre-canon

word count: 5.7k

IMPORTANT a/n: I've got no explanation this time, school and work just have been beating my ass. But this is the last chapter of the second part of this series. There's going to be a... different stylistic change next chapter. Things are um... not going to be as peaches and cream. Don't start the Mari witch hunt... i'm sorry in advance....

Enjoy

Masterlist

You cried after sex for the first time with Javi tonight. He fucked you roughly into his mattress, bit your shoulder and kissed you. He looked at the clock and stood up from the bed after finishing on your sheets. Watching him begin to leave made you heave. You start to sob with you face pressed into the pillow. He damn near tripped over his shoes rushing back to the bed. 

You couldn’t explain it to him, he was panicked. 

What did I do?

Did it hurt?

Andrea, please talk to me. 

Hey, hey—I’m not leaving, I was getting you a towel—

Baby, please you’re scaring me. 

He presses his thumb across your cheek collecting your tears. His eyes are wild, blown out and concerned. 

Your first question scares him. You didn’t mean to, it was only a segway. 

“Do we have too much sex?” You pant, warm tears still falling. Javi swallows hard, you could nearly feel his heart beat at the pad of his thumb while strokes your face. 

It’s Friday night. 

The week had been good. Great even. After your little lake day you and Javier decided to no longer be apart. You biked home that night and snuck him into your room. He ate you out, the sun had you beat and you fell asleep immediately after. He is learning how to sneak out quietly. That was wednesday. 

On Thursday, you decided to go to the public library. You had some lessons for the second session of summer school to get done and you wanted him around. 

He was very good. Silent and reading while you chewed your pen cap. You caught him doing more staring than reading but you couldn’t mind. You’d just smile and go back to your work. 

When you were done the two of you strolled the aisles of Laredo Public Library, picking books for each other. You spot Neruda in the poetry section and you silently squeal. Getting up on your tiptoes to reach when you’re lifted off your feet. Javier lifts you to the top row and you let out a cackle deserving of a shhh from the ancient librarian. 

He behaved well, until you were driving home and he took you from behind in the back seat of his truck. 

He kisses you sweetly, tells you he loves you and drives you home.

He finds himself in your bed once more, this friday night. You know he should leave soon, tomorrow morning is the wedding. You hadn’t anticipated breaking down in this way. You need all of the rest you can get, god knows Melissa will be raising hell at 9 am. It was only ten when you asked Javier the question. 

“Uh— No—yes? Please tell me why you’re still crying.” 

You sigh, “I’m… sorry.”

“Why? Should we turn it down? Am I being too much-“

You scrunch your face and turn your head into his hand. Maybe it wasn’t the best way to start this conversation, crying and asking him if their sex is too much. Strangely you felt too scared to tell him. “God no! I was just…” You choke on your own words. “Nevermind.” 

“Nope—nope, none of that querida.” Javier pushes your hair back out of your face, you close your eyes surrounded by his warmth. You could die here you fear. You can’t believe you’re here—there, in his arms like it’s nothing. 

You think of Xavier. Xavier made you cry. 

“This is my first sexual relationship where I’m like not sighing and bracing myself before you touch me. It was like that with Xavier, I’d disassociate while we had sex. It was okay at the beginning because I suppose I somehow liked him, but then he just got fucking mean.” You picture him, what he looked like in high school. The dirty blonde, blue eyed jaw clenched soccer player. You wouldn’t guess he was hispanic in a million years, he seemed to be so distant from his culture, you tried to understand but you just didn’t get how—it bothered you, his ignorance. You somehow looked past it all, he kissed you sweetly before class. You hadn’t been kissed sober since Javier by that point. You were easily molded. “I don’t know why I’m talking about this, I'm sorry.” You rub your eyes, you know Javier could be a jealous lover. You didn’t want to bicker over details of your previous relationships. 

“Andrea, just talk to me. Tell me about him. I’ve told you plenty about her.” 

Lorraine, you’ll face her tomorrow. You fear you might chew her head off, or maybe she’ll claw your eyes out. No mimosas tomorrow, or else it’ll get messy. 

You suddenly feel a wave of tears threatening behind your eyes, burning. Somehow you begin to ramble while he watches, stroking and caressing your face.

“He asked me out at a beach in Corpus Christi,  it was my idea of romance back then. I suppose I just wanted to be liked by someone. We dated for almost two years, you know? I sort of enjoyed our time together. When we were just sitting around watching tv, making fun of episodes of Dynasty. Then he’d touch me and I would dread it every time. Like my whole body would just leave, and somehow I’d end up on my back. I don’t think I ever felt violated or anything like that, he was just cold during sex and selfish. One time he got rough out of nowhere, and I got really excited, like yes, you’re trying something new. Those times when he’d be rough, it didn’t feel like him so I would enjoy myself. I finished, once. And I was so sensitive after, I wanted to cuddle and kiss him, thank him. But I remember he just bit my shoulder and got up to leave. Without cleaning me, I was seventeen. I started to cry, I would cry every time he left afterward” You were sobbing. You remember it all, you remember the feeling of being fucked and left, and the gaping hole it left in your heart. “I wasn’t even crying because I didn’t want him to leave, I didn’t want anyone to leave me. And they had, I thought I moved on from that. You’ve rushed out of my room plenty of times.” You hiccup, “I just got really sad today, I’m sorry I ruined our sex.” 

Javier looks down at you, your head leaning against his knee. The light in your bedroom casting him an orange glow, his brow quivered and he shook his head, stroking your hair once more. 

“I love you.”

It hurts to hear, “I know. I love you t-“

“No- I love you and I can’t bear to watch you like this. You can never ruin anything, please never apologize to me for something so silly. Please Andrea.” He slides down to lay with you again. You begin to cry harder. 

“I need to get help. I have severe abandonment issues.” 

You’ve known it deep inside, you’ve been too afraid to say it. You didn’t want to hurt his feelings, you wanted Javier to be enough to fix you. But even though he soothes the pain so well, there’s too many layers to ignore just because he’s here right now. 

It’s silent for a beat. He just breathes and nods, you fill his chin at the top of your head. 

“I do too.”

“You don’t have to say it to make me feel better.” 

He’s perfect, how could he ever need help-“I’m turning into my mother, the past few years have been self destructive decisions. I’m aware of it so much that it makes me ill. I threw up on Tuesday because I saw my departure date circled on my calendar.”

Now you’re silent.

“Yeah we need help.”

“God bless our therapists.”

Genie had other friends. Three other girls crowded your kitchen island downing fruity cold drinks clad in flowy yellow gowns. You decline the lounging and giggling, you rather keep Genie company. She requested no bridesmaids during hair and makeup—just come up when I’m in my gown—you figured you were an exception. And you were because she beamed the second you walked into the room. 

She was alone in a white slip, her face painted so beautifully and her brown locks pulled into a  decorated bun. You prepped your room for powdering and pampering, cleaning at the crack of dawn after your night with Javier. Genie sat on a lush chair by the window facing the backyard. You could hear the bustle of workers putting their final touches. 

“You look so pretty my love.” Genie grins. 

Your eyes widen at her compliment, she beat you to it. You suppose you were lucky that she wasn’t one of those bridezillas that wanted her bridesmaids to suffer in puffy dresses, to ensure the idea of always the bridesmaid and never the bride or what not. 

Instead she allowed the four of you to pick dresses as long as they were A. Pale Yellow, and B. Bohemian. You weren’t afraid to admit that your little childhood friend group seemed to be stuck in 1975 fashion, your icons were Stevie Nicks not Madonna! 

“Me, look at you. I-“ Tears well in your eyes and she isn’t even in her gown yet. It was rare, a thing like this. To not have to adjust to a new love in your brother's life. You felt if they ever broke up you would make Frankie’s life a living hell because there was absolutely no way you were staying away from Genevieve. The only person who rubbed your back when you cried during those six years, the first person at your bedside when it ended with Xavier and now there she is, about to marry your brother giving you a niece—giving you an older sister. “I’m just so happy it’s you—that you’re my family.” 

Your voice cracks and your period is definitely approaching. She frowns with a wiggling chin as she stands to pull you in. “Te quiero, de verdad, Andrea. Soy una mujer afortunada.” She whispers and she smells like she did in high school, an amber warm scent that comforted you but a smell so familiar you can—-

“Are you wearing the perfume you would spray Javier’s basement with after we smoked?” You laugh through tears.

“Yes!”

The two of you sat for a bit, rambling on about everything but the ceremony in four hours. She rubbed her stomach frequently, stretching her legs out on your bed like a cat getting prepared to nap. You knew her other bridesmaids slightly. Two of them were her employees at her first salon, Harrietta and Wilma. The third was her cousin who flew in from California, Olivia. Still, she chose you to be her maid of honor. 

“Are you prepared?” You ask finally, she looks at you and pauses her belly rubs. Genie giggles and blows a raspberry, with a head shake. 

“Thinking about it makes me so nervous and it upsets her…” She taps her belly. 

You nod again, sipping your water before glancing down at the yard through your window. It was slightly less hectic, you spotted your mother straightening a seat. She was clad in a float blue gown. You can’t help but wonder if she would put this much effort into your wedding one day. The thought makes your lips quirk in a frown. “Have you practiced your vows?”

“Let’s talk about something else, I do not want to sweat my blowout.” She was nervous, pale as a ghost, you suppose in your gaze out the window you hadn’t noticed just how anxious this topic was making her. Your eyes widen and you place your cup down. Unsure what to even talk about. 

“Right uhm—“

“Is Javier treating you well?” She cuts, reaching over to your bedside table and getting ahold of the church fans your mother placed on each seat. It was eighty five degrees out. Your cheeks go crimson, will you ever get used to someone knowing? 

“Yeah… I don’t know… he always has, somehow he’s better in a relationship.” 

“Be honest, have you guys had sex here?” She points at the bed she’s lying in. Your eyes double in size and you cover your face. But this is how it was with the two of you, she’d press about your sex life, you’d tell her, you’d giggle like schoolgirls then she’ll attempt to tell you about hers and you nearly vomit because of the circumstances in which her sex life occurs. 

“Yes! Often too… You know I struggled with sex before Javi.”

She frowns, she heard all about it during your monthly sister in law sleepovers when you were still in high school. Genie tried so hard to encourage you to demand what you needed out of Xavier. “Yeah… I know.” She rubs the sheets beside her and you wince. 

“Ew don’t do that!”

“Sorry!” She retracts her hands and folds them in her lap with a chuckle. “Not for nothing but If you would have told me earlier I could have rescinded the invite to Lorraine.” 

It was your turn to be avoidant. 

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Fair.” 

It’s silent again and all you could do is sip your water and worry about seeing Lorraine face to face after so many years.  

“Has he told you he loves you?” Genevieve asks, lying on her side now, propped up with her chin in her palm. Your lips quirk in a smile and you stare at the bottom of your gown. 

“He has.” You sigh when you think of what this must look like to outsiders. Andrea goes back to Javier after everything, “I think he means it.” You wonder why it scares you to be loved so much. You think being loved might sever you in two, it’s starting, you aren’t sure what to do now. 

She stands at that, and wraps her arms around your shoulders while you sit. “I know he does, he has forever. We’ve seen it, it pisses your brother off, sure, but it can’t be denied. Hopefully in a few years I’ll be talking you down while you’re laid in a wedding dress. He’ll be nervous next door.” She kisses the top of your head. You tremble at the thought. You can’t think about that now. 

“One wedding at a time, let’s get you in your dress.” You jump to your feet and walk toward the white dress hung up on your dresser door. Unzipping the white plastic. Genie stands too. 

“Right! Right. But I'll be your maid of honor, right?”

Your brows furrow and you snap your head over your shoulder. 

“Bitch please.”

You loved Javier in a suit. Luckily for you his career allowed him to be formal a lot of the time he snuck into your room at night, but this suit was reminiscent of prom and you grin. 

“Hi.” You smile up at him, surveying your surroundings. It was nearly your cue to walk out together, behind you were the three other bridesmaids and your brothers three other groomsmen. Friends he met at work that you never bothered getting to know. They were standing side to side with the girls. Javier clenches his jaw and looks at the chattering groups behind the two of you. He looks annoyed by the presence of the groomsmen. You shake your head, it was so like Javier. “Have you even tried… to befriend your wedding companions?” 

Javi furrows his brows and looks back at you then softens immediately. He grunts, “Nope, red head over there joked about asking you out tonight. Who the fuck are these guys?” He cranes his head to level with you. You loved when he did that, feeling guarded and protected by his presence even when it wasn’t necessary. 

You flatten the lapels of his crisp suit with a little tight lipped smile. “Friends Frankie had to make when you were gone because it came out that you were actually his only friend.” 

“Ah.”

“Think I got a chance with Charles?” You joke, tugging on his suit jacket once more. Javier’s face drops and his mustache twitches into a firm frown. His big puppy dog eyes make you never want to tease him ever again. 

“Maybe, Wilma offered to cut my hair for free when I was serving Frankie some scotch earlier-“

“Okay enough of this game.” You snap, your face turning hot. He puts on that stupid smug smile and nods a truce. The two of you face forward shoulder to shoulder, the music begins and you know you must count to twenty before the doors open. 

Javier offers you an arm. You slap his behind before intertwining. 

“You’re gross.”

“You love me gross.” You giggle, squeezing his bicep. The doors open and you walk out to your backyard. The entirety of Laredo were at their feet smiling at the two of you. Javier leans in your ear and whispers, “Hmm yeah, you look beautiful in yellow but I rather see you in white.” 

And the two of you walk down the aisle and you hope it isn’t your last time. 

Genie loved drama. Well, no. Genie loved being the drama. You silently cried the entire time they exchanged their vows. Why Genie decided to have her wedding three days before your cycle begins is beyond you. The vows were very much Genie, with some censoring. She promised your mother that she won’t be vulgar, she already went against Melissa’s wishes when she said she rather have the ceremony and reception at home instead of the ceremony at church. 

The entire backyard erupted in cheers when she made a comment about being so grateful to be starting a family with Frankie. Somehow you forgot that only your small circle knew. Genies ninety-one year old grandmother jumped to her feet in happiness. 

It was surely safe to say that your brother's wedding reception ranked high on the happiest you’ve ever felt. When the officiant granted them their first kiss as a married couple Genie of course pinched his behind causing your mother to gasp and everyone in their seats to giggle. Most importantly your brother smiled brightly against his wife’s lips. 

The cocktail party was in your front yard, half an hour while they set up the backyard once more to fit all guests. It was the duty of the direct family of the groom and bride to scurry around and set up. So you and Javier did just that. Folding white chairs and loading them in the van. Centering flowers on tables. Picking up fallen name cards. 

 Once the sun began to set, the guests walked through the pathway leading to your backyard and found their places. And the live mariachi arrived. You let out a huff when you were finally able to sit down, Javier groaned at the bend of his knees. 

“I’m going to need sixteen hours of sleep after this.” He says, picking up his beer and sipping. The scene was oddly similar to Liandras quince. You laugh, taking your own beer and following suit. You glance over to the Bride and Grooms table, decorated more elegantly and intentionally. They were beaming, swaying back and forth while talking to each other. The kids of town dancing and running around, kicking balloons in the air and not letting it drop. “We should get a hotel tonight.” He whispers against your shoulder. You side eye him and smirk, pinching his thigh. 

“Yeah, we should.” Your eyes scan the crowd once more, landing on a table in the far right corner of the party. Mr. and Mrs. Smithfield, clad in light blue. And right next to them, sitting in silence, Lorraine. Your eyes widen at the sight of her for the first time in nearly seven years. Her hair a darker shade of blonde, pin straight. Her eyes land on you. Although you feel your heart drop you still offer a small smile. 

She rejects the gesture, eyes darted between you and Javier, and peels her eyes alway with a straight face. 

You frown and look at Javier. “I just saw Lorraine.” He frowns just the same, placing his hand on yours while it rested on the table. The touch burned straight through you. Removing your hand and placing it back into your lap. You couldn’t dare to look at him while you just retracted at his touch. But you could feel his body tensing beside you. You want to apologize for your reaction but you just can’t. You tried to avoid the idea of Lorraine coming back home, but now it’s here and the guilt is climbing up your throat and making your cheeks burn. And now you’ve made Javier upset. He takes another sip of his drink.

 The two of you sit in silence for a few minutes while you panic. She knows. It took her one glance to read you, read your body language. You feel sick, and you know that technically you didn’t do anything wrong but you were once her friend. Yet on the same coin  you also know that she mistreated him.

So why does this feel so bad? 

“I have to go to the bathroom.” You blurt, standing from your chair. Javier places his beer down loud enough for you to hear, he’s upset with you. He is. Your heart contracts in your chest.

He stands alongside you, “Well I do too.” He says in a tone so deep you know you’re going to get your ass handed to you. You want to pinch yourself because his anger makes your  cunt clench around nothing. You figure that you want to be chased by him. Captured, maybe he’ll fuck you in the bathroom and it’ll teach you a lesson. 

Still, there’s guilt in that thought. You won’t allow it, not when you’re feeling this way. “Javier we aren’t doing this-“

“Don’t make a scene.” He demands once more and you’re already walking towards the house, and he’s following you. The party was too busy to notice the interaction. You swing the screen door open without holding it for him, it nearly swings back in his face but he slams it wide open. 

You look over your shoulder at him as he trails behind you with a furrow in his brow. A jaw clenched. “I really do have to pee.” You say, the house empty besides the caterers, you had figured people would be trickling in and out considering your home bathroom was the only one for this event. A slight oversight on your mother’s behalf. 

“I don’t give a shit.” He grumbles and the two of you stumble into the bathroom. 

You sigh and glance at him while he stands with arms crossed at the door. Studying your every move. You lift the bottom of your dress and tuck it under your chin while you attempt to pull your panties down to pee. Javier shakes his head and strides towards you, holding your dress up from the back. You shut your eyes, “This is embarrassing and gross I can do this myself.”

He keeps a straight face, “I can’t even help you now? Now I'm embarrassing you?” 

You shoot him an annoyed glance, “Peeing is private.”

He grunts, you know slightly that you’re being ridiculous. You know he’d quite literally do anything to help you even if it’s as small as holding up your expensive dress while you peed. You shake your head and do your business quickly, wiping yourself with cheeks hot. “Why are you upset with me?” He asks while you pull your panties back on. 

He drops your dress as you stand a foot away from the toilet, he gets on one knee fixing the lining of your bridesmaid dress. God damn it, this boy was a dream. He stands once again with a grunt. Viejo, you want to say. You move past him without a response and stand in front of the mirror, beginning to wash your hands. “Andrea.”

“I wasn’t ready to see Lorraine and she—she knows.” You look at him through the mirror. His hands are crossed, the suit tightening around his arms. You wish you didn’t feel so gross, you’d turn around and drop to your knees, that’s just the sort of mood you’ve been in. 

He doesn’t seem to phased. “Knows…? She knows what?” Still, grumpy, angry. Still sultry and hot. He’s burning into your eyes through the mirror.  

You take a few moments to think, stare at him through glass–make sure he understands how you’re feeling. 

“She knows we’re fucking.” You grip the edge of the sink, he’s so tall behind you. 

He nods, stepping up closer behind you. Hips pinning you against the sink. “Is that what we’re doing? We’re fucking?” He dips his head into your shoulder, your breath gets caught in your throat. Yes, yes, yes. His hands come to your waist and ride up, up, to your breasts. Both palms cover yours completely and then some. He grinds against your ass. 

“Y-yes Javi.” You whimper, you don’t understand how he can turn you on so quickly. He kisses your neck and you watch. He’s craned over you while your neck is tilted, like he’s ready to devour you whole, sink his teeth into you and suck. You watch his hands through the mirror, pull your top down and expose your dark nipples to the fluorescent light of your downstairs bathroom. He pinches your nipples and you moan. 

And in an instant he bends you over the sink, your breasts pressed upon the cold surface. And he grinds into you clothed, “You’re my girlfriend, you understand?” The air is cut out of your throat. He drives again, “We aren’t fucking, okay? We’re together, I’m yours. Tell me you’re mine.” 

You bite your lip, your hair falling over your face. “I’m yours Javi.” You arch your back like a kitten, hoping he’ll pull up your dress and fuck you raw and fast. But he doesn’t, he leans over and stands you up straight, pulling your dress back up. 

“Good, I'm glad we have that all cleared up.”

You’re left panting and wanting a kiss. Wanting to apologize for being so—You shut your brain off and turn to kiss him. Lips pressed to his but his hands don’t move to hold you. 

Your brows furrow and you part, feeling wrong inside. 

“What’s wrong?” Your brows crease, in heels there’s still space to look up at him. 

He turns away from you for a moment, you hope to god what you’re feeling in your chest isn’t the way he felt when you dropped his hand. “I don’t feel good when you talk about us like that. Like we just fuck.”

Oh, your eyes drop to your heels as they stand perfectly in front of his oxfords. You aren’t sure how to apologize about your own insecurity climbing at your throat. But he doesn’t ask you to, instead he places a hand on your cheek, “You know that I love you right?”

The bathroom door swings open and you jump from his touch once more. His hand dropping to his side and your bodies reacting to the intruder. Eyes wide at the sight. 

Lorraine Smithfield. Again, but up close with another red  straight face, in a green dress. Your eyes flick down to her stomach, a small bump protruding and filling the dress. You feel your mouth go dry and you can’t help but look up at Javier. Your stomach is twisting into something sick. Your own face getting beat red at his own brows softening at the sight of his ex-girlfriend carrying a child. 

She just shook her head and turned on the faucet as if you two weren’t caught red handed. Your cheek stings from where he once touched you. “If you want to sneak around at a wedding you should at least lock the door.” She chuckles bitterly, pressing soap into her palms. “Frankie knows you’re feeling up his baby sister Javi?” 

She smirks and looks at the two of you once more. Javier’s nostrils flare, you could feel him counting to ten in his head. 

She’s pregnant. 

Lorraine is pregnant. 

“I’m an adult, don’t talk about me like I’m not here.” You snap, and Lorraine stands up straight, blocking the doorway with crossed arms. She looks between the two of you and chooses to ignore you once more. Like her business was only to zero in on Javier. 

“You talked a lot about Andrea being nothing to you all those years in Houston. Interesting how you switched on me.” Your chin quivers but you keep your face straight, you weren’t going to break in front of Lorraine, of all fucking people. You can’t help but look at her belly bump once more and furrow your brows. What is happening?

“I don’t really feel like talking to you, not when you’re angry. So we’re going to go.” He grabs your hand and you feel the sick instinct to retract again but you let him anyway. 

She hesitates to move before saying one last thing, and this time she looks you in the eye, placing a hand on the swell of her stomach. 

“He keeps you burning for him. Remember where he’ll be in a few months, none of this will matter again. I suggest you get over it Andrea.” 

Your eyes shoot open for a moment while Javier drags you out of the bathroom. You chest constricting and you drop his hand finally. Feeling the same panic you felt last night when you sobbed against your bedsheets. Walking ahead of him with dual intention, being upset and not wanting to look suspicious to the party you’re about to approach. 

“Andrea—“ He grabs your upper arm right before you exit your house. 

“Please, let’s just—talk later or tomorrow.” Your words are hurried and snappy, the apples of your cheeks hot and crimson. You knew you weren’t ready for all of this, you fucking knew it. Javier wasn’t having any of it, he shakes his head. 

“No.” His mustache twitches in a disapproving frown. You scoff with a taste of copper on your tongue making your face screw. 

“No— I’m saying no to you.”

He cuts you off, “We need talk about this now because I know you-“

“If you loved you’d listen to me when I say no. Let me go.”

Let me go. 

He doesn’t bother you the rest of the night, he doesn’t invite you to dance which you didn’t expect considering the optics of it all but sitting in silence side by side made you feel green. And you couldn’t help but think of what it means for Lorraine to be pregnant. You’d hope she wasn’t in a relationship, that poor man should know how bitter she still is. 

You feel bad for her a bit, whoever the father is wasn’t in the picture which was a mortal sin in her family. Preacher's daughter pregnant and unmarried, heavens. 

You can’t help but feel uneasy. You try to smile and enjoy the wedding but Javier’s eyes burn, he’s waiting for you to say something—anything. You pulled the love card, low blow. So you know he has no choice but to give you space to think. It wasn’t like you were jealous but you saw every muscle in his face drop at the sight of her mothering figure. You suppose you’d have a reaction if Xavier came to you with a pregnant girlfriend. 

For a fleeting moment you wonder if his face was something toeing the line of concern-worry. Concern, you understand, is close to love. You were brutally shaken out of the bubble the two of you created in the past week. 

The sun set and you found yourself avoiding the table that the two of you housed. Javier really only shook the hands of those who approached him and asked him in spanish borderline insulting questions about his career. Your mother fortunately was a woman to be feared so once she announced the night was coming to a close the crowd flooded the front lawn, watching Genie climb into Frankie’s Ford Escort with a giggle and struggle to fit the train in the car. Just married chalked on the windows and streamers and cans tied on the bumper. They drove off with beeping horns and cheers. Javier brings his fingers to lips and whistles a splitting one. The married couple had reservations at the nicest hotel an hour out of town. Their tickets to Puerto Rico awaiting them for the next week.

You walk past Javier and head straight to the backyard to close up some chairs , the only person focused on cleaning just yet. Your mother was still doing her part in crowd control at the yard. 

The moon was bright that night, and your feet were killing you. You just wanted to be in bed. Be in bed with him. You know he followed you, you focused on your attempt of cleaning (avoiding him)--in your peripheral you saw him folding chairs a few feet from you. You sigh to yourself, not wanting to talk now but you feel him.You can feel that his anger became sadness. And you can't stand to see him sad. 

He still talks first.

“I got a hotel out of town tonight.” 

You pause standing up straight, looking at him while he corners the table he was dissembling. 

“I’m–I’m going to stay here tonight I think.” 

Javier’s entire face drops, gone ashen under the moonlight. He looks at the grass below him like he’s trying to decipher if all of this is real or not. He nods, “Alright. I’ll see you then?”

You nod, crossing your arms like you're holding your body from its instinct to jump into his arms. You needed to think. “Yeah, goodnight.”

The air is thick between the two of you and he frowns. Placing his hand on your elbow, leaning down to press a warm kiss against your lips, you can’t help but lean back into it. “Goodnight,” He kisses the corner of your lips, “I love you.”

You aren't sure why you freeze but Javier walks right past you before your brain could catch up with your heart. 

You cry holding your stomach, alone in the aftermath of the simplest presentation of love. 

[ohsalome]

What are some amazing, most read Ukraine authors? The only one I know is Gogol and I would like more on my radar.

First important disclaimer is that without knowing ukrainian, your pool of choice is very limited. Unfortunately, our translators haven't done nearly enough to make ukrainian literature acessable for english speakers, so a lot of genuinely amazing stuff would require you to know the language.

The second important disclaimer is that I am going to recommend you a lot of poetry, and, with no disrespect to the translators, it doesn't hit nearly as hard in english as it is in ukrainian. I've recently heard the phrase "to read poetry in translation is like to take a shower wearing a raincoat", and it is so true. So, apologies for this barrier, but there is nothing one can do.

With that in mind, let's start from classics:

The first most important author is Taras Shevchenko. He mainly wrote poetry, but has some prose works as well, and during his life he was more known as a popular artist. The Bible of his works is Kobzar (a ukrainian word for travelling blind musicians), and the same word is also often used as a nickname for Shevchenko - akin to how Shakespeare can be called the Bard. Among the most important poems pay attention to A Dream (the poem for which he was imprisoned by the russians with an explicit ban on writing and painting), The Caucasus, My Testament, Kateryna, A cherry orchad by the house, О thoughts of mine

The second big name to know is Lesya Ukrainka. Lesya is also more known for her drama and poetry than her prose, but she also was a prolific translator and a feminist. Her most well-know play is The Forest Song (a cartoon adaptation is soon to be released after 7 years of production, but from the trailer it looks like it's not going to be close to the text). I find her Бояриня play to be much more interesting and relevant, however, it looks like it has not been translated yet. Among her poems, some of the most important are Contra Spem Spero and Cassandra (the latter has had some successful stage prouctions in Great Britain last year, mayhaps it will gain popularity)

Some links to her works: [x] [x]

Fun fact: there are speculations about Lesya Ukrainka's relationship with her close friend Olga Kobylyanska. The letters they exchanged are quite intimate and sometimes even erotic in nature, which lead some academics to believe that they were more than friends (most still fall in the "gal pals" camp tho). However, if that were true, that would mean that Lesya Ukrainka is the only bisexual woman to ever be printed on banknotes.

The third pillar of ukrainian classical literature is Ivan Franko. Once again, we are talking about partiotic poetry, but there are also many socialistic ideas in his works (although he became dissilusioned with it in his later years ), which I think many western readers will find appealing - (side comment - it looks like "collective west" is going through the same processses that we overcame a century ago, so ehm... good luck, y'all will need it). I haven't been able to find much of his works translated in English, so here is a good master page. Zakhar Berkut is considered to be one of his greatest works (a ukrainian-american co-production movie The Rising Hawk was released a couple of years ago, it was shit). If you manage to put your hands on it, I would greatly recommend The Painted Fox and Moses. Also, reading Eternal Revolutionary imprinted on me so much in childhood and determined who I grew up to be, I pretty much consider Franko to be my spiritual father.

A great event that happened this year is that Valeryan Pidmohylny's The City is finally getting an english translation. I have been gushing about this book on this blog before (you can also find the link to the publisher there), because for the archetypical ukrainian literature this book is a breath of fresh air. It's beautiful, it's modern, it's urbanistic, the protagonist is irredeemable asshole, it's amazing and I should re-read it as well.

Among the authors that are much more difficult to find, I greatly recommend Ivan Nechu-Levytsky. In my humble opinion, he like no other has managed to capture the "ukrainian spirit" and his plots are extremely captivating and dramatic as hell.

I will always, always add Ivan Bahryiany to my lists of ukrainian "must reads". He is an author of the first ever ukrainian adventure novel Tiger Trappers/The Hunters and the Hunted, which is the book that is loved even by those who don't like ukrainian literature. However, I personally find his Garden of Gethsemane to be a much more important (but take care, it is much more depressing as well). This author is extremely important, but I struggle finding PDFs of his work - perhaps, you'd have to search the libraries or ukr diaspora publishers for paperbacks. I have also been unsuccessfully hunting for an english translation of Why I am not going back to the Soviet Union? pamphlet for years - and I know for sure it exists because the USA first lady at that time has read it and it influenced her opinion on the USSR - but I've had no luck so far.

Another very important author of the same time period is Mykola Khyvylovy. One of his plays has actually been recently put to stage in English (shamefully, I haven't watched it yet, but I can vouch for the text it was based on - it's brutal).

I can't speak about ukrainian literature without mentioning crimean tatars, and although their works are much, much less known (in Ukraine as well, unfortunately), please do not overlook it. It is a gorgeous culture, and reading it, I grew to love and value Crimea so much even without ever visiting it. There are some english translations avaliable, including those of Noman Çelebicihan - an extermely important figure in Crimean Tatar history, the founder of the unfortunately short-lived Crimean Democratic Republic, the author of their national anthem, and overall very influential revolutionary.

Now let's jump to the popular modern authors. Many don't have english translation, but the problem is much less prominent in comparison to the ukrainian classics. With these authors, you shouldn't have trouble with finding paperbacks. Among the most influential authors I can recommend Serhiy Zhadan (Timothy Snyder has once said that he expects Zhadan to receive a Nobel Prize in literature and I agree), Oksana Zabuzhko (she either aught to release soon or has already released an english-exclusive book about the russian-ukrainian war), Yuri Izdryk (extremely modern and unconventional, but he's a good represention of the current state of art), Yuriy Andrukhovych (love his mastery of language, hate his characters). These authors are more light-hearted, but a grim necessity for today is Stanislav Aseyev's The Torture Camp on Paradise Street. It is a autobilgraphical book describing his experience being imprisoned by russians between 2017 and 2019. Western journalism often describes the war crimes russians commit on our land, but just listing the number of people lost doesn't show the face of the russian horror. Read this book to understand why we were screaming about the russian threat before the full-scale invasion, and why every time we regain the territory we brace with terror of what we'll discover there - because everywhere russian army goes, they build hunderds of such Isolyatsya camps that the book describes.

Also check out Serhiy Zhadan's band!

[ohmaerieme]

THINKING ABOUT LOUALPH SO MUCH IM GONNA KILL AND DESTROY. loualph hcs long-ish post because otherwise ill start beating up my laptop I NEED EVERYONE TO STOP MISCHARACTERIZING THEM RIGHT NOWWWWW YOU DONT NEED TO DO THAT TO SHIP THEM!!! ok im normal.

louie and alph are both ace, neither has actually come out to the other they dont even talk about it they just dont think abt that side of relationships or have any desire to it at all. like they just forget it exists do u get me

like many(?) loualph shippers i also believe they became friends and then grew feelings because alph pulled all nighters to work on the ship/take notes etc. and louie was the only other person awake to talk to.

^^ alph talks about his family and how he got into engineering etc and louie just kind of listens. he chimes in with a word or two now and then when something catches him. and alph is always surprised by it too he pauses for a second to look at him like 😯 and then continues talking

louie talks about his family too. kind of. more like vague comments or admitting he misses his nana .AND HE TALKS ABT COOKING TOO!! and his cooking show dream!! he doesnt ramble like alph does, mainly just speaks in a sentence or two every hour or so

louies feelings go from 'man this guys kinda annoying -> well its nice to have company i guess. i have nothing else to do -> i dont want to leave him alone ever'

alphs feelings go from 'this guys really strange but its some kind of company at least -> hes a really good listener wow. yknow what hes kinda interesting too -> hes kinda like my opposite and i cannot ever imagine not talking to him again'

alph tried making a love poem once and louie was just confused reading it HIS ASS DID NOT UNDERSTAND. alph was so embarrassed he never ever tried again. louie still thinks about it wondering wtf it was supposed to be about he does NOT understand poetry at all

louie gets overstimulated by touch easy and alph gets very flustered by any romantic gesture. together they make the ultimate autism 'our love language is quality time' couple.

louie also actually has gift giving as a love language too. hes kinda bummed when he learns koppaites can only eat fruit but he tries very hard to make fancy fruit plates for alph when they havent had time to talk in a while

unrelated to loualph but very important. he can in fact escape the restraints but he likes the tight pressure from them (sensory seeking mf)

that is all DO YOU UNDERSTAND. MY VISION

[pomp-quio]

tagged by @cattus-catos 💛 who has excellent opinions and always accurate takes (especially about Crassus) -

last book i read: Dragonfly by Frederic S Durbin. I try to intersperse my mostly classics and french revolution reading with my second great love, fantasy books. Dragonfly is a cute little creepy standalone novel that I read when I was a teenager and ended up reading again recently.

book i recommend: Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. I have no explanation exactly for why but this is hands-down my favourite book. So it goes.

book i couldn't put down: Babel by R F Kuang. I was a bit concerned because I generally don't enjoy the plots of BookTok books, BUT the subtitle (The Necessity of Violence) intrigued me. And let me tell you I was blown away by this book. It was a bit clunky at times but I loved every second and coming from a country that is still recovering from its colonial past, with our own national language that is considered uneducated, crass, and rough, it just hit very hard.

book i've read twice: I'm a chronic book repeater because my brain is swiss cheese, but the one book I regularly re-read for fun (and sadness) is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. It's such a good book, actually I'm probably due for a re-read again! Also Watership Down by Richard Adams, I love that book so much ✨prince with a thousand enemies✨. And of course I have read the Odyssey several times!

a book on my tbr: my current TBR list stands at over 300 books (my Goodreads is Pompey Watching if you're interested). I think the next book I pick up will be The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk.

a book i've put down: Decolonising the Maltese Mind by Charles Xuereb. Not because it's bad but because I get so pissed off at the British every few paragraphs that I genuinely just need to take a mental break.

a book on my wishlist: oh dear there are so many. I desperately want the clothbound versions of the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Aeneid, Paradise Lost, and Inferno. I also REALLY want a physical copy of Sextus Pompeius by Anton Powell and Kathryn Welch, but its so expensive.

a favourite book from childhood: The Edge Chronicles The Edge Chronicles The Edge Chronicles I will never be okay about them, the plot, the arcs, the art, the characters!!!

a book you would give to a friend: Feral by George Monbiot. I am first and foremost an environmental/animal girlie and while I have some criticisms about this book, it genuinely argues for a lot of what I believe in when speaking about wildlife rehabilitation.

a book of poetry/lyrics you own: I sadly own very few poetry books! I do have a copy of Wilfred Owen's war poetry which makes me far too emotional for my own good.

a non-fiction book you own: so many! I have a lot of animal behaviour books, wild fauna books, french revolution books, and ancient Rome books. I guess one of my favourites would be Choosing Terror by Marisa Linton.

currently reading: House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewaki, Lucan's Pharsalia (Susan Braund trans), yay Pharsaliabookclub, and Xuan s posts made me start the Epic of Gilgamesh but I'm only at the introduction so far!

planning on reading next: I never quite know what I'm going to read next but it will probably The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk. I also want to get started on the Thebaid, but I fear reading it at the same time as Pharsalia will do some irreparable damage to my brain!

I'm tagging @kushielsmercy (Shiel this is my Rome sideblog hello and welcome sorry you had to find out like this) and @burritofriedrich ❤️❤️❤️

[devinescribe]

Couple Tropes That Describe You

Chishiya

Black cat BF × Doberman GF

Hates everyone × also hates everyone, but knows how to hide it

Easily attached due to parental issues × Mommy issues, so I'm willing to let you get attached because no one has ever felt love like that for me

Smart and is a bitch × Smart and lords it over people

Top of the class × Top of the class

"Yo, your parents give you irreversible trauma too?" × "Hell yeah!"

Niragi

Doberman BF × Doberman GF

Gamer boy × Goth GF

I hate everyone except for you × me too

Listens to The Wrecks × Listens to Melanie Martinez

Childhood trauma that fucked them up × childhood trauma that made them realize they need to be a better person to everyone, so they care for everyone

Only wears silver jewelry  × Only wears gold jewelry.

Banda

Unhinged BF × Very pleasant GF

"I'd kill anyone you'd ask me to, say the word and their heart will stop beating this second." × "Aww, that's so sweet~!"

Gomez × Morticia

Fuck you're so hot when you threaten people × And you're hot when your mouth is shut and on mine

Reads Edgar Allen Poe × Reads Emily Dickenson

For my ethnic girls specifically:

Ethnic GF who minds her own damn buisness × BF who will kill anyone who looks at her the wrong way let alone make a racist/discriminatory remark.

Matsushita

Listens to Ethan Bortnick × listens to Melanie Martinez

Reads poetry to you × writes their own poetry

Introvert × Introvert

Has a record player × makes him dance with them to the songs he plays

Takes 20 minutes to get ready × has to start getting ready 3 hours before they have to leave

Rainy days are the best × I agree.

Likes horror movies for the cheap thrill × likes horror movies to laugh at how dumb they are

Chota

Religious trauma and mommy issues × religous trauma and daddy issues

Likes reading fantasy books × likes reading poetry

Life is fine, just a bit hard somedays × Lets run away and live in a little cottage in the forest

Rabbit BF × Golden Retriever GF

Hates social situations unless it is with people he knows × Social butterfly, hey imma go talk to this random ass stranger

"Hey that's dangerous!" × "I am God, nothing could hurt me!"

Always prepared for every situation × never prepared, lives in the moment

Tatta

*talking about cars* × I haven't the slightest clue what's going on here, but I'll act like I do!

Everything gets blamed on him × "If you talk shit about my man one more time I will shove a knife so far down your throat-"

Passive BF × Protective GF

"I'm pretty sure he loves that car more than me." × "I would commit a murder for that women she is the love of my life, nothing means more to me than her I would give my life for her-"

Early bird × night owl

LITERALLY has everything you could ever need in his car × Passenger Princess

Kyuma

Musician who writes and sings love songs for you × Musician who can play an instrument and helps

Sleeps in nothing × Sleeps in a onesie

Super humble, even though they are really amazing × Raises their ego

Needs to give compliments every second of the day × Words of affirmation is their love language

[omgkalyppso]

things I would like to know about fellow writers

I was tagged by @dustdeepsea, thank you!! (:

Putting a cut in this because I'm very specific in some sexual language (not about my sexual history).

For this reason I'm too shy to tag anyone else, but if you see this and want to answer the questions, please consider yourself tagged by me.

Last book I read: The last book I finished must've been American Gods.

Greatest literary inspiration: I don't know. I like reading for reading and for learning, but no one that I really want to write like, and I feel bad for naming big names, still. JRR Tolkien, Douglas Adams, Diane Duane, Isaac Asimov (the short story Liar! has really stuck with me). And even then, that might influence how I used to write original fiction, but not at all how I write fanfiction, which I do almost exclusively now. I write far more original poetry than original fiction, and then ... I'm inspired by my mother, people in my community, all the music I listen to.

My fanfiction is a little inspired by my friends. I was going to link their a/o3 accounts but realized they may not want that. fghdfghdfg

Things in my current fandom I want to read but I don't want to write: Let's think of 3 for bg3 and 3 for fire emblem.

Vlaakith's defeat. - Idk enough about githyanki politics / how many "elite" forces (if any) are at her disposal.

Minsc's homecoming. - I feel like I'd have to play the first two games to be up to this.

He Who Was in control of his faculties but subbing very sweetly for Tav/Durge of any gender with bondage, hair pulling, overstimulation, spanking and the presence of a knife (I'd say knifeplay, but I don't mean bloodplay / cutting for him). - Reminder that this isn't a w/endy's, it's my blog.

Slowburn, longfic of Marianne moving to Faerghus with her eventual marriage to Dimitri. - Time.

Shura holding Kana for the first time. - I could write this. I won't.

Kink scene, free-use Hilda where her inner monologue is as complex as she is while still being wildly indulgent. - I started this wip; Hubert was also up for grabs in it. But it isn't happening.

Wait, also, Sylvain x Mercedes x Dedue starting a relationship with miscommunication and pining. - Planning this feels hard. fghdfg

Things in my current fandoms I want to write but I think nobody would be interested in them but me: 

With the note that I know I have at least 5 enablers who will (probably?? fdghfgdhfdg) always express interest in my completion of a project even if the won't read it, and so "nobody" being interested applies to strangers:

Komira and Locke, either domesticity or sexual intimacy.

A fic where Wyll and Ulder talk and it results in reconciliation, and then a bigger rift, and then understanding (people really don't like Ulder).

My Blaiddyd Bastard oc Almanzor learning to let go of the hang-ups on sex his parents gave him and fucking my oc Peregrine.

My oc Fae as a Student AU longfic.

You can recognise my writing by: The temptation to insult my own writing is so, so strong, but I don't mean to insult anyone who reads my stuff and enjoys it so I have to be nice. Hm. I don't know. "The way I write dialogue / inner reflection" is vague, but it's all I've got.

My most controversial take (current fandom): You guys (gender neutral and vague) can't call that shit self-insert if it's a non-human Tav (or Durge). It's first or second person writing (often, and not even always lately???), and x Reader fic, but self-insert To Me means that either any reader or at least the author has to be able to picture themself Being Inserted into the story. I haven't seen 1 isekai situation using this tag, which isn't a requirement, but you're giving the self-insert tiefling-tails and backstories, which is fun, but that's not a self-insert to me.

Top three favourite tropes: Slowburn (or emotional slowburn, sexually complicated), Hurt/Comfort (emotional or physical, whatever), Battle Relationship.

What’s your current writing mood (10 – super motivated and churning out words like crazy, 0 – in a complete rut): How current is current? Because potentially 0/10. I'll say 4/10 though.

Share a random frustration: I hate psyching myself out of a project because I worry something won't make sense (and I should post it anyway) or that it won't be up to my personal standards for myself.

[this-acuteneurosis]

Random. But do you have any star wars fic recs ? Fics recs of any kind are welcome actually ^_^

Oh, uh, sure.

Let's see, I've mentioned @chancecraz a bunch of times, I love all their stuff, if I had to pick a favorite I'd say Of Queens, Knights, and Pawns but how does one really choose?

I've also mentioned @fialleril and Double Agent Vader, which really got me into the SWs fandom in the first place. I love everything I have ever learned, it hits me so hard in the feels each time. (I also really loved Sigyn's Saga if we're also talking not-SW stuff.)

I enjoyed The Desert Sun series by @blue-sunshine-mauve-morning. (I will be honest, I have only read the first series I have not started Rise and Fall.) It's engaging and fun and thoughtful.

doing it by my lonesome and staring down the barrel of the hot sun by magneticwave are two fun Luke/Din stories featuring appropriately cute Grogu. I also liked pages filled with scribbled ink, which is an epistolary Padmé/Obi-Wan fic that had me cackling. (their non-SW stuff is good too, I especially enjoyed just me against the sky)

Other...serious(?) recs include: The Wingless Dragon by husborth if you like being sad and horrified about Vader's bad choices. Food Scandal by Malicean for some situational hilarity and for lots of OC perspective on Imperial bureaucracy (my other weakness aside from politics). PRojects IN Controlled Environments by Beth Winters for Imperial R&D bureaucracy, more situational hilarity, and very relatable coworker nonsense.

More silly/fun premises include: Compromising by samvelg, which inspired me to write a (very different) Piett POV of Luke and Vader nonsense. Memo: Jedi Maintenance (The Care and Feeding of Your Jetii) by RainofLittleFishes is exactly what it says and what you would hope for from such a title. Luke Skywalker is Altogether Too Likeable by Mokulule is another Piett POV of Skywalker nonsense.

As far as Non-Star Wars recs

It would be a crime and sin if I didn't mention Embers by Vathara , an Avatar the Last Airbender fic which honestly changed my life and how my brain was shaped.

World Ain't Ready by @idiopathicsmile is a Les Mis fic I've gone back to a few times. The dialogue is just really good. I spend a lot of the fic laughing, and also screaming at the characters.

I fell absurdly in love with Second person familiar, I think because it tickles some part of me that just dies over linguistics, and I'm a fan of pretty much everything @jackironsides has done for The Witcher.

Salvage by @muffinlance is a very fun Avatar the Last Airbender fic about Zuko getting reluctantly adopted by Hakoda (it's so good).

Finding the Line by Miss_Lazy_Tuesday is a Batfam fic that sort of ruined me at one point, it's fine. (I enjoy their other stuff too.)

The Angel of Hell's Kitchen by MarbleGlove is a Daredevil fic. I don't really go here, but this was about social structures, bureaucracy, and doing the work, and we all know I can't help myself.

Reconstruction by rageprufrock is the story of Stephanie Rogers, but like, it's Pru writing it. So. Characters are great. World building is great. Tension and longing and grief are great. I cannot stress enough how good the academic and news article asides are. Like, it's good. Incomplete, but so good.

Ordinary Numbers by BootsnBlossoms and Kryptaria, a James Bond fic that I keep coming back to because I too would be a sucker for someone who sent me needlessly expensive gifts.

And This, Your Living Kiss by opal_bullets is a Supernatural fic about poetry. I am not in this fandom, but again, my weakness for language gets me every time.

ever fallen in love (on national TV)? by ganymede_elegy is a GoT Jonsa modern Bachelor AU and...guys I cannot express how much I Do Not Go here, and how much I still recommend this fic. Like, it's just...I don't know. It worked. In spite of me knowing nothing about GoT or The Bachelor. wtf

survival of the fittest by cywscross is a short Naruto fic about a very unpleasant adventure for Sakura and Shikarmaru that just...worked. As a story. Dunno, I just really like it.

I could be wrong, I could be ready by harryromper is a Harry/Draco fic where they are disasters and traumatized, and it is about healing and building houses as a metaphor for overcoming trauma, and it's fine, I'm fine.

eternity will be born from hope by theseviolentdelights99 is a Yuri!!! on Ice fic that is about a time traveling Yuuri who (you'll never guess) goes back in time and does bureaucracy in his hometown and his sport to help the people that he loves. The unreliable narrator is excellent, the social media asides are wonderful, and it's not complete but it is exactly my poison.

(Wow, this is so long and all over the place...)