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folkloreguk · 3 years

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Shower Thoughts

A/N: I like writing about personal emotions a lot…this feels a little like writing a diary but also like self-therapy and it really helps me. I hope anyone who also feels this way knows that they’re not alone with those feelings. Also happy birthday to the sweetest @sunghoonied!! I wrote this thinking of you and I hope you have the best day ♡ PS. I didn't proofread this so if you find errors kindly lmk please! x

genre: optional bias (male), meant to comfort you, angst, fluff, talk of loneliness / anxiety but with a good ending!

words: ~ 2.5 k

taglist: @lovely-ateez, @mochi-ficz, @soundsofminho, @runaway-fics

People said that walking was supposed to clear your mind. But then why was it, that you had gotten so lost in your worst thoughts out there? The time spent in fresh air was meant to let your mind wander to calm places and smiling at strangers should have made you feel less lonely. But with every step you took and with every passing face your body felt heavier. Not only did you carry your figure, but the crushing burden that had been nagging at you for weeks.

Watching others stroll around the streets seemed so easy. And perhaps it should have been easy, after all. It made you wonder, maybe you were the only one whose mind was constantly covered in dark rain clouds. Maybe everyone had their place in the world, and they knew just where and with whom they belonged. Surely, they didn’t overthink every conversation they had with a random stranger. Did their brain also function merely on autopilot in public, while the back of your mind was chaos of doubt and fear? Was there anybody else who spent day to day worrying about never finding someone who could deal with the burden of you and your issues? How was somebody else going to love you if you were this sad?

Those people that care about you are the ones you should be honest with, after all. There was no brushing off the How Are You question with a quick “I’m fine”. How could someone deal with the real answer you would give? You didn’t want to pull anybody down with you when you were hurting. So then again, maybe it was for the better your apartment was always empty when you came home. With no one to ask you about your feelings, you couldn’t cause anyone else agony and worry. Your own pain was enough – one person was enough to deal with it.

You shoved your shoes in the corner next to your door. If it wasn’t for your mental state, you would’ve guessed your jacket was a hundred kilos heavy. But even after you had peeled it off, nothing changed. You dragged your body to the bathroom.

You’d be so proud if only you could go one day without crying. And you had almost made it, had it not been for the godforsaken shower water. There was something about seeing the droplets on your skin and on the tiles that caused your tears to come out freely. The noise of the shower made you feel shut off from the rest of the world. Now it was just you and your salty ocean tears. The tears united with the shower water. It was hard to tell which drops on your cheek had originated in your swollen eyes and which had fallen from the shower head. This way, it seemed almost as if there was an invisible force that was wiping over your face, trying to appease your sobs.

But there was nobody. And that was why you only cried harder. If only you had listened to your own words when you tried to cheer yourself up. Then maybe you would feel better when you wrapped your arms around your own body. You were desperate. The notion that someone could hold you like this, one day, should have gifted you at least some form of hope. But no, you knew it wouldn’t happen any time soon. Not with this mindset and your sadness.

You hiccupped helplessly. This was all so tiring. Before you knew it, you sat down on the shower floor under the hot stream. At least there was no one waiting to get into the shower after you. So you wouldn’t have to feel guilty about blocking the bathroom and wasting all the hot water. For a few minutes you remained on the floor, drowning out your cries under the splashing sound. You felt the impulse to scream. Look, I’m here! I’m a person with interests and passions and emotions! Doesn’t anybody see me? I’m sick of only existing! Won’t somebody teach me how to live?

But at most, that would cause you a noise complaint. If only you weren’t so terrible at talking to people. Maybe you could make a friend someday – when your anxiety got better. Like in a trance, you finally switched off the water and grabbed your towel. You were so utterly lost in your thoughts, that everything went by as if you were only watching from the sidelines. You got out of the shower, dried off, put on some body lotion – an attempt at self-care – and got dressed in the most comfortable, baggy clothes you owned.

What on earth would you do tonight? There really were only so many ways you could have fun (or rather distract yourself from feeling down) when you were all by yourself and everything reminded you of how lonely you were. The option of just going to sleep slipped past you. But you weren’t tired enough. You knew you’d lie awake for hours, left alone with your thoughts. And crying yourself to sleep was the last thing you wanted right now.

So you opted for the most mainstream idea: Netflix. You plopped down on the sofa, a steaming hot cup of tea on the small table in front of you. Now you only had one thing left to do. You needed to choose some stupid show and let the problems of tv characters invade your brain and pray they would shove out your own issues. You weren’t even hungry. Although there was a part of you that wished it could have eaten your weight in chocolate, but you knew that had little to do with hunger.

Just as you reached for the remote control, the sound of your doorbell made you jump. I’ll just let it be. They’ll think I’m not home and leave. Those thoughts came right away. It made you curse yourself. You had just cried over feeling alone, but now you’re shutting out some random neighbor who probably just needs some tiny favor from you. Way to go. So, more to prove a point to yourself than to be friendly, you stepped to your door and opened it.

“Hi.” It was your neighbor. Your handsome, kind neighbor, who you always met at the local grocery store. You were so mentally exhausted you didn’t even feel self-conscious about looking the way you did. Although you hoped your eyes had recovered from the redness, at least a little. “Hi,” you greeted him back.

“Look, I really don’t want to be intrusive. And if you want me to leave, I will,” he said. He fumbled with his hands, as if he was nervous about his words. “But I kind of heard you…cry…in the shower. And I know you live alone, and I figured if you’re crying you probably don’t have any company. I guess I just wanted to check whether you’re okay. Do you have someone to talk to?”

With every word your heart only sped up. You felt like a trapped rabbit in a corner and the meaning of his message only sunk in slowly. Yes, of course. I’ll call my friend and talk to them,you wanted to say. But that would have been a massive lie. And you just couldn’t lie to him. Not when he stood there, in his fuzzy sweater and fresh-out-the-shower damp hair, with eyes so worried and attentive. You weren’t sure if it was from how touched you were by his concern for you, or if it was your sadness catching up to you again. Before you could swallow your tears, your eyes filled to the brim and your vision turned blurry.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you said, not sure what for. Hurriedly, you used your sweater paw to wipe your leaking eyes. You didn’t want him to feel bad for you, but now you had achieved just that and more. Your embarrassment set in and you finally came out with the truth. “I don’t have anyone to talk to.”

“No need to be sorry. It’s alright. We all have those days, don’t we? I just want you to know that you’re not alone. And I have nothing to do…so if you need someone to talk to, or even just to keep you company…I can stay with you for a bit…or you can come over to mine. I just don’t want you to feel alone. But if you would prefer to be by yourself, that’s okay. People deal with things differently.”

You were so baffled that your ability to speak completely fell through. The idea of someone, an almost-stranger, going so out of their way to make sure you were okay blew you away. He knew nothing about you. But here he was, taking a chance on you, nonetheless. Only then you realized you probably looked like a fool, staring at him but failing to answer. Quickly, you prompted yourself to open your mouth to speak, but he beat you to it.

“What were you doing just now?” he asked. “Any plans for the evening?”

“I was going to watch a movie, I guess,” you said. “And I think some company would be very nice.”

He smiled at you like was your childhood best friend and you had just reconnected after years of being apart. That’s why it felt the more natural to let him enter your apartment. You got into small talk about what it was like living in the building and how his apartment had a mirrored structure to yours. The simplest conversation took your mind off your sorrow right away. You felt like thanking him would be a little dramatic after he had barely settled on your sofa, so you kept it to yourself. Either way, the small smile on your face felt like warm, soothing sunlight on your skin after eight consecutive days of rain.

“Do you want to talk about anything?” he asked. You thought for a moment.

“No, I think I’d rather just distract myself,” you said. Even though you were grateful for having him here, you feared if you spilled your guts to him you would only scare him away.

“Alright,” he said without judgement. “What film were you planning on watching?”

And so you started your movie. There was a respectful distance between you on the sofa. But his simple presence next to you was more than you could have asked for tonight. He was like a heater, providing safety and comfort in the coldest winter. Hearing someone else chuckle at the jokes in the movie along with you was magnificent. His laughter sounded like a rainbow. It seeped into your body and your soul straightened up and bloomed like a parched flower being watered after all this loneliness.

But even under all the light, your problems were still here, waiting to nag at you. You knew they would consume you when he returned to his own apartment later. They would laugh at you for trying to socialize but staying closed off as always. Just because someone saw you didn’t mean they understood you and who you are. And how was one supposed to make human connections if they treated their thoughts like strictly confidential information in front of everybody? No, you had to tell him.Impulsively, you pressed the stop-button on the remote. He shot you a questioning gaze.

“I- I think maybe I do want to talk about something,” you confessed.

“You can tell me anything. I promise it’ll be safe with me. Let out whatever bothers you,” he said. His lovely, warm eyes were inviting like a haven for you. So you just started to talk. All your frustrations and reasons for anxiety were exiting your lips, floating all around you in the room. Airing out your weary brain finally, after holding everything in for weeks, was uncaging and nothing had felt this good in so long. Although your sadness wasn’t something that could be fixed by doing a task, the more thoughts and worries you explained to him, the easier it became. It wasn’t long before you felt your tears well up once more.

“It’s okay,” he said with his hand on your shoulder. This time, you didn’t try so hard to blink them away. Where there were emotions, there were tears, and he was right. It was fine to let them out. Through sniffles you finished telling him your issues.

“Is this okay?” he asked, gently putting his arm around your shoulder to hold your shaking figure. You hummed and nodded in agreement. His warmth was like a blanket to shelter you from the anxiety, if even just for a short while.

“I don’t expect you to know a solution,” you said. “I need to wait for it to get better. It’ll get better, eventually.”

“You’re right. It will all resolve,” he said. “I’m sorry things are so difficult. But you’re not alone, okay?”

You nodded again.

“Time will heal, I promise,” he said. “And until then, you have to hold on and keep going. The world’s a little cruel sometimes, when it shuts out the ones who struggle and don’t do as well as others. But you’re as much of a part of it as any other human on the street. And you’re just as important as them. You weren’t born to be successful or to achieve things. You’re here to live and be happy. So promise me to take care of yourself, and be gentle to yourself. Because you’re the only person that will be with yourself every second until the end. Please don’t be hard on yourself and have patience for good things to come around. And if it all feels like it’s too much for you, don’t feel guilty about reaching out for help. You can always ring my doorbell if you need something.”

“Thank you so much,” you cried. Your cheek rested on his shoulder and you sat in silence for a while. It was unbelievable which wonders such a small conversation between two people could do. Your heart felt lighter and the thoughts were no longer racing through your head. Peace was settling in, and you welcomed it more than ever.

“Now that I’ve told you about me, what kind of person are you?” you asked through tears. He chuckled a little. All you knew until now was that he had a heart of gold. Which, to be fair, meant your impression of him was off to a pretty good start already. Your thoughts were cautious as you wondered…Maybe he could be my friend.

You abandoned the movie. Instead, you spent all evening chatting about whatever came to your mind. You discussed childhood dreams, favorite dishes, your best playlists down to the cutes dog breeds you had ever seen. It felt great, getting to know somebody. And your suspicions came true. His big heart wasn’t the only thing admirable about him. He was funny and knew just what to say when you felt awkward or shy. When you slipped into bed that night, you did so with a smile on your face. You had always told yourself that you weren’t alone. But sometimes, the most optimistic person needed a small reminder coming from somebody else. Here was yours.

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jennibeultimate · 3 years

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Personal recap Worlds 2021 - Ladies SP

Yes I am back with personal recaps 😁 and as in personal it's totally my opinion and you can agree or not. Tell me what you think if you want.

First I needed to calm down because this was a nerve wrecking ladies short program and I thought I wouldn't care that much for the scoring (knowing it would be sh*t anyway) but yes I was mad. But I think I am calm enough now to put normal sentences out.

Rika Kihira was robbed. Period.

Her mysterious "q" calls were just bullsh*t and watching the replay multiple times I would say ok for the 3T being a bit short on rotation but the 3A I just don't see it. (and German ESP commentators had the same opinion) The program is fire 🔥 🔥 🔥 Rika performed so well. And this deserved just sooooo much better. Sorry bby that you don't get the benefits like some others. ❤️

Anna is my lovely fairy. ❤️❤️❤️ I do like her skating a lot. Her jumps not that much, but I can live with that (I am not a technical nerd). Her musicality is otherwordly. I don't see her being that much better than Rika though. Didn't see such a clean and secure combination from her in ages. She really is mentally very strong. In practice she was in tears a lot, in competition you could see no insecurity.

I am happy for Liza! Her story is really impressive. She is not a skater I root for because I like her skating so much, but because I think her fighting spirit and her guts are amazing and big role model for other skaters in Russia and in general struggling with puberty. You can make it again after 6 years, you have to fight. The 3A was one of the best for her. Her jumps are superb and I am glad that she at least did get a higher TES than Anna, but her PCS are really questionable. But well looking at Sasha's PCS, Liza's doesn't seem so astronomical anymore. Still ridiculous...but at least Liza was flawless. I am not a fan of her new program, I liked "Spartacus" better but it seem to serve her well. So.

Kaori my love 😍 The layout just didn't play out well for her. The combo being shaky costed dearly. But also the 3Lz edge call dropped her score badly. I don't actually have a problem with her score, but just looking that she is the only skater in the Top 10 field to receive a real edge call, while Bradie and Anna get away without any "edge" problem is just unfair. If you score favorably than do the same with everyone. Kaori's speed is unparalleled. Her program grew so much during the season, a very difficult program to make it work but I like it. Anyway Kaori was good and chances for the podium are super slim anyway.

Sasha Trusova - her trainings looked super secure (5 quad clean free) but when it counts she hardly delivers. 34 PCS were super generous for her program. Compare that to Kaori and Karen and so many others and it's just undeserved. 12th place hurts though. I predicted her to not be Top 3 after the SP but 12th place was hardly in my guessing. If she can skate a somewhat clean free skate, she still has a little chance on winning. That would ofc depend on other skaters and favorable PCS but it's not impossible. I hope she can leave the competition with a good feeling. 12th place is not what she is capable of.

Yelim Kim - what an excellent combination. 👌She had plenty of time at landings. The program is a bit bland and risk free. The dress game is A+++! ❤️ I have a soft spot for Yelim since juniors, the fairytale like appearance and movement makes her a sentimental favorite of mine. I was gladly surprised by her score. One of the only scores I could agree on.

Karen Chen - Karen skated beautifully. I am not super flashed by her program but I am happy she delivered so well. And superb 3Lo! 👌 I think if Rika received a "q" on her combo Karen should have gotten the same, but she is American so nope...

Bradie Tennell - anyone knowing my recaps, knows I am hardly a Bradie fan but her programs are interesting and I like this short a lot. But today she just didn't deliver. Her score should not have come this close to Kaori.

Haein Lee - same as for Rika. If a "q" is applied to Haein and Rika than why not Karen? Hello? Haein is really lovely to watch and musical. She has all the right abilities to place high in the future. Wonderful. 😍 I was a bit surprised to hear Helene Fischer's "Ave Maria" (Helene is on of the biggest stage names in Germany) There are so many Ave Maria's and they chose a German singer? 😂

Absolutely heartbroken for Satoko. 😭💔 Her program should receive the highest PCS but she didn't even get as much as Trusova. What a big joke that is. She is such a beautiful skater. What a beautiful dress too. Just nothing worked for her today. What a tragedy. 💔💔💔

The other heartbreak was Maé Méité. 💔💔💔What a sad story that is. Finally she was able to practice without pain and now probably achilles tendon. She could barely walk. I am so devastated for her. Wishing all the best to her. May she return soon.

Alexia Paganini was also really off. Sadly she didn't make the cut. 😢

Lastly I want to add a few pleasant surprises:

Loena Hendricks - Shame about the fall, but everything else was excellent. Glad she got a good scores. So glad she is back!

Josefin Taljegard - She is on 🔥. Surely her technical content isn't as good as that of other skaters but her emotional connection and performance to the music are extraordinary! ❤️ Watch Josefin, you won't regret it!

Madeline Schizas - pleasantly surprised by Madeline. Delivered greatly. I wish for her to maintain that 2nd spot.

Lindsay Van Zundert - Skating first you are usually out of the free skate, but she made the cut with a lovely "Allegria" performance. 😊

Good luck everyone for the free skate! May the judges get the memo that we want fair scoring!

Any complaints about judging I do are always against the judges not the skaters themselves. I hate how unevenly applied the rules are and that judges are playing favorites so hard it's apparent. It's so unfair. Be strict or lenient on every skater from 1st to last the same way. Scores are so whack they only make me mad.

This was a wall of text, sorry. 😅 If you see me not talking about COVID-19, it's not because I don't care but because that's not my main object here and I absolutely won't watch out for behavior that violates any rules. I think everyone is doing everything with the best intentions. I don't wish ill upon anyone. Covid plays a big part here as well, but I like to concentrate on the positive aspects of Worlds and the skating in general instead of being mad about things that are hardly in my power. I'd rather look at what I can do myself and how I can help my locals. I am also tired about my whole day normally being all about covid that I just don't have the energy to talk about it any further.

#figure skating #anna shcherbakova #rika kihira #kaori sakamoto #karen chen #Alexandra Trusova #satoko miyahara #Personal recap #stockholm 2021 #wall of text sorry

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trashmancer · 3 years

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Again, been reading a lot recently, and here's some recent reads and my thoughts. (All very spoiler-free)

Johannes Cabal: The Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard

I'd heard about this series for a while, but had always kept putting off reading it, and finally I was in the mood for some comedic (yet dark) shenanigans--and a villain protagonist as charming as Johannes Cabal really hit me just right. I really enjoyed the first of this series and the introduction to this 1920's-ish universe similar-yet-different to our own that Howard's created. His writing is crisp and clever--and Johannes is a villain protagonist worth cheering for. He's duplicitous, arrogant, and cold, yet sharp-witted and competent enough to be engaging, and even though he's amoral (driven predominately with an "ends do justify the means" mentality) there are glimmers of a conscious buried in there.

The basic gist of the first book is that Johannes Cabal is a necromancer dead-set (ba-dum-sh) on thwarting the biggest plague affecting mankind: Death. As such, he's willing to go to extreme lengths to hone and perfect his necromantic abilities. In the pursuit of this knowledge, Cabal sold his soul to Satan, but he comes to realize he actually needs his soul for his necromancy to work more properly (apparently without a soul it gets very unpredictable). In order to win his soul back, he strikes a wager with Satan: he will accumulate 100 souls for Satan in return for his own. Satan, ever the fair player (not), gifts Cabal with an infernal carnival to help Cabal reach his goal within the year. Shenanigans ensue.

While I read some books in-between this one and the next in the series, I'll write about the other here--

Johannes Cabal: The Detective by Jonathan L. Howard

So clearly I enjoyed the first installment enough to keep going, and I am glad, because I enjoyed the second one even more than the first. It feels like Howard got more comfortable with the characters and world than before, and in this one he expands his universe with some made-up countries that are similar-to-yet-different than countries on our Earth. In this one, Cabal does less fantastic tricks, as he dons the role of investigator (there's been a murder--on an airship!), but the plot was very fun. I will say this is one of the first books in a long while to genuinely make my world-weary ass laugh out loud in public. Howard truly does know how to turn a phrase and comes off with some great witticisms.

Guns of the Dawn by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Tchaikovsky has been on my radar for a while because I have had Children of Time on my reading list for what feels like an age (and I still haven't gotten around to reading it, but I will soon). To prime myself, I looked up other works by Tchaikovsky. This was around the time I was look for good "stand-alone" Adult Fantasy novels as well, so the two linked up and I had this on my TBR for a while and got around to finally cracking it open.

I really loved this book. If I could describe it in any way, it would be sort of like Pride & Prejudice if Elizabeth Bennet got drafted into a war. Seriously. That's how it reads--and Tchaikovsky made the allusions to Austen's work very clear. The setting is very English-inspired, and the time period mimics Napoleonic times. Definitely the first "Flintlock Fantasy" I've had the pleasure of reading.

The themes of the book are about the caustic nature of nationalism, the blurring of truth during war, and what is true patriotism in the face of falsehood and horror. Definitely my kind of questions--and I love watching characters thrown into completely unfamiliar environments. A genteel woman (Emily Marshwic) being tossed headfirst into grisly, mosquito-infested swamps armed with a musket? It's a fascinating journey she undergoes.

Plus the novel featured a romantic subplot that hits my enemies-to-lovers buttons hard. (It's not at all like one of those tired YA enemies-to-lovers stories, but something more grown-up and messy, which I approve of, because I love drama.) But this is more of a personal note. It's definitely not going to be for everyone.

Retribution Falls (Tales of the Ketty Jay #1) by Chris Wooding

After Johannes Cabal, I got into the mood for some steampunk, and I hadn't actually read much in the way of steampunk, so I looked up some recs and the Tales of the Ketty Jay series seemed to appear on a lot of lists for this kinda thing. The basic gist of this one is... imagine steampunk Firefly. That kinda gives you the whole vibe and feel. It's about a crew of disparate and colorful characters all running from something who meet on the ship the Ketty Jay and have to learn to work together to survive.

Overall, it was a fast-paced read (I read this 400 page sucker in a single day--while doing other stuff) and Wooding knows how to write action and interesting character interactions. The world had some glimmers of brilliance (the wizard analogs in their world--daemonist--were the most intriguing part), but otherwise it was very typical steampunk. I had no real quibbles with any of that (aside from the fact some of it read as very cliche and Wooding's inspirations seemed a little obvious--Fullmetal Alchemist and Firefly being the two big ones that kept hammering me over the head), but my main complaint was with the writing and treatment of female characters. First, there is only one main female character in the Ketty Jay's crew--Jez. I had no real issues with Jez's character or writing (in fact she's refreshing in some ways), but she's completely isolated from any other female characters (and is also the only crew member who isn't really allowed to be a complete screw up--she's somewhat sanitized, which, I guess the heroic women characters aren't allowed to be fuck ups like the men?). Second, the other predominate female characters, of whom there are only three, are mute/dehumanized (Bess), characterized as stupid and unhinged (Amalicia), and have rape-as-a-backstory-written-TERRIBLY (Trinica). All that said, as much as it was cringe, this was written in 2009, and I am sure Wooding has had some growth as a writer since then.

I liked this one enough to decide to check out the next in the series (even knowing the writing for the female characters leaves much to be desired).

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

A Fantasy taking place in an Americas-inspired world? Absolutely refreshing (and more please). The main gist of this one is that a cult sets out to resurrect a dead god (seriously that's the main plot crux) while political machinations are going on in the central city of this country where the resurrection is going to take place. As the novel progresses, it's like a countdown clock to game time. There's four POV characters we follow: Xiala (a Teek sea captain who is kind of an outcast from her native people and has a love for beautiful people), Serapio (the man who has been groomed since birth to be the vessel for the resurrected god, part of this process has included blinding him), Naranpa (the Sun Priest of the capital city who is trying to garner back control the priesthood has lost), and Okoa (who really doesn't even appear until way later into the book; he's been separated from his family to train to be a warrior). For the most part, I was primarily engaged (re: 90% engaged) with Xiala and Serapio's story. They were the most interesting characters, and the journey of them on the sea trying to get to the city before the ceremony was exciting and emotional. The political dealings in Naranpa's segments kind of bogged down the action--and I didn't feel anything for that. Overall though, definitely a thrilling read with a beautifully constructed world. If I had one big criticism, it's that it ended incredibly abruptly without any resolution. I knew going in this was a part of a greater whole, but I still felt the ends could've been knotted a little tighter. I'm left dangling! But I'll be sure to pick up the next one (if anything just to find out what happens to Xiala and Serapio).

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

As an unapologetic villainfucker, I had to read this one, right? It's about not just one, but two villains! How could I lose? And they're in an intense rivalry? Revenge? Betrayal? Superpowers? Gah! Be still my heart!

I'll say I enjoyed this book (fun characters, solid writing), but I didn't love it as much as I thought I would (I wish I could love yooouuuu!). Definitely worth a recommendation to anyone who loves villains and fast-paced narratives, but... there were a few things that tarnished what could've been sparkling. The biggest for me was the jumping around in the first half. For a length of time, the novel leaps between three different points of time, sometimes 2-3 pages at a time, and it was jarring (not confusing, mind you, but it was a jolt each time). I get it was done to create an air of mystique and intrigue, but it felt like I was getting dragged around by the ear. Along with this, the plot just seemed... very convenient? As various moments kept happening, it all felt too tidy and paint-by-numbers. The characters were certainly messy and fun (and I love messy and fun), but the action itself seemed to glide on well-oiled rails with no hiccups. This did lead to the magnetic pacing of the book (which I also read in a day), but it didn't do the drama any favors. Never once did it feel like the characters were caught with their pants down--and I think that's part of the point, but it kind of dampened the tension.

I liked it enough I am definitely going to check out the sequel Vengeful though. If anything I am reading for Sydney, Mitch, and Victor. I gotta know what happens to them!

Right now I am reading some fluffy fluff to cleanse my palette because I've been reading so much moodiness. I'm mid-way through the light and breezy Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater (and it's super cute so far) and then I am finally going to crack open Andy Weir's The Martian (because I have put off reading it for far too long).

#recent reads #book review #just jotting my thoughts down somewhere #seriously though i am itching to read the next johannes cabal but i gotta pace myself #i don't want to burn through those like i did murderbot lol

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mikauzoran · 3 years

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Ladrien/Adrienette: Drunk Ladybug on My Balcony? Yeah. This is Fine.: Chapter Twelve

Read it on AO3: Drunk Ladybug on My Balcony? Yeah. This is Fine.: Chapter Twelve: The Realization

Adrien scooted away, back to a suitable distance on the picnic blanket. “Um…so…maybe we should talk about, like, normal things now?” he suggested, grabbing a petit four from the tiered tea tray.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Ladybug chuckled nervously, scratching at her cheek as she tried to take deep breaths to get her racing heart rate and flaming blush down. “What would you like to talk about?”

“You,” he replied immediately.

Her blush only worsened. “What about me?”

“Personal things…but not incredibly personal things,” he gave a temperate response, reaching but not pushing too hard. “You know. Things like your favourite book, favourite movie, favourite colour. What kind of music you listen to. Hobbies. Tell me about you.”

“Only if you tell me about you too,” she haggled.

He chuckled as his own cheeks started to heat up. “You haven’t had enough of getting to know the real Adrien Agreste yet? I would have thought I’d have scared you off a dozen times over by now.”

She shook her head and smiled shyly. “Definitely not. What you’ve told me has only made me more intrigued.”

He gave her an appraising once-over, debating before finally giving in. “All right. So long as you’re not sick of me yet.”

“Never,” she assured. “First question?”

“What colour are your bedroom walls painted?” he inquired.

She quirked an eyebrow at the unexpected question and took a minute before answering cautiously. “…Pink. Why?”

“What shade?” he pressed, wanting to be able to envisage it exactly.

“Light pink. Like cherry blossoms,” she granted, giving in to his curiosity. “Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering about the girl on the other side of the mask,” he confessed. “Sometimes I think about what she’s like, what kinds of activities she does in her free time, what kinds of things she surrounds herself with.”

She shrugged, shaking her head as she looked away. “I don’t know if I’m worth that much thought,” she chuckled self-deprecatingly. “I’m just a normal girl. Not that interesting.”

“You’re interesting to me,” he informed gently, a soft affection in his eyes that made her chest feel tight.

“Oh…. I…I’m glad,” she managed with a bashful smile, wishing she could get across what his words truly meant to her. “Well…in that case…what’s your next question?”

The rest of their rooftop picnic continued in that vein with Ladybug sharing that she was a huge fan of Jagged Stone but had developed a liking for the music XY was putting out since he cut ties with his father’s label and started collaborating with Luka Couffaine.

Adrien confessed that he didn’t do well with scary movies because they gave him nightmares and made him afraid to shower.

“What horror movie had anything to do with showers?” Ladybug replied quizzically. “You mean because of the shower scene in The Shining or Psycho?”

He shook his head. “I’ve never seen those movies, actually, and the trailer for The Shining freaked me out enough that I feel like I’ve experienced enough of it for one lifetime,” he chuckled, rubbing at the back of his neck. “It’s just…I feel so vulnerable in there. Naked. Alone. I feel like a sitting duck. Anything could come and get me while I was defenseless. I’m really easily startled after I see a horror movie, so I’m always anxious about showering for at least a week afterwards.”

Ladybug nodded, trying (and failing) not to picture Adrien in his shower complete with a stereotypically sexy backing track. It also took some effort not to volunteer to sit in his bathroom with him while he showered to protect him after he next watched a horror film.

She was very tempted to suggest watching a horror movie as part of their date so that she could make the offer.

Instead, she replied, “I can see why you would feel that way. I’m always jumpy after watching horror films too” like a normal, non-psychotic person.

They cleaned up their picnic and stowed the leftovers in the wicker basket, tucking it back into the seam between the roof and one of the small white domes topping the church for Ladybug to return for later.

She got out her yoyo and surreptitiously dropped them down into an alley a few streets over so that they could nonchalantly walk out and join the crowd of visitors enjoying the iconic sights and locals going about their daily lives.

“Um…I thought we could do some window shopping?” Ladybug tentatively suggested. “Walk around? People watch? Browse? It’s a nice day, so… I mean, I know it’s a little touristy, but—”

“—That sounds great,” he cut her off with a wide grin, slipping his hand into hers. “I actually haven’t seen much of Paris, despite growing up here,” he confessed sheepishly. “I’ve always been a little…um…”

He tried to think of a nice way to say, “held prisoner”.

“…sheltered, I guess, so I wouldn’t be opposed to playing tourist, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh. No. Sure!” she agreed, a little flustered by the proximity of his radiant smile in the narrow alley as well as the weight and warmth of his hand in hers. “I’m happy so long as you’re happy.”

“I’m happy just being with you,” he countered with a wink, not noticing how she turned into a puddle of goo in response.

He gave her hand a squeeze and turned to guide them out of the alley and onto the cobbled street where visitors from all over the globe were moving from one shop to the next.

They too began to browse, chuckling at the whacky souvenirs for sale in shop after shop: cheap plastic trinkets, shirts, hats, magnets, shot glasses, snow globes…

Adrien held up a Paris-themed oven mitt in black, white, pink, and grey. “This is actually kind of cute,” he chuckled, musing, “It reminds me of Marinette…. I wonder if she’d like it.”

“I think she’d like anything if it was from you,” Ladybug sighed, heart filling to the brim once more as his thoughts drifted to her civilian identity.

Why had she never seen how much he liked her, how much Marinette meant to Adrien? She’d been blinded by his not obviously reciprocating her romantic feelings, so she’d missed out on how much he truly cared for her.

“You think?” he hummed, pleased at her response. “Maybe, but it’s not really practical. I’m sure she has dozens of oven mitts already with her parents being bakers, but… Could you do me a favor?” He looked to her with earnest eyes that made her gulp.

She bit her tongue to hold back the automatic, “Anything for you” that wanted to come out. “Uh, yeah. Sure. What do you need?”

“Could you take a picture and send it to me so I can text it to Marinette later? I left my phone at home so that my family couldn’t track the GPS,” he informed sheepishly.

“Oh, yeah. Sure,” she readily agreed, taking a peek around to make sure that no one was watching before she flipped open her yoyo and snapped a quick picture, forwarding it to him.

“Thanks, Nelle,” he expressed warmly, as if she had fulfilled one of Princess Kaguya’s impossible quests.

“Sure thing.” She blushed as she boldly dared to join their hands once more, interlacing her fingers with his.

He smiled and gave her hand a squeeze.

She loved when he did that.

“They even have the stereotypical accordion music,” Adrien snickered in amusement as he tossed a hundred euro note into the performer’s case as they passed. “It’s just like in the movies.”

“You’ve never been up here to Montmartre before?” Ladybug tried not to laugh as the accordionist quickly snatched the bill and tucked it into his inner jacket pocket.

Adrien shook his head. “I mean, I’ve been for work, but I’ve never been able to just wander around like this. It’s so different, seeing it in a relaxed, natural atmosphere.”

Ladybug nodded, guiding him towards the Place du Tertre, a little cobbled square where artists had set up to sell their work. “Yeah, I’d imagine a photoshoot wouldn’t provide a very calm environment during which to sightsee.”

“Yeah, unfortunately not. It’s kind of…structured,” he sighed, getting distracted by a middle-aged artist setting out beautiful pastel watercolors of Notre Dame in different seasons at sunset as seen from the Left Bank.

“I wish I was artistic,” he hummed mournfully, moving along to peruse the other artists’ wares before he was tempted or coerced into buying something.

“You could be,” Ladybug encouraged, stepping in closer to avoid a collision with a young American woman who was also browsing.

He shook his head, laughing good-naturedly at himself. “I have, like, zero talent. I can’t even do stick-figures well.”

“You could if you practiced,” she insisted. “It’s true that some people are born with innate talent, but drawing and painting can be learned even if they don’t come naturally. Being artistic is a skill, and, with enough practice, you could learn to be artistic too.”

He hummed as he stopped to admire a medium-sized canvas where an autumn scene set in the Bois de Boulogne was taking form with scarlet, ochre, and tangerine leaves peppering the trees.

“I think ‘enough’ practice would take many years. Still, it couldn’t hurt to try,” he reasoned. “I’m definitely not going to magically gain the ability to produce anything close to that just by whining about how I wish I could do it.”

“You’re not whining,” she assured, inching in closer so that their shoulders brushed. She gave him a shy, heartening smile. “You’re just being honest about what you want for yourself, and it’s okay to do that. It’s not whining.”

She knew his father was often very critical and chastised Adrien whenever he seemed to slide even one toe over the arbitrary line Gabriel had mentally drawn for him. If possible, she wanted to help Adrien to see that it was okay to voice his desires and complaints from time to time without it being considered “whining”.

“Thanks,” he replied softly, the warm look in his eyes partially obscured behind his movie star sunglasses, but she was close enough to see it. “I really appreciate the encouragement. I don’t exactly get a lot of that.”

“Well, I’ll have to see about changing that,” she declared, giving his arm a squeeze.

He smiled affectionately, and they walked on around the square, continuing to browse the various artists’ renditions of many a famous Paris landmark.

“…You know,” he remarked thoughtfully. “My father actually does a fair amount of drawing for work. Maybe I could ask him to teach me.”

“That could be a good way to spend time together,” she agreed, nodding with a supportive smile.

Adrien cringed. “Except that my father isn’t the most patient man, so he’d probably get frustrated with my turtle’s pace progress and end up berating me instead of helping me get better. That’s kind of how our relationship works,” he admitted with a discouraged sigh.

Ladybug bit her lip, searching her mind for a way to build up his self-esteem and lighten the mood. “Well, Marinette isn’t the best artist around, but she does do some drawing as part of her own designing work, so, if you really want to learn, maybe she could get you started in the right direction.”

“That’s actually a really good idea,” Adrien chuckled, turning his head to look at her. “Marinette…”

His brain ran into a mental brick wall as it processed for the first time how close she was and how familiar she looked…and not only because of how long he had cumulatively spent over the years staring at her as Ladybug.

“…Marinette…” he whispered, a revelation shaking him to his very core.

Ladybug had known him and fallen in love with him as a civilian, yet she didn’t think he’d say yes if she asked him out as herself. Ladybug and Marinette had intended to ask him out to coffee at the same time. The way Marinette acted around Chat Noir… He’d always marveled at how sassy and fun she was with him when he was the masked superhero as opposed to how she could barely talk to Adrien for about a year after they’d first met. In those moments when it was just Marinette and Chat Noir hanging out and being goofballs, she had reminded him so much of his Lady.

Now that he was looking at Ladybug and saying, “Marinette”, it all seemed so obvious.

Ladybug tipped her head to the side, waiting for Adrien to continue. “‘Marinette’…what? Is something wrong, Adrien?”

“Nope. Everything’s wonderful, Nette—uh—Nelle. Sorry. Just…” He mentally scrambled to pull together his thoughts and snap back into the moment because she was not going to be happy when she found out her secret was blown, and he really just wanted this date to continue forever, so…

“Sorry.” He covered up his flurry of thoughts with a practiced smile. “Just got distracted thinking about how wonderful Marinette is.”

“O-Oh,” she coughed, a crimson blush swelling up in her cheeks as she bashfully looked away. “Yeah. That’s…Marinette is…good.”

It had to be her…didn’t it? He was almost ninety-nine percent positive. There had to be some way to explain away the times he’d thought he’d seen them together over the years. Both his Lady and his Princess were smart enough to orchestrate some kind of elaborate scheme to throw him off the scent.

“Marinette is amazing,” he stressed, trying to keep his cat-that-ate-the-canary grin under wraps. “She’s super talented and such a fantastic person. If anyone could teach me how to draw, it would be her.”

Ladybug’s blush deepened. “You should ask her, then.”

“I think I will,” Adrien chuckled. “…Do you happen to draw, Nelle?”

“Uh…a little,” she answered, slightly thrown off by the question and still unsettled by his effusive praise of her civilian self. “I mean, I’m not very good, but I enjoy sketching and doodling.”

“What do you draw?” he inquired as innocently as possible.

“Oh, this and that,” she hedged with a shrug.

“Do you ever draw clothing?” he pressed, throwing his scruples out the window along with his resolution not to try to figure out her identity.

“Uh…sometimes,” she admitted. “I mean, like I said, I’m not very good, but…I like designing clothes and accessories. It’s always fun, especially when I have someone in mind I’m designing for. It’s fun to see how I can make their personalities come out in whatever I’m making.”

“I bet you’re amazing at it,” he cooed reverently, remember all the things he’d seen Marinette make for him and their friends over the years. “Have you ever thought about pursuing fashion professionally? Is that something you’d be interested in?”

“Actually…” She bit her lip, wondering if she was giving a little too much away.

He smiled at her, hanging on her every word as if entranced.

“Yes,” she admitted. “I have given it some thought. I mean, somewhat. I don’t know that I’d make it in the big leagues like your father, but…maybe it would be nice to have a little boutique where I took commissions and did a lot of custom pieces.”

“I bet you’d be wonderful,” he replied enthusiastically, face glowing. “If you ever need help with anything, please feel free to use me as a resource. I’ve got all kinds of contacts I could set you up with. Whatever you need,” he stressed.

“Thank you,” she shyly responded, cheeks darkening to match her dress.

“Anytime,” he assured, giving her arm a playful nudge.

They completed their loop around the square and continued window-shopping, ending up at a little café called La Gallete des Moulins for a snack because Adrien thought the fig tart that they saw through the window looked scrumptious.

“You haven’t had enough sweets for one day?” Ladybug teased, waggling her eyebrows at him. “Better be careful or you’re going to lose your girlish figure.”

Adrien waved her away as he handed the money over to the young woman manning the cash register. “I never get sweets, though. I’m running on a sweets deficit, so I have a lot of catching up to do while I’m not being strictly monitored.”

“You poor thing,” she sighed, pitying him in earnest as they headed out to the fenced-off patio area to sit. “That can’t be fun having people telling you what you can and can’t eat all the time. I’m sorry, Adrien.”

“Thanks. Though, it’s not so bad.” He smiled and shrugged it off as he set down the tray on one of the small green tables right alongside the fence and pulled out one of the wicker chairs for her with a bow. “Nino shares junk food, and Marinette, bless her, sneaks me pastries from time to time. That girl is a saint.”

“I’m glad someone is taking care of you. Thank you,” she chuckled as she took the seat.

He settled in across from her and started on his tart. “You sure you don’t want a bite?”

She eyed the tart appraisingly and considered how much she had already eaten in front of him so far. She didn’t want to look like a pig, but…

“Is it good?” she inquired.

He made an evaluating noise. “Meh. It’s not bad. The crust is nice, and the custard is nearly perfect, but it just doesn’t compare with the raspberry custard mini tarts we had earlier,” he replied honestly. “I’m sort of spoiled on Tom and Sabine’s, and the delicacies that Marinette made for us earlier just blow this out of the water. It’s not bad, though,” he judged fairly. “The figs are delicious, for one.”

“May I try a fig?” she asked, reaching out preemptively, fingers hovering over a slice.

“Go for it,” he encouraged, motioning for her to help herself. “…Hey, so…do you mind if I ask you more questions about yourself?”

She laughed, quirking an eyebrow. “You haven’t run out of questions yet? You were pretty thorough earlier.”

“I don’t think I asked the right questions,” he confessed, watching, mesmerized, as she licked the custard off of the fig.

“What kinds of questions do you have for me?” she hummed, pretending to entertain the idea of answering.

“Do you like video games?” he inquired, keeping up an innocent front, despite his firm intention to delve deeper.

In addition to Ultimate Mecha Strike, Adrien had found out as Chat Noir that Marinette was into some pretty niche games. She hadn’t mentioned them to Adrien, so Ladybug shouldn’t have any reason to suspect the trap. While it was possible that people besides Marinette had played games like Pyre, Titanic: Adventure Out of Time, and The Missing: J.J. MacField and the Island of Memories, it was unlikely that Ladybug had coincidentally played all of the same niche video games as Marinette unless they were, in fact, the same person.

One way or another, Adrien was going to find out because if they were one and the same, if it were possible to be with the woman he’d fallen for twice, Adrien was more than willing to bend some rules and break some promises. He’d waited so long already, and if she really did love him in return, maybe she’d find some way to forgive him.

Ladybug humored him for almost an hour, answering question after question as they sat and talked and people-watched at the café.

Slowly but surely, Adrien became increasingly certain that he knew who the elusive girl behind the mask was. There was still a part of him that worried it was merely wishful thinking, but the more they talked, the more breadcrumbs she unknowingly dropped until he wanted to scream in jubilation because he had finally found her, and she had been right in front of him the entire time.

They continued their stroll around Montmartre, looping around until they came back to Sacré-Coeur. They leisurely made their way down the hill, arm-in-arm, chatting and enjoying the brisk autumn evening.

When they arrived at the Place Saint-Pierre, Adrien spotted the carrousel, and his eyes lit up. Slowly, he turned to look at Ladybug and casually inquired, “Is it uncool for adults to ride a carrousel, do you think?”

She tried not to laugh as she smiled indulgently. “Adrien, if you want to ride the carrousel, we can ride the carrousel.”

His eyebrows dipped into a slight frown. “Are you sure? We don’t have to. I don’t want to make you do something embarrassing. I mean, I know carrousels are for little kids, so—”

“—Adrien,” she cut him off with a fond chuckle, pulling him gently yet firmly by the arm towards the merry-go-round. “It’s fine. There’s a carousel by my house that I ride with the kids I babysit all the time. I’m not embarrassed. It’s fun.”

“Oh,” he breathed, recalling the park next to Tom and Sabine’s bakery. “Okay. If you’re sure. I mean…”

She stopped and turned to look him full in the face, inquiring earnestly, “Adrien, do you want to ride the carrousel?”

He nodded. “I used to really love them when I was a kid. My mom and I would ride the one over by the Eiffel Tower sometimes when we snuck out to have adventures, so…yeah. I’d like to ride it.”

“Okay.” She gave him an encouraging smile and squeezed his hand, guiding him over to the merry-go-round. “You pick our horses. Whichever one you want.”

He pursed his lips and surveyed the ride with great concentration before deciding, “If it’s okay, I’d like the black one on the outer ring of the bottom level. Would you be okay with the white one next to it?”

“Sure, but don’t you want to go to the upper tier?” she asked, a little surprised. A double decker carrousel was a bit rare, even in Paris with its many carrousels, so she would have thought that Adrien would have taken advantage of the opportunity to ride on the upper deck.

He blushed as he averted his eyes. “I mean, the upper level would be cool, but all of those horses are single file, and I’d rather ride on the lower level and be next to you.”

“I can’t take it,” she confessed, catching him off guard.

“I’m sorry,” he quickly apologized, fearing he’d done something wrong. “I didn’t mean to. What can’t you take?”

She shook her head, face absolutely magenta. “No. No. I mean…you’re trying to kill me with how sweet and perfect you are,” she attempted to explain through her flustered state. “Like, everything that comes out of your mouth is like some line out of a romance novel, and you are just too cute and too sweet, and I’m going to overheat and die because I like you so much.”

His eyes went wide momentarily in shock at her bluntness, but then a wide smirk slowly spread across his lips.

She clapped a hand over her mouth, gasping at her unintended forwardness. “Oh my gosh,” she breathed, a giddy laugh rising in her throat. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

“Me either,” he hummed, clearly pleased with himself and her and life in general.

“I’ve been trying to say something like that to you for seven years now,” she snorted.

“And I’ve been waiting just as long to hear it,” he assured, leaning in to kiss her temple.

“How are you so smooth?” she groaned through a broad grin of her own.

He shrugged and looped his arm through hers, leading her over to their mounts. “I consume an indecent amount of shoujo manga and romance novels,” he confessed. “It’s rubbed off on me over the years.”

“And here I thought it was natural talent,” she snickered.

“I’m sure there’s a certain amount of that as well,” he hummed happily, giving her a hand up before ascending himself.

The sun began to dip low towards the horizon, and Ladybug tugged Adrien inconspicuously into an alley so that they could take to the sky on her yoyo without anyone seeing her take off.

“I’ve got one last surprise for you,” she informed, carrying him back towards the heart of the city.

“Is that surprise that you’re kidnapping me and never making me go home ever again?” he inquired hopefully, knowing that the bliss he’d felt with her the past few hours was coming to an unavoidable end.

“I wish,” she snorted. “If I could, I would definitely keep you, but I don’t think even Ladybug could get away with kidnapping Adrien Agreste. Your father would have my neck.”

“Unfortunately, you’re probably right,” he sighed, letting his head come to rest on her shoulder. “All right. I guess all we can do is enjoy the time we have left.”

“I think you’ll enjoy this,” she chuckled. “We’re going to one of my favourite spots in all of Paris. Super exclusive with a view that can’t be beat,” she promised.

“Oh,” he breathed, realizing that she was taking him to the top of the Eiffel Tower to watch the sunset.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about that at first. Ladybug and Chat Noir had often met there to hang out and chat, and many a sunset had been watched over the years. He’d come to think of it as one of “their spots”, so the fact that Ladybug was bringing Adrien there felt like a bit of a betrayal.

But then, on the other hand, he was the one who had betrayed Ladybug first by bringing Marinette there on several occasions. And if Ladybug was, in fact, Marinette, she knew what Chat Noir had done.

Ultimately, he decided to be honored that Ladybug thought Adrien worthy of sharing such a special spot.

They touched down at the very top, and Ladybug gently deposited him back onto his own feet.

“Ta-da,” she chuckled, pushing a bang back out of the way as the evening breeze licked it from its place. “This is the best view I know of, so… You’re not too cold, are you?” she inquired, surveying his sweater and undershirt combo and wondering how insulating they would be against the higher winds at that altitude.

“I’m fine,” he rushed to assure. “…Unless you’re suavely trying to get me to cuddle with you. In that case, I’m freezing,” he amended with a flirty wink that made her crack up.

“Actually,” she drawled mischievously, going over to where a second wicker picnic basket had been stowed near the center of the tower. She checked inside and pulled out a thermos, two mugs, a Tom and Sabine’s takeaway box, and two blankets. “I thought it might be nippy, so I planned ahead.”

She spread one of the blankets for them to sit on and set down the thermos, mugs, and pastry box upon it, holding out the other blanket towards him. “Here you go. If you need it, I mean. I know it gets a little brisk up here in the evenings once the sun sets.”

He took the proffered blanket with a warm, “Thank you. You’re always so thoughtful, Nelle,” and sat, wrapping it around his shoulders to fight off the autumn chill.

She settled in beside him and set to work lifting the lid of the takeaway box to reveal the most perfectly baked chocolate chip cookies Adrien had ever seen before moving to unscrew the cap of the thermos, announcing, “I give you Dupain-Cheng Special Hot Chocolate—recipe known only to members of the Dupain-Cheng family.”

Adrien arched an eyebrow, grinning cockily. “Then how did you get the recipe?”

“I didn’t!” she insisted, voice pitching high in her panic. “I just ordered it from Marinette along with the cookies.”

“It was awfully nice of Marinette to cater our date,” he hummed appreciatively, leaning in to survey the chocolate chip cookies.

“I do a lot of business with Marinette,” Ladybug fibbed, pouring the hot chocolate from the thermos into the mugs. “My kwami Tikki loves her cookies, so Marinette has kind of ended up being Tikki’s preferred supplier.” She smiled sheepishly as she handed him a mug and took the other for herself.

“I am exceedingly excited to try out this super-secret hot chocolate and these Tikki-approved cookies,” he chuckled, bringing the mug up to his lips.

In truth, he had had Marinette’s cookies and Dupain-Cheng Special Hot Chocolate before when he’d spent time with Marinette over the years as Chat Noir, but Maribug didn’t need to know that yet.

He purred happily as the chocolate washed over his tongue, coating his mouth in the rich, luscious taste of the special blend of spices Marinette was so secretive about. “This is amazing,” he praised. “What do you think I’d have to do to get the recipe because this is to die for.”

Ladybug gave a snort, sipping smugly from her own mug. “Marry Marinette.”

“Don’t tempt me,” he snickered. “The hot chocolate recipe would only be the icing on the metaphorical cake, if you’ll excuse the baking pun.”

“Try the cookies,” she urged, turning her head so that he hopefully didn’t notice her rampant blush and the way she couldn’t hold in an effulgent grin.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” he assured, helping himself and then savoring the way the cookie almost melted on his tongue.

“…By the way,” he thought to ask a minute later, “how did this stuff get up here? There’s no way you could have dropped it off before our date. The hot chocolate wouldn’t still be hot.”

“I actually called in a favor from a friend,” she confessed. “The new Turtle hero, Michelangelo, picked up the basket from Marinette’s house and dropped it off here for me.”

Adrien blinked slowly as his brain tried to process what she was saying. “New…Turtle hero?”

She nodded. “Chat Noir has been pestering me about adding another full-time member, and I finally decided he was right, so we’re bringing Michelangelo on for a probationary trial period.”

Adrien had to keep a tight grip on his poker face to ensure that he didn’t react to this news because it sounded like Ladybug had brought Nino back onto the team like Chat Noir had asked but made him leave the Carapace identity behind so that no one would suspect that the “new” Turtle hero was really the same holder who had had his identity compromised six years prior.

“Oh, cool,” Adrien remarked in as neutral-to-positive a tone as he could manage. “I think that’ll be good. I’m glad that someone else will be out there watching your back.”

“I’m actually bringing him on to watch Chat Noir’s back because he already has mine…maybe a little too much,” she sighed, brow creasing in worry as she thought about her partner.

Adrien set down his mug and reached out to take her hand, squeezing it supportively. “Hey. It’s okay. I know sometimes that it doesn’t feel like it, but…it’s okay, Nelle.”

She smiled weakly, returning the hand squeeze. “Thanks.”

“Here.” He scooted in closer, unfolding the blanket she had given him and draping it over both of their shoulders. “Is this okay?” he inquired, slipping an arm around her waist.

“Yeah,” she confirmed with a tired sigh, letting go and resting her head on his shoulder. “This is perfect. …Thanks.”

“Any time,” he whispered, leaning his cheek against the top of her head. “I know you’re tough, but you don’t always have to be around me. It’s okay not to be invincible and perfect. It’s okay to just be a twenty-year-old girl trying to make it all work.”

“Thanks,” she repeated softly, sinking into him.

They watched the sun gradually float towards the horizon for a while in contented silence as they snuggled and enjoyed their cookies and hot chocolate.

“…What are you humming?” Ladybug inquired curiously some time later.

Adrien gave a start and pulled back. “Oh. Sorry. I…I spend a lot of time alone, so I’ve developed the bad habit of talking and singing to myself. Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m doing it,” he explained sheepishly, cheeks going as red as her dress in embarrassment.

“Oh, no. Don’t be sorry,” she entreated with a kind smile. “I was just asking because it’s pretty and I wanted to know what song it was. Your humming is lovely, and lots of people do that. Chat Noir, for one, is always singing under his breath to himself, so it’s not uncommon or weird at all.”

He tried not to grimace as a part of him wished she would just see Chat Noir inside of Adrien already.

“Oh? Chat Noir does too?” he forced himself to chuckle.

She nodded completely unsuspectingly as she asked again, “What song were you humming?”

“Have you seen the movie Tangled?” he inquired even though he had shown it to Marinette himself when he’d learned that she’d never watched it before.

“Mmhm,” she affirmed as a rosy blush spread across her cheeks. She looked down at the blanket with a fond smile. “A good friend of mine is a bit of a Disney afficionado. He kind of flipped out and strapped me down and made me watch it when he found out I’d never seen it.”

He grimaced at her description. “Was this a positive experience or torture?” he had to wonder.

“Oh, no! It was fun!” she insisted, wide-eyed, flailing her hands and nearly upsetting the hot chocolate mugs and the cookies. “I had fun.”

“Oh, good,” he laughed in relief. “Otherwise, I’d have to say that maybe you shouldn’t be friends with this guy. He sounds kind of extreme.”

“No,” she hurried to correct his misconception. “Watching the movie was completely voluntary. He…He’s a good friend.” Her voice dipped low with feeling and softened as she added, “He’s very important to me.”

“Oh,” Adrien breathed, his own cheeks starting to glow. “That’s…good. I’m glad,” he replied genuinely.

There was a beat, and then he cleared his throat. “…Well, the song is I See the Light from Tangled, so…”

“Will you sing it for me?” she asked so earnestly he couldn’t refuse.

“You want me to serenade you, Nelle?” he chuckled, eyebrows dancing jocosely.

She nodded eagerly. “Please? I really love your voice.”

“Is that the only thing you love?” he teasingly fished, holding out hope.

She rolled her eyes, blushing as she gave him a playful shove and commanded, “Sing.”

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and obediently began the song, tenderly and vulnerably, “All those days watching from the windows…all those years outside looking in…”

He sang in English, so she struggled to understand some parts, but the lyrics didn’t really matter to her. She could feel the emotions in his voice as he sang of being isolated and lost and then suddenly finding where he was meant to be.

He opened his eyes and stared into hers, and she couldn’t help but be drawn into him, losing herself in his song as he confessed, “And at last I see the light…and it’s warm and real and bright…now that I see you.”

He stopped singing then and smiled bashfully, reaching up to cup her cheek in his hand as he whispered, “Ladybug?”

“Hm?” she blinked dreamily, still swimming in his piercing peridot eyes.

“I need to tell you something. You’re not going to understand,” he informed sadly, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. “And you’re not going to think that I’m serious because what I’m about to say is going to sound impossible, but please know that I’m telling the truth.”

“Adrien?” she replied uncertainly, brow beginning to crease in confusion. “What is it?”

“I love you,” he breathed with a tortured smile. “I love you more than anything, and being here with you is a dream come true.”

She gasped, stunned by his heartfelt confession, mind spinning as he began to lean in, his eyes slowly drifting closed.

The clear choice was to let him kiss her. The obvious course of action was to wrap her arms around him and kiss his face off like she’d dreamed of doing for more than half a decade now.

But, in that moment, no matter how romantic the set up, it didn’t feel right.

Alya had a point.

Ladybug was misleading Adrien by not telling him the whole truth, and, however much he liked Marinette, he was bound to be upset when he found out who was behind the mask because she wasn’t being honest with him, and how was that going to provide a foundation upon which to build a relationship?

She pulled back and looked away, hating herself for what she was doing to him.

“Sorry,” she whispered, the word sounding hollow even to her own ears. “I just don’t think it’s fair to you, not knowing who you’re kissing.”

He bit his lip, mentally debating how much she’d freak out if he told her he was ninety-nine percent certain that he knew exactly whom he’d been about to kiss.

“Knowing your name isn’t important,” he responded gently instead, resting his hand on top of hers. “What really matters is knowing who you are as a person. I know you, Ladybug, and I know what I want.”

She winced, averting her eyes and turning her head further.

He froze. “…Unless…Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry,” he rushed to apologize as a realization made him feel sick. “I didn’t even stop to think that you might not want to kiss me. Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to—”

“—No!” she interrupted, grabbing his hand and turning back to face him. “No, Adrien, I definitely want to kiss you. You didn’t do anything wrong. I did.”

“Ladybug, no,” he tried to protest, but she shook her head and wouldn’t listen.

“No,” she repeated decidedly. “I’m the one who messed up by asking you out as Ladybug in the first place. None of this has been fair to you, and I’m really sorry, Adrien,” she sighed.

A twinge of guilt struck him as he was reminded of the very similar ways in which he wasn’t being completely honest with her. “Ladybug…that’s not…” he tried ineffectually.

She shook her head, her mind made up. “I’m sorry. I think maybe I should take you home now.”

“Please, no,” he pleaded weakly. “I don’t want this to be over yet.”

“Me either,” she agreed melancholically. “But we need to get you home before they notice you’re missing.”

He didn’t bother voicing the fact that, likely, no one had noticed that he’d been gone for hours and no one was likely to discover his absence now.

Instead, he reluctantly submitted, helping her clean up and then obediently slipping his arms around her so that she could carry him back to the lonely Agreste Mansion just a few blocks away.

He tried to concentrate on the way she held him, the warmth of her against the chill of the wind as it whipped against them, every point of contact between their bodies, the scent of her oatmeal body wash and strawberry shampoo melding with the faint, lingering scent of bakery.

#Ladrien #Adrinette #Adrienette #Miraculous Ladybug #Miraculous Ladybug Fanfiction #Ladybug #Adrien Agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Chat Noir #Identity Reveal #Partial Identity Reveal #Fluff #Date #Mikau's Writings #Drunk Ladybug on My Balcony? Yeah. This is Fine.

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yesazea · 4 years

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How to Start a Conversation the Right Way

Some people just seem to possess a knack for creating conversation while others struggle to form chitchat. Knowing the way to start a conversation may be a useful social skill. Whether you would like to impress a possible client, strike up a conversation with a love interest, or simply chat with a replacement acquaintance, knowing the way to initiate a conversation can assist you to feel easier and assured during a big variety of social situations.

Before you start

If an area filled with strangers is your idea of a waking nightmare, the thought of getting to a celebration or work event is often incredibly daunting. These kinds of social situations are often especially difficult if you tend to be introverted, shy, or socially anxious.

One way to ease anxiety is to organize beforehand. Mentally review what you would like to speak about and even consider practicing with a lover. the primary step toward becoming a tremendous conversationalist it to be prepared.

If you're nervous about starting a conversation, try these three simple strategies before you begin:

1-Stay Positive:

Stop worrying about making an error and have faith in your abilities. Worrying an excessive amount of about what you're getting to say next can cause you to lose track of the conversation as it’s happening. Instead, attempt to stay focused on the opposite person and what they're saying.

2-Take a Deep Breath:

If you're tense and nervous, you're less likely to feel comfortable. attempt to stay relaxed and just let the conversation flow naturally.

3-Introduce Yourself:

one of the only ways to start is to only introduce yourself then give the opposite person the prospect to try to an equivalent. Once this first icebreaker has taken place, try asking an easy question or making an easy observation to assist inspire further discussion.

Conversation Killers

While it should go without saying, there are a couple of belongings you should avoid unless you're very conversant in the person with whom you're speaking.

While political commentary, gossip, complaints, and offensive jokes could be how your uncle starts conversations during your family get-togethers, it's probably not an example you ought to attempt to emulate in your day-to-day life.

Anything offensive, controversial, or uncomfortable should be avoided as you're initiating conversations.

There is a time and place to precise your opinion or maybe attempt to persuade others, but confirm that such topics are welcome before you get down to an impassioned debate.

Some research suggests that when it involves conversation openers, your best bet could also be to stay to fairly innocuous comments. In one study, participants were asked to rate the effectiveness of a variety of opening lines which may come from a possible romantic partner: flippant "pick-up" lines, open-ended, innocuous questions, and therefore the direct approach.

Few respondents appreciated the pick-up line approach, but responses attended be split when it came to preferences for the opposite two opening styles. Women attended to prefer the innocuous questions ("What's your favorite team?") while men favored the more direct approach ("I'd wish to buy you a drink!").

The authors of the study suggest that it's best to err on the side of the innocuous approach when choosing how to initiate a conversation with a stranger. this sort of conversation opener tends to be less threatening, yet encourages the opposite person to supply some sort of response.

Keep It Positive

Try to start your conversation on an upbeat note. stand back from launching into complaints or making negative observations. regardless of what things are, you'll find something positive to mention.

Comment on the weather, the food, the corporate, or the event itself. Saying something as simple as you're having an honest time and hoping that your conversation partner has a pleasing experience also may be a great way to urge a conversation rolling. albeit things itself isn't perfect, attempt to put a positive spin thereon.

Comments to steer With

“That was a very great presentation, wasn’t it?” “Whoever organized this event sure did an excellent job!” “Your presentation was excellent. I desire I learned a lot!” “It’s quite cold today but the weather report said that tomorrow is meant to be nice and sunny.” People tend to reply better to a positive comment instead of a negative one. It helps show that you simply are a pleasing one that pays attention to what’s happening. Staying positive also helps put others comfortable. As a result, people are going to be more curious about continuing a conversation with you.

Start Simple

Not every great conversation must begin with a deep, philosophical, earth-shattering observation. Simple icebreaker comments or questions are excellent thanks to the beginning.

Commenting on the weather, the room, or the food might sound cliche, but there's a reason why this type of icebreaker works so well. It’s an easy, easy thanks to getting a conversation rolling, offering a touch of footing between two strangers. Talking about inconsequential things can cause further conversations about personal preferences, backgrounds, hobbies, and deeper topics which will help forge social bonds between people.

What the Research Says

In one study published within the journal psychology, researchers performed naturalistic observations on participants to record both chitchat and deep conversations for several days.

What they found is that folks who engaged in deeper, personal conversations also had higher levels of happiness. This might mean that happy people are more likely to interact with others in meaningful conversations—but it also might mean that such substantive conversations may very well cause greater happiness. The researchers suggest that “the findings demonstrate that the happy life is social instead of solitary and conversationally deep instead of superficial.”

Not everyone loves making chitchat, but it is often a crucial initiative that will cause deeper, more meaningful conversations.

While starting a conversation often begins by that specialize in small, trivial things, research suggests that having more deep conversations could also be linked to greater happiness and well-being.

Learning the way to start a conversation can help lead you into these more consequential social connections.

Ask for Help

Asking an issue may be a good way to start a conversation. Doing this not only gives you a reason to interact with the opposite person—but it also allows them to be helpful.

When using this approach, start with something simple which will be accomplished without an excellent deal of effort. for instance, you would possibly ask someone if they know what time a workshop begins or directions to a specific location.

Conversation Starters

“Do you happen to understand where I could get a schedule?” “Have you seen an earring? I seem to possess lost one.” “Do you recognize if there'll be refreshments served after the workshop?” One of the advantages of this approach is that asking an easy question can cause further conversation about other topics. Once you've got posed your question and therefore the other person has offered their assistance, it creates something of a reciprocal agreement between you and your conversation partner.

Since they need offering their assistance, it's now up to you to offer your thanks and introduce yourself. this will function a chance for you to ask more about the opposite person—who they're, what brings them here, and other questions that are relevant given the setting and situation.

Body Language

Sometimes what you are doing say is simply as important as what you do say. As you strike up a replacement conversation, it's important to concentrate on your nonverbal communication.

Body language is often wont to convey interest and emotion. A friendly expression, comfortable stance, and good eye contact, for instance, can help show that you simply have a real interest in learning more about another person. Slouching, looking away, and frowning, on the opposite hand, might make your conversation partner feel that you simply are bored or disinterested.

Encouraging nonverbal signals include:

An open posture, which involves keeping the trunk of your body open together with your arms relaxed, helps convey a way of friendliness. Good eye contact involves watching a person’s eyes. Don’t stare, which may be threatening. Instead, keep things natural, watching the opposite person’s eyes but glancing away occasionally. Smiling is often helpful, as long because it seems genuine and natural. Avoid faking an enormous smile and check out to travel for a relaxed but uplifting expression.

Listen and Express Interest

It is often intimidating to undertake to speak to someone when it feels that you simply have little in common. In these situations, getting the opposite person to speak about his or her interests, work, or expertise is often useful thanks to starting a conversation.

Ask an issue about what the opposite person does, then specialize in really taking note of what they need to mention. People often enjoy talking about things they're hooked in to, so expressing a real interest in the things that people enjoy are often excellent fuel for an excellent conversation.

Strike a Balance

A good conversation doesn't believe only one approach.

The best discussions involve a mix of asking questions, taking note of what people need to say, and sharing things about yourself.

A simple conversation might start by:

Asking some basic information (“Did you enjoy the presentation?”) Listening to the solution (“It was great! I desire I learned a lot!”) Disclosing your thoughts (“I thought so also . I have already got some ideas about how I can incorporate those tips into my work process.”) Next, you would possibly repeat the method by asking another question, or your conversation partner might then prefer to ask an issue about your earlier response.) Learning the way to start a conversation is a crucial skill that will assist you to build social connections during a big variety of contexts. It is often difficult initially, particularly if you struggle with shyness or social anxiety, but gaining many practices is the key to become easier to lecture to people.

Try to consider all of those interactions as a rehearsal. The more often you initiate discussions with others, the stronger your conversational skills will become.

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blazehedgehog · 5 years

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Say Blaze, you mentioned BotW being in your top five favorite games of all time. Care to share the full list with us? :P

Haha, man, somebody always wants these kinds of receipts. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t really like committing to numbered lists. I never really think of things in that way. It should be obvious if you’ve followed this blog for any length of time that if somebody asks me for my favorite thing, it’s rare that I can actually pick just one thing and I’ll usually list off a handful.

I mean, I’ll do lists, I have some list requests in my ask box that I never got around to answering, but I will do them eventually, it’s just I never think of them as a set in stone order. They’re always floating around to different spaces on the list, depending on when you ask me.

Without looking at anything else, I’d say my top five favorite games of all time would be…

Yoshi’s Island was a very formative game for me. Anyone who claims Yoshi’s Island wasn’t that great is immediately knocked down a few pegs of respect in my mind. The artwork in that game was transformative, nobody had ever tried those kinds of graphics in a game before, and Nintendo nailed it pretty much on their first try.

And then there’s the gameplay. A lot of games around this era were trying to figure out ways to evolve the 2D action game, when you think about games like Astal, Clockwork Knight, Pandemonium, etc. Most are awkward, with mechanics that don’t always make sense, or don’t feel good to use, but I think the mechanics in Yoshi are incredible. Throwing eggs is incredibly intuitive, and the small expansions like the flutter jump and butt stomp add a little more complexity without feeling overwhelming.

I’m also in love with the game’s boss fights. Some people like to complain that “oh, they’re just really big versions of normal enemies, and that’s lame” but they can go jump in a lake. I remember more of Yoshi’s Island’s boss fights by name than I do some entire games. They may be “just bigger versions of normal enemies” but that doesn’t mean you fight them in the same ways. Fighting your way out of Prince Froggy’s stomach, throwing enough eggs to strike Sluggy the Unshaven’s heart, orbiting the moon with Raphael Raven, each one is a puzzle to be solved and a technical showpiece for the system. Gosh, and who could forget pulling off the trick shot with Navel Piranha.

I only wish literally any Yoshi game to follow it was as good. Nintendo has built a legacy of black sheep Yoshi games in its wake, with the only real comparable game being Yoshi’s Wooly World, and even that isn’t anywhere near as creative or cool as Yoshi’s Island, because it’s stuck in that game’s shadow. All the other Yoshi games have been mediocre at best.

I’d probably put the original Half-Life on this list. Half-Life was a paradigm shift for the first-person shooter that really killed the idea of calling them “Doom Clones.” Levels? Scores? Hyper-machismo? Gone. You’re a nerd, saving other nerds. Even now, in 2019, the way this game tells story remains highly unique. Instead of sitting you down for cutscenes and extended dialog, Half-Life is a “show, don’t tell” kind of game, and it builds its mystery from that. You might understand that the crystal from the start of the game is the same crystals you see at the end of the game, but you don’t understand who keeps secretly watching you. It makes for a narrative that’s simple on the surface, but goes however deep as you want to get.

Gameplay-wise, Half-Life goes to great lengths to make its world feel dynamic and alive. There are no sacred invincible NPCs, Everybody and everything is just as fragile as you are (if not moreso), so a scientist buddy may wander in to the crossfire and get shot, and the rest of his friends may blame you for his murder and refuse to cooperate from that point onwards. And then, of course, are the tremendous military soldier encounters. People will go on about how they aren’t actually that smart under the hood, about how Valve lied about squad behavior or whatever, but they’re definitely well designed enough to feel smart. Again, Half-Life was one of the first FPS games to understand and nail the idea that you don’t have to work within Doom’s concepts. Enemies run around, take cover, and use specialized tactics in order to flush you out of hiding. It was lightyears beyond anything, and if you can get past the game’s dated graphics, it still holds up remarkably well.

And yes, if you didn’t pick up on it, I have been subtly crapping on Half-Life 2. It’s also a great game, but it turns in to a bummer once you really stop and think about what Half-Life 2 does differently and what they ended up getting rid of in favor of a slightly more traditional narrative.

Maybe it’s just because I’ve been in that mood lately, but I’d probably put Mega Man X on this list. There’s not much I can say about this game that isn’t demonstrated better in Egoraptor’s now-legendary Sequelitis video, but the short of it for me is that I don’t love most Mega Man games. They’re fine, I don’t really have any problems with them, but they aren’t for me.

Mega Man X is the only Mega Man game I’ve finished without cheating. It’s just such a brilliantly designed game, and so, so tightly designed. Everything props everything else up, and it lacks the pure frustration and memorization of, like, the vanishing block puzzles of Classic Mega Man.

One of my favorite parts about this game that isn’t mentioned in Egoraptor’s video and didn’t really carry forward through future Mega Man X games is the fact that all of the levels in X1 are literally connected to each other. Actions in one stage have consequences in another. Defeating Chill Penguin freezes Flame Mammoth’s lava. Storm Eagle’s airship crashes in to Spark Mandrill’s power plant. Bosses don’t just have weaknesses, their levels do, too.

The most common complaint I see people relay about Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is that it’s “too easy.” My response is… yeah? And?? A game’s value is not always judged on how difficult it is; plenty of people would tell you that Kirby games are too easy, too, but Kirby is a beloved franchise with legions of fans. It’s okay that Symphony of the Night is kind of easy.

Especially given, that, I feel, the entire point of gaining experience points and powering up your character is to reach that point where you go from chump to champ. What use is gaining strength if you don’t eventually feel strong? Symphony is not a failure in this regard, and exploring the castle and solving its secrets provide enough of a hook even after you start to feel untouchable. And, speaking as somebody who nearly ripped his own hair out with frustration over Castlevania III, being given the ability to style on these creatures is more than welcome.

But what I really, truly love about Symphony is just how much of a love letter it is to the Castlevania franchise and just horror in general. The Castlevania Dungeon has a terrific page that breaks down the hundreds of references the game makes to classical literature, history, mythology, and film. Somebody on that development team REALLY did their homework. There’s so much of that in this game that I feel like I learn something new every time I play it.

It’s also the other half of the term “Metroidvania,” so, y’know. Important™

I know Breath of the Wild would be in this five, but here’s a fifth game anyway: Super Mario 64. I will never shut up about Super Mario 64.

To reiterate: This is the game that invented analog movement. If you’ve played Assassin’s Creed, or Grand Theft Auto, or Dark Souls, or Devil May Cry, you can trace the deepest, raw, fundamental core back to ideas first introduced in Super Mario 64.

And if you ask me, the game still holds up. The camera control could use some work, I guess, but Mario is still just as fun to control today as he was all the way back in 1996. In fact, depending on who you ask, he’s more fun to control in Mario 64, because later 3D Mario games simplified his move set under the assumption he was too complex in this game. But maybe you’re like me, and think that complexity is good. (I wouldn’t even call it complex, it’s more just… robust)

If you want to see a longer list of games I think are my favorites, this GiantBomb list I wrote is still kept somewhat up to date. (And contains a lot more modern games, if you thought these were all too retro)

#questions #breath of the wild #zelda #nintendo #mario #mega man #yoshi's island #Anonymous

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hellospunkiebrewster · 5 years

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I have seen a couple people writing about the Desire and Decorum MC becoming romantically involved with her step-brother Edmund Marlcaster. i could be remembering things wrong but wasn't it illegal for step-siblings to become romantically involved in Regency England? Just curious and not knocking the writers who are using that pairing because they've kinda made me root for them.

So you want to f*ck your step brother… gotcha Nonnie. I’m kidding, but let’s take a look at what would have been allowed under the laws of England at the time and look at some examples in history and literature. As usual, this got long, and it’s behind the cut.

In order to properly answer this, we’ll need to go back to understand what types of marriages were allowed at the time and how that came into practice. As you might suspect this all stems from Henry VIII (the poster man-child for annulments and divorce) his quest for a male heir, and tendency to quickly tire of his wives. This pit him against Church doctrine, which was the Catholic Church at this time.

Divorced. Beheaded. Died. Divorced. Beheaded. Survived.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A0XpB743-Q

The Catholic Church prohibited not only annulments without cause and patience like this but they also opposed the closeness by which he was related to some of his wives. Marriages of cousins were prohibited, as were marriages between siblings, uncle/neice, or aunt/nephew. In determining relation and degree of consanguinity, it did not matter if the relationship was founded in blood or through the law, via marriage. Step siblings, such as dear dumbass Edmund Marlcaster and our MC would not have been permitted to marry, despite not sharing any blood. Henry VIII’s desire to wed Catherine Howard would have been prohibited as she was Anne Boleyn’s first cousin.

These marriage rules fell under canon law (the rules of the church), not civil law (the rules of England), and thusly it was much easier for Henry to manipulate them since it only required breaking with the Pope and the Catholic Church (who were all the way in Rome so why did he care) and forming his own, of which he and every sovereign after him would be the head of, in the name of England of course. He manipulated these rules to allow for annulment of his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon, despite it not being previously allowed. Then again to allow him to marry Anne Boleyn’s first cousin. Previously, marriages of any cousins closer than fourth cousins was not allowed. Henry VIII’s Marriage Act of 1540 changed that and allowed for marriage between first through third cousins.

Bans on incestuous marriages have always been a thing and there is evidence that these types of warnings predated civilization entirely. People recognized that individuals who were closely related had children who were more prone to birth defects and deformities with a higher rate. Without modern genetics, the degree of separation required to decrease the chances of this occurring was unknown so people were extra cautious to avoid it. Evidence now suggests that the risks are relatively low. Even first cousins, unless they both share a genetic issue, only experience a slight increase in defects over non-related couples. First cousins even experience lower miscarriage rates apparently. Now this is not me advocating for cousin marriage by any means. Just the thought of my cousin Gary makes my skin crawl personally. This is merely what the science shows.

So England continued on with Bluff King Hal’s patchwork of marriage guidelines for a couple of centuries until the middle of the 18th century and the Hardwicke Marriage Act of 1753. The changing guidelines of canon law led to some confusion of what constituted a marriage and just what exactly made it official. The Church strongly suggested, but did not require, the reading of banns or acquiring a marriage license and the only real requirement was that the marriage be overseen by a clergyman. Simple? Yes. But some people actually believed that as long as parties were of age (twelve for ladies and fourteen for men) and consented between two witnesses that was enough. It was a record keeping disaster.

Witnesses were not necessarily reliable or honest, just as today. Their testimonial might be subject to their own personal agendas or bribes and people would be suddenly unmarried or even married via one person’s report. Fortunes, estates, property, livelihoods, and family names were on the line here.

The Act required that a couple must either purchase a license or have banns read during three consecutive church services, essentially one a week. This was supposed to ensure that the couple was eligible to marry. A couple under 21 years of age required consent from their parents and could be married by banns so long as the parents did not reject them being read. This doesn’t account for eloping in another parish. Lastly, weddings had to be conducted between the hours of eight in the morning and noon, before witnesses, in a church, by a clergyman, and recorded in a marriage register. Exemptions to the marriage act included the royal family, Jews, and Quakers. Catholics were not. Bitter much?

A marriage certificate from the 1860s.

Now, even though you were married, it did not keep you from outside interference upon your wedded bliss. A marriage could be voided if someone was able to present that the wedding should not have occurred in the first place due to consanguinity or other issues, like a previous still valid marriage. Participants in the marriage also had the ability to void their own marriages via a few different avenues: fraud, incompetence (and having one’s spouse committed, a route Mr. Rochester does not choose for his insane wife, thus leading to his inability to marry Jane Eyre), and impotence. Non-consummation, while a convenient plot device, was not an accepted reason for annulment. After all, what type of man can’t even gain his wife’s favor?

Now even under these new rules, step siblings, even those from previous relationships who didn’t share any blood, still were too close in degrees of consanguinity to marry. So were siblings of one’s dead spouse. This did not stop people from keeping it in the family, so to speak, and men or women marrying their deceased love’s siblings became one of the top reasons a marriage might be annulled by an outside party.

Now, there were definitely ways around this, There was no true legal body to bring your grievance to as all of this was subject to canon law and not civil law. Should the clergyman you chose to air your issue with be under the thumb of those you have a complaint with, your words might fall on deaf ears. These discrepancies were settled in an ecclesiastical court, presided over by the bishop of the parish where the couple was wed, so bias and looking the other way occurred for sure. In any case, these courts always leaned towards keeping a marriage together anyway.

There are examples of marriages that were technically voidable via close relation in Austen’s literature, one of the ones that stands out as the most similar to Edmund and our MC is Mr. Knightley and Emma Woodhouse. The two are “siblings” in the eye of the law, but they are not in themselves blood related. The two marry at the end of the story. So it wasn’t unheard of, just a difficult situation as you may find yourself in the gaze of a jealous family member or former beau who wishes to have your marriage annulled. George IV, the regent himself, married Caroline, his first cousin.

If your marriage was voided, it would mean any children would be considered bastards and ineligible for inheriting. However, the fact was, despite the threats of annulments and divorces thrown around in historical novels, they were quite difficult to obtain. Divorces required the husband bringing a civil case against his wife’s lover and for freaking Parliament to hear the case. Only 257 divorces happened in England from 1765 to 1857 as their requirements were strict, they were expensive, and both parties essentially became social pariahs.

What is interesting though is the grounds for annulment if the Duke really does wish to marry MC. I’m not talking about incompetence or even impotence, although they both probably apply to Puke Trashcan Bitchards, but fraud. There were a few types of fraud that could get a marriage annulled. Fraud might mean the couple used fake names for the reading of their banns so no one would object, this was the most common type of fraud. Rarer was the inability to fulfill the marriage contract, like not having as large of a fortune as advertised or being unable to deliver on the agreed upon dowry. Lastly, and what I think is the most interesting form of fraud for MC and Richards is forced marriage, a marriage in which one of the parties does not consent to. MC has been very adamant that she is not into this union and this was one of the places where women had agency at this time. Tristan Richards would honestly not have a leg to stand on in this case.

Long story short, marrying your stepbrother in the Regency Era was complicated, technically not allowed, but most people didn’t really care enough to fight for getting it voided. The worst Miss Sutton could do is air her grievances of Mr. Marlcaster breaking their very real (despite his and his mother’s insistence) engagement. This would be damaging enough to his reputation and potentially MC’s by proxy.

I hope this clears some things up for you, Nonnie. As always, keep these curiosities coming, I love answering them!

#desire and decorum #historical nitpicks #annulment and divorce in the regency #so you want to f*ck your step brother #curious anons #i love these!#mr marlcaster #marlcaster x mc #long post

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crystalelemental · 6 years

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I have gone on record as disliking Gen 6 overall, with XY being my least favorite games until USUM showed up and ruined a perfectly good story. While most complaints against XY are due to the story being meh, and the ally characters being obnoxious, some of that dislike is in the dex. There were very few new Pokemon, and a ton of returning Pokemon, which skews things. Prior to this, most regions had repetition of older Pokemon, but there were enough new Pokemon around that the region felt distinct and unique. Here, it...kinda doesn't, to me. It really feels like there need to be more new Pokemon for it to feel entirely distinct. Which is a shame, because overall it's a really solid dex.

TOP 15: 15) Carbink - Before Diancie, this was a really interesting Pokemon to me. A Rock/Fairy type that had obscene defenses, and had a carbuncle-like appearance? I'm on board. Unfortunately, it really doesn't have many tools to help it stand out at all, especially when Diancie arrived and out-performed it in virtually every task. But it's still a precious child that I adore.

14) Espurr - Espurr is a lot cooler than its evolutions. While the female form looks pretty nice, the male form isn't my favorite. The evolutions also have the problem of, once again, the male gets the tools to be good while the female form is not. Espurr itself, though, is an oddball that I adore. It's an unusual design, but plenty cute in its own right. I just wish its evolution offered a bit more.

13) Spritzee - This was a Pokemon whose first appearance had me excited. I really wanted to run a Spritzee, and I couldn't wait to catch one. A little plague-doctor bird? That's the coolest! Unfortunately, its evolution sort of changed the focus to being heavily about perfume and fashion-based. Aromatisse doesn't stand out to me nearly as much as Spritzee does, and it's kind of a shame.

12) Gogoat line - A lot of this has to do with my Nuzlock run of Y, where Gogoat was a sort of MVP. For a mono-Grass, having Ground coverage is divine, and it brings a lot of that. In-game, its stats are also pretty well-rounded, allowing for a lot of damage and recovery via Horn Leech, but also allows it to tank hits really well and retain an acceptable speed tier. Gogoat is a ton of fun, and I kinda wish it had more tools for competitive play.

11) Dragalge - What an interesting design choice. A dragon that's made to look like seaweed, hidden within the ocean. I really love the idea behind that. Dragon/Poison is also very unique, allowing it to be one of the few Dragons that not only resists Fairy, but hits it back for super-effective damage. It's a Pokemon that shines in concept of design, and I appreciate that kind of uniqueness.

10) Heliolisk line - Helioptile was a certainty to me when I first played these games. I knew full well I'd be running one, there was no question. While Heliolisk is a bit more fierce than its adorable pre-evolution, it still presents as a sleek design that got a surprisingly wide amount of coverage, including Surf of all things. It's also the weather master, benefiting from Sun, Rain, or Sandstorm depending on what condition you want to abuse. It's a great Pokemon that I love to run.

9) Aurorus line - Beautiful. This evolution line is absolutely beautiful, and I adore the aesthetic they offer. They're a surprisingly downplayed fossil Pokemon as well. While most tend to be a bit more intimidating, Aurorus is fairly passive-looking. Its typing leaves a lot to be desired, as do its stats, but its design and presence more than make up for its lack of competitive viability.

8) Trevenant line - Trevenant, while not nearly as cool as Gourgeist, is still a very interesting Pokemon. Phantump are the spirits of children who were lost in the woods, and Trevenant are the evolved forms that try to snatch children away when they wander in. It's an interesting cycle of spirits. Grass/Ghost is also a fun typing we hadn't seen before, and the moves it has access to allow for a fantastic support combo of Will-o-Wisp and Leech Seed. It even gets Horn Leech and Harvest for even further healing potential. Trevenant is a fantastic Pokemon that's a ton of fun to use.

7) Sylveon - Another eevee evolution, this time as the new Fairy type. Sylveon is fun not just because of the usual eevee evolution reasons, but because of its bizarre ribbon feelers. It's adorable and lovely, but like many fairies we'd get to know, has a bit of a creepy factor to it as well. If there's anything it did wrong, it's steal everything that Umbreon did, barring Foul Play. Which...I dunno, is Foul Play even still useful anymore?

6) Vivillon - Much like Staraptor in Gen 4, Vivillon is the best of the regional early-game bugs. Its design is gorgeous, including a mechanic where its wings will take on an appearance based on location, and its stats, while still terrible, aren't bad for what it is. Quiver Dance with Compoundeyes and Hurricane allow it to actually deal some real damage, and in-game, having access to Draining Kiss is very valuable, especially early game. It's a fun Pokemon, and it's nice to have one entry to the early-game bug brigade that's standing out.

5) Florges - What a wonderful creature. Florges is literally only held back by its lack of any good ability at all. If it had any decent ability, and mild utility beyond the awful abilities it currently has, it would be unstoppable. Its speed tier is in a good place for a supportive wall, special defense is so massive you don't even need to really invest in it, and special attack is in a good place for a Fairy that has such good natural coverage with STAB alone. Plus it's just an elegant and beautiful Pokemon. Fused with the flower it carried, its body effectively is the stalk of the flower, with a gathering of flowers around its neck. I love its design, and I love its battle role, and if only they would give it a good ability it would truly be unstoppable.

4) Goodra line - I've talked before about how a lot of Dragon evolution lines are intense and intimidating. Well, Goodra was something more like Flygon. A little goofy, sure, but a good friend who is still powerful and a Dragon. This also kinda began a trend, where a lot of dragons now are designed to be goofy, or at least losing the huge imposing figure or regal look that most before it had. I, for one, love this adjustment into goofy nonsense being called a dragon. Please continue to do this forever.

3) Delphox line - I love them all, but Braixen is a clear-cut winner. I know this probably means I'm a furry, but it's the cutest thing, and the sass it exudes in this form is legendary. Fennekin itself is just an adorable little fox, and Delphox is what Ninetales should've been: a Fire/Psychic fox. It even gets to effectively be a witch! The only downside is that Delphox loses a lot of personality when it evolves from Braixen, going from a sassy fox creature to a more downplayed and serious one. This change is the only thing holding it back from being at the top. But on the whole, it's an excellent evolutionary line.

2) Diancie - When its base form was revealed, I already loved it. A mutation of Carbink that's pink and adorable? What's not to love? Then we got wind of stats. Effectively the same as Carbink, but with way higher offensive presence. Maybe it could have more of a use in Trick room now! But then, against all odds, we get the unprecedented: a mega evolution. It suddenly becomes ridiculously fast and strong, and more gorgeous than ever. Diancie is beautiful and wonderful and I adore everything about this wonderful creature. It's even got a unique physical rock move that has a real accuracy stat, and a secondary effect that's to die for. I love how, at the outset, Diancie was set to be the worst of the three mythic legends of gen 6, only to end up with a mega that ranked it easily the best.

1) Gourgeist - What an awesome Pokemon, in every regard. Beautiful shiny, fantastic design, and a chilling concept. It wraps prey in its hair arms and sings to them as it drains their life force. That's terrifying and incredible. It's also got four forms, including a really small baby child and a giant form as tall as a person. Each form also has different stat allocations, with bigger forms gaining defense and attack but losing speed. If there is any singular flaw, it's that it would really love to be specially offensive and make use of Giga Drain, Shadow Ball, and Flamethrower instead of relying on Seed Bomb and Phantom Force as the only real options it has.

BOTTOM 10: 10) Volcanion - I disliked it because it was so optimized, and had bar-none the best unique attack of the three mythical legends. "Steve, it's the only who who didn't get an extra form and is ranked UU by usage, hasn't it suffered enough?" No. It has not.

9) Dedenne - I'm generally not that big a fan of the regional rodents, and Dedenne is unfortunately a low-ranked one. I can't explain it, I just don't really care for it. Nothing about it stands out all that much aside from its Fairy typing, but after a while, a generation has to do more than rely on adding its newly introduced typing to things already in a formula to feel unique.

8) Pyroar - Something about it just doesn't grab me. I can't even explain what it is, I just don't really care for the look of it. Fire/Normal, while interesting, is far from good. And it's another cat-based Pokemon that just does terribly in competitive.

7) Hoopa-Unbound - Hoopa is cute. I like it a lot, and Ghost/Psychic, while odd, is a fun typing that's pretty solid offensively. Hoopa-Unbound, though... Psychic/Dark, while also good, doesn't feel as great, considering it has no resistances at all. The change in design does work for it, in that you definitely get the feeling that Hoopa's true form is a monster of a genie that's been sealed away, but the loss of cuteness in favor of what I'm pretty sure is a JoJo Stand isn't as interesting to me.

6) Pangoro line - It's not bad, but it's just...definitely not my aesthetic, you know? I don't care for the punk-type.

5) Doublade - You remember Golbat? How I disliked it strongly because it made no sense as the middle stage between two interesting end-points? Same thing here. From one sword, to two swords, to a sword and shield. How? How did you do this? That doesn't make any sense at all. Get back here and make your full evolution line make sense!

4) Malamar - You'd think Dark/Psychic would be cool. You'd also think Contrary Superpower would be cool. Instead, Malamar is basically just a disappointment, with no resistances to anything at all, and no real presence. Its design is sufficiently interesting, as a borderline eldritch horror, but doesn't quite pass into the territory where it's really creepy. It's just...middle-of-the-road, in everything it does.

3) Barbaracle - Its design does nothing for me, and its concept even less. I really don't understand why it looks like that, and as another Water/Rock type, it faces a lot of competition from things that are more effective than it, and stronger than it.

2) Diggersby - Listen. I know I've relied on disliking aesthetics to rank things in the bottom 10 for several other lists. But you need to understand. This is, quite possibly, the worst design I can think of. ...second worst. It's so bad. It looks so, so bad. Everything about this is bad. Why did they make it like this? Between Diggersby being a drunken construction worker or some kind, and Lopunny being a pin-up bunny, I'm starting to wonder if there will ever be just a normal bunny Pokemon. Maybe that's why I was so excited for the fake fire-starter rabbit...

1) Greninja - I have never felt such unfettered anger about one of the starters getting preferential treatment before. Let's be honest, every gen does it. Charizard is the favorite of Gen 1, Feraligatr the favorite of gen 2, etc. But it never hit as hard as it did this time, and if you ask me. Maybe because nothing has ever been so blatant, or occurred at a time in which a started I loved more than any other was shafted. Delphox has gotten nothing in its entire life, Chesnaught got a few nice tools but had to work hard for the position it has in life, and Greninja was handed optimized stats, a busted hidden ability that could easily be nerfed in a way that does nothing to Kecleon but stops Greninja from being stupid, and a ridiculous special snowflake extra ability that lets it be even more super fast and strong, and also we changed its priority multi-hit move, a statement which is already obscene, into a special move so it gets to benefit from its main offensive stat instead of having to choose its tools like the rest of the working class. Fuck this bougie frog asshole, you've never earned anything in your entire damned life. I'm glad Alan won.

#regional pokedex opinions #kalos pokedex

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equallyreal · 6 years

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Unsolicited Opinion: The Characters of Pacific Rim

In the interest of keeping my mind fresh while also getting to scream about the things I love, I’ve decided to start up a new essay project. Unsolicited Opinion will cover my thoughts on specific elements of media, from tropes to characters to plots. What better way to kick things off than by talking about one of my favorite movies of all time, the one and only Pacific Rim?

A common complaint about the film is that the characters are kind of archetypal and flat and therefore boring. This is an assessment I soundly disagree with, for two reasons. One, being derived from archetype isn’t a bad thing as long as you do it well. Two, the characters of Pacific Rim, in my opinion, subvert or play with the archetype they’re derived from in interesting ways. This essay series will cover the ways the narrative achieves this. As a quick housekeeping note, I will only be using the film to make my points. At most, I may talk about a deleted scene, but the paracanon (novels, art of book, comics, etc.) will not be included in the discussion.

We’ll start with our lens character in part one of this essay series: Raleigh Becket is a Good Egg.

Raleigh is set up to be the Hero Protagonist, specifically the confident Maverick sort of Hero Protagonist. All the pieces for this character type are there in the first fifteen minutes. He’s the first of the main heroes that we see. The opening montage specifically mentions that Raleigh belonged to a generation of Jaeger pilots that were considered rock stars, that “We got real good at it, winning.” He’s shown to be cocky, a bit loud, a bit brash, eager to get out there and earn the “fifth notch on the belt.” He wears a leather jacket. He’s got swagger. He cracks jokes about girls with the head LOCCENT officer. He and his brother, Yancy, deliberately disobey orders from their commanding officer in favor of their own wishes. He’s every over-confident male lead in an action movie, sure of his own ability to win and more than willing to say so. On top of that, he suffers a traumatic loss, which is usually a setup for a hero’s plot arc of some sort.

However, this is a plot arc that never comes. Raleigh starts the film as a Hero Protagonist and ends it a Secondary Protagonist Mentor to Mako’s Protagonist. Because the first fifteen minutes are about Raleigh, a lot of people miss that shift and assume that he’s just a really boring main character. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. You just have to follow the plot threads and see where they diverge from the expected.

In order to examine what Raleigh’s true plot arc is, we have to look at what his plot arc would’ve been in any other movie. This post on tumblr really sums it up; in another film, he would’ve spent the movie being angsty, taking out his frustrations on other people, learning how to trust again just in time for a big fight and ultimately saving the day and avenging his brother in one fell swoop with the help of side character and emotional crutch, Mako Mori. Almost none of that happens on-screen or at all. The middle part, the no doubt crushing guilt and anger that Raleigh feels that losing his older brother at the young age of twenty-one, is entirely off screen. We catch a glimpse of it early in the film when Stacker picks him up at the Wall—Raleigh is guarded, unwilling to go back, concerned that he won’t be able to handle having someone else in his head because last time hurt too much. But that is dropped like a hot potato the second he meets Mako.

In fact, a lot of things that usually would accompany Raleigh re-joining the plot are dropped like a hot potato. A big one is any emphasis that Raleigh is important. There were already seeds of this subversion early on, with Raleigh explicitly saying that he wasn’t the hero type and that his only unique traits are his fighting skills and his ability to Drift. When he re-arrives at the Shatterdome, there’s no talk of Raleigh’s five notches on the belt, and minimal talk of his incredibly impressive solo Jaeger piloting—something only one other person has been able to do (though we’ll get to that detail later). The one conversation he has about his glory days is centered on how he knows another character via a fight that he refers to as a team effort. He’s not spoken of in reverent whispers, nor does anyone coddle him for being a former legend. He’s not a formal legend, by his own admission—he’s a has-been, and the narrative treats him as such.

Another reason no one coddles him is that no one has to. The plot doesn’t place excess emphasis on his pain, and Raleigh never, at any point, takes out his anger about the loss of Yancy on other people. There are moments that show it still hurts: he still carries a picture of Yancy with him, and it’s his memories of losing his brother that send his first Drift in five years, four months out of alignment. But he also recovers first from the trauma because he has learned to deal with it, and how he’s learned to deal with it does not involve being an asshole to others, no matter what. While he defends his past actions to Mako when she points out his tendency towards unpredictable fighting can be dangerous, he also admits that she has a point and thanks her for her honesty. When finally he pushes back against Chuck instead of just glaring, it’s not because of comments Chuck has made about him or Yancy—it’s because of comments made about Mako. When he makes a mistake in the Drift, he owns up to it. When Stacker rightfully smacks him down for overstepping his boundaries, Raleigh backs down, and never once has an I told you so moment when his assertion that he and Mako would make a great team is proven right. There’s no time for Raleigh to have an ego or to be a bitter jerk. He has other things to focus on.

Which brings us back to Mako.

From the get-go, Raleigh is interested in her. This interest, however, is never about his feelings for her (regardless of how you interpret those feelings); it’s entirely centered on Mako as a person. He asks what her story is, expresses admiration for her skills, and starts supporting her dream of becoming a pilot within a day of meeting her. He’s attentive to her expressions and behavior to the point of being able to read her like a book by day one, which is both a sign of their compatibility and the attention he’s willing to give to her. He opens up to her, rather fittingly in front of their Jaeger as her “heart” is uncovered to be repaired. Raleigh re-frames his experiences with Jaeger piloting, the loss of his brother, and his mistakes in such a way that they benefit Mako, and help her along in her hero’s journey. At the end of their first conversation alone, Raleigh tells Mako that sometimes, “you make decisions, and you have to live with the consequences. That’s what I’m trying to do.” If the behavior described in the paragraphs above this one is anything to go by, he has definitely learned to live with the consequences, and he’s more than willing to pass that knowledge on to Mako.

It’s worth noting that Raleigh does so without being too over bearing. He’s not a know-it-all; there’s never a point where Mako has to roll her eyes and be like “Yeah, I knew that already.” There are two reasons for this. One, he generally helps her out with things she wouldn’t have any way of having concrete knowledge about, like RABITs. Other times, he knows when to back down. He offers advice during their duel until Mako starts flourishing; that’s his cue to shut up and let her actions speak for themselves. He tries to convince her to stand up to Stacker until she makes it clear that she’s not interested; even when he visibly wants to, he walks away from her door and on to see who his pilot will be, even if it’s not her, because that’s what she wants.

This isn’t to say that he won’t fight for her at all. In fact, most of his conflict with Stacker is centered around Mako (that or Stacker withholding information, which is a legitimate concern to be fair). He fights for her, because he views her desires as important. Raleigh doesn’t fight for himself, doesn’t lash out when Chuck insults him, doesn’t care if he gets in trouble for making a mistake. But he’ll fight like hell for Mako.

A white male protagonist whose plot arc is not focused on his pain, but rather on the fact that there is a life after it and you can move on without being a jerk to other people is unique on its own. The fact that he then goes on to frame his pain and loss and use it to help another person—a woman, no less, who fills many of the plot elements that Raleigh would’ve in any other movie—is extraordinary. So much of Raleigh’s plot is focused on helping Mako, and I think that’s a detail a lot of people miss. He’s her sidekick, her copilot, and his plot would not be the same without her.

Which isn’t to say the only resolution of Raleigh’s plot is in using his pain to help Mako. While we don’t see Raleigh coming to terms with his pain, we do get to see him find some peace and resolution as the plot goes on. There are three moments that give Raleigh closure and wrap up his plot arc by allowing him to redeem himself. The first and most obvious comes in their defeat of Leatherback. Raleigh shows he’s learned more caution with a nice bit of overkill, suggesting the double-tap that guarantees Leatherback won’t be an issue the way Knifehead was. Part two comes when he expresses to Mako that he’s finally started thinking about a future for himself. Granted, it’s a moment that comes just as he’s about to go on a mission that could lead to his death, but it’s still a moment that underlines the fact that he has healed. More importantly, he’s healed as a result of their bond. This detail carries over to the third and final stage of Raleigh’s closure: the boss battle at the Breach.

It starts with Stacker. Some of his last words to Raleigh are the last words that he heard from Yancy: Raleigh, listen to me. Unlike last time, though, Raleigh is able to hear the last request, and follow through on it, offering some healing both to the trauma of never being able to do that with his brother, and in the contentious relationship he had with Stacker. This is especially important because it was revealed, not too long before the fight, that Stacker was the other man who had piloted solo. They are alike in that sense, and that discovery along with this scene forge a bond between them that erases past mistakes and disagreements, leaving only mutual respect.

It ends, as it should, with Mako. There are some people who didn’t like the fact that Mako has to sit out the detonation of G. Danger and be saved by Raleigh. I am not one of those people, and there’s two big reasons why. The first is that it shows Mako as a character worth saving, which is important for reasons I’ll get into in my Mako essay. The second is that it is an incredible act of healing for Raleigh that also emphasizes his position as an unconventional, secondary protagonist. He is able to save Mako when he could not save Yancy; in doing so, he de-emphasizes his own importance and emphasizes hers. “I can do this alone,” he tells her. “All I have to do is fall. Anyone can fall.”

Raleigh is doing something anyone could do so that Mako, whom he views as more than just anyone, can live. To borrow a line from Wonder Woman, he can save today, and he really believes that she can save the world—or that she already has, and deserves to live because of it. Anyone can fall is one of my favorite lines in the film, and emphasizes why I love this character so much. Raleigh Becket can be a little shit, manipulative in that way of younger brothers who have learned how to push buttons to get what they want, brash, and questions authority a bit too much. But he’s also kind, empathetic, respectful, and ultimately heroic in all the right ways. His transition from cocksure Hero Protagonist to humble Mentor Secondary Protagonist is, in my opinion, a very solid character arc that deserves more recognition, and more emulation for that matter. The world could use more men like Raleigh Becket in it.

And that’s it for my Raleigh essay! Tune back in on December 20th for Part II of this series, which will focus on Mako Mori and why she’s the most amazing character ever of all time, don’t @ me, I’m right about this.

If you like what you read and want to help me write more four-page single-spaced essays about the characters of Pacific Rim, consider leaving a donation on ko-fi or becoming a patron (links in the blog bio). I know, their new system is questionable, but I’ll be adding more patron benefits to make up for the additional cost, including access to my full character notes from the Pacific Rim essays.

#unsolicited opinion #pacific rim #raleigh becket #I hope the sequel gives him the respect he deserves because he's wonderful and I love him

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crissle · 7 years

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transcript of the speech i gave at Vassar’s black baccalaureate service

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, and the Vassar class of 2017. Just saying that aloud made me feel old. Class of 2017? Most of y'all were born after dark-skinned Aunt Viv left the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. That’s wild.

I want to first thank you for allowing me to be a part of such a special moment in your lives. I am honored, privileged, and a bit in disbelief that you asked me of all people to give this address. I try not to have feelings, and I’m going to do my best not to cry today, but no promises.

I’m here to stand in the gap between you and your parents and guardians and any other elders in your lives that you stopped listening to because you thought they were wack and out of touch. I remember being in your shoes not TOO long ago, and it is my fervent prayer that something that I say here today will help you avoid some of the mess I went through. To be honest I’m a little nervous, but I figured there was no way could this be worse than when Betsy DeVos went down to Bethune-Cookman, so let’s get started. As you transition to life after Vassar the changes will be both inevitable and swift, so I’d like to begin by giving you some well-intentioned advice and warning you about the continued process of becoming an adult.

It means I frequently feel simultaneously overwhelmed and very bored. It means forcing myself to go to work even when I’m depressed or my anxiety is through the roof because I’m the grown up now, and the bills don’t get paid unless I do it.

It means sometimes sitting in my room alone and feeling like I’ve done nothing significant with myself.

It means going through bouts of just being unhappy and not having any option but deal with it.

So no, adulthood is not the “I can do what I want” paradise that it may have appeared to be when we were young, and I’m sure you can all see that clearly now, but there is even more growth ahead. Sorry if you thought the hard parts were over.

Many of you have likely never worked a full time job or completely supported yourselves before, so as you prepare to enter the professional workforce please understand that as a young person of color your biggest asset will likely not be your intelligence, work ethic, or creativity. It will be your ability to make the white people around you feel at ease. You’ve probably already been honing this skill during your time at Vassar. No shade. Lord knows my years in college in Oklahoma prepared me in the same way to deal with my bosses and coworkers. You will be tested the first time a colleague complains to your supervisor about your “unfriendliness”, when really you were just trying to meet a deadline and didn’t care to hear about Susan’s cat and its vomit. Or the time you collaborate with a group and when the work is presented to your boss, your contributions have been conveniently erased or “mistakenly” attributed to someone else.

There have been many times that I had to sit back at work and bite my tongue while a white male coworker skated by with few responsibilities and even fewer repercussions. This is what it’s like for most of us playing the corporate game. Keep the white people at work comfortable in your presence, and things are magically easier. Force them to see the blackness in your humanity, and watch the complaints to HR pile up.

If you feel like you are being unfairly targeted or punished at work, put those in feelings in writing and back it up with some proof before emailing it to the people who need to know. That’s right - I’m telling you to go full White Woman in the workplace. Learn now to trust your gut. Know that if something FEELS off, it probably IS off.

When things were getting rough at a previous job of mine and I suspected something shady was going on, I started carrying my iPhone all over the office and using the Voice Memo app to record what was being said when I wasn’t in the room.

I kept my own meticulous records of what was going on and those files ended up saving me in a major way. I’m thankful every day that I didn’t ignore my intuition about that job. Sometimes we get those sneaky feelings and think we’re being paranoid when it’s really God (or the universe, or your personal higher power, whatever you believe in) trying to warn us about the dangers ahead. There have also been plenty of times that I didn’t listen to that intuition at all and paid the price dearly. Please learn from my mistakes.

I dated a girl back in 2008 or 2009 (the years all start to run together after a certain point) that we’ll call Ashley. Ashley was fine, played basketball, had a nice car, great job, and most importantly - was taller than me. But there were lots of things about her that didn’t add up. Like how she claimed to be an engineer for Apple, but we lived in Oklahoma City which had only just gotten an Apple retail store at all the year before. Or how she claimed to be my age, but her driver’s license said she was born three years before I was. (She claimed it was a mistake at the DMV that she never got fixed). Or how she constantly gave away fancy things like Louis Vuitton purses and Gucci and bought an SUV back when gas was like $5.32/gallon and not even rich white people were buying SUVs. The list goes on and on.

There was a lot about Ashley that should have been a red flag, but I didn’t care. She was fine! She took me out all the time and seemed head over heels for me and opened doors and held my umbrella so I looked past the sketchy job thing and the fact that she was blatantly lying about her age and everything else. The universe gave me so many chances to walk away from that situation, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. If I am honest with you now, it’s because I never thought someone who looked that good could be attracted to me. If I lost her, I’d never get anybody that fine again. When she got a new job as an “engineer” at a bank, she asked me to come there one day and open an account so she could deposit a check into it. Now don’t get me wrong, I was definitely a fool back then, but that just felt like it should be a no. And so for the first time in our relationship, I told her no.

She let it drop, and I pretended that nothing was wrong and kept dating Ashley despite the millions of warnings the universe was tossing in my direction until I couldn’t ignore them anymore.

A few weeks later, I was home asleep when she pulled up at my house at 3 AM (problem number one) and told me she’d been arrested for embezzlement and her dad had just bailed her out. She claimed that it was all a big misunderstanding, but when I put two and two together I realized that she’d asked me to come to the bank that day so that she could pull off her little stunt and blame me if she ever got caught. To say that I was hurt by that betrayal would be a massive understatement. I couldn’t believe someone I loved and trusted so much could have treated me that way. Had I been even just 2% dumber I’d probably have a record right now because of that girl. I let the idea of loneliness and solitude keep me in a situation that I should have left months earlier, and it almost ruined me in a permanent way.

I tell you that story because my friend Kid Fury and I give out a lot of advice on our podcast, The Read. Most of it is about relationships and I get a lot of feedback from younger women who say things like “Wow, I wish I was as reasonable as you are about relationships” or “I wish I was okay with being single like you guys seem to be”. But I didn’t always make smart decisions when it came to love. I wasn’t always okay with being by myself and I didn’t get to this place overnight.

What I DID do was learn from all the ways that I messed up and spent time alone after every relationship to work on myself. From Ashley in particular I learned to always trust my instincts, and these days I spend a lot more time vetting people before I decide to date them. That’s not foolproof either, because love is always a gamble. You never know how things will turn out. The difference now is that I listen to the warnings the first time I hear them.

Since we’re already on the subject of relationships, I want you to know that sometimes you will have to un-break your own heart. Sometimes what you thought was the perfect relationship ends and you don’t get any real answers or resolution or closure. Sometimes you will have to sit alone in your heartbreak and just feel every bit of that misery. Sometimes you will have to know when it’s over and be brave enough to end things before they can get worse.

I want you to know that because if you decide to not feel those feelings… if you decide to throw yourself into sex or dating or selling laxatives on Instagram instead of processing the entirety of what you are going through… all you are doing is delaying the inevitable. Your future relationships will crumble under the weight of your unresolved emotions. You are not doing yourself a favor by pretending that you aren’t bleeding. It is fine and good to develop hobbies to distract yourself from the pain and loneliness of a relationship ending, but make sure you take the time to really get through your breakup.

Remember that never getting married isn’t the worst thing that could happen to you, but marrying the wrong person could be.

For young women in particular, I want you to learn to put yourselves first. Learn to prioritize your needs. There is so much to be accomplished in your personal life when you are happy with yourself alone. As a wise woman once said, there is an essential part of who you are that only becomes alive in the place where romance ends. Women are so conditioned in this society to take care of others that choosing yourself can feel unnatural. It can be isolating, because believe it or not lots of people don’t think women have the right to see themselves as truly equal to men. Weak partners will not know how to handle a woman who puts her happiness above anyone else’s but choose yourself anyway, and never compromise just for the sake of not being single.

When I was around your age, LiveJournal was a big deal on the internet. If you aren’t familiar, LiveJournal was a site for keeping personal blogs and participating in communities with like-minded people and I loved it. I blogged on LJ for years and made internet friends that I still keep up with on Twitter today, and when I take the time to go back and read what I was going through in my mid-twenties I am always blown away.

An excerpt from September 6, 2004: “I figure, why break up with him for being a liar (and probably a cheater) when everyone I’ve EVER dated has been a liar/cheater. Obviously I am destined to be either alone or with a liar/cheater. No sense in breaking up with this one when all I’ll be doing is waiting for the next one to come around.”

YIKES! I read that now and see a person whose self-esteem was so low that she should’ve been single and in therapy. It’s hard for me to reconcile that girl with who I am today, but I got here. The things that felt fresh and dangerous and new back then are old roads to me now. You will get there too. But you gotta keep going.

Another quote from my journal, this one dated November 5, 2008: “I don’t even try, anymore, even though I want things to be better. I want to do and be better. But I don’t put forth the effort that I know is required of me and I don’t know why. I just let things get worse and worse and worse and one of two things happen: It’ll get so bad that I’m forced to do something to change it or it’ll blow up completely in my face. If I do eventually change, I never manage to keep it up so either way it goes my life is a constant cycle of fail. I wish I knew why I couldn’t be one of those people who learns to make it right.

P.S. What is up with Rihanna having all these good songs lately?”

I remember feeling that way A LOT - sometimes for days and weeks at time. But it’s funny to me now that I remember those feelings but not the daily work it took to get out of it. I just know that I kept moving. I talked to my friends about what was going on and faithfully asked the church to pray for me every Sunday and Wednesday. When that didn’t fix it alone, I broke down and found a psychiatrist. (Which I highly recommend, by the way. Mine have saved my life twice. #NoShame.) If you’ve never been in therapy before, it might surprise you how helpful a stranger can be when you feel stuck dealing with life. And of course, I kept my journal. I kept writing. When my depression drove me to the point of feeling suicidal, I wrote my way out. But my journal wasn’t all tears and desperation and sadness. I laugh a lot too when I look back at who I used to be and what the world was like then.

Like this post from September 3, 2005: “Kanye West just got on TV and said ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people’. Kanye West is officially my baby daddy.”

Or this one, from August of that same year: “I bought two fish, one male and one female. I named them Brad and Angelina. And I don’t think it’s any coincidence that they hump constantly.”

I encourage you to keep a journal and write in it as much as possible. I read a story on Humans of New York last year about a woman who has kept a journal every day since she started it as a class assignment in elementary school. Y’all, I would spend Beyoncé ticket money to be able to go back to 1996 and read my thoughts on being in 7th grade and what the Oklahoma City bombing was like for us living 90 miles away. I would spend VIP Beyoncé ticket money to be able to go back to high school and read the daily thoughts of a girl who was struggling with bisexuality and living with a very religious family in the middle of the Bible belt. So yes, please keep a written record of your life. One day it will be invaluable to you.

Take a lot of pictures of yourself and of everything around you, even when you think you look terrible. I don’t mean that you have to post them on Instagram or Tumblr every day, but no one ever grew older and thought “Damn, there’s too many photos of me lying around from when I was young.” The moments you are experiencing now will layer themselves into the person you grow to be. It’s a lot of fun to look back on trips that my best friends and I took in our mid-twenties and cackle together over the memories. When I was your age, camera phones were only just starting to become mainstream and it was a bit of a pain to hold onto lots of photos. So take advantage of the times we are in now. Save all those snaps to your camera roll. Record videos when you and your friends are just hanging out being goofy. Take those selfies, even if you think they’re ugly, and know that one day you’ll look back and touch the pixels of your 23 year old face and wonder where the time went.

One day, if it hasn’t come already, it will really hit you that you’re not one of the kids anymore. One day you will look around at your family and you will now be in the position that was always previously occupied by your parents, aunts, and uncles. Those kids that your siblings and cousins have? They get old fast! It is a cruel trick of life that childhood seems to drag on forever while adulthood flies past. Nothing prepares you for the realization that your parents are whole, complete people who had entire lives that existed before you were ever considered.

You will know in a way that young people are not capable of knowing that time continues to move and the world keeps turning no matter what. Children cannot quite understand that the games and technology and places and people they build their memories out of will all change one day. When I was your age, MySpace and BlackPlanet were more popular than Facebook and George W. Bush was the dumbest president America ever had. So yeah, the world will change in ways you cannot begin to imagine. You will realize that if you are fortunate you will be old one day, but also that growing older means learning different ways to say goodbye. One day it will be you turning up the brightness on your phone and increasing the font size on your MacBook and looking confused at whatever new app or machine the children of the future have invented.

Everyone won’t leave Vassar this weekend with a great job lined up in the career they’ve always dreamed of and go on to live happily ever after. If you’re like most of us, you will spend a significant amount of time being overworked, undervalued, underpaid, stressed, and tired. I want to encourage you today to hold on through the times when life will frustrate you the most. Understand that you WILL mess up, and the way you respond to making mistakes shows your true maturity. Hold on to the friendships you’ve had for years. Take the time to figure out who you are and how that person is different from who you want to be. Learn when to cut people off and how to genuinely apologize.

Ages 22 to 32 were by far the hardest I’ve gone through in my life. Imma just be real with y’all about that. I had a lot of terrible relationships. I had knockdown drag-out fights with roommates and best friends. I had terrible jobs and even worse bosses. My health wasn’t always great and I stopped trying to take care of myself. Depression and anxiety seemed to rule my days more often than not.

But if I hadn’t held on, I never would have worked up the nerve to move from Oklahoma to Harlem. I never would have started doing The Read with Kid Fury, which changed my life completely. I never would have been able to travel the world doing the work I love. I never would have found the real happiness and true peace that come with both loving and liking yourself.

Understand that your next steps into adulthood begin now, and that you cannot get to the rewards life has in store for you without walking the journey. (Unless you were born a cis-straight white man, and then the world is your oyster.) When I look back over the past decade of my life, I see a lot of struggle and heartache and days that I had to collect coins from the bottom of my glove compartment to scrape up enough money to find dinner. And now that I’m on the other side of that mountain I see how every last one of those days I spent hurting and miserable led me to being right here. I had to learn to trust the process laid out for me. I had to learn to let my dreams shift into my destiny. Like Oprah says, I learned to lean in with the universe instead of fighting it. So as you prepare to tackle the changes heading your way, do your best to hold your head high and remain true to yourself. Remember to hold onto your values, your ethics, and your purpose. It is these qualities that will successfully guide you through life.

I’ll leave you with one last excerpt from my journal, dated January 20, 2007: “My ex-boyfriend just moved to Harlem and he gets on my nerves talking about how great the east coast is. I really don’t give a damn about the east coast. I would never move to NYC, but maybe that’s just me.”10 years later, I can tell you that 24 year old me couldn’t have been more wrong about what she would or would not do and how her life was going to turn out. So have your dreams and goals, but don’t be so attached to them that you miss out on your purpose.

Congratulations to you, the Vassar class of 2017, and to the parents, family and friends who have helped you arrive. Good luck to you and thank you for listening.

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marymosley · 4 years

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Harvard Professor Lessig Sues New York Times For Defamation

This week seems to be a litigious one for Harvard professors. In addition to the complaint by Dershowitz at Yale, Harvard law professor and liberal political activist Lawrence Lessig is actually suing The New York Times for defamation. While there may be more offered in litigation, the lawsuit on its face seems dubious in establishing that the New York Times ran “false and defamatory” information for him as “clickbait” for readers.

Lessig previously ran for president and has been a long-standing liberal activist. That makes him a public figure for the purposes of defamation who must shoulder a higher burden of proof. The standard for defamation for public figures and officials in the United States is the product of a decision decades ago in New York Times v. Sullivan. Ironically, this is precisely the environment in which the opinion was written and he is precisely the type of plaintiff that the opinion was meant to deter. The Supreme Court ruled that tort law could not be used to overcome First Amendment protections for free speech or the free press. The Court sought to create “breathing space” for the media by articulating that standard that now applies to both public officials and public figures. In order to prevail, West must show either actual knowledge of its falsity or a reckless disregard of the truth. The standard for defamation for public figures and officials in the United States is the product of a decision decades ago in New York Times v. Sullivan. Ironically, this is precisely the environment in which the opinion was written and he is precisely the type of plaintiff that the opinion was meant to deter. The Supreme Court ruled that tort law could not be used to overcome First Amendment protections for free speech or the free press. The Court sought to create “breathing space” for the media by articulating that standard that now applies to both public officials and public figures.

The Lessig lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts contains a fair degree of throat-clearing where Lessig accuses the newspaper of being part of “a growing journalistic culture of clickbaiting: the use of a shocking headline and/or lede to entice readers to click on a particular article, irrespective of the truth of the headline.” The objectionable headline read: “A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein’s Money, Do It in Secret.” It was a piece on donations by the notorious Jeffrey Epstein to MIT and whether institutions should accept such money. The article included an interview with Lessig, who says that it suggests wrongly that he was encouraging taking money from people like Epstein. It is not clear, if true, that such a suggestion would constitute a damaging blow to a reputation since the premise is that schools should be able to use such money for a higher and most positive purpose. Indeed, his objections on his blog post could be viewed as nuanced: “My essay said—repeatedly—that such soliciting was a ‘mistake.’ And more importantly, it was a mistake because of the kind of harm it would trigger in both victims and women generally.” Yet, Lessig was arguing that an institution could take money from criminals or unsavory figures when the donor remains anonymous. He also defended Joi Ito, the MIT official responsible, and said that he should not be “scapegoated” for his mistake. Lessig says that he raised objections to the false suggestion that he was supporting taking money from Epstein. The New York Times headline was primarily dedicated to showing that, despite criticism for his view, Lessig was not backing down on the main premise of accepting money from controversial figures.

Accepting the complaint at face value (as would a court on a summary judgment motion from the New York Times), the complaint raises a tough question for the court. Lessig clearly did say in his essay that “it was a mistake to take this money, even if anonymous.” He also said that he conferred with Ito about the money and said that he was upset at the notion before Lessig himself was abused as a child.

However, he also stated:

“It was not my fight. I didn’t have the stomach or the ability then to do my own investigation. I wish now I had just screamed “don’t” to Joi. But I didn’t—and I wouldn’t have. Indeed, though I don’t remember this precisely, I probably told him that if he was convinced, then it was ok. Because the truth is that—as I thought about it then—if Joi believed as he did after real diligence, I didn’t believe he was wrong to take Epstein’s money anonymously.”

In his essay, Lessig creates four “types” to lay out when to accept or to reject money as academic institutions. The last two include:

Type 3 is people who are criminals, but whose wealth does not derive from their crime. This is Epstein, but not just Epstein. It may be that we’ll discover that Epstein got rich by blackmailing people whom he had encouraged or enabled to commit abuse. I doubt it, but it’s possible. Suffice it that when Joi was investigating whether that criminal continued his crime, no one was suggesting that his enormous wealth was the product of blackmail or sex slavery. He was, the world assumed, a brilliant, savant-like investor, who was also a sexual predator.

Type 4 is entities and people whose wealth comes from clearly wrongful or harmful or immoral behavior. The RJ Reynolds Foundation, the Sacklers, the Kochs: I recognize that people have different views about these people or entities, but it is not hard to identify the enormous harm that each has caused. . . . This money is blood money. It is wealth that is great because of the harm.

Lessig’s division of such categories is hardly a model of clarity and the essay gets increasingly murky on where or why he is drawing lines:

“And here then would be the rub for me at least (because most universities don’t follow this rule): I think that universities should not be the launderers of reputation. I think that they should not accept blood money. Or more precisely, I believe that if they are going to accept blood money (type 4) or the money from people convicted of a crime (type 3), they should only ever accept that money anonymously. Anonymity — or as my colleague Chris Robertson would put it, blinding — is the least a university should do to avoid becoming the mechanism through which great wrong is forgiven. Were I king, I would ban non-anonymous gifts of type 3 or type 4.”

He clearly states that, if universities take money from types 3 or 4, it should be done anonymously. While he personally would not do it, the essay could be read as supporting such decisions to accept money from types 3 and 5 donors as within the range of discretion for universities. That makes this case less compelling, particularly for a public figure.

Headlines can be the basis for defamation, even when the body of the column clarifies a false premise or suggestion. However, the headline could be defended as extending Lessig’s point to a more general point involving those accused of criminal or objectionable conduct. I would have still counseled the paper to issue a clarification of the headline since Lessig’s objection is not frivolous. Yet, the question is whether such broader headline is truly defamatory or whether it reflects a more nuanced position by Lessig.

The case could raise such precedent as Wilkow v. Forbes. In that case, Forbes Magazine ran column that reported that Marc Wilkow only paid ($55 million on a $93 million loan and “stiffed” the bank as a shady or sharp operator. Seventh Circuit upheld dismissal in favor of Forbes in ruling these were not false or defamatory statements. Seventh Circuit Judge Frank Easterbook wrote an opinion that such statements can be read in different ways:

“Although a reader might arch an eyebrow at Wilkow’sstrategy, an allegation of greed is not defamatory; sedulous pursuit of self-interest is the engine that propels a market economy. Capitalism certainly does not depend on sharp practices, but neither is an allegation of sharp dealing anything more than an uncharitable opinion. Illinois does not attach damages to name-calling. Wilkow’s current and potential partners would have read this article as an endorsement of Wilkow’sstrategy; they want to invest with a general partner who drives the hardest possible bargain with lenders. By observing that Wilkow used every opening the courts allowed, Forbes may well have improved his standing with investors looking for real estate tax shelters (though surely it did not help his standing with lenders). No matter the net effect of the article, however, it was not defamatory under Illinois law, so the judgment of the district court is affirmed.”

The article in the New York Times suggests that Lessig was offering a realpolitik approach to academic gifts that accepted the money but not the attribution. It is a good-faith view that such money can be put to a more positive use than to leave it with such dubious figures. Moreover, the distinction drawn by Lessig is a tad difficult to follow. He seems to suggest that you can accept money from those accused of some crimes but not others. All crimes have victims. Lessig himself appears to recognize that accepting money from type 3 and 4 donors is within the range of discretion so long as they are anonymous.

A court may be tempted to dismiss this action on its face, but it does not appear particularly compelling for an actual trial.

Here is the lawsuit: Lessig v. New York Times

Harvard Professor Lessig Sues New York Times For Defamation published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

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natsubeatsrock · 7 years

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My Incredibly Unpopular Thoughts on: Fairy Tail’s Ending

To start with, stop.

I don’t care what you think about the ending. I don’t care what you think about the series. I kind of care why you’re reading this post. (Hi.) Just stop.

Now, do me a favor and take a deep breath.

Before I start to talk about this chapter, I just want to say that this has been a crazy ride. I started Fairy Tail in October of 2014 and I never would have thought that I would be running a blog about Fairy Tail and such a relevant name in this fandom back then. I’ve had tons of fun running this blog for years and if it weren’t for Fairy Tail, I probably wouldn’t be an anime/manga fan. Even though this series is nowhere near perfect and this arc is nowhere near the best, I’m glad that I’m a Fairy Tail fan. And this ending hasn’t changed that for me.

Also, I actually did make a Quick Notes about this chapter. So if there’s something you think I missed in this post, check that one. I also talked about my thoughts on Nalu’s ending in a separate post, which goes exactly how well you’d think a post about it from me would be. This was supposed to come out the same week, but…

Life.

So, with that out of the way, let’s talk about this chapter.

When I saw that this last chapter was going to be 45 pages, I was pleasantly surprised. Consider that the end of Naruto is simply two normal length chapters that came out at once. Likewise, the last chapters of Bleach and Death Note are about as long as a normal chapter. So seeing that this chapter was going to be that long gave me the hope that more ground will be covered than in those endings. Though. Rave ended with more than 20 pages more than this and, looking back, I’m not a huge fan of some parts of that ending.

Speaking of those series, the last chapter starts with a jump to the future. This is a weird trope for me. My only real issue with the Naruto ending was that it felt like there was a huge disconnect between the Last, which I had just finished, and this chapter. However, the ending of the other series (yes, even Bleach) worked so well for me because we got to see how the world moved on after the events of the previous chapters.

I’m glad that Lucy won an award for her novel. I’m also glad that the popular fan theory that Lucy was writing the events of Fairy Tail out for a story is also proven wrong. I never liked that theory and I’m glad Lucy won by coming up with her own original story.

Even though the main character based off her.

And seeing how the guild is acting at this party makes me realize that Lucy’s friends are jerks to Lucy. I said this before, but I’m shocked that they’re even worried about other people ruining their reputation when they’re so good at making themselves look terrible. I have to believe that Erza and other members of the guild are genuinely concerned about a thief pretending to be a Fairy Tail mage. But hey, she was worried about other people in the guild at her introduction.

And Juvia is still stripping…

You know, I remember when Juvia stripped to join Gray during the anime for a thing she didn’t need to. It was messed up, but it was kind of funny.

Only kind of.

And then Gray and Juvia stripped together in the Avatar arc. Like I thought it was cool back when I shipped Gruvia. But looking back, it’s weird that Juvia developed the same habit Gray formed that after training in fewer clothes to get used to the cold and doing ice magic that even the person who had the idea to do it thought was unnatural…

Because Gruvia is a “good ship”. Like, why else did this need to be a thing? Mashima should have stuck with the water body thing because that’s awesome and only kind of comes back later on in the series.

Anna is in this timeline as a teacher which is kind of cool. I guess, since she wanted to teach the dragon slayers, she gets to teach another group of young kids. Gajeel jokes to Natsu about liking Anna and…

I’m conflicted.

See, in pretty much any other case, I’d be totally fine shipping Natsu with anyone that people joke about him liking except Lucy. But, aside from not even thinking he actually liked her the way Gajeel meant, I’m not sure I can be comfortable shipping Natsu with anyone when the age difference is much bigger than that of Jerza-

I mean Graytear.

So we learned about the other guilds. Lamia Scale has a thing called Thanksgiving Day and they dragged Wendy into performing with Chelia. I’m actually excited for this to be animated. I hope we get an actual full song from the earlier performance of these two. For those who might be wondering why, Wendy’s Japanese VA, Satomi Sato, has also been in some roles that have involved her singing.

And then there’s Mermaid Heel. (Get used to this phrase. I’ve used it a lot.)

So, out of everything that happened in this chapter, I’m shocked that this didn’t get more people angry. What even is the point of having Mermaid Heel be exclusive models for Sorcerer Weekly? That was never important to them before. Kagura even questions what the point of this was. It’s almost as if Mashima was saying, “Screw anyone who thought I was going to give the only all-girl guild a dignifying ending! This is Fairy Tail!”

Oh, but it’s okay because not many people cared about them and of course we’re going to have sexy girls in outfits so we can appeal to the target demographic of teen boys and where do I stop?

The other guilds did stuff. Like, I know that a lot of people love people outside the guild and I have my favorites from outside Fairy Tail. But, I don’t have much to say about what we learned about the other guilds.

And then we got a block of ship moments. Oh, the boys.

We started with Gajevy. And, man, I wish I had anything to say about them. I really don’t want to continue the trend of not talking about them. I have a few posts for them in the works, but for now…

I guess they had sex?

And then there’s Gruvia.

I can’t just leave it there, right? No?

So I’m not actually sure that Gruvia is actually canon. Yeah, me having a view that seems very different from most of the fandom. Shocking, right? I mean, there’s a lot of noise on both sides and it was a weird scene to include. But I didn’t see that conversation as a “Gruvia definitely is/isn’t canon” moment.

When I saw Gray say that Juvia’s body belongs to him, my mind immediately went to chapter 499, which I’ve had to look at multiple times for a post I’m going to get done on August 30th. When Juvia (somehow) revealed to Gray that she (somehow) used Water Make Magic, she told him that her life belongs to him. So Juvia’s body does belong to him.

Kinda.

So, the questions I think a reader of this should have to answer is whether Gray feels awkward about this because he likes Juvia or because even kind of owning Juvia freaks him out. As you can tell, I’m not really sure how to answer this question. Of course, this doesn’t mention that Gray might also be hesitant in making a statement Juvia may think is either offensive or romantic, as different people in the fandom have been arguing it is.

At any rate, this was the kind of ambiguity I was afraid of. I wanted to voice my fear that we’d get an ambiguous Gruvia ending. However, I was assured by the Gruvia fandom that Gray would definitely give an answer and that that answer would be yes. So, while I disagreed with the latter, I bit my tongue on the issue. It turns out, neither was the case and I was right to be worried.

Elfgreen is probably canon. I don’t think it’s a huge leap of faith to say that. (Yeah, that’s all I got.)

All the popular guy-girl Laxus ships have been de-confirmed in one go. I’m actually impressed that Mashima did that. I said this before, but I find it hilarious that Mashima made sure to empathize Miraxus as a rumor. I feel like the Laxana camp is as huge, but he had to take shots at that other ship. I’m honestly not sure what that means for Fraxus. And to be honest, I don’t really care Laxus ships.

And then there’s Jerza.

Like many people in this fandom, I’m actually shocked by Jerza in this chapter, but for a different reason. I was actually shocked that any time was given to Jerza at all in this chapter. I honestly wasn’t expecting Mashima to address this issue in any way at all. But, oh the boys, did he address it. While I understand the frustration of the Jerza fandom, I actually pretty cool with this ending. I figured he would give Jerza a non-canon ending.

This kind of situation feels reminiscent of Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye’s relationship from FMA. They’re nothing like each other, material wise. However, in both cases, it looked a lot like they liked each other. However, the series ended without them hooking up. (At least officially.) I figured this kind of thing would happen a long time ago so I’m not surprised by this.

What did surprise me was about 5 pages spent on Mashima’s Zervis AU. Or any time at all spent on any version of Zervis at all post ‘taking Nalu’s One Magic” a while ago. And I kind of liked it. It makes no sense to exist in any way shape or form, but it was kind of cute and I think this is better than real Zervis.

Somewhere in all of this, we learned that Makarov lost the ability to use his legs. Well, something had to happen because of Makarov’s return. I’d actually be disappointed if everything was fine. My big complaint about the Rave Master ending, without spoiling much, a lot of losses and sacrifices made in chapters prior were rewritten. So, in this one aspect, Fairy Tail’s ending is better than Rave Master’s ending.

But, similar to Rave Master’s ending, Chelia can use magic. This is was one of the other big things I was afraid of Mashima doing in the last chapter of the series. To be fair, it’s only to a limited ability, but it’s still pretty annoying. I hinted at this, but I didn’t say it out right because I was in a fight with someone who thought I hadn’t read Rave at the time and I wanted to be petty.

So, Lucy blanked out and wakes up in her house. And, pretty much everything about this scene up until the flashback annoys me.

After 541 chapters and almost a decade of both real world and in-universe time, Natsu still breaks into Lucy’s house. Happy decides to polish Lucy’s newly acquired trophy with his claws. And this is all played for laughs. Like I’m actually supposed to look at this and think that this is funny and not sad.

Keep in mind that people were able to get past this point and still think that Natsu was going to confess romantic feelings. Look, I think that Natsu and Lucy have an amazing bond, but it would be really bad if this was just before a romantic confession. I can understand people who were disappointed with the Jerza ending. If you thought this was going to lead into a Nalu ending, you played yourself.

Luckily, there’s more to be annoyed with. Lucy ends up remembering the embarrassing stuff she did when she was drunk. A while ago, I made a post about being annoyed with the way things were made up. This is a great example of this.

Why did we need this? This isn’t funny and I didn’t learn anything about Lucy. I don’t like these “I’ll never get married over this” jokes in anime unless it’s over something legitimately embarrassing enough to warrant the reaction. She’s not ashamed because she was teachers yelled at her for promoting a club she was dragged into while being forced to wear a sexy red bunny outfit. (You either get this reference or you don’t) She did some stupid stuff in front of two people while she was drunk. (And apparently, she liked one of those people.)

But Natsu uses the joke to segway into a reminder that they can still work together. And Lucy remembers many of the missions they shared together. Considering recent events on my blog, it’s funny how there’s nothing from the Galuna Island, but she remembered being wrapped in towels with Edolas Lucy. At any rate, she thanks Natsu and Happy for changing her life for the better.

It’s times like this that I have to remember that Lucy’s dream was to join Fairy Tail. (A point I had to remind fic writers of.) It’s only because she met Natsu that she was able to. Recently I’ve been rereading the old arcs and it’s crazy to see how much has happened since Lucy has joined Fairy Tail specifically because Lucy has joined Fairy Tail.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: you don’t have Fairy Tail without Lucy and Natsu. They don’t meet, they don’t go on adventures. They don’t go on adventures, the world would probably cease to exist at about the time we would get to Edolas. Remember, Mystogan needed her and Gajeel to help Natsu and Wendy. If Lucy’s not in the guild, Gajeel’s not in the guild. So assuming everything else is the same, which would probably be a stretch, they’re screwed.

Anyway afterward, Natsu takes Lucy on the mission with him saying that the fact that their lives are different doesn’t matter. And yes, I think it’s a jerky thing to have done. Of course, if you thought this was going to be a lead-in to a Nalu confession, I can’t help you. But that doesn’t mean he did a good.

However, I like the reasoning. Natsu isn’t worried about the past. He’s excited for what the future is going to bring them…

…and the rest of Team Natsu…

On the Century Quest!

This is probably my favorite thing from the chapter. I actually screamed after seeing that they were going on the quest. Forget Nalu, this is probably one of the most Natsu things that Natsu would be excited for.

But I have two big problems with this.

First, if Gray’s conversation really was a confession, does that mean he left Juvia after confessing to her? Even if he told her that he was going on the mission, that’s still a pretty messed up thing to do. By the way, if you think that Gray’s scar comment was bad, this would probably make it worse.

Funny enough, I saw a comment on this. OP questioned whether or not people really believe the Century Quest would actually last 100 years. And my response is…

That’s the other problem: we don’t know how long this quest is supposed to take. Now, chapter 165 tells us that Decade Quests take at least 10 years to beat and so it should stand to reason that Century Quests will take at least 100 years to beat. However, consider everything that we’ve been told about the Spriggan 12 at the beginning of this arc and how free they ended up being. So will this take shorter than expected or will it actually take 100 years?

As a side note, is this the same Century Quest Gildarts failed or is it another Century Quest? It’s referred to as “The 100-Year Quest” and we’ve only known about one Century Quest? And why is it 100-Year Quest here instead of Century Quest?

The fic writers are going to have a field day with that.

So, overall, what did I think of the chapter? After reading the chapter a few times and thinking about the things that have happened in order to make this post, I feel good about it. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of issues left unresolved. I totally understand (some of) the reasons people don’t like this ending and I absolutely think we could and probably should get more. However, I’m fine with this being the way the series ends. And, as I’ve said before, I’d happily reread this series again.

Now comes the main reason that I want to talk about the ending in this format. Fairy Tail has officially come to an end. I feel as though there is two knee jerk “my series ended” reactions I want to address.

The first is the feelings over everything in the ending.

As I said in an earlier post, nothing is wrong with feeling sad or happy or angry over anything about everything that has happened in this series. Nothing is wrong with expressing or explaining those feelings. That’s fine.

What isn’t fine is getting mad at or blaming people for the things you don’t like about the ending, including and especially Hiro Mashima. What isn’t fine is destroying everything Fairy Tail related you own out of spite.

I’d even say that it’s not okay to feel betrayed by the ending. Mashima doesn’t owe you anything. He doesn’t owe you ships. He doesn’t owe you moments. He doesn’t have to bring characters back. He doesn’t have to kill anyone. About the only thing Mashima had to do for his fans was get the next chapters of the series out on time. Even though those chapters weren’t always necessarily good, that was about all he owed us.

The second one is a desire the series to continue on, either it should continue on as a spin off or just never end. Some of you might want him to get to working on his completely new series right away.

Not so fast.

I get the desire to want to see more of a series or writer you’ve enjoyed for however long you have. I get that you might think the series didn’t have a proper ending. I get that you may have no idea what you’re going to do now that Fairy Tail is over.

That being said, I think Mashima should take a break.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d also love more Fairy Tail, even as I’ve ragged on some of its failings. But this guy’s been writing Fairy Tail for more than a decade. It’s one thing to be an artist whose job depends on how much you’re able to create. Having to create something new in an ongoing series every week is baffling to me as a musical composer. It takes me weeks even months to get works done to a level they can be called finished.

Mashima’s work on Fairy Tail is nowhere near the best thing in the anime/manga world, but I’m not going to accuse him of not working hard. I want this guy to enjoy the break he’s getting for now before he launches head first into his next series. For now, I’d like to see what fans do now that the story is complete(-ish).

Speaking of which, many people might be wondering what I’ll be doing on this blog now that the series is over. I still have things to say about Fairy Tail as a series and I’ll definitely have some things to say about this fandom as the dust settles. I have some posts I’ve been working on specifically to show after the end of the series and, thankfully, I only have to change a few paragraphs because of this ending…

I don’t know that I’m going to start throwing my focus onto any one other series. I’ve said this before but despite any and all problems this series has, Fairy Tail is the only series I feel comfortable running a blog for. I’ve seen other series I think are better and I have things to say about them you might see on my main blog. But I don’t see myself getting so into another series that I could do everything I’ve done with Fairy Tail.

To that point, I do have series I have been reading. To give a sense of the time I’ve been planning this post for, when I started writing this post, I had over 100 chapters of Bleach left to finish. I’m sending this off having finished that series and (as I promised) started reading My Hero Academia. Incidentally, I’ve started writing posts for those series I may post to my main blog as well and I’ve had to pull myself away from reading MHA to finish this post.

I’ve also been reading Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches and, once I’m done, I’ll finally be able to catch up with Twin Star Exorcists (yes, I’ve decided to turn to the dark side). I’ve also started reading Astra: Lost in Space. I’m not sure this will be the next breakout hit in the manga world, but I’m enjoying where this series is going.

Somewhere along the way, I started reading Yona of the Dawn through the volumes and collecting Bakuman volumes which I will read all at once. And of course, I’ll still be buying the volumes for Rave Master and Fairy Tail until I’ve collected them all.

To wrap it all up, there is one more question some of my followers may be wondering that I want to address: When will I read One Piece?

Soon.

At the very least, I want to catch up with the currently running series and get all of that I’ll be following weekly and get/read all of Bakuman before getting into the beast that is One Piece. At the latest, I’ll end up following my Big 3 tradition of starting to read the series at about the time it’s starting to end. And if your fandom causes another stir over ships, I think I’m actually going to go crazy

In Conclusion:

Fairy Tail’s ending was pretty messy, but I’m fairly happy with the ending we got. But even though Fairy Tail ended, I’m still going to have fun talking about it and other things.

I’m all fired up!!!!

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oxfordeliterp · 7 years

Photo

CONGRATULATIONS, VICTORIA!

You have been accepted to play the role of GWENDOLYN ARMSTRONG with the faceclaim of ZOE KRAVITZ. Please create your account and send it to the main in the next 24 hours. I am swept off my feet by your application, although this time, once again, I had to choose between two marvelous ones. Yet, the way you know Gwen’s skin and what a piece of art you have turned this into captivated me and I know I couldn’t possibly see anybody else writing this character now that I have read your application. I want to read your writing forever, if possible, because you’re no Medusa, Euryale or Stheno, but a siren trying to lure people to their deaths with a breathtaking choice of words and an impressive depth that you have offered Gwendolyn. Thank you for giving me a spectacular reason to stay up all night and I already know it is going to be an honor writing with you. Based on the description of every Quarrel Club member at the end of the para sample, I would have given you any of those characters; but instead, have the queen. She’s yours.

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

Name and pronouns: Victoria, Vee, V for Vagina, she/her … sheeeet I don’t care, I’m just excited for a group like this to come along, a group that has pumped me up to be in the RP world again!

Age: Quarter century

Time-zone: PST

Activity level: My life is currently a clusterfuck, but a clusterfuck that is in desperate need of distraction and creative outlet. The only thing keeping me away from the interwebs is a part-time job and the graduate school application process. Sooo… I don’t know numerically out of 10? 6? 7? I never know how to answer this part - lets just say I spend more time procrastinating online than I should.

Triggers: N/A

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION

Desired character: I instantly connected with Gwendolyn the moment I read her bio. I’ve always had the tendency to be drawn to troubled, complex, introverted men - obviously, Gwendolyn is the opposite of all of the above, which shocked me when it came to how drawn I was to her as a character. It became quite obvious why she felts so familiar after reading her biography and her circumstances a few times through – she is the version of myself that I always wished to be but never had the balls to go through with in college. As I sit here and finish out writing this application, I realize just how much of a joy it has been simply to hash out my own feelings in an introspective way through this character. For me being a year out of college and looking back on my own experience, I recognize that her extreme black and white views on female/male dynamics and radical feminism are so familiar due to a lack of experience in the real world. I know I can play this character so well because I understand exactly what motivates her whilst also having the hindsight to understand why her extreme views will be her downfall if she doesn’t learn to compromise her brilliance. It’s so easy to see the dichotomy of men vs. women in the small bubble that is the college experience, but to be able to play it out with the self-righteousness that Gwen has for her cause, not to mention her ability to back it up with hours of research and intelligent debates, is an opportunity that I would be far too excited about!

Gender and pronouns of the character: She/Her

Changes: If it works, I have used Zoe Kravitz as my muse for this character. When it comes down to it, the writing of the character is far more important than the face but I honestly could not get her badass, renegade essence out of my mind when I was typing out her app.

I was also thinking Naya Rivera as back up #2, and then Eiza Gonzalez if you don’t see either of the other gals meshing with your vision of the RP.

Traits:

+ Charismatic, Principled, Loyal, Contemplative, Ambitious

- Sanctimonious, Arrogant, Fanatical, Vindictive, Stubborn

Extras:

Gwendolyn is following the History and Politics course as her major of choice. A natural fit, her aims to alter the prevailing, patriarchic gender dynamic extend much further than simply Oxford. She firmly believes that hidden in history are stories of matriarchies that have been purposely buried by the predominance of male historians. Determined to pair the wisdom and lessons of the past with a future game plan to get into politics, she knows to make a difference globally, you must know and analyze the cycles of history. Gwen is a news junkie, her cell constantly pinging with the latest updates stemming from hundreds of diverse news sources. She subscribes to a plethora of sources, never wanting to fall into the trap of an echo chamber and finding sick joy in reading viewpoints she disagrees with so she can shred the arguments apart with gusto.

Gwen is constantly challenging the syllabus and her professors for not having enough diverse content (i.e female and P.O.C authors) – much to the annoyance of her classmates. She will consistently ramble on in debate and find ways to weave in a complaint even in the most simple of question-answer class discussion. It’s gotten to the point where she has been kicked out of a class for being too confrontational. But don’t think that’s stopped her – she now stages her formal complaints in the form of unassigned essays that she will turn into her professors detailing the long list of her objections to the proposed subject matter. She knows its drives everyone crazy, but she feels she’s doing a service to them all – it’s a well researched fact that diverse classrooms paired with varying points of view in reading material leads to the most productive learning environment, a talking point she will gladly back up with a bibliography of sources that she knows by heart.

A trait about Gwendolyn that no one would ever realize is her tendency to be exhausted by her own ambitions. Although she insists on being the loudest in a group of people, she is most comfortable when she is at one with her mind, challenging it with complex novels are articles, or if she’s lucky, finding another like-minded individual who is interested in tearing idea to shreds just for the interest of mental sparring. Although she is active in the social scene out of necessity, it’s not her goal in any way to be the life of the party unless it’s in the interest of bringing more notoriety to the Quarrel Club.

Personality Type: The Debater (ENTP)

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ’crack-pot’ than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.” – Thomas J Watson

Taking a certain pleasure in being the underdog, Debaters enjoy the mental exercise found in questioning the prevailing mode of thought.

Treating others as they’d be treated, Debaters have little tolerance for being coddled, and dislike when people beat around the bush, especially when asking a favor.

I also have an inspo blog I’ve been using for her, the account that I applied with. It contains general quotes, people of interest, and things that I think either define Gwen as a person or better explains what she cares about. Please consider when reading the app: http://cooperxmathis.tumblr.com/

PARA SAMPLE

Everybody knows the story of Medusa, that she was a petrifying woman to be reckoned with. That her name loosely translated to Queen. That she was so terrifying that one glance into her steely eyes would turn her victim to stone. Only some people know that she hadn’t always been a hideous monster. That she had been one of the most beautiful and devoted servants of Athena, and although many men sought to marry her, she fell for Poseidon. Those with even the slightest of Greek mythology knowledge can recall that Medusa was ultimately weak and succumbed to the mortal men who hunted her down. She became a famous symbol for another man’s strength. Perseus paraded her defeat on his shield as a badge of honor – another woman down, another head on a platter, another female used as an ingredient in a trumped up legend for whatever man needed an ego boost. But there is a much more interesting story behind Medusa, a mere-mortal who squandered her time on hope and regrets, always fantasizing about returning to her mortal life of worshipping another whilst she herself was originally worshiped for the most dull of female qualities – beauty and purity.

Of course Medusa became one of the most famous female villains in Greek mythology – she was a fantastic tale of an innocent girl who lost her chastity and transformed into a seductive woman whose power was to great and finally put in her place by a cliché male hero. Male historians eat that shit up, happy to pass on a tale of a woman who got what was coming to her. The real cherry on top of this sexist shit pie, the little detail that your grade school history class always leaves out, was that the female Goddess, Athena, transformed Medusa into a monster. That in the original myth, Poseidon raped her in Athena’s temple, and out of jealous spite, Athena turned her into a monster, transforming each of her satin locks into a snake. That small detail is always left out of grade-school mythology week, probably to avoid harnessing the awareness of girl-on-girl on crime and victim blaming in young impressionable teen women. Can’t let them catch on too quick; when second class citizens are divided the patriarchy thrive – divide & conquer.

Alas, Medusa was essentially victim-blamed after being raped by Poseidon – a sick twist that Gwen was all too happy to see her history teacher squirm over when she pleasantly brought it to light in her freshman mythology class. Gwen learned early on that if she wanted to learn relevant history outside of the ‘triumphs’ of what rich white dudes did for the benefit of other rich white dudes, she would have to dig for herself. For buried within the legend of Medusa, Queen of the Gorgons, there are two much more worthy recipients of the title, two older, immortal sisters – Stheno and Euryale. It’s no surprise that these so-called villains soon became heroes in Gwen’s mind.

The younger of the two sisters, Euryale, was the calm before the storm. Just as vicious as the others, but with a completely different approach, luring her victims in with a stillness and calming peace that would give no warning to their fate. Her eyes described as still pools of violet that tranquilized all those who looked upon them, blessing them with a feeling of control over a hectic universe, the ultimate tease. Giving no warning for the immediate havoc that was about to be released, they would lose all desire to retaliate. Hypnotized by her presence, they would remain blissfully still until the last moment, relishing in the moment even as she sank her fangs through flesh and tore skin from bone.

Then there was Stheno, her muse, her identity, the fiercest of the three, known to be the most murderous of the Gorgon sisters, having killed more men then both of her sisters combined. Her approach was on a complete different side of the spectrum, her eyes explosive with a fierce reminiscent of Hades’ fire. No hypnotic placidity could be found within them. She yearned for the indulgence of human flesh, indulged in the taste of warm blood. No attraction on earth is as tempting as that of a powerful force - and none came more powerful as Stheno’s presence. A temper as violent as no other on this earth or in any other existence - she was the unstoppable force that brought a swift and total destruction.

Gwen was going to rewrite Oxford history, her legacy would be destroying the façade that the Riot Club had created, revealing them for the petulant children they are, little boys creating messes for play and throwing money to clean them up. This was her pet project, her practice round before she was unleashed onto the real world. A smaller, test version of how the rest of the world works, where rich men create problems that affect the rest of us and then jack each other off for fixing the mess they had created in the first place. She somewhat knew this was child’s play compared to raiding and destroying the ultimate boys clubs outside of Oxford, but hey, if she could tear down a centuries old tradition and replace it with a far superior female legacy within a four year span, she would finally prove to herself that she was the unstoppable force of nature that Stheno had inspired her to be.

She knew it was crucial to pick the right women, that this very first group of ten girls would be everything as they would be setting the tone for centuries to come. One of her best qualities had always been her ability to see past the bullshit of girl-on-girl crime. She never bought into the idea that in order to move up in the world she had to put other women down. It was a fact that that very notion is what has kept women as powerless for millennia, and she was determined to prove that if she brought ten of the best and brightest together, that claws would not come out, at least, not against eachother. However, her place as the leader of the group is something she would never sacrifice. Not that she is buying into an idea that she is better than any of the other women, but positive that only she has the pure, clear-cut vision of boosting them all up for the better; not to mention she hadn’t planned on being exactly forthcoming on her actual motives. The appeal of the Quarrel club was first and foremost an illusion that she was presenting. That it was something of a petty, social badge of honor that would include frivolous spending, ludicrous parties, and a bit of fun competition with the most ‘desirable’ men on campus. Little would her recruits know that she was hand picking them for their potential. She would take these confused women and show them what the world really could look like if they only had the power, if they only had the desire to restore the natural order of the world where women were destined to lead. It would be a slow process, she knew, she would have to lure them in, which would be easy. The hard part would be making them see how pointless the perks and values of the Riot Club were and showing them that true satisfaction will come from tearing down the men and everything they stand for, not just downing shots and fucking around with Oxford’s golden boys.

After months of careful planning, she had nine pristine envelopes in hand, their thick cardstock stamped with wax seal, the fierce stare of the Gorgon head piercing through the deep red. A satisfied smirk wove its way across Gwen’s lips, her eyes lighting up as she ran her fingers across the raised edges of the insignia. She knew the women would all assume it was Medusa, probably never even hearing of Stheno, but soon she was to teach them the buried history of the much stronger women that existed in not only fabled myths, but the real world as well. Soon, they too would be the legends used to inspire leagues of women to write their own history, to never be forgotten by the bias of time told through the eyes of men. The future will be rewritten and the pen will be held by f e m a l e s. Flipping over each envelope, she dipped her vintage, sterling silver pen into ink and began to write out each woman’s name.

L A U R E N H A S T I N G S - A crucial member for a multitude of reasons. The most obvious, everyone not only knew Lauren, but also idolized her. She glided across campus with an ease and poise that was unseen in most modern women, she epitomized the essence of old movie stars. Although Gwen in no way embodied these qualities, nor would she ever want to, she still understood the effect that this old-fashioned femininity had on the masses. Frankly, she found Lauren to be an extremely dull Betty Draper-esque robot, but if there was one thing that Gwendolyn respected it was discipline, a quality that Lauren certainly exuded with her picture perfect image. She knew that nobody could truly be that flawless, but whatever Lauren was hiding, the façade that followed her had never cracked, no scandal had ever erupted - an amazing success in Gwen’s eyes. In her mind, Lauren could be the Euryale to her Stheno. That level of control and composure was something she admired and could learn from. More importantly though, was Lauren’s connection to Jamie Heather. Her smile faltered. She would never admit to herself how much of a catalyst he had been in creating the woman she had become; that he was the very reason why the Quarrel Club would exist in the first place. No, Gwen quickly shook the beautiful face from her mind, refusing to let him run away with her thoughts once again - he doesn’t deserve that much credit. Moving on, she poised her pen to the next ivory envelope in the stack.

E L I Z A B E T H P E M B E R L Y – Gwen can’t exactly put her finger on what draws her to Elizabeth, but there is an infectious energy that surrounds the girl wherever she goes. Gwen knows that she is indulgent and a bit of a narcissist, but fuck it, what man doesn’t get away with the same qualities and still labeled a charming cassanova? Elizabeth has a way about her that makes everyone desperate to please, a very distinct feminine essence that is subtle but inevitably intoxicating. Better to have that on her side, to harness that sort of brilliant charismatic energy and exploit it for her own purpose than to let Elizabeth waste away her own potential. She has a power that makes people do whatever she wants without asking them, for motivations that they don’t even understand but desperately urge to simply satisfy her.

V I C T O R I A D E T E R R E R O S Another choice that although overwhelmingly dissimilar to herself, came with a connection to the Riot club paired with the bonus of an old family name. Although Lauren had the essence of a celebrity, Victoria actually was one. Not that Gwendolyn was one to give a shit about tabloid fodder. There were far too many important events and people in the world to waste time on the likes of People magazine or throwing meaningless likes to Instagram ‘stars’ desperate for validation from thousands of strangers. No, she was not one to be starstruck by celebrity influence, but she couldn’t deny that in today’s times, Victoria’s tabloid status could be of use. If she could have an early influence on the young royal, there’s a chance that she could make sure that Victoria didn’t become another pretty face simply peddling Vitamix or whatever bullshit beauty product down the throats of millennial lemmings glued to their phone screens. Plus, Gwen’s obsessions with history meant that an old, royal family name couldn’t help but pique her interest. Package that in with a brother in the Riot Club and Victoria was a given.

A R I A B E L L E F O N T E – She could never put her finger on exactly what drew her to Aria, but she in some ways has always envied her. Her effortless charm and impassivity are qualities that Gwen knows she could never enjoy but admires greatly. A woman like Aria is crucial to the group, a perfect example of the type of women who should be, no – will be – running the world. Aria never smiles to please, never wastes her time nor believes that her appearance is anything but an asterisk to her entire being, never felt the need to parade whatever it is her parents do to enable her to afford attending such a prestigious university. Aria simply exists, in complete authenticity; a woman who has never tried, let alone needed, to impress anyone yet has a bounty of influence at her fingertips. The only negative that Gwen can assess is the utter lack of appreciation that Aria has for her own influence. She seems completely satisfied to drift among their entitled peers with little motivation to do anything with her gifts. Pressing her silver pen as she dotted the I of Aria’s name, Gwen was sure she could inspire the girl to follow through with her full potential.

A L E X A N D R A R O S S E S S E N – Whispers could be heard all over campus of the brilliant young woman who at only sixteen had earned early admission to Oxford. Whispers turned into full blown shouts as soon as everyone realized such a brilliant mind came packaged in a red-haired, statuesque beauty. She and Alexandra had a class together where Gwen got to witness the full blown arrogance of the child genius, a quality that turned the rest of the class off but Gwen absolutely adored. At such a young age Alexandra had the confidence that most women never find after years of soul-searching and worthless self-help guides. Alexandra had a quick wit and didn’t abstain from questioning authority, a quality Gwen quickly picked up on after witnessing her challenge many of the key points in several lectures. Not to mention the rumors that she was behind the gossip maven Ace, a serious advantage that Gwen knew if she could harness for the benefit of the Quarell Club could be a crucial cog in the warhead she was creating against the Riot Club. After all, everyone knows to win a war people need to believe the rookies have a fighting chance; it brings morale up among underestimated troops and breeds allegiance in new acquaintances determined to prove themselves. And in the court of public opinion, Ace could weave a narrative of success and manipulate gossip during the inevitable hiccups that come with starting such an exclusive group.

A R A B E L L A W I N D S O R – Everyone knows about Arabella Windsor and her midnight escapades. Judgments surrounding her loose reputation never cease and what Gwen adores is the fact that she seems to revel in them. Gwen abhors the double standard that tells women they must be as beautiful and sexually desirable as humanly possible but once they take control of said sexuality and use it for their own pleasure are labeled slut and presumably undesirable, a catch twenty-two that would be amusing if it wasn’t so prevalent and capable of destroying a woman’s self worth. Female sexuality has been the number one weapon manipulated by men to keep women in their place since the dawn of time. That much is most obvious even now when you look at every government funded female health legislation dictated by literal (and figurative) dicks with not one woman in sight to speak for her own body. The key to the male ego is his ability to womanize, to show he’s the big man on campus by tricking women into his bed and then ignoring their very existence the next day as a power play. Gwen isn’t sure if Arabella knows just how much of a social renegade she is just by simply sleeping with as many men as she pleases without guilt, but she is determined to take that unabashed female sexual prowess and harness it into more meaningful pursuits. She knows there is a bit of risk involved, seeing as many of Arabella’s conquests are men of the Riot Club, but with the right amount of loyalty to the Quarell club instilled, Arabella’s sexuality could be used as a weapon. After all, it’s a well-known cliché that a man is most weak with his trousers around his ankles.

C O R D E L I A M C Q U E E N – Cordelia attracts the gaze and curiosity of many, not only because of her world-famous last name, but because of the mysterious way in which she carries herself. She is a walking oxymoron – charismatic yet unforthcoming with the few words she speaks at all, a wallflower in theory and yet impossible to ignore. She is the type of girl that you always want to know more about but refuses to share what she doesn’t meticulously allow to be public. Gwen was determined to have her be a member of the club the moment she saw her. Her effortless appeal and unwavering mysterious persona perplexes many, Gwen herself falling under the spell. She isn’t sure what exactly the girl can bring to the club, but the magnetism she exudes is sure to be harboring an untapped potential that Gwen could use to the club’s advantage. Plus, if Gwen is honest with herself, the connection Cordelia holds to high-fashion royalty adds an essence of exclusivity and publicity that Gwen is just shallow enough to take advantage of.

C H A R L O T T E Z E R I L L I – With a twin in the riot club, Gwen knew that Charlotte would be a risky choice that could pan out to be a fountain of knowledge into the inner-workings of the Riot Club or backfire in a nuclear fashion if she couldn’t harness her loyalty to fall into step with the Quarrel club. Gwen had a feeling that Charlotte had always been the brilliant one out of the Zerelli twins, that she had been living in her brother’s shadow and was looking for an opportunity to stretch her legs in a role of influence. With the right coaxing and a group of brilliant women surrounding her, Gwen was sure that Charlotte was a harbor of untapped potential that could prove to be one of her finest choices of all. There wasn’t an exact quality that she could put her finger on when it came to what drew her to Charlotte, but Gwen wasn’t one to silence her intuition. Too many women choose to ignore that little voice in their head that all too often is screaming the right answer because they have so little trust in their own minds that they choose to silence their own power. Women’s intuition isn’t a myth, and Gwen is out to prove that hers is spot on.

L A N A C H A M B E R S – With a mind as sharp as her own, Lana was the last woman to make the cut. It’s not that she didn’t have the right temperament for the club, she was there on scholarship after all, proving that she had a keen mind and was determined to fight her way to the top. It’s just that Gwen was aware that her combined choice of women has an overall image to maintain. It was crucial to show that the Quarrel club would not have money be an influential factor in membership. Gwen is apt to criticize capitalism and is she is a firm believer that white imperialism has lead to the huge income inequality gap that exists between the worlds most wealthy and most poor. Gwen won’t admit to herself that she is using Lana as a tool to show off her own biases towards wealth and money in general. In her mind, she’s doing the right thing, offering a woman a spot in a money-driven social circle and coming off as a selfless queen who is above such superficial things such as monetary measures, despite knowing little of actual poverty after growing up in family of extreme upper-class means and opportunities.

Pressing the final wax seal with satisfaction, Gwen felt the high rush that comes whenever she feels she is on the precipice of a brilliant scheme about to be realized. This would be her master project, her legacy, her own personal legend. Oxford would be forever altered, the gender dynamic pushed in a completely different direction with women, her women, leading the pack. Sliding the ivory envelopes into her tan leather backpack, she sauntered out the door, her head raised high, already balancing the inevitable crown she was about to take as her own.

#accepted #gwendolyn armstrong

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tuxiedjabberwock · 7 years

Text

Boiling Point ch2 - a Fairy Tail Fanfiction

Title: Boiling Point Category: Anime/Manga » Fairy Tail Author: Sqydd Language: English, Rating: Rated: T Genre: Romance/Drama Published: 12-10-16, Updated: 01-24-17 Chapters: 2, Words: 11,205

Due to a severe misunderstanding printed in Sorcerer's Weekly, Lucy goes out with Loki to eliminate the idea that she's dating Natsu. How does he feel about it? Well, he rightly went to kick Loki's ass. Or the story in which Natsu reaches his boiling point, because no one steals from a dragon.

Also available on:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12267597/2/Boiling-Point

http://archiveofourown.org/works/8803069/chapters/21391526

chapter two

in which natsu subscribes to bikini prints

“What’s wrong with you?”

Lucy usually asked that question when he dropped into her home, but this time it was much more warranted and situation appropriate. He was still a little sore from the mission a couple of days ago, where he immediately began avoiding her as soon as they returned to Magnolia, and now she was giving him a scathing look from her writing desk. He only even caved when he realized that sadly, his and Happy’s home had run out of food, and although he could buy some, he wasn’t quite in the mood to fry bacon and boil spaghetti, the fullest extent of his cooking ability.

“I’m hungry?” It didn’t help his case that it came out as a question. Lucy gave him a pretty good imitation of Erza’s Stare, and it even made him gulp in fear of his life.

“Don’t pretend. You and I both know what we’re talking about.”

“Okay… To be honest? I got no clue. Really!” he added when her stare intensified. “Loki was saying some stuff, and I just…lost it.”

“What stuff?”

“Um…” He sat down on her bed, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. “I don’t think you’ll like it.”

“Natsu, please, just tell me,” she said with a friendlier look. He sighed and crossed his arms.

“Everyone thought that you and I were together and they kept talking about I’m jealous over Loki or some shit. And, I don’t know, Loki made me lose it.”

“Natsu…” Her tone made him look up, then away when the look in her eyes was too much. He felt her soft fingers on his chin as she brought his face back to hers. “Were you jealous?” she asked softly. His eyes went wide, not as much from the question as their proximity.

“What— No, no I wasn’t jealous,” he said, which was the truth. Jealous sounded so pitiful and weak, something felt when Happy stole the last fish from the fire and didn’t share. When he was attacking Loki, he felt enraged, incensed, irked, infuriated…well, you get the picture. But more than that, he felt possessive. “Lucy is mine.” He felt like Loki had stolen something as personal as his scarf or his fire, and deserved death three times over as retribution. Even for someone with emotions as passionate and fiery as himself, Natsu was a little thrown by the thought, and involuntarily shuddered. “I wasn’t.”

“Mm,” she hummed, staring harder into his eyes. After a moment she seemed to find what she was looking for, because she pulled away. “Okay.”

“So we’re good?” he asked. She gave him a smile that was just a little bit shaky.

“We’re good.” It didn’t feel like they were, but he didn’t want to press, especially when he was the one in the wrong. “I made chicken soup. Do you—”

“Yes!” he said immediately, jumping to his feet. “’m starving, Luce.”

“Of course,” she sighed, heading towards the kitchen. He followed on her tail, his stomach thinking of food, but his brain figured that he needed a chat with an expert on dragon business.

“Get out!” was her immediate response as he knocked. He grimaced and knocked again, harder.

“C’mon Porlyusica, do me a favor! Please?”

“No!” She may have kept refusing, but he could stay there and talk the rest of the day, which she seemed to realize, because the door unlocked soon after and he stepped inside with a smug smile. Porlyusica was working on some greenish-brown potion that made his nose itch when he took a whiff. “What are you bothering me with now?” she said after shooing him away from it.

“I got a little problem,” Natsu said. “Well, it’s not really little, it’s more like a big problem.” He tried to explain what happened with Loki but it was hard to put into words. Porlyusica, thankfully, seemed to understand.

“Instincts,” she said. “It’s just your dragon’s instincts.”

“Dragon instincts? I have those?”

“Dragon Slayer Magic makes a human as a dragon, more so over time. The most severe event, you already know of: turning completely into a dragon.” He thought of Acnologia and gritted his teeth. “Igneel significantly slowed the process, but that doesn’t mean it stopped all together. This, specifically, has to do with how the brain works. The fact that you can sense and process all of these different smells and sounds is because your brain evolved to understand them during your training with the Slayer Magic as a catalyst. The evolution continued as you grew, and now it’s come to head.”

“So this is just another gain for me?” he asked. “Like learning a new spell?” Porlyusica nodded. “But that doesn’t explain why I smashed Loki like that.”

“Dragons, by nature, will latch onto a suitable female, and I’m guessing your emotions towards the girl made that instinct stronger,” she said passively, stirring the potion. “Because of that, you saw the Spirit’s advances as a threat, and your first instinct was to deal with it.”

“I don’t see Loki as a threat. He’s sorta annoying when he gets in that flirty mood, but he’s no threat,” he protested.

“This has nothing to do with rational thought. It’s all subconscious.”

“Then how do I stop my subconscious?”

“That depends,” she said, meeting his eyes for the first time. “What do you think you should do?”

He had a pretty good answer to that.

“We’re gonna avoid Lucy?” Happy asked, perplexed. Natsu nodded vehemently.

“Until the end of time. Or until Ice Princess learns to keep on his shirt. Whichever comes first.”

“But…why?”

“Because she’s making me turn into a dragon!” he burst out. Thankfully they were alone in his house with only his junk and memorabilia as witnesses. Happy was even more confused.

“You’re not… Are you hiding something from me? Do you secretly have a tail?”

“I wish, but no. Remember how Lucy started going out with Loki and I was just going crazy over it?” He nodded, following. “Porlyusica explained it to me. She said something about revolving and that it’s got something to do with my brain, but—the bottom line’s that as long as I’m around her, I’m gonna keep pulling dumb shit like that that gets her mad, and neither of us want to deal with angry Lucy.” They shuddered at the thought. Angry Lucy meant a shoulder icier than Gray in the winter, constant flying projectiles, and no food for either of them! “So we just avoid her for forever! Easy.”

“But you never run from a problem, Natsu.”

“Call this a first.”

“Natsu,” Happy protested. “Lucy’s our best friend. You can’t avoid her forever.”

“Sure I can. Just tie me up if I try going to her.” Happy continued staring at him and he finally gave in. “’kay, you’re right, I can’t avoid her forever. But I don’t know what to do either. If I walk in and see her cuddling up to that stupid cat, I’m really gonna beat the shit outta him.”

“I know I joke about it a lot, but do you really like Lucy? Because if you do, I don’t have a problem with that.”

“She’s my friend,” he said, which he knew wasn’t an actual answer. “I dunno, and that’s not my focus right now. I just don’t want to get at Loki like that again.”

“Then he has to break up with Lucy,” Happy said. They had never purposely tried to break apart Lucy and her flings, no matter how annoying they became, but it looked like they had to, for Loki’s sake. Natsu liked to spar with his Guild mates, sure, but what he did—or tried to do—was three steps further from that. He had no doubt that, given enough time, he would’ve smashed Loki into bloody bits, and on top of hurting Natsu, it would make his and Lucy’s friendship vanish. “She’ll probably hate you for it though.”

“It’s better than the alternative. Okay, brainstorm: how can we make this happen?” They rubbed their chins in thought.

“Oh, oh!” Happy exclaimed, dropping his fist in his palm. “Let’s take all Lucy’s fish and blame it on Loki!”

“Uh… Call that Plan B.” Lucy didn’t think nearly as much of her fish as Happy did. Well, eighty percent of Happy’s thoughts revolved around fish anyway. “Something else.” Neither of them were real thinkers, though, and it took a fair amount of time.

“Why don’t you want Lucy to go out with Loki?” Happy asked all of a sudden. Natsu mumbled a complaint, crossing his arms over his chest.

“That’s not where my problem is,” he muttered. “I don’t care what either of them do with their romantic lives—or Lucy’s lack thereof, I guess. It’s that she chose someone else over me, and someone that I’m close to.”

“Well, we can’t make Lucy fall for you—” Natsu sort of zoned out after that sentence. Well, why couldn’t they? What was wrong with him? He thought he was a pretty cool guy, if a tiny bit passionate. “—but we can make her go out with a different guy, a stranger. You never cared when she went out with strangers, did you?”

“Not as much,” he said, still a little sulky. “I guess that’s a fix. But how are we supposed to go out matchmaking, buddy?”

“Let’s not,” he decided after some thought. “Let’s just take Lucy out and let her find a better guy on her own. Where can we find a lot of people?”

“A bar,” he said immediately. “And Lucy’s a good fighter too—I bet she’ll meet tons of guys there! And if things go south, we just pretend like we brought here there to eat. Lucy loves greasy bar food after all.”

“Natsu, that’s a great idea!” Happy cheered. “We should go and take her out right now!”

“Right now,” he repeated, momentarily daunted by the idea of seeing her again. He quickly steeled himself though, because he was Natsu Dragneel and Natsu Dragneel never let himself be put down by any challenge, and he and Happy headed out with spines straight and resolves set.

Happy got the both of them to Strawberry Street in record time, and as Natsu scaled the side of the building he picked up the scent of lavender just fading away. Okay, so she was draining her bath and would be out any second. He pushed her window up and climbed onto her bed. “I’m gonna go see if she bought some more fish,” Happy said, floating off towards the kitchen. Natsu eventually got bored flipping through her manuscripts and was just about to mimic Happy’s kitchen raid when her bathroom door finally swung open.

“Ah that was a relieving— Natsu!” she shrieked in surprise, hands going to her heart. Thankfully, she was already dressed to sleep and not in a towel—it saved him a frenzied attack on her part.

“Lucy, we’re going to a bar,” he announced. She continued staring until her heart calmed down.

“A bar? Why on Earthland?” she asked, frowning.

“Because Happy and I know you like bar food.”

“Where would you even get— Happy’s here too?”

“Yeah, he’s in the kitchen checking for fish. So, are you gonna leave dressed like that, or…?”

“I’m not going to a bar with you two!” she protested. “They’re loud and obnoxious and, unlike the Guild, full of creepers. Besides, it’s late and I just want to go to bed.”

“It’s not that late.”

“Well, it is when you’re a normal human being.”

“Just—come on, Luce, please?” She gave him a funny look.

“Why do you want to drag me to a bar?”

“I, uh, because I, uh,” he stammered, caught like a deer in headlights. He didn’t even have Happy to back him up, not that Happy was any better at lying on the spot. Lucy crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows, which didn’t help his case. “Okay, the truth?”

“Yes?”

“I want some food but can’t afford it right now ‘cause Happy blew our job money for the month on salmon,” he said in one breath.

“Then why didn’t you eat at the Guild? It’s cheaper, and even if you are broke, Mira would let you slide.”

“Because, ah, I uh— C’mon, Luce, why’re you questioning me like that?” he said instead, changing paradigms. He didn’t quite manage to throw her off though.

“Because you’re acting weird…er than usual, and you have been since—” She stopped, eyes widening as she touched her lips in realization. “Natsu,” she said in a weird tone. It made him uncomfortable in all sorts of ways.

“What?”

“Natsu,” she said again. “You said you weren’t jealous before, didn’t you?”

“Well…yeah, because I wasn’t. Because I’m not. This isn’t about me anyway.”

“Maybe not, but it will be if you keep acting like this.” She shook her head with a sigh. “I’m not going to a bar with you and that’s final, alright? Now go home.”

“Mph,” he complained, but decided not to press things. “Come on, Happy, we’re leaving.”

“Aye,” Happy said in disappointment, flying from the kitchen with his satchel stuffed full and a half-eaten carp still in his mouth. “You neeb more fishb, Rushii.”

“You need to catch your own!” she snapped back, and he could almost pretend things were fine between them.

“So I’ll see you at the Guild tomorrow.” He already had one foot out the window when she called him back, her voice soft:

“Natsu.”

“Huh?” He turned and saw her watching him expectantly, like she was asking a question only he knew the answer to. He opened his mouth to ask what was she going on about when she suddenly opened her arms. “What? I’m not gonna hug you, weirdo.” They didn’t hug as a typical greeting/goodbye, and besides, he didn’t trust himself too much at the moment.

“Just do it,” she said in her Lucy Kick tone. He gulped and crossed the space between them, and hesitated for a moment before putting his arms around her. She closed the remaining space between them and linked her arms behind his back, pressing her face into his chest so that he could get a good whiff of her hair. It felt…familiar. Homey. Safe.

Natsu didn’t feel particularly sated, staring down at Future Rogue’s body. He was a Dragon Slayer, meant to kill dragons, yeah, but there was no satisfaction in fighting the very same breed that raised him from before he was old enough to even walk. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides before he managed to relieve some of the tension in a sigh. Dust still coated his lungs from the collapse of the Eclipse Gate, and with it he could taste blood and death in the air. He exhaled slowly as he sensed a presence vanish behind him.

“Thanks for the help,” he murmured under his breath, “Uncle.” He recognized Lucy’s scent even above all the others, and…salt? Was she crying? Before he could ask, her arms went around him, her face buried in-between his shoulder blades.

“Something the matter, Lucy?” he asked. He felt her shake her head in response.

“No… Just…thank you,” she whispered. He turned to face her, met her watery eyes, and pulled her closer. Even though he was warmer physically, she felt like a lit hearth to him, a center, something to keep him safe… Ironic, eh, considering how much he had to fight for her. He threaded his fingers through her soft hair and gently eased her head in the space between his shoulder and neck, feeling her tears dampen the remains of his vest, and closed his eyes. Despite the wreckage all around them and in his chest, he felt entirely whole.

His heart gave a sudden jump and persisted, even though Lucy could surely feel it from how close they were. He took a deep breath and held fast, trying to still it, his hands fisting at the base of her back. Something must’ve happened then, because Lucy jumped back with a start. “W-What? What is it?”

“You started heating up,” she said, calming. “It just surprised me.”

“Oh. Sorry. Well bye!” He jumped from her window before she could say anything else, and thankfully Happy caught him before he could hit the ground like a damn incendiary bomb.

“What happened?” he asked curiously. Then he almost dropped Natsu into the river. “Ow! You’re really hot!”

“I know,” he groaned, wiping his hands down his face. “Happy, I’m in it real deep.”

“What does that mean?” He didn’t answer right away, staring off at something in the distance.

“You know all those jokes you make about me liking Lucy? Well…”

“You like her?” he finished.

“I honestly don’t know—if Porlyusica’s right, and she’s rarely wrong, then dragon instincts are screwing with my brain, twisting things into weird shapes. I don’t know how to stop it either, not if she doesn’t even want to be seen a certain way with me.”

“Natsu…” he said pitifully. “Can I help?”

“Not unless you can fill my head with another girl, any other girl.” He remained silently thoughtful as they return home, then gasped.

“I got it!” Happy announced, bursting through the door. Natsu followed him inside as he started rooting for something. “Gildarts said that these always take his mind off of Cana when he starts to miss her!”

“Eh? Why do we have them?”

“He left them for you the last time he came. Remember, he felt bad for accidently putting you in that mini-coma?” He did not, in fact, remember, but he guessed that to be a side effect of the mini-coma. “I found them!” He flapped away from a stack of Mercurius rubble and held up a stack of glossy magazines.

“Happy, magazines are what got us into this mess in the first place!”

“They should help you though.”

“Okay, fine. I’m pretty desperate anyway.” He took one and opened it. “What? Is this really supposed to help? It looks like the kinda crap Mira does every other week.”

“I dunno, it’s what Gildarts uses,” Happy said with a yawn. “Anyway, I’m going to bed. Goodnight, Natsu.”

“Night,” he mumbled, staring hard at the double page spread. If he magazines couldn’t help him, he could at least use them for fodder in practicing controlling his temperature. As long as shit was happening with Lucy, he was really going to need the practice.

Something odd started to happen around the twenty-minute mark, when he’d fried the magazine to a crisp. He went to a different magazine, one just titled “XXX,” and saw the first page was of a stark-naked woman covered in…frosting? Something like that. He skewed his mouth and twisted the picture all sorts of directions, but he couldn’t find the same appeal in it that Gildarts or Makarov did, perhaps because he saw naked women on a daily basis and he was just desensitized. Then, bored, he imagined several other Guild mates’ faces over hers. First Gray—he had a pretty damn good laugh over it, then Elfman, then Gajeel, Max, Warren, and Lily. He was on the floor with tears running down his face when, damn every god out there, he pictured Lucy’s face on hers.

Maybe it was because he could see her naked body in every detail, or maybe it was because he had such a good sensual memory of her (including touch thanks to that unfortunate incident in the middle of his battle with Future Rogue), or maybe it was because she was constantly on his mind, but that one little idea brought a whole new slew of torture to his poor mind. He felt his magic run into his chest, like a miniature sun, but it also took a different, southern route that…perplexed him. He tried flipping pages, but every picture was now irreversibly of Lucy, and eventually he burned the whole thing to ashes alongside the others. Feeling utterly defeated like never before, he slunk over to his hammock and climbed inside, resigning himself to a sleepless night.

“Wow, Fire Face, you look like shit,” Gray commented as Natsu slid onto the bar.

“Thanks,” he replied dryly. “Mira, can I get coffee?”

“Sure,” she said, passing him a cup. Gray watched him drink with narrowed eyes.

“Okay, spill: what’s the problem?”

“Do you care?” he muttered into his drink.

“Of course I do. Sure, you’re annoying as all hell, but I don’t like seeing you like this.”

“Well, uh…” He made sure Mira was out of earshot before turning to Gray. “I think I’m falling for Lucy.”

“Think?” he echoed.

“Porlyusica said some crap about dragons mating or whatever and it’s messin’ with my emotions, but I really think there’s some truth in it.”

“Dragons mate?” he asked curiously. Natsu shrugged before letting his hands hit his thighs.

“Guess so.” Gray raised his eyebrows and looked back at Gajeel, then at Wendy with a markedly more surprised expression.

“All of them?”

“Look I’m about as new to this shit as you are, don’t go asking me for the gory details. All’s I know is I’ve never hated being a dragon as much as right now,” he sighed. Gray looked pensive as he shifted his eggs around his plate.

“I’m no romance expert either—not that I have a willing test subject,” he muttered with an over-the-shoulder glance at Juvia behind a pillar. Natsu kind of liked her like that: if she had Fire Magic, she would’ve burned Ice Prick to a naked crisp a long time ago. “But I think I have a solution: just ask yourself how you felt about her before all this mess happened. I think that your answer’s gonna be there.”

“That’s…surprisingly good advice coming from you, stripper.”

“Not all of us can be hit and misses like you, Firecracker.”

“Heh… Thanks, Gray.”

“No problem, just… Just don’t go spreading rumors that I’m an expert in this shit. I don’t want unwanted ears catching word.” He shuddered at the thought. Natsu finished his coffee and found that while it did wake him up to normal standards, he still felt like crashing on the grass. Gray excused himself to go check the request board while Natsu remained, trying to focus until the bar’s bottles’ labels swirled back into clear view. Mirajane swept past again and he shook his head slowly.

“What’s the problem, Natsu?” she asked worriedly.

“I uh…” He knew better than to go blabbing about his feelings, especially to Mira of all people—like, half the Guild would know his business by dawn the next day, if he was lucky—so he went with a little safer territory: “Can you put my name down for the next spread of Sorcerer’s Weekly?”

“Sudden interest in tabloids?” she asked. He shrugged a shoulder.

“No. Bikini prints.” Her eyes opened in surprise.

“What? Really?” He nodded and suddenly she leaned in closer, conspiratorially. “Do we need to have…the talk?” she whispered.

“Talk? What talk? We’re talking right now, aren’t we?”

“The talk. The birds and the bees—”

“What do birds and knees have to do with this?” She sighed like she was talking to a particularly dense child.

“What Mirajane is being too nice to say,” Laxus interjected from the other side of the bar with a droll smirk, “is a good long talk about you getting laid with Blondie.”

“Getting laid? What?” It took a few seconds to process, then the rusty gears in his head turned. “Getting laid with Lucy…” His heart again jumped into a frenzy, which despite him keeping his face as still as possible, he was sure every person in the building could hear, Dragon Slayer or not. Laxus’ smirk grew into a full-blown grin that he barely tried to hide behind his beer mug, taking great pleasure in Natsu’s chagrin. “Why in hell would I— She’s a friend, and—well—”

“And—well—why else would you have slugged the lion like that, if not out of jealous?” he jeered. “It’s because you want to get in her skirt, right?” Natsu felt like he was going breathless. He suddenly pictured Lucy naked—well, not pictured, since he had an exact memory of it—but instead of her giving her usual Lucy Kick/Punch/Slap, she invited him to take a closer look, even touched him back with those soft, warm hands of hers…

“I DON’T!” he said much louder than intended, trying to stave off disturbing thoughts. The Guild fell silent as a good number of guys rose from their seats and others took their food to the corners, expecting the usual early morning brawl to start as Natsu got to his feet, but instead he remained in his spot with shoulders shaking as if he would literally explode. He sure felt like it, his Fire Magic building large and hot in his gut and causing the floorboards to burn beneath his sandals. Laxus was facing him with a cocky smirk, still idly drinking his beer.

“You don’t what?” came her voice from just behind him. Natsu froze completely, feeling like he was just encased in Gray’s ice. Similarly, his fire died away in one quick second, mostly from fear of burning her.

“Yeah, Natsu, tell her what you don’t want to do,” Laxus said, sounding utterly like the cat that caught the canary. Natsu gritted his teeth and did the next best thing: leaping on him like a wild animal. And even though he was electrocuted into next week, it felt good to dodge the situation entirely.

He swam back into the world maybe an hour later, although he was too comfy in the infirmary’s bed to open his eyes. He was almost going back to sleep for the day—he didn’t get any sleep the night before, so the bed was like a big fluffy warm cloud—but a voice drifted through his thoughts, rousing him again.

“You big idiot,” someone said, and he could’ve taken it for literally anyone before they continued, “going out of your way to give me all heart attacks this week… Crazy moron.” He couldn’t really smell up to par, not with sulfur still stuffed in his nostrils, but he could feel—wow, he could feel Lucy’s hand on top of his. He would’ve curled his fingers around hers had his body still not felt like it was put through a lightning storm. “I thought we told each other everything, Natsu? Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

Because I might like you, and you certainly don’t like me back, or at least don’t want it to be know what we’re together together, and I don’t want to do anything that’ll make you unhappy, Luce, even though I’m doing exactly that right now by keeping my thoughts hidden… This paradoxical shit is giving me a headache, in short, and I wish I could talk to you, but I can’t, but I should, and—AAGH.

That was exactly why Natsu wasn’t a thinker: it was too damn troublesome.

“Just… ‘m sorry, Luce,” he muttered, peeking up at her. She gave him an annoyed look, but thankfully it wasn’t too severe.

“You’re hopeless, you know that?” she said. He grinned in response, eliciting a smile from her. Then the infirmary’s door opened and the scent of cologne and desperation wafted in. Oh, gods.

“I knew you’d be up—it’s pretty hard to keep you down, Natsu,” Loki said with a smirk, waving at him. Natsu grumbled something in response and turned his back to them, pulling the sheets over his head.

“Natsu, do you mind if I—?”

“No, go. It’s okay,” he said, surprising himself with his even tone. “I’ll just catch some Zs. I’m dead tired anyway.” Lucy gave another apology before turning her attention to Loki.

“8Island?” he offered, and she laughed. What’s the joke? Did I miss something? he groused.

“Sure, Loki. I’ll catch you later, Natsu?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled as they left, closing his eyes, and as he saw Lucy yet again behind them, he was reminded of Gray’s advice earlier. How did I think of Lucy before?

He remembered that burning anger he felt at Jose kidnapping her so long ago. He remembered that blinding sense of panic he felt as he read her goodbye note before it turned out she was just visiting the Heartfilia home, not staying there. He remembered the intense sympathy he felt as she realized her father had passed in the seven-year gap. He remembered the paralyzing grief he felt as she disappeared into the Clock. He remembered that overwhelming sense of concern as she was wheeled away after the Grand Magic Games’ Naval Battle. Most potently, however, was that…emptiness when Future Lucy died. It wasn’t her, but was her at the same time, and regardless, seeing Lucy lying motionless on the ground was… He couldn’t even describe it.

And there was a bit he never told anyone, not even a year and some odd moths after the fact: hearing Lucy’s words about everyone being gone, including him, struck him hardest, because it meant he had left Lucy alone to bear that huge burden herself, and consequently, her death weighed on him as well. More towards his current issue, he couldn’t see any point in time ahead where he wasn’t there by his side. Since forming a team so long ago, he couldn’t see anyone by her side but him. He wanted to be there, wanted to witness her weirdness and unpublished writings and crazy Spirits and extra hard Lucy Kicks. He, in short, wanted to be with her for the rest of their endless adventure. Did that mean that he loved her?

…Even someone as slow-minded as Natsu could see the answer.

#fairy tail #fairy tail nalu #fairytail #natsu x lucy #natsu dragneel #nalu fanfiction #Nalu #lucy heartfilia #fanfiction #romance #Drama #boiling point

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