#not to go all identity politics but I think you can only find it overly sweet if you've never been in proximity to domestic abuse

[annabelle--cane]

one of the most frequent criticisms of waitress that gets tossed around is "it's too cutesy and saccharine" and I don't not get what people are getting at when they say that but I feel like the show has considerably too much on-stage sex and domestic violence for that to really ring true. tbh.

[bonesandthebees]

I am not snowflake anon but I wanna know more about your thoughts about Dumai and Nikeya

aaaa yes more people to ramble about a day of fallen night to!!!! ok will be putting my thoughts under a read more for spoilers

warning this got, uh, longer than I expected

so firstly with dumai in general, I loved the parallels between her and glorian. both had their positions of power thrust upon them unexpectedly (glorian expected to have many more years before she had to take the throne, dumai literally didn't even know she was royalty until like a few days before she went and had to claim her title as princess), both were seen as the sole hope for their houses, both were struggling to find their power amidst the politics of it all. but their endings were so different. in a way, glorian got the bad ending while dumai got the good ending. glorian is forced to have a child. she never gets to live in hróth and has to reject her birthright to it. she saves her people, but at the cost of herself. (of course, she does reclaim parts of herself in any way she can and becomes the warrior queen she always wanted to be, but there was still so much she had to give up and she ended up trapping her daughter in the same cycle)

meanwhile, dumai is also to save her people, but doesn't lose herself in the process. yes, she has to give up her magic and yes, she can't be with her wife in the way she wants to. but she doesn't have to bear a child to continue the house of noziken. she's able to go back to ipyeda and become the maiden officiant like she always wanted. dumai's ending is as close to a good ending as she could have and I think it's such a well done contrast between the two dream sisters.

now for dumai and nikeya specifically, ohhhhh I loved their relationship so much. the two of them have such an interesting dynamic. it takes so long for dumai to trust nikeya. and it's interesting how deeply-rooted dumai's dislike/distrust of the kuposa is when she's barely been in this world for a year. she didn't know anything about the kuposa clan until she learned who her father was. but she heard they were conniving and scheming and wanted to control the house of noziken and took that to heart. of course the river lord being responsible for the death of her grandfather and also just being an overly polite passive aggressive asshole to her definitely contributed, but I was definitely surprised how stubbornly dumai held to her distrust of nikeya. but at the same time I understand it because dumai has never loved something like she loved nikeya before. it wasn't only her distrust of nikeya because she was a kuposa, but dumai not wanting to open herself up to being hurt like that.

and nikeya... ohhhh I really really loved her as a character. I love how even in the earlier parts of the book from dumai's POV you can see her desire to be seen as more than her father's daughter. wanting to cut the strings he's using to puppet her and be her own person. how she genuinely cares about seiiki and wants to make sure dumai will be a good ruler. she struggles against the way she's been raised to be and reconciling it with the person she wants to be. she had to fight so hard to forge her own identity, especially in dumai's eyes. as she falls for dumai you can see her so desperately wanting dumai to see her as her own person instead of just as a reflection of her father. and I think, like dumai, that despite the drawbacks her ending is one of the best it could be. of course for nikeya the ending she would've chosen would've been her and dumai co-ruling with suzu as their heir, but dumai wouldn't have been happy being stuck at court. her soul always belonged on ipyeda and I think nikeya knew that. but the ending she gets instead is one where her talents/skills in court can flourish, and she can make sure seiiki turns into what she wants it to be. she can ensure it's ruled properly and make sure it's prepared for the new age they're now living in.

I think it's also so interesting that her family ate from the mulberry tree. I am so desperate for more information on the mulberry tree and neporo and all of that so I really hope eventually we get more information on how nikeya's family ties into that!!

(also, the fact that nikeya is a descendant of someone who ate from the mulberry tree and apparently still has enough siden in her blood to make her immune to the red sickness makes me wonder if sabran IX from priory would've been immune as well? since tunuva is one of her ancestors? just questions buzzing around my head)

anyway just. yeah. dumai and nikeya I love you both wish you could've had a normal marriage but I hope nikeya made plenty of trips to ipyeda for 'guidance from the godsingers' throughout her time as warlord ;)

[baravaggio]

Hi, I saw your tags on that post about queer labels and was wondering if you could expand on what you meant about the limitations of our language of sexuality and the stuff about grounding conversations about this stuff in history and epistemology?

Asking in good faith, I just never thought about it in those terms, so I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Sure! Just to be clear, I was kind of going off on a tangent in the tags, all that stuff wasn't entirely relevant to the poll at hand, lol - when I'm introducing myself to others or talking to people casually I don't expect to be having these kind of conversations.

Broadly speaking, when I talk about the limitations of our language of sexuality, what I'm referring to is the way we might find that our lived experiences aren't adequately captured by our historically and culturally-determined vocabularies around sexuality, and sexual identity in particular. When I talk about grounding our conversations about this stuff in history, I'm saying that I think it's more useful to pay attention to the historical and cultural reasons behind why this is the case as opposed to doing things to intellectually and linguistically skirt around the issue.

There's a few reasons why I think this is worth caring about:

It allows us to clearly state that sexual identity as a concept has its origins in medicine and psychiatry, and continue to examine how our modern concepts of terms like "gay" and "lesbian" have been historically (and to an extent, continue to be) mediated by medicine. If we care about liberating ourselves from a medicalized understanding of gender and sexuality, we need to be attentive to the ways in which the pathologization of homosexuality has shaped not just our oppression, but things like our politics and language.

It allows us to be attentive to the ways in which certain sexual identities, e.g. "bisexual", have not followed the same trajectory. It prompts us to ask the following: what are the theoretical reasons behind why this is the case? What does this mean for the history of bisexual identity formation, and the ways we attempt to define & legitimize ourselves today? How does this impact on bisexuality's degree of cultural intelligibility? How does this affect the language and politics of bisexuality?

It clearly positions issues of language and history as relevant to all queer people, regardless of particular orientation. In an ideal world, we're able to talk about the specifics of, and similarities & differences around how this impacts our lived experiences as gay people/lesbians/bisexuals without making the conversation hierarchical, or positioning these problems as issues that only affect a specific group of people.

Of course, this is all assuming that others want to talk about these issues in good faith, lol. I think plenty of people do, but I also think our broader queer politics sometimes causes people to treat these discussions with suspicion (especially on social media).

But for those of us who do want to talk about problems of language, I think that paying attention to the above can go a long way towards helping us avoid being overly individualistic and intellectually dishonest in our analyses and conclusions.

[revoevokukil]

hello dear connoisseur how are you? I hope you happy and healthywhat made you like elves? what made you like avalach? and of the elves aen elle?

I *adore* the worst of the worst for being the worst.

No but really. Thanks for asking after me, and for this!

Aen Elle (Avallac'h particularly) straddle an incredibly busy intersection that appeals to my tragedy & transgression-addicted sensibilities: offering a ridiculous number of black mirror scenarios, a variety of ways in which to make seemingly commonplace aspirations, feelings, and ideas weird, quirky, or downright frightening. It's a kind of beauty, really; and very entertaining. Take the elves' longevity: this sole fact should bend everything around itself alone, starting from biology or the organisation of their society & ending with the way they feel & express those feelings. What is post-partum depression like for them? Organised religion? What about the dynamics of social class? What happens to an individual's sense of self-identity over 400 years? What family models are the least damaging? Are the kids alright? Are elves sexist about sex? The possibilities haven't been slaughtered by an overly pedantic author.

The author has said only this:

Interviewer: Do you consider yourself a moralist?

AS: I have to be. Without a morality play, a division into good and evil, there is no story. An interesting field for the writer to show off is playing with a morality play, showing and proving that not everything can be unambiguously and clearly divided into white and black, good and bad, that appearances are deceptive, and stereotypes even more. That canonically beautiful elves can be nice bastards, and canonically evil kobolds and underground trolls can be quite decent guests. I do not want to teach the reader, I do not require him to accept my views on morality, politics, religion, abortion, euthanasia and all the rest.

On this spectrum of subversions, Sapkowski's take on the Aen Elle qualifies as "nice on paper, foul inside." They are used to underscore this idea. Which does not mean "foul inside" is all they are as individual characters - let's not be dull - but it is the aspect that the author chose to highlight; it is the aspect that is baked into why they ought to intrigue the reader.

I say Avallac'h in particular, by the way, because I think his story is the most dynamic in its potential: there is just enough compromising info that is emotionally engaging and remains unresolved. His character revolves around an internal conflict he has never been able to set right, compounded by a ridiculously privileged social position and unique abilities, and time. Unfortunately, it's true: time does heal. But the outcome is not your restoration or resurrection, but a mangled translation, a vicious re-birth. What does "setting it right" mean then? He can wrap you around his finger so effectively, looking good and sounding charming, kind and wise, and yet at the same time, deep down, it is impossible not to feel that there is something incredibly wrong with him. Is he aware of it? Does he care? What will he do about it? What will he do as a result of it? What is it? And it is not one thing, really, but many; we're moulded by a plethora of mixed blessings. A perfect mix of alluring, dangerous, infuriating, pathetic, and sad simultaneously. Such characters are my catnip. I love them, unfortunately.

The worst should be relatable. We should be able, occasionally, to see ourselves in villains and be able to appreciate how they got there. It reminds us not to fucking go there. Imagining too much is also an illness of mine, so I obviously have to find recreational outlets for it; and this is one of them. But no matter in which direction I can think of taking him or these elves, I don't see how I would not be basking in the delightful incongruity of light shining in on hopeful patches of nobility surrounded by creeping, crushing darkness. For the love of god, be anything but dull!

[lemonhemlock]

Hiiii lemon 👋🏻

I was trying to make an oc for Cersei and Jamie and talked about it with a couple friends to bounce ideas with and they all had the same thing to say "you really think Cersei would love someone!? she literally killed Melara for daydreaming about Jamie..." And this kinda made me a bit...

Anywayyyyy personally I think yes Cersei can be delusional, heartless... But that's part of her charm !!! And really people would not be as harsh on her if she was a man.

Like imagine a boy killing his bestie over liking his sister/lover... People would call that a romantic gesture lol.

Which is why I'm here to ask what would you personally do if you were making Cersei/Jamie a female love interest.

Hi, anon! There's quite a lot to unpack in your message. Cersei and Jaime could have the potential to love other people. But certainly their insular upbringing and dysfunctional family made them overly reliant on each other to the point of co-dependency. So I think that if you want to create realistic OCs for them, you should give them traits that tend to their greatest needs or inadequacies.

For Cersei, it's perhaps more easily identifiable the kind of husband who could make her happy - it's basically who she imagines Rhaegar to be. A noble, handsome, gallant young man who would be devoted to her, treat her kindly and involve her in his daily political dealings. Both Cersei and Jaime struggle with gender roles. Cersei wants to be considered a leader and valued for something other than her reproductive abilities, she wants to be respected and not discarded the replaced the minute her body becomes "irrelevant". So power-sharing with a husband who values her personhood and intelligence would help to heal her accumulated trauma. What Cersei yearns for in a partner is not so different than what any woman would wish for herself.

With Jaime, it's more complicated, because you somehow how to prevent him from joining the Kingsguard. Because 1. he would not be able to have a functional relationship when his vows are in direct contradiction and 2. if Cersei is still Queen somehow in this AU, he'd only be miserably sniffing around her skirts, entangling himself in her business, getting inevitably jealous and miserable and keeping her from taking her marriage seriously. Other than that, Jaime has no true interest in politics and he bores easily, so an ideal wife for him would be one with good social and administrative skills, who could handle the tasks Jaime would consider tedious in his position as (eventual) ruler of Casterly Rock. He also has a quick with and is quite funny, so I think he couldn't be truly content if his wife didn't share those qualities. So, IDK, some combination between Sansa and Aunt Genna. :))

Ultimately, I think they could really only reach a true level of contentment if their spouses help them fulfill their societal roles. They're too entrenched in their identities as Lannisters to ever run off to the Free Cities and do whatever and too comfortable to renounce all privileges and live the lives of regular peasants or merchants. Feudalism offers few opportunities that provide safety and comfort; they can't exactly became finance bros or get a job at the business factory to support themselves or engage in some other bullshit activity that's little work and high reward, so staying in the socio-economic sphere of their rich family is their best bet.

Cersei has this fantasy of swords and mail, but she wouldn't have been happy as a knight, with the pushback that comes with true non-conformity. Equally, Jaimie already did what he wanted and eschewed his role as heir, but life as a perpetual knight doesn't seem to bring him satisfaction either. They're not revolutionaries out to dismantle the status-quo and campaign for change, but, in the absence of that, society is not going to just simply accommodate their idiosyncrasies just because it's them. And they don't really like it either when they find out the world doesn't bend around their wishes! (affectionate)

[kharmii]

Wow Someone asks nicely for you to remove *their* posts and you throw a callout post at it complaining? FYI, theyre not scared, theyr uncomfortable. A feeling someone is allowed to have when it's their stuff you're associating to incest. Yes it's fictional but some people can still find it disgusting. Its one thing to post in your own little corner but as a reposter, just nut up about artist's wishes about their art LOLHow a proshipper can be an anti at the same time I have no idea. You try so much to act like the rest of the shippers are degenerates for liking what they like that you're projecting at someones polite dm :)

I'm not associating an artist who does ralts line art with incest. This came out of nowhere, btw, as the artist has this for their Twitter profile:

This is an example of the sort of work they do:

Ya know, edgy teenager art from someone who is barely an adult. There's nothing about blankshipping making them uncomfortable because they probably don't give an a/b/o micro-dick of damn about the train twins. They're obviously playing stupid shipping politics, otherwise they could have just had their friend tell me to take the post down without a long, drawn-out explanation. Other people have done that, and I've shrugged it off and did what they asked. I just get tired of accusations of being along the lines of a pedo groomer, just because I have this one obscure fetish about cartoon identical twins who dress the same way and have a psychic bond (that's it. That's the specific criteria). It's not like I'm going to fuck my bro irl or groom irl twins to fuck each other. I made the point of writing in the cockroach wife post.....either admit it's all dreck and everybody is retarded or erase your delicate flower ass off the internet for being overly sensitive.

Another hot take on this issue comes from the 'proship was the fandom norm' post where I wrote that I don't have to play politics because both sides have aspects that are retarded af, and I don't have to, say, support pedophilia and gross-ass werewolf dick smut, just because I think psychic identical twins are hot. It gets to the point with proshipping that only the people into the most extreme fetishes are comfortable posting, so a lot of times, one has to sift through a mountain of gross, negative garbage just to see their otp being cute once in a while. That's why I aim to make a mostly cute blankshipping blog with only a pinch of edge.

On that note, it's bold of everybody in the Submas fandom to assume blankshipping isn't the default. When I got into this, I was like, "Wait a minute.....are antis trying to say that these middle-aged autistic train clowns in adorable matching train conductor traffic cone costumes aren't fucking?! WEEEIIRRDDD........" I mean, come on..seriously. It's not like people have to be crass about it. Blankshippers can play the brother fucking smooth, like where they sneak a kiss here and there when nobody is looking and do their dirty deeds behind closed doors. It's not like I'm going to write a fanfic where Emmet be all like, *does endzone dance in the battle car* "I have won against you. -So now I'm going to celebrate by packing my own brother's ass like I'm going on a month-long vacation. -Because I am a Subway Boss. I am Emmet!" *does toy soldier march to Ingo's battle car*

Actually, that might work if someone is into non-con, like a few seconds later, one might hear a tussle with Ingo yelling, "SWEET MOTHER OF GIRATINA! NOT AGAIN!!1!!1!" *extra big frowny face*

LOL, How a proshipper can be an anti at the same time I have no idea. You try so much to act like the rest of the shippers are degenerates for liking what they like that you're projecting at someones polite dm :)

Again, there's a lot of negativity and gross crap in the proshipping community, and yet, certain things are deemed more acceptable than others (see my two links about cockroach wife and such). Again, it's all garbage and everybody is retarded. I'm allowed to not like certain things and complain (this or that) trope gets used too much. I think some content creators are more into the trope than they are the fandom.

There's also a lot of negativity and gross crap in the antishipping community as well. Why is it that cartoon fictional character twincest is taboo, but again, someone can take a human character ship and turn it into two-dick werewolf knotting cumflation morbidly obese furry bullshit? I'd rather have a fetish that's immoral in the context of irl than one that's stupid and disgusting. Do that many people want to see furry fetish plastered everywhere? -Or is it a case where the vocal minority shouts the loudest? Someone on a gardevoir discord once told me one individual single-handedly ruined a ralts line 4chan channel by posting huge-booty inflation smut that nobody wanted to see but the one person.

[massivedrickhead]

Can you do Kiss for the potentially romantic prompts? Please and thanks 🙂

[ KISS ] : sender kisses receiver in order to protect their identities, but is the kiss completely professional? or is there something else...?

From this list of prompts.

I kinda ended up moving away from the prompt a bit, but I think what I did still counts? Let me know🙈

Read on AO3

Taking advantage of the break in conversation, Chloe turned away from the Bellas, who were squashed into a booth, and back towards the bar.

She felt like Beca had been gone for an eternity, and she’d had to keep fighting the urge to turn around and look for her.

She couldn’t deal with the girls teasing her tonight, and she knew her looking for Beca every five minutes would only add more fuel to that fire.

It took a little longer than it usually would for Chloe to spot her. Normally Chloe’s eyes found Beca before her mind even knew she was looking for her. Normally, Beca stood out like she had a spotlight on her.

But in this overly crowded bar, where somehow everyone was dressed just a little bit like Beca, Chloe was finding it more difficult.

Every flannel shirt was on someone else’s back. Every lock of wavy brown hair wasn’t a lock of Beca’s wavy brown hair.

Every pair of jeans ripped at the knee, or scuffed boot, or scary (sexy) ear-spike, belonged to someone else.

Chloe started to wonder if she was being pranked until she finally spotted Beca at the very end of the bar.

Chloe couldn’t stop the frown that spread across her face, or the way her eyebrows pulled together.

She never was very good at hiding her emotions.

Beca - who was still trying her best to get the bartender’s attention so she could get served - was currently being hit on by a beard in a flannel shirt.

He was smiling, leaning against the bar with his own drink, looking down at her. He was clearly talking about something that he found fascinating, and didn’t seem to be picking up on Beca’s ‘please leave me alone’ face.

Beca turned her head away from him, looking back towards the booth where they were sitting, and seemed to deflate with relief when she saw that Chloe was looking at her.

She gave Chloe a look that said ‘Dude, help me’ and Chloe was only too happy to oblige.

“There you are!” Chloe said, brightly as she got within earshot of Beca and her new friend. She placed a hand on Beca’s back and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “You’ve been gone for hours.” Chloe pouted, her arm draping around Beca’s shoulder now. She felt Beca relax against her, as she reached up to take Chloe’s hand.

“So dramatic, babe,” Beca said, following Chloe’s lead. “Sorry dude,” Beca added, turning back to the guy, “this is my girlfriend Chloe.”

“Girlfriend?” He said, frowning, “you didn’t-”

“Chloe, this is Matt-”

“-Mark-”

“He’s really into IPAs.”

“Nice to meet you Matt,” Chloe said, brightly. “I hope you weren’t hitting on my girlfriend,” she added with a wink.

“It’s Mark,” he said. “You never said you had a girlfriend.”

“Was I supposed to?”

“I mean… It's only polite. Some guy starts talking to you, you should let him know you aren’t available. Kinda wasted my time,” he said, looking like a kicked puppy.

“Sorry dude, I thought you were just being friendly,” Beca said, with a shrug. She turned back to Chloe. “Can you get this guy to serve me? I never have any luck in this bar.”

“Sure babe,” Chloe said, leaning forward slightly, grinning as the bartender spotted her. She waved him over.

“You know what,” Mark said, looking more annoyed now. “I don’t believe it.”

“Don’t believe what?” Beca asked.

“Don’t believe you two as a couple. I mean she doesn’t exactly look…”

“Look what?” Chloe asked. Her smile was still on her face but there was something dangerous in her eyes now. “Look gay?”

“I just think you guys are doing that thing that girls do when they want a guy to leave them alone,” he said. “And that’s not fair. I’m a nice guy, you should give me a chance.”

Beca rolled her eyes and Chloe focused her attention on the bartender again.

“I dunno what to tell you dude,” Beca said. “Can I get two bottles of Bud Light please and a,” she turned to Chloe, “Vodka and Diet Coke?” Chloe nodded with another smile. “Vodka Diet Coke please.”

“Sure thing,” the bartender said before moving away to get their drinks.

“Look,” Mark said, speaking up again in what was clearly some last ditch attempt. “Prove it to me.”

“What?” Chloe asked.

“If you’re really a couple, prove it. Kiss or something.”

“Dude you’re being gross,” Beca said, shaking her head and turning away from him.

“Come on,” he said. “I think you’re lying.”

“Fine,” Chloe said, her hand coming to rest on Beca’s jaw. “If it’ll make you leave us alone, we’ll kiss.”

“No,” Beca said, sounding disgusted as she turned away to face Mark again. Chloe moved her hand and tried not to let this sudden stab of rejection show on her face. “No, we’re not gonna put on some show for you. We don’t owe you anything. Look, dude, either one of two things is happening. Number 1, you’re harassing a couple and being kinda homophobic in the process-”

“-I didn’t say anything homo-”

“-Or two,” Beca said, cutting him off, “I’m lying to you in order to make you leave me alone. In both of these scenarios, I don’t want to spend any more time with you. If I have to lie about a relationship to get you to leave me alone that should kind of indicate to you that this thing we have might not be going anywhere. So can you, like, fuck off?”

He straightened up. “Fine.” He finished his drink and put his glass back on the bar with a thump. “Bitch.”

“Thanks for that,” Beca said to Chloe once Mark had left.

“No problem,” Chloe said, taking her drink and walking back to the table.

“Wait, dude, are you mad at me?” Beca asked.

“No, of course not,” Chloe said, smiling sweetly. “Babe.” Chloe squeezed herself into the booth again, leaving Beca standing, looking at her in confusion.

“What did I do?”

“Uh oh,” Cynthia-Rose muttered.

“Our Mom’s are fighting again,” Emily said.

“Chloe?” Beca asked, ignoring them.

“You couldn’t have just kissed me? You had to go on a whole tirade and break that guy down because the thought of kissing me was so bad?” Chloe asked.

“Are you serious right now? He was being gross, I’m not putting on a fucking show for him to jerk off to later tonight,” Beca said.

“You were fine with calling me babe and letting me put my arm around you and stuff,” Chloe said.

“That’s different,” Beca said. “Look, can we go outside or something?”

“Why?”

“Because I wanna have an adult conversation with you, and I don’t want Amy live-tweeting it.”

“Fine,” Chloe said, taking a large swallow of her drink before setting the glass down and following Beca out of the bar.

It was cold outside, and Chloe immediately wrapped her arms around herself.

On instinct, Beca pulled off her jacket and wrapped it around Chloe’s shoulders, and Chloe felt herself soften immediately. The scowl in her face disappeared, and she closed her eyes as Beca tugged the jacket so it covered her better.

“What just happened?” Beca asked. “I feel like I missed something.”

“I’m sorry,” Chloe said, softly. “I didn’t mean to snap at you like that in front of the girls.”

“Did I do something?”

“No,” Chloe said. “Not really. It’s just… I guess I got a little caught up in our act. And when you turned away it felt like… it was like the idea of kissing me was so awful that you would rather chew this guy out than do it. And you hate confrontation, so you must have hated the thought of kissing me more. I’m not mad that you didn’t want to kiss me. It’s just… the way you said no. Like… like you’d just tasted something bad. It kinda hurt my feelings.”

“Chlo’,” Beca said, softly, “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come across that way.”

“You don’t need to say sorry,” Chloe said. “You have every right to reject me, I’m just a little drunk and emotional tonight.”

“Chloe, you realise you’re like my favourite person in the whole world, right? There isn’t a universe that exists in which I don’t want to kiss you,” Beca said, holding onto the ends of the jacket around Chloe’s shoulders, pulling her forward slightly. “I just didn’t want our first kiss to be like that. I didn’t want it to be surrounded by people gawking, for the benefit of some lowlife. I want it to be real. I want it to mean something. I don’t want it to be the only one.”

“But you do want it?” Chloe asked, her voice so small and hopeful that it almost broke Beca’s heart.

“Of course I want it. God, you have no idea… you’re everything to me, Chloe Beale. And when we kiss, it’s going to be the start of something amazing,” Beca said, pulling her even closer.

“Sounds like you’ve thought about this,” Chloe said, her eyes inevitably dropping to Beca’s lips.

“I have. A lot. For a long time,” Beca said.

“Why did you wait?”

“Why did you?”

Chloe laughed, and Beca felt it against her lips.

“Is this happening?” Chloe asked, as Beca pulled her a little closer.

“I think so,” Beca said, grinning. “Just promise me that this kiss is the beginning of something, not the end.”

“Hmm. That all depends on how good a kisser you are Mitchell.”

“I guess I’ll let you be the judge of that,” Beca said, before she gave the jacket one final tug and closed the distance between them.

[fire-lady-ilah]

More good dad! Ozai AU? Even if you didn’t ask for it, you’re getting it and I’m picking up right where I left off. This is my reminder that, while Ozai is a good and non-abusive dad and husband in this, he is still very much an imperialist and a cruel person in general.

Parts [1] and [2] if you’d like. This is part 3. Here’s part [4]

The siblings venture into the capital, although they make it known that no one should inform their parents that they are nearby. The moment they step off the ship, Captain Jee sends a letter to the Fire Lady. He was loyal to the Prince and Princess above all, but he did not feel like being executed or exiled that day when Lady Ursa inevitably finds out.

In a large house just outside Caldera City, Lord Ukano lives with his wife, Michi, his daughter and heir, Mai, and his newborn son Tom-Tom. The Dragon Emperor and the Blue Spirit sneak into the bedroom of the heiress and steal her away.

In that I mean, Mai leaps at the opportunity to escape her home with her best friends, who she’s seen wearing the same theatre masks dozens of times, and follows willingly. It takes an hour longer than the siblings had expected, if only because Mai has far more knives than they had truly expected and they get caught up in the palace kitchens stealing Azula’s favourite mochi and some bags of fire flakes.

Then they are caught by Fire Lady Ursa, who is gathering a late night cup of cocoa after a nice night with her husband, not that her children need to know that part. Her children, who are wearing her theatre masks that had very recently gone missing from her collection, stare at her innocently. Her daughter carries two entire boxes she knows are full of mochi. Her son carries the fire flake bag they use for festivals. Her one day daughter-in-law is making a cup of cocoa and the Fire Lady calmly requests one for herself from the girl.

That night, the fire Prince and Princess sleep in their own rooms, with Lady Mai in one of the many available. In the morning, they take breakfast with the Fire Lord and Lady, discussing trivial matters of politics and domestic affairs.

Mai leaves on the request of the Fire Lord, bringing everything they took from her home and the palace (along with what Ursa and Ozai insisted they take) to the ship with the help of some soldiers.

Azula and Zuko sit with their parents. Ursa gives them each two potent bottles of poison. Ozai’s voice has a worry that only his family knows how to detect through the facade of boredom as he inquires how their firebending and blades practice has been, as to the state of their weaponry. They try to soothe their parents worries with assurances: their practice has been going well in both bending and blades, Azula has achieved perfection in lightningbending and Zuko has achieved lightning, their blades are sharp and well maintained, they weren’t harmed when the temple blew up—

It slips through Zuko’s lips. He was never the actor like his mother and sister. For their part, his parents do not react overly beyond a flickering of the flame and a long sip of tea.

“Your mission has changed.”

Ozai is smart. Everything he does is to serve his goals the best they can. In canon, the premier of those goals is to gain more power for himself. In this world, that goal is to secure the ideal outcome for his family. (Of course, his second goal is as much power as possible. But it is only considered after his first goal).

Allying themselves with the Avatar, at least in appearances, will secure the best outcome for his children. And he has no doubt that his brother (so weak after the death of his son. And yet, Ozai cannot find it within him to scorn him overly. He knows that were he to be left childless, he would break. It is merely that Ozai would break in an explosion, whereas Iroh’s flame fizzled into embers.) would eagerly help his children betray him. Even if it was just in appearances.

His children are loyal and dutiful. They protest, but only out of a desire to maintain that loyalty. He wishes the Avatar had remained hidden, at least until they were both adults. They are prodigal, yes, but they are just siblings.

“You have our permission to reveal your mother’s ancestry. Use it wisely.”

The children know their lineage for at least five generations on each side. That, of course, is in addition to their knowledge of every Fire Lord that has reigned since the unification of the Fire Nation. They are well aware that their Grandmother Rina (who feeds them chocolate and tells them stories whenever she visits) ‘s father was Avatar Roku. Just as they knew of the friendship between Fire Lord Sozin and Avatar Roku.

It is necessary for the people of their nation to hear pretty lies. It is not their responsibility to worry about the nuance and complexity of life. It is one of their responsibilities as Angi’s heirs in the mortal world. To worry of such things is a burden they should not have to bear. It is necessary for the people to believe the Avatar hated the Fire Lord.

The siblings don’t know everything, of course. They are just children after all. But they understand the nuance, the conflicting beliefs. They were told the truth (and carefully kept from necessary propaganda before then) when they were old enough to look critically at the situation. It was their duty to bring the Fire Nation’s good to the other nations, to liberate their populations, the siblings decided.

The Avatar is just a child, but he seemed able to connect with his past lives. And he had pointedly not hurt them, at least as Avatar Roku.

If nothing else, they have the Dragon Emperor and Blue Spirit on their side.

“Zhao has asked for permission to launch an invasion on the Northern Water Tribe. He is a fool, but he claims he has knowledge that will ensure his victory. Tomorrow, I will send him a letter approving his asinine idea. You will stop him— kill him, if you must— and use that act of perceived treason to ally yourselves with the Avatar.”

Ozai wants power, but he is no fool. The invasion is risky at best. He cannot find it within himself to care for the tens of thousands that would doubtlessly die in it, the Northern Water Tribe had the advantage in multiple ways. It would serve its purpose to get his children at the Avatar’s side.

The tone lightens after his orders and Ozai steps back from his role as Father Lord into just being a father. He teases his son on his interactions with his betrothed. He teases his daughter and asks if she would be visiting the circus soon, taking note of how she had learned to prevent a blush but not the squeak in her voice. They are not infallible, they are children.

As they see their children for the last time in the foreseeable future, the Fire Lord and Lady both think as to how much they will miss them. Ursa blinks back tears as she hugs them both, smiling as they react identically, burying their faces into her chest to hide them and breathing in the scent of fire lily perfume.

Ozai is not usually physically affectionate with his children. He had never received it from his father and was much more competent in other ways. That being said, no one commented on the kiss he pressed to the top of Zuko’s head (still shorter than him by quite a bit. Sometimes he acted so adult, but he was so clearly still a child) before repeating the action with Azula.

“I am so proud of you. Both of you.”

I’m just now realizing Blue Spirit is supposed to be after the whole Roku thing. Oh well.

For appearances’ sake, the siblings and Mai continue to chase the Avatar. Zhao attacks the Avatar while he trains under the Deserter. Princess Azula ensures the forest doesn’t burn while Prince Zuko uses all the bottled up anger at both Zhao himself and Azulon (really, what is with grown men trying to kill 11/12 year olds?) to yell at Zhao for acting so recklessly.

And if, perhaps, he manages to endear himself to others by knocking Zhao’s feet out from under him, all the better.

The Avatar and his friends escape and the siblings celebrate another success as Zhao nurses his bruised ass and ego.

(“Hey, did the Deserter look like that dude in Master Piandao’s painting in his main hall to you?”

“Admiral Jeong Jeong and Master Piandao were married, Zuko. Obviously that was him.”)

Zhao attempts to order their crew away from them, citing his rank as admiral as above prince and princess.

Azula’s sharp tongue reminds Admiral Zhao that Zuko is not only a prince, but the Crown Prince, and thus he is equal in rank to Zhao. As was their uncle a general, retired or not.

Behind the royalty of the ship stands Captain Jee, his eyes locked with Zhao’s. His eyes promise mutiny even if he were to somehow take them. His eyes swear loyalty to the Crown Prince, to his sister, above all else.

Zhao turns to leave.

“Of course, that is not to say we will not join your invasion.” Zuko sounds like his father sometimes, and never more than when his voice holds a hint of smug satisfaction. “Merely, do not presume to think you can order us in any way. We out rank you, and our crew is the best our Nation has to offer.”

Their ship joins, at least in appearance, Zhao’s fleet. That being said, they obey no orders from the Admiral and only allow his “inspections” of the ship and their crew once. For all intents and purposes, they are just there to observe.

And observe they do. The siblings watch the way Zhao treats his subordinates and twin righteous flames burns in their chests. The truth of being raised by a loving father means that Zuko and Azula are both rather sheltered in comparison to their canon selves. They are raised on ideals of honour and the divine responsibility of a monarch, rather than on the truths of war and practicality of rule. It only results in a hotter fire and more questions as to if Sozin’s way was truly the one to follow.

They still have absolute faith in their father. After all, he is the one that raised them, that taught them of honour and the ideals of a monarch. He is the one that sheltered them. He is the one that suggested they befriend the Avatar to keep them safe.

On the ship, only three people know the entire plan. The first two are the siblings, of course. The third is Captain Jee. He is the one that will keep their ship away from the invasion itself so there is no risk of their crew being harmed in the doomed attack. He is the one that will direct the ship to the colonies once the siblings are with the Avatar. Captain Jee has no qualms about technically commuting treason.

Mai knows some of the plan. In that, Mai knows exactly what Zuko and Azula tell her and then what she observes. She sees the way they stick together, now more than ever. Sees the way that Azula trains her non-lethal lightning (because even she, a nonbender, knows it’s far harder to bend lightning that doesn’t kill than that that does). She hears the way they drop the title of Fire Lord when speaking of their royal great grandfather. She catches whispers about Fire Lord Roku. About the Avatar.

Mai, in a way, knows more than the siblings themselves. She knows that they are genuinely sympathetic toward the Avatar in a way that they don’t yet realize. She begins to keep all her knives on her person, along with an easily grab-able bag for travelling in her room. There was no way she’d be letting her best friends turn traitor without her. This is the most exciting thing she’s done in years.

Iroh knows less than he believes. Oh, he gets the dropped title just as well as Mai, but he does not know the intricacies of Zuko and Azula the way Mai does. He sees Azula’s practice and writes it off as her ever-present search for perfection. He catches the tail end of a conversation between siblings and does not stop to consider who exactly “great grandfather” may be referring to. It would be unthinkable for his brother to tell the children of their heritage.

Despite this, Iroh also knows more than most. He knows from conversation exactly what Zhao intends to do in the Northern Water Tribe and it turns his blood to boil.

They reach the Northern Water Tribe. The siblings sneak off the ship in an emergency boat. Mai enters at the last moment and neither send her away.

Iroh has already left the ship, though he is currently in one last meeting with Zhao in an attempt to convince him not to continue with his plan. He will not check back with his niece and nephew, believing them to be safe on the ship.

In the Northern Water Tribe, the three Fire Nation teens remain tucked into the shadows. They, unfortunately, have no idea where the Avatar is and wander through the city. However, they reach the Avatar’s friends before Zhao does.

(“Is he... alive?”

“He’s just meditating.”)

It goes far better than they could have expected. The siblings’ act of releasing Sokka and Katara from Zhao’s bindings results in a part of water tribe siblings being quite willing to hear them out. Princess Yue gives them an odd look but remains quiet.

Zhao shows up. Iroh shows up. Azula and Zuko denounce him (though they cannot bring themselves to denounce their father, even though they know they should). Zhao declares them all traitors, a koi fish in a bag in his hand.

A bolt of lightning hits Zhao straight in the back. Both he and the koi fish fall into the pool of water. He does not emerge.

Azula’s face is carefully blank, even as she watches the water. She cannot stop to consider whether it is her or the water that just killed the admiral, or if he was even dead at all. She could not even see his body in its depths. She used non-lethal strength.

Despite Princess Yue’s backing, the Northern Water Tribe wants to take the siblings prisoner (hostage, everyone knows). After all, everyone knows of the devotion they show to the Fire Lord and vice versa. If nothing else, they would be excellent bargaining pieces in a more formal treaty.

They had not factored this into their plan. Admittedly, they had not factored the Northern Water Tribe into their plan at all.

The three Fire Nation teens are thrown into a prison cell. A rather comfortable prison cell, but still a prison cell. Iroh is taken somewhere else.

Within five hours, they sit on the back of a flying bison, Sokka handing them food he had smuggled out of the meal as Katara was smuggling them out of prison.

(“We tried to get your Uncle too,” the Avatar says in a remorseful tone, “but we couldn’t find him.”

“Uncle will be fine.” Azula declares, her mind set only on the future as she tries not to think about the way Zhao sunk beneath the still surface of the pond.

Zuko nods in agreement and clutches her hand in a comforting way.)

The Gaang now consists of six people:

Aang, a twelve year old Avatar with a mastery in air and a decent proficiency in water. He looks at the Fire Nation teens and sees his friend Kuzon, sees a time from before the war when an Air Nomad could wander freely through the Fire Nation. He attempts to use Fire Nation slang with them but it’s a century old and results in only laughter.

Katara, a master waterbender and healer (a concept that intrigues Azula to no end, although she tries to keep her questions polite). She tends to have a short temper when it comes to matters of the Fire Nation, but even she can be coaxed into trying a few sweets that Zuko has stored in his bag.

Sokka, a hunter and warrior who may or may not be engaged to the NWT princess (Zuko says he is, Azula says he isn’t). Azula laments that her jokes are even worse than Zuko’s, to which Mai agrees. It is that comment that leads Sokka and Zuko to start bonding, having nothing better to do on the bison’s back than exchange bad jokes.

Crown Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, who Sokka would insist is walking Fire Nation propaganda as he goes on at least one rant about Fire Nation culture and technology a day. Who surprisingly helps Katara with the cooking because it was one of the things Fire Lady Ursa carried over from before she was Fire Lady and taught to her children.

Princess Azula of the Fire Nation, who has a sharp tongue and a sharper pair of twin daggers that she seems to enjoy threatening her brother with for any inconvenience, even though they both just laugh at it. (Katara and Sokka have to be assured by them both that they truly love each other and that threatening each other with weapons carried over from the theatre scrolls they used to act out as children).

Lady Mai talks the least, seemingly content just to talk to Zuko and Azula. Aang makes it his mission to get her to warm up to him and spends a good portion of his time trying to talk to her. He succeeds when he brings up air ball, of all things. Mai’s parents had discouraged her from sport, believing it to be unfitting of a young lady just as they had discouraged her interest in knives until Zuko and Azula had ganged up on them. Partially for that reason, Mai enjoyed sports quite a bit, a shock to even Zuko (though Azula knew). After that, she talks mainly to Zuko, Azula, and Aang.

Captain Jee guides his ship to the Fire Nation colonies, unable to confirm that his Prince and Princess were okay. He hadn’t expected the worry he feels now, but he knows he will be awaiting a letter at Yu Dao if they are safe.

Prince Iroh is startled to discover that, while meeting with Master Pakku, the Avatar, his friends, his nephew and niece, and Mai had all disappeared.

As had his ship.

[sambvcks]

redefined, b.b. x reader

summary: just because those ten words no longer wreak havoc on his mind does not mean they are gone. just redefined.

warnings: mentions of food, blood, gunshot wound

word count: 3.7k....whoops

author’s note: first standalone! i’m also itching to work on a sam story next. the last episode still lives in my mind rent free and this is a reworking of that which diverges from civil war and we get one big happy avenging family that aren’t dead :)

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Longing

An Avenger.

The concept was still so foreign to Bucky, despite dozens of successful missions under his belt and a permanent residence in the tower. Still, every morning he sprung up in bed expecting to still be in some run-down apartment halfway across the world, on the run.

Instead, he would awake on a plush mattress that offered little back support. He would shuck on the first shirt his bleary eyes could see and pad into the hallway, the smell of fresh coffee overtaking his superhuman sense of smell. You would be perched at the kitchen counter, pouring over mission files stained with coffee rings that Tony would later complain about.

Steve and Sam would have already come through on their way to their morning run, the coffee pot running dangerously low. You’d already placed his favorite mug nearby, two packets of sugar emptied into the bottom. A routine.

Bucky didn’t think he’d ever have a routine again.

His hand would press against your shoulder in a familiar greeting as he passed, you’d grin up at him with sleepy eyes and a lazy smile before returning to your work. Your cereal sat forgotten beside you, the overly sweetened kid’s choice growing soggy.

It was a silent and comfortable interaction. Neither worked to fill the quiet or felt the need to. Even with Steve, there was always talking and planning and ‘what about this’. With you, it was so natural to just exist how he was in that moment. No excuses, no whispered apologies.

He pushed his back against the sink as he sipped at his coffee, eyes immediately settling on your distracted figure. Your pajamas were wrinkled, mouth formed into a perfect concentrated from as you hunched uncomfortably, hand scribbling furiously. He swallowed and decided you were the most beautiful person he had ever seen, especially with your coffee breath and fingernails chewed to nubs.

He wanted so desperately to move across the kitchen and press himself perfectly against you, to push aside your paperwork and demand your sole attention. His hand clenched into a fist as he longed to feel your soft, round cheeks in his hands, how warm you would feel against the cool metal of his left and how you’d nuzzle closer still.

He hadn’t heard the dragging footsteps of Steve and Sam returning from their run and didn’t even notice them until they were settled at the doorway, watching him watch you.

“Morning.” Steve grinned, all knowing. Bucky cleared his throat and refocused on his mug.

“Morning.” Bucky replied with a look that said ‘don’t say anything’.

Rusted

Bucky learned that if you weren’t cooped up in your room or camped out on the kitchen island, you were tucked away in Tony’s garage. On slow days where it seemed everyone was off in their own little world, Bucky would know to find you under the hood of one of Tony’s vintage cars, each kept in pristine condition, but you claimed that ‘there’s always something to work on’.

Bucky was never a car guy. His family was too poor to even think of ever owning his own car. He didn’t even have his own license and technically couldn’t legally ride his bike either. He found out quickly that being an Avenger meant the term legal could be bent a bit. So, he wasn’t a car guy. But the sight of you with streaks of grease across your face and your raggedy workshop clothes would have him buying one just to see you work on it.

You were notoriously protective of your little hideaway, the music loud and the sound of metal ringing as you fixed and fiddled with every little thing. Steve nearly got a wrench to the face when he tried to distract you from Tony’s antique Chevy.

Bucky was different, though. He was always different.

He would sit himself on a tall stool positioned next to one of Tony’s many rolling tool chests. You’d call out a tool and he’d rifle through the collection until he found what he thought was the right one and only slightly tease him when he’d emerge with the wrong one. Typically, you’d spend these afternoons in silence, the thumping of the heavy base of whatever crazy metal album you picked the only soundtrack to your work.

Sometimes, though, you’d play gentle rock music. Bucky would ask questions on what you were doing, how you learned to do all of this, why you did it when Tony worked on these cars enough for the both of you.

You’d fish your rag from your pocket, concentrating on scrubbing the grease from under your fingernails as you answered.

“I like using my hands. I like fixing things. For every car that Tony has in this garage, there are hundreds just like it sitting in junkyards gathering cobwebs and rust.” You looked up at him from under eyelashes and Bucky knew you were speaking about much more than just hunks of metal. “They’re worthy of love and care.”

You were talking about him, too.

Seventeen

Bucky didn’t think this superhero business would have so many parties. There seemed to be a celebration for everything. Galas, fundraisers, full on parades whenever Tony happened to wake up in a good mood.

At least this one is a holiday, he thought to himself as he nursed his third beer of the hour. Not that it did anything other than keep his hands occupied.

The year was coming to a close, and the top floor of the Avengers Tower was decked in golden confetti and banners to ensure no one forgot. The music was obnoxiously loud, and the lyrics made little sense, but everyone seemed to be having a good time mingling and even venturing to the dance floor.

No matter how many times Sam tried to drag him in with an invisible rope, Bucky was not going to dance. Well. Maybe he would if you asked.

The party had been in full swing for hours now, with only ten minutes until the ball a few blocks up finally dropped and he could sneak away to his room without a teasing ‘bedtime already, old timer?’ from Nat.

Still, the party raged on and he eyed the glass door to the balcony. He downed the last of his beer, brushing past enthusiastic partygoers with his shoulders hunched forward in some attempt to minimize the space he took up in the room that only seemed to be getting smaller. He caught Steve’s eye on the way out and plastered on a smile in response to his disappointed look.

He let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding as soon as the glass door slid closed behind him. His eyes closed as he leaned back against it, the chill of the December New York air blew his hair in every direction.

“Fancy meeting you here.” You were sat in the far corner, so well hidden he hadn’t even noticed you, though he had been on the lookout for you all night. “Tired of the festivities?”

“And Tony’s music.” He grumbled as he fell into the seat beside you.

“Been waiting for you for the past thirty minutes. Honestly, you made it a lot longer than I could’ve in there.”

You were waiting for him. You wanted him to be there, with you, tucked away from everyone else’s prying eyes. He wanted that, too. Sometimes he wanted it so much it scared him.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, doll. It’s not polite for a gentleman to make a girl wait.”

“Hmm, I think I’ll find it in myself to forgive you.” Your shoulder pressed against his, eyes focused on the smattering of buildings surrounding you. Identical parties were happening in each of them, you were sure. “Can you believe another year is gone?”

“I can’t believe I’m about to make it to 2017 and my back hasn’t given out yet.”

You laughed, loud and unabashedly in a way only Bucky could make you laugh. Head thrown back and eyes glittering from the city lights, Bucky wanted to spend every new year you would allow him to by your side, trying his best to make you laugh again.

“Well,” You stood to peer over the glass railing, Bucky close behind you. You could hear the drunken cries inside as the countdown begun. “I’m glad you did.”

“Me too.” Bucky offered his hand to you. You took it easily.

5, 4, 3…

He wanted nothing more than to pull you close, to finally press a kiss on the lips that had thrown teasing remarks at him during missions. To once and for all end this little dance you both loved so much. But you looked so perfect.

Bucky wasn’t ready to ruin that perfection with everything wrong with him quite yet.

“Happy 2017, Bucky.” You whispered as the fireworks started, but Bucky couldn’t pull his eyes from you.

“Happy 2017, doll.”

Daybreak

The mission had been long and grueling. The week-long stakeout turned into two and quickly turned into a month away. You can’t remember the last time you’d had a good night of sleep that wasn’t interrupted with Bucky’s hand on your shoulder, telling you it was your turn to keep watch.

It wasn’t a horrible mission, more of an exercise in patience and restraint than anything. Bucky’s stories kept you entertained enough, and he was a good partner. Which is why you were paired together more often than not.

Still, it was nice to finally collapse into your familiar bed, not even bothering to kick of shoes or take a much-needed shower. Your sleeping schedule was all out of whack and you tossed and turned, despite the exhaustion seeping through your bones.

After fifteen minutes, you finally huffed a sigh of defeat and stumbled back to your feet. You showered, which was a few good days overdue, and dressed in your largest, most comfortable pajamas.

You weren’t surprised to see Bucky up as well, sitting at the dining table with a mug of fresh coffee.

“Couldn’t sleep?” His foot kicked out the seat beside him as an invitation.

“Sleeps overrated, anyways.” You shrugged, slumping into the seat and pressing your face into the cool glass of the table.

“Sleep is good for you.” He insisted, reaching forward to brush aside the hair that had curtained over your face. “You deserve a good night’s rest.”

“So do you, Buck.”

He stayed silent for a while, just sipping at his coffee and stealing glances at you, face trained out the floor to ceiling windows. He really didn’t know what he deserved, anymore. Sure, he had made some semblance of peace with what the Winter Soldier had done with his body. He was better, that was certain.

Worthy of you and all your unwavering sweetness? He wasn’t so sure.

You idly chatted about nothing for hours, filling comfortable silence with talks of the mission and the food poisoning he had given you when he tried to make dinner two weeks in. You sat side by side until day broke the next morning, eyes squinting at the sun peeking over skyscrapers and finally finding the need to fall shut in rest.

“I guess I should say ‘good morning’ instead of ‘good night’.” You were the first to stand, shuffling towards the hallway that led to your bedroom.

“Good morning.” He answered as you padded away, deciding he would be just fine losing sleep every night if it meant he could watch the sunrise by your side.

Furnace

“Doesn’t Tony make enough money to keep this place at least habitable?” You grumbled as you fell into the couch beside Bucky.

“I’m fine.”

Bucky sat in his patent jeans and t-shirt, unphased by the temperature that practically had your teeth chattering. You were bundled in multiple layers, including one of the many sweatshirts he’d wear jogging on cold mornings and blankets you had stolen off his bed. Your glare from under your cocoon of warmth rivaled even his.

“I’m not a muscle-y super soldier-”

“You think I’m muscle-y?”

“-that runs so hot you’re basically a personal furnace.”

“Oh, so now I’m hot.”

“I would strangle you to death right now, but I’m about to lose my fingers to hypothermia.” You burrowed further into your smattering of blankets with a violent chill running down your spine. Bucky simply rolled his eyes and marked the spot in the book he had been reading before you stormed in.

“C’mere.”

He balled up a fistful of one of your blankets, tugging you even closer to him. You opened your arms to allow for direct contact, sighing contently as your face pressed into his shoulder and legs tangled with his. You sighed contently as you welcomed his warmth, shimmying as close as you could get.

“Better?”

“The best.”

Nine

“Do you ever think what your life would be like? If you’d gotten to go home?”

Even a year ago, this question would have turned Bucky into a brooding mess. He would have delved into every little moment he had missed, every plan that had been turned upside down when he fell from that train all those years ago. But he was better now, more contemplative. He wouldn’t drown in the idea of what could have been because he knows what it’s like to be on the other side.

“I like to think I would’ve gone to college.”

“Really?”

“You calling me dumb, doll?”

“No! You’re the smartest person I know. I’m just picturing you at college. Carrying textbooks and wooing all the dames.” You fell into him at the thought, a fake swoon overtaking your face.

“I’d be too busy studying for dames.”

“Studying what?”

“I always liked math. Maybe engineering or something. Wanted to be a teacher before the draft.” He shrugged like the information was no big deal, but to you it was everything.

“Professor Barnes. Kind of sexy.”

“Oh, shut up.” But his words held no malice. Instead, he was grinning that cheeky grin that pulled his cheeks into perfect rosy apples and his eyes crinkled in joy. “I wanted to have ten kids.”

“Ten?!”

“So we’d be a dozen. My own little army of mini-Buckys to take over the world. Couple sets of twins, maybe. Definitely as many girls as I could manage.”

Of course Bucky would be a girl-dad. Playing dress-up for fake tea parties and scaring off boys when they’d come ‘round for first dates. You could imagine how he’d learn how to take care of their hair and plait intricate braids when they asked. He would make breakfast for the whole bunch, kiss his wife goodbye before escorting them to the bus stop and taking off for a day of teaching classes. Bucky would be an amazing father.

An amazing husband, too.

“I think ten may be pushing it, Barnes.”

Bucky pictured it, too. A little more modern than maybe the image you conjured up. Teaching was replaced with small missions. The gaggle of kids were smaller, and he wouldn’t have to kiss his wife goodbye. You’d be in the car next to him, headed to the tower for your morning briefings together.

“I’ll settle for nine.”

Benign

If you were to ask any New Yorker what they think the Avengers do on Friday afternoons, they would probably say something like ‘kicking ass!’. None would get even close to what your actual routine looked like.

None would imagine The Winter Soldier lounging in a bathrobe, hair knotted into a bun at the top of his head as his fellow world-saving Avenger spread some green goop over his face. Chinese takeout boxes littered the living room coffee table, his feet were bubbling in warm foot spa.

“To keep your youthful complexion!” You had promised him. He didn’t comment on the obvious sound of your phone’s camera clicking.

He knew he must have looked completely ridiculous. But as you sunk into the couch next to him with identical spa treatments covering you, he couldn’t find it in himself to really care.

He never thought in a million years that he would have the chance of boring, completely benign afternoons. He thought he would be sidelined to violent missions for the rest of his life, to being thawed out like a microwave meal every time he was deemed useful. Sure, he felt a bit ridiculous when you reached over to adjust the slices of cucumber placed over his eyelids, but he also felt so relaxed.

As you settled even closer to him, head tilting to rest on his shoulder, he would happily take the teasing remarks from Sam when you showed him the pictures.

Homecoming

Peter wasn’t crazy about the idea of getting ready for his senior year homecoming dance at the tower. But Aunt May was upstate on vacation with Happy and he still didn’t know how to tie a tie.

“Oh, you look so handsome, Peter!” You gushed as your fingers worked on his tie. Bucky stood to the side, holding MJ’s corsage in a delicate plastic container. Peter had been careful to find the perfect color, with a little guidance from you. The white dahlias matched perfectly with Peter’s light green tie.

“Thanks, Ms. (Y/L/N).”

Peter, ever the polite kid.

“Be safe, kid. Have her home at a reasonable time and no wandering hands.” Bucky handed over the corsage with a supportive slap to Peter’s shoulder. He was quick to promise that he would follow all the rules before making a dash to the door, just as you were about to ask for pictures.

“Don’t wait up!” He called as the elevator dinged behind him.

“They grow up so fast.” You sniffled. “I didn’t even go to my homecoming dances.”

“Why not?”

“Nobody ever asked me.” You shrugged, collecting the other ties Peter had picked from and hanging them carefully over your arm. Tony didn’t have to know that Peter was taking one of his priceless Versace neckties to a homecoming dance.

“To be fair, I would’ve been scared shitless to ask you to a dance.” Bucky followed close behind. “And I fought a war.”

“That’s sweet, Buck.” You brushed him off as you retreated into Tony’s closet.

“No, really.” His hand caught your elbow. “I would’ve been the luckiest guy in town if I had you on my arm.”

You fell asleep that night imagining you and Bucky twirling around a dance hall without a care in the world.

One

Steve’s hand was firm against your shoulder, his tactical glove soaked and dripping with your blood. Your eyes were unfocused, head lulling every so often when the fight to keep it steady just seemed too difficult. Sam was at your other side, cracking jokes to try to keep your attention on him and not of the literal bullet lodged in your shoulder.

You were escorted from the jet in a flurry, doctor’s hands replacing Steve’s. You barely winced when you were administered painkillers and the ache begun to subside. Before you could blink, you were lifted onto a gurney in the medical bay and the clink of the bullet that had been dug from your flesh rang through the room as it clattered into a metal dish.

Bucky ran in just as the doctor finished maneuvering a long roll of gaze around your shoulder, scheduling a time for you to return to have it cleaned and reapplied again.

“What happened?” He brushed past the doctor without a second glance, eyes trained on your figure pressed against the sterile hospital bed. “Steve said-”

“It’s nothing. Steve likes to be dramatic.”

“-that you were shot!”

“Oh, well. Yeah, that happened.” You moved to sit up, your arm immediately giving out under the weight. Bucky moved even closer to help you, hand careful on your back like you were made of glass. “But just the one time.”

“As far as I’m concerned, one is too many.” He watched the gauze turn darker against your skin; your eyes screwed shut in pain as your knuckles turned white against the sheets. “And you’re never going on a mission without me again.”

Freight Car

“You’re free.”

He remembers those worlds so clearly, it’s like him and Ayo are still sat next to that crackling fire in Wakanda. He thought that had been it. He would never again worry about those ten phrases that erased Bucky Barnes and allowed a machine to emerge from his memory.

As he stole glances of you from the corner of his eye, shadowed by his unruly hair, he knew those words still very much existed in his mind.

They weren’t a means to an end, anymore. He didn’t have to grit his teeth and clench his fists to fight them off. They were new, now. He saw each of those words in you and realized just how important they are now they they’ve found a new meaning.

His love for you came easy.

One second, he was looking at his friend. She was looking back at him and he felt safe.

Your fingers brushed over his shoulder, where flesh turned to metal, and you looked away as though you hadn’t just made him fall in love with you with a single touch.

It took three years for Bucky to make a move. Another party, another escape plan to the balcony where you were waiting for him, like always. The last time you had found yourselves in that position, he had been too unsure. Too wary of what it would mean and if it was too soon.

Now, he didn’t care. He just wanted you and to be selfish and not think about consequences when he leaned forward and finally pressed his lips to yours.

You pulled back, but not far.

Something clicked.

Your love for him hit you like a freight car. Swooping in from nowhere but really, you should have felt the rattling of the tracks beneath your feet. You should have seen all the signs that you loved him and he loved you back. In stolen glances and easy afternoons, in hard missions and bloodshed. He was there, and he looked at you like that. Like everything his body had done was to finally make it to you in this moment.

He waited, patient. He had waited this long, what was another few seconds as the realization washed over your features?

“Oh.” Was your clever whisper.

“Yeah.” Bucky’s hands cradled your face, “Took you long enough.”

taglist: @bibliophilewednesday @teti-menchon0604​ @thiswasnevermylifefromtony​ @spid3rgwen​ @beautyandthebleh​ @victoriabaker112213​ @orthellqs @phasma-trash​

[kendrixtermina]

Simple Tritype Finding Redux

So remember how a while ago I made that post about how to find your tritype, which was somewhat popular, but also kind of rambly and theoretical? 

Apparently the peeps at the Big Hormone Podcast had an episode which did sort  of the same thing of looking at the “setting” of each individual center, but they expressed it much more concisely & punchy & much more useful

So, for those who don’t have time to listen to 2 hour of pod-cast (which honestly, includes me too, I should be doing something else rn), here’s a summary: 

Heart Center

2 fix

basically more warm compared to other ppl with the same core type 

casually touchy-feely, way more likely to hug, put their arms on you etc. (this can be very obvious in cultures where that’s less usual - ie, easier to spot on a North American man than a French woman)

4 fix

more guarded compared to others of same core type

stresses their tastes & preferences (ie, rant about music they really don’t like)

suspicious of hype & overly popular things - some tedecy to be the contrarian voice in a conversation

3 fix

especially if it’s the 2nd fix this can show as being more positive and/or better at self-motivating and a tendency to follow trends or fads

but it’s just as likely to show as just less obvious emotional coloration, or just adaptiveness/ social perceptiveness, or even ‘icyness’ - so you’ll often arrive at this by principle of exclusion.

2 Methods/ ‘cheats’ you can use here: 

Typing someone else: 

Apparently useful question here is to look at how people introduce themselves, cause the heart fixes represent different parts of identity & it’s all about what someone stresses. For example, the people who will open with something relationship-related (”Hi I’m soandso, I’m a parent”, “I’m a wife”) are probably 2-fixes. If they start out mentioning their job or some kind of accomplishment (”I’m a doctor”, ”I climbed X mountain recently”) they probably have a 3 fix. Whereas a person with 4 fix will not reference anything external but mention their tastes, interests and sentiments. (eg, “Hi, I’m Soandso, I like reading, writing & nerd stuff”, “I live on a farm where I keep peacocks.”)

Typing yourself: 

Think of this as a ‘should’ that you feel. A person with a fix doesn’t run around all day helping people (especially if their core type is something very different), but they might feel that they should be a source of help. Someone with a 4 fix might feel they ‘should’ be suspicious of anything that’s too hyped and popular, while someone with a 3 fix might kick themselves for not mentioning some archievement to their friends when this might have impressed them. 

Head Center

Basically, just look at what they do when they don’t know something. Like, imagine for example that your little sister has a question and you don’t already know the answer. Do you immediately ask someone, google it or point her to a trusted source? Six. Do you first speculate based on your preexisting knowledge & maybe then google it if you’re not confident? Five. Do you list multiple ideas for what the answer might be or where to find the info? Seven. 

6 fix

Checks external sources first, thinks second, may then corroborate the conclusion before accepting it

try not just to get the answer, but a sense of who thinks what. May warn you against other PoVs - this can lead to bringing morals/ politics into it even when it seems out of place. 

Other people need to learn to look at sources and ‘cui bono’ questions at some point, six fix ppl often do this immediately & pay attention to sources from the first. 

At best you get 15 year olds with scarily excellent bullshit detectors, at worst, middle aged ppl whose opinions are entirely copypasted. 

5 fix

Reverse of 6: Always speculates first based on whatever knowledge they already have, and checks sources second, if at all. Internal resources dominate.  (eg if the question is about tigers, they might say ”It’s like this in cats, so it might be similar. It fits with how Tigers live in jungles, too”)

Might just make a theory & throw it out there to see what happens

Might bring up a dark/macabre/disturbing topic without realizing. (6: “Are you defending cocaine addicts?” 7: ””Please don’t talk about murder on the table, we’re eating!”)

Tend to look for a point of distinction or underlying principle

7 fix

List multiple ideas or facts rapidfire 

while the other two sit down to launch into a treatise, the 7 either keeps the engagement level high by focussing on the more exciting parts, or just moves on. 

Cares less about cohesion, hanging on to a point or arriving  at a final conclusion so there can be a ‘kaleidoscopic’, multi-perspective  quality to the answer

Similar to how the 6 might think about the moral implications, the 7 thinks about the entertainment value & novelty . In the example with the little sister, the 7 fix person would say stuff that the child will find exciting. 

Body Center

This where it might be useful to listen to the podcast yourself cause they talked a lot about body language cues that would be much more apparent if you were a core body type or at least a sensor in the mbti. I have no sense of this so I can only relate the parts that I understood

8 fix

gives whatever the core type is a bolder, more unapologetic vibe

tend to “just do stuff” & more confortable doing it without mapping out all the consequences. Think the one person who says which restaurant to go to when no one wants to make a decision or gets bogged down on discussing pros and cons

More likely to get physical. If you’re a withdrawn type & it’s your last fix you might not actually throw down, but you might feel like you want/should if you could get away with it. Or you might just curse like a sailor.

9 fix

generally softer compared to others with same core type. They might be the most assertive & energetic 7w8 or 3w4, but still want to hear the other sides’ point. 

have an accepting, nonjudgy vibe

listens/connects more, much more able to be convinced

1 fix

sharper, precise, discerning vibe - feel satisfaction or repulsion in their body as ‘alignment’ or lack thereof

speaks a bit like a teacher or art critic with the intention to improve things

persistent, especially about complaints. Might bring up the thing that bothers them over & over again; may come off picky

I also warmly recomend the tritype roast podcast. 

I did indeed get roasted, and so can you~

[wanderinginksplot]

Just for Kix

Previous | Next | Masterlist 

Leia 

(WARNING for major character death)

It wouldn't be long now.

Kix had warned the general that her time was growing short, and that had been months ago. General Leia Organa had taken the news of her impending death rather well, all things considered. She had accepted it with the grace of her mother, despite the well-known joke that she had inherited her father's temper.

Leia hadn't been able to get out of bed that morning. It had only taken Kix a few hours to notice her absence, though she hadn't called him. Despite his grimness at the day ahead, Kix hadn't been able to suppress a smile. It was such a Skywalker trait to ignore their health, even until death.

The scanner let out a smooth beep - a world of difference from the scanners he had grown used to during the war. The universe had benefited greatly from the half-century of tech advancements that had occurred while Kix slept. Still, he didn't need to check the small readout to know what was happening. He had seen death too many times in too many forms to be fooled by a slow fade.

"Your major systems are beginning to shut down," he told Leia, resting a comforting hand over hers. Her skin was cool to the touch, but her fingers were steadfast rather than shaking. She had known. "It won't be more than a few more hours."

She smiled at him, her brown eyes warm and steady - so much like Padmé's that it hurt. "Thank you, Kix."

It sounded like a dismissal, but Kix didn't budge. "I'll be here with you until it happens."

Leia huffed out a small chuckle. "Kix, you have better things to do than sit with an old woman and wait for her to die."

Kix squinted up at the sky. It was mid-morning and the sky was bright and clear. Leia had been moved to the shade of a shallow cave - protected from the sun and wind, but still able to see and feel the world around her. It was a lovely spot to spend time. "I can't think of a single one, General. With respect, I'll stay."

"Respect," she snorted, shaking her head. "Well, if you're intent on staying, I'm going to put you to work."

He quirked a brow in silent response and she grinned broadly. The expression was such a mirror of General Skywalker's mischievous smile that Kix's heart lurched for a moment. She seemed to be thinking along a similar wavelength, because she ordered, "Tell me about my parents."

"Your parents?" he repeated stupidly. "Breha and Bail or the General and the Senator?"

"Both," Leia said, settling against the pillows protecting her back from the chilled stone wall of the cave. "Though I'm surprised you know anything at all about the Organas."

"Well, Bail in particular liked to have clone troopers escort him on diplomatic missions," Kix told her. "He thought it struck the right tone between showing up with obvious protection and showing up with no protection at all. Most of his escorts were from the Coruscant Guard, but we always shared our stories."

It was some hours later when Kix finally finished with, "...and Bail Organa, the great senator from Alderaan, had to run out of there at full speed, his ornate senatorial robes carried in his arms like a child and blaster fire hitting the ground behind every step! He always swore it was the last time he would bother going to Rattatak."

Leia laughed uproariously, wiping tears from her cheeks. "He never told me that version of the story! He just said that senators weren't welcome on Rattatak and that I shouldn't go… but if I did, I should make sure to wear comfortable shoes. I always wondered what he meant by that."

"One mystery solved," Kix told her with a smile.

"And just in time," she agreed. "I would hate to have missed that story. Now, what about my birth parents? I understand you worked with my father, but I wouldn't have expected you to know my mother. She was said to be beautiful and kind, passionate about political causes but not overly involved."

Kix snorted so hard that his throat stung. "Not overly involved? Did Senator Organa tell you that?"

"He did," Leia said, a wry grin playing around her mouth. "I take it that was a fairytale, an attempt to make me behave?"

"Maybe he knew a different side of Padmé than I did, but I've never known a politician to get in so many shootouts, present company excluded."

"Shootouts?" she asked, incredulous.

"Oh, yeah," Kix affirmed with a deep nod for emphasis. "I can't count how many times we were sent in to save your mother after she had gone in to try to make peace with some Seppie-leaning world and things had gone wrong. It didn't help that your father was in love with her by that point. He would have deployed the entire GAR if it meant keeping her safe, and he wasn't especially careful who knew about it…"

As he spoke, a small part of Kix's brain was working on the medical side of things. He tracked exactly how much color Leia's face was losing, watched as she leaned more and more of her weight against the pillows, and noted exactly when she stopped asking questions. Eventually, she stopped even replying to him.

Kix kept talking. Every bit of experience he had told him that hearing was the last sense to fade, and he would not let his general's daughter die in silence, wondering if everyone had abandoned her. He paused only once in his storytelling, and it was to administer a small dose of pain meds when Leia's breathing grew labored.

As the sun dropped low in the sky, Kix told story after story to the unresponsive woman in the bed in her cave. He talked about senators and generals, padawans and Jedi masters, of a war that had ended, but only in the least expected of ways, and of an army of identical men who spent their days finding ways to be different.

When her chest had stopped rising and falling, Kix stood to pull the bed's sheet up and over her slack face.

"Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum," he said in harsh Mando'a, the words still echoing with the pain of a thousand losses. "I'm still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal. Leia Organa, Breha Organa, Bail Organa, Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Rex, Jesse, Fives, Echo, Tup, Appo, Dogma, Hardcase…"

The list continued until Kix felt lighter, purged somehow of the weight of death. Remembering the little he had been told about ghosts in the Force, he glanced around the clearing. It was hazy in the dusky twilight, but he could see that no one else was nearby.

"If you're here, General Skywalker... take care of her. Your daughter found a way to be extraordinary in a world that tries to stomp out every bit of that it can find."

For a moment, Kix felt the shadow of a hand's weight on his shoulder, the sensation of company, of brotherhood - and it was gone. He was alone in the shallow cave once more. He squared his shoulders, gathering his thoughts and willpower for the days ahead.

There was work to be done.

---

A/N - This is probably the most angst-driven thing I will ever write. Two months ago, I had a family member pass away. This chapter was written as a way of processing the feelings of sitting by someone's bedside as they shut down. I definitely cried while I wrote this one. Sorry for the information overload! I have one more chapter planned for this series (though I always reserve the right to add more, haha) and I promise that it's far more cheerful than this one. You made it through the worst!

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Unfinished Meta #2

WWX is established in the text as observant, making it incongruous that he’d also somehow be at the same time ‘oblivious’

We all know that WWX is a genius and a prodigy, which is not that interesting (how many characters are geniuses and prodigies?). But WWX is not only smart--he’s very observant, which is already more interesting. It is not clear, to me, whether these observation skills come from WWX’s innate abilities, the way his parents brought him up in his early years, the challenges of surviving in the streets, or the result of having to negotiate the pitfall and tensions as a permanent guest of the Jiang household--or even a combination of all these. Whatever the source or reason, WWX’s quick wit and deductive skills is perhaps his most established character trait we get in our first introduction to the character. While the Mo Mansion arc is dense with characterisation (WWX kicking the door with his foot and then throwing the bowl to the side! WWX calling LSZ ‘xiao mianzi’ in his internal monologue 😭), there is a clear bias towards establishing very early this part of his character.

(here I wrote “add quotes” but you can just refer to the meta I actually wrote about the Mo Mansion arc lmao)

WWX is good at reading people, understands how to goad them into reactions or how to diffuse tensions (although is not a master manipulator like JGY or NHS, nor as good of a arbiter as JYL or LSZ). This is made clear even in the earliest memories we see of him, when he angers LQR into throwing him out of class, or angers LWJ into destroying the evidence of the spring book he brought into the Library. We see it in his treatment of other characters; for example, he realizes early on that Jin Zixun is a prideful prat who needs recognition, so WWX purposely pretends to forget his name to antagonise him.

But more often, especially as an adult, his ability to read others and guess their reactions is used to scrutinize them or assess a situation, to make people confess or say something they hadn’t meant to divulge. During Guanyin Temple, until the moment JGY brings up LWJ’s feelings, WWX is very clearly trying to make JGY reveal more about his plan and his past deeds, or trying to find ways to distract him and his goons. Likewise, he sees through JGY’s attempt to do the same (up until the moment he brings up LWJ, at which point WWX is too heartsick and heartbroken not to pursue that line of enquiry, even while knowing it is part of a ruse, of a means to best him), warning LXC against falling for his tricks, and having to witness JC falling hook, line and sinker later on when JGY goads him.

At times, he’ll play-act a character to achieve this goal, as we see in the Mo Mansion arc when he puts on the persona of a lunatic in front of the Lan Juniors so that they will not suspect him of being a skilled cultivator while he assess the situation and finds how to protect them from the unknown enemy. (here it said add more examples of play-acting lmao)

On top of it all, WWX is also established to be well-learned and knowledgeable about the cultivation world and politics throughout the novel, as well as being creative and inventive, coming up with a new branch of cultivation and many devices to help his endeavors, like the zhaoyin flags or the empathy technique.

Being observant and having good deductive skills should not mean however that the character cannot ever be wrong or misled in their observations and conclusions; in fact, most pieces of fiction including such a character will often use the character’s personal or internalized biases and prejudices to make them grow or to shape some parts of the plot; Sherlock Holmes was bested by Irene Adler because of his prejudices against the ‘fairer sex’; Lizzie Bennet, who prided herself on her abilities to read people, was fooled by Wickham both because she mistook his genteel manners for good nature and because she held prejudices against Mr Darcy and was already willing to believe him to be a villain. What is important in these examples is that there is always something that explains, something that contextualises why the observant character came to the wrong conclusion (and how they finally understood their mistakes).

The novel often puts WWX in a situation where he doubts his observation/thinking, and has to face conflicting or contradicting information in order to decide whether or not he’s sticking with his initial assessment or not. For instance, in Chapter 10, he starts questioning whether or not LWJ really is unaware of his true identity after surprising him in the Cold Springs, even he remains uncertain until LWJ tells him so (and then, it takes him a while to figure out how LWJ did realise his identity, but WWX does ultimately figure it out on his own).

He did doubt that Lan Wangji might have guessed who he was. However, the doubt was lacking in both sense and reason. As sacrificing one’s body was a prohibited practice, there were probably not a lot of people who knew about it. The scrolls passed down the generations were most likely partial pieces of the entire work, unable to reach their full potential. Things continued like this, and so there were less and less people who believed in it. Mo Xuanyu only summoned Wei Wuxian by looking at a secret scroll, wherever he found it in the first place. Anyhow, Lan Wangji couldn’t have recognized him just from the awful flute melodies that he played.

He asked himself whether or not he had a heartfelt relationship with Lan Wangji in his past life. Although they had studied with each other, went on adventures, and fought together, all of these experiences were like falling petals and flowing water—coming and going. Lan Wangji was a disciple of the GusuLan Sect, which meant that he had to be “righteous,” quite incompatible with Wei Wuxian’s personality. Wei Wuxian thought that their relationship wasn’t exactly bad, but it wasn’t that good either. The chances were that Lan Wangji’s opinion of him was the same as everyone else’s—being overly wanton and not virtuous enough, it would have been only a matter of time before he caused a disaster. After Wei Wuxian betrayed the YunmengJiang Sect and became the Yiling Laozu, he had a few significant disputes with the Lan Sect, especially during the few months before his death. If Lan Wangji was sure that he was Wei Wuxian, they should have already been engaged in a large-scale fight.

Yet, he wasn’t sure what to make of the current situation—in the past, no matter what he did, Lan Wangji didn’t tolerate anything, but now, even though he used whatever methods he had up his sleeve, Lan Wangji could still tolerate him. Should he be congratulated because of his progress?! [Chapter 10]

[gay-nihilism]

Jules: “How can you simultaneously dissent from a system but still maintain its central presumption, which is that gender is a fundamentally important facet of the self? That seems like a really complex tangle that, technically, is not unique to being nonbinary. Even cis women have this problem to some extent, but there’s something really interesting in the nobinary case that is not being unleashed.

How can we understand the phenomenologies attached to different trans identities of this moment and what their claims are on the relationship between the self and the social? It seems like the contemporary taxonomy of gender identity and expression suggests that every identity position is valid so long as it is articulated and can therefore be respected, and in that sense it becomes devoid of content. How do you give an account of yourself in this situation?”

Kadji: “I think that transition is often a practical decision and I think what puzzles me in contemporary discourse is that it does away with that phenomenology of what it means to be in the world with other people by replacing it with a notion of the sovereign self: I decide who I am, I know who I am inside and then I tell people. I say I’m nonbinary, or trans, and I go by they/them, and that’s supposed to be the final word. People call me they/them and that’s the end, as far as the public story goes. Maybe that’s a political way of disturbing the gender binary, or of changing people’s minds about the inevitability of binary sex and gender, but it’s unclear to me what that means on a phenomenological level.

[In the early 2000s,] there was a large body of phenomenological discourse about what it meant to occupy a differently gendered social position, and what it meant to decide to transition for somebody who was already living a life that was not female in my case. It was understood at the time that there were multiple ways to live that were not female or feminine. What it meant to take one path and not the other was very important.”

J: “Part of what we’re interested in is de-exceptionalizing the distinction between nonbinary and transsexual, or nonbinary and binary, because what we’re approaching here is the difficulty of giving an account of oneself as differently gendered regardless of the particular configuration of your transness. For the transsexual like you or I, it may be just as uncertain as it is for a nonbinary person, but the truth status accorded to different gendered positions is unequal and the social possibility for legible trans masculinity is very different than for trans femininity. […]

One of the questions I’m most interested in is how commonplace it has become to take individual declarations of identity to have truth value with little to no context—and that’s what I find confusing, not just as a historian but as a femme and a faggot. […]

All the critiques of nonbinary’s mainstream uptake as overly aesthetic, as a category largely consumed around white androgynous, masculine images are great, but then look also at trans femmes and see how hard it is to give that positive account of the self and desire, too. Transsexual womanhood is so powerful and reviled not just because it involves proclaiming a real desire to be a woman—and who the fuck in this world is allowed to desire to be a woman?—but because it also brings up the incredible abjection of trying to get from a body read as male to a body read as a woman when there is no permissible cultural intermediary.”

K: “I think that gay male culture in the West put up a barrier between itself and trans femmes and said “we are men, we deserve rights! We are only different when it comes to our sexuality and it’s none of your business!” So, I think we could easily imagine an alternate history or an alternate world where there had been a central place for trans femininity within gay male culture and in which there could have been all these positions in between gay male and trans woman that people could occupy, that would have been legible and even desired or sexualized by gay men. I had longed for that position to exist and when I transitioned that was what I imagined myself transitioning into—the faggot, not the man. And then I was very disappointed to become a faggot and to see that gay male culture was not that interested in faggots.”

J: “[P]erhaps part of the issue at hand for us is not just the persistence of trans misogyny, not just the persistence of a sexological taxonomy that separates gender and sexuality, or even the hegemony of a certain American insistence on possessive individualism and self-sovereignty, but the serious lag between trans life, which is infinitely richer, and the weak concepts that for some reason we are told to accept as descriptively efficient. And a sort of beautiful call for a trans feminist future where the femme equivalent to the butch becomes a celebrated, lionized possibility.”

K: “This is a hypothesis, but I do think today’s taxonomies seem more confusing than ever […]. [When I was coming up,] there were bois, there were genderqueers in some urban centers and there were trans men and there were butches. And so, I had to navigate all these possibilities. How do I know which one I am? I had to refer to what other people were online and try to fit myself into one of those categories. The way the categories were spoken of were as if there were ontological distinctions of personhood. Was my true self a transsexual? Who was I inside? Which is a ridiculous thing to make someone figure out.

And so, I imagine that today, when there is a huge proliferation of options and the options often overlap or are synonymous without substantial phenomenological accounts to differentiate them, and the pressure to come into a true self has never been greater than it used to be—it seems just flabbergasting and impossible. 

What I’ve realized is that I believe that the matter of gender is practical and relational. It’s not about who you are inside, it’s more about how you would feel most comfortable in the world. It’s not Who are you? but How do you want to live?”

— Excerpts from Two Transsexuals Talk Nonbinary: Kadji Amin joins Jules to talk the category nonbinary, the asymmetry of trans masculinity and trans femininity, and a shared love of f*gottry.

[bilbao-song]

heres an ask because i too am desperate to engage with people. i know u dont care about roxy music but you did say you would accept something as incoherent as a keysmash so here is an equivalent: admittedly i find the dynamics between ANY band and their fans very interesting, but roxy music in particular. there is a peculiar divide between those who are staunch bryan ferry fans (these people typically dont give half of a shit about anyone else in the band), those who are fans of the group as a whole and dont particularly care about individual members at all, and those who are most interested in phil manzanera and andy mackay and sometimes the other guys, who generally quite dislike bryan (i being the latter)- and often there is resentment between the groups. i think its so interesting that a group of people can be presented with the same exact material, love it and enjoy it for years, and yet latch onto different parts of it and make it such a part of their identity that should you confuse one with the other they become insulted, or if nothing else will tell you "no no, i like roxy music but i REALLY like bryan, i think hes the best", or "no no, i love roxy music and im a fan of andy and phil in particular but i dont care for byran much at all, dont get it twisted", etc. are there bands you're more familiar with who have this sort of divide amongst the fanbase? do tell me about them, if you like :>

first of all i absolutely love that u sent this ksdhgkshg this is like. exactly the kind of thing i wanted

sorry for taking 39485949 years to post this lmao. i wrote like FIVE entire paragraphs and then had to edit it but it was getting super late and anyway it’s still absurdly long (as in, i can say whatever i want in the below text bc no one is going to want to read it) and definitely devolved into a huge general rant about the annoying and creepy behaviors of some people within band fanbases (specifically ELO-related bc of course) as well as vagueing about my own controversial opinions but......nonetheless.

anyway!!! i find this kind of thing really interesting too!! and i know EXACTLY what you’re talking about. there are just sooo many facets to this, and i guess it’s different for every band. on the one hand i do think it’s kind of an interesting phenomenon bc if you think about it, they’re basically enjoying the same thing but taking wildly different/opposing stances on it. as a whole i would find it a lot more interesting/amusing and less frustrating if people could like...manage these kinds of differences without turning it into some kind of overly vitriolic/super hostile opposition that you would think is about politics or something and not a band we r supposed to be listening to for entertainment purposes. i mean, i 100% get that things don’t have to be Extremely Important to be worth discussing, but it just seems wild the way some people get SO intensely angry about these things, sometimes to the point of being kind of inappropriate. i have a lot of issues with the way some people within band fanbases tend to behave lol

.......anyway the Full Rant is below here (idk why i wrote this bc it’s long enough to be turned in for a grade and it’s only partially relevant. read at ur own risk):

so!! thankfully with most bands i enjoy i just kind of watch the fanbase from the sidelines and don't get too involved in or even aware of all the drama. like...i know about the band and enjoy the music but just manage to not get involved in whatever the community happens to be collectively freaking out about at any given moment. i feel like the kind of divide you mentioned is actually pretty common within band fanbases (i think there are things like this with like...styx and three dog night? among others? but i don't know all the details 👀) but like, FORTUNATELY with most of them i just would not know. that's very nice because i unfortunately do not always have that kind of luxury with the ELO fanbase...idk i have a lot of very strong ELO-related opinions that i usually don't like to discuss in great detail bc i get disproportionately frustrated but yeah basically what you described does kind of happen among ELO fans, although thankfully i'd say it's to a somewhat lesser extent? people are commonly at each other's throats about a variety of topics including (but not limited to) who they support or don't support, but there are still plenty of people who (thankfully) are not so aggressive lmao. there is sort of a divide within the fanbase but i feel like it's probably not so 50/50 as what you're talking about...maybe more like 85/15

THAT SAID, i have frequently commented on the fact that the ELO fanbase is largely a dumpster fire and there is a whole entire sector of the fanbase that is comprised of people who i absolutely cannot stand, and most of them do fight a lot lmao. this is only partially related to the subject at hand, but a good portion of the bickering is relevant to The Divide. like, i'm 100% okay with having a different opinion than someone else as long as they aren't acting like a complete freak about it, but idk, aside from the fact that most of these people are like?? needlessly aggressive?? there are certain opinions held by certain members of the Greater ELO Community that just give me that vibe of like...hmmmm this is a person i probably would not want to associate with at all, even in matters completely unrelated to this. Unsavory Person Vibes. i mean like, “opinions” that just boil down to "i am very very entitled and also incapable of seeing anyone else's perspective on literally anything ever BUT that isn't going to stop me from openly whining about this absolutely whenever possible." like!! it's one thing to have some kind of legitimate, reasonable criticism of an individual or band but some, if not most, of the things i've seen people losing their minds over within this fanbase have been so hilariously trivial that i just CANNOT understand how these people actually managed to get to be (presumably) functional adults who are probably like 50+ years old. i mean like, full-blown tantrums and calling someone all sorts of nasty things over something that shouldn't even be an issue because without exaggerating i cannot fathom how anyone could even be majorly upset about it in the first place. to give an example: someone once had a whole entire little strongly-worded, excessively presumptuous freakout because a guitar was no longer on loan to the rock and roll hall of fame. like...it was there for quite awhile and two out of four inductees loaned absolutely nothing but you're whining because one who DID loan something eventually took it back? do we not know what the word "loan" means? anyway the best part is that basically every time something like this happens, if someone tries to point out that the person is overreacting or perhaps just needs to look at a situation another way, they will then go off on that person bc god forbid we try to be level-headed about things. everything has to be Very Horrible All The Time or we’re doing something wrong or being stupid or something. idk i'm convinced that some people just want to be angry

also just...some of these people do some really shady things that i personally feel are morally questionable but there's nothing i can do about it so i try to just kind of avoid dwelling on it lmfao. like, it's not okay to violate people's privacy just because they're famous and you're overly entitled/nosy/desperate for clout/blatantly trying to profit off of them? i know in the Sane World that's a completely non-controversial idea but band fanbases apparently often aren't based on sanity skhglkshgks idk i could probably write a small novel on this and make a specific list of all the things they do that are just like...bafflingly tone deaf and kind of appalling but i digress. idk the worst part to me is the way they'll be like, saying/doing something that's just awful or like, maybe even totally factually wrong while acting like they're in the right. absolutely wild

to at least somewhat bring this back to what we were ATTEMPTING to talk about!!! personally i've reached a point where i pretty much no longer care about like 90% of anyone who has ever been in ELO (jeffrey/richard/roy/mike de albuquerque supremacy) but i'm not like, actively a Hater of the others lmao. i appreciate that they were there and enjoy the nostalgia(? i wasn’t alive) of it and i’m glad they’re out there existing but i just...don’t really care about anything they do at this point?? a good portion of it is a result of me taking issue with certain things some of them have done, which has impacted the way i feel about them, but MOST of it is really not that deep and it’s just that some of them just don't particularly interest me on that kind of level/i don't feel the need to get that invested in like 927509257 different people (fun fact: during the 1970s every third person in existence on earth was, at least briefly, a member of ELO). there's really only one ELO-adjacent person who i actually very strongly dislike and a) luckily i feel like they barely even count as a member b) the reasoning is kind of its own Thing and has very very very little to do with anything related to the band so it's kind of another subject entirely. anyway that’s as close as i’ll ever get to actually getting involved with any of the Drama sgsdgsdgfhdh. my primary beef is with the fanbase anyway because, as previously mentioned, there are too many insane people. i guess what i’m getting at here is that yeah there’s a divide and it does affect me BUT i also don’t really get why people allow this to make them act in a way that goes beyond just having a difference in opinion and is so overly hostile towards each other as well as the people they’re discussing. like...if anyone involved is a serial killer or something even remotely similar then yeah, being outraged on an extreme level and absolutely hating them even as an outsider makes sense. otherwise? calm down!!!!!

anyway. to wrap up this mostly incoherent rant that i hope no one read: i have always suspected that band fandoms kind of attract certain kinds of very distressingly weird people and i just think it's funny how there's always like, a little cluster of people within the fanbase who basically seem like they actually hate the band (those are almost always the Weird Ones bc i can’t tell you how many times i’ve witnessed a person who is like, into a band to a CREEPY extent and then one day they just flip and become a hater). at that point i'm just like, okay? so why are you still here lmfao. i guess that's the Main Idea of all of this lol. i just don't get why these people stick around when 98% of all they ever do is complain and act overly judgy? i just feel like if my so-called favorite band was making me that miserable i would try to find another band to like instead of becoming a menace to society. that’s just me tho

to bring all of this together i guess i just assume that some kind of phenomenon like this occurs within basically every band fanbase. idk it just seems pretty universal for some reason. certain kinds of people just love drama i guess and will turn any difference of opinion into some kind of shitshow

tl;dr: yes

[angelsndragons]

Day 1

Day 1 of the Caduceus Clay celebration week, folks, so you know what that means: I get to gush about my favorite character. I did warn y’all I would word vomit.

So, what does Caduceus mean to me? 

Well.

My brother lives in a separate state and has for several years now. We talked on the phone pretty much every day but we still missed each other a lot. One of the last things he did to me in person was introduce me to D&D. I loved it. It gave me a community away from home and a way to meet new people and form new friendships in new areas. I would tell him all about my weekly game shop adventures, he would tell me about the homebrew campaign he was in online. He also told me about this little show called Critical Role. I, like the dumb oldest sibling I can be, pretty much ignored it, outside letting him talk to me about it and engaging with it secondhand. Then, my brother’s party lost one of their players. They were down to four players and no full casters, just a gunslinger, a barbarian, a monk, and a non-healer warlock. Things started getting dicey. Like, really dicey. He worried with me over how close their fights were getting and how he felt it was only a matter of time until someone legit died and they couldn’t do anything about it. So, I asked, “Well, can you ask them if I could play? You’re looking for someone and we’re looking to try to do something together, it could work out.” Two years later, that campaign is going strong and (thankfully) no one has died yet.

I bring up this context because it matters: I rolled up a level 10 Grave Cleric. I had never played a cleric before but I had wanted to before my game shop sessions fell apart. And here I was, willingly thrown into the deep end of one of the most complex subclasses of one of the most complex classes in the game. And initially, I was not happy with it. Not just because there was a lot to learn but because of sheer mechanics. By rote, I could not keep up with the damage that the rest of my party was doing. At all. My high level spells weren’t doing much more damage than my freaking cantrips and I just felt stuck. I wanted to contribute outside of healing but really just couldn’t. I shared my frustrations with my brother, who, being the little troll he is, said, “Well, you know Critical Role has a Grave Cleric now, right?” So, to start this love fest, Caduceus taught me how to be a better cleric and because of that, I will never be able untangle the character from my relationship with my brother. Even if he died tomorrow or went evil or whatever, I would still be fond of him just for that.

I don’t remember which episode of campaign 2 I first watched all the way through. I know I started paying attention around Fjord’s chicken game and was fully on board with the series by Yasha’s loss in the pit fight. What I do remember is Caduceus. I remember being drawn in by this guy for some reason I still can’t articulate. 

Caduceus is a complex character who is difficult to fully understand and love. People have said unkind things about him, about how he is a glorified NPC or that he is boring or that there is just no ‘there’ there or that he should just go home already. I have seen people say that they think Taliesin should go back to the drawing board and come back with a ‘better’ character, one who vibes better with the group or something. And the sad thing is, I can kind of see where these people are coming from. Understanding Caduceus and what Taliesin is doing with him requires people to pay attention to him, to actively think about him both when he is and is not in the spotlight. And that is hard. Because Caduceus is that character who aggressively tries to divert attention from himself. So right away, we have this tension, this push/pull when it comes to engaging with him. And I do love me a challenge in my favorites. Also love the polite but judgmental assholes who have Opinions they would never say but nevertheless own.

For me, Caduceus’ arc has been about duty and desire, what duty means, how to prioritize yourself, and how to grow. Caduceus’ interrogation of identity as it relates to duty and his blossoming as a person fascinate me most. What is your duty, really? What does it mean to find balance in your life? How do you take down the walls you built to protect yourself? Where do you end and where does your duty begin? What does faith look like outside a strictly Western/Christian lens? Can we find ourselves in other people? What does it mean to grow beyond your wildest imagination and the people you love most?

Caduceus begins the show as a passive, apathetic shadow of a man who has cloaked those traits in duty in order to not deal with his feelings. He had basically grown up in a literal paradise on earth where the problems of the world couldn’t reach or affect him. Until they did. Until his family left. Until the Nein crashed into his temple. Caduceus makes the choice to basically leave paradise, at the Wildmother’s urging, sure, and experience the world in all its messy beauty and ugliness. It is nothing like he expected. It is hard, it is cruel, it tries to drown him at every opportunity. It is also good, the animals, the people, the experiences he has. Hearing Marion sing, learning of a lighthouse to the Wildmother (which he does not fully appreciate yet, this light in the dark storm). Caduceus spends his first chunk of episodes waking up, seeing life outside of paradise. I love these early episodes because they demonstrate just how far Caduceus has actually come (can’t imagine this guy buying an overly large pirate hat as a prank or helping the Traveler offload some followers through an elaborate ceremony, for example).

The crux of Caduceus’ midgame story right up until he saves his family is this: You’ve seen the world, young cleric, are you sure you want to continue to save it? You can go home and turn your back on all of this, what makes you stay in this imperfect world with these imperfect people? We see this a lot, in the questions he asks the Gentleman, in his insistence they save Yasha, in his newfound appreciation and companionship in Fjord, in making the Xhorhaus a home, in his dealings with the stone giants, in his determination to help Nott and her family. And this is the part that made me love him because Caduceus doesn’t shy away from these moments or tough questions. Like most of what he does, he contemplates them quietly and lets his actions speak for him. Caduceus allows himself to get involved, to become invested.

Caduceus’ new major arc is his realization that he is not just some vessel, some passive thing through which the Wildmother’s will will flow. No, he learns that he has to make choices, that he can affect change, and that if he wants this messy, beautiful world to get better, he is going to have to do something about it. Not just wait for Her to tell him it is okay. Taking ownership of his future and what that means to him have shaped Caduceus these last thirty or so episodes. Caduceus has blossomed so damn much. He continued with the Nein because he wanted to, and that led to the discovery of the Astral Sea City. (side note: Anyone want to take a gander what would be happening right now if Caduceus hadn’t been with them?) He not only felt his feelings towards the Nein, he began expressing them. From the man who refused to Scry or Send to his family to one who has a friend call up his sister and tell her he will be back, from the man who clung so tightly to his need to be useful to the Nein to one who openly declares how much he loves these people and how reluctant he is to leave them, from a man who wanted to save his home to one who is trying to save the whole damn world, from a man who couldn’t articulate his feelings if you threatened him to one who is trying so hard communicate, from a man who needed saving from his own apathy and grief to one who saves others, this is who Caduceus Clay has become and I for one am excited to see how the next 100 episodes influence him.

Also I cannot end this word vomit without mentioning the fact that Caduceus being aroace and so warm, loving, and caring is so damn important. Because it is; there are too many people out there who think aros/aces are loveless robots or fake or whatever. And having this person, this caregiver, this annoying little brother, this compassionate man, to hold up against that kind of hate, ignorance, and indifference means more than I will ever be able to express. 

[flickeringart]

Basic personality natal chart reading (example)

This is a short analysis based on personal planetary placements by sign and aspect in your natal chart. It’s by no means a complete analysis of your chart; it’s a summary of the personal planets and how they express themselves through you. Planets represent autonomous principals of the unconscious. They exist independently of your will since they are your will. They are not you, but they are you in all the ways that you are yourself. If you can detach enough from them, you’ll see them more clearly. This short reading can hopefully provide some aid in self-analysis, an aid in self-observation.

Sun in Aquarius

The overall goal of your life is to develop your ethical, cerebral and visionary abilities. The faith in progression and future possibilities for yourself and others should be what carries you through, what you’re here to express, articulate and radiate. There’s potential for great understanding of human beings and an acceptance of all the facets that are part of the human experiences. The reason for your inclusive stance is your proclivity to see yourself as one of many, like a person jut like everybody else. However, this is not to imply that you trivialize the importance of people’s uniqueness – you have the ability to treasure yourself and others for being unique. The collective human family lies close to your heart. Other people probably feel comfortable with you, knowing that you’ll be able to understand their point of view – or at least attempt to, because you learn about yourself through others. You would have the inclination to think of yourself as part of a movement because you put an emphasis the common goal and the common cause – even if it’s secretly done for purely self-centered reasons. You’re self-investment is intellectual, which is why it’s not presented or perceived as purely selfish. What you go through as an individual is thought of in the context of a larger structural blueprint – it’s viewed in terms of a collective experience. You would tend to bring your individual desires and inclinations to the mental realm, to advocate for their legitimacy in terms of a societal presence. More than likely you accept and respect other people because you would want to the same thing in return. What you want for yourself you advocate for in social contexts. There’s openness to your identity, but you tend to be quite fixed once you’ve made up your mind – certain things are fundamentally inarguable to you. People will likely appreciate you for this, but they might find that you’re too fixed in your values as to make appropriate assessments of situations that involve personal emotion. Sometimes, you can take equality and respect to the point where it could turn toxic. Your strong idealistic identity might not be able to accept the raw reality as anything that has value – it might not fit into the image of rightness that you have established as a vision for yourself. People will love you for your strong intellectual investment in common goals – it will make others feel seen and supported. On the other hand it could make others feel like it’s purely about the progression of thought and not about them as individual beings, that it’s purely about the mental abstraction of their problems or dilemmas.

You’re conscious identity is quite tied up with your idea of redemption. You’d find that you put faith in yourself to embody the sublime and transcendent. You’re likely to be an incurable romantic with your goal of life being nothing less than the most rose-colored movie ideal. There’s something sacred about the frailty of life and you would be quite invested in the dream of perfection where everyone is sharing in mutual bliss. Beware of your tendency to fall into the roll of the victim, the savior or the martyr. Your lean towards unconditional empathy for yourself and others might not do you any favors in this world where self-preservation is so important. Empathy is a great, but if it’s not paired with healthy boundaries it’s draining and depleting. You might be reflective of other people and prone to absorb a lot of their emotional content – having resistance to embody concrete boundaries of self in terms of preference, opinion and stance. However, the tension of not being able to declare your self-centered needs and letting others set the tone might not work out – you’ll find yourself switching to being incredibly stubborn and demanding, surprising others with a strong and willful emotional temperament, unwilling to compromise. You have a tendency to end up in dynamics with others where you’re playing the reasonable and passive role in certain situations, while dealing with emotionally dramatic, moody and selfish people on the “outside”. The outside in this case is just you disowning and projecting your own emotionally dominant nature.

You are a quite bold, expansive and enthusiastic and explorative person – out to have fun and enjoy variety. However, this side of your would could also be projected, making others seem very exuberant and energetic in your presence while you have a hard time accommodating for these traits without loosing hold of yourself. You would have to adjust yourself in order to let lose and be carefree. Last but not least I would say that you’re identity has a great capacity for perseverance if you tap into it, a perceptive ability that enables you to see beyond the surface level of experience. Exploring the depths of existence, the murkier and darker parts would excite and stimulate you.

Moon in Leo

You’re feelings want to be on display. You need attention to thrive whether you’re conscious of it or not. You tend to take remarks and comments from others personally – there’s little detachment from outside opinions. You’re default setting is to approve of yourself and display your emotions proudly. Uncompromising approval of yourself not only makes you very stubborn, it also establishes a sense of authority. “My emotions should be catered to” could be an inner attitude – there’s likely something demanding  about your presence. Feelings of inferiority and incompetence hits particularly hard, which might cause you to puff up even more, hold your head even higher and turn snarky. You’re likely to hold on to feeling states for long periods until you feel that they have been “recognized “ and “validated” enough. When your needs are met you can be extremely loving – especially with the people that you consider to be part of your close circle. When you’re safe and comfortable you radiate confidence. In fact, that is what you do most of the time, even during your weaker moments. You have the great advantage of being able to own your feelings, to make them part of your life’s journey, to treat them like jewels – precious and personal even if they occasionally turn dark. You are playing the starring role in your life, there’s no question about it. There’s a sense of integrity and self-respect that is characteristic of your emotional nature. You would feel like you deserve the best and would be deeply upset if life disappoints. The mundane doesn’t satisfy you on an emotional level, you crave more than just carrying out the necessary routines of life and having a comfortable living situation. Life must have some drama to it in one way or another – you have to live in honor of love. That means that your daily activities and living situation must be imbued with the meaning of love. Everything you do is done in an attitude of granting yourself the very best of the experience. You’re emotional nature motivates you to act and accomplish things. Asserting your needs comes naturally and you generally stick to your set path because you are sure of what you feel should happen. You have great force and conviction backing your feeling nature. There’s a proclivity to want to dominate and manipulate others to cater to your needs, to be dependent on pleasing and satisfying to you. There’s an intensity and perseverance to your emotional nature, you are sure of your ability to cope in difficult situations without breaking apart emotionally. However, you might need to carefully adjust the way you communicate your needs, there’s an inconsistency in how well you are able to understand yourself mentally – and how well you communicate your feelings with others. Some insight and careful adjustment in how you think about yourself might be needed as to establish more a more accurate mental representation of your needs. The same goes for your idea of happiness – it might not completely rhyme with what you actually need to be fulfilled. Consider these things carefully. On another note, there might be a tendency to detach from emotions, to crave change and novelty, which might backfire quite badly. When you get too intensely caught in feeling things you would be inclined to want to change environment, move about and uproot. This might take a toll on your security needs and make you unpredictable in relationships. People might fear that you’ll get up and leave when things get too personal. You could even have this experience with others relative to your own emotions – people usually can’t handle the personal nature of your emotional expression and want to bolt or intellectualize the experience.

Mercury in Capricorn

Your way of communicating and interacting is deliberate and concentrated. You might not be excessively chatty or scattered; you choose your words because you are aware of their importance. There’s something very smooth and polite in your way of interacting, it’s predictable which would make others feel secure. You wouldn’t say things that could get you into trouble or cause disruption unnecessarily. That being said, you might come off as overly self-conscious in your exchange with unfamiliar people. It might make communication strained and awkward because everything is so calculated and thought through. Truth is, mental interaction with the environment takes focus for you, it’s not a matter of play -it’s something that has to be worked on. Your mental faculties are a bit slow, but this doesn’t mean that you lack of intelligence. It takes longer time for you to process things than some people but when you have, you’re completely sure of your knowledge and ability. Everything you do on a mental level is acquired rather than given. Speed and effectiveness in receiving and responding to things might develop over time. The challenge is to have patience in you learning process and in your communication with others. You want things to be done right which is quite admirable and responsible, however it might cause restriction of creativity and expression. You might have difficulty trusting yourself to understand things and to interpret things the right way. There’s likely a lot of second-guessing going on, causing you to work harder on establishing the reality of your conceptualizations. You would prefer to converse with people in contexts that you are familiar with, where you’re sure of the pattern of communication. People who are too quick, creative and individualistic in their way of interacting might make you uncomfortable. You would definitely stick to crowds where there’s not too much ambiguity present, where it’s possible to talk things over in concrete terms. You would dislike having to “think for yourself” or “just say what comes to mind”. There’s no spontaneity to you way of interacting, you’re always calculating the appropriate response. On another note, you’re intellect is positively stimulated by art and beauty. You might benefit from communicating artistically, through any medium or venue that appeals – it could be through clothing, through interior decorating or anything that concerns style and taste. You have a mind that thrives in refined and aesthetically pleasing spaces.  You seek to consume and react to beauty intellectually. You would find yourself mentally preoccupied with perfecting yourself and your environment – it would keep your mind pleasantly busy. However, there might not be a genuine exchange and adaptability in your interactions – you could frequently end up provoking anger and frustration in people. You could have a hard time finding common ground with others and they with you. There’s a lot a frustration present in interaction and learning – you don’t want to take things in, you want to assert and proclaim your knowledge. You’ll learn what you want; the rest is dumped along the wayside. There’s great energy to be stirred through learning and interacting– you will feel anger and frustration creep up or it will creep up in others in your environment. It’s likely that you’ll find that your emotions need to be adjusted to allow yourself to think clearly – you might have a hard time interacting when moods take over which threaten to drown out any communicative exchange. You can become unreachable to others, full of emotions and anger. Adjustment is required.

Venus in Pisces

You have a very ethereal aesthetic that is imbued with emotional undertones. You are drawn to the seemingly transcendent, symbols of the eternal and bittersweet. You have an attraction for that which lies in the background rather than in the foreground. People in the background fascinate you, catches your attention, draws you in. I’m not referring to the kind of people who have a loud presence, I’m referring to the one’s who have a soft energy, the ones who are seemingly non-existing, living in their own dream. Your preferences lie in the direction of passivity, of blending and merging. Being an emotional sponge is appealing to you, remaining open and undifferentiated. You might be good at intuitively assessing people, of appealing to their heart and drawing out their compassion and sensitivity. It’s likely that you have a sentimental streak and are able to sympathize with just about anyone in a social setting. In terms of style and taste you prefer softer colors since you wouldn’t want to stand out too much. However, you would want to draw attention to yourself through displaying receptivity. You’re social trump card is to be able to display genuine innocence which effectively lets you off the hook in most situations. You wouldn’t think there to be a need for you to be loved for your individuality, you would instead prefer someone to love you because they decided to not care about particularities. You would want someone who would love you no matter what, someone who could be one with you completely and not interact with you as a separate entity. Since your emotional needs, as already discussed, are very much centered around getting attention for your uniqueness and strong sense of self, it might take some adjustment to accommodate for your emotions and your preferences in terms of taste as to not cancel one or the other out. You might find that you like things that are mystic, withering or dissolving somehow, whether it’s a person, a book, a piece of clothing or something else that catches your eye. You’re not looking for the ordinary; if anything, you’re looking for the transcendent in the ordinary. Your mind lends itself well to experiencing the beauty you crave. You’re drawn to people’s minds and their way of thinking – the intellect seduces you. There’s a potential skill with words that would prove rewarding if activated and used. Reading, writing or speaking could prove stimulating and exciting. There’s great pleasure to be had from these activities. On a more serious note, you might find yourself attracted to intensity and it could scare you. There’s potential for attracting quite emotionally consuming relationships that have friction to them. You might not be able to admit that you crave the feeling of living on the edge of destruction a little bit and project the role of the “culprit” onto another person, making them play out primitive possessive tendencies while you reject them but secretly love them for it. In general you might find that you’re unable to love any other way than through great passion – or be loved by another in any other way. Your desires are similar to that of an animal, you have to get what you want or else you will suffer terribly. This all-consuming primitive love experience is what you crave, but it is commonly viewed as compulsive, inappropriate and too raw to risk acting out. In any case it’s wise to be conscious of it – and do with it as you please.

Mars in Taurus

You’re quite serene in stable carrying out activities. There’s a calmness and certainty to your way of taking on the world. There’s great stamina but likely difficulty of starting up smaller tasks – you thrive on long term planning – it’s through a steady and sure input of energy that you see your projects, visions and tasks to completion. The daily grind is what you’re the best at, keeping on track and not stopping for anything without having too much investment placed on the goal. Movement and routine itself is what you’re good at – putting one foot in front of the other will surely get you to where you need to go. You’re probably more of a doer rather than a thinker when it comes to getting your way. There’s a simplicity to this way of being which makes a lot of things easier – working out, cooking food or anything that doesn’t require too much thought is sometimes better done without too much technicalities and methods in the way. However, it’s easy to see how this could be to one’s disadvantage. To get the result one wants, there’s more planning and more facets to the process than just putting in the minutes or hours. It’s not always about the fact that one is doing something, it’s how it’s done that makes all the difference. You would tend to be very settled in activity, a bit too comfortable in your set tracks that you might miss the short cut to your goal. But you wouldn’t really mind because you’re made for the long distance run... or walk. You would tend to be persistent and be able to stick to set plans and work tasks. You have the ability to concentrate on something and get it done, although it might take a while. Time might not be a big issue for you; you are patient and willing to stick things out. In a nutshell, you’re at your best when you can make use of your stubborn will and consistent drive. You don’t get fired up easily, but if you’re poked one too many times you can flare up and stay in a flushed state for a while. Or, you turn quiet and “angsty” in your blocked state. You’re likely not fond of the discomfort and disharmony of anger and would much prefer to get out of it. Physical activity might really help to get the discordant energy out of your system. Something simple that doesn’t require too much thought would be perfect. Chances are that you are the most challenged in a fast paced environment with a lot going on at the same time. You require a set routine, a fixed working schedule because you thrive when you’re settled in your ways. Having to constantly adapt, change, reevaluate and rearrange in your daily activities doesn’t sit well with you. You’re motivated by constancy, security, comfort and predictability. These are your strengths and assets. You have great self-control and sense of responsibility as well as an ability to sometimes honor your restless spark that breaks patterns and protocol. It’s not done in a disruptive way; it indicates an ability to implement new insight. You can let your emotions guide you and let them stem from affect and instinct. This is easier for you than letting your intellect dictate your actions – it usually gets in the way and causes frustration to build. You might get frustrated trying to further your will through communication – somehow the method of interacting doesn’t work well with the method of assertion. You’d be easily irritated with other people, ending up in arguments when you can’t get your will to across through communication. When you talk and engage socially, there might be a real issue to get things across in a way that doesn’t conflict with your personal way of doing things. You have a frustrated power behind your words, a force to channel into your writing or speaking.

(Chart calculated at astrotheme.com)