#on second thought perhaps this is the way i should have formatted this post all along

[yueliie]

Well, Hello! I recently started to follow you, but I wanted to ask you a request, like what you did with 'Your tears'.

Like could you do a Wind Breakers boys reacting to seeing again childhoodfriend! Reader? (and with a reader that had a similar case of Mitsuri, like having to much strength and being judged by that) (and specially with Sakura, the others you can decide them)

Of course if you want, have time and if you don't mind!

🎐.お茶 — a girl gotta be strong, ya know? ft s.haruka, k.mitsuki, s.hayato & n.akihiko

୨ৎ — ↻ SYNOPSIS : wind breaker boys' reunited with childhood friend!fem!reader who is pretty strong!? ୨ৎ — ♯ GENRE : fluff, fem!reader ୨ৎ — ↠ NOTE : I see sakura, i'm gunnin' for that—ahem, thank you remontea for being my first customer<3 I'm so happy to know that you are interested in my format haha! It's an odd mix of headcanons + scenario/imagines? so headscena? wait that sounds weird..I think I might have gone overboard with this one cuz childhood friends trope AND big eater like my girl mitsuri?? I'm sold and now you're my favorite customer, congrats 👏 4 characters are my limit cuz it would ruin the aesthetic and limitations of how many pics I can use in one post huhu but if I get many requests for part 2 of this, feel free to let me know! also my first fic with kiryu and nirei, hope they aren't too ooc! I'm not confident in suo's part the most tbh with you all TT ୨ৎ — ♪ REMINDER : reblogs & likes are appreciated, its help to motivate me, thanks for your support~ ୨ৎ — ► ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : a girl gotta be strong, ya know? ft s.haruka, k.mitsuki, s.hayato & n.akihiko

MASTERLIST | REQUEST BOX | RULES | TAGLIST

🎐.お茶 — sakura haruka

۫ ꣑ৎ It was early in the morning, sakura was on his way to school when he bumped into a situation...a girl taking down a group of delinquents all on her own.

۫ ꣑ৎ He was stunned, he thought his eyes were tricking him, there is no way a girl could beat guys twice her size...

۫ ꣑ৎ But then, the young woman wearing an apron was crying while shaking hands with her savior and that was when, he realized it was you...?

"Y-You...why are you doing here?" Sakura flinched when your head snapped towards him, eyes widened and he heard a little gasp from you before he started choking on air when you suddenly pounced on him without warning, and successfully trapping him within your arms.

"Saku-chan!!"

"G-Get off me or you're goin' to succumb—"

"Oh!" You got off with a sloppy smile "... sorry, it's just been so long, I didn't know you went to school here!"

"Yeah...so what about it?" He grumbled, averting his eyes from you.

You looked at him with a blank stare. In response to that, his face heated up, a soft pink decorated across his fair skin, agitated he asked with a stuttering voice "W-What are you lookin' at?"

"Nothing...how should I say it?" You hummed softly, eyebrows frowned, deep in thought but then you snapped your fingers as if you just realized something "It's could just be my imagination... but I feel like you've gotten softer? Normally, you would look at me in the eyes"

You looked down at your shoes, fidgeting with your hands "...do you perhaps not like the way I am now...?"

"...Huh?" His brain malfunctioned for a second there before the shade of light pink turned crimson red in a matter of seconds "W-What!? Who says that, huh?!?!"

He turned around and immediately ran off towards the direction of his school with you following right behind him "Ah, wait up!!"

🎐.お茶 — kiryu mitsuki

۫ ꣑ৎ Kiryu was on his phone when he stumbled upon you, helping an elderly couple carrying around a bunch of heavy industrial plastic crates filled with fresh vegetables and whatnot.

۫ ꣑ৎ At first, he was impressed by your strength, not many girls your age could do that, then he saw you almost tripping over a pile of rubbles...he approached you intending to help you around the store.

۫ ꣑ৎ But when he did...you looked shocked?? Do you know him? He doesn't remember someone as pretty as you in the past though...

"Uh..." You averted your eyes, the soft shade of pink revealed itself on your cheeks, twisting a strand of hair as you mustered up the words to question him "Are you... perhaps Kiryu Mitsuki by any chance...?"

"Yes that's me, have we met before...?" Kiryu asked, tilted his head in question with a sweet voice that is enough to make anyone melt upon hearing that voice of his.

"U-Uh! I'm (name)..." Your voice cracked, biting your lips nervously, brushing some strands of hair behind your ear "...(surname) (name), we used to go to school together...uhh—"

"You're that (name)??" He looked at you with widened eyes, surprised but soon after, his expression melted, his half-lidded eyes looked at you with so much depth of emotions; adoration, bright and beautiful.

If looks could kill, you would be dead by now because you felt that brief moment of your heart just froze up and dropped yet that alluring stare of his is sucking you in, taking your breath away just like how you would expected from a beautiful scenery and right now, he is THAT gorgeous view...why is this guy so attractive?

"(Name)?"

You snapped out of your thoughts when you saw him waving his hand in front of your face, you make eyes contact with his soft green ones.

Flustered being caught staring at him, you tried changing the subject "Y-Yes?"

He pointed towards the direction of a cafe, he asked in that same honeyed tone "If you're finished with work...we could talk over there?"

"Sure...?" You were still in a daze when he turned towards with a smile, ugh...that smile is dazzling. You couldn't find the words to say anything back when he took a hold of your hand and muttered out a quiet let's go then.

You looked down at your hand intertwined with his, its remind you of the old days wherever you go, he is always holding your hand...its never fail to make you feel safe even if you know that you can defend yourself and at the thought of that precious memory, you smiled.

🎐.お茶 — suo hayato

۫ ꣑ৎ It was early in the morning on a weekend when Suo entered the saboten bakery, a store that was famous for their pastries and he was only simply there to buy a cake as usual.

۫ ꣑ৎ Being notified of his arrival, a voice called out from the kitchen "Good morning, Fresh pastries will be ready in just a moment!"

۫ ꣑ৎ Your head peeked out behind the kitchen wall, carrying a tray filled with freshly baked goods but then, you make an eye contact...

"...Eh?" You blinked in disbelief with your mouth wide open, dumbfounded and Suo was all smiling, finding the situation pretty amusing at how much your expression resembling that of a goldfish.

"Suo?!" You gasped, almost dropping the tray to the floor as you turned around, flustered by the fact that your childhood friend saw the messy state you were in, "I-I'm sorry for the mess, I'll—"

"No, no it's fine...really" His chuckle was light, and yet it was deep, laced with a hum of amusement at the matter. His smile never once fade as he stared at you, barely concealed fondness tangible in the warmth that softened his features.

You avoided looking him in the eye, your face flushed red with skin lightly dusted with flour and cream, soft (colour) hair slightly tousled in all directions. You were a hot mess.

"So... how may I help you?"

"Oh, I'll get that and..."

You nodded lightly, using the sliding door to the cake display counter and pulling the frozen goods out before packing them in a pretty small box.

Then you make your way back to the cashier, pressing some buttons and with a smile, you asked "Would that be all?"

"Wait, just a second..." He paused, looking at you with a smile but you don't feel good about that smile of him at that moment though...

Then it happened, his thumb touched the corner of your mouth as that thought crossed your mind, and you flinched upon feeling that lingering warmth stay there for a brief moment.

You looked up to see some whipped cream on his thumb "Shh, stain" He whispered with half lidded eyes, looking so smug with that self-satisfied smirk of his before he licked the cream off "Mhm, it's sweet..."

"Wha...." You stared at him, horrified and in response to that, he laughed and this time; he sounds bright and joyous.

"Well, I'll see you later then" He was still smiling while waving goodbye, he was already on his way out of the store and when the sliding doors slammed shut, dead silence follow suit...

And what if it was on cue, you started freaking out once your brain finally registered what just happened a moment ago.

🎐.お茶 — nirei akihiko

۫ ꣑ৎ Nirei was walking around the town when he heard loud voices in the distance, out of curiosity, he followed the sound to a back alleyway.

۫ ꣑ৎ There, it was a small group of men backed two young girls into a corner, one girl was shivering with tears in her eyes and the other girl was glaring daggers.

۫ ꣑ৎ He could barely recognize you but he immediately knew it was you from the way you talk, you haven't changed from the last time he saw you...

"My friend isn't interested" You bluntly stated that fact, your friend clutched tightly onto your shirt as you stared at the group of three men with a blank expression "Didn't you learn from school that no mean no?"

"Haaah? I was talking to the other chick but..." His eyes looked down and up, taking in the view before him "...well, you aren't half bad yourself"

"Ew, gross" You looked at him with a disgusted face, crossing your arms above your chest "It's no wonder why you don't have a girlfriend... can't get any ladies so you just decided on picking a girl right off the street"

" What did you say, bi—" He was cut off when he was thrown towards the other side of the alleyway. In the blink of an eye, the other two was given the same treatment, being turned upside down and laying across the dirty flooring, unable to move their bodies.

"Are they dead?" You poked at them with a random stick that you found laying on the ground, upon seeing the movements of their chests rising and down, you let out a sigh "The heck? They're fine?"

"A-Amazing!!"

"Huh??"

Your eyes snapped towards the newcomer and upon seeing that familiar fluffy hair and the way he pull out a notebook from his pocket "...Aki? Is that you?"

"Y-Yes!?" He squeaked, probably didn't expecting you to recognize him right off the bat.

"What are you doing here...and what's up with that flashy get up??" You questioned him with concerned eyes.

Well... Guess he has some explaining to do.

© yueliie 2024. do not steal, copy, repost, edit, translate or use my works.

[starzzyeyed]

Take My Breath Away (And Make It Last Forever Babe)

This is for @andiebeaword 's 3k celebration contest!! I actually got this finished on time, which impressed even me despite the fact that it's so short. I also never post fics to tumblr so my apologies if there's formatting issues.

The prompt I chose was "Does the sight of me wanting you drive you crazy?"

Summary: Spencer finds himself a little bit distracted during a case wondering just how it would feel to be wrapped up in Hotch's strong arms and kissed by his lips.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Aaron Hotchner

Rating: Teen

Warnings: None that I can think of. There's brief allusions to sex but it's not mentioned in any depth.

Word Count: 1.5k

There’s nothing he wants more than the feel of Hotch’s lips on his.

He knows, should his thoughts ever somehow accidentally leak from his brain and become public knowledge, that Morgan would most likely snigger and tell him he’s sure Spencer would like the feel of those lips a few other places as well, but he’s not thinking about that right now.

All he’s capable of focusing on at this moment in time, is what it would feel like for Hotch to kiss him.

And that’s before he even begins to think about Hotch’s arms.

Strong, muscular biceps, thick and prominent veins responsible for carrying the blood that keeps him alive and fit running up and down his forearms, visible in what is a rare occasion of Hotch having chosen to have his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the heat of the Texas summer forcing him to forgo his usual full suit attire.

He knows he’s staring, and he’s been staring for the past four minutes and thirty- seven seconds and yet he can’t seem to bring himself to stop.

Hotch is leant over the table, photos and evidence spread across every square inch of the laminated surface in front of him with a hand planted either side of the journal that they know holds the final puzzle piece, if only they could figure it out.

Spencer’s glad he has the file cabinet to lean against because he’s not sure his legs could hold him up if he didn’t, and he doesn’t want to make his attraction any more obvious than it clearly already is to anyone with a pair of eyes in the same room as him.

“Earth to Reid.”

Spencer jumps, knocking over a stack of folders with his elbow that clatter to the hardwood floor underneath, making him jump again. He hears Morgan laughing in the background as he bends down to pick them up, his cheeks burning as he clears his throat and looks back over to the table, to where Hotch is now watching him with a small, barely there smile.

“Hmm?” he tries, aiming for casual even though he knows he can’t hide the way his pupils are undoubtedly dilated, and that’s without even mentioning his inexplicable clumsiness, which is extreme even by the normal Spencer Reid standards.

“Hotch asked you a question, genius,” Morgan teases, still laughing, and Spencer forces his gaze up from the floor to the very person he’s spent the past six minutes and forty-two seconds staring at. Not just staring at Hotch as a person, in fact; staring with all of his focus on Hotch’s arms.

“What did you say the link is between the victims hair?” Hotch asks, that small smile still playing on his lips, and Spencer feels as though his cheeks are on fire.

“They all purchased the same brand of rinse out box dye,” Spencer begins, finding his voice and rattling off the information he knows that’s actually relevant to the case, rather than the information his brain has spent the last seven minutes and fifty-one seconds hyper-focussing on.

Information like the way he just knows Hotch could pick him up in those strong and muscular arms, perhaps even just on one arm like a bodybuilder lifting a weight. The way he imagines himself far too often being carried bridal style in those arms, with Hotch looking down at him from above with that same small, barely there smile that he had on his face a moment ago. The way he knows without question the safety and security he would feel with those arms wrapped around him, holding him, carrying him; keeping him protected from all the criminals they come up against on a daily basis, all the lowlifes they take off the streets to protect others.

Spencer blinks himself back to the present moment, clearing his throat as he looks up at Hotch again, at Hotch’s face, forcing himself not to let his attention drift back to those well-muscled arms that he so desperately wants to feel wrapped around his waist, holding him tightly against the filing cabinet that’s by now supporting practically all of his weight as he struggles to keep his focus on what’s actually going on right now, as opposed to what’s happening in his imagination.

The problem with looking so directly at Hotch’s face, though, is that now he finds his gaze drifting back to Hotch’s lips again, once again imagining how those lips would feel pressed against his, how it would feel to kiss Hotch, how it would feel for Hotch to kiss him.

The thought alone is making him slightly breathless, and if he carries on like this he’s going to end up with his body outing him to the rest of his team, so he clears his throat again and mutters a quiet, “excuse me,” when it’s clear that no one in the room needs any more information from him for the moment, before he slips out of the office and down the hall.

He makes it two corridors away before he leans back against the wall and lets out a shaky sigh, willing his body to get itself back under control before he’s forced to do something he desperately doesn’t want to and take himself into the men’s bathrooms to take of himself.

He doesn’t get the chance to finish deciding what to do, though, because a moment later there’s the sound of footsteps and Spencer presses himself even further back into the wall behind him, hoping he’s at least somewhat hidden by the cabinets on either side of him. Apparently he’s not hidden enough though, because the footsteps stop right in front of the filing cabinet to his left and someone clears their throat.

Spencer’s in the process of deciding if he can come up with a sufficient lie for why he’s hiding behind a filing cabinet in a local police precinct, or whether he can turn around to this person and ask them why they’re questioning him, a highly trained and admired member of one of the most respected sections of the FBI, when it dawns on him that he knows that voice, even if the person hasn’t technically spoken.

“H-Hotch? What are you doing here?” he asks, stepping out of his hiding place and slowly lifting his gaze from the polished black shoes in front of him to the amused expression on his boss’s face.

Shit.

He doesn’t even need to hear Hotch’s response to know that he’s been caught out, and he’s already forming explanations and excuses and apologies in his mind, ready to spill the moment Hotch starts talking because he’s definitely going to lose his job over this, when the sound of Hotch’s laughter finally reaches his ears.

Great, now he’s laughing at me, Spencer thinks, his cheeks heating up as he begins stammering out apologies.

“I’m so, so sorry, Hotch, I don’t… I don’t know what got into me. Well, no, that’s not technically true, I mean… I do know, obviously, it’s you… no, it’s just, well, you got into my mind, that’s all, and I-”

He doesn’t get any further than that before Hotch leans forwards and shuts him up with a kiss, pressing him back against the wall behind him as his arms, oh, those arms, circle around his waist and keep him locked in position against the wall behind him, as those lips press against his and kiss him, and if Spencer could actually form a coherent thought it would be that he’s definitely died and gone to heaven, because there’s just no way that this is happening to him.

When Hotch finally pulls away, Spencer’s panting for breath and his head his spinning and if he didn’t have a tent in the front of his pants before he definitely does now. But, as he’s looking at Hotch, raking his eyes across the body of his boss as the other man smiles and raises an amused eyebrow at him, he sees a similar tent in the front of Hotch’s suit trousers, and he raises his own eyebrow back in shocked disbelief.

“What?” Hotch asks, chuckling at Spencer disbelieving expression, “did you really think I didn’t notice the way you were staring at me in there?”

Spencer’s still getting his breath back, but he manages to grin at Hotch, leaning forwards and wrapping his arms around the older man’s neck while he breathlessly asks, “does the sight of me wanting you drive you crazy?”

Hotch just laughs softly, kissing Spencer softly again before he nods.

“Evidently, yes,” he replies and Spencer grins wider, running a hand through his hair as he tries to come to terms with this development. Fortunately, Hotch is one step ahead of him, because when he looks back down from the ceiling Hotch is holding a hand out towards him that Spencer hesitantly takes.

“Are you free for dinner tomorrow night, assuming we solve this case? Say, 8pm?” he asks and Spencer nods shy smile.

“That sounds perfect,” he replies, walking hand in hand with Hotch back to the conference room.

He’s never been so happy for a case to be solved quickly.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

The River

Worldbuilding/Lore

<< Previous: Lyctorhood | Masterpost

-

So, okay, bear with me here. I think these people's brains are fundamentally different from ours. And I think their brains are spiritual matter, contained in a brain-shape and perhaps even anatomically so. There was talk of a temporal lobe, after all.

Mind you, memories don't just get stored in one place in the brain. The hippocampus is crucial for formation of memories and storing them short-term - for a few months, maybe. After that, I was told in my studies we don't quite know where they go - likely stored in different parts all over the brain, connected to associations.

One thing I do know, however, is that you can't physically see which parts of the brain relate to which memory. Knowing this from necromantic ability should be a skill even Mercymorn would struggle with. Harrow, a bone magician, knows she is not the best flesh magician, so she enlists Ianthe's help for her lobotomy. Ianthe, allegedly the best necromancer in her generation, is actually able to do an alright job, except for one part where Harrow does some herself. Have they found ways to look at memories through the brain? By all current available science, I would rate that fairly impossible. Either science has progressed wildly in this (possible, given the whole ass myriad and then some), or these brains are not the same.

I actually think brains in this are made from much the same matter that The River is. The River is clearly not of Alecto or John's invention. It was discovered somehow, and when they resurrected everyone, they basically found the revenants for the bodies, and just stuck them back in, literally; pockets - or bubbles - of River, containing the revenant exactly, replacing the goopy mess of dead brain in the body.

Now your brains are goopy messes of river, made to look like what you expect the brain to look like. Your perceptions, expectations and rules are important in the River - it makes sense that River/Revenant-brains would still be brain-shaped. It means the brain is more fluid than that, though; in the Lyctor's cases, one soul - one brain - "takes over".

(Doesn't really explain why Lyctors like God, Augustine and Mercymorn consistently have their cavalier's eyes - other than maybe it was just that that's what they were expecting.)

Ok, so I kinda think brains are parts of The River. Coherent as revenants, living in bodies. This would have been the case for the first people who were resurrected a myriad ago - so when they create babies, the baby's brain is also River water, for want of a better term? Therefore everyone's is? And Death, in this post-resurrection world, is just returning to the River proper?

It's a working theory.

The River is a physical place, and also kind of like sub-space. You can enter it, you can form pockets of meaning in there, you can hunt things in there and make wards. You can use it to travel quickly to destinations many lightyears away. It is a physical place, but also a spiritual one. It is, essentially, the brain matter of billions, jumbled together, increasing in entropy with depth, all the way down to the stoma, where you can enter full entropy and be reduced to particles, as I understand.

Did you know that some scientists use entropy to describe brain processes? Entropy increases in the brain as it responds to stimuli. The concept of entropy is necessary for explaining what goes on in the brain, an organ of trillions+ of possible configurations, changing moment by moment. And what happens physically in the brain is perceived by us through a range of associations and thoughts and feelings, which all look and feel very different to the electric charges zipping along nerve axons and synapses releasing chemicals to trigger a reaction in the next nerve along. Which is (a gross oversimplification of) what actually physically happens inside our brains, millionfold, every millisecond.

Hey wait a second though. The Central Nervous System also includes the spinal cord. Is this included in the RiverBrain package deal? What about peripheral nerves? Right, I'm gonna stop this here, it's already one hell of a rabbit hole.

So if I'm right, then brains are made of River, and River is made of Brains. Sub-space, physically traversible brains. If planets, if stars have a soul, the whole Universe has a soul. The River could a manifestation of the Universe's soul, its collective Brain, and it encompasses all once (and future?) living things. It's not in our plane of existence, but can be accessed physically and mentally.

The River might be the source of necromantic ability, and I think either John or Alecto figured out how to access it. I Just Don't Think You're Supposed To.

Ok, let's get into Characters next. Blorboposting incoming.

>> Next: Gideon Nav

[markantonys]

pulling together some of the s2 images we have so far! there's a LOT of stuff in the two teaser reels, so i'm focusing mostly on the shots from those that i can connect to the new promo images (which are especially helpful since we know what episodes they came from). sorry for the long post, i tried to do a read more but then for everything under the read more the images just displayed one by one instead of 2 or 3 in a row the way i'd formatted them and it looked bad.

first, rand. predicting that some of the first things we'll see from him is dream torment by ishamael (likely the source of the wheel shot) and meeting lanfear while alone and vulnerable:

then he'll go to cairhien and meet up with moiraine and lan, and have his lord arc (and get a fancy outfit):

then duel turak at falme in 1x08 (likely after receiving sword lessons from lan, which could be the Lan Shirtless With Sword shots we have several of):

i think these scenes with moiraine (and lan) are from the early episodes where she still has her s1 outfit and hair:

then she gets a fancy new outfit for cairhien (potentially the crying-in-the-bath scene), which could be where the beach scenes take place - but cairhien is landlocked (though it IS on a river), so maybe she keeps this outfit for the rest of the season and these beach scenes are at falme? i will say that i'm pretty confident the daylight beach scene is the same outfit as the cairhien promo pic, but not confident that the evening beach scene is the same outfit.

on to perrin's plotline. we have several shots (i've just included one) from a scene of his party encountering the seanchan in daytime and being made to kneel. loial is still free here.

loial appears to be getting captured here at night, and there's also shots of perrin's party fighting seanchan at night. the same scene?

we know loial is in seanchan captivity by 2x05, so all the above scenes must happen during or before that episode.

aviendha fights a whitecloak at night, which we've been thinking is the adaptation of the book scene where perrin frees an aiel from a cage (there IS a cage just behind avi here), and thus perrin & co would also be involved in this scene. could be the same nighttime fight scene as above, a three-way fight between perrin & co, whitecloaks, and seanchan? or it could just as easily be a different scene - if so, i'd guess in the second half of the season after loial has been captured and as perrin gets closer to falme.

we do know that the seanchan and whitecloaks will clash in falme, and in a market-y location that looks somewhat similar to the promo pic of perrin and aviendha:

overall, it seems like whitecloaks, seanchan, and aiel will all be heavily involved in perrin's plotline, which is great setup since all those groups are significant parts of his storyline at various points in the future.

from what we know so far, the girls' portion of the white tower plotline seems pretty straightforward and similar to TGH. egwene has novice kitchen duty in 2x01, then later prepares for a journey (with liandrin i'd imagine) and is made damane.

nynaeve takes the accepted test in 2x03 (side note: i'm extremely skeptical that portal stones and the flicker scene will make it and imo they should be cut even though they're cool, so i think the "what might be" episode title is for this episode, referring to the alternate life/lives nynaeve sees in her test, and perhaps rand can still see some alternate lives in his ishamael-tormented dreams). at some point she trains in the sword with warders, probably because she wants to be able to protect herself while being blocked. do we think that brown belt indicates she's an accepted, or is that still a novice outfit and this scene is set before her test?

the picture of elayne could be investigating in a basement while black ajah hunting? i also thought maybe the ways en route to falme, but it doesn't really look like the s1 ways.

mat's storyline is trickier to figure out because we have very limited shots of him so far. we know that in 2x01, he is crying in a room. from descriptions of the scene shown at cons, we know he is imprisoned by liandrin at some point in s2. seems likely enough that the below image is him in captivity, although it's also possible he could be at an inn or something there (feeling guilty for abandoning his friends) and gets captured later in the episode.

the only other images we have of him are these two of him wearing his exact same outfit from season 1 and the crying-in-a-room scene and standing against a generic background:

falme seems the most likely option - the stonework on image 1 looks similar to the stonework in the perrin & aviendha picture, and the arch in image 2 could be a falme arch like what we see in the perrin & aviendha and seanchan vs. whitecloaks picture. alternately, picture 2 could be tar valon since i think there were some white stone arches in the streets of that city too. if it is tar valon, it could be either a) early in 2x01 and we see his capture onscreen, rather than the episode opening with him already in captivity, or b) after he gets out of liandrin's clutches.

how will he get out of liandrin's clutches? maybe he breaks out on his own, or maybe siuan gets wind of what's going on and intervenes to make liandrin let him go - this could also serve as an event to strengthen siuan's suspicions of black ajah in the tower, leading to her creation of the wondergirls task force.

i will end the post here since i hit the 30 image limit haha

[gothicprep]

two things I’ve been meaning to comment on: the redlettermedia video on the death of movie theaters, and The Usual Suspects of z-rate youtube movie critics blaming furiosa’s failure at the box office for being too girlboss. I promise i’ll tie these together in a way that makes sense.

there are a lot of reasons why theaters aren’t doing great right now. the biggest one is attendance, and how it hasn’t bounced back since lockdown. this has been exacerbated by a lack of product in the marketplace, driven by the wga and sag strikes. this isn’t anti-labor union sentiment on my part. I want to be extremely clear about that. it’s not a comment on the negotiations. just an objective statement about how two large guilds striking = less movies = less butts in seats. I’m surprised the rlm guys didn’t consider this.

but there are two salient other things to bring up with what’s going on with the box office rn specifically.

one of them is that movies are still performing in the way you’d expect them to in the box office rn, relative to other seasons. furiosa is a great example of this. fury road, commercially speaking, was not a big hit. furiosa had a higher budget. and mad max movies tend to stand on their own. no further proof of this exists than most americans thinking that the road warrior was the first mm movie, because WB really shat the bed on the distribution for the original. they’re highly tethered to the anxieties of when they came out. the pre-apocalyptic nature of mad max dials in on what kept people up in the 70s. the road warrior is evocative of OPEC and middle east/oil anxieties. thunderdome confronts our 90s fears of tina turner. fury road deals in environmental collapse, right down to how the manpower in the citadel is imagined. Furiosa breaks from this format in a few ways. max not being in it is the obvious one. the other is that it’s so reliant on fury road that its end credits contain a supercut of the movie. this is unusual for a prequel, at least in its extent.

this all to say, there’s no universe where this movie made a lot of money. it was never going to happen. contrary to what some may tell you, it was never a girls get it done thing. i know furiosa was great, but you need to remember that critic and general audience reception are very different things. if you’re someone who likes to talk and write about movies, you’re in a place that’s closer to critic brain than you are general audience brain.

If you had a normal release schedule for, say, may, this would be sort of a nothingburger. but remember – marvel movies have pretty much always dominated may. marvel is in sort of a weird position rn post infinity war, and there was no marvel movie to come out in may.

the second one is more related to the strikes. haulted production is a temporary hiccup. within a year, things should normalize a little. think of it like the recovery period after a surgery. something is wrong. you get it fixed. but there’s a time period after that where you can’t do much of anything. in the end, you come out healthy. your strength may be diminished, but you move on. we’re in the recovery period rn. perhaps theaters are a dying business, and this is one of those situations where you carry on but are a bit weaker. but it’s recovery. not death.

ah well, those are just my thoughts on it.

[henry1986]

Guiding (Gale x Tav)

This is my first ever Tumblr post after years of lurking. I wanted to format it differently, but it's been so long so I've written anything that I can't get back into my ao3 account, so here we are. (BleuHenri on there, btw. Wrote a kickass Labyrinth fanfic some years ago now).

This may be the only thing I write or share, but something in me has been longing to share fic again after so long. Had a shitty relationship that crushed my spirit so I stopped doing anything that brought me joy...you know how it be. Now I'm super happy and adjusted to life and letting my old self come back.

The TLDR: Random oneshot about Gale and my named Tav (Fits) from Baldur's Gate because this game is insanely amazing and I fucking love Gale and I love my little oc Fits (urchin tiefling druid who named himself 'Fits' with an s because he just wants to belong).

Summary: Fits doesn't do well with the unknown. So being blinded by a spell in the middle of a battle is not his ideal situation. Cue panic attack, and cue the voice of a certain adorable wizard he's been flirting with for weeks now. Gale to the rescue!

Story Below:

It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Dry and rot, what he wouldn’t give to be a child once more, laughing off his mother’s cautions with the arrogance of youth. His current situation is neither fun nor remotely game-like, so it seems unfair that he still has to suffer the drawbacks. Today one of Fits’ few childhood memories has come back to bite him in the tail.

                He’s probably going to murder Volo if they make it out of this mess.

But who is more the fool, he wonders briefly, the one with the ice pick or the one offering himself up like needlepoint? Either way he knows it’s not fair to blame the bard. Mistakes have been made, his party has been ambushed by bandits, and now he can’t see a godsdamned thing, false eye or no. Where just minutes ago his sharp tiefling vision would catch movement in any shadow, now he sees nothing but black. And what’s worse, his companions seem not to have noticed. Well, that’s his fault for breaking formation and getting separated. Stupid, stubborn rock that he is. And now that stubbornness has cost him his sight – possibly even his life.

The sounds of the battle thrash his ears, now sensitive in compensation. Somewhere to the left Karlach’s grunts mix with the dull thud of hammer on shield. The bandits shriek and curse and scream and…gargle? Perhaps that one has just met Astarion’s fangs. It would serve them right for thinking to rob a half-starved group of exhausted travellers. The thought of Gale’s stew simmering back at camp has been on everyone’s minds during the long trek back. To be delayed further has no doubt pissed them off to no end.

                “Desperados and cutthroats I don’t mind, but why did we have to find the only bandits clever enough to find a mage to fight for them?” Karlach had lamented as their attackers had unleashed their secret weapon. Gale had snorted, deriding the man in torn robes as nothing more than a charlatan with a few spell scrolls on hand.

The origin of the magic is a moot point – it hasn’t made Fits any less blind. And now he’s wondering if he should call for help, or if that will alert nearby enemies, and just what is he supposed to do? His mouth is dry as a creek bed in summer. His tail flicks an anxious metronome. The not knowing has always been his undoing. Fits is no stranger to pain and loss, same as many others. If there’s a burden that needs shouldering, he’ll take the weight with few complaints. But the not knowing…the archer he’d seen earlier might still be perched atop that rocky outcrop, not yet aware of his advantage on the blinded druid. Or he might already know, and there are precious few seconds left to find shelter. He might be knocking a fresh arrow right now, as Fits stumbles backwards over a rock and hits the ground. He might be lining him up in his sights as Fits grasps desperately around for anything to use as a shield, for a tree to hide behind, for his dropped staff or –

                ­­He’s a child again, youthful arrogance snuffed to embers, no longer lucky enough to have parents to caution him. The streets are filthy and bustling, danger lurking in the shadows. He’s small, so small in this big city with no idea of where to go or around which corner the next beating will take place –

                 Sounds blur into a single crushing weight, ringing in his ears. His breathing is fast as a swallow bursting from its nest, like a thousand swallows in a thousand nests trying to fly free all at the same time. Usually so dextrous, his stiff hands curl in on themselves like gnarled trees aged by time. Hopelessly he drags one numb hand across his face, risking damage to his good eye by rubbing at it so viciously, desperate to make it see, please just see…

                Someone’s gentle hand stills his movements.

                “Come on now, no need for that. Just breathe,” someone says, prying fingers away from his face. And then three words to change everything: “I’ve got you.”

The voice is fixed with the luxury of knowing – of always knowing – and tempered by reassurance. It’s so familiar his heart leaps into his throat. Relief douses his panic so violently it’s difficult not to collapse with the intensity of it. The city streets and their thugs are cast out of mind, thrown back to the recesses of memory to haunt another day. “Gale. I...my – eyes.” The words won’t come. They’re still struggling against the tide of his laboured breathing. Through the numbness in his hands he feels the barest hint of warmth; Gale’s fingers do not stray from his, lending him strength.

“Ah, so your hearing is still keen as ever, good to know. Though how you can hear anything over the utter racket Karlach is making, I don’t know. Honestly, get between a barbarian and her next meal and may the gods protect you…”

                Fits doesn’t hear the rest of the wizard’s rambling. I’ve got you. Has anyone ever said that to him in his life? Surely his parents must have at some point. There must have been a moment where he existed not as an urchin to be kicked but as a child that belonged to someone. If ever that time was, he doesn’t recall it. I’ve got you. It’s difficult with legs that feel like dead weight but he manages to climb to his feet and throw his arms around Gale. Grace is not his strong point in this moment. Gale catches him with a gently breathed ‘ooph’ as Fits bumps into different bits of him all at once.

Everything is intensified in his blindness: the pressure of Gale’s hands slipping around his waist to keep them upright, the pulsing scent of their mingled sweat and the tang of blood that speaks of fresh injury. “You’re hurt.” His fingers stumble along Gale’s arm and find a tear in the fabric. The skin beneath is slick with blood, coating his gently probing fingers.

                “How in the hells did you know that? You’re blinder than the proverbial bat.” Gale sounds as if he’s trying very hard to sound amused. Fits hasn’t missed the sharp breaths that begin and end his question, a parenthesis of doubt.

                “Your blood…smells strange. Different.” He inhales both to calm himself and to further investigate Gale’s scent. Fascinating.

                “Ah. That would be the orb’s influence. Let me assure you, in normal circumstances my blood is indistinguishable from any others’. I’m sorry if the odour offends your sensitive nose.”

                “I said it was different, not bad.” The sounds of the fight flicker and die for the briefest moment as they stand together. Gale’s hands flutter around his back before settling on a place below his shoulder blades. His fingertips meet at the spine and stay there with gentle pressure. So decisive. He wonders if the man has ever been unsure of anything in his life. What that must feel like… “I didn’t think anyone saw me go down,” Fits murmurs against the starched collar of Gale’s robes. The smell of him is grounding, chasing away his panic. “I cursed my own stupidity for straying so far off.”

                “Yes – well. I admit I did question the intelligence of your decision to pursue that ‘mage’ –” he spits the word out with scorn – “On your own. And good thing I kept an eye out for you, too. I saw the spell hit you and I thought...” His voice lilts with care, stepping over the words as though they themselves are creatures to be soothed. “I know you don’t do well with the unknown. I didn’t think you’d much care for blindness.”

                Fits’ anxiety has become no secret to the wizard in the last few weeks. He’s never been more grateful to have such a confidant. Especially when a hail of somethings whizz right by, spraying around them like deadly rain, and he feels the warmth of Gale’s magic envelop them both in a shield. It’s like stepping into honeyed sunlight from a cool spring shadow. His skin prickles. He can feel it even after they’ve stepped apart. Gale’s magic always feels so different to his own.

                “Will you two stop flirting for one gods-damned minute and do something useful?!”

                Fits winces at Astarion’s tone. Usually, the elf takes great delight in watching the two of them dance awkwardly around each other. Apparently his patience only stretches so far on long days. Fits shakes the moment off, refusing to imagine a lovely blush on Gale’s cheeks when he hears the man cough pointedly. It’s difficult to focus with nothing to visually keep his attention, but he figures they should probably start helping.

“I don’t suppose you could be my seeing-eye wizard until this spell wears off?” he asks lightly, amazed at the recovery of his confidence.

                “It would be my absolute pleasure,” Gale replies.

Fits can hear the curved edges of his smile. When they clasp hands, it feels as if for the first time – every ridge and dip of Gale’s palm is treasured new information. He catalogues the placement of each ring on the man’s fingers, evaluates the silver clang of them against his own single allowance of metal: his mother’s ring. Their hands sway as Gale swoops down momentarily with a soft grunt – his knees often protest such actions – and then he returns the precious weight of Fits’ staff to his free hand. With that the last of his anxiety pools to dull thunder in the back of his head, and they get to work.

When the last bandit collapses to the ground a short time later, Karlach’s triumphant call for dinner is echoed back by all. They trudge back to camp, tired but enthusiastic. Astarion asks if there’s any of that half-decent wine still left. Usually this leads to a quick but snarky conversation between him and Gale. ‘If you took any interest in maintaining the camp supplies, you’d know the answer to that.’ ‘But you do such a fine job of it darling, I’d simply mess it up if I tried to help.’ ‘That sounds awfully familiar to your arguments against chopping firewood and washing dishes.’ ‘But true nonetheless.’  They say no such things tonight. Gale’s thumb brushes Fits’ and he tells Astarion in a distracted voice that yes there might be some left, certainly, he’d have a look.

They find a comfortable alignment on the path back, Fits trusting the wizard to guide him. Each time the party changes direction or pauses to scout, Gale murmurs a soft instruction. It’s an experience that would have been terrifying for him at most other times in his life. He’s never completely given himself over to the care of someone else, let alone someone he’s known so short a time. But Gale is different. They’ve been friends from the moment Fits pulled him out of that portal. And now…well, Gale warns him about rocks in the path and at one point helps him climb a fallen log. The sensation of straddling the tree with Gale’s voice so close in his ear – “That’s it, up you go, just like that –” does things to his insides that are better left for late night contemplation.

Eventually his vision returns, the comforting greens of nature a welcome sight, Lae’zel’s torchlight too bright for his sensitive eye - the one that hasn't been gouged out by an ice pick. Yet for all his relief he somehow feels a pang of loss, like the unravelling of a well-kept secret between two people. So as his eyes readjust Fits says nothing, enjoying the feel of Gale’s fingers jostling his in their loose grip, walking along in silence. If Gale notices at some point the druid’s steps become more confident, his pace not at all like that of a man still blinded…well. He doesn’t say anything, and they don’t stop holding hands the whole way back to camp.

[ghostofpolaris]

Commentary on Tarot: Single Card Readings and Interpretations

You know, for as many posts I have seen about Tarot on here, none that I have really seen talk about single card readings and how in truth you can actually get a lot from a single card alone.

If you ever worry that maybe you need more than one card for a reading or perhaps you aren't doing enough, please know that you should trust your intuition and that sometimes, one card can hold a lot of power in it.

Especially with the Minor Arcana. I feel like the Minor Arcana gets put on the back burner a lot. The Major Arcana is important of course, but the Minor Arcana has a lot of importance within it too. From the elements the suit of the card is involved with, to the Numerology behind the card, the imagery, and the definition itself. There just is so much that can be ready from it.

For example, I say we look at the Two of Swords card. Now, I'll use the Rider-Waite image for it since that's what mostly everyone knows, but take a look here:

Let's break this card down and show how it all comes together.

Imagery: Even before looking up the definition, the person in this photo has a blindfold on, and holds two swords across in a "x" formation in front of them. Both are held as evenly as the other in a similar fashion that perhaps a set of scales would be. What do scales represent to you? For me, it is a balance of some kind. Perhaps it can involve justice, but to me? There is one point and another being balanced carefully and impartially because the person cannot see. They have a blindfold. If Reversed, maybe this could be taken as the person being blind to the choices they may make and the consequences of the.

Swords Suit Meaning: Let's look at the meaning of the Swords Suit. Swords are involved with the element of Air which deals with choice. These involve your actions, words, and thoughts. Remember that action can be destructive or constructive, and neither is inherently good or bad. This asks for a balance of power and intuition. Remember that our actions have consequences. Air like choices can be like a gentle gale, or a strong and sharp tornado that may decimate everything around it. Consequences like action, is not inherently good or bad.

Numerology: A good little rule to note with Numerology? Even numbers usually are involved with the ideas of stability. The reason I believe involves the fact that Even numbers are more easily divisible and "balanced". Like the number four, in Numerology this is a number of stability and the way it was explained to me was that one should picture a table with four legs. The four legs keep the table stable (no pun intended here). Take one leg away, and while it still can be stable to a degree, it won't be quite like what the four legs were like. With the number two in the Two of Swords, this also is a balance once again. Should you ever need to confirm your suspicions on whether something may be correct in meaning, do some cross referencing! Of course you can look to the actual definition online or in a book, but don't be afraid to use other parts of the card to help. This helps check your intuition as well.

Actual Definition: Here we come to the actual definition. The actual definition of the Two of Swords talks of difficult decisions, weighing options, impasses and avoidance. This is the short and sweetened version of this card.

So how do we bring it all together?

Combine what we've learned! We can note that the idea of avoidance with this card stems from the blindfold the person is wearing in the picture. Whether this is willingly avoiding the matter at hand or not is something that can be checked upon, but it checks out! The impasse? Weighing options?

Let's check back in with the swords and the number two for a second. Of course, perhaps there is more than one matter needing a decision, but each decision usually has at least two choices no? Think of these swords to be like scales needing balance. The number two shows a need for stability, and the imagery backs this up. This shows us the impasse needing our attention. Of course, we defer to the fact that the suit for this card is the Swords suit. What element does it lie in? Air. The one of choices, actions, and thoughts.

My best tip I can give to help maybe not make this feel so intimidating, is to not be afraid of your intuition. Really feel into the energy of your deck and the questions at hand. Play the role of a detective solving a puzzle. Get a feel for the person you are reading for. It takes practice, but it can be done.

If this has helped anyone else feel free to share your thoughts on it. I just wanted to at least get these comments out for people who may need it. If you feel you need more clarification, then feel free to pull more. Don't feel like you have to have more or less.

[skarloeyspa]

While You Were Away

Saw a "make a story" tweet and was like why not so this is the result. Based on the Seven Years Later AU by @ryan1014n2, here you go bestie I hope I didn't mess up your characterizations too much. Formatting was a bit awkward for this one since I'm still inexperienced when it comes to this platform, so apologies for that lol.

Warning for self-deprecating talk, Skarloey gets recurring nightmares and at one point hints toward no longer wanting to be around, there are parts where this is written in 2nd person, but the role "you" play isn't really integral to the story. General warning for grief as well since this is a bit of an unprofessional exploration of its five stages, I personally have not experienced grief from a deceased person so this might not be the best depiction.

While helping declutter the director’s office, you found an old wooden crate with several envelopes, browned from age. The envelopes were addressed to some workshop in Wales, but no mention of a receiver, nor a person to return to should the envelope become lost. There was no stamp on the envelopes, no glue to keep them sealed, only a date in the corner. Within the envelopes you found letters, written by someone who hadn’t had the best penmanship. Curious, you decided to read through the letters by date.

Dear Brother,

Driver said it would be a good idea for me to send you letters while you are away, and I thought it would be nice to keep you posted about the railway, so I hope you’ll have time out of your busy day to hear from me. How are you? How’s your overhaul going? I still don’t know why they thought it was necessary to send you all the way to the Mainland, but at least that means you’d be getting the best care there is, right?  I’m doing alright, it’s a bit lonely here without you, but it’s not as if driver lets me be alone much, so don’t you worry about me. Your driver’s been swapping out with mine with you gone, and the stories they tell me are just hilarious! How come you’ve never told me about the time you had to stop abruptly because a cat jumped out onto the tracks? Your driver said he spilled his morning tea all over your cab, and I didn’t even hear a word of complaint from you. By the way, I had sort of a strange dream last night. I dreamt that-

An entire sentence was scribbled out. You managed to make out the word “boiler” amongst the mess. The letter continued as normal after.

-you got into a nasty accident that resulted in some serious boiler issues, so serious that you would have to be sent for a heavy overhaul overseas. Ha! Isn’t it strange? I know you’re overseas right now, but I still managed to dream of such things. But perhaps the strangest part of it all was the pit in my boiler from when I woke up, it just felt so real. I’m alright. It was just a nightmare, all engines have those. But I can’t say I don’t miss you just a little. I hope your overhaul is going well.

Much love, Skarloey

You picked up the second letter, the paper was noticeably more wrinkled than the last.

Dear Brother,

Hello, it’s me again. I haven’t heard back from you since my last letter, but it’s not like you could have read it anyway.  I got into trouble today. I was shunting some trucks in the yard and broke some loaded trucks, I spilled slate everywhere and the trucks were deemed irreparable. Mr. Sam was quite cross with me, but he didn’t punish me as I had thought. He simply made me stay in the shed for the rest of the day while those new engines ran the line. I guess I should have felt more apologetic, but those trucks had it coming. I don’t want to tell you what they said, but it was about you, and it wasn’t nice. Just-

The word seemed to be written in a rush, as a single pen stroke tore across the page as if whoever was writing this had to quickly drop the letter to handle something else. The letter continued as normal after.

Sorry, thinking about it makes me upset, driver said I shouldn’t talk about it. Oh, let me tell you about those new engines, Sir Handel and Peter Sam. They’re fine, I suppose. They kept our line running while I was kept in the sheds.  But I must say, I’d much prefer you return. Sir Handel is quite arrogant and irresponsible, and Peter Sam is so cheery it’s almost annoying. But driver didn't seem to mind, he even called me a grouch! Me!  I miss you, brother.

Much love, Skarloey

You picked up the third letter, the writing a lot more scratchy and rushed.

Dear Brother,

I had that nightmare again, remember the one I told you about in my first letter? You probably don’t, but I don’t blame you. It must have been so annoying for you to have to listen to all my nonsense, huh? I hope you’re at least getting some silence wherever you are. Sorry, about my nightmare, I hope you don’t mind my rambling once more. It’s still the same, only now it’s more clear to me what that nightmare was really about. It’s still about you, but now it’s about me as well. It was never something I made up, and now I can’t stop seeing it in my sleep. I keep seeing you over and over again, and it keeps replaying in my head. Your

The ink colour changed here, as if the writer had to pick up a new pen because the old one dried up. But the previous ink was still well-pigmented, you had a feeling something else happened that forced the writer to put down their parchment.

Incident. I could still hear that loud sound, it’s still ringing in my head whenever the night gets quiet. And every time I see piping on the side of houses, I see you. I see your 

The ink colour changed again, you realized this happens several times throughout this letter.

Broken boiler. Your piping sticking out where it’s not supposed to. I couldn’t see your face, and you couldn’t reply to me. And every time I think about it, the pit in my boiler only gets wider, and it feels like a million ants are crawling all over me, trying to dig their claws into my shell, it feels like the fire inside my own firebox is trying to burn me alive, melting away until all that’s left of me are the charred remains of my chassis. Perhaps that would have been a better fate. I wish you were here to berate me, to tell me that I’m just being silly, tell me to get back to work and to act my age. I should have noticed, I should have realized that something was wrong. Why wasn’t I more vigilant? Why did it happen to you? It should have happened to 

The paragraph ended abruptly there, with no harsh pen strokes or blotches of dripping ink, as if whoever was writing this simply decided not to write down their thoughts.

I’m sorry, I’ve just been thinking a lot these days, maybe a little too much. I keep getting this impending feeling that something would go wrong, like something would stop our trains from running or worse, shut down our railway.  And those new engines as well, Sir Handel and Peter Sam. They were fine when they first got here, but lately they just keep making small mistakes. How hard is it for an engine to stop properly at a station? And don’t even get me started about their work in the yards. Any engine can shunt, but that Sir Handel just won’t stop complaining. And I understand treating others with respect, but you can’t be too lenient with trucks, and that Peter Sam simply couldn’t understand that. Oh, but I shouldn’t be talking about them, when I’m such a wreck myself. I’m sorry, brother, that you have to hear from me like this.

Love, Skarloey

You picked up the fourth letter, written on a different type of paper entirely, small and fragile. The writing was awful, almost incomprehensible.

Dear Brother,

I keep having nightmares, every night they end the same. There’s nothing I can do, there’s no one I can go to, no one would understand. Everyone seems to have moved on already, and I should as well.  But when I think about leaving you behind, when I think about you, I just can’t. I’m so sorry, brother. I’m so sorry for letting our railway fall like this. I can’t even bare to leave my shed these days, there’s no point if you aren’t there.  There’s no point when you’re not here. 

Skarloey

You move on to the last letter, seeming much less weathered than the rest. The penmanship was also different.

Dear Brother,

Hello, it’s been a while. I hope you’re well, wherever you are.  I’m doing fine, better than the last few years. It seems that our railway is doing better now as well. You wouldn’t believe the new flowers that have started blooming at Rheneas! Oranges and reds and buds and petals, all blooming strong under the sun.  Whenever I see them, I think about you. Don’t worry, I really am better. I think about how you would have been concerned about how distracting they are for passing locomotives, but you would secretly love them yourself. I even dare say some of the bigger ones match your livery perfectly. While I was away, I think they fixed some of the old tracks around the railway. It’s so smooth I could barely even recognize it. I think it’s some well-needed change, wouldn’t you agree? Oh! Speaking of the tracks, Sir Handel was being cheeky again. He almost derailed himself at the junction again. His wheels saved him just barely, and now he won’t stop talking about them. Silly engine, he looks like a steamroller! Also, I hope you wouldn’t mind. I know you wouldn’t, but I felt this deserves to be mentioned at least once to you. I talked to your crew the other day about you. I was very happy to find that they shared similar feelings as me, albeit less strongly. It was a nice change of pace, I haven’t allowed myself to speak of this with anyone for a very, very long time.  And I know you would tell me there’s no need for an apology, but I do feel like saying sorry, maybe just one last time. Talking with your crew finally woke me up, I can’t cling on to you forever. There’s still a railway to run, with you or without. And I’ll be damned if I don’t keep our railway running till my very last puff.  So please, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine here. I’ll keep your memory alive, and I’ll do it properly this time. I don’t think I’ll write to you again, I doubt you would need a written parchment to understand my thoughts anyway. 

Thank you, Rheneas.

Much love, Skarloey

That was the last letter. With the paper still in your hand, you looked out the slightly browning window of the old director’s office. Just outside, a vermillion well tank engine and a dark blue saddle tank engine chattered, laughing about something you couldn’t quite hear. The vermillion engine laughed particularly hard at something the dark blue engine said, their eyes crinkling from joy. The dark blue engine simply smiled, with such a warm look in their eyes you could almost feel your heart melt.

The director’s voice calling your name knocked you out of your observations. You hastily returned the letters to the old wooden crate and shoved them atop an old shelf. The excitement from this morning returned, you couldn’t wait to watch the two old engines double-head their first train since Rheneas’ successful overhaul.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OKAY IT"S DONE

Hi hello thanks for making it this far I don't have much to say besides errrrr is it implied that Skarloey got someone on the railway to write the letters for him or he grew fingers and wrote them himself uhhhh I dunno that was the prompt I got so I'm just gonna roll with it

[yukipri]

hi, i love your work and i know you have a lot of experience handling reposts, and i really need help.

i’m an artist who has their work reposted on facebook. i filed two dmca reports with links to the original posts on tumblr and twitter and to the post im reporting, but facebook denied both of them. both for the reason that they couldn’t be certain i was the rights owner.

in the first report i filed, i didn’t put the address in the correct format so i thought that was the problem. the second one, i don’t know what i did wrong.

do i have to use my real house address? the one i provided is the workplace of a family member. do i make “name of rights owner” my full name? i put my username minus the underscore both times i filed. i sign my works like this and it’s visible on the artwork (username minus underscore). do i put back the underscore to make it match my twitter name? my tumblr varies slightly. do i make it match tumblr instead? is there a specific thing i need to write in the “please provide any additional information…” box? do i need a facebook art account to report the post? or is it not working because it’s fanart? i know of artists who were able to get their fanart taken down on facebook so is where i live the issue? i’m really sorry for all the questions. i just don’t know what to do.

Hey there, I am so incredibly sorry this has happened to you. I'll do my best to help.

I'm not sure if my advice is the "best," and if there are legal professionals here who can provide better advice, definitely listen to them! But here's what I have done, with success having DMCA takedowns go through, including on Facebook:

1) I have always used my full legal name, sometimes with a parentheses handlename (tumblr user YukiPri, and/or Twitter user YukiPri_Art, depending on the platform) afterwards. When adding your handle, it should be formatted exactly the way it is to find your various socials, as that is likely part of the verification process. If you have slightly different handles on different platforms, I recommend doing what I did in the example and specifying "Tumblr user XXX" etc for each one. I do believe they still require your full legal name, and you should make very clear which parts of the name field is your legal name, and which parts are social media handles.

2) I have always used my full home address. I completely understand how deeply uncomfortable this is, and I share that discomfort and I am so sorry that you've been put in a situation where you have to experience. I understand the fear of doxxing. But I believe this is also necessary for legal reasons.

I'm not sure if a family member can consent to have their full name/address used in your place, perhaps as a "representative." But I feel like that makes things more complicated, so I've never used it and have always filled out my full info. If anyone with professional legal experience has different advice, I am all ears.

3) You do not need a facebook account, though sometimes it unfortunately is helpful, especially if the post is in a locked account. Either way, you need the link to the EXACT link with the infringing work.

4) Likewise, you need to provide the EXACT link to the work that was infringed, preferably that matches your watermark, since it appears you use one.

From the info you've given me, the only thing I can think of is that they were not able to match your legal name to the address you provided, and therefore cannot verify that you're a real person. I could be wrong. It's stressful, but at the same time I'm glad they have a process in place for making sure not anyone can file DMCA—imagine the chaos and evil people could do if anyone could claim anything was theirs!

It's a horrible and incredibly stressful process to file DMCA claims, and I am so frustrated that we artists have to feel this immense stress to reclaim our stolen work instead of people simply respecting that they have the privilege of viewing our work for free.

I really, REALLY hope this helps you, Anon. Please be assured that Facebook HAS removed my art for me before via DMCA (though sometimes it's taken a while), and I really hope the above works for you.

In addition, while I hate that you have to do more to protect yourself and your work, please consider the following in the future, if you haven't already:

-Add your full url/handle, not just signature to your watermark. I know it's ugly, i HATE having large watermarks, but my watermark has evolved into this for a reason:

My watermark, shockingly enough, isn't actually for people who have stolen my work, or the few people who might see my stolen work who might decide to follow it back to my socials. I mean, that'd be nice, but I know how rarely that happens.

My watermark is designed more so that it's easy for social media staff to verify that my work is my own when I file a DMCA. I want it to be as easy as possible for them to look at my art and for them to say yup, this is definitely by YukiPri_Art @ Twitter and YukiPri @ Tumblr!

Also use simple, legible fonts. I know it can be ugly, so I do try to color them all or choose different fonts to match the work in question. But again, the main point of this watermark to me is so that staff can read it quickly. I want their job to be as easy as possible.

-I also explicitly state "Do Not Repost" on my artwork itself. I have heard "Oh but I didn't know," too many times, dozens, no hundreds of times, even if it's on the post itself, even if it's in my bio. None of that means anything anyway once someone reposts it. But if I stamp "DO NOT REPOST" onto the art itself, there is no denying that the thief reposted with full awareness that they are stealing, and it is a sign to EVERYONE that they did that. More often than not, people have come to me to tell me about my stolen work so I can file a DMCA because of this line.

-Place your watermark somewhere hard to crop out. If it's near an edge, anywhere that you can square marquee and crop without chopping off essential parts of your art, people will crop. I absolutely despise that I have to do this to my art, but placing it near the center, close to the face/body so that cropping it out would mean chopping most of the image and therefore making it unattractive, usually will discourage the thief from editing it out. After all, art thieves are at heart lazy and do not want to do work for attention.

-In that same line, if your art has relatively flat colors, consider adding a bit of a gradient or pattern/texture, at least to the part with the watermark. Or, simply place your watermark in an area with multiple colors/complex lineart (yeah I know, I hate covering up those parts too). This is also so that a thief at least willing to open photoshop to attempt to erase your watermark will have a more difficult time. If it's too much of a pain, they usually won't bother.

I hope this info was helpful, and again i truly hope you get your case resolved, and that you never have to experience this again!!

❀ ❀ Send YukiPri an Ask! ❀ ❀

[unseededtoast]

Turtle Doves | Joel Miller

Part Twenty Six

Chapter Directory

Series Summary: In which two broken souls connect so deeply, that if one should perish, the other would surely die of a broken heart. (slow burn, timeline changes. After TLOU1, before TLOU2, assumed knowledge of infected, uses elements from both show and game)

Series Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, death, and sexual content.

Also cross posted on my Wattpad and AO3, if you prefer those formats. Here is a link to my masterlist for everything else I’ve posted.

Perhaps Joel's broken watch represents more than it just being a broken watch. Maybe it stands for when the seconds became meaningless, when lives as we knew them ceased; destined to forever be frozen in time. Maybe it's a reminder that some part of us will always be stuck in that day, at that very moment where it all went wrong.

Or maybe it's just a broken watch.

"Joel, Joel." My words sound forced as they work their way from my dry throat. I stumble forward towards him and am surprised when he doesn't flinch away in terror, or disappear as a figment of my imagination.

"Oh Noelle, oh baby what did they do to you?" He pulls me flush against him and hugs me as if I'd float away if he were to let go.

His arms are strong around me, holding me tight and I feel the tension leave my chest when it hits me that Joel came back. He came back for me. I grip the material of his shirt firmly in my fists and bury my face in his chest, inhaling the smell that makes me feel at home. My heart pounds in my chest as the adrenaline begins wearing off.

A loud noise from behind me jolts the two of us apart and Joel pushes me forward, not letting me look at the noise. Yells and commotion carry on and I go to look back against Joel's efforts, but he steps between me and the scene unfolding.

"We gotta get out of here, c'mon." He pushes me forward again and I trip over my feet before gaining my footing.

The two of us run side by side through the streets of Omaha, my lungs burning with each step forward. My body aches and my mind is clouded with thoughts of the men I've just murdered and that Joel actually came back for me.

Once we reach the outskirts of the city, we both stop and catch our breaths. My hands rest atop of my knees as I double over and breathe deeply. The commotion we were running from can no longer be heard and I realize that I have no idea how far we just ran. It felt like we were going for only a few seconds, but my body tells me we just ran a marathon.

"Come on, follow me." Joel says once he's recovered from the run.

He walks in front of me and I notice he's got a limp, but I'm not sure if it's from our run or if he got injured from the Tribunals. His broad shoulders slump with exhaustion as he leads the two of us through some streets and I can't help but keep my eyes glued to his figure. I never thought I'd see him again, and yet here he stands, welcoming me back with open arms after I just horribly murdered people.

"Watch your step." Joel tells me as we come the front of a building. My eyes catch the glimmer of thin wire in the sunlight, a tripwire of some sort.

Taking care to step over it and into the building, I see that it's been secured from inside as well. There are guns leaning against the walls, empty cans piled in one corner, and fresh boards nailed to the frame. Joel steps in behind me and closes the door, securing a rope to the handle to keep it closed.

"You were staying here?" I ask, my eyes lingering on the guns before looking to him. He looks tired, worn down.

"Yeah, I've been staying here." He confirms and slings the bag off of his shoulders.

"I thought we agreed that if something happened that you wouldn't come back." I realize that my words are harsh, considering he just helped me escape the Tribunals, but I can't help but worry about what would've happened if he also got caught. I see his fist clench and unclench at his side before he sighs,

"I couldn't- I couldn't just leave you there to 'em." He admits, eyes turning down to the floor.

"But what about your family? Joel if something happened to you-"

"You are my family now." He cuts me off, leaving me speechless. My jaw hangs slack as his words register in my mind. I search his eyes for any hint of a lie as his brown ones look into mine, but all I see is the pure truth.

"And you don't have to feel the same way, but I couldn't just leave you to 'em. We both know what they would've done. I couldn't, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I just gave up." He shakes his head with the last few words and I take a few steps towards him.

My mind is screaming at me that I am unworthy of Joel's loyalty, that I am just as bad as the people he saved me from. If he saw me push that hot iron through that man's mouth, and if he had seen me bash in the man's head on the ground, would he think differently?

But his words also bring forth a blooming feeling of hope deep within me. It's been over a decade since I last had someone to call family, and here Joel is offering just that. And when I recount everything that we went through on our journey here, I realize that I feel the same way about him. Joel has meant much more to me than just a travel partner for a long time now.

I step forward again and close the gap between us, once again burying my head in his chest and inhaling his signature scent. My eyes flutter shut as he embraces me with strong hands around my waist. I wonder what I possibly could've done to deserve Joel Miller. Within our embrace, we communicate everything that we cannot put words to.

His strong hands tell me that he's right here for me, his head atop of mine tells me that he's happy I'm here. And the way I hold him close, I hope that tells him how much I need him, how thankful I am to have him here with me.

When we step away from each other I notice the way he looks me over with caring eyes. His gaze lingers on my blood-soaked hands and I realize just how dirty I am. I've got blood from several people staining me from head to toe, and I know I've got bruises forming from the time I spent as a captive.

"Let's get you cleaned up." Joel's words are soft, a tone he doesn't often use but one I could get used to hearing. I nod and watch as he opens his bag and grabs two articles of clothing from it. He sets them aside and wets a rag with water from his bottle.

"Where'd you get that?" I ask about the water and clothes, I know we had close to no water upon arrival to Omaha, and I don't think he regularly carries women's clothing in his bag.

"Took the water from that group's supply and found the clothes in an old store somewhere around here." He says as he comes to me, holding the rag out.

My hand reaches out to take the rag from him, but Joel pushes my hand away and steps closer. He brushes some of my hair behind my ear before gently running the cloth over my face. The water is a welcome feeling and the care he takes to make sure my skin gets clean makes my heart swell.

He moves from my face down my arms, taking extra care to clean around my fingernails. His own hands look like they also saw a fair share of cuts and bruises. The rag has turned from white to a rusty brown color, and by the time most of the blood is off of my skin, you'd never know it was white to begin with.

Joel tosses the rag on top of the cans he has piled up in the corner and goes to grab the clothes from his bag. He's picked out a light wash pair of jeans and a simple dark green sweater, reminiscent of the green flannel he was wearing when we first met. He turns around and walks back to his bag as I change and doesn't turn around until I call his name.

He turns around and looks at me, lips twitching upwards into a small smile.

"Feel better?" He asks and I nod, going to sit down on the ground as my feet ache terribly. I rub my eyes and yawn, feeling like I could sleep for days.

"Yeah, I feel better." I answer and lay back on the floor to stretch my back out.

From between the boards he's put up on the windows, I can tell that the sun is going down. I can only hope that we're far enough away from the Tribunals that they won't be making a surprise appearance tonight. But I know that if they do, I'm prepared to go to any lengths necessary to keep Joel safe.

"Here why don't we try this?" He says and stands, going to the back corner of the building for something. He walks back and I lean on my elbows to see what he's grabbed, and see three sleeping bags in his hand.

"Where'd you get those?" I ask, eyeing the material.

"Same place I got the water. At one of their outposts." He answers and lays them down on the ground. With a wince, I move over onto one of them and relish the little relief they provide. Joel sits next to me, his hand a few inches from my face.

We sit in silence for a while, digesting everything that's happened in such a short period of time. My mind wanders back to my initial mission, to bring justice to the three murdered children in Boston. And I can't help but wonder if I've actually fulfilled the mission, or if it got lost among my rage. The men I killed, was it enough to be true justice? Or was it too many? Were their deaths too violent? Or were they not violent enough?

I can't seem to land on one solid answer.

My eyes open and land on Joel's face that's being illuminated by the golden rays of light peeking between the boards. While I can't find an answer about my initial goal, I know for a fact that one thing is going to be accomplished; Joel is going to get back to his family. If everything else about this journey has been a failure, at least I know he's going to be reunited with his people.

"Thank you, Joel." I say as I study his features in the sunlight, and he looks down at me with a crinkle between his brows.

"Thank me for what?" He shakes his head.

"Thank you for not giving up on me." I say, and not just about him coming to rescue me from the Tribunals.

"You don't have to thank me for a thing." His voice is deep, yet soft. I sit up and shake my head, knowing he's wrong.

"I do though. If it weren't for you, I would've died long ago on this journey." I recall the first few days into our travels, where we came across the group of savage men.

I remember how their fingers felt on my body, and I remember how Joel saved me from them. And even before that, how he helped me over the wall in Boston, narrowly escaping death by infected.

"We helped each other, it's what we do." He says as if it's plain as day, like his loyalty is given blindly, though I know that the exact opposite is true.

"Well, thank you anyways." I say, wanting him to know that I'm not jus staying these words to say them, that I genuinely mean it.

A few moments of silence pass before I feel Joel shifting around beside me. He adjusts the way he's sitting so that he can see me more clearly, and I watch as he runs a hand over his beard. He almost looks nervous.

"Um, those men back there, did they hurt you?" His question is loaded with double meaning, and I can see the fear and hurt in his eyes, as if he's already convinced himself of the answer. I sit up so that I can look at him at eye-level, so he can see how sincere I'm being.

"They weren't nice, but no, they didn't assault me if that's what you're wondering. Nothing I couldn't handle." I tell him and watch as his shoulders relax.

"Wish I coulda killed all those bastards." He grumbles and picks at the material of the sleeping bags. His words do spark a certain curiosity in me though.

"Can I ask you something?" I ask, knowing I can just come out and ask him, but stalling because I'm afraid of the answer. He nods his head,

"Of course." This time it's my turn to look away,

"Did you see those men in the building when you found me?" My voice is uncharacteristically quiet, but I know he heard every word. Being too afraid of what I might see if I look up, I keep my focus trained on my hands.

"I did." He says bluntly, not giving me exactly the answer I was hoping for. Knowing Joel though, I'm going to have to come out and ask exactly what I mean.

"You saw them, and you still want to be around me?" I ask, curious as to how he could've seen them and not be wary of me.

He reaches out and puts a finger under my chin and forces me to look at him. There's no trace of disgust, apprehension, or doubt on his face. All I see, once again, is nothing but authenticity.

"I don't think any less of you because of what you had to do back there. We've all had to do the same thing at some point. And the way I see it, they got exactly what they deserved." He says, taking his hand away from my face and taking the warmth along with him.

"I just, I don't know if it was really justice served." I say, understanding how ironic my words are considering what the Tribunals allegedly stand for.

"Those people, they'll get what's comin' to them sooner than later. And we put a pretty good hurting on them back there." Joel says, a small smirk on his face, like he's proud to have laid waste to their camp.

I remember the smoke and the commotion, and realize it must've been from Joel's orchestration of some type of trap. A clever one at that. I nod, agreeing with him and lay back down. My body and mind are exhausted, and all I'd like to do is sleep for the next week straight.

The sun sets until we're left in the moonlight. Judging by the amount of light filtering through the boards it must be a full moon. Joel and I lay side by side on the sleeping bags, being mindful to give each other a respectable amount of space. But really, all I want to do is curl up next to him.

He shifts around beside me and I can tell he's restless and on alert. Like me, he's probably worried those men will find us here. I turn around to face him, admiring the way the silver light highlights his features.

"You rigged those traps earlier? The ones that went off at the courthouse?" I ask, wanting to know how he managed to pull it off.

"I did." He runs a hand over his beard and glances down at me. Something in the way he looks at me in the dim light sends butterflies to my stomach.

"How'd you do it?" I keep my voice low, so if people are outside they can't hear us. Joel sighs beside me,

"When they took you away I ran. I figured if I could get out then I would have a better chance of getting you back. And so I watched them and their patterns for two days. In between patrol shifts I would break in to their armory and take a few ingredients here and there. And then last night while I was putting the wires in place, I heard them talk about you. So I set up the trip wires and made dirty bombs." He explains and I hang onto his every word.

Joel went through a lot of trouble just for me. He should've been on the road back to his family right now, but instead he chose to stay and help me. Without thinking, I reach out and rest a hand on his thigh, feeling him tense under my touch.

"Thank you. Not a lot of people would go through the trouble. And just so you know, if it were the other way around, I would've done the same thing." I tell him. He lets the silence linger between us for a moment before he speaks up.

"You remember back at the farm, when I told you about my daughter?" He asks, and I recount our time at the farm, where we holed up for a day or so.

"Yeah, I remember." I recall that he didn't say much about his daughter, but I understand she didn't make it.

"The first night all of this started going down, we got into a car accident. She twisted her ankle. We ended up at the other end of gun, military man just following orders. And they shot her right in my arms. I couldn't save her." I hear his voice crack as he tells his story, and my heart aches for him. I know all too well the trauma that accompanies watching the death of your child. Moving my hand from his thigh, I find his larger hand and place mine atop of his.

"I'm so sorry, Joel." I whisper and squeeze his hand, letting him know I'm here for him. Joel is reserved by nature, and I know that by him telling me this it means he trusts me.

"I was late comin' home that night, I should've been there with her. And this watch, she fixed it for me, it's the last thing she ever gave me. " His voice is thick and clouded with emotion and I look at the broken watch on his wrist. My eyes wander from his wrist to his face and see tears in the corners of his eyes.

"You couldn't have possibly known, it's not your fault." I tell him, knowing I have a hard time not blaming myself for Lucas' death. Joel takes a shaky breath in, and I squeeze his hand once more.

"When the infection made its way to my town, we were looking for a way around the highway. Ryan had Lucas in his arms and they turned the corner before I did. An infected got them, and they bled out there on the street while the soldiers dragged me away." My free hand rests on top of my necklace, a constant reminder of my lost loves.

"I'm sorry, Noelle." Joel says and I shake my head.

"If only we hadn't turned that corner." I say, knowing how I've dwelled on that moment endlessly since it happened, but knowing that there's no way to turn back time. As the thought crosses my mind, my eyes lock onto Joel's wrist once more.

Perhaps Joel's broken watch represents more than it just being a broken watch. Maybe it stands for when the seconds became meaningless, when lives as we knew them ceased; destined to forever be frozen in time. Maybe it's a reminder that some part of us will always be stuck in that day, at that very moment where it all went wrong.

Or maybe it's just a broken watch.

Silence takes over once more, our hands almost intertwined with as we lay side by side. I feel the exhaustion finally begin to win the battle, my eyelids grow heavy. But before I can close my eyes for the night, I can't help but wonder where we go from here.

Joel saved me, told me I was family, but I'm not sure our paths will run together for much longer. After all, he's on his way back to his real family, and after he saw the men I had killed, I'm not sure he'd want me around his real family.

And I don't blame him if he wants to part ways in the morning, to keep his family and his newfound daughter safe from what I'm capable of. Not that I could ever dream of hurting them, but it may bring them peace of mind to not have me there. Besides, I know the lengths he will go to protect his newfound daughter.

I just hope that I can live with a fractured heart, that I may be able to go on after knowing Joel Miller.

Part Twenty Seven

[dasboligrafo]

Dead Man Walking at the Metropolitan Opera

I took a picture of the stage right at the beginning (this is actually from the second act though) because I thought I'd want to comment later that the van Hove Box of Doom has become a fixture of dark theatre...it turns out van Hove directed it! I honestly had no idea.

(This post has spoilers.)

IMO the opera was good but not great. I'm glad I saw it, but I think the opera missed on some of the emotional resonance of the film, which I saw at least 20 years ago and remember very vividly. I have some theories why that might be:

An anti-death penalty sentiment is no longer as provocative for an American audience as it was when the film came out nearly 20 years ago.

Opera might not be the right format for this type of story (however, I think van Hove's staging helped a lot with that, especially the actor closeups). Counterpoint: this is the most staged contemporary opera of the last 20 years, so clearly it's doing something.

Most important reason: I think the opera pulled punches. It needed to make the killer WAY worse. AND -- it needed to make the humanity of the connection between the nun and the convict more human -- perhaps, dare I say it...more carnal? It's all there in subtext, but maybe it needed to be more explicit.

Maybe they needed to hire a Sean Penn-level asshole to play the convict?

Maybe we needed to see and feel the crime more vividly? This maybe means that showing a faint movie flashback of it is not the most effective way to connect you to the reality of the crime, but then the libretto should be able to bridge that without subjecting the audience to extreme on-stage violence, which is a very difficult place to go right away on stage (if at all). So I'm saying I don't think it's wrong not to show the crime more vividly in the production, but then we needed to get the dialogue to take use there more vividly. There is a speech by the murdered girl's father where he describes the crime which is probably the sharpest, most painful part of the opera, and the thing that slices through to you is the detail. It's a moment of shocking, incontestable truth that pierces the scene. It's an immediate rebuke to anyone who might be allowing themselves to sink into a sentimental apologia for a murdered on the foundation of a mother's love. I think to tell this story effectively you need to go there -- to a place like that, as piercing -- at least one more time, and I didn't feel it went there.

That made me wonder if this opera has perhaps too much low-relevance music. You can't really add more running time, it's already too long, but maybe some of the stage time was given over to musical interludes that didn't take you to the right place...the magic of opera is to translate those enormous emotional beats of the story into transcendent music that evokes without words; yet here maybe I was missing some of the story, or maybe just the words.

My companion (accidentally?) made a really interesting connection to another opera that ends in an execution -- Tosca. I think about the "un passo sfiorava l'arena" allll the time. It's such a striking, sensual evocation of complex sensory experience, a sound that also evokes a tactile feeling, a feeling like soft and lush anticipation, immediately emphasized in "entrava ella fragrante" (movement and scent). This stanza is a passage that so richly evokes the fleeting fullness of existence, the tragedy of its being fleeting...so that when you hear "and I've never loved life more," a few lines later, it is so fucking devastating.

Tosca has so much plot in it that I don't recall at all, but the heart of the opera is the love story, and that story is so, so simple. Do we need to hear for 20 minutes how hot the drive to Angola is? Is there really all that much value in hearing that the nun is needed at her day job (where's the tension in that?)

The real points of tension in the story were all there in the plot: Did he actually do it? Does he tell the truth to his mother or let her keep believing he didn't do it? The sexual tension (sorry). The way the apparatus of state exploits its constituents parts (like the warden and the medical staff who inject the convict). The staginess of the act. The staginess of justice qua state apparatus. The nun's split allegiances. The way evil connects us more intimately, sometimes, than love....

Maybe that is too many points of tension (for an opera)? My companion, who had not seen the movie or read the book, felt there was no real moral tension in the story because he (and I quote) "already didn't believe in the death penalty and didn't need religion to tell him that." (This is why it's good to go to this stuff with art naifs, because their reactions can be so revealing.) To me that says the opera didn't do enough to create moral uncertainty in the work -- there was no tension of ambiguity and perhaps too little to interpret. The work should invite you in and let you decide -- if the most evil actors deserve redemption, if the state can ever deliver redeeming justice, if the spiritual dimension can resolve the tension of loving life while embracing its senselessness and brutality.

The music, singing and actors were all excellent. I cried 3.5 times, and 3.5/5 stars seems like the right rating, but I'll round up to 4 for the music and performances. I absolutely think this is worth seeing, and I only checked my watch a couple times in over 3 hours. I feel almost guilty criticizing the libretto, when I think it does amazingly well to distill a complicated story into not too many words. The van Hove-ness of it all, overall, works with this story; his detail with the process of execution and his facilitating our ability to see it close was very effective (I found the close-up of the buckling of the strap around the convict's chest particularly upsetting). My companion wondered if we were at the opening night of the opera since the actor didn't have visible track marks from being injected with a needle (testament to how real and close up this was, but also sorta cute).

Final thoughts: Parterre level, Box 6 seat 1 might be a new favorite at the Met; I appreciated being close enough to see and hear the singers very well, we had the box to ourselves (I think most people willing to pay a higher premium for tickets wouldn't appreciate having a small part of the stage not visible), and the best thing about the box is you can come and go as you please and you get your own little coat room in there (they will seat you if you're late...) I've sat in the parterre boxes before but not for a serious opera and this time was great.

***

Coda:

These are all the other van Hove plays I've seen:

A View from the Bridge: the best

The Crucible: with a fabulous Saoirse Ronan; really good

A Little Life: eh...I mean, it was good. I think.

Kings of War: Shakespeare omnibus -- great!!!

Network: with a very good Brian Cranston; but I didn't like the play

The Fountainhead: sort of a mystery; surprisingly good

Diary of One Who Disappeared: Janacek song cycle with really interesting staging; but the play was...ugh, no, bad....Racist?

[lovingchopshopbarbarian]

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[superbatson]

For the ask meme: Rick, Beth & Pat

okay, so, i've been, like, stress-posting for the last half hour that i had a whole thing typed out for this and lost it bc of a fucking tumblr glitch thing, which ironically seems to only happen with these sorts of ask posts, so i'm just gonna give you some more generalized summary stuff instead. or maybe i could just post the ask format but kinda condense my answers for all of them into one response. i apologize for the headcanon portion that will be a little half-assed, it's hard to make lightning strike twice, you know?

Sexuality Headcanon:

rick: demisexual

beth: pansexual

pat: bisexual

Gender Headcanon:

i see them all as cis but i am open to other hcs (i just got in trouble once for, i guess, going a little far with a trans hc once that, like, offended someone bc i myself am cis, so ever since, i kinda strayed away from making any sort of trans hcs)

A ship I have with said character:

rick: beth/rick, courtney/rick, also open to cameron/rick (cam and hunter have, like, ridiculously good chemistry, okay?)

beth: beth/rick (duh), beth/joey (they'd be cute if joey weren't, ya know, dead)

pat: pat/sylvester, pat/barbara (he's got two hands!!!), pat/larry (you can't convince me larry doesn't wanna get into pat's pants, okay?)

A BROTP I have with said character:

rick: rick & yolanda, also rick & courtney too, let's be honest

beth: beth & chuck, beth & yolanda, beth & pat (i loved them together in the last ep)

pat: pat & courtney (we love a step-father/step-daughter duo!!!), pat & beth, pat & rick (forgot to mention earlier, whoops; rick needs a dad so pat should adopt him!!)

A NOTP I have with said character:

any teen with any adult bc age difference/legality/morality/etc (i repeated this a few times in my original version of this post 😅)

A random headcanon:

rick: he likes music. while working on cars is his main passion, he likes music a lot too, both playing and listening. it helps him calm down and really channel his emotions. he taught himself to play guitar and finds that it helps relax him when he's feeling particularly angry at the world.

beth: i like the thought of her picking flowers in her free time and turning them into flower crowns. usually, she just keeps them for herself or gives a few to her mom, but now that she's joined the jsa, she makes ones for everyone! (and of course now--i didn't have this element before--i'm picturing rick reluctantly putting a flower crown on his head, but then he sees beth's smile, and it makes his heart skip a beat and he can't help but smile back.)

pat: after taking a while to think of a Not Sad hc, i came up with pat realizing he's bi bc of sylvester. perhaps with all the superhero-ing, syl hadn't been able to do a lot of "normal" teen things, like go to parties and date and kiss a girl, for god's sake. so on the eve of his 21st birthday, he's whiny about it, complaining about being both a kissing virgin and a legit virgin, and pat puts up with it for a while until he finally just snaps, shutting syl up by kissing him on the lips just as the clock strikes midnight, marking syl's birthday. it had just been meant as a joke, a friend helping another friend, but then pat pulls back with a soft, "oh," slipping out of his mouth, and he realizes that he actually liked it. and that he maybe wants to kiss syl again. and again. and maybe a few more times after that.

General Opinion over said character:

rick: My Son who has been through so much shit and deserves the world and will hopefully begin to see the light again now with his girls by his side

beth: my sweet darling angelic daughter who also deserves the world and if you dare say anything mean about her, i will not hesitate to yell at and/or block you

pat: sweet tired dad who's running after 5 (maybe soon to be 6? we don't know) kids and deserves some rest so i would be more than willing to wrap him in a blanket, make him a cup of tea, and smooch his forehead before sending him off to take the nap he so rightfully deserves

[kazewhara]

sweet mystery of the sea. (2k special!)

# — pairing: xiao x gn!siren!reader

# — characters: gender neutral siren!reader, xiao, morax, ganyu (both in passing)

# — summary: "there is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure." – paulo coelho

# — warnings: mentions of blood, trauma (xiao, reader)

# — tags: hc/drabble format, fluff, hurt/comfort, nightmares, canon divergence, probably ooc xiao, usage of xiao's real name, more made up siren lore, second kisses, xiao needs you

# — notes: y’know, the original plan was to drop this on you guys as a surprise, but i think this is more fitting as a thank you post. thank you so, so, so much for all your support, your enthusiasm, your colorful ideas... everything. thank you for 2k, guys. this is my gift to you! reblogs are greatly appreciated, and i hope you enjoy!

wanna join the tag list?

✧ — 🍃 — ✧

leaving you was easily the worst mistake xiao has ever made

which is saying something considering his age and the amount of suffering he's endured during that time

xiao is tormented by the way you called his name so desperately when he left you that day

perhaps his subconscious is making it out to be worse than it actually was, but the memory remains fresh and painful

not once in his life after being saved by morax did he ever run from anything.

xiao swore to rex lapis that he would serve him through thick and thin, and that meant toughing out any storm that came his way

but there was no way he could have weathered out the storm that was you.

you were overwhelming to xiao; your features were too bright, too kind, too... good for him. and yet you were supposed to be his soulmate?

xiao knows his pride needs some work. he's proud of what he's accomplished for liyue and what he's capable of, but he's not proud of himself as an individual -- not proud of the lives he's ended prematurely, the screams he's ripped from innocent mouths

he's accomplished so much by being a monster, so he believes a soulmate for someone like him is completely out of the question; it's unthinkable. you are unthinkable.

and yet here he is, standing atop a roof in the finally silent harbor overlooking the sea.

xiao doesn't know why he's here. he's been battling with returning to the harbor for almost two months after the incident down by the docks. according to ganyu, the fishermen thought they'd incurred the wrath of the adepti, so she had spent quite some time trying to reassure them that they were not going to be torn apart by the adepti for harming such a creature. she also tried to ask xiao for the details of the situation, but he'd left before she could finish her question.

he avoided the harbor for so long not because of the way the people may fear him, but because he doesn't want to risk looking you in the face. not after what he did. xiao doesn't sleep much -- not after what happened with his old master. but the night after he ran from you (he grits his teeth as he admits to himself that he did, in fact, flee from you), he had a dream.

it was you. just you. you were sitting on a rock in the middle of the water, your body illuminated by the moon and your face warmed by a smile. it took him a few seconds to realize that it was directed at him.

"you are made for me, alatus," you sang to him. your voice coats his body and sweetens his tongue. "and i for you."

and xiao, in all his bloodstained glory, falls for you.

but the bliss didn't last long. the euphoria of a love once thought impossible was ripped away from him right before his eyes. the yaksha had to watch as the hands of the damned -- of those he personally struck down grabbed at you and tore you apart, ripping you away from him.

he doesn't deserve this -- you. he will suffer for the rest of his life alone as punishment for his sins.

the yaksha balls his hand into a fist at his side. as a devourer of dreams, he should have made use of his ability to take care of that himself, but he already learned that lesson. consuming his own dreams would result in a seemingly never-ending spiral of waking nightmares -- as if his very existence wasn't hellish enough. with no one around anymore to ground him from his bouts of agony, he had to keep himself in check day in and day out.

a foolish, naïve part of xiao that he once thought destroyed had been unearthed by you. it's faint and small; a mere speck of light in the darkness that consumes his every waking moment, and yet it burns bright enough to blind him. when xiao recalls the nightmare he had of you, that innocence in him has the audacity to wonder:

would you be able to fix him?

xiao knows it's impossible to remedy any of his issues as they are now. he's been around for millenia; everything has long since rotted over. nothing could possibly be enough to make him feel reprieve for no longer than a short moment. even so, he can't ignore the part of him that retains just a sliver of hope. because if you were telling the truth and you were actually his soulmate, then that would mean you were destined to help him in some way, no?

the same way he healed your physical wounds, could you somehow.. for him..?

"to think i've fallen so low." he grumbles to himself. he can't believe he, one of the most highly-ranked of the adepti, is considering throwing all of his problems on you. what would you even say if he asked you something like this?

xiao clicks his tongue and teleports to the rocks where he first met you on a whim. fortunately for him, you're nowhere to be seen. he seats himself in the same spot where you'd kissed him a few months ago. thinking of you isn't as difficult as he makes it out to be, but he does have trouble trying to piece together a hypothetical situation in which he would confide in you.

the kiss you shared (or rather, that you gave) was far from intimate, courtesy of xiao. the yaksha glares at the water below. kissing was something done between lovers, and you two were far from that. but if you were to truly accept him, would you kiss him again? would you even want to see his face again? you seemed so shocked by it that xiao thought he'd scared you for a while. all these questions and more swarm his mind as he stares at the rock he first saw you on, but there's only one that makes him curse lowly:

do you hate him?

"you came back."

an all too familiar voice breaks xiao from his reverie. he glances to the side and sees you looking at him from the water. your opal eyes are wide and fixed on him, making him feel the need to leave. "you really returned. i thought..." you frown solemnly. "i thought i would never see you again."

"is my presence so strange to you?" xiao's reply is sharper than he intended. he's at war with himself as he stares at you, part of him dying to put the mask back on while another wishes to run and hide again. "what made you think i was never going to return?" xiao regrets asking the second the question comes out of his mouth. he knows why. but then that would mean--

"i came back." you confirm his thoughts. "i... waited for you. for weeks, i-i thought you would come back, so i sat and sang for you, but..."

you didn't come goes unsaid. xiao inhales sharply at your expression. you're no longer looking at him, but there's not a hint of resentment on your face. you look heartbroken, but it doesn't seem like you blame him. why? why aren't you blaming him?

"i don't come to the harbor if i don't have a reason to." xiao doesn't know why he's telling you this. he doesn't know why he's still here, for crying out loud. "i protect it from afar. that is all."

there's a flicker of hope in your eyes. you vault yourself onto the rocks not far from him and xiao has to force himself not to stare. your scales look as though they're made of precious stones glimmering in the moonlight overhead. "then did you return to see me?" you ask. you sound so optimistic that it almost hurts.

xiao's eyebrows twitch. he turns his head away from you. "i told you that i return when i think it is necessary. you are not a necessity." he clenches his jaw; for some reason, he feels like he just lied.

he can't see it, but the hope drains from your face and a bitter smile replaces it. "...i see. forgive my hasty assumption. may i ask why you are here then?"

"what?"

"if you are protecting the harbor," you ask innocently, "then why are you here after the city has gone to sleep? you are away from all the humans, so i... was curious why you were here."

honestly, xiao has no idea why he's here. was he here to relive a memory? why would he need to relive it when it constantly replays on its own? he's silent for a moment as he tries to come up with an excuse. saying that he was here to see you didn't feel like much of the truth either. "don't you still owe me answers?" is all he can come up with.

he's not unjustified in asking -- you both know that. you did explain a little bit of your connection a few months ago, but since xiao left, most of his knowledge about you was pure guesswork. he turns his eyes back to you and sees you rubbing your arm nervously.

"where would you like me to begin?" you ask after a while.

were you seriously going to answer him this time? would he finally have some peace of mind? "why are you so willing to give me closure now?"

you wince. "'closure', you say..." your opal eyes are on him again, sending a shiver down his spine. "if i am being honest, alatus, i want to spend as much time with you as possible. if giving you the answers you want is the only way to achieve that goal, then i am more than willing."

you're desperate, xiao realizes. his absence may have affected you just as much, if not more so, than him. you were the one who was physically affected by the kiss -- maybe whatever bond you shared was stronger on your end than it was his. if that was the case, then xiao immediately knew what topic to avoid.

"you said before that your people were grateful to me. why?" xiao tries to list the questions in his head one by one. he doesn't realize until you make a quiet crooning noise under your breath that organizing his thoughts was a lot harder than usual.

"fairly recently, osial had been revived and subdued." you explain, your eyes drifting to the water. you flick your tail upwards, giving xiao a glimpse of the fin at the end. it's just as opaline as the rest of you. "we... my people, we have a rather long history with that monster. it was once--" you clamp your mouth shut suddenly.

xiao grunts. "talk. i won't stay if you remain tight-lipped." again, regret starts to pool when he sees you start to look panicked. he starts to take back his words, but you beat him to the punch.

"osial... created us." you admit. xiao's eyes blow wide and you cringe. "it is not something we take pride in. even though we were osial's creations, we worshipped the benevolent morax, powerful and intimidating as he may have been." your hand slowly rises to your neck and you wrap your fingers around your neck, revealing the webbing between them. "osial punished us for our insubordination for several millennia, even after his apparent demise. when he was revived, we..."

you trail off and tighten your grip around your neck. xiao is at your side in an instant, closing his hand over your wrist. it looked like you were about to choke yourself for speaking about the fallen god. "let go." he orders. something crosses his mind, then. "or is this something that osial did to your people?"

you nod shakily. thankfully, you let go of your neck after a few tense seconds and turned your eyes to your hand in xiao's grasp. something fond crosses your face and you make no move to free yourself. "we are cursed to remove our vocal cords if we speak of him with contempt." you explain. morbid as your words may be, your soft expression doesn't change. "thank you for stopping me, alatus."

the yaksha lets go of you. "you still haven't explained why your people are grateful to me."

"before his revival," you breathe, your gaze still fixed on where xiao had touched you, "in a time before my own, there are stories that tell of the adeptus who subdued the demons that tormented my people."

there's a dull throb of pain behind xiao's eyes. he can't remember anything. or at least, he doesn't want to remember it. he shuts his eyes for a second. "is that so?" he mutters. there are more pressing questions than this, really; xiao doesn't pay much attention to the things he does these days, anyways. he shifts topics for his own good. "tell me about your people. what are you?"

you look past xiao briefly and he feels the tiniest shiver shoot down his spine. he's well-aware of the many names given to him by adepti and mortals alike -- one of which mentions him having golden wings. that truly was a time before you; xiao himself has little memory of that time due to the horrors that occurred shortly after. the name "golden-winged king" was quickly lost to time, and xiao believes it to be reasonable. there is nothing about him now that is deserving of such a gilded title. he's glad he doesn't yearn for a time of peace which he can never have again, but now that you're bringing it up and telling him how important he is, he finds himself unconsciously sifting through his memories for something that would have connected him to you and your people.

there's a dull throb of pain behind xiao's eyes. he can't remember anything. or at least, he doesn't want to remember it. he shuts his eyes for a second. "is that so?" he mutters. there are more pressing questions than this, really; xiao doesn't pay much attention to the things he does these days, anyways. he shifts topics for his own good. "tell me about your people. what are you?"

“sirens”. that’s what humans call your species, according to you.

you actually laugh, much to xiao’s surprise; you seem to really like the name

the entire time, xiao struggles to understand why he’s so taken by the sound of your voice, the way you seem to fumble with his language, yet try to speak it anyways

as soon as you’re done, he asks about your soul bond

because as much as he hates to admit it, it’s starting to make sense to him

there’s something -- something he can’t explain. whatever it is, it’s coming to terms with this whole “soulmate” deal

but rather than explain with words, you straighten your back and...

and from your lips flows the most bewitching song xiao has ever heard.

it's hypnotic, the way the waves seem to rhythmically lap at your tail once your melody begins. everything surrounding you has turned its attention to you, but you pay it no mind. your eyes are closed, your lashes are brushing over your cheeks, and there is nothing else in this world but you and xiao.

perhaps he wasn't paying close enough attention when he'd heard you sing the first time. your song sounds familiar, yet so different. there's still no lyrics, but when you open your eyes to meet his own, he can hear the words loud and clear — the very same words he'd been hearing in his dreams.

xiao fully understands you and the connection he has to you. somehow, you managed to convey something to him in your song. he couldn't verbalize it even if he tried, but he gets it now: you're made to complete him.

it overwhelms him in an instant. "enough," xiao rasps, his voice foreign to his ears. you obey and reach towards him with concern, but he dodges your touch with a grunt. "i said enough." the words come and go from his mind as his world finally settles. he struggles to say anything for a while because it's not that he doesn't understand anymore -- it's that he does.

his soul, tattered and worn as it may be, has finally found its other half.

"i waited so long for you." you finally speak after a brief silence. "before we met, i... it’s tradition for my people to prepare their young for the day they meet their soul matches. but i… i never experienced any of it." you pause and give xiao a solemn smile. "i'm the last of my generation to find mine. you've hidden yourself quite well, alatus."

xiao regards you carefully, his mouth dry as the words "forgive me" tumble past his lips without his consent. he doesn’t know how to atone for making you wait for him for so long -- he doesn’t even think it possible at this point. but what he does know is that he can deny this all he wants -- he can have as many doubts as there are stars in the sky -- but the truth is before him, plain as day.

“oh, i didn’t tell you that to make you feel sorry!” you shake your head quickly. “it’s just that… well, now that i’ve found you, there’s so much i wish i could tell you.” before xiao can ask what you mean, you look over your shoulder and flinch. your actions are reminiscent of the first time the two of you met, and it makes something claw away at his insides, leaving him feeling raw and exposed. when you turn back to face him, the answer makes his breath catch.

“you’re going to leave.” xiao frowns at how strained he sounds. 

you smile apologetically. “yes, i am.” you do your best to scoot yourself closer to him, and he has to ball his hand into a fist to keep from latching on to you. you raise a hand and brush his jaw lightly at first, then fully cup it when he doesn’t refuse you. “will you meet me again, alatus?” you pause, uncertain. then, “please..?”

xiao doesn’t hesitate. he can’t. he nods briskly.

your fin-like ears twitch with delight. “then i’ll see you again soon.” 

"you--"

"may i kiss you?" 

"what?"

xiao blinks, stunned. you want to do what? why? he reaches up to grab your wrist gently. is that why you were holding him like this? xiao opens his mouth to say no, but finds that the word won't come to him. you're playing on his restraint just by being in front of him, and he doesn't know if that's good or bad. you start to pull away, but he tightens his hold on you. don’t go. "are kisses important to your people as well?" 

"i--" you fluster for a moment. "no. i just… would like to kiss you. i believe humans call this a parting gift.”

“a parting gift.” xiao deadpans. you turn your head away from him, clearly embarrassed by your actions, but seeing as how you’re stuck, you hold your ground and face him once more. there’s a glimmer of determination in your crystal eyes and xiao can tell that the battle has been decided. 

the dust settles, the rubble clears, and you’re leaning closer. “stop me if you wish.” you whisper. you two are close enough to share the same breath. xiao holds his. he lets you inch closer -- so close that your lips are brushing. your eyes finally slip closed, and without thinking, xiao does the same. this time, you kiss him and he lets you; he kisses back hesitantly and you accept him all the same. you taste…

you pull away before he can complete his thoughts. in a hurry, he asks: “will you come back?” 

your answering grin is all the answer he needs and on his next blink, you’re gone; you vault yourself into the waters below and speed away from him and the harbor, leaving tiny bubbles in your wake. and as monumental a moment this is for him -- as important as it is that he has a soulmate that he’s accepted as a part of his life -- xiao can only think one thing. he presses his fingers to his lips and straightens his back as he prepares to leave.

...you taste like a sweet dream.

✧ and here it is! finally!

✧ also, thank you so much hazel (@witch-hazels-musings)! i'm always so nervous to show my incomplete work to anybody (or any work, for that matter...) and you really helped boost my confidence in this. i would've trashed it if you hadn't given me some input... thank you :( <3

[babyboibucky]

The Match

Pairing: CEO!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: You come across your boss’ Tinder profile.

Word Count: 1,446

Warnings: HMMMM sexual tension 😏

A/N: I wrote this in a whirl and tried to format it through the app last night and it SUCKS so I’m posting this just now. Anyway, there will definitely be a smutty part two to this lmfao ya know it

Edit: PART 2 IS UP!!!

The Match Masterlist || MAIN MASTERLIST

Saturday night and you’re on your bed, wine-drunk and all as you mindlessly swiped through Tinder. You start to frown when none of the guys impressed you enough to swipe right. Their bios were all the same, revolving around their egos only to end up with the good ol’ “DTF” line.

Bored and disappointed, you almost exited the app until a very, very familiar face appeared on your screen.

“Holy shitballs, it’s our boss.” You sat up immediately, bringing your phone to your face for a close inspection.

Indeed, it was your boss James Barnes but he was using “Bucky” as his profile name. You wondered whether it was his real account or a poser one. But then you remembered his closest colleagues calling him that.

You snorted as you checked out his profile. He didn’t have a bio but had a couple of photos uploaded. And oh wow, is that a shirtless mirror photo?

You rarely worked closely with your boss but goddamn, sometimes you wished you did because he was a hot piece of ass.

“Should I swipe right...” you mumbled to yourself.

Would it be unprofessional to do so? But then again, you never really interacted with him that much. Just a couple of polite nods and greetings whenever you passed by him at the office. You weren’t even directly reporting to him.

That being said, you were quite sure that he wouldn’t swipe right on you given that you’re his employee. Of course he wouldn’t want to be the unprofessional one so being tipsy and all, you decided to take one for the team.

“Tss, what the hell.” You huffed out and swiped right.

Not even a second later, the “It’s a match!” message popped up on the screen almost immediately. You choked on your wine and dropped your phone, eyes wide and heart racing because you just matched with your fucking boss.

“Shit!” You hissed, diving onto the floor the pick your phone up.

If the message popped out as soon as you swiped right on him, then that means...

“He swiped right on me first, what the fuck!”

-

Monday came quickly and you’ve never been this restless before. You couldn’t wrap your head around the fact that you matched with your boss on Tinder. Neither of you messaged the other over the weekend but now that you were headed to work, you honestly didn’t know what to expect.

You debated whether to call in sick or maybe, pretend that you died? Pack your bags and perhaps fly to a different country and start anew? You were overacting but matching with your boss on a dating app known for hook-ups should be a valid reason to justify your thoughts.

Maybe James didn’t recognize you that’s why he swiped right. That was possible since you and him didn’t really work together. It’d be better if he swiped right by accident, his phone probably slipped from his hands. He probably doesn’t even know he matched with you, yeah, you decided to settle on that conclusion.

Taking a deep breath in, you fixed your hair before stepping out of your car. Mondays were meant for meetings so he probably wouldn’t be around the office anyway. You rushed over to the elevator and let out a sigh of relief when you didn’t have to share it with anyone.

That was until someone managed to slip a foot in between the doors, catching up to you before the elevators slammed shut.

“Oh.”

Well, well, well if it isn’t James “Bucky” Barnes. Out of all the people you had to share an elevator with, it just had to be him! And judging by how his eyes widened at the sight of you, the Tinder incident wasn’t simply an accident.

“Good morning.” He greeted, clearing his throat as he stood beside you.

James’ scent wafted in the air as soon as the doors slid close and he smelled divine. He smelled like a man, a man man and it almost made your eyes roll. You greeted him back with a soft voice, fighting so hard not to look at him because as always, he looked pretty damn good.

He was restless beside you, adjusting his suit and then his tie. You could see him through your peripheral vision, he kept on fixing his hair as well. Did he get a haircut? It was shorter than before, not that you were paying way too much attention to him.

Meanwhile, you too were fidgeting with your shoulder bag, picking at the leather and praying for this torture to be over before you could even lose control and slam your lips against his.

“How was your weekend?” James asked, glancing at you.

This was probably the longest conversation you had with your boss. You weren’t even sure which was more awkward, striking a conversation after the match or simply remaining quiet for the entire ride up.

“Um, it was good. Yours?” You asked, stammering a little as you stole a quick glance at him.

James nodded, “Good too. Interesting actually.”

Fuck! He knows, he so knows about the match.

You would have preferred complete silence over the elevator music echoing in the air while the both of you were obviously feeling the tension. Was the elevator really this slow?! And when did it get this hot?!

You started fanning yourself when you started to sweat from the awkwardness of it all. Bucky too could obviously feel it, the tension and the elephant in the room waiting to be acknowledged. He loosened his tie all of a sudden, popping the top buttons of his dress shirt which quickly reminded you of the shirtless pic in his profile.

You could feel the heat creep up to your neck and ears. With how bright the lights were in the elevator, it’d be easy for James to notice how red you turned.

“Kinda hot today, don’t you think?” He asked.

You let out a mirthless chuckle, “Yeah, really hot. I think the maintenance should have the air conditioning unit checked.” You breathed out, clearing your throat again as you wiped the sweat forming on your forehead.

For a couple of seconds there was nothing but the collective sounds of you and your boss clearing your throats. The tension was so thick you can literally touch it if you tried. You wanted to address the unspoken issue but how the hell were you going to do that? Jump on his bones? It would seem like a good idea to do so except that he was your boss and that would result to you losing your job.

You wanted to ask James though, whether he was aware that you were his employee when he swiped right. Actually, you just wanted to bring up the topic just to get it over with. Acknowledge the match and then pretend it didn’t happen to save you both from the embarrassment. Yeah, you could do that.

Unable to hold back anymore, you broke the silence to ask James a question.

“Did you swipe right on accident?”

“So are you down to fuck?”

You and James asked at the same time, his straightforward question making you weak in the knees because what the hell...

James bit his lip, shaking his head in response. “I didn’t.”

“Oh.” You blinked, unable to stop yourself from staring at James’ mouth when he ran his tongue over his lower lip before taking it in between his teeth as he looked you over with glazed eyes.

Damn that tongue, though. And damn those blue eyes too.

“Are you...?” He repeated again, reminding you of his question.

Your boss, whom you rarely interacted with in the office, just asked you whether you were down to fuck. Truthfully, you were only on Tinder because of boredom and it wasn’t your goal to actually hook-up with someone. But now that your hot boss swiped right on you and seemed to be really interested in you...

“I...uhh...” you stammered, not really knowing how to tell him that yes, you would very much like to be fucked by him.

The elevator dinged, interrupting the tension between you and James. The doors slid open and James quickly straightened up before walking ahead.

But not without turning around to look at you expectantly, waiting for a response.

Due to the pressure and the elevator doors beginning to close, you blurted out the first thing that you could muster.

“Yes, sir!”

You blushed at your response but it seemed to have stirred something in James because his eyes darkened as he smirked at you.

“Good. Then I’ll see you in my office in fifteen.”

-

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[oonajaeadira]

If You Will Let My Heaven Touch Your Stars (Ezra x f!reader)

Rating: Mature. 

Pairing: Ezra (Prospect film) x f!reader

Warnings: FLUFFY SMUT. INSPIRED BY THIS. Non-explicit oral (m and f receiving). Formatting may be strange in certain Tumblr themes due to paragraph spacing with the poetry.

A/N: Okay, y’all. I was looking for another reason to write some Ezra. I got inspired by this naughty confessional post and felt the need to rise to the challenge, but make it a bit soft. You know I’m allergic to writing physical doings without some emotional yearnings. So it has come to this. And I’m not sorry.

Summary: Ezra runs his mouth over some poetry. You run your mouth over some Ezra.

TAGLIST: you can always request to be on the taglist for this or any of my work. If you’d like to be on taglists for upcoming fic, please sign up here –> TAGLIST

MASTERLIST

_______________________________

You know that sigh. It will be shortly followed by a gravelly, dissatisfied “hm.”

“Hm.” 

Next will come the impatient flipping of pages as Ezra learns that the book he’s chosen from the stack he got in trade on the Pug is…”less than literary and more than malignant.”

“What’cha reading, Ez.” The main node on the electropulse generator blew during the last harvest and you’ve been doing your best to repair it for the better part of the scaling period. Better to keep eyes on the electrics than let them wander over to his bedroll where he’s stripped to his skivvies, propped up against a crate, reading.

The rotation of Ranakh-4 is almost sixty hours, and in the north hemisphere there’s always light. Should be perfect for prospectors to take shifts and get things done, but instead, it creates a scaling period--a good fifteen-hour window of intense heat and sunlight that’s too dangerous to be exposed to for long, causing lots of nasty side effects. Including skin scaling. Hence the name. So during that period you and Ezra hide in the cooled tent, sleeping, polishing gems, maintaining equipment, wasting time, and generally trying not to annoy each other too much.

That’s a joke between you. In the years you’ve known him, Ez has yet to get under your skin. Ezra’s usually up for a game of dice or five-stand during scaling period, and if you’ve got gear to clean or inventory to count, he’s good for a story. Or ten.

But after the third rotation he stopped playing games of chance with you and his stories got gradually less... crusty. He still had a lot to say, but he stuck mostly to mining anecdotes, weaving around salacious details and editing himself in the moment.

And you’re pretty sure you know why.

This isn’t the first posting you’ve had with Ezra.

There was the assignment on Phintreas. The job on TG-19. The second assignment on Phintreas--that one it was just the two of you. Just like this one. 

There was a moment near the end of that run when you took a break from digging to stretch, arching your back in the dappled sunlight and pulling your arms up and back toward the thick foliage tops. There were singing insectoid creatures on Phintreas and you’d dropped your wrists to your head to listen to their song a little, closing your eyes and hearing in their hum the chords of a song you used to love.

It was just a few seconds, the warm air on your bare shoulders, the long thin trees--actually large grass--rising and swaying above. A pleasant stretch in your lower back. But there was something off. Your ears were full of insect song but there was something missing. 

The sound of Ezra’s digging had stopped.

You turned to find him taking a break, leaning on his shovel, jumpsuit open and pulled down to a knot at his waist like yours. Dirt-streaked arms and undershirt, looking at you, staring with sad eyes, the long slopes of his mustache running into his patchy beard making him look like he was pouting more than he was. Probably. Totally lost in thought, his eyes slid down your torso. When he woke to the fact that you caught him using you as a backdrop for reverie, he didn’t even have the balls to be embarrassed. Just realigned his focus on his shovel and went back to digging, the veins straining out on his big hands.

“You okay, Ez?”

“As well as one can be, sweetheart. I feel we’re close. It is a fine day full of wonderments.”

You’d thought about that look in the days afterward. Didn’t really know what it meant for you. Until the final sleep cycle on that grass planet, the wind traveling through the fields making the grasses sing hollow and low in the night. 

“What’cha reading, Ez?” You’d come to learn that it was a magic question, one that not only got you an explanation, but perhaps a chapter or two in his baritone twang.

And that night, as you packed your final bag, he swung the spine around to read out, “Papas Cordel, Love Verses.”

He didn’t ask you if you wanted to hear any. He just started to read.

Softly. Slowly. The words were innocuous on their own but their combination was sinful, his voice melting at the back of your brain, lifting the fine hairs of your neck, slithering down your spine before making an orbit to press upon your core and vibrate there. 

He never said goodnight. Just read you a few poems full of worship and yearning in that sonorous voice of his, then rolled over and went to sleep. It left you in a panic, trying to control your breathing, in full understanding of what that look from a few days ago had really meant.

And for the duration of your next couple of jobs you spent some time in regret, wishing you’d decoded your feelings sooner or that he’d made his own clearer. You’d vowed that if you ever had the chance to go back and live that night again you wouldn’t hesitate to….what? To do what? You never got that far. Didn’t matter. Time doesn’t go backwards. After a while, it was easy enough to convince yourself that you’d just read too much into it, that you didn’t really feel anything and neither did Ez. He had just been tired and staring into space that day. And he’d just been aesthetically moved by the song of the grasses in the night wind. It was a trick of the light, and the more you rationalized it, the further the memory slipped into the realm of silly fantasy.

So when this assignment came, you’d had time enough to leave the fantasy behind and met Ezra as you always had--as a friend and a damn talented prospector you were happy to dig with. The man always got his haul and getting paired with him always meant profit.

It only took one scaling period to make you realize you were lying to yourself. 

Scaling period means getting somewhere shaded and cooled and making yourself as comfortable as possible. Which means stripping down to essentials. All those dice games trying not to look at Ezra’s broad, bared chest, looking up from a hand of cards to find his eyes quickly darting away from you…. By the third rotation you’d noticed that neither of you could make eye contact with the other anymore and after that, Ezra generally spent his downtime during scaling periods laying on his bedroll in his skivvs, reading one of the dozen books he’d scavenged back on the station.

You weren’t sure if you were flattered or embarrassed or even injured that he wouldn’t move on whatever he was tense about. But, ultimately, this arrangement was easier.

Or so you lied to yourself.

A “what’cha reading, Ez” got you a few chapters of an old time-travel adventure or a philosophical treatise on the life of some forgotten pioneer while you mended a garment or recounted the supply of viable drill bits or tried to fix the damn faulty electropulse generator for the millionth time. Something rollicking and full of resonance to keep your ears busy and your mind distracted while you focused your eyes on anything but Ezra’s bronze skin and sable eyes and full lips and big hands and thick thighs and--

This time he clicks his tongue and runs a hand through his hair, humming a high note in a kind of frustrated laugh. “I won’t devastate your ears on this one, sweetheart. Not much of interest here but some poor soul ruttin’ and scraping for talent that eludes them. How this found its way into a thing to be bought and sold I will never understand.”

And yet, he keeps reading. Silently.

After a few minutes and another wire successfully cleaned and reconnected, you repeat yourself, taunting him.

“What’cha reading, Ez.”

“Mm.” He just flips through a few more pages, refusing to answer.

“Hey.” You chuckle into your work. “What’cha reading.” 

You hear a huge intake of breath before a hold and a forced release.

“Wow,” you laugh. “Fine. Don’t waste breath on it. Just tell me which one it is so I can avoid it later.”

“Love and other Stars by Aeon Aido Raja.”

“I see. What’s it about?”

“Sadly, it is about a poet who cannot seem to make the match between words and sentiment; a volume of supposed amorous verse.”

“Amorous verse,” your hands stop working on their own. “Love...poetry?” There’s a sudden flashback to the sound of hollow reeds and soothing verses in the night. The words are a program in your brain, overwriting your inhibition and professionalism, pushing you to a deeply-coded goal to calm the flutter in your chest.

“So it claims. Although I fear it lacks full understanding of both--” His voice cuts out as he realizes you’ve stood and you’re moving toward him and his wide eyes lock to yours as you sit beside him on the bedroll. “Now what has gotten into you, sweetheart?”

You know exactly what’s gotten into you. The triggered wish of returning to that night, the built-up tension of dancing around each other in your underwear, trying to deny what’s going on, watching him purposefully respect you when you know he feels something, when he knows you do too--

What was it you were going to do if you had a chance to go back to that last night on the grass planet? Time to find out.

“Read to me.”

Ezra hesitates, unsure. “This?”

“Read it.”

His eyes flick down to follow the quick fold of your lips as you wet them with your tongue, unconsciously mimicking you, before fumbling his gaze back to the book and, with a regretful sigh, begins.

“I have never told you When your lips found my own I have never told you My dearest--

“Walking through the light of a moon in decline-- Can you blame me if I steal your kiss? If I call you to my side before it collides with the ground?”

When he looks for your reaction, you’re not sure if he’s pleading with you for permission to stop or continue.

Shit. He’s right. It isn’t great. But you’re here now, you’re going to make the most of it.

“That’s not...so bad.” And then you find out what you would have done that night--or at least how you’d start--by showing him your raised palm, lowering it slowly toward him. “Tell me if you want me to stop.” Your hand travels down through the air, just to the inch above his skivvs, waiting a moment in the aura of radiated heat there, before settling lightly over him. He never says no, never takes his eyes from yours, the only reaction coming from a small lift in his chest, the corner of his mouth curling just a fraction, and the fabric beneath your hand quickly becoming the only thing there to qualify as soft.

“Sweetheart, what you’re beginning here--”

“The only words I want from you are that poem. I want to hear you read. You stop, I stop.”

The heat hangs heavy between you, burns beneath your hand. And with a huffed exhale, Ezra starts again.

“I have never told you When your lips found my own I have never told you My dearest--

“Walking through the light of a moon in decline-- Can you blame me if I steal your kiss? If I call you to my side before it collides with the ground?”

Supporting him from underneath, you’ve begun running your thumb up and down him, and his breath hitches, bringing him to a stop. So you stop.

“You stop, I stop, Ez.”

“Believe me, gentle one, I do not wish the impediment of your affections--”

“Then don’t stop.”

In a beautiful panic, Ezra looks back to the poem. “You sure you want this one?”

You nod. “I don’t care how good it is. That’s the poem I want. Keep going. I've always liked your voice. I know you can make it pretty.”

He stares at the page a moment, and you push him--literally--gasping into a start.

“If ever I could tell you When my heaven touched your stars If ever I could tell you Beloved--”

You stop palming him when he stops to breathe, and it’s only when you trace his waistband with your fingertips that he swallows and continues, willing you to keep going--

“Waking in the night to the aching void of your embrace-- Can you forgive me if I plead your name? If I summon you to my body from wherever you are?”

Whether it’s the want in his voice or just getting further into the words, the poem is already getting better. His eyebrows begin to push together and arch, as you stretch the top of his underwear down, wrapping your hand around him. His words start riding the occasional groan which just resonate with you more and you rock yourself against the bedroll in time with your gentle, yearning pulls--

“You hold me adroitly With accurate proximity To keep your breath and my breath Two founts and one pool. To swim a in star-reflective stream of our holy recreation--”

He’s doing so well, the words wandering out deep and breathy, so beautifully controlled...until you lower your mouth to him.

Then there’s a strangled staccato grunt as he adjusts, takes a couple of quick breaths and continues--

“But your body is a.....wildfire Your lips a destruction And I give my everything over to your….cleansing devastation.”

Oh, his struggle is glorious. You can feel him trying not to buck, needing to blow out a breath between pursed lips here and there to concentrate on the print. He reads with intent, leaning into context and feeling, making a gift to you of every word.

“I have yearned for you to find me worthy of a spark An ignition... The rebirth of your combustible attentions.”

He pauses again to breathe, and while you allow him a small reprieve, he’s stopped a little too long and you abruptly halt. When you pull back to look up in reprimand, he gives you a soft smile through his panting, shaking his head in wonder. You know he’ll have plenty of praises when this is over, but he doesn’t seem to want to break the spell to say them now. When you return his little smile, he looks back to the page and continues, prompting you to return to your own administrations.

“How you draw from me each sweet effusion-- Every secret vein untapped-- Now yours in expert execution, Now open to your burning maw.”

He pushes through the poetry rather than into you, allowing you to hear him and match him. Your body begins to counter-react as you feel him brimming, turning on more need in you than you’ve felt in a while, and you show him just how well he’s doing by doing well by him. 

There’s a shift in his voice as more breath enters in and nonverbal noises begin to punctuate the words; a shift in his body as his fingers tangle in your hair and grip tightly, suggesting a final rhythm-- 

“But within the fire An aperture of...divine precipitation Where those of us who live untouched Can go to drown To die To howl…..! To see the blessed face of eternity Or the….busting open….of a thousand….wretched….stars-- You-call-me-to-sinful-prayer You-invoke-my-abject-soul I find myself in debt…!...and thrall…!... to your superior…!...divinity--”

When he stops reading this round, you show mercy as he pounds his fist into the bedroll and makes his own additions to the poem, exclamations made up of your name and curses and calls to higher powers. You can only expect a man to expel from himself wondrously one method at a time, and Ezra’s earned his reward so beautifully.

Damn his opinion. The poem was perfect. You chose correctly. Either that, or Ez’s tongue really can spin any old refuse into gold.

But the book is still held high, and as you lift from him and guide him through his aftershocks with your hand, he breathes heavy though the final verse--

“This is how I love you from afar With agony and forlorn words While you hover forever in my purview A shaft of dazzling incandescence Shining down from your sun/star Through the glass of my desire Starts and restarts an everlasting blaze”

Then, setting the book reverently on the bedroll, he takes your face in his hands, dragging his thumbs across your lips, no longer needing the page for the last lines.

“If ever I could tell you And if you will let my heaven touch your stars If ever I could tell you Beloved--”

Ezra’s kiss is achingly grateful. He tries to put into one kiss the loving equivalent of everything you’ve just done for him.

When he pulls back, he gives you the tiniest rough shake, a punctuation of his playful consternation. “Mmm,” he grunts. “While I am glad to know you find my recitals pleasing, you’re about to find out that my talent for oral ministrations do not stop at mere recitation.” With a miner’s strong arms he flips you over him onto the bedroll, making short work of your underwear and pinning your legs around his shoulders in a matter of seconds. “Now, I will not be so cruel as to make you put words to my reciprocation, unless you’d like to fill the silence to direct me to your will. Or say what you please. I will not be able to add to the conversation as I will be otherwise occupied.”

You don’t know if it’s years of running his mouth or wagging his tongue or yapping his jaw, but he’s well practiced in using allllll the muscles therein to help finish what poetry couldn’t quite accomplish.

At one point you think of surprising him and trying your own hand at reading while being entertained. But when you fumble for the book, it opens to the same poem.

But not the same poem.

The opening lines are there: “I have never told you When your lips found my own I have never told you My dearest--Walking through the light of a moon in decline--Can you blame me if I steal your kiss? If I call you to my side before it collides with the ground?”

And that’s it.

That’s where it ends. The whole published poem--a mere seven lines.

Oh, Kevva. That’s...that means….

Damn, Ezra. The mouth on you.

The book drops to the bedroll.

And you break into pieces as his heaven masterfully consumes your stars.

________________

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