#or if i want to contribute to a semi serious conversation that would need more than one sentence to be understood

[fiomeras]

Does anyone else meticulously plan their conversations or am i the only freak in this clubhouse... Like planning and writing things you wanna say beforehand before copypasting it over to where you want it to be said, while waiting a few seconds in between as to make it feel like you wrote it "at the moment"

[virgoilluminati]

WORLD CLASS

Chapter 6

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A/N: Hey guys, long time no see. Happy 2024! I hope everything is going the way you wanted this year to go so far. Apologies for being M I A. Cannot promise that it won't happen again, but I'm trying honestly. Here is the next part of the world class fanfic - currently posting archived posts so hopefully my posts will be a bit more frequent. Anywayysss enjoy :)

ps: i know that one of the photos y/n is wearing an orlando kit, please just imagine this as if its the england kit (i tried looking at couldn't find a single photo.)

y/nmorrison_

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y/nmorrison_ semi final jitters. First starting lineup for england!

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judebellingham - proud boyfriend moment ❤️

ellatoone game time! ⚽️

leahwilliamson my arsenal girl 🔴⚪️

lucybronze: well done lil sis. ✨💕

As the trio—Y/N, Russo, and Toone—receive a summons to meet with Serena Weigman, the tension rises once again.

Seated side by side in Serena’s office, the trio exchanges anxious glances, awaiting Serena’s decision. Before the manager can delve into the details, a sudden commotion outside the office draws her attention.

In Serena’s absence, Russo and Toone begin to whisper to each other, casting furtive glances in your direction. The mystery surrounding their hushed conversation only fuels your confusion.

Finally, unable to contain your curiosity, you ask, “What’s going on, guys? Why the secret conversation?”

Toone hesitates, exchanging a glance with Russo before breaking into a grin. "Okay, here's the deal," she begins, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "If either of us gets the chance to replace James, we've decided we'll give it up for you."

Your eyes widen in disbelief. "What? Why would you do that?"

Russo chimes in, "Because, Y/N, we genuinely believe you deserve this opportunity more than anyone. You've been giving your all on and off the pitch. It's your time to shine."

You, humbled and slightly overwhelmed, stammer, "But... I don't understand. Why me?"

Toone smiles, placing a reassuring hand on your shoulder. "Because we're a team, and we know you'll make the most of this chance. We believe in you."

Russo nods in agreement. "You've got the heart, the spirit, and the skill. This is your moment, Y/N."

As Serena returns to her office, the trio—You, Russo, and Toone—shifts their attention back to the manager. Serena, her expression serious yet compassionate, begins laying out the scenario.

"Alright, girls, here's the situation," Serena starts, her eyes moving from one player to the next. "As you know, James is out due to the red card. It's a crucial match, and decisions have to be made."

Your stomach churns with a mix of nerves and anticipation. You exchange glances with Russo and Toone, both of whom share a silent understanding.

"We've got options, and I need your input," Serena continues. "Toone, Russo, both of you have been in excellent form. But here's the catch—we can only pick one."

Serena pauses, letting the weight of her words settle. Outside the office, the buzz of activity hints at the significance of the moment.

"Toone," Serena turns to the forward, "you've been a force up front. Your agility and goal-scoring prowess are invaluable."

Toone nods, her eyes reflecting the gravity of the decision at hand.

"Russo," Serena shifts her focus, "your ability to create opportunities and your strategic play have been crucial for us."

Russo acknowledges Serena with a determined nod.

"And then, there's you, Y/N," Serena says, turning to you with a hint of a smile. "A versatile player, a team player, someone who's demonstrated resilience both on and off the field."

You feel a mixture of pride and nervousness as Serena acknowledges your contribution.

"Before we make a decision," Serena continues, "I need your honest thoughts. Speak up. What are your strengths, and how do you think you can contribute to this crucial match?"

Toone and Russo take turns expressing their confidence in their abilities, emphasizing how they could make a difference on the pitch. You, though still battling the lingering nausea, speak about your adaptability, teamwork, and the determination to give your best, regardless of the position.

Serena listens attentively, weighing your words. Just as the discussion reaches a pivotal point, another commotion from outside interrupts the conversation. Serena excuses herself briefly, promising to return to finalize the decision.

In Serena's absence, Toone and Russo exchange glances, and you can't help but feel the intensity of the moment. The unspoken camaraderie among the three players resonates in the room.

Finally, Serena returns, her expression resolute."The decision is made," Serena declares. "Toone, Russo, thank you for your commitment. But today, Y/N, you're stepping into James' position. We believe in your ability to make a difference on the field."

A mix of surprise and gratitude washes over you. Toone and Russo, true to their whispered agreement, nod in support. The trio, now united in a shared mission, leaves Serena's office, ready to face the challenges that await them on the pitch.

jude's story.

In the early morning light, the Madrid football stadium stands quiet as your voice echoes, phone pressed against your ear. On the other side of the world, you pace the field in Australia, cleats clicking, engaged in your conversation with Jude.

"I did it jude, I'm on the lineup!"

"Ahhh! Congratulations my love, I am so proud!"

"I'm shitting myself though. What if I mess up?"

"Y/N, you won't." Jude's frown is evident through the screen.

"But what if-" Jude interupts you, knowing her common weakness of self doubt.

Jude: "You know, Y/N, I've been thinking. I really want to get a dog."

You chuckle, adjusting your kit, "A dog, Jude? Seriously? That's your way of making me feel better?"

Jude, excitement in his voice, "Well, yeah! Imagine having a loyal companion to share the victories and defeats with. Plus, I could use some unconditional love."

Your tone shifting, you sigh, "I love the idea, Jude, but you know our situation. We have a tiny apartment in London, and with our careers, we aren't home much. A dog might not fit in."

Jude, thoughtful, responds, "You've got a point. But think about it, Y/N - a dog could bring so much joy into our lives. We could make it work."

You chuckle, "I can just see us trying to fit a dog bed next to all our football gear. It's a charming image, but practicality might get in the way."

Jude: "Practicality? Since when did footballers worry about that? We'll figure it out. Maybe hire a dog walker or recruit teammates for puppy play dates."

You smile at the mental image, saying, "You're optimistic, Jude. I love it. Let's make a deal: if we ever get a dog, it has to be an arsenal fan. No exceptions."

"how about England fan, as a compromise?"

"Deal!"

Jude laughs "Now, speaking of dogs, while you're preparing for your World Cup match, I'll start researching local shelters here in Madrid. We might find the perfect furry friend."

You grin, "In Madrid? That's ambitious, but I like it. Just make sure it's a dog that can keep up with both our busy schedules."

The conversation takes an unexpected turn as Jude hesitates, "You know, Y/N, we've been talking about this dog and our hectic schedules. What if... What if you moved in with me in Madrid? We could find an apartment here, and maybe that way, we can make having a dog work."

You, on the other end of the line, feel a mix of surprise and panic. "Move to Madrid? I mean, it sounds tempting, but that's a huge step, Jude. My club is in Arsenal, my family's in London. It's not just about football; it's about my whole life."

Jude, realizing the impact of his suggestion, softens his tone, "I didn't mean to upset you, Y/N. I just want us to find a way to make it work, you know? The dog, being together more, all of it."

You, taking a deep breath, reply, your voice wavering, "I appreciate that, Jude, I really do. But moving to another country, leaving everything I know behind, it's a huge step."

And with that, the conversation ends on a somber note, leaving you to gather your thoughts and prepare for your match, while Jude grapples with the realization that his suggestion has brought unexpected tension into your relationship.

Feeling the weight of the conversation, you take a deep breath and reply, your voice strained, “Jude, this is a lot to process. I’ve got a match to get ready for, and we both need time to think. Let’s talk about this later, okay?”

As you navigate the tumult of emotions, Jude, sensing your struggle, starts to respond, “Y/N, I didn’t mean to make this–”

Before he can finish, you interrupt, “Jude, I’ve got to go. Lucy’s coming into my room, and I need to focus. We’ll talk later, okay?”

Jude, left with his thoughts and the unresolved conversation, reluctantly agrees, “Yeah, sure. Take care, Y/N.”

The line goes silent, leaving Jude to grapple with the weight of the discussion. On the other side of the world, you face the challenge of compartmentalizing your emotions and preparing for the match ahead. The distance, both physical and emotional, lingers as you each retreat to your respective worlds, carrying the burden of a conversation that has taken an unexpected turn.

As you sit there, attempting to process the unexpected turn in your conversation with Jude, Lucy walks into your room, concern etched on her face.

Lucy: “Y/N, everything okay? You seem a bit off.”

You, forcing a small smile, reply, “Yeah, just… unexpected news from Jude. We were talking about getting a dog, and then he suggested I move to Madrid. It’s a lot to take in.”

Lucy, sensing the weight in your words, sits down beside you, “Move to Madrid? That’s a huge step. What are you thinking?”

You, staring into the distance, admit, “I don’t even know, Lucy. Arsenal is my home, my family is here, and I can’t just uproot everything. It’s overwhelming.”

Lucy, offering a supportive hand, says, “Take your time, Y/N. You don’t need to make any decisions right now. And if you ever need to talk about it, I’m here.”

As you sit in contemplative silence, Lucy gently reveals, “You know, Y/N, I was actually considering mentioning you to FC Barcelona. But I held back because I knew how close you are with Leah at Arsenal. However, things have changed now.”

You, looking at Lucy with surprise, ask, “You were going to mention me to Barcelona?”

Lucy nods, “Yeah, your talent deserves recognition, and Barcelona is always looking for top-tier players. I didn’t want to complicate things, but now that Jude has brought up this move, maybe it’s worth exploring. You could commute from Madrid and play with me and keira. No pressure, though. Just a thought.”

You, processing the unexpected turn of events, say, “That’s a lot to consider, Lucy. I appreciate your honesty and support. Let me think about it.”

Before Lucy leaves, you ask her quietly, “Please, Lucy, don’t tell anyone about this. Not yet.”

Lucy, with a reassuring smile, responds, “Never. Your decisions are yours to share when you’re ready. I’ve got your back, Y/N.”

And with that promise hanging in the air, Lucy leaves the room, leaving you to contemplate the potential paths ahead, the weight of the conversation still heavy on your shoulders.

england & lionessess

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england: kick off in 10 minutes, some of the cutest scenes in australia today, including this precious little mascot Tilly.

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user105 so cute 💕

englandfans06 it's coming home 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

In the bustling waiting area, players clutch their mascots, standing alongside their Australian opponents. You, battling persistent nausea, can't pinpoint the cause. A quick, vivid flashback engulfs you - you remember feeling queasy and unsettled just after your meeting with Sarina..

You take a deep breath, trying to compose yourself. The vivid image of the office, the faint scent of paperwork, and the subtle anxiety that lingers in the air become etched in your memory. You shake off the unsettling thoughts, determined to focus on the task at hand - the World Cup semi-final.

Returning to the sidelines, your eyes catch the glimpse of your little mascot - a charming girl with braided hair named Tilly. You greet her with a warm smile. "Hello there, what's your name?"

The little girl beams back, "I'm Tilly!"

Kneeling down to Tilly's level, you create an instant connection. "Hi, Tilly! Who's your favorite football team?" you ask, genuinely curious.

Tilly hesitates for a moment, then responds, "Arsenal."

"No way! Who's your favorite player? Is it Leah, 'cause she's brilliant-"

She shakes her head.

"Meado?"

She shakes her head.

"Then who?" You giggle. Tilly hesitates for a minute before pointing at you.

Taken aback, you chuckle. "Me? Really? That's so special, Tilly. Thank you!"

You compliment Tilly on her adorable braids, expressing genuine admiration. Standing up again, you take Tilly's hand, leading her toward the pitch. The exchange transforms the waiting area into a moment of connection and inspiration.

As you step onto the pitch, the roar of the crowd intensifies. You, still feeling nausea, twirl Tilly around, creating a moment of joy. Your laughter echoes, a delightful contrast to the tense energy of the impending match. Your teammates, witnessing the scene, join in the merriment.

The referee's whistle signals the start of the match. You, still holding Tilly's hand, guide her toward the center circle for pre-game rituals. Tilly, wide-eyed, takes in the enormity of the stadium.

During the national anthems, you stand with Tilly, singing along proudly. The little girl, mimicking the anthem, adds charm to the solemn moment. You exchange a knowing glance with Tilly, a silent acknowledgment of the shared experience.

As the anthems conclude, you crouch down to Tilly's level. "You ready to watch an amazing game, Tilly?"

Tilly nods enthusiastically. "Yes! And you're gonna score, right?"

Y/N grinned. "I'll give it my best shot. And I have you cheering me on, so that's like having a secret superpower."

With a final exchange of smiles, you part ways momentarily as the match begins. Fueled by Tilly's infectious enthusiasm, you dive into the game with renewed vigor. Throughout the match, you steal glances toward the stands, where Tilly waves her miniature flag, cheering wholeheartedly. The documentary crew, capturing every emotion, immortalizes this heartwarming chapter of the World Cup journey.

Lucy Bronze and Leah Williamson gather the team for a powerful pep talk. Lucy's embrace envelops each player, setting the tone for unity and determination.

"Ladies, today is special," Lucy declares, her voice ringing with authority. "We're welcoming you onto this grand stage for your debut. We've seen your dedication, and now it's time to show the world just how brilliant you are."

Leah steps forward, her words infusing the air with a mix of authority and camaraderie. "Today, we beat the Australians not just for a place in the finals but for the pride of wearing this jersey and for the legacy we're building together."

The team absorbs the intensity of the moment, a shared resolve forming as they prepare to face the formidable Australian opponents.

"The Australians are tough, relentless," Leah warns. "This won't be easy, but we've faced challenges before, and we've conquered them. Today, we fight for each other, and we fight to win."

As they disperse to their positions on the field, Lucy and Leah's words linger, becoming a driving force for a team ready to turn challenges into triumphs. The pitch awaits, and with your debut adding an extra layer of significance, the England Women's National Team stands united, ready to leave their mark on the journey to the finals.

During half-time, you, overwhelmed by emotions stemming from the recent decision to consider moving from Arsenal to FC Barcelona, run out, seeking solace. Unbeknownst to you, Lucy, who knows the source of your distress, observes your hurried exit and decides to follow.

As you find yourself in the bathroom, tears streaming down your face, Lucy enters, concerned. "Y/N, what's happening? You seem upset."

Surprised by Lucy's presence, you try to brush it off. "It's nothing, Lucy. Just need a moment."

Lucy, aware of the underlying issue, insists, "Y/N, I know there's more to it. You don't have to face it alone."

Meanwhile, Leah, approaches the bathroom to check on you. Lucy intercepts her, blocking the entrance. "Leave her be, Leah. She needs space."

Leah, puzzled and concerned, insists, "Lucy, Y/N is my best friend. I can't just leave her alone when she's upset. What's going on?"

Lucy, torn between loyalty to you and the desire to protect your privacy, hesitates. "This is not something for everyone to know. Y/N needs time."

Leah, feeling the tension escalate, demands, "Lucy, I need to know. What's bothering Y/N? She doesn't keep secrets from me."

Lucy, frustrated and grappling with the conflicting responsibilities, finally blurts out, "She was considering a move to FC Barcelona. But nothing's confirmed—"

Leah, stunned by the revelation, looks at Lucy with disbelief. The confrontation shifts from concern for you to a heated exchange between Lucy and Leah, each grappling with their roles in your life and the challenges of balancing personal matters with the demands of the game.

Leah's eyes harden with frustration and confusion. "Wait—What?!!"

Lucy, defensive yet determined, replies, "Because she's trying to protect you, Leah. She knows how much you care. And you would also convince her not to go."

Leah, not satisfied with the explanation, shoots back, "Y/N and I share everything. What gives you the right to decide otherwise?"

Lucy, now equally frustrated, retorts, "I'm trying to do what's best for her, Leah. Sometimes that means making tough decisions."

Leah, her emotions bubbling over, exclaims, "Best for her? You don't get to decide what's best for Y/N without considering how it affects the people who actually care about her!"

Sarina, hearing the heated exchange between Lucy and Leah, steps into the bathroom, her presence commanding attention. "Enough of this," she declares.

The confrontation between Lucy and Leah intensifies, and you find yourself caught in the crossfire of conflicting emotions. Finally, you can't take it anymore. "Enough! Both of you, just stop!" The weight of your emotions spills over as you storm out of the bathroom, leaving Lucy and Leah in stunned silence.

Lucy and Leah exchange a tense glance but follow Sarina back into the main room, where the team is gathered. Sarina swiftly transitions into discussing the plans for the second half of the match, redirecting the focus to the task at hand. "As I was saying," Sarina begins, her tone authoritative, "we need to tighten our defense, capitalize on their weaknesses, and keep the pressure on. You, Y/N, are key in this; I want you to exploit the gaps in their formation."

Determined to contribute despite the emotional turmoil, you nod in agreement. The rest of the team, sensing the underlying tension, focuses on Sarina's strategic instructions, trying to maintain the morale built throughout the tournament.

The second half begins with renewed intensity. The team, despite the recent upheaval, channels their energy into the game. You, amidst the emotional turmoil, push yourself to deliver on the pitch. Lucy and Leah, recognizing the need to set aside personal differences, demonstrate a united front in their positions.

The opposing team notices a shift in the England Women's National Team's dynamics but can't exploit it. The players, committed to their roles, continue to execute the game plan, rallying together for a common goal.

As the match progresses, the team's focus becomes more pronounced. The exchange of glances and unspoken tensions are momentarily set aside for the collective pursuit of victory. The pursuit of victory resonates with every skillful play, and the once-challenged morale finds its way back, fueled by the shared determination to advance to the finals.

At the crucial moment, as the ball finds its way to you, Leah's words echo in your mind - a reminder of the strength that comes from leaning on your teammates. Your legs burn with exhaustion, but the goal beckons like an elusive dream slipping through your fingertips. With a burst of determination, you unleash a powerful, swerving kick that sends the ball soaring through the air.

Time seems to slow as the ball arcs towards the goal, every heartbeat resonating with the collective hope of the team and the echoes of the crowd. The goalkeeper, stretching in vain, can only watch as the ball, driven by your unwavering spirit, slams into the back of the net.

A thunderous roar erupts from the stands, the celebration echoing through the stadium. You, momentarily suspended in the bliss of triumph, are engulfed by your teammates, the weight of the match and the underlying tensions momentarily forgotten.

With the scoreboard now reading 2-1 in favor of England, the atmosphere in the stadium crackles with anticipation. The England Women's National Team is on the verge of securing their place in the World Cup finals.

In a strategic move, Russo enters thepitch, replacing Kelly. The team, riding the momentum of your earlier goal, senses the opportunity to solidify their lead. You, eager to contribute further, seize an opportunity near the sideline.

As the clock ticks down, you skillfully maneuver the ball, evading defenders with a series of deft moves. Russo, positioned strategically in the box, makes a decisive run, anticipating your intention. With precision, you deliver a pinpoint cross that arches gracefully into the penalty area.

The stadium holds its collective breath as Russo, timing her approach perfectly, leaps and connects with the ball. A resounding thud echoes through the stadium as Russo's header sends the ball hurtling into the net. The crowd erupts into ecstatic cheers as the scoreboard now proudly displays 3-1, marking a significant advantage for the England team.

You, having orchestrated the play, share a triumphant moment with Russo. The teammates, their connection evident in the precision of that crucial play, are engulfed by the jubilant celebrations of their colleagues. The dramatic turn of events showcases the resilience and teamwork that define the England Women's National Team, solidifying their position in the World Cup finals.

Amidst the celebratory chaos, as you and Russo revel in the glory of the goal that solidified England's lead, Lucy approaches with a compliment. "Y/N, you'd make a great addition to Barcelona," she remarks, a smile on her face.

While you reciprocate the smile, a sudden gut punch of realization strikes you. The prospect of moving to another team, even if just in conversation, reopens the emotional wounds stirred by earlier discussions. Despite the outward composure, your internal struggle intensifies.

Feeling the weight of conflicting emotions, you seek solace in the familiar embrace of Leah, who, overwhelmed with emotion, has tears streaming down her face. The joy of reaching a World Cup final, an elusive dream for Leah until now, has rendered her speechless.

You, sensing Leah's vulnerability, attempt to apologize for the recent bickering, but before you can utter a word, Leah pulls you into a tight hug. In that embrace, the unspoken apologies and the weight of your recent conflicts seem to dissipate. Leah's words ring clear, breaking through the noise of the celebration. "Bickering or not," Leah whispers, her voice choked with emotion, "none of it matters right now. We made it, Y/N. We're in a World Cup final."

The significance of the moment hangs in the air as you hold each other, your shared journey filled with struggles and triumphs culminating in this monumental achievement. The team, once fractured by personal conflicts, finds unity in the pursuit of a common goal. In that embrace, you and Leah celebrate not only the victory on the pitch but also the resilience of your friendship amid the challenges of elite football.

As your and Russo's celebration echoes through the stadium, the commentators seize the moment to emphasize the historical significance of this match for both the women's and men's teams. "Incredible scenes here as Y/N's goal propels the England Women's National Team to a 3-1 lead, securing their spot in the World Cup final. But, folks, let's not overlook the broader impact of this moment. For years, both the men's and women's teams have tirelessly pursued the elusive World Cup, and today, the women have showcased their prowess on the grandest stage."

The echoes of the celebration and the commentators' reflections merge into a symphony of triumph, resonating far beyond the stadium, marking a defining chapter in the history of women's football.

In the midst of the roaring crowd, the commentary captures the essence of your journey. As the England Women's National Team secures a 3-1 lead, the commentators emphasize the historical significance of this moment for both the men's and women's teams.

"Your goal, Y/N, propels the England Women's National Team to a 3-1 lead, securing your spot in the World Cup final. This moment isn't just about a match; it's about breaking barriers, rewriting narratives, and proving that women's football deserves recognition and celebration. Your journey is a testament to the strides made in the pursuit of global glory."

Leah's emotional reaction becomes a powerful symbol for the women's team, transcending the boundaries of just a match. "Leah's emotional reaction speaks volumes. For the women's team, this isn't just about winning a match; it's about paving the way for future generations and showcasing that women's football deserves every bit of recognition."

The unity between you and Leah is highlighted as symbolic in the grander scheme of things. "The unity between you and Leah is symbolic—a reminder that, regardless of gender, football is a sport that unites, inspires, and creates history. As you head to the World Cup final, you're not just competing; you're paving the way for future generations."

In the broader context, the significance of England's journey is acknowledged. "As we savor this moment, let's acknowledge the magnitude of what's happening here. England, with its storied football legacy, is on the verge of etching a new chapter in the annals of the beautiful game."

The shared dream between the men's and women's teams becomes a powerful narrative. "The men's and women's teams stand side by side in pursuit of a shared dream—a World Cup triumph that transcends gender boundaries. This moment isn't just important for England but for football as a whole."

leahwilliamson

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leahwilliamson world cup finalists! 🌏🏆

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lucybronze - so proud of this team ❤️

milliebright - come on girls! ✨✨

no.1englandfan - its coming home! 🎶🎵

[justalads]

this is an essay post that was written in response to an in-depth discussion i was having with another person on a lot of topics. that’s why it’s written like it’s addressing someone. because of that, it is a little confusing on its own (because the things in quotes are responding to things the other person said) but me and the person who runs this blog thought it would be better to make this a separate post, so that people who want to see this response can see it without it being attached to the person i was having the discussion with. we spoke to the person and they said that would be fine. with that being said, this is a very long post. if anyone finds parts of it useful, it will have served its original purpose.

so what i mean about it “making sense” that dream became like that is that it kind of does, you know? i’m saying that the desires were always there. not that he was always willing to go so far for them, or even that they were as strong as they ended up being! after all, there’s a difference between declaring war to reclaim land and people, and making a vault in order to take things that were important to people.

what he always did possess is a sort of “ownership” of the server. and this was probably founded from the fact that it was, you know, his server. he wanted l’manburg back because he didn’t like that people came onto his server and then said he couldn’t have something. and that’s one of his primary points in his conversation with skeppy: the analogy he uses of someone coming into his house and saying he can’t have a table.

and later, in the vault, this is the reason he gives for wanting control: that it is his server. he tells tommy it isn’t supposed to be fair, it doesn’t need to be fair, because fairness implies equality, and he doesn’t see everyone else as having equal claim to the server. so that’s what i mean when i say the signs were always there: his statements match upand paint a path through the story. true, you don’t just “become” a bad person. there’s no reason for him to suddenly get all weird and want ultimate control, if he was completely neutral and peaceful in the beginning. this is why his character is decently written!

and since the potential was there in the first place, that’s what gave him the ability to or put him in danger of doing what he did.

so yeah, it’s true that his spiral was not only his fault, because even someone who thinks they own something is not going to just jump to the lengths that he did. he had other experiences, and saw how other people worked, and then was met by pushback from people when he wanted them all to do what he said. because his house analogy is lacking something: he owns the house, but everyone else lives there too.

it may be “his” server in that he pays upkeep fees, but that doesn’t mean he deserves control over everything that happens on it! if your roommate goes “i want this table and you can’t have it”, even if the house belongs to you, it’s kind of weird to go “no you can’t have it, it’s mine”. especially if all the roommate wants the table for is so they can play monopoly or something with their group. and even more so if the roommate will let you play monopoly if you want to (remember the embassy?), and if you can just buy a new table then what’s the point in getting upset over the one?

i just think you put a lot more of the responsibility on other characters. saying that all they did was villainize him and treat him as pure evil and break his boundaries is wrong because one, no, that’s not all they did, it’s exaggerated, and two, he was also doing things to them! it did not come out of nowhere! and clearly, his mindset didn’t come from nothing, so a personal flaw contributed to it! people who are innocent and care too much about others and are then mistreated do not do what dream did, and we know this because there is a character very similar to that: ranboo.

(i could talk about this for a super long time honestly. it’s very interesting how close they are, and since enderwalk ranboo is just ranboo with all his memories and he helped dream... there’s clearly something that happened that he’s forgotten that’s very important.)

hates conflict, tries to mediate things, cares about the people he loves to a fault. and we don’t see him running around and telling people they can’t build nations because it “divides people”! he has also been hurt and betrayed, but he still recognizes his responsibility to respect others and their agency. the difference between dream and ranboo is that one, dream has a spine, and two, dream thinks of the server as his. dream’s belief is one of the driving causes of his actions.

it’s true that nobody deserves to lose half their friends at once. it’s also true that before he declared war, nobody had any actual negative feelings towards him. they made fun of him for saying his side had more women. he made fun of them for having none. it was playful banter. that’s the thing about the hot dog stream: the tone is incredibly light. wilbur soot, known dramatic idiot, decided he was going to go play capitalism on a minecraft server. both tommy and wilbur at that point had been making various stupid attempts to gain “power”. and none of this was treated seriously, because others were doing the same kinds of things.

you know how many times tommy logged on and got involved in small petty conflicts? pretty much none of them are mentioned in canon again, because at this point, there wasn’t even much of a canon to get involved in. the smp at this point was a place for people to go and do bits. and invoking wilbur’s joke hatred of tommy and those like him seems a little unfair. wilbur’s main bit was calling tommy an annoying child. when wilbur was stealing the blaze rods, it was not an actual attempt to get power because it was not treated as such by anyone, it was treated with the exact seriousness that it deserved: sapnap and tubbo declared themselves the “police”.

what kind of actual control is going to come from taking blaze rods, especially on a server where you can just go get more? and it’s not like theft is really a crime on the server. everyone else chose to play into the bit.

it’s like now, when tommy shows up with a new idea and people who don’t like him start claiming that this is proof that he never learned anything and he was actually bad all along. the church prime thing, l’sandburg, any time he steals something or is rude to jack manifold. because although semi-lore is fun, sometimes people treat it as serious lore when parts of it are not intended to be and then use it to imply things about the characters that don’t line up with canon.

that’s kinda off topic and not really about dream, so i’ll move on

“i’d like to ask you to once again watch the actual stream.”

i mean, yeah. i did watch the stream. i don’t know a lot about george, and i prefaced my thoughts at the start by saying that. obviously attempting to catch up after isn’t as good as knowing the context and plot, (this sounds sarcastic but it is genuine i’m sorry sjhksjs) but i do want to offer this: it’s an opportunity to look at the plot in a different way. you say that you are on dream’s side in this scene, and while having that bias alone isn’t bad, i think it’s a good idea to attempt to see the other side. that’s what i’ve been doing while going back and forth with you; examining my own bias and attempting to look past it, and explain why it’s there.so dream kicks george off the throne. and you say that it’s not bad that dream does it, because george’s monarchy was already a figurehead. you know, i don’t see this as being any better? this means that when dream made george king, he already did it with the fact that george wasn’t really in charge in dream’s mind, meaning that dream was, you know, the ultimate authority. that is a power dynamic. dream has control over who is king of his faction.

when you watch the stream where dream makes george king originally, dream doesn’t really let him know that his power isn’t real. that’s the problem with this situation: the presence of a power dynamic alone is not the issue, it’s the fact that dream was misleading about its presence. dream just tells him “you’re king.” in fact, dream demonstrates more control over eret, by telling them just that they can’t be in charge anymore and george is king now. he tells them to take off their crown, to which they protest because it’s a layer on their skin and it would show their eyes, something they’re uncomfortable with. dream says “i need you to do it. you gotta do it. i mean, i’m not asking you, we have three of us here.”

they physically threaten eret. and by the way, the reason that dream thought eret had “betrayed” the greater smp? eret was attempting to help pogtopia and make things right with the people of l’manburg, something you claim was also dream’s wish during this time (he had switched over to manburg at this point). dream told eret that the king had a duty to remain neutral.

it is only then, when dream tells eret to remain neutral on things, that dream tells eret that the act of being king means nothing. this is where the “what makes you king” quote coms from, by the way. dream has the ultimate control over who is king. but whenever he makes someone king, he doesn’t tell them that. and when dream leaves, eret fully realizes this and admits that dream’s right: they don’t have any power. so what was the point of betraying l’manburg?

if there was no power with being king, why did george accept it? why was there even a king in the first place? the only reason eret agreed to betray l’manburg in the first place was because dream offered them power.

when dream confronts eret about remaining neutral, dream says “my plan is that there’s no manburg, there’s no l’manburg, there’s no pogtopia, there’s just dream smp and there’s dream smp everywhere. and that’s been my plan since the very beginning, i’ve never wavered on that. that’s why i had you betray them, and that’s why i gave you kingship, because i felt like you’d be a good king because you’re neutral.”

ignoring the fact that he’s twisting why he made eret king (they were on the side of l’manburg and he tempted them away), he also claims that his faction only has been his goal since the beginning. this will be important later.

cc!eret confirmed in a twitter thread on their alt that their character was possibly the longest victim of dream’s manipulation.

and finally, watching the stream where dream dethrones george, the thing sticking out to me is how dream is phrasing it. he says that george should step down because people are attacking him, and dream isn’t always going to be able to protect him. and then he says this.

“and i think you’ll just be targeted if you’re the king. and you want to be able to like, get revenge on tommy and stuff, right? so we can work together.”

i kind of wish he didn’t bring up tommy. i kind of wish his main goal at this time wasn’t just going after tommy because he thought tommy was the root of all the problems. and i think this kind of highlights a little bit that when dream built the walls around l’manburg again, it wasn’t just because he was “defending george” or anything, because i don’t think george really cared that much? dream was using the fact that it was george’s house that blew up in order to go after tommy.

after this line, the others all kind of gang up on dream, true. it’s partially for the joke, as evidenced by quackity’s “THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTING!”, but it’s also kind of them being, you know, legitimately angry at his character. and it’s funny that it’s sapnap who leads it. sapnap brings up what dream said, that he doesn’t care about anything except for the disks. dream says that he didn’t mean it, and then george says “then why did you say it?” so dream saying that clearly hurt them, and he can’t just push it off by saying he didn’t mean it once.

and in the end, george doesn’t even agree before dream makes eret king again! george and sapnap are trying to have a conversation with dream about how they feel they’ve been treated, and dream brushes it off with “maybe this isn’t a good time to bring it up,” before ultimately ignoring what they’re both saying because in his mind he has a good enough reason and it doesn’t matter what george thinks.

dream is in the act of passing power over to eret, and george says “i’m still king. i’m literally right here.” dream shushes him. dream also implies that the reason george is getting attacked is because he backs up everything dream says, reducing george down to an extension of his own will or calling him a follower. dream accuses sapnap of trying to divide him and george, and sapnap says this: “i’m not dividing anyone, i stand by george. he’s my king but most importantly he’s my friend.” dream replies that george is his friend but not his king.

i just sort of want to show you the other side here. george and sapnap weren’t just running around instigating conflict any more than dream was. and although george didn’t do anything as king, it meant something to him, because it was a symbol of the trust he thought dream had for him. dream saying he was taking it away for his own good meant he didn’t even trust george to protect himself. he was treating him like a child.

and then when george is silent, listening to everyone debate whether he deserves this or not, dream accuses him of only pretending to be sad. it’s true that he was pretending to cry, but i don’t think that warranted dream telling him he’s “acting like a baby” and that he was a bad king.

sapnap and george had a real point, and dream ignored them. he hadn’t addressed the things he had said that hurt them, and so they raised legitimate grievances with him! dream doesn’t treat their concerns as important, and talks down to george in particular.

ignoring the fact that sapnap and george were also hurting is kind of hypocritical. you’re right, “abandonment hurts you, no matter if the people have good reasons for it or not”. dream said the spirit thing before sapnap did any sort of real leaving him. and dream’s reasons were definitely not good.

i have no idea why you got the idea that george is so awful. he was walking around with his head down. the only one also calling him things like manipulative and a drama queen is, well, dream.

basically: (/hj)

george: :(

dream: you are attempting to emotionally manipulate me

butternut is a master of psychological manipulation

anyway

so sapnap, george and quackity felt betrayed there. they left, and went to mexican l’manburg to try and console george. and then dream shoots quackity and kills him, and tries to attack the others as well. it’s worth noting that quackity also had a reason to be upset at dream: dream’s treatment of l’manburg. dream then shows up and calls george a tyrant. dream never listens to what george says during this, he just continues saying what he already said. dream taking the kingship away from george hurt him more than letting him stay would have.

watching this is painful, because it’s making me realize just how much dream doesn’t actually care what his friends think! he says he cares, and he might think he cares, but then he calls them babies and liars and tyrants. his argument with george here reads like something awful. he’s using the excuse of “caring about him” in order to undermine and insult him, and take the moral high ground. dream essentially tells george that he didn’t make george king out of any respect for him, it was just random. he doesn’t treat his friends well during this scene. i don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to get angry.

when quackity, after sitting in silence for the entire conversation, says he disagrees, dream tells him that he’s just dumb. doesn’t wait to hear his reasons, doesn’t value his opinion, because dream is so sure that he’s right and he knows what’s best for the server, and by extension, everyone.

other interesting things: dream brings tommy into it again by saying he’s what causes all the problems on the server. dream tells quackity to think about what tubbo would think about him picking this fight. dream says that george would probably do anything he told him to do. his entire position is “you guys can think whatever you want, but it won’t change anything.” genuinely, tell me how this is them abandoning him? and when they do drift away later, tell me why they don’t have a reason to? dream doesn’t respect them! he takes their friendship for granted!

“would you consider it justified for all of tommy’s friends (even tubbo who he’s been close with for so long) to abandon him just because he’s said basically the same thing about the discs - like three times?”

thank you for bringing up the disk thing. do you really think that tommy and dream acted the same when saying that an item held more worth than their friends?

think about what the disks symbolize. control over tommy. tommy wants them back because they are a sign of dream having power over him! tommy doesn’t want his abuser having power over him! and yeah! it was a messed up thing for him to say to tubbo that the disks were worth more than him, but he apologized! he understood that what he said hurt tubbo, and he tried to rebuild the relationship! tommy took responsibility for what he said, and tried to be better. notice how afterwards, he was willing to sacrifice anything for the safety of his friends? notice how in the vault he told dream to take the disks and do whatever he wanted with them, when dream switched from threatening the disks to threatening the life of tubbo?

and what do the disks mean to dream? they mean power over tommy. the disks have no power over dream. they are a tool that he can use to hurt and control tommy. and he never apologized for this, because he wasn’t sorry. sapnap told dream that this hurt him, and all dream said was that he didn’t mean it. who is he lying to, then? tommy or sapnap? it was so important to dream that he had ultimate control over the life of someone else that he almost drove them to take their own life. i’m sorry, but this comparison sucks.

people gave dream a chance. people gave him a lot of chances. the disregard he showed for others is disgusting, especially towards his friends, and even more so towards those who he didn’t like. my problem is that though you repeat that you don’t “blame” others for what they did, you still hold them to more responsibility than you’re willing to hold him to, or at least that’s what it seems like. i’ve been investigating the other side through this whole process. and yeah, there are definitely places where i was wrong. but sometimes i do not understand, and maybe that means i should just give up on trying to understand those places. if other people can see things i can’t, maybe we agree to disagree.

i legitimately cannot see dream being the person who was treated the worst here, but let me know if i’m misrepresenting you.

i’m sorry that i sound angry, and i’m not really upset at you, but the comparison of what dream said and what tommy said set me off.

“no one having respect for him as a person”

people did respect dream, man. he was the leader of his faction. he had a lot of power. his friends trusted him to be a good friend to them. but he didn’t feel like he had an obligation to do that, yeah? and you only get respect if you give it, so they stopped respecting them because he hurt them. he didn’t learn any hard lessons about violence being the only way because he never stopped to consider another way. when faced with a problem, his options were for the problem to go away or he would make it go away: surrender or die.

during the stream where he sets up the walls with sapnap, his message is the same throughout: wipe them out. no mercy. burn their land to the ground, leave no survivors. there’s no love in war. children get hurt in war. this is a warning shot, he says, as he fires into their land. as sapnap burns down tubbo’s house and chat spams “no mercy”. they don’t show mercy because mercy is weak, and they are powerful.

one day i’m gonna write a thing that talks about the greater smp like how people talk about early l’manburg because oh boy

i’d like to see evidence of dream learning that violence is the only way, and only being able to protect himself through fighting. i don’t remember this happening, i remember him generally choosing violence as the first option.

“dream didn’t have an arising god complex.”

a god complex means more than just saying “i’m a god.” there was buildup because that’s how characters work. tommy was also trapped in the prison, and he didn’t suddenly get a god complex at the slightest bit of power, did he? the definition of a god complex is “an unshakable belief characterized by consistently inflated feelings of personal ability, privilege, or infallibility.” dream cannot admit when he is wrong. he feels as if he has a right to the control of the server, and that grows into a state of obsession. and when he’s taking tubbo and tommy down into the vault, he mocks them for thinking he was weak or that he didn’t think ahead.

once dream knew he had control over death, the complex reached its peak, and that’s when he actually admits it. characters that antagonize others already possess traits that contribute to their arc.

and hey, i know that cc!dream says his character is blocked off emotionally. i also know that he’s been given a lot of chances to apologize to people, to be sorry, to admit fault, even in small situations. did dream show remorse during exile? did dream sound like he was being “forced” to isolate and control tommy, or did he sound like an abusive parent scolding a kid for something? when dream beat tommy and tubbo and took them down to the vault, did he sound sorry? the thing about subtext is that it has to actually be there, no matter how quiet, at least a little bit. listen to dream arguing with quackity after george was dethroned and tell me he sees himself as anything other than right.

a few one off lines are not enough evidence to wipe out the rest of his character’s development.

he sounds sorry once he is faced with direct consequences, because that is the only time he is held responsible for his actions.

it’s also a weak argument to say that something is happening when, as you said, we don’t see his pov. it is fair to say that i don’t know if it’s not happening, and that’s a good point. cc!dream’s comments about his character being closed off emotionally can mean a lot of things. for instance, they could mean that his character is willing to do this to himself in order to get control. or it could mean something else entirely, i don’t know. basing an entire fact about a character off something we don’t see at all doesn’t tell us anything useful about the character, and i apologize for doing that.

i guess my reason for saying that was that i don’t see evidence of him trying to get better during pogtopia. if we don’t see signs of him being sorry or attempting to treat other people better, why should we assume that he was doing those things?

“yes, and none of c!dream’s “friends” ever did.”

dream’s friends supported him until he abandoned them and disrespected them. his time in the prison is a consequence of his time out of the prison, albeit an unfair one.

“dream didn’t hurt george.”

dream’s disrespect of george is what hurt him. dream didn’t apologize for it, he didn’t attempt to understand what george was feeling, and he didn’t look for a compromise. and yeah, it was beckerson in the vault. he had a space for mars, he just hadn’t collected it yet. so yes, dream did betray sapnap. if you have legitimate evidence of sapnap doing something that made dream actually upset, before the vault, i’d like to see it. (there might be something lol i’m sorry i’m Very Bad on his lore but from what i’ve investigated i didn’t find anything really important.)

i don’t think puffy saying “this person does bad things” is her dismissing their trauma. and the eggpire and her have both hurt each other. puffy isn’t the Trauma Designator of the server. if there’s an instance of her straight up saying that someone doesn’t have trauma then i missed it.

“she’s another one c!dream was attached to and who failed to ever reach out to him”

i don’t see evidence of this? there was the one stream where the relationship was established, but after that he never tried to seek her out. he doesn’t even talk about her. it’s not a failure from her to not reach out to him, if their connection is light at best. i honestly feel like she was more attached to him than he was to her.

“like she’s doing something extra by being a decent person.”

she’s saying he didn’t deserve to see her because he did bad things! she still cares about someone who has done bad things, but she recognizes that those things are bad. she’s saying the punishment for what he’s done should involve not seeing her, personally, and i think she should be able to make that decision? she doesn’t endorse the rest of his punishment, because she doesn’t know what it entails.

she helped him by thinking he was in the right. she helped him by even trying to understand him, when everyone else could not. she gave him the help that she could by being on his side, by being friendly to him, and after she realized he was wrong she could not do that because he was off preparing the vault! and she had other things to worry about! “could have” is useless because it can mean anything! tommy “could have” not burned george’s house down. would it have mattered, when dream already had it out for him? no!

dream took anyone being close to him for granted. he did not give anything back to them once he started going down the path. if he did something bad to them, and they were angry, that was it for him. he did not attempt to fix the bond, like other characters do when they hurt someone they care about.

“i never said anything negative about them other than describing things they did that had a negative effect.”

here’s my main point: we don’t know they had a negative effect.

you criticize the characters for not taking an action that we do not know the implications of. everyone could have been super nice and worried about dream and that could have changed nothing. that’s why i think the criticism is unwarranted.

their crime is inattention to a situation that some of them did not even know was happening. that’s like saying that techno is “responsible” for some of the pain of tommy’s exile, because he did nothing to stop it. that’s like saying that quackity or tommy “should have” removed the tnt from the button room under l’manburg.

i just don’t get the point of the criticism. because it can apply to any character in any situation, you know? we could say that eret taking back the kingship from george enabled dream into taking more control over his friends, and that eret should have stopped him. we could say that skeppy telling dream he was wrong about l’manburg pushed him further into the role of the bad guy. if you aren’t being negative about the characters, then why bring it up in the first place?

“truly believe they did all those things” they didn’t do anything. if you’re talking about the “actual consequences and effect it had on him as a character”, you have to look at what affects his character.

we can say “sapnap should not have said this to dream”. because that is something sapnap actually did, directly to dream’s face, and it is something that visibly affected dream. considering the conditions of the prison, it is an inhumane thing to say. that’s something i would call reasonable to consider when analyzing dream’s character.

but puffy talking to herself, writing her own thoughts and reactions down? that does not impact dream in any way! and i think puffy thinking internally that dream is a bad person (when she has been given adequate reason to think so) has a lot less impact on Real Plot Events than the stuff that dream actually did.

what is her “fault” here? what harm did she do? what am i excusing? what did she do wrong, and how is the effect of her specifically visible in dream’s actions? he hasn’t mentioned her in months, and it’s my perspective that if he cared, we would know.

if a tree falls in the forest when nobody is around, does it make any noise?

(the person i was responding to linked a thread about how the prison isn’t helping dream and how puffy and sapnap saying he deserves it is inhumane)

that thread doesn’t actually seem to be assigning any fault to puffy, it’s just saying that hearing that kind of thing hurts.

(also, the person who wrote the thread saying “i told you so” is going to have nobody to tell it to. we all already know dream is going to be violent when he gets out, because he told tommy he would hunt down and take revenge on the things he loves. but he’s not going to be violent because puffy didn’t visit him.)

“another person he cared about who didn’t prove to care about him enough to stop him from spiralling or try help at all.”

how did puffy not care about him? what did she do before the vault that showed that? how did she specifically abandon him, by actions of her own will and not of consequences of his? for supposedly caring about her, dream did pretty much nothing to show it.

“if “they don’t owe him anything” is your base argument against someone being hurt via being left by people they care about over and over again until they’re utterly alone with no support system and unhealthy mindsets, we might have to agree to disagree”

we would disagree if that was my point, but it’s not. because that’s not what the characters did. they didn’t all abandon him, as i’ve said. he says that he cut ties with them, but if you say he’s lying when he says that you can disregard it, i guess. and five to six people are definitely not responsible for him. again, you’re critical of them for an action they didn’t take, and in some cases it was impossible for them to take like with tommy, who certainly didn’t abandon him, as hard as he tried to.

“his (dream’s) manipulation is the clumsiest thing i’ve ever seen”

i mean i don’t really find it funny that dream was “bad” at manipulation. and clearly it was powerful enough to work on multiple people, and if he was that ineffective at it it wouldn’t have worked. but i understand what you’re saying, although i disagree with your take on wilbur.

it’s true that wilbur’s smart, but this is again saying things about stuff we can’t prove. if you look at the context of wilbur’s actions next to everyone else’s, they seem pretty tame. and he can play a morally grey character without the intent being that the character was seriously manipulative all along. although i guess it’s nice to think that you’ve solved the code, if “solving the code” means “the majority of everyone else is wrong” then you may want to take a step back.

i think the principle of occam’s razor sort of applies here, and especially applies later to the conversion between dream and wilbur. unless there is strong, strong evidence for a theory that sort of goes against stuff, there may be a better explanation. i’ve scrapped like fifty theories because of this dude hskhdksjsthe things i said at the start about tommy and wilbur’s grabs for power not being serious still do apply, and so does the fact that at the start of the roleplay, the cc’s didn’t see their characters as that separate from themselves. i think it would be kind of weird for cc!wilbur’s intent to be genuine manipulation of his actual friends all along, especially when he wasn’t playing it as a bit.

“that’s precisely what he did and how he got them to side with him in the war.”

nope. he didn’t tell anyone they “needed” to to anything. anyone who joined the country joined of their own free will, and nobody joined during the war, just before and after.

wilbur didn’t really “recruit” tommy so much as they were on a team of causing small arguments. wilbur joined and he and tommy went to go scam people together, while tommy told him about the various other little schemes he had been running. and i don’t really think he was intending to do a real takeover, which is why i called it “weak”. the man told people that potions give you diarrhea. does that sound like the work of a mastermind? no, because it’s the self proclaimed “crime boy”. and that “drug empire” got shut down pretty quick for something that was supposed to last a long time.

“just put “revolution” instead of “business” as a guise of what he was actually doing.”

l’manburg was not the drug empire under a different name. l’manburg was about separation from the greater smp, admittedly because they felt that being stopped from selling drugs was a bad thing, but then they pretty much completely dropped the drugs and the empire throughout the wall vod.

so when he was recruiting people like fundy, he was doing it with the intent of getting them to make drugs with him. he says nothing about dream when fundy joins his drug empire. and yeah, he lied to him originally, but it didn’t work. fundy visited the van and saw through wilbur (and tommy)’s story, and then he decided to join, on his own. because he wanted to make drugs.

a quote from the wall vod:

“we’re starting a revolution, not a war.”

there was no targeted hatred towards dream until he approached them. and i would say the most “evidence” that wilbur was trying to go after dream in any way is the infamous “what’s tyrannical mean” moment. the thing about that moment is that taking a single moment and using it to define an entire period is unfair. it’s not like that’s a turning point, and after that they solely go after dream. they don’t. i agree that you have to watch the actions of wilbur, and his actions at the time were geared towards becoming independent and progressing the condition of l’manburg.

wilbur is honest with eret when they join that they are committing crimes. eret joins because “haha americans bad”. meanwhile, dream is in chat telling eret that there are “three defectors from the kingdom”.

“the only reason people disbelieve this is not because it doesn’t align with canon, but because they assume he’s lying for the sole reason that it doesn’t align with the way they see canon.”

if what revivedbur said agreed with canon, people wouldn’t be pointing out that it doesn’t. watch back the hot dog stream, the wall stream, the first war stream, even the stream after that when niki joins. look at how wilbur speaks, and also look at how he acts. it does not match up with all of what revivedbur says.

early wilbur is naive. he thinks he’s doing the right thing, so he therefore concludes the people against him are wrong. the only fighting back that l’manburg does before war is declared is killing alyssa (and this was tommy’s idea, wilbur was discouraging killing her), because they thought she set the fire. once she told them she didn’t, they gave her back the stuff they thought they had. tubbo still had her pickaxe, but didn’t realize. and for this? the people of the greater smp hunted him down, trapped him in a box, and killed him as well as killing tommy, who tried to save tubbo.

wilbur scolded tommy for killing alyssa. wilbur wanted to focus on building the nation, on declaring independence, and actively ignored the other side. he writes the declaration and he believes in everything it stands for! half the things in there are things that the other people of l’manburg yelled out, that he wrote in as they were being fired on by the greater smp. it comes from all the people.

the declaration of war from the greater smp pretty much says “sometimes you just gotta kill some people, you know?”

i am not disagreeing with you that after the first war, wilbur fell into corruption. it’s implied greatly that this is partially a consequence of the first war, and also partially stems from his fierce protectiveness of l’manburg.

also, if you’re saying that you have never and will never believe wilbur, i would urge you to re-examine that. it’s hard to avoid bias when you refuse to take most things that someone says as truth. i am also curious how you came to this conclusion as you began to watch the smp (if you never believed him at all) and who’s perspective you were watching.

“according to his actions and all known laws of logic” according to the streams and vods that very much still exist, and his actions in them, no, he wasn’t lying since the beginning. did he tell lies? yes, everyone did. was he being untruthful about his devotion to l’manburg when he took arrows for it and died for it? no. it’s pretty clear to see when you watch the vod. his actions speak louder than his words.

so no, it doesn’t make sense for him to be lying since the beginning. it doesn’t make sense that revivedbur’s ideals are a switch from how he was even right before he died, so we cannot trust his memory and his morals to remain intact! the man was alone for thirteen years, speaking of torture.

“he thought l'manberg his and no one else’s, a weapon of power for him to use however he pleases. unlike dream who destroyed himself bit by bit trying to take back what he cares about, because it was not power, but people - wilbur saw no more worth in it and destroyed it instead.”

hmm. i’ll come back to this later.

a point- not everything cc!wilbur says about his character is negative.

a lot of his commentary on his character came after his death, so it encompasses his spiral. i will again suggest that you listen to “eight” by sleeping at last. it’s true he can play a morally complex character, because he does, but he does not play an intentional antagonist the entire time, even in “secret”.

“i was just talking about how hypocritical and downright ridiculous his later accusations are, which you didn’t address.”

how are his later accusations hypocritical? wilbur calls him a tyrant in the moment, yeah. wilbur thinks that he should be able to do whatever he wants, and since it’s the dream smp, he assumes dream is the leader. dream never contradicts this, by the way. wilbur writes in the declaration of independence that “in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one to dissolve the bonds which bind us. disregarding of this truth is nothing short of tyranny.” so that’s what he considers tyranny. when he got stopped from selling drugs and tommy got arrested, he didn’t yell “tyranny”.

mistreatment of citizens by authority and denial of independence is tyranny.

dream and the people of the greater smp hurt and attack the people of l’manburg throughout the wall stream. importantly, since they denied l’manburg independence, the people they were firing and attacking were their own citizens in their eyes. mistreatment of citizens is cruel. upon hearing that l’manburg existed, they became even more tyrannical. thus when wilbur writes this in the book, as they are being fired on, he believes this to be true because it is.

“despite there being no evidence” watch the wall vod. think about the definition of tyranny, and even the different definitions of tyranny.

“a capitalistic empire on dream’s land” so wilbur did have reason for thinking dream was the leader, yes? because it was his land? his “house”? how dream said they were taking back the land that was rightfully theirs? how he called them “traitors to the kingdom”? ignoring the fact that once again, wilbur did not say anything negative towards dream until dream showed up and insulted l’manburg.

wilbur’s form of lying and deception for the drug empire was the norm for the server at the time. we don’t see him pulling this sort of exaggerated bit once he gets into l’manburg, because he’s idealistic and he really believes in it. if you watch tommy’s stream where wilbur first proposes the country, he jokingly says the reason he’s making it is because “americans ruin bits”. also during that stream, tommy asks if they’re making a drug empire, and wilbur says that no, they’re making a nation where drugs are legal.

“didn’t even do that much” hmm. no, i’m pretty sure dream and the people of the greater smp did do the stuff wilbur accused them of. one, he wasn’t directly accusing dream, (because. his problem wasn’t with dream specifically.) and two, the things he said in the declaration did happen?

“they have robbed us.”

to be fair everyone on the server did that lol

“imprisoned us.”

tommy was imprisoned for the drugs and for other things he was involved in, and tubbo was trapped and murdered for a thing he didn’t even know he had.

“threatened us.”

they were fired on multiple times when building l’manburg, they were threatened with consequences for the drug stuff, they told them in pretty clear terms that they were prepared to kill them instead of letting them be independent. the day of the war, dream and sapnap burned down all the trees around l’manburg and lavacast walls around it, saying it was a “warning”.

“killed many of our men.”

again, true. tommy and tubbo in particular died a lot during this time.

so since these things really did happen, how is wilbur lying about them?

“the people he was accusing of being tyrannical were very selective”

one, he accused sapnap of being an american, and it was the americans that were going for them. you don’t need to protect people that aren’t being hurt. most of his reasoning for “no americans” during this time was that anti-mask protests were happening in america, and he was making fun of them. two, the others imprisoned tommy, which does not count as “self defense in an anarchist society”. they accepted tubbo because he was european, and because he was willing to work for the nation like the rest of them. sapnap just wanted a drug dealer.

“dream’s “no factions” thing he had going on also included no government by default, showcased by him having problems with people starting countries.”

if there was no government, why did dream never point this out when wilbur said he was seceding? the server is dream’s faction! he doesn’t want “no factions”, he wants only his faction. dream refers to the server multiple times as a nation, and even a kingdom. anarchist societies don’t have prisons. the prison and the police is a system. if you have an anarchist society, but two specific people are going around arresting people, them going “oh but there’s no government” doesn’t take away the fact that they’re creating a hierarchy, using their own power? they also never claimed that there was no government.

everything that dream said later in the conversation with skeppy also lines up with this. ignoring the fact that there was a monarchy established because it “didn’t have any real power” is disregarding the fact that one, it was there, and two, that there was someone around with enough power to establish it in the first place. i don’t know how to say this any clearer. anarchist places do not have kings.

and anarchy is not the only thing that fits. it wasn’t designed to be a geopolitical drama, they just made the mistake of letting wilbur soot onto the server. so they didn’t need to have a name for the system, because the system was “do whatever you want”, including establishing authority.

“dream had all the reasons to believe they were aggressive and was fully justified in declaring war.”

dream didn’t declare war because alyssa was attacked. he had done stuff to them before that happened, and they got back all of her stuff (again, not by asking and trying to work it out, but by kidnapping someone who genuinely believed they were innocent and killing them as they begged for help.) dream started the official conflict because he declared war. he also started the unofficial conflict. he didn’t think they were aggressive, he thought they were weak.

“if he (wilbur) thought he was being mistreated he could just stop trying to mistreat others”

what, because he had any sort of power? he did stop mistreating others. l’manburg legitimately did nothing to intentionally hurt anyone, and tommy killing alyssa doesn’t count because that was his decision and revenge was already paid out for that. so wilbur stopped scamming people, built the walls to contain his country (he said that they needed nothing outside the walls at some point) and then was attacked multiple times. his mistreatment didn’t stop.

“it was supposed to be his l'manberg.”

wilbur didn’t destroy it because it was supposed to be his and it got away from him, that’s why he held the election: to try and restore peace through attempting to rig the election. he destroyed it because “the thing i built this nation for doesn’t exist anymore”, meaning the freedom it originally granted to its citizens was gone under schlatt. meaning the policy of no violence and using words was ruined. if the thing he built this nation for was power, this would make no sense. he could have taken power so easily. he passed off the presidency.

“something worth having power over” is something important. it is something that can be good for lots of people, and the power over it is what makes it safe. it’s worth having power over because when others, like schlatt, take that power, it is no longer safe.

violence and tyranny had become so much a part of l’manburg that wilbur felt the freedom and peace was gone. so when he blows it up, and says “my l’manburg”, he means it can no longer be used for evil. “my unfinished symphony, forever unfinished”. he saves it for himself by destroying it. so yes, he is being selfish, but not to ruin it for other people. he takes it into his own hands to weed out the fighting, and by doing so takes himself with it. his vision was never complete, because the wars had taught him that the only true freedom, the only true victory (“i won.”) for him was in death. (and then that turned out to be wrong.)

there’s a reddit post that cc!wilbur approved

that explains this a little better than i can, and cc!wilbur commented on it “any truers???” so i think it can be counted as reliable.

this full quote from cc!wilbur about his character (from his hey and stuff podcast) is very interesting. i’ll transcribe it here:

“i decided i was going to make a breaking bad style roleplay, where me and tommy would be drug dealers. and uh, one thing lead to another and i’m the president of a nation losing it due to my own insolence and uh, short sighted naivety. basically disregard for my fellow citizens who i claim to love so much. and a, and a dark, twisted understanding of what is possession. and what is, what is my right.”

i like this quote a lot because it highlights the initial traits that caused his spiral. it also places him as kind of similar to dream. the reason he lost the presidency is that he got too cocky. and the reason his spiral was so selfish is that it was all he could see— when his earlier vision of freedom was shattered by the first war, he didn’t know how to adapt and so became attached to power as it now felt like the only way to keep what mattered to him.

this is emphasized in his conversation with quackity during his second lore stream: that there was a drastic change between the person who made l’manburg and the person running for president. this quote matches up very well with the election arc. wilbur’s motives were different before the election, and they were different after.

once he had the freedom that he wanted, he became scared of losing it and that is what pushed him down. “if i can’t have it, no one can” is on the surface about the power, but the lament for what he once had (freedom in a country without tyranny) is there. that’s why he became so power-oriented. if he did not have control of l’manburg, it could be used to go against his original vision and it would be better off gone.

another good piece of information is cc!wilbur’s comment on his dnd alignment post, where he says this:

“wilbur is on the border of chaotic and neutral evil. wilbur, in his chaotic sense, is a crazy man who wants to blow up his old nation and kill his friends. but, more realistically, in his neutral sense, wilbur is the archetype of a man who had great power and who lost it all due to his own poor choices and negligence who sees destruction as his ratification.”

note the “realistically”.

he feels as if he owes it to l’manburg at the end to blow it up, and he didn’t mind taking himself with it as he thought that nobody cared about him anymore and he didn’t have any more to give.

(related to this, in the dnd alignment post, cc!wilbur places season 1 dream as chaotic evil and says his only motive is chaos. firstly, this would only apply to season one, and although cc!wilbur was working with cc!dream and everyone else to write the plot here, i wonder why he says this instead of saying anything else about dream’s motives. this seems to disagree pretty severely with what you think, but it also disagrees with what even i think about dream during this time.)

revivedbur comes back and has plans because he regrets his past. he hates that he gave up that easily. and he could absolutely lie about his past actions! there is no reason to ignore the contents of an entire war because someone who was alone for thirteen years says it!

“shouldn’t have it” doesn’t mean he was lying when he said he wanted it. he was just wrong, which he knew when he blew up l’manburg and that’s part of why he did it.

“they said they “fought with words”, like that doesn’t sound like a peaceful solution, more like a different approach, and it was because that is what they did”

they said the words thing a lot of times, and most of the time it was used as a “tommy don’t attack that person.” and “fighting with words” is arguing, it is replacing the trauma of real battle with talking it out. l’manburg did stick very closely to their motto of words over violence. look at the contents of the first war.

and once war was declared, wilbur was enthusiastic for it. sounds suspicious from someone claiming to not want war, right? he said it was a chance for them to prove themselves, to prove they could rule themselves. he also said that if they could defend themselves it would be proof. he never went “time to attack them”, and when he said he didn’t want a war in the past he meant that he didn’t want to start one. his being enthusiastic about the war ties into his naivety about running a country. it was also an acceptance in a way, no? it meant that the greater smp saw them as something worth declaring war on.

and it’s heartbreaking seeing him so excited to prove himself, because we know that the experience of the war is what lead to his spiral and his cynicism as president. we know that a few weeks later, he’s going to be crying into his pillow every night.

for the clip (the “something worth having power over and then you get killed by your dad” clip), i kind of don’t know what to say. i don’t think this is a clear condemnation of the entirety of l’manburg’s beginnings, but i do think that i was probably reaching a bit with trying to interpret it. there are definitely a lot of ways to see that, though.

no, he showed it in the first war and he clearly said it. i don’t think somebody who wants to mess with dream is going to not even think about him until he shows up, and even after then largely ignore him until he declares war.

“yes, it was worth something to wilbur, and that worth was power.”

question: power over what? power for what purpose? how did he use that power?

if it was only worth having power over, then why did he give it up? why didn’t he just kill schlatt in the first place? again i think the reddit post addresses a lot of this. original l’manburg was worth more to wilbur than power because he was willing to surrender when his life and his friend’s lives were threatened, and he told tommy it was not worth it to enter a duel and sacrifice his own life for it. after the war, he cared about power over it in order to keep peace, and then he realized that his own desire for power caused him to abandon his morals and he attempted to destroy it all.

“the greater smp did represent anarchy and peace.”

i just don’t think the ideals of the early smp line up with anarchy, and especially not dream’s actions later. he believes in forced peace, and unity under his terms although that belief is more gradual.

“see you tell me you didn’t fall for propaganda and then say this.”

it’s not “falling for propaganda” to watch the streams and interpret them. “propaganda” is defined as an attempt to spread information, often of a misleading nature. it’s what wilbur used during his presidential campaign, it’s what everyone used during the election. i do not base my opinion of his character off things that have been said about him after the fact. i watched the content when it happened.

so what about the facts that one, he wanted peace at the start, and two, that he cared about protecting his nation and the people he cared about is propaganda? it is information that i believe to be true based on my own analyzing of his actions during that time.

wilbur never says this as an attempt to lie to anyone. he wanted peace if it meant he could have freedom, but he would not attack anyone for freedom, he would defend it once he had established it. he wasn’t trying to establish an empire after the drug van stream (he says this in the vod where he discusses his plans for l’manburg with tommy) and the actions of the greater smp were tyrannical. what happened is that later, after the first war, he lost faith in peace because people continued to attack him!

“he did create division for his own benefit the way i see it.”

can you explain the “benefit” that division would give him? because like i said, his goal was his own personal freedom. he wasn’t attempting to divide people, he was reacting to mistreatment, whether perceived or real. and more often than not, people asked to join him, he didn’t try to convince them.

“yeah wilbur said it genuinely to tubbo when he first brought him armor”

as i was going through the old vods, i did find the origin of that quote (the quote where wilbur says “we go in with no armor and then stab them in the back” or something along those lines)! there’s something funny about it though. notice how he says it and then never does anything about it? and how nobody from l’manburg acts on it? because you have to look at his actions, something you emphasized that i agree with. they have more weight than his words. he also said “wanna kiss” to dream, so i don’t think this really counts as “proof” of an ulterior motive, because he said a lot of things.

“you see a pattern already?”

the “pattern” i see of his reactions to conflict in his nation is that he didn’t want to assert control in order to oppress people, he wanted to assert control to keep the peace, by rigging the election so that he had “legitimate” authority. was it a hypocritical? yeah! it reminds me of what dream was doing, too: placing his goal of peace over his wish for freedom of everyone.

the difference is that dream didn’t have any reserves about “starting an army and asserting dominance over his own people because they didn’t respect his authority and he was irritated by it”. weird that that can be used to describe dream as well, huh? and before it can be used to describe wilbur?

this is also after the first war, where wilbur learned a very important lesson! and it’s right before he realizes he’d become what he had tried to destroy. the other person who acts like this never realized this, though. it’s because he was never trying to destroy it. just saying.

“the friendships inside of it could’ve existed without, and would’ve probably been better off without being stained by war”

wilbur did not consider making l’manburg as a severing of relationships between the two nations. he even expresses neutrality towards some members of the greater smp. wilbur didn’t “make people think” they needed l’manburg, he saw it as a thing to devote yourself to, an ideology. he did not force others to think this way, although he encouraged it. people ended up sacrificing a lot for that (against their will sometimes), and so they became attached to it.

“the original dream smp was this but actually true instead of just being a front.”

ah yes, the dream smp with absolutely no hierarchies. nothing like mister “my house” at all. no “my land”, no “my server”, no “the king has no power”, no “it’s the dream smp”. /s

“wilbur didn’t fear for anyone’s safety”

hmm, no, wilbur did fear for everyone’s safety. you know, when they were being attacked continuously throughout the war? and when he finally surrendered because they were being threatened and killed?

“the dream smp was already safe”

dream and sapnap need better ways to “keep the server safe” than by blowing up people who wanted to go off and do their own thing and posed no threat to the greater server.

i don’t know how to provide “evidence” that dream and the others attacked l’manburg? the evidence is the fact that they did. again, wilbur’s initial goal was not conflict with the greater smp, it was emancipation. when tubbo was taken hostage and killed, shot at, robbed multiple times of materials it had taken him hours to get, and had his old house burned down simply because he was part of l’manburg, those were the reasons that tubbo ever fired a shot at them in the first place!

when wilbur lead his people out on the first day of the war, it was to negotiate. they dodged the arrows and went to the embassy, where they were then trapped and driven back into tommy’s house. it was then that they fought back. self defense. i don’t know what else to tell you.

“trying to end the war as soon as he could” is kind of misleading, because it implies that dream hated the violence. he just wanted to win as soon as he could. he didn’t care what he had to do to win it. no mercy.

the dream smp was not freedom because when you try to leave freedom, it doesn’t hunt you down and try to destroy you. anarchy doesn’t call you a traitor when you leave. and yeah, dream was real friendly to tommy when he continued the disk war when it first settled. and of course when your friends join a different nation, the most logical course of action is to murder them repeatedly! /s

the definition of anarchy includes personal freedom, the exact thing wilbur wanted. anarchy does not include authority, it is firmly opposed to it. i think i would place the early greater smp as more of a stateless society, if i had to put a name on it (again, i am extremely wary to do that because it wasn’t written as anything with a name. this is also a mediocre take that i don’t really believe because dream had his own faction.). a stateless society is one of the goals of anarchism, but does not encompass the entire belief.

dream’s main motivation was that he didn’t want anyone being independent. it didn’t matter who was leading it.

and i’m sorry, but you can’t just take away evidence by saying “he was lying” when there is no proof he is? if you take this conversation at face value it makes more sense! (this is about the conversation between wilbur and dream right before the “independence or death” scene)

“both sides had their losses and were ready to harm the other” what did the greater smp lose. its people? its land? there was other land, and the people could still remain friends. some of them did. dream even says before this that yeah, l’manburg is losing. and wilbur here is attempting to downplay that loss, claiming they’re on even ground because that’s what he wants to happen. he is trying to appear stronger than he really is. he’s bluffing, but it doesn’t work.

i don’t like saying “nobody’s the victim” here when one side was getting absolutely whaled on by the other. wilbur has the ability to be genuine, and he does. if he was trying to “play” the victim, he would exaggerate the damage his side had suffered. his words and his actions match up, and this is a pretty different circumstance from him doing a bit. he is a victim. that’s just straight up true.

i’m not surprised that you think this way, as you’ve said you were on dream’s side since the start, but i’d like to once again ask you to examine where you got these perceptions.

dream offering them “chances” was just offering them surrender. that’s not merciful, and it’s not fair, either. and he may not have wanted to hurt them, but he sure didn’t mind doing it. wilbur wasn’t sewing some kind of anti-dream propaganda in his nation while the battle was going on, the hatred for dream came from the fact that he was attacking all of them.

“colonize” is a bad word choice for what l’manburg was. nobody was living on that land before they got there. the land should have belonged to nobody, so why did dream get so mad about “his” land being taken? what about that specific area was so important to him, when he did have the ability to visit?

wilbur was pacifist, he was not the instigator, again i have to say i can’t offer up proof if you’re convinced that he was lying. when he fought back later it was in self defense. please watch the vods. and recognize that wilbur’s actions election era are consequences of his experiences revolution era.

i genuinely don’t understand what you mean by comparing this to exile. please rephrase your point. if you’re comparing what dream did to tommy to wilbur trying to stop dream from hurting him and his people more i have to say that’s a... questionable take. it’s probably a bad idea to make exile comparisons if you’re going to use them to victim-blame, as that’s very antithetical to exile as a whole and kid of ironic.

“i mean, what other choice was there?”

no, dream had a lot of choices. he did not offer them a peaceful way out. he declared war and then he attacked. it was then that he told them many times to surrender. and no, wilbur didn’t push them to go and die, evidenced again by the times he used himself as a distraction so that they could run, and that he didn’t want tommy to do the duel but ultimately respected his decision and his freedom.

“dream constantly asked them to give up instead of fighting.”

dream has a responsibility to not attack kids. dream also has a responsibility to attempt any sort of peaceful negotiation. tubbo was boxed and murdered before war was declared, and tubbo personally had done straight up nothing to the people of the greater smp, and he didn’t even know why he died until tommy saw that alyssa’s pickaxe was mixed in with his stuff.

if wilbur claimed to wish to prevent violence, and then he did, or at least attempted to, i don’t know why you think it’s untrue. calling someone a rude name is not equal to murder. “verbally violent” means pretty much nothing and was coming from both sides.

(this next part is about the “let me be your vassal” scene in pogtopia)

“there’s a theory wilbur legitimately thinks dream selfish”

i mean, yeah. i think that kind of sums it up. wilbur was appealing to dream’s personal goals. i don’t see how he was shut down though. he already helped pogtopia, so him being asked to further help someone from pogtopia shows that they trusted him enough to tell him the plan.

i’ve watched the clip a lot of times and i think that the meaning can be ambiguous. i am using dream’s other actions during that time to determine how much of an effect i think it had on him. i don’t think he got “shut down” in any sort of meaningful way here.

“he didn’t seem to hold even that against him as he tried to help get back l’manberg with him.”

if dream didn’t hold the disk thing against tommy then, he sure decided to get mad about it later (he brings it up when arguing with quackity), despite the fact that he had also re-opened the conflict in the past.

“i believe they (dream and tommy) had genuinely been friends once.”

sure, i think they were friends before dream did what he did with the disks, and allies during early pogtopia. dream still decided to switch sides and team with manburg because schlatt offered him the book. this is, ironically, dream abandoning tommy.

“he has a sense of responsibility (not control) over the people on his smp.”

i think it can be responsibility and control. most of the responsibility is misguided, and lots of it is just actual control. i don’t know where you’re getting a lot of this.

and i do not know where you got that his fatal flaw was caring too much? he “cares” in the way of having control! he doesn’t care about the well being of others as long as he thinks he’s right. i’m just saying that he sure could have walked away, because he did just that later when he sided with schlatt. it’s not a speculation about his character when it’s something that he did.

him walking away did not entail complete surrender to wilbur. there were a lot of other things he could have done, but i don’t want to get into “could have”’s as i don’t really think there’s a point. wilbur was attempting to convince him, yeah, but that didn’t mean it was true. we know that wilbur was lying about wanting ambition.

also, i don’t think dream was allied with pogtopia because he liked them or he was trying to be better or anything. he said in “tyrant” that it’s because schlatt was worse, and wilbur didn’t have any ambition to expand.

“maybe you misunderstood something i said, but no, he definitely didn’t.”

okay, so since dream didn’t think wilbur was a villain, wilbur was not “pressuring him” into becoming one by helping him. my point was that dream didn’t think that, and wilbur didn’t care. sorry for not making that clear, i was asking a rhetorical question.

(i said here that “someone calling someone else out for hurting them is not the same thing as villanizing them,” and they responded with this)

“yeah, they are. and dream was villanized.”

oh boy.

vilify: to utter slanderous and abusive statements against, to defame.

(i probably should have been saying vilify instead of villainize because they mean the same thing but i straight up did not know it was a word, sorry lol)

slanderous means false and malicious. abusive means offensive and insulting. defamation is things that are not true.

if somebody says, “this guy punched me.” that would not be vilifying them. it is a true statement with a neutral tone. if they add “he is a bad person”, that could possibly be seen as abusive, as it is insulting, but the point of vilifying someone is that you are making them out to be someone they’re not. it involves the use of lies and continuous exaggerated language. slanderous and abusive. abusive only is not enough to classify something as vilifying.

someone reacting to something dream did by calling him a name is not vilifying him. it is true that he did the thing, and it is also true that the person saying it believes it. it is rare that someone criticizes him without real reason or goes overboard (the person who really does this as far as i can remember is tommy), and when tommy does so it is almost always reciprocated. so we have dream and tommy constantly vilifying each other, and other people saying negative things about dream and sometimes vilifying him, if they lie about it. he sometimes vilifies them.

my point is that vilification is not wilbur telling niki, “dream burnt tubbo’s house down”, despite the fact that he calls dream a bad guy. it’s not slanderous because it is true. dream assisted sapnap with the act. vilification is not tommy explaining to ranboo what was happening during exile, or telling dream that dream makes him worse. “someone calling someone out for hurting them” implies truth, and it doesn’t necessarily imply abusive language, but it doesn’t matter because it’s true.

maybe we were going off different definitions of vilify. but when we’re accusing characters who are victims of abuse and manipulation, we need to be careful with what we accuse them of.

anyway

wilbur saying he wanted to use the tommys of the world was left in the drug van stream. tommy himself was pushing a lot of the “dream bad” stuff because he had more experience with him. when tommy was confused during those two scenes (vassal scene and revivedbur calling dream his hero)it was because he believed that wilbur respected him, and wilbur working with or idolizing someone who had hurt tommy in the past was a contradiction to that belief. wilbur does not question tommy’s anger during the vassal scene because he doesn’t care that dream is bad, and when he is revived he either does not believe it or does not want to acknowledge it. revivedbur cares a whole lot more about power for the sake of power than wilbur ever did.

again, tommy isn’t stupid. he has his own reasons for not liking dream, and the disconnect comes from a place of trusting wilbur.

by the way, wilbur left the vc before saying that tommy didn’t care. he was talking to himself (and chat). and he was more fearful that tommy was leaving than angry. plus, he didn’t actually force tommy to give up his house: there was miscommunication between them and the embassy was the power tower in the end. wilbur just wanted confirmation that tommy would spend time in l’manburg. it’s true that he went about it in a bad way, though.

he didn’t push patriotism onto them, they were also excited about the country. there were other scenes beside the tyrant scene, and the amount of times wilbur had to tell tommy to shut up about how great the country is is a lot higher than the one time he had them call dream a tyrant.

true, that scene (scene where wilbur asserts his authority as president) is before pogtopia. it’s also after the war for independence. i am not saying that wilbur should have said any of that stuff. i’m just pointing out that it wasn’t always like that.

also i do not really see “you’re never gonna be president” as a taunt or manipulation or anything. i think wilbur genuinely believed that having tommy in charge of the country would one, get them into more conflicts, and two, mess up tommy mentally. being the president sucked and wilbur knew that. wilbur was not kind to tommy. but a lot of stuff that’s pointed at as manipulative is pretty clearly wilbur’s own paranoia spilling over in a desire to protect tommy, ie saying that tubbo would betray them. wilbur genuinely thought that and he was trying to warn tommy.

“tommy, when i said you’d never be president, it wasn’t a challenge. it’s true. you’re never going to be president.”

tommy’s life has been hard, that’s true. not disagreeing with you there. but not every adult has been using him the whole time. and if you’re looking for fault, i would personally look at the guy who killed him three times first, just saying. other things had impacts but there’s a clear scale.

“tommy formed an attachment to them as a result of the disc war, not the other way around.”

so yeah, initially it was a shallow trade: the disks for the armor. once that conflict was resolved, and tommy apologized, that should have been the end of it, yeah? especially since tommy now had a stronger connection to the disks? that would have been nice.

the problem is that dream took them back for no reason. because he did, he went back and dug up tommy’s whole front yard and spawned months of conflict after. having “leverage” over someone like that is kinda messed up! it’s not like tommy was going around committing mass murder every tuesday, he got in scraps with other people on the server who also committed petty crimes. so i can’t really blame tommy for wanting them back, even though he stole them.

and if dream didn’t care about the disks, why did he later use it as “proof” that tommy caused all the trouble on the server? if they were so worthless to him that he gave them to skeppy, why did it matter that tommy stole them?

i don’t know what you mean about this being the only way dream could control people. the amount of genuine fear other characters felt when he logged on was there for a long time. he held a lot of power on the server, and a lot of his control was physical, evidenced by exile in particular but also the wars.

when he did ultimately use connections to control people, that was still a bad thing.

“his friend’s house got burnt down and he wanted the person who did it to be held accountable?”

okay, george’s house got burned down. do you remember the initial punishment that dream proposed? probation for tommy until he was eighteen. and when dream was arguing with his friends, he pointed out that the only reason l’manburg was being held hostage for tommy’s crime was that tommy was involved in the government. he said that if tommy hadn’t been involved in the government, he probably would have just hunted him down and killed him.

also, someone responding to this pointed out that dream was trying to frame tommy for things at the time. dream was intentionally creating other conflict in order to get to tommy. dream did not care about the house. he burnt down other people’s houses.

that’s not “holding someone accountable”. that’s not even close.

“he was taught this from experience”

the leather from the horse was used to blackmail him after he had already started doing that to people. you know how tommy mimicks him? that’s what was going on (still bad that he did it but like. come on.) so that may have been the push that caused dream to cut his own connections (so that nobody could ever do that to him again, and he would have no chance of failure), but it didn’t just happen to him for no reason: it was a behavior he taught someone else.

“he did genuinely think he was a villain before the war”

tommy called dream a lot of stuff before the war, and most of it was unprompted by wilbur. a lot of it was also, like you said, two friends joking around. just because wilbur taught him a new word (he didn’t really tell him what it meant though) doesn’t mean he was manipulated into using it all the time or something. and i’m pretty sure tommy got a decent definition of tyranny later, when the greater smp decided to attack l’manburg before anything went down.

“it’s just a character acknowledging what people who looked deeper into the narrative already knew.”

what i’m saying is that narratively, wilbur has an extremely good reason to be biased right now. taking anything he says as truth doesn’t solidify an interpretation as truth. there has to be enough evidence to actually back the entire thing up in the first place, and i’m just not seeing “wilbur was always going for power and division” as solidified by his actions during the first war.

and again, tommy’s not stupid, and the entire time tommy is yelling at him! tommy knows something is off! if people also in the story are saying “this isn’t right”, i feel like they’d know? tommy was also part of l’manburg, he has an opinion too. so when he says “we founded l’manburg because we knew dream was the bad guy”, he’s talking about why he did it. and he brings up a good point: “you say you did it to stick it to the man, but you’re idolizing dream, who is the man”. (paraphrased i don’t know his exact words but this was his point) this shows that wilbur’s motives have changed, even from what revivedbur will say.

(they linked three twitter threads here. i don’t know if relinking them here is a good idea as the whole point of this separate post is to disconnect the two sides, but the threads were by dr3amofagame on twitter, for reference purposes. i’m not going to link the independent threads but i think people can tell which ones i was responding to.

if this is wrong to say who made them please let me know, i do not know how Any of these websites work. if you’ve read this far, please don’t try to like,,, look up who any of these people are (especially the person i was debating with. don’t do that /srs) and send anything bad to them. that’s the whole point of this separate post. if anyone sends negativity directly towards people because of this post i’ll bite you)

that first analysis has some Opinions. oh man.

i don’t know man i’m just going to point some things out:

-the person who wrote the thread pulling the “child” card makes me laugh because tommy had committed more crimes than wilbur at that point. ah yes tommy innit innocent child being horribly dragged into a giant war by evil wilbur /s

-wilbur did not call dream a tyrant before dream showed up and made fun of their land

-wilbur did not legitimately think dream a tyrant when he told tommy and tubbo to call him that. neither, really, did tommy and tubbo. it was a joke. like infinite women. like dream saying “i’m evil” when he was blowing up creepers on their land before the battle. like dream and sapnap being all “down with the british”.

-their attitude on that changed when the greater smp begin exhibiting tyrannical behavior (before war was declared!).

-“having tommy and tubbo fight his battles and build his walls” is just untrue

-the l’manburg anthem was, one, not written by wilbur (he commissioned someone to do it on fiver), and two, was written after the first war. they sing it in the stream where niki joins. so yeah, at that point, they did emancipate from the brutality and tyranny of their rulers! it doesn’t say who the rulers are (therefore it’s. not blaming solely dream.) but pretty much all of them were brutal!

-also oh my god this thread has a lot of things that wilbur just straight up didn’t say (or do).

-“would rather die than submit to your tyrannical rule” is a quote from the speech wilbur gives before dream lights the tnt. dream had done stuff to them at that point. this is out of context.

-i don’t want to seriously critique this thread because a lot of it seems more like something emotional than an attempt to start conversation, and i can’t really go against that.

-the main argument, that dream did nothing before being irreversibly forced into the role of the villain does not really match up with what happened.

-there’s a lot less of people calling dream a villain than people seem to remember.

-and also, dream was lying about wanting l’manburg to be something. he says to eret a few days later the quote that i included a while back, that his goal has always been for there to be one faction: the dream smp. note that at this point he’s officially on manburg’s “side” now. he also says he has never wavered on this from the beginning. so he’s either continuing his manipulation of eret and lying to them, or he’s just saying that he wants l’manburg to be something to wilbur and tommy to try to get them to trust him. and hearing him yell “YES!” after the explosion? i’m inclined to think it’s the latter.

okay, so then looking at the second analysis:

-once again, calling wilbur a colonizer? there is a definition of that word that matches up with his actions, but that definition is something establishing itself in a place. by that definition, everyone on the server is a colonizer. so calling just wilbur that seems... a bit weird, considering that the common definition does not match up with what he did.

-“got his (wilbur’s) entire side killed” ignores the fact that it was Dream And His Friends Who Killed Them hghfnjgnfm

dream: wow wilbur you’re bad at this war thing

wilbur: please stop killing us

dream: how could you do this to your people

wilbur: you??? declared war???

dream: no you don’t understand. i had a really good reas—

sorry sorry i’m just. yeah

-also this thread reminded me that “tyrant” (the book) exists and yeah, i do see your point that dream did care about tommy (a little bit). i just wonder why he turned against him again? and why dream is willing to admit here that l’manburg was peaceful, and also that wilbur was not like schlatt in some key ways?

-and again i don’t see wilbur calling dream a villain during the vassal scene.

-some of this thread is just speculation. i’m not going to consider “wilbur may manipulate dream in the future because they had a conversation in the past”, especially because revivedbur’s mental state right now is godawful, because i don’t think it holds any value to examining the past. the important part is the breakdown of the vassal scene.

-i’ve already said what i think about the vassal scene. dream wasn’t getting tossed around during that. just because he’s quiet doesn’t mean he’s being manipulated? and wilbur isn’t going “you think this”, he’s asking dream what he thinks by paraphrasing what wilbur’s heard from him before, and adjusts it once dream corrects him. i do think this one is more open to interpretation though; this is just my opinion and it doesn’t have a lot of stuff to back it up lol but i’m not convinced either side has much evidence

and the third analysis:

-dream had no idea what kind of government they were setting up there. he didn’t ask, so he wouldn’t know if it was a dictatorship. and again he was allowed on the land, he just never built the embassy. the “no americans” rule was weakly enforced during the first war, and the reason wilbur got so serious about it later is that the americans were the ones who went after him and killed everyone during the war! so he had a reason to want them off. objectively a bad reason? maybe

-it would be cool if dream said “hey don’t do this here’s why” instead of stomping off during negotiations and then coming back to beat them up and declare war. he didn’t though

-the problem people have with greater smp vs. l’manburg is scale. the greater smp was quite literally infinite, and l’manburg was a small space. there wasn’t anything important in l’manburg that other server members needed to get to. people could still leave to visit their friends. they didn’t legitimately hate americans. but nooo, you can’t have the table because it’s my table. what if you do something bad with the table? remember when you tried to sell people “better air” for three dollars and then took someone’s air conditioning? you just want power! i’m going to go bring back rubber bands to pelt you with.

anywAys moving on

no, i do agree with you on the sam stuff. for some reason i was under the impression that cc!sam was uncomfortable with being depicted as torturing dream a while back, but with the stuff happening with quackity now, i’m reasonably sure that doesn’t apply. they don’t retcon stuff that was intentional but there may have been something taken back a few months ago before they planned this.

but yeah, clearly the prison stuff is awful and messed up. that’s why i noted the thing at the start of the reply: i am in no way saying that anything sam or quackity have done to dream since prison hasn’t affected him. these are things that i see as having visible impacts on the character.

(i pointed out that dream originally commissioned the prison)

i understand that it’s frustrating to hear that used as an excuse, but i wasn’t using it that way. i was pointing out that neither of them deserve it. during the vault stream, dream tells tommy that his plan is to put him in the prison. he says that exile was “perfect”, and the only issue was that tommy could get away. putting him in the prison fixes that.

so yeah, what dream was planning to do to tommy is different than what’s happening to him. but the reasons that other people wanted dream in the prison match why he wanted tommy in there: like you said, it’s a vault. it’s so he can store him and use him later, to give attachments and thus power and control over others.

tommy’s original plan was to kill dream. ultimately, he didn’t want him to suffer more, he wanted him gone. nobody on the server knew yet that death was limbo, and tommy probably thought it was mercy for someone like dream. dream was the one who brought up the book, as an attempt to save himself. he will say whatever he needs to say to avoid death, because anyone would (except someone like wilbur who’s. accepted his role. you know?) so he’s the one who reduced himself down the the book, saying if he goes, so does it. that’s when sam suggests the prison.

true, the arc is dark. this is where sam’s actions become corrupted and he loses sight of some of the responsibility he claims to have. it’s also the arc where dream lied to tommy that he had changed, and pressured him into staying by saying he was his friend. it’s the arc where dream kills tommy, and doesn’t allow sam to come get his body for days. it’s the arc where dream gets even worse, whether because of his time in the prison or because of his peaked god complex, probably both.

and again, my problem is that criticizing characters for actions they didn’t take is pointless. it tells you not much about the character, and considering the circumstances of what dream had done it does make sense for none of them to step in! they are looking at the fact that dream had an entire vault dedicated to controlling them. they are seeing that dream was fully prepared to murder tubbo and lock tommy away forever to be used. they are witnessing tommy giving dream exactly what he got.

so “acknowledging” this does nothing useful! we do not see these actions (or lack of) specifically affecting dream. i can tell you what dream told people he was doing, and it matches up with things he had done in the past, and there are moments he denies the narrative that you say drove him to do this. but i can’t really prove anything when you say he’s lying here because it fits how you interpret the story.

it’s what you’re saying people are doing to revivedbur: saying he’s lying without any proof, when with him there is evidence and he has the motive to lie. when revivedbur lies, tommy calls him on it. tommy doesn’t call dream on it. i’ve laid out why i think it’s not true, and i’ve seen stuff in early canon that directly contradicts what revivedbur says. occam’s razor! many pieces of evidence versus a few statements from someone who at that point commonly lied about things like that.

dream standing by while tommy and the other citizens get killed in l’manburg by his own orders isn’t very peaceful or non-tyrannical of him. tommy was enforcing an eye for an eye, and to be honest? i don’t think “kill your abuser” is such a terrible message to send, despite the fact that we know that tommy’s coping mechanisms come from a bad source. and tommy was far from free of what dream did to him, as evidenced by later when he again attempts to mirror what dream had done to him in the past.

yeah, i read your analysis of the interaction (skeppy and dream arguing over l’manburg). that’s not the only interpretation. skeppy doesn’t call him the villain. he is repeating back to dream the actions that dream took, and dream tells him he’s making him sound bad. skeppy wasn’t influenced by any “propaganda” you think l’manburg was putting out while they were getting murdered. skeppy was an outsider who was calling it as he saw it.

and if other people saw what dream was doing as bad, maybe he was... doing bad things? for bad reasons? skeppy was critical of dream for his actions. talking over somebody does not certify it as “twisting words”. skeppy was accusing him of doing the actions, like “so you did this? you started the war?”. dream was defending the logic behind his actions, like “well i did it because.”

basically

skeppy: hey it’s kind of. messed up that you killed a bunch of people. you know? you kind of just attacked them out of nowhere

dream: no no no you don’t understand. i had a really good reason

skeppy: i don’t see a reason?

dream: you’re making it seem like i didn’t have to do this

skeppy: you d i d n ‘ t

and skeppy didn’t finish the conversation with “you’re lying” or “you don’t know what you’re talking about”, he just told him he was wrong! as in his actions were cruel and needless! “people must have hated coming to your house”.

(they asked me to name one person who dream cut off first)

okay, name one? puffy. sam. punz? he did cut them off, he straight up told tommy he did it, and making a place in the vault for fran when sam had done nothing but work with him? and they didn’t “show up ready to kill him”, they showed up to see what he was doing. so he tells tommy he abandoned them, and indirectly tells them with the spirit scene. sapnap and george noticed this, and called him on it, but he just said he didn’t mean it?

if dream “wasn’t as close” with sam/puffy/punz, why are we putting responsibility on them for his actions.

so sapnap and george walked away from him, but because he did something to them. and puffy didn’t abandon him. punz didn’t abandon him, punz got paid off because that’s what punz cares about: money. he’s a mercenary.

using “they left him first” for sapnap and george doesn’t allow for why they left him: because he wasn’t treating them fairly. he isn’t their parent, he’s their friend, and he wasn’t acting like it.

“he was hurt and abandoned to the point” “he ended up hurting people doesn’t negate the fact he was hurt himself first” “the environment they all were a part of pushed him this far, and that’s just what happened”

so you’re saying it’s right that the reason dream did bad things to people is because bad things were done to him first? because dream was definitely the one who got attacked first during l’manburg. because he just cared so much about george that he kicked someone out of society just to defend his honor. /s and then, because his real purpose was protecting george, he went back and tried to make things right with george because it wasn’t about tommy? oh wait, he didn’t. he focused on only tommy. because george’s house was an excuse.

“that’s just what happened” is a bad take on “people got abused”. the fact is that dream started a lot of the conflict. looking at the retaliation and self-defense that people did towards him and saying “he got hurt a bunch that’s why he did the later bad stuff” completely negates that he started it? and his “retribution” was always exponentially worse than the actual crime committed?

dude, i’m just trying to point out that the story says he cut people off. yeah, he was hurt at times, but that is not an explanation for what he did. it’s not even a logical cause, because we do not see it affect his character. the subtext has gotta be there. the fact that he was hurt does not make him any more justified.

“circle of violence” does apply (not all of them, though). but in this situation, it’s a kid stealing someone’s lunch money, and then the other kid breaks their nose. the first kid punches the kid, the second kid puts them in the hospital. when the retribution dream gave was always worse than whatever happened to him, the issue is not “look at the people hurting him”, it’s “stop him from hurting people”!

so clearly dream needs some kind of therapy (not from puffy though i’m not letting him near her /hj), because just killing him would be a permanent solution but it would upset people who like his character. the prison is awful and not going to work. my personal solution for him is to send him out somewhere a long way away, so that nobody he’s hurt has to see him again. maybe people that wanted to go with him could, and it would be like a new smp. but when that idea was proposed, tommy said darkly that he was always going to come back. maybe it’ll be the solution in the future. who knows.

if the mistakes were unintentional, why criticize the characters for them? and what about “the environment” besides the other people changed how dream thought? a lot of it was internal.

we have him exiling tommy as a weird, desperate plea for friends (not really) when he very much could have gone back and spoken to the people who were his friends. we have him continuously saying that tommy causes all the problems, and he needs to be “restrained” or “controlled” or whatever other excuse he came up with for taking away a person’s free will.

we have him obsessing over the disks, and we know it’s not about the disks, it’s about power over tommy and power in general. he says this in the vault. he says this at the community house scene. his progression is towards a twisted sense of possession, same as wilbur, oddly enough. but they are different in that wilbur is possessive over the idea of freedom that he created with l’manburg (and having power over that) and dream is possessive over control over all.

wilbur’s idea is ruined. he tied his sense of self to the nation and when it was used for corruption (kind of by him and mostly by others) he saw himself as corrupted and decided to take them both out so that they couldn’t hurt anyone. he admits his own fault to the point of self destruction.

dream’s idea is threatened. other people live there, other people want to do things, and so he becomes so attached to the idea that it’s his server and he will do anything to control opposition. he cannot admit his fault unless forced to.

wilbur would do anything to control a tool of power, because he wanted to not use it as that tool. wilbur wanted anarchy at the end. he says so in his last presidential speech. his naive views about freedom from the start of the server had worn off, as he saw people use power as a tool in a way that he had never intended or meant to use it.

wilbur created the election so that he would have an actual authority over the land, and he could stop the fighting of its citizens. he thought he knew better, kind of like dream did. this is when his motives get the most twisted and selfish, he wanted peace so bad that he would take away freedom for it (like dream). but when he lost, he accepted it, and that’s the difference. he saw the desire for control in his own actions, and hated himself for it. that’s why he wanted to blow up l’manburg, to take away the tool for power and the person who had been tempted to use it.

wilbur was a good leader in the political sense (dream admits this in “tyrant”) but when he stands before the rubble of l’manburg and calls it his, he’s saying that his rule would only lead to destruction. anyone’s rule would. power corrupts. l’manburg ruined is his l’manburg, it’s his original vision of complete freedom laid out before him, and tracked to its inevitable end.

so then, you would say, dream was right, yeah? he didn’t want l’manburg. but wilbur before he explodes l’manburg doesn’t like dream. he thinks dream’s right in that factions lead to oppression, no matter how good the intentions, but he also knows that dream was a little too willing to hurt them and that dream doesn’t believe this. dream does not want anarchy, he wants chaos but only if it gives him control. he treats the smp like his country, and once again, power corrupts.

went off there, sorry. dream and wilbur are similar but different in some very important ways.

sapnap had been hurt by dream before the vault, and as dream didn’t see himself as in the wrong, he didn’t reach out. sapnap was with pogtopia (wait this might be wrong i do not remember but he was definitely on l’manburg’s side during doomsday) because tommy had shown him more kindness than dream, and that was originally dream’s side. dream just turned on them for the book.

and sapnap also witnessed dream mocking tubbo, making fun of tommy, exposing ranboo. he heard dream going off about how tubbo was so stupid for thinking dream was his friend, for thinking dream cared about him. why would sapnap side with dream if dream was showing no signs of even wanting him?

sapnap accused dream of that, and dream did not listen to him. he could not see the other side: he was so convinced that he was right. we do not know if sapnap went into the vault with the intent of killing dream. i’m pretty sure most of them were there to see if what tommy had said was true. and then, sapnap saw that it was.

nobody abandoned him because of the vault because he had already abandoned them. they just made it mutual. it being a “consequence” of stuff doesn’t make it any less of a messed up, power hungry thing to do, and some of them had done nothing to him before he decided he needed to control them. he was planning to use friend to control ghostbur, who he had already taken advantage of and tried to kill once.

“people do not decide to isolate themselves for no reason.”

true, people don’t cut themselves off for no reason. the reason was power and control. i once again have to emphasize that nobody forced him into this: it was a spiral. other people didn’t do everything “first”. the small taste he got of his own medicine was a poor mimic thrown at him by someone he had done terrible things to. he started spiraling before the spirit scene happened. and if people are telling him he can’t achieve peace, maybe they’re just... right? did he go up to someone and go “i don’t know how to make this server peaceful :(“? because if he did, and if they then pointed at his long list of war crimes and told him not like this, i don’t really see that as anything more than a consequence for things he had already done.

someone can lie about what they want. maybe he did originally want peace, or maybe he was lying to himself that he did. l’manburg did not invite war. he wanted unity above peace, and that “unity” dissolved into “control”.

it was a defense so that nobody could control him the way he was going to control them. cutting himself off was out of fear, yeah. collecting everyone else’s items? power and control. he says this a ton of times, sometimes not even out loud.

i did rewatch the vault vod. that’s how i got all the quotes of him stating his motives. i’m not saying it was a healthy thing to do at all. i never said dream was mentally healthy, i said he had a god complex and he was obsessed with control. someone’s bad mental state can hurt others as well as themself, and they’re still responsible for the others and for trying to be a better and more respectful person. that’s why revivedbur’s “apologies” mean nothing right now.

“he lists his reason for starting the war as them declaring independence, so i don’t think it really matters when the official document was sent.”

it does matter a little bit, actually. they were already attacking l’manburg before official war was declared. they also attacked them during the peace period. wilbur wrote the declaration as he was standing on the roof of the caravan, being shot at by the greater smp.

a country becomes independent when it officially declares itself to be independent. they were still united; it was tyranny.

when dream saw that l’manburg was writing the declaration, he scrambled to declare war. he had reopened and started other conflicts in the past, and involved himself in places he did not need to be. it’s true that a response is a response, but you cannot treat all responses the same way. quackity’s “response” to the things dream had done (killing tommy among those) was to torture him. we do not consider that good, or fair, or “just a response”, we consider it cruel and unusual punishment.

the greater smp fulfilled the words that wilbur had not yet written in the document, and that’s because they weren’t a prophesy, they were a history.

“...would be completely honest about (dream’s motivations in the vault) in front of his biggest enemy. /s”

i don’t see evidence that dream wasn’t being honest. what did he have to lose by it? tommy could do nothing to hurt him. so yep, he would be honest about it. and he’s listed his reasons as power before. he also has the ability to tell the truth about his motives.

dream does not see tommy that way. he sees him as someone whose only positive contribution to the server is attachment. he tells tommy that evil is relative, and to dream, tommy is the evil one. in fact, he says that tommy is evil lots of times. he only says that tommy sees himself as a hero when he’s trying to convince him to let him kill his friend. dream is using tommy’s black and white perception to get him to do what dream wants. he only says tommy sees himself as the hero, not that dream sees him that way. dream does not care about who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy, because he’s not idealistic like wilbur and he’s not a kid like tommy.

him making a joke about building the prison with a “little bit of evil” doesn’t matter because next line he says that tommy’s evil to him. dream isn’t playing the villain, cc!dream is. cc!dream is playing a character that is antagonistic towards others, and he plays into it and jokes around with it, as other people playing antagonistic roles have in the past. cc!wilbur does this a lot during the election and pogtopia. cc!techno hints at it with his “ah yes, blowing up a country, we must be the good guys”.

it may sound like a character because someone’s playing it, but it’s not dream.

this video matches up with some of my points here, but it’s also framed like an english class. it is an interesting meta argument, and one that i would say i partially agree with, but as we’re not really arguing on terms of meta it does not act as a general opposition to your argument. the intent of the authors does not dictate how you see the story, but it can help with interpretation of it.

dream’s words during the vault scene sure do line up with his actions for the months before that. so yeah, no discredit to cc!dream. he’s playing his character. and it’s not like he’s unwilling to make him sympathetic. he’s done so in the past (and is doing so now) and the fact that he does not do it during the vault, and downplays the tragic part of it (him losing his friends) sure makes it seem like the main point here isn’t “poor dream”, it’s “poor tommy”. they’re telling a story. it has a moral.

dream being reserved about his plans may be shown in the fact that nobody knew about the vault (except punz i think?) until dream was ready to put it into play. he generally is quiet about what he wants, he just cares a lot about it and will do a lot to get it. he’s not one for speeches unless he’s trying to make a point. the point here being that tommy is trapped. dream’s capable of explaining his thoughts. tommy asks him why and invites him to share, so he does.

this isn’t really a “nobody can interpret it like this”, it’s just pointing out that the events of canon are there and should be fully considered. character dream’s perspective of the story is biased, so people can look at it and be correct in how dream sees the situation, but “how dream sees it” and “how the story goes” do not necessarily line up.

conflicts dream has started besides the vault? okay.

-reopening the disk war by digging up the hidden disks

-declaring war on l’manburg the first time

-burning down other buildings in order to frame tommy

-blowing up the community house (or having it done for him)

-attacking l’manburg again with techno and phil

(didn’t start really, but inserted himself into when it wasn’t his business:)

-helped pogtopia

-gave wilbur tnt

-sided with manburg in the fight

-built walls around l’manburg

-demanded tommy be punished

-took personal responsibility for exile and used it as a way to isolate tommy

there’s also this post that describes things dream has done in general. the tone of the post is biased, but the actions were canon. some of these may be “retribution” but they sure were uncalled for.

so when he exiled tommy, that was about “unity”? big happy family except for one guy because “he causes all the problems”? it doesn’t matter whether he believed he was in the right for his motives. the vault does not make sense for peace or unity. it is a twisted, controlled unity. what i’m saying is that he uses peace as an excuse for his actions. he had to exile tommy, tommy would have just gotten worse. he had to declare war on l’manburg, it was a necessary evil. because nothing screams “peace” like declaring war and killing the other side, right?

those may be his actual motives in the early scenes, and he thinks he’s doing the right thing. this changes with the vault. he no longer uses this as an excuse, his “excuse” is that he has a right to it. his self proclaimed motive is power and control, and unity through that. so why not accept that as his motive when he says it there?

“becoming a control freak as a result of feeling the loss of control over your own circumstances isn’t equal to dehumanizing the people you’re trying to control.”

nah dude he absolutely dehumanized them and took away their agency? he describes tommy as a pet and a tool, minutes before he switches and describes himself as the book. this could also be used to make an interesting point on how he sees people as their values, in item form. so he’s using one item to control another. tubbo’s a pawn, tommy’s a tool, techno’s a weapon, he’s the book.

he calls george a baby, and makes decisions for him. by planning to using the items to control the people, he was prepared to take away their freedom and agency by emotionally manipulating them. he did this to tommy. agency is the capacity of someone to act. he takes away that ability in order to have control.

he’s not just a control freak over his own life, the problem is that he does it to others. again, we’re talking true freedom here: the ability to do anything, even things that we would consider morally wrong. he takes away george’s power, which is revealed to be nothing. he then swiftly turns and tells him that if he tries to overthrow eret, he would be a tyrant. not acknowledging that dream just overthrew a king and stated in a new one, he hypocritically calls george the tyrant for planning to do that.

(i didn’t even notice this until now, but it’s actually interesting: dream is extremely hypocritical here, unless, of course, he sees himself as having more claim to who is king. now why would he think that? a hierarchy, perhaps?)

“which is understandable seeing as you’ve said already you never tried to look deeper into him, but it’s incorrect nonetheless.”

i said that before this i had not attempted to examine his character in a sympathetic light. that’s what i’ve been doing. his wish to “fix” his home is really just a wish to control his home, which is pretty evident when you look at right before exile. the smp was peaceful then. tommy had committed petty crimes before, and george didn’t even really care about the house. it was minimal damage. dream jumped at the opportunity to convince everyone else that tommy was the real problem (speaking of propaganda and vilifying).

and “he was getting better until the sixteenth” disregards that he threatened eret, enabled wilbur (however you interpret that, he still enabled him), and sided with schlatt for power reasons even though he said he would help pogtopia. giving pogtopia some stuff doesn’t make him the “good guy” because pogtopia were not the good guys! that’s the point! he sided with them because wilbur had less ambition than schlatt, and therefore posed less of a threat to the greater smp! he wasn’t helping them just purely out of the goodness of his heart. he didn’t think schlatt was right, he abandoned him very quickly, but he could have just taken the book and dipped. he fought in the war. he took the book for personal gain and he placed that above the trust of pogtopia.

“he wasn’t on a power trip at all, he didn’t have a god complex up until the prison stripped him of all his dignity and then threw an opportunity at him, and he wasn’t trying to prove anything to anyone.”

power trip: an activity or way of behaving that makes a person feel powerful

exile and the vault, arguably before that a few times as well. there are a few quotes that emphasize this.

dream’s god complex was already there in the vault. that’s why he was scared enough of being controlled that he shut everyone else away: he wanted to secure himself even more as the sole power.

and exactly. he wasn’t proving anything to anyone else, he was proving it to himself. therefore he also wasn’t trying to “prove” he was big and bad and evil and irredeemable, he was trying to feel confident about his own power!

if he doesn’t care if he’s thought as of evil, why did it supposedly drive him into the spiral? if he stopped caring about it, that would also explain why he was indifferent towards it (because he was indifferent towards it, every time someone called him that, indifferent or angry). he didn’t think he was evil because he thought he had a right to what he was doing. so he pushed himself into wanting more control, after seeing something he identified as a problem: tommy. you’re right that that’s part of what makes him tragic: that he stopped caring about what he owed to anyone else. that’s why he hurt them.

“it’s likely and fits perfectly into his character arc in canon.”

people who are emotionally repressed still show emotions, they just don’t show them as often. dream shows emotions but he does not show the specific emotion that would give evidence to this theory. i’m saying that claiming something is deeply rooted in his character (not the emotional repression, that’s confirmed) when he shows no sign of it doesn’t line up with canon. it’s more of a theory than an analysis.

“it is good storytelling because cc!wilbur pulls it off brilliantly.”

cc!wilbur still played a complex character! his behavior changed significantly after the war, but there is evidence that he was a certain way during the war. his character grew from that point but my argument is that he was not always a liar about important things and that he genuinely believed in the values he formed l’manburg for. if you want to watch wilbur being power hungry and hypocritical, rewatch the election arc.

actions, not words. cc!wilbur pointed out hypocritical things his character said, but that just shows he was playing a flawed character. people using the wall thing as some kind of proof that he was evil is stupid because part of the idea behind the wall was poking fun at america. it was “look, this is what you guys do”.

his early character was passionate and naive. cc!wilbur was aware of this. he was still a chaotic crimeboy, the nation was founded on drugs. but not everything he did was “for chaos” because again, he played a multi-dimensional character. he can make jokes about politics.

“his main support system left by themselves.”

i’ve already explained why i think dream broke most of his own bonds. again, there’s textual evidence to support this and actions as well that line up with it. and lots of people were willing to help dream. he didn’t murder all those people by himself.

“it also seems you’re strongly biased against c!dream, which, to be fair, the majority of the fandom is.”

it’s true my bias is against dream. it’s also true that my reasons for that bias are backed up by moments in the story where he clearly states his intentions, and a lot of the evidence to the contrary is, to me, one-off moments that can be interpreted in many ways. a lot of the bias also comes from the fact that he did pretty bad things and i’ve been watching this for a long time.

this post is pretty much what i’m saying, i guess.

alright @flypaw here it is :]

~ Lad 2

[physicistdyke]

Transed his own Gender

Dr. Harold P. Coomer is trans, he's worked his whole academic career to make his body just how he wanted it. Now, at age 46, he finally has an opportunity with his work at Black Mesa to get bottom surgery. But his colleague and friend Dr Bubby, who doesn’t know anything about gender besides the strict hetero-normative and patriarchal culture of STEM, objects to the new and risky procedure while questioning Coomers desires to put his own safety at risk all for a silly gen-dar.

rb >> likes!

Link to ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25611880

or read under cut 

It was both viciously empowering and crumbled him to the core. He had a power over his own body, rare for the here and now in this space and time. Harold had felt this way many times before, an advantage that should be a right. He could relieve his own suffering, but at what cost? The lingering thoughts would stick with him, latching on like a parasite, a cancer. A hand on his shoulder brought him back into his body, a body he’s worked so hard for. He turned back to see his colleague, stoic in expression. Dr Bubby was not good at expressing emotions in a conventional manner, but other characteristics helped to convey what his face could not. Right now the pressure he was applying with his hand on Coomer’s shoulder mixed with how he avoided eye contact told Coomer that Bubby was afraid. Bubby was afraid for Coomer. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Bubby started. Coomer was about to reply, but Bubby’s own racing mind cut him off. “It’s a very experimental procedure you know, I was reading over the cybernetics reports-“ “Please Bubby,” Coomer turned and looked up at him straight on, he saw worry in his friend’s eyes, “I am fully aware of what I’m doing, I have done just as much research as you.” He said these words with confidence. He didn’t want to hurt his friends feelings more, but sometimes Bubby’s ego got the best of him. Bubby took a step back from the other man, as if the eye contact burned him. Harold was one of the few people Bubby could look in the eyes without that feeling, but now it felt like the island of experience between them was distant. He averted his gaze back to a corner of the room, reconsidering his own words and constructing a sentence most logical for the situation. “I just don’t understand your desire to keep going forward with this, you’re already well respected enough.” *** ____________________________________

This would be Coomer’s first procedure since he had met Bubby. The most recent before that was the operation on his chest, he had snagged that opportunity while working on his post doctorate. That was an experimental procedure at the time too, but Coomer’s endless tap of kindness and intelligence had been able to convince his friends in the medical department and their higher ups that this was an ethically sound decision. Even though Coomer himself never wished to study human anatomy, much preferring engineering and physics to biology, the circumstances of his life pushed him to learn more then he wanted to know. This study began the second he got to college, an unaware and afraid young man, he used his own body as test subject. Mixing concoctions that transformed his body and mind. By the time he was applying for his masters, he was a new man. All the insecurity and anxiousness of his younger years behind him, he now shone like the star he was. From there he made incremental and bolder steps in the process of his transition; first with the top surgery as mentioned before, and now, at the age of 46, he was arranging what would hopefully be his final procedure. Black Mesa did a lot of things, and apparently mechanical prosthetics was now one of them. The new cybernetics department had already made wondrous strides in terms of arms and legs, restoring ability to those in their ranks that needed it. These semi-mechanical, semi-flesh prosthetics fascinated Dr. Coomer to no end. About 8 months ago he had started wandering into the department more often. Finding himself asking passing questions to colleagues, asking questions from a genuine place in the heart. Dr. Coomer was open to talk about his experiences as a trans man, but a majority of his peers were always too uncomfortable to ask. They saw it as an oddity within a good man, he saw it as something that helped make him the good man he was today. The gap in that understanding stung Coomer sometimes, and the feeling of isolation sometimes crept up on him. But his smile and the passion for his studies often helped to bring him away from that space. It was about 2 months ago when he picked out a particular team within the cybernetics department, and started to have more serious conversations with them. From a scientific perspective, everyone involved was enthralled by the prospect. Combine that with Coomer's consistent fascination, confidence, and consent, they were fast approaching a place where action could be taken. _____________________________________

Bubby had noticed his friend's increased absence from their own department. Missing from collaboration meetings, not in his office or nearest break room for their usual chit chat. Coomer was an unlikely but much appreciated friend to Bubby. They had met about 10 years prior, when Bubby was nearly done the process of being titled 'a successful prototype'. Coomer was an unexpected ray of sunshine in Bubby's life. Showing him a kindness and understanding Bubby never had the luxury to live with. Being regarded as a test subject and experiment your whole life does that to you. ____________________________________

Bubby didn't know what being trans meant when Coomer first brought it up with him. Bubby, in reality, didn't even know what gender meant. He had a vague grasp on the fact that gender existed. The knowledge tubes his creators attached to him all those years ago mostly skipped out on all topics of liberal arts, humanity, sociology, etc, except for the most minimum required for him to be a somewhat functioning social life form. But what Dr Bubby lacked in those nuanced interactions and social rules, he well made up for in his ability to observe and form logical conclusions (according to his own account). He was aware of the fact that some people were referred to differently. Out of Black Mesas staff, a small minority were referred to as ‘she’. This group had a tendency to dress different from the rest of the staff, occasionally donning skirts and dresses, and varying from person to person on pigment applied to the face. Bubby viewed these people as his equal (or more so equally below him as the rest of his male co-workers, as he was still an egotistical jerk), but he couldn’t help but notice the trends surrounding this group. Bubby heard the back handed remarks, the passing jokes, the tone of superiority made by some of his male colleagues about the fairer sex. He saw the anxiety in his female colleagues when this attitude approached them. He noted the equal distribution of men to women in the ranks of visiting grad students and post docs, yet the stark lack of women in actual professional roles at Black Mesa. He saw the complacency in nearly all of his male colleagues regarding the generally accepted treatment words the ‘fairer sex’. Nearly all his male colleagues. Coomer and Bubby had been working together for a few years, and a friendship (or the closest thing to that someone could get to with Bubby) had started to really solidify. They were on lunch together, discussing the published panels from a recent convention on nuclear physics. Bubby was particularly fascinated in some newly publish findings on strange Beta decay experiments. He excitedly postulated the possibilities the results could mean for the future of the strong nuclear force. Dr Coomer was as supportive and thoughtful towards his friend as ever, but something else seemed to be occupying his thoughts. “Did you read over the notes from the panel on gender issues in STEM?” Dr. Coomer eventually interrupted when his lingering thoughts became too present. This caught Bubby off guard, but he quickly caught up with his colleagues present state of mind, “I didn’t because I saw it as trivial. I mean, it was a convention on nuclear physics, why waste time with trivial matters of progressing social etiquette?” Coomer furrowed his brow and Bubby realized he had perhaps chosen the wrong words, “Well Professor, if you had spent the time to read, you’d realize it was barely focusing on Progressing social etiquette at all. The man they chose to lead the panel was as backwards thinking about women’s role in science as the Pythagoreans were about irrational numbers.” Bubby shuffled in his chair with slight discomfort, he was never put up to the task of discussing matters like this, “Ah, yes. Well that is a shame. Pretty fucked up too… But I’m sure women will find a way to still contribute valuable findings.” “It’s difficult enough already, I’m sick of this two steps forwards one step back mentality.” Coomer was submerged in his own thoughts, barely acknowledging Bubby’s weak response. “Things have barely changed since my undergrad days. I’m lucky I managed to survive the few years I did in academia being perceived as a woman.” Bubby processed this as neatly and quickly as he could. Gender could be changed. ____________________________________

***“What do you mean by respect, Professor?” Dr. Coomer asked, cooling his own emotions. “You know what I mean, you’re already perceived as a man! You’re no longer are seen as a woman and you’re no longer discriminated against. I admire that you’ve figured out a way to jump the backwards system but-“ he was cut off by Coomer. “Bubby,” Coomer looked at his friend, trying to fathom what the hell had gone wrong in that ‘perfect’ brain of his. He finally gathered his thoughts, “I’m not, trans- because I wanted to be respected. I’m trans because I just am.” Bubby ruminated on his colleagues response, “Well fine, if not for the respect then it’s simply conformity! It makes complete sense Harold, science can be a real dog eat dog world. Anything that makes you separate from the norm is just a weight to be lifted.” “What the actual hell are you talking about professor” a tone of anger and disappointment filled Coomer’s voice, “This is some really problematic thinking you know.” Bubby gave a huff and deepened his gaze to the corner of the room, he mulled over his thoughts and tried to choose his words carefully. As much as he hated to admit it, he really knew very little about gender, but his drive to maintain the upper hand kept him from admitting that. He decided drawing from personal experience was the most logical argument to make, “I mean, that’s why I’m a man. I guess I just always assumed it was the same for you.” Coomer’s look of annoyance turned to one of intrigue, it was rare for Bubby to share his more personal thoughts and feelings. Coomer took this opportunity to prod his colleague, “Is that so Dr Bubby?”, he knew how to get Bubby in a more comfortable mindset, “Then tell me, do you feel like a man?”. “What the fuck is that suppose to mean?” Bubby sneered, “I don’t feel like a man, I just present like one. What the hell does feeling have to do with gender?” Coomer chuckled a little, realizing his friend wasn’t a complete bigot, just an idiot. “I say Dr. Bubby, it looks like your creators really didn’t connect any gender tubes to that brain of yours. Did they tell you the you were a man?” Bubby was feeling increasingly exposed and embarrassed but kept his composure. “Those bastards didn’t tell me anything! At least not directly. I popped out of the tube and they just started calling me ‘he’ and I just rolled with it. I thought that happened to everyone! Until I met you,” Bubby finally returned his gaze to Coomer. Slight tones of confusion, fear, and anger made up his expression, “I could tell that it sucked to be a woman, regardless of their extra freedom of expression with clothes and things like that. So it made sense to me that you changed your presentation to avoid the ridicule.” Coomer enjoyed pressing Bubby’s ‘think deeply about something other than science’ button, but refrained and decided to give some explanation. “Bubby, that really isn’t how gender works in the slightest! I mean for some people they’re content with what ever gender they were assigned at birth, but even then they have some sort of emotional attachment or sense of that gender. And for others, like me, they feel a stronger connection to some other gender and they make what ever adjustments feels right for them. With everyone it can be pretty fluid throughout their lifetimes, but it’s all very personal. What gender do you feel Bubby?” “I don’t feel like any fucking gender! I feel like a scientist, can’t I just be that?” Bubby tapped his foot and rolled the hem of his lab coat between his fingers. He was glad he was talking about this with Harold, but it still felt awkward as hell. “Of course you can Dr. Bubby!” Coomer beamed at his colleagues honesty, “Though I don’t think you could be considered trans though, you were assigned Scientist at Birth™.” Cooper laughed at his own joke, which in turn made Bubby relax and smile a bit himself. Coomer placed a hand on Bubby’s sholder, “Ah, but in all seriousness. It’s completely valid to not be a man or a woman. There are plenty of people like that! And it’s also ok to not have any gender at all! You can feel and express yourself however you want to Bubby, and at least I’ll be here to fully support you. I hope you’re willing to do the same for me.” Bubby looked to the side in a sheepish but calmer way, “Well, of course Harold. I guess I didn’t fully understand how much this meant to you. I’m, um, sorry for speaking over you about this.” A sorry from Bubby was a rare commodity. “It’s alright. You were worried about my well being and I’m grateful for that! You were miss informed and kind of stupid, but I’m glad you were willing to open up and have an honest conversation with me.” Bubby smiled and his gaze was finally able to align with Coomer’s again, the feeling of safety retuned and his anxieties took a back seat. “Well, if it’s alright with you, I’d love to help you and the cybernetics department in your research and development. Learn more about the cutting edge of gender confirming surgery and whatnot.” Coomer beamed at the support, “Ah! I’d be happy to include you in Project Black Mesa Super Shlong 3000! I can grab some of the blueprints we’ve been working on right now!” Coomer left Bubby’s office in an excited hurry and would return shortly. In that time Bubby reflected on the conversation. Not needing to be a man or a woman? Not needing any gender at all? That sounded really nice to Bubby. He still had a lot to learn about life outside of Black Mesa and the apparently fluid rules of gender, but he was glad he Coomer there to fill in the gaps.

[bananaofswifts]

Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’: Album Review

It’s hard to remember any contemporary pop superstar that has indulged in a more serious, or successful, act of sonic palette cleansing than Swift has with her eighth album, a highly subdued but rich affair written and recorded in quarantine conditions.

While most of us spent the last four months putting on some variation of “the quarantine 15,” Taylor Swift has been secretly working on the “Folklore” 16. Sprung Thursday night with less than a day’s notice, her eighth album is a fully rounded collection of songs that sounds like it was years in the interactive making, not the product of a quarter-year’s worth of file-sharing from splendid isolation. Mind you, the words “pandemic hero” should probably be reserved for actual frontline workers and not topline artistes. But there’s a bit of Rosie the Riveter spirit in how Swift has become the first major pop artist to deliver a first-rank album that went from germination to being completely locked down in the midst of a national lockdown.

The themes and tone of “Folklore,” though, are a little less “We can do it!” and a little more “Can we do it?” Because this new collection is Swift’s most overtly contemplative — as opposed to covertly reflective — album since the fan favorite “Red.” Actually, that’s an understatement. “Red” seems like a Chainsmokers album compared to the wholly banger-free “Folklore,” which lives up to the first half of its title by divesting itself of any lingering traces of Max Martin-ized dance-pop and presenting Swift, afresh, as your favorite new indie-electro-folk/chamber-pop balladeer. For fans that relished these undertones of Swift’s in the past, it will come as a side of her they know and love all too well. For anyone who still has last year’s “You Need to Calm Down” primarily in mind, it will come as a jolting act of manual downshifting into actually calming down. At least this one won’t require an album-length Ryan Adams remake to convince anyone that there’s songwriting there. The best comparison might be to take “Clean,” the unrepresentative denouement of “1989,” and… imagine a whole album of that. Really, it’s hard to remember any pop star in our lifetimes that has indulged in a more serious act of sonic palette cleansing.

The tone of this release won’t come as a midnight shock to anyone who took spoilers from the announcement earlier in the day that a majority of the tracks were co-written with and produced by the National’s Aaron Dessner, or that the man replacing Panic! at the Disco’s Brendon Urie as this album’s lone duet partner is Bon Iver. No matter how much credit you may have given Swift in the past for thinking and working outside of her box, a startled laugh may have been in order for just how unexpected these names felt on the bingo card of musical dignitaries you expected to find the woman who just put out “Me!” working with next. But her creative intuition hasn’t led her into an oil-and-water collaboration yet. Dessner turns out to be an ideal partner, with as much virtuosic, multi-instrumental know-how (particularly useful in a pandemic) as the most favored writer-producer on last year’s “Lover” album, Jack Antonoff.

He, too, is present and accounted for on “Folklore,” to a slightly lesser extent, and together Antonoff and Dessner make for a surprisingly well-matched support-staff tag team. Swift’s collabs with the National’s MVP clearly set the tone for the project, with a lot of fingerpicking, real strings, mellow drum programming and Mellotrons. You can sense Antonoff, in the songs he did with Swift, working to meet the mood and style of what Dessner had done or would be doing with her, and bringing out his own lesser-known acoustic and lightly orchestrated side. As good of a mesh as the album is, though, it’s usually not too hard to figure out who worked on which song — Dessner’s contributions often feel like nearly neo-classical piano or guitar riffs that Swift toplined over, while Antonoff works a little more toward buttressing slightly more familiar sounding pop melodies of Swift’s, dressed up or down to meet the more somber-sounding occasion.

For some fans, it might take a couple of spins around the block with this very different model to become re-accustomed to how there’s still the same power under the hood here. And that’s really all Swift, whose genius for conversational melodies and knack for giving every chorus a telling new twist every time around remain unmistakable trademarks. Thematically, it’s a bit more of a hodgepodge than more clearly autobiographical albums like “Lover” and “Reputation” before it have been. Swift has always described her albums as being like diaries of a certain period of time, and a few songs here obviously fit that bill, as continuations of the newfound contentment she explored in the last album and a half. But there’s also a higher degree of fictionalization than perhaps she’s gone for in the past, including what she’s described as a trilogy of songs revolving around a high school love triangle. The fact that she refers to herself, by name, as “James” in the song “Betty” is a good indicator that not everything here is ripped from today’s headlines or diary entries.

But, hell, some of it sure is. Anyone looking for lyrical Easter eggs to confirm that Swift still draws from her own life will be particularly pleased by the song “Invisible String,” a sort of “bless the broken roads that led me to you” type song that finds fulfillment in a current partner who once wore a teal shirt while working as a young man in a yogurt shop, even as Swift was dreaming of the perfect romance hanging out in Nashville’s Centennial Park. (A quick Google search reveals that, yes, Joe Alwyn was once an essential worker in London’s fro-yo industry.) There’s also a sly bit of self-referencing as Swift follows this golden thread that fatefully linked them: “Bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to L.A.,” she sings. The “dive bar” that was first established as the scene of a meet-cute two albums ago makes a reappearance in this song, too.

As for actual bad blood? It barely features into “Folklore,” in any substantial, true-life-details way, counter to her reputation for writing lyrics that are better than revenge. But when it does, woe unto he who has crossed the T’s and dotted the I’s on a contract that Swift feels was a double-cross. At least, we can strongly suspect what or who the actual subject is of “Mad Woman,” this album’s one real moment of vituperation. “What did you think I’d say to that?” Swift sings in the opening lines. “Does a scorpion sting when fighting back? / They strike to kill / And you know I will.” Soon, she’s adding gas to the fire: “Now I breathe flames each time I talk / My cannons all firing at your yacht / They say ‘move on’ / But you know I won’t / … women like hunting witches, too.” A coup de gras is delivered: “It’s obvious that wanting me dead has really brought you two together.” It’s a message song, and the message is: Swift still really wants her masters back, in 2020. And is really still going to want them back in 2021, 2022 and 2023, too. Whether or not the neighbors of the exec or execs she is imagining really mouth the words “f— you” when these nemeses pull up in their respective driveways may be a matter of projection, but if Swift has a good time imagining it, many of her fans will too.

(A second such reference may be found in the bonus track, “The Lakes,” which will only be found on deluxe CD and vinyl editions not set to arrive for several weeks. There, she sings, “What should be over burrowed under my skin / In heart-stopping waves of hurt / I’ve come too far to watch some namedropping sleaze / Tell me what are my words worth.” The rest of “The Lakes” is a fantasy of a halcyon semi-retirement in the mountains — in which “I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet / Because I haven’t moved in years” — “and not without my muse.” She even imagines red roses growing out of a tundra, “with no one around to tweet it”; fantasies of a social media-free utopia are really pandemic-rampant.)

The other most overtly “confessional” song here is also the most third-person one, up to a telling point. In “The Last Great American Dynasty,” Swift explores the rich history of her seaside manse in Rhode Island, once famous for being home to the heir to the Standard Oil fortune and, after he died, his eccentric widow. Swift has a grand old time identifying with the women who decades before her made fellow coast-dwellers go “there goes the neighborhood”: “There goes the maddest woman this town has ever seen / She had a marvelous time ruining everything,” she sings of the long-gone widow, Rebekah. “Fifty years is a long time / Holiday House sat quietly on that beach / Free of women with madness, their men and bad habits / Then it was bought by me… the loudest woman this town has ever seen.” (A fine madness among proud women is another recurring theme.)

But, these examples aside, the album is ultimately less obviously self-referential than most of Swift’s. The single “Cardigan,” which has a bit of a Lana Del Rey feel (even though it’s produced by Dessner, not Del Rey’s partner Antonoff) is part of Swift’s fictional high school trilogy, along with “August” and “Betty.” That sweater shows up again in the latter song, in which Swift takes on the role of a 17-year boy publicly apologizing for doing a girl wrong — and which kicks into a triumphant key change at the end that’s right out of “Love Story,” in case anyone imagines Swift has completely moved on from the spirit of early triumphs.

“Exile,” the duet with Bon Iver, recalls another early Swift song, “The Last Time,” which had her trading verses with Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol. Then, as now, she gives the guy the first word, and verse, if not the last; it has her agreeing with her partner on some aspects of their dissolution (“I couldn’t turn things around”/”You never turned things around”) and not completely on others (“Cause you never gave a warning sign,” he sings; “I gave so many signs,” she protests).

Picking two standouts — one from the contented pile, one from the tormented — leads to two choices: “Illicit Affairs” is the best cheating song since, well, “Reputation’s” hard-to-top “Getaway Car.” There’s less catharsis in this one, but just as much pungent wisdom, as Swift describes the more mundane details of maintaining an affair (“Tell your friends you’re out for a run / You’ll be flushed when you return”) with the soul-destroying ones of how “what started in beautiful rooms ends with meetings in parking lots,” as “a drug that only worked the first few hundred times” wears off in clandestine bitterness.

But does Swift have a corker of a love song to tip the scales of the album back toward sweetness. It’s not “Invisible String,” though that’s a contender. The champion romance song here is “Peace,” the title of which is slightly deceptive, as Swift promises her beau, or life partner, that that quality of tranquility is the only thing she can’t promise him. If you like your love ballads realistic, it’s a bit of candor that renders all the compensatory vows of fidelity and courage all the more credible and deeply lovely. “All these people think love’s for show / But I would die for you in secret.”

That promise of privacy to her intended is a reminder that Swift is actually quite good at keeping things close to the vest, when she’s not spilling all — qualities that she seems to value and uphold in about ironically equal measure. Perhaps it’s in deference to the sanctity of whatever she’s holding dear right now that there are more outside narratives than before in this album — including a song referring to her grandfather storming the beaches in World War II — even as she goes outside for fresh collaborators and sounds, too. But what keeps you locked in, as always, is the notion of Swift as truth-teller, barred or unbarred, in a world of pop spin. She’s celebrating the masked era by taking hers off again.

Taylor Swift “Folklore” Republic Records

[kinetic-elaboration]

September 10: Friday

I just had this feeling this morning like I didn’t want to go to work and eh... that was probably right. Nothing really bad happened, I just felt very strongly that I did NOT want to be there.

My coworker wanted to talk to me at like 8:30 in the morning (you know those silly little ‘don’t talk to me before I’ve had my coffee’ signs?? literally do not talk to me before 9:30 EARLIEST) and I was supremely incoherent. Then later a different coworker essentially took out his bad mood on my department including on me personally, and it was... dumb. I got his point but I’m just, as I tried to explain to others later, unkeen on being talked to about actions I took under others’ explicit instructions. Also, in part because of that, in part because I thought he was semi-unreasonable, and in part because I just truly didn’t want to do what he was asking/telling me to do, I did not really budge on the issue. Which was very awkward because as I said I did get his point. And of course the issue is SOMETHING DUMB which is always how it is. All of these fights are 100% shit that would sound idiotic if you tried to explain it to someone else, which is why I’m vaguing right now.

And the nametags thing came up on Teams (thanks @ the same coworker), and the only good thing about that is that the director explicitly said she was against the idea so I feel pretty confident that it won’t be mandated. Also I could detect some panic in other people about it. I do NOT like the way this is being handled AT ALL. Plus it’s just the hill I’ve decided to die on (because I think I can win--so I guess it’s better to say this is the hill I’m going to defeat my enemies on) so I gotta get annoyed at it. I refrained from contributing to the conversation but I did like the director’s anti-nametag post, which I think gets my point across.

Also I felt like I spent a lot of time doing not much, to be honest. Still didn’t go to stupid compact shelving. Devoted too much time to the crap in the above paragraphs. Talked to BL over in admin and heard some more unflattering stories about a particular administrator. Like, incredibly unflattering. Which is stuff I do want to know but it contributes to the overall Mood of the day, which again is ‘I don’t want to be here.’

I took a very late lunch, and that in turn contributed to me not paying enough attention to the time and leaving late.OH AND I got 3 important emails in the last ten minutes of the day. Two were very expected because they were coming from the West Coast but the last was like.. do not make me deal with this right now.

I didn’t deal with almost any of it but I did get so distracted that I left about five minutes late, and so I missed the bus. I wasn’t too upset about it since the weather was nice anyway and I didn’t mind spending some time downtown. But I did waste time trying to see if I could catch said bus, and then more time trying to go to my favorite coffee shop, which had closed at 5. But since it was 5:15, there were still people inside (cleaning up, which is fair) and people outside (drinking coffees they’d bought before 5 I’m sure, also fair), and the sign said hours were until 7 so I spent a few confused, embarrassing moments going ????? what is the truth?

So ultimately I went to a different cafe, a newish one that opened in 2019 I think. I’ve always avoided it in part because the floor is very loud and in part because I felt like I was cheating on my main place lol. (Not that I never get coffee anywhere else... just that this place is so close to my usual place, I always feel like, if I’m in the area, I might as well go to said usual place.) I did find the inside very disorienting. The pattern of the floor is just truly A Lot. They did have these weird teacup ornaments hanging from the ceiling though. I got an iced latte, which was fine, and this delicious spinach and feta pastry. I feel like I should stop by more often for baked goods. I settled outside with what I’d gotten, mostly because of the floor, partly because it actually was nice out, and partly because I’m not currently comfortable with indoor dining, even in places with almost no one in them.

I only had like 25 minutes to kill at that point, but it was nice. I had a notebook with me and I did a teeny bit of planning on the Southern Gothic AU (still behind on this!!). Mostly I listened to the conversation next to me. I couldn’t entirely help it; the girl’s voice was carrying. She was talking to her guy friend about some recent issues they’d been having in their friendship. I was honestly...kind of impressed with them? I could mostly hear her--he was talking too but his voice didn’t carry as much--but it just overall sounded like a really open, emotionally honest, generally calm talk. Like certainly there were strong emotions in play (not exactly going to judge whether they were “warranted” given the apparent facts of the dispute, since I just ranted about a disagreement over something so dumb I don’t even want to name it in public) but they were just... expressing feelings that were difficult, and expressing displeasure with others’ actions, without yelling or being passive aggressive, etc. I mean even that they’d picked this time and place to meet specifically to discuss it I thought was commendable. And they were definitely friends, not bf/gf, because the disagreement involved his girlfriend (once referred to as his “partner”...sorry lol I judged that a LITTLE since they looked like they were maybe 21 years old--partner in WHAT??). The girl mentioned her therapist, which put a lot of her tone and vocabulary into perspective. Not necessarily in a bad way, I mean, it seemed to be working? But as someone who has never been to therapy, but is self-taught, so to speak, in gauging and describing my own feelings, I could... discern a sort of purposeful vocabulary that almost sounded scripted. I wrote down some specific quotes but I don’t want to put them in a public place. I’ll draw my respecting-strangers’-privacy line in the sand there. But a lot of, like “when you do x, it makes me feel y” kind of controlled explanations.

Anyway, I got very invested in that. Partly for future writing purposes, partly out of curiosity and partly because... I don’t know that I could have that kind of conversation NOW and I’m fairly sure I could not have when I was in college. I mean.... I don’t know... I’ve blocked out a lot of the pretentious/serious/about-our-feelings talks I did have. And what sticks out now are all the times I didn’t do that--all of the many, many issues with TA38... Even the way B and I have literally NEVER acknowledged the handful of times we hooked up in 2009.

You’re never gonna sound COOL talking about your emotions, your wants and your needs; it’s always gonna sound, imo, like a Therapy Script. And I don’t even always think you gotta have those talks. After graduation, R and I literally had this exchange where we said ‘well we both made mistakes last year, and we could try to untangle it now, but it’s just gonna bring up a lot of bad feelings. It’s done now anyway. Blanket apologies given, blanket acceptance of apologies, let’s move on.” And we did and it was fine. But if we’d had better conversations while we were living together, that would have been a different situation.

All of which is of course complicated for me personally because I am extremely conflict-averse. EXTREMELY.

Anyway, I ran into BL at the bus stop and we talked a bit there and on the bus, which was fine but kinda exhausting tbqh especially because of the topic of conversation. I got home at 6:30 and must have crawled immediately into bed and gone to sleep, but I barely remember it at all. Woke up at 10:30 and had no idea what time it was or what day it was or what I was doing.

Had dinner and then somehow went down a rabbit hole that started... somewhere?? and ended with me looking up my childhood home on Google Earth, which you KNOW is the sign of a mentally stable person who is doing just fine okay.

Now it’s the absolutely disgusting hour of 2:30 in the morning... Idk I wanted to go out tomorrow and take advantage of the nice weather but we’ll see how that goes. The thing is I feel like I need a full day to sleep but I only have two (2) days and in that time I gotta do laundry, cook for the week, preferably write one (1) whole chapter of this fic, and possibly also go on the aforementioned excursion. Which is a lot for me. It doesn’t really... fit.

Everything’s just so much all the time and so on.

[truthseekerastrology]

February 1, 2021:  #HowDoesChironShowUp4U?  Let’s Have A Real Conversation! #chironchronicles

Hey Truthseekers, how’s it going? Today, the moon is in Libra (opposing my Midheaven almost to the minute!!), with transit Venus solidly in Aquarius, joining 4 other planets, including the Sun!  I thought would be a great opportunity to check in and let you know where things stood with the #ChironChronicles series.  I am knee deep in my #ChironReturn, my friends, and I must be honest… this trip ain’t easy. More about that in a bit.

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One of the things that #Chiron represents in our natal charts is the degree to which we are able to mediate a working relationship - an understanding, if you will - between our inner taskmaster (Saturn) and our inner rebel (Uranus) so that we don’t overdo one to the detriment of the other.  In this, as with everything else in life, sometimes we’re able to strike a balance, and sometimes we fail miserably.  The key is to feel the feelings either way, find a way to learn from our mistakes or missteps, and move on.

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Let me share with you what happened to me when Chiron temporarily abdicated his role of mediating the fragile but functional relationship between my own taskmaster and inner rebel, and ongoing negotiations (temporarily) broke down at the end of 2020… and how I plan to get back on track in 2021.  

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In May 2020 I launched a series of semi-autobiographical musings about #Chiron here on the website called #ChironChronicles.  My goal was to write a post a month, but because I had other responsibilities, it didn’t happen to the degree that I envisioned.  To be completely honest with you, there was a part of me that remained very open and willing to being talked out of maintaining a regular writing schedule.  So instead of achieving the goal of writing 8 posts last year, I was only able to crank out 6. Not sure what to make of that, but it is what it is.

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Even though I didn’t quite meet my writing goal, I was thinking about the #ChironChronicles series constantly… I’ve been reading (and in some cases, re-reading) everything I could get my hands on; I’ve been lowkey obsessing over what to write about, where I wanted to take the series, the whole bit. But before I could really put a stake in the ground, I needed to overcome a host of self-doubts, anxieties and fears about putting my ideas out there, the whole shot, and that meant I needed to do some serious inner healing work.  I’m not done yet, there’s definitely more work to do, but now that it’s 2021, I’m a lot more comfortable with and clear about the idea that part of fulfilling my soul contract involves making a novel, meaningful and substantive contribution to the discourse about Chiron, while keeping things lighthearted and fun and relatable.  

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The thing is, though, I don’t want to make this leg of my #Chironic journey alone.  I really don’t.  Yes, my natal Chiron is in #Aries, but I realized not too long ago that my understanding about Chiron will be enriched so much more through heartfelt conversations with others about their experiences.  Chalk that up to my secondary progressed Libra Moon LOL.  Anyway, to that end, I want to have a REAL conversation with you about the good, bad and ugly about #Chiron.  Let me propose two ways in which we can make this happen together.

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First, as I resume my writing duties this month, and ramp up my social media posts, I will be using #ChironChronicles and a new second hashtag -  #HowDoesChironShowUp4U - and I encourage you to do the same as you share your comments, insights, reactions and experiences.  

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The other thing is this:   I am now on #Clubhouse as @iamtieshkasmith… Ultimately, I plan to host a regular #ChironChronicles gathering on that platform.  If you think you would be interested in joining me, and you are already on Clubhouse as well, feel free to give me a follow. 

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The final thing is this:  I will be dropping a series of posts over the next few weeks that speak to how Chiron showed up in the remarkable (but short) life of Dr. Martin Luther King.  I invite you to follow along and weigh in when the Spirit moves you!  And if there are other people of color whose Chiron cycles you would like to see explored in future installments, hit me up !!

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

Christmas without Miracles

I’ve fallen a bit behind on my contributions to @drawlight’s Advent Calendar, but behold!

One fic using two prompts so I feel less guilty!

This one takes place in the early 1800s. No specific location - just isolated, outside of England, and cold.

This is supposed to be a few years before the 1862 argument, but if you want to headcanon a universe where this happens instead of the 1862 argument, that’s cool, too.

06 - Sleigh Bells/07 - Silent Night (2,630)

Snow had started to fall.

Just lightly, each white flake twisting down from a sky dark with clouds.

All the usual nighttime noises – insects, animals rustling in the undergrowth, even the wind in the trees – were silenced. Just the gentle hush of snow accumulating, molecule by molecule.

Aziraphale knew he should be inside. There was a fire blazing in the hearth, the cabin bright and warm and empty. Two of the three would be an improvement on what he had out here, standing on the porch, looking across the rolling, tree-dotted hills.

Cold. Empty. Silent.

He hated the silence most of all.

--

Crowley didn’t hate snow, so long as he didn’t have to travel in it.

Walk, and your boots filled up with snow.

Ski, and you looked ridiculous anywhere outside the Alps. And in them, too.

Riding a horse was out – if he went the rest of eternity without ever sitting on one of those again, he’d be happy.

But anything with wheels was also out – carriages and wagons and carts could barely handle clean city streets.

Trains were good, if the tracks were cleared, but so far Hell had not been interested in his proposal to build a train line that stopped at every human residence in the world. Which was fine, that had only been semi-serious, anyway.

The only remaining option was to use some form of sled.

He glared at the…sled? Sleigh? Whichever. It was small, just enough room for one person, or a small pile of supplies, to sit in it the seat, but whoever drove it had to stand behind on the runners. It was pulled by some kind of long-maned pony or very small horse that looked like it had its own ideas about who was in charge.

The bridle and reins were covered in bells.

“Do you have one without the bells?” he asked, not even really hoping.

“Nope,” the man said with the cheerful joy of one who knows he has the transportation market cornered for the next few months. “Those bells let people know you’re coming even when they can’t see you. And anyway, they keep off the evil spirits.”

“So I’ve heard.” Crowley reached over and flicked a finger at one of the large silvery bells.

Chk-chk-chk

The whole line jingled, sending shivers up and down his arms, settling at the back of his neck.

He hated that noise most of all.

--

Too many frivolous miracles.

First, a letter full of such threatening language that only a trek through a revolution-torn city to find his favorite pastries – as well as a not-quite-chance encounter with a certain demon – had been able to calm him down again.

Then, a commendation. Congratulations on performing your job perfectly as always.

And now, a “meditative retreat” – five months alone to think about what he should and shouldn’t be using his powers to achieve. No miracles allowed.

A month and a half in, he’d decided – he hadn’t the faintest idea.

Take the most simple of duties: sometimes, he was assigned to keep a person safe.

Did that mean use a miracle to stop them from being injured? Or to heal them afterwards? Or was he supposed to guide them, miracle-free, as if he were another human? Do what seems best, he’d be told, but what seemed best to him never seemed best to anyone else.

Or protecting himself – his corporation, rather, since Aziraphale’s true self was rarely in danger. Could he use a miracle to avoid a dangerous situation? Heal himself from an injury? Was his body the same as a human body, or less valuable? Was all this a waste of Heaven’s resources when he could simply get a new body? How many miracles were equal to one body, anyway?

Questions he shouldn’t ask. Shouldn’t have to ask. He should just know. Angels received their orders, obeyed them, and chose the best course of action, because that’s what angels did.

Angels weren’t supposed to get confused.

But Aziraphale did. All the time. What did that make him?

--

Crowley preferred to do everything by miracle.

Need new clothes? Manifest them.

Need money? There it is.

Food? Never bothered to learn to cook. When he was hungry, he pulled fully prepared meals out of the nearest cupboard.

Hell rarely tracked exactly what he did, as long as he could demonstrate evil had been accomplished.

But they did track where he was, using miracles. It didn’t do to be more than a few miles from where you were supposed to be.

This wasn’t anywhere near Venice, which was a pity, because he’d rather like to be in Venice right now.

He stared around the bakery. “I don’t know. Just get me several things that are hot and edible.” He had a list, but it wasn’t helping. “Do you have a…stuffing? Or butter?”

“You can get butter from the general store,” the baker’s wife offered, putting together his packages.

“No. The shop person said they didn’t have any dairy.”

“He just meant milk and cream. They’ll have butter, and cheese if you want it.”

Crowley dragged the heel of his hand across his forehead. He’d lived in agricultural societies. He knew perfectly well that butter and cheese were both dairy. “Fine. I’ll go back. How about the stuffing?”

“You’ll want to make your own.”

“Really don’t.”

“I can give you a family recipe!” She started writing in pencil on the brown wrapping of one of the packages. “You’ll need ground beef, sausage…”

A few minutes later, Crowley opened the door to the bitter cold wind outside, making all the bells in the wreath jangle up and down his already-raw nerves.

Chk-chk-chk

He paused, cracked his neck, and kept walking.

--

Aziraphale finally had to return to the cabin, as the snow had piled up higher than his feet.

Only a single room – wood stove, table and benches, rug; there was a bed even though he didn’t sleep, a few pots and pans even though there was no food. 

No chair. No books. Well, one book.

Gabriel had left him a journal, and pen and ink. Encouraged him to write down his thoughts.

Aziraphale thought best when he was reading, talking, engaging with someone or something. For the first few weeks, he’d talked to himself a lot, arguing with the empty room, having mock conversations, even reciting poetry he had memorized.

But slowly the oppressive quiet had settled across his soul. And he found himself picking up the pen to write –

What? What could he write about? His doubts? His confusion? What would he even say?

When it got to be too much, he tried drawing, sketching out what he could see. That helped a little, but once he’d scribbled down images of the room, the hills outside, the one tree he liked to walk to…well, he was back to the same dilemma, what to write?

Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to list a few questions. Just so he could think about the answers.

--

Chk-chk-chk

The door of the last shop slammed behind Crowley, bells clattering. Shaking his head to clear it, he checked his list one more time. It looked like he had everything, though the ink was already smudging where snowflakes fell on it.

He settled the packages into the sled, tucking a blanket all around them, and pulled up the collar of his coat against the biting wind.

“Better leave room for yourself,” said the kid.

Crowley looked him up and down. Seventeen or so, son of the man who had rented him the sled and horse. He was supposed to drive it out and return with it.

“Nope. I’m driving, you’re staying.”

“That’s not how this works. We only have a few, and we need to be able to get supplies out in an emergency –”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Crowley handed over a pile of money. “This should cover the sled and the horse, in case I don’t come back. Plus a bit. Give it to your dad.” He considered the kid another moment. “You have, I don’t know, a girl you like? Boy? Anything?” The kid tried to give him a stubborn, blank look, but some of that pink wasn’t just from the cold. “Whatever, not my business.” Crowley handed over the rest of his money, saving only what he would need to get back to London. “Give him, her, or them something nice. Cheers.”

While the kid was still staring at the pile of money, Crowley climbed onto the runners of the sled and took the reins in both hands.

Chk-chk-chk

He felt that one in his stomach.

With another jingling of sleigh bells, he shook the reins –

And nothing happened.

“Go.”

Nothing.

“Move, horse!”

Now it was just embarrassing.

The kid leaned against the sled. “Are you sure? I don’t think you know what you’re doing.”

“Of course I don’t!” He jerked the reins back, trying to ignore the way the sound of bells hammered into his spine. “But no one can know where I’m going.”

With a shrug, the kid shoved the money into his pocket. “Pull on one side, gently, to turn. Not too sudden, it’ll tip over. Whoa to slow down, walk to go, and remember, you’re in charge.” He winked, and walked away with a swagger that wasn’t quite as good as the demon’s, but better suited to over six inches of snowfall.

Clutching the reins again, Crowley called: “Walk.  WALK!” He shook them hard. “COME ON YOU BLESSED HORSE, WALK!”

Nothing moved.

--

Once Aziraphale had started writing, it was hard to stop.

Page after page. Whatever entered his mind.

It was nice just seeing the ink flow.

Hearing the scratch of the pen fill the silence.

--

Crowley got off the back of the sled and walked up to the horse, grabbing it by the bridle. “Listen, here, you, I am in charge!”

The horse snorted and stomped directly onto his foot.

“Nghaa that was not – ugh!”

The horse shook its head, jingling the bells again and again until Crowley was ready to tear his own ears off, until Crowley let go and stepped back.

The horse lashed its tail.

“Look, fine.” Crowley grumbled trying to stand where the horse could see him clearly, despite the snow that was now falling thick. “You’re in charge if that’s what you want. But I need to get somewhere. I should have been there hours ago. Days ago. You are my only way of getting there. I have nothing to bribe you with. I promise, you get fed either way, you get brushed either way, and you will absolutely get enough apples and sugar to make you sick because I’m not doing anything else with those.”

He reached out a hand to touch the horse. He had lived in agricultural societies, but he was much more comfortable around the crops and plants than the animals. Still, rather to his surprise, the horse let him stroke its nose. “Please. This is more important than you can imagine. Just get me there.”

He stepped back onto the runners, picked up the reins. “Walk.”

The horse didn’t walk. It moved much quicker than that.

--

Aziraphale lay down his pen, wiggling his fingers after all that writing. There were a lot of words on the page. Perhaps he should read over them.

He found himself walking back to the door, stepping into the silent night outside again.

The snow was falling so fast it was almost a physical thing, blocking his view even where the light from the door should have been enough to see the edge of the woods. It spilled across the porch, piled at the corners of the cottage.

And still, everything was so quiet. Even the wind, which had picked up, seemed to carry only the flakes and not any sound –

Were those sleigh bells?

A moment later a horse came into view – one of the small, sturdy northern breeds – pushing on through the unbroken snow, pressing through the storm with determined strides, pulling behind it a small sled and clinging to the back of that –

“Crowley?”

“Whoa,” called the dark figure. “Whoa – I said whoa! We’re here!”

With a final jingle of bells, the horse stopped in front of the porch, and Crowley fell backwards, off the sled runners and into the snow.

“Crowley! What the Hell are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too, Angel.”

“You’re supposed to be in Italy!”

“Yeah, I am. No, don’t worry, I can pick myself up.” He started to rise, then stumbled again.

Aziraphale rushed forward. “I’m – I didn’t realize – what’s wrong? What happened?”

“Bloody sleigh bells. Chase off evil spirits.” He clasped Aziraphale’s hand, pulling himself up. “I’ll be fine, just need to get a drink and warm up.”

“Of course, but – I don’t have any food or drink.”

With a very tired grin, Crowley tossed aside the blanket in the sled. “Happy Christmas, Angel.”

--

Crowley had needed to compromise on a few things.

He had the goose, and what he was assured were all the ingredients needed for stuffing and gravy.

Potatoes, brussels sprouts, and parsnips had been easy to find; and something he was almost certain was redcurrant sauce.

There had been no plum pudding this far from England, or mince pies, or fruitcake – though he wasn’t certain fruitcake was something you bought, it was possible all fruitcakes already existed and were simply eternally exchanged. He had managed to get a variety of sweet pastries.

Lots of wine.

And two bundles of books – the ones he had picked out at stops on the way, and the ones he had taken from the shop. Aziraphale shouldn’t have been surprised Crowley knew his favorites, but the demon was pleased at his smile either way.

There were two things to take care of first.

Crowley spied the notebook as soon as he stepped in. He only glanced at it long enough to see that Aziraphale had written a lot.

Then he picked it up and dropped it into the flames of the stove.

“Crowley! That was a private journal!”

“No it wasn’t.” He pulled off his glasses and glared at Aziraphale. “What did you think, they were going to let you keep that? Ask you to tell them the important parts? They left you here alone to write your own confession.”

Aziraphale clenched his teeth, didn’t say anything.

“I don’t like it.” Crowley grumbled. “They’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t know what’s changed.”

The other issue was the horse.

“No, I can’t have a horse in the cabin!”

“You can’t leave it outside, Angel, it’s a storm!”

“I thought you didn’t even like horses.”

“I don’t! But this one got me here and…” Crowley shrugged. “And it’s as much of a bloody-minded stubborn bastard as you are, so you’ll probably get along.”

Aziraphale sighed, and Crowley could see him start to give in. “How am I supposed to hide the fact that there’s been a horse in here when Gabriel gets back? We can’t miracle it clean.”

“Eh, just tell him some traveler lost in the storm stayed here a while. It’ll be true enough.”

--

And so, with the horse in the corner working through its feed bag and having the night of its life, Crowley and Aziraphale set about figuring out how to make a Christmas dinner.

It wouldn’t be perfect.

Neither of them had ever cooked without miracles before. There was immediately an argument over how one peeled a potato, and what exactly stuffing was for, really.

It wouldn’t be perfect.

But the jangle of the bells had ended, the silence had been driven from the cabin, and once again they were together.

And that, in a way, was perfect.

[ohmrlove]

Hihi! First, I just wanted to tell you how much I love your writing!! 💕 Second, if requests are open, how would the guys be with a s/o who was fat? Like they just don't wanna deal with the stress of working out all the time to keep in shape and loves food! They still love to go out places and the extra weight doesn't stop them from going anywhere - that kinda thing. Thank you!! Love your blog!!

Thanks for the love! ｡^‿^｡

Quick note: I’m taking this as the reader doesn’t have any serious weight-involved health problems. Also, I’m assuming the reader is a girl because it wasn’t expressly mentioned.

🍷 Victor 🍷

He doesn’t care if you’re ‘fat’. He employs people of all shapes and sizes and knows appearance is not a predictor of skill or personality. Of anything, really.

It’s not hindering your way of life, and it’s not his life to live so he really doesn’t care

You’re happy, living, and breathing and that’s all he can ask for

Although he’s a very regimented and routine-based person, he could understand how people get turned off of such things

Working out is like that for people. It becomes an obligation instead of a joy, and when things are obligations no one wants to do it

Victor probably wishes your pallet was more critical, but he likes that you’re willing to taste new recipes for Souvenir

He likes to set up foodie dates where you guys go back home and discuss the dishes

If you fall asleep together, he’s somewhere in-between cuddling you and trying to roll over on you because he wants to steal your warmth

📢 Gavin 📢

Truthfully, he does worry about your weight a little bit.

He’s in the mindset that he has to be fit, in tip-top shape to catch the bad guys

If you could show him the results of a physical or take him to your next doctor’s appointment, he’ll really relax after that

And he’ll apologize for being weird about it.

Even if you’re not actively trying to lose weight, Gavin likes that you like to get out and do things. He’s big on being active, himself

Because you like to get out and do stuff, I could see him signing you up for a lot of interesting and semi-active activities like inside rock climbing

He’s definitely down for cute scenic walks

Will probably need your love of food to culture a diet beyond instant noodles and whatever instant, cheap stuff he keeps in his desk

Gavin likes trying new foods with you and gets extra embarrassed if you pack him a home lunch (he loves it though)

If you’re home and you’ve made yourself something to eat, he’ll absently lean over and wait to be fed a bite.

He’s a willing taste tester but also the type of lover who will steal your food

At the very least he’ll want a test bite and just wants to ‘share in the experience’

If you fall asleep with him--nap or otherwise--you’ll wake up with him grabbing a handful of your ass. He does it in his sleep.

Gavin will act embarrassed about it but he thinks about it. Would love to keep doing it.

🔬 Lucien 🔬

He’s a man of science, numbers, and logic. If you say you’re okay with how you look and your current state of being, he believes you

After all, it’s your body and you’ve had x-amount of years to reach that conclusion

Lucien doesn’t mind your weight one bit. Beauty comes in all forms and he’s more than ready to share any interesting tidbits on the history around the evolution of beauty standards

Would probably take you on museum dates so you could see artifacts from different cultures where they held your physique in regard

Even though he’s not that kind of scientist, he’ll probably want to play doctor and feel you up.“I can’t give a physical, not exactly, but I’ve researched signs to look for when it comes to breast cancer and such. I’d be happy to take a look.”

The absent hugger. He likes to put his hands on you.

Boi likes handfuls of anything.

Thinks you’re super comfy to hug, and very warm. Likes to be cozy with you

Likes to find places on your body that feel the warmest. Bonus points if he can feel a pulse because it’s soothing and he can calculate it when he’s bored.

Loves that you go on about your day uninhibited. Wants to have conversations about it, and has his own theories on how your beautiful brain works to make you just the way you are

Understands being stressed about working out. Lucien doesn’t really like to workout, himself. He prefers ‘passive leisurely activities’ that contribute to his overall health.

Basically counts all his exercise from taking the stairs at the university.

Likes to go on nature walks where he can catalogue birds and fauna. May sometimes bring you along for field research   

🎤 Kiro 🎤

As long as you don’t have any serious health scares and you are okay with how you look, Kiro doesn’t care what you look like

Looks aren’t the only reason he fell in love with you!

Gets super excited and buys you lots of clothes. Makes you promise to have fashion shows for him

Likes to hug you--you’re so plush and comfy and warm!

It becomes a security thing for him, and he loves to touch you. You have so much smooth skin to touch!

Kiro’s always skimming his fingers over your arm or your shoulder

Loves to cuddle into your chest. His favorite thing to listen to is your heart beat.

He’s a boob guy, but he’s not going to tell you that.

Totally 100% understands you not wanting to workout. He wouldn’t do it if his manager didn’t make him

Kiro also 100% loves food and he loves it even more when he’s sharing it with you

The type of boyfriend to order those monthly snack boxes and try them with you

Will definitely bring back snacks when he’s away touring

Going out with him is hard because he has to put on disguises, but he loves doing anything with you! I could see him going to an empty playground at night and just having fun with you.

Hope you liked it, Nonnie!

[r3almellow]

Late Night Thoughts (Gavin x F!Reader)

I wanted to contribute to the fandom in some way outside of my dumb posts/gifs. So here y’all go! I don’t think I’m the best writer! Commas and semi-colons are the devil in my eyes lol! But still I like being able to get my thoughts out there when I’m in the mood! Lets just hope my typos aren’t excruciating to look at hehehe!

This is just something fluffy that’s been on my mind for a while. Gavin is just a precious bean that wants to love MC for the rest of his life! 

———————————————————————————————————–

Gavin watched your sleeping form in his arms as he gently stroked your unkempt hair. His right arm was dead and covered in drool, but he didn’t mind it. It was moments like this he couldn’t believe you were his and he was yours. If he had to be honest, you had him long before you ever agreed to become his girlfriend. Which made him wonder… At what point did he realize he wanted to be in your life forever? 

Maybe it was the first day he saw you after all those years. He was a nervous wreck back then, but you probably couldn’t tell. Why was he nervous? Because the girl who looked right through him when all he wanted was to get to know her was finally within his reach. You were the girl who probably didn’t remember him and if you did was more than likely afraid of him due to the stupid rumors that circulated all throughout school. When he first saw you after so long there was so much he wanted to say in that moment, but stopped himself and resorted to a more “cooler” tactic. 

It took you a while to warm up to him and he was fine with that. He knew you still had your doubts about his intentions and he was determined to make you see him for who he truly was. When you finally realized Gavin wasn’t the bad guy the world painted him to be, there was a sudden shift in your relationship. Gavin noticed the change immediately. The late night calls and text messages, sometimes you would show up to the station with dinner once you found out he was working late on a case, and lets not forget the light touches that were so innocent yet intimate. A brush against the arm here, a few “accidental” hand holding moments there…  Any excuse to feel your touch, Gavin was all for it.

Initially, Gavin thought you were taking pity on him. Maybe felt bad for accusing him of being a bad person. He should have known better than to think that, but the possibility of you reciprocating his affections was inconceivable at the time. But then he remembered why you caught his eye in the first place. You were warm and gentle. Your smile alone could light up a room. You were headstrong and fought with so much determination that inspired many.  From your perseverance to your clumsiness, everything about you was genuine. 

That was when he made up his mind to officially ask you out. He remembered that night perfectly. 

You were working late at the office, much to Gavin’s frustration. He hated knowing you were out and about so late when there were creeps stalking the night at those hours. He picked you up with the intention of taking you home, but opted to take you to get food instead when he found out you had skipped dinner.

He took you to a small diner that was surprisingly still open despite it being so late. You had your mouth full of food when he blurted out the idea of becoming a couple. He stammered trying to take back his words and you were such a blushing mess. 

Gavin could laugh about the memory now, but he was practically dying that night. 

Fast forward to a year later and he was still in your life, still making you happy, and still working hard to make you even happier. 

He was so grateful for you. 

You took a chance on him and he refused to let you down. He wanted you to feel all the love he could muster and then some. 

“More hotpot…” He heard you mumble as you stirred in his arms. Gavin chuckled softly and kissed the top of your forehead. You nuzzled your cheek against his arm, sighing happily as if knowing he was there with you even in deep slumber.  You were so damn cute.

“Hey, beautiful.” Gavin whispered and nudged you lightly. With your eyes still closed, you hummed softly as a response.

“Want to get married?” He asked casually as his eyes gazed up at the ceiling. There was no ounce of hesitation in his voice, maybe that was because he was confident that you weren’t coherent to his words. 

“Uh huh.” You murmured.  

“We could get married at that restaurant you like. The one that sells spicy hotpot…” Now he was just having fun with it. There was no way in hell you’d want to have a wedding in a restaurant unless you were serious about it. 

“That sounds nice. No catering…” You had a point. Catering would cost a fortune and while the money the two of you made had you living comfortably, Gavin was sure your wallets would burn.

Gavin decided to push the conversation further with a smile forming on his lips. “Would you wear a hotpot wedding dress too?”

“Yeah, but…I can’t wear anything too spicy. Only for you.” You slurred that last part as you shifted slightly, inching closer to the man’s chest.

Gavin couldn’t help but laugh at that. He was more than grateful for the fact that you weren’t going to remember this conversation. If he were to ask you to marry him, laying in bed at three in the morning while you were practically unconscious; Gavin was sure you’d rip him a new one. 

Even so, he pushed the idea of marriage to the back of his mind. Something to think about whenever he felt the need to, which was all the time. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind what your answer would be, but he wanted to make sure he was ready. Maybe ready wasn’t the right word, because if you wanted to get married right here and now, he would do it in a heartbeat. 

Gavin wanted to be sure he was worthy. Worthy of you, worthy of the love you continue to give him, worthy of spending the rest of his life with you. 

He wanted to be the man you deserved. 

———————————————————————————————————–

Done! I hope you guys liked it! I’m rusty with writing, but if you guys have any requests or hc’s you want me to write for any of the Mr. Love boys please let me know!

[evartandadam]

Hello! I’ve read some of your analysis on the akatsuki and i really love how in depth you go into their characters! It really makes me appreciate them more! So that’s why I wanted to ask (sorry if you answered something like this already) but who out of the akatsuki do you think is the most mentally unstable/stable and who is more mentally guarded and who isn’t?

What a great question! I will take mental stability to mean lack of turbulence and a ground on reality.

Mentally Unstable:

1) Obito

Obito is definitely the most mentally unstable. It is never made clear what Obito’s issues actually are- How much of him was Madara and Tobi, and how much was himself?

Tobi is never really addressed much, but I assume it’s a result of the White Zetsu in his body. Tobi is a very goofy personality, and if Obito was even partially in control of himself during this time, he has a disorder.

Practically mult-personality disorder, except he remembers everything he does as both Madara and Tobi. So it’s more like he gets wayyyy too invested in pretending to be what’s he’s not. I mean, the personality shifts are crazy.

I really wish more was explained with Obito’s mental state, because it was very interesting and not much was done :/ But there is definitely something wrong. Obito has some serious issues with accepting reality, and doesn’t cope with trauma AT ALL. Therefore, I think he is the most mentally unstable.

Also, Obito really didn’t have the emotional capacity to be a ninja in war (especially at that age). A perfect contrast to Kakashi, who is great at handling trauma and moving past it, Obito simply could not handle trauma this well. This is fine- it’s doesn’t make him wrong or a bad person. It’s like when Might Guy tried to join the Anbu to be there for Kakashi- it didn’t suit him at all. And Gai is awesome! But some jobs go against a person’s sensibilities, and I don’t think Obito had the mental and emotional constitution to deal with war trauma. This is shown in how Kakashi and Obito deal with Rin’s death. Kakashi holds steady with his core beliefs, but Obito totally loses it. This is because they are different, and have different reactions. Anyway, my point is that Obito was less suited to being in a war as a kid than Kakashi, but he was put into this situation anyway, and it really screwed him up. Like, really bad. I don’t think I need to really make my case here, I think everyone can agree Obito is a little… excessive.

2) Sasori

This guy replaced people with puppets to give him the love he desires. He takes people apart and makes them into puppets. Classic sociopath, but extra screwed up because of the added puppet aspect. Sasori can come across as very normal in conversation, due to his intellect, but he is living a lie. Obsessed with death and collecting people… We can all agree he is messed up. And I have written a lot on him! Here and here are some rants!

3) Nagato

Nagato can be tied with Sasori. Nagato has a full on god complex. He completely goes berserk after Yahiko’s death. You can basically pin point the second he snaps. Nagato uses his best friend’s corpse to walk and talk in, and… that’s not something a stable person would do. It is likely a strange way of “honoring” him, keeping him involved in their plans. But he is not considerate of Konan, who has to watch her lover’s corpse move around everyday, animated by her best friend.

Nagato believes he is better than everyone else- he knows best. And he has no problem mowing through innocents right and left to obtain his goals. He is an extreme person, and takes things way too far, much like Obito. He is a narcissist- and is therefore manipulated by Obito with ease. This dude is seriously unhinged.

4) Hidan

Hidan is mentally unstable but doesn’t think he is. To be what he is, he has to be a little off. People who join cults are vulnerable and looking for a place to belong- Hidan was this type of person. Hidan values strength over all else, and blindly accepted whatever this cult had to offer him. So he’s not the most mentally stable person. But he is very sure in himself, and is not turbulent in any sense. He has a very consistent, stable persona. So he’s not nearly as unstable as Obito. And he isn’t in denial about death, so he doesn’t live in rationalization like Sasori.

Stable:

Itachi, Kisame, and Konan are pretty mentally stable. They are consistent in the way they think and know how the world works. Deidara has bursts of crazy ideas, but part of that could be contributed to his age. Deidara still blends in with “normal” people (watch Naruto SD and see how cute he is with Team Gai). Kakuzu is also pretty stable, other than his anger issues. All of these characters would fit into a semi-normal category. You by how they interact with others. They are capable of reading others, and responding accordingly. (Sasori can interact with others well if he makes an effort but it doesn’t come naturally to him. Same with Hidan, who oversteps boundaries). 

Emotionally Guarded:

As for who is the most emotionally guarded, that would be Konan, Itachi, Sasori and Kakuzu. (in no particular order)

1) Konan

Konan is all about obliterating her emotions and protecting herself from others. Konan lives with guilt from a traumatic past, and to cope, she makes sure no one else gets in. It would take A LOT to make Konan trust another. She is very careful, and suspicious of other people. She views herself as a tool for Nagato, and is willing to do anything for him. But she is not like this at all with others. Nagato is familiar, and they share the same burdens. She also feels guilty for Yahiko’s death. Essentially, Konan is filled with regret, and has no interest in allowing more harm to come to her emotionally. She is a great example of an emotionally guarded person.

2) Itachi

Itachi is living a lie, and pretending to be everything he hates. In order to even begin to deal with the emotional toll of this, he would have to essentially disconnect himself from others. Itachi doesn’t want other people to get to know him or understand him, in fear that they will find out too much. He also lives with tremendous guilt, and “preserves” himself just so Sasuke can kill him someday. He lives his everyday life not actually living- in his mind, he is already dead, and awaiting the moment his destiny is made real. Itachi is the most emotionally guarded out of all of them, since it is a conscious effort. Itachi is emotionally guarded both unconsciously and consciously. Trying to get him to open up his feelings to another person is like trying to talk to a brick wall.

3) Sasori

Sasori claims he has no emotions, but that is very untrue. Sasori admits to Sakura and Chiyo that he failed- he is neither dead nor alive, and he is an incomplete puppet. He’s referring to his inability to completely eradicate his humanity. But he only admits this at the end. Sasori is extremely stubborn, and his entire life philosophy is centered around a fallacy- that he doesn’t need others, and he can live forever. Sasori seeks to fix the emptiness he feels, and thinks the solution is to get rid of emotions completely and become a higher being. After all, emotions have never done him any good. So Sasori is very deluded, and it’s a delusion he crafted around himself, one brick at a time. He is extremely emotionally guarded, even against himself.

4) Kakuzu

I would say Kakuzu is also emotionally guarded from living a long, harsh life, and would like to avoid caring for others as much as possible. Kakuzu was burned by the people he cared for most- his village. And they betrayed his trust. After this is probably when he became cynical about humanity and relied on something material and emotionless- money. I remember replying to an ask on how Kakuzu would fall in love, and I said Kakuzu would be very tricky to catch feelings. He takes his job seriously and caring for others isn’t on his priority list. He probably did this to protect himself and decades later, it’s just natural to him to block others out.

Most Unguarded:

All of the Akatsuki are emotionally guarded, in a way. But Kisame seems to still enjoy talking to others and cares for people He is very loyal and thoughtful. Deidara, despite his philosophy that nothing lasts forever (including happiness with others), always seeks out comradeship and is willing to talk about himself. Hidan is an open book. Like wow. He would probably tell you anything just to have someone to talk to. (Hidan can still be guarded on some topics if he doesn’t trust you, but I think to a normal degree.) Nagato is more open with himself than Konan is, since he was willing to talk to Naruto about his problems. Tobi/Obito is not as open as Nagato, but does love to talk when it’s appropriate. He isn’t too guarded with his feelings- he’s just tactful with them.

[ifishouldvanish]

The Boston Hour (19/?)

In which Belle is an Antiques Roadshow super-fan and Gold is her favorite appraiser.

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Belle arrives in Syracuse on Friday, which is just fine. RATING: T WORDS: 10,132 TMI’s: [boop] A/N: So... apparently it's been almost 2 months since I updated this updated literally anything? Oops.

[Part One] [Part Two] [Part Three] [Part Four] [Part Five] [Part Six] [Part Seven] [Part Eight] [Part Nine] [Part Ten] [Part Eleven] [Part Twelve] [Part Thirteen] [Part Fourteen] [Part Fifteen] [Part Sixteen] [Part Seventeen] [Part Eighteen] [Read on AO3]

Rumford was only pretending to read the arts and culture section of the Syracuse Tribune.

What he was actually doing, was sneaking glances across the table at his son, who he was pretty sure was only pretending to be preoccupied with his phone.

Rumford would let his eyes glaze over a review of the local theatre’s production of A Doll’s House for a few minutes, then chance to peer over the A2-sized newsprint held taut in his hands. Their eyes would meet, and Neal would hurriedly take a bite out of his bagel and snap his attention back to his phone– as though he were engaged in some lively conversation via text.

Which was preposterous, because it was only seven-thirty in the morning.

Rumford had chosen his outfit with confident care last night– his purple shirt and his black pinstriped suit (not that pinstriped suit, but the other one, with the finer, more subtle pinstripes)– and as he got dressed this morning, he felt certain that Belle would fancy him quite a dish when she arrived in the afternoon.

Was downright giddy with the thought while he made himself his morning cup of tea.

Neal had dragged his feet down the stairs and into the kitchen some minutes later– and after watching him stare blankly at the open fridge for far too long, scratching at the patchy bit of scruff that had only begun to properly grow in last year, Rumford realized the unique opportunity that had been presented to him.

He’d still been waiting for the right time to share his special bit of news. And between his son’s groggy state, and his own unusually optimistic disposition, Rumford thought he just might be able to get the damned words out before his nerves caught up with him and ruined everything!

He could sneak it in somewhere, undetected, perhaps. “Good morning, son! I’m bisexual! D’ye sleep well last night?”

And Neal would grumble and shrug. “Huh? Oh, yeah, whatever, sure.”

And that’s when he would make his exit– “Anyway, I’d better get going! Shop isnae gonna open itself!” (That Miss Halloran had a set of keys and came in the same time he did was beside the point.)

It probably wouldn’t be until hours later, that Neal would even realize what he’d heard– and by then, Rumford would safely be twenty or so miles away from his son’s reaction, writing an insurance valuation for a collection of authentic German cuckoo clocks!

Yes, yes. That was how it was all supposed to unfold.

But what Rumford hadn’t counted on, was for Neal to be on such high alert. It was putting him on high alert.

Killing the vibe, as his son might say.

Rumford skimmed over the newspaper spread again.

An advertisement for the local symphony orchestra. A rundown of affordable entertainment in the area this month. An interview with Cora Mills, touting on about the new collection she was unveiling at the museum of fine arts next week. He’d actually read that one– curiosity having gotten the better of him. The thing was riddled with all her name-dropping and humble-bragging about what a challenge it was to curate the thing; casual mentions of how a not-so-modest personal contribution from the Mills family had made it possible for the museum to acquire that Picasso– which really ties the whole collection together, don’t you think?

Rumford let out a derisive huff through his nose and peered over the top of the newspaper again.

His own eyes looked back at him.

They darted away again, and Rumford’s finger twitched– hand reaching for his teacup to take a sip. This too, was preposterous, because his teacup was already empty– and had been the last four times he’d tried to drink from it.

He managed to stop himself, and drummed his fingers on the table instead.

The whole scenario was preposterous, damn it.

He’d come out to Belle like it was nothing that night in Storybrooke. So why was it, that he couldn’t get the words out in front of his boy?

He just needed to say it. Get it over with and off his chest.

So he coughed.

“Son,” he began before he could change his mind, “There’s… something I’d like to… discuss with you.”

Neal looked up at him, chewing on his everything bagel. Thoroughly.

Far more thoroughly than Rumford had ever seen him chew before.

“What’s up?” he finally asked, swallowing and dusting poppy seeds off his fingers. “Is it that renaissance artists-Ninja Turtles meme I posted on Facebook?”

Rumford furrowed his brows.

“‘Cause look–” Neal continued, “I know their namesakes are completely wrong. How they named the turtle with the short temper after Raphael and not Michelangelo– or the nerdy inventor turtle after Donatello and not Leonardo– is a massive oversight. I mean, Donatello was one of the forerunners of the Italian Renaissance! Why they didn’t name the leader of the turtles after him is beyond me! But it’s just a kid’s show, Pop.” He shrugged and tore another bite off of his bagel, returning to his phone. “Try not to look at it too closely.”

Rumford tilted his head. Was willing to admit he was at least mildly curious about these turtles now.

To himself.

He scowled back at his newspaper and turned the page. “No. It’s… I uh…” He shook his head, growing so terribly annoyed with himself. “Well, the thing is, is that… I um…”

I want you to know that I’m bisexual! I like men! And ladies! I used to have a big, fat crush on Jefferson, and in retrospect, I have definitely on at least two occasions purchased a new shirt and tie specifically because I thought he would like them on me!

Rumford swallowed hard. “I just…”

Did he? Did he used to have a crush on Jefferson? Or did he still have a crush on Jefferson?

How did these things even work?

Surely an attractive, charming person didn’t cease to be an attractive, charming person just because you met another attractive, charming person with whom you shared something special. Right?

Did it even matter?

After all, what was a silly crush compared to what he shared with Belle? Compared to love? To that feeling of trust and being wholly accepted by another person? Belle had said it herself, how she hadn't even told her best friend about her bisexuality because it felt like it just didn’t matter– so why should it be anyone’s business but his own that when he checked his emails every morning, he used to secretly hope there’d be one from Dr Bellamy? And how he'd quietly relished the first time he closed one of those emails with not just regards or warm regards, but warm-est regards.

“I…” Rumford began reaching for his empty teacup again.

Neal looked up from his phone again with raised brows, and Rumford could feel his nerves dragging the words back down to the pit of his tempestuous stomach.

There were some things that not even pinstripes could help.

“...Pop?” he asked. “You okay there?”

“Ah– yes!” Rumford cleared his throat. “See, I… I wanted to tell you... that I… love you very much!” he blurted.

There was a beat of silence, and Neal smothered a snort. “Uh… okay.” he said, easing his shoulders and taking another bite out of his bagel. “I love you too, Pop.”

The moment gave Rumford enough of a false sense of relief to nod and smile. But soon the table grew quiet.

Much too quiet.

“And–” he added, “I’m very, very proud of you!”

“Oh.” Neal covered his mouth as he mumbled around his food. “Cool. Thanks.”

“I just… wanted you to know that,” Rumford said– and he finally cracked and took that imaginary sip from his empty cup. “I-in case I don’t say it enough.”

Neal nodded slowly. Had the mind this time to finish chewing and swallow before reassuring him with a, “You do.”

“Good.” Rumford coughed and glanced at the watch he wasn’t wearing. “Anyway, I’ve got to get going. Open the shop an’ all that.”

“Yup. You go do that, Pop.”

“Aye,” he said, rising from his seat. “Gonnae… do that.”

Neal rolled his eyes and dropped what was left of his bagel onto his plate with an exasperated sigh. “Are you alright, dad?”

Rumford pretended to be too busy tucking in his chair to answer.

“...Aye. Aye!” he answered belatedly. “Of course!” Added a, “Why do ye ask?” for the effect of it.

Neal froze, a flash of sudden terror striking his eyes.

“Uh– Because– No reason!” he stammered. “You just… I don’t know! You’re like… quiet lately! And? You… you keep saying everything is fine! Which is like, highly suspicious. Because you’re you.”

Rumford darted his eyes around the kitchen and pouted his lips, feeling too exposed to deny anything.

Neal slowly relaxed back into his chair. “Is… is everything okay? With that… lady?” he whispered, as though someone might be eavesdropping.

Ha! Rumford thought. Of course!

His behavior had nothing at all to do with his semi-closeted bisexuality! He was just nervous about his visit from Belle!

A perfect alibi!

“That lady’s name is Belle,” Rumford corrected, grasping onto the red herring just handed to him. “And rest assured that things between us are…”

Magical?

Pure bliss?

Like a warm ray of sunshine on even his dullest of days?

Serious?

“Well, they’re more than fine.”

Neal eyed him skeptically for a moment, then smiled. “...Gross.”

“Make sure your room is nice and tidy, by the way,” Rumford said. “She’s–”

“I know, I know. This is your–” Neal took a deep breath and sighed. “Big weekend.” he finished with clearly feigned enthusiasm. “But don’t worry, Pop– my room will be the perfect balance of clean, yet lived-in.”

Rumford smiled. “I would appreciate that, thank you.” he said, beginning to clear the table.

“Uh… hey.” Neal coughed. “Why don’t you go on and head to the shop already? I can clean up.”

Rumford proceeded to wipe the crumbs off the edge of the table and onto his empty plate. “No, no. It’s fine. I still have a few minutes–”

“But I want to.” Neal insisted forcefully, donning a stiff smile.

Rumford paused and tilted his head at him. Could feel another knot beginning to form in his stomach.

“You’ve been cleaning up after me for eighteen years, Pop. It’s the least I could do.”

“Oh.” He blinked, shakily setting his plate back down. “O-okay.”

What was this? Rumford thought. Was there some kind of covert Stepford Sons program happening under his nose?

“I can sweep the floors and shi– stuff, too.” Neal offered. “Even pick up your dry cleaning– that way you’re all set to look sharp for your girlfriend this weekend.”

Rumford scoffed. “Now you’re beginning to sound highly suspicious.”

Neal stood up and crossed the table, maintaining an unsettling degree of eye contact while he took the plate and teacup from him. “Yeah, well… I start moving into my dorm next week. If I’m going to survive art school, I need to learn how to give off an air of mystery.”

Rumford cautiously slid his jacket off the back of his chair. “Alright… well that case, the baseboards in the bathroom could use some mystery.” he said, poking his arms through his sleeves. “We should make it back here at–”

“Perfect.” Neal smiled. “Say no more, this place will be spotless for when mom gets here.”

Rumford stopped buttoning his jacket. “What?”

Neal froze. “...What?”

“What did you just say?”

“Nothing.”

“You said–”

“I said the place’ll be spotless.” he repeated.

Rumford took a deep breath. Considered his next move.

“Your… mother told me she was staying at a hotel,” he said innocently, as if the whole thing was of no concern to him– but make no mistake, it very much was of great concern.

There was an uncomfortable stretch of silence before Neal barked out a laugh. “Did I just say mom? I meant Belle, obviously.” he scoffed. “God. So embarrassing, right? You ever call a teacher ‘mom’ on accident? It’s so weird!” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “S’like, ‘Thanks brain! Just what I needed! Another horrifying memory to keep me up at night twenty years from now!’ ...Right?”

Rumford slowly resumed his buttoning. “Right…”

Neal noisily tossed the dishes in the sink and spun around. “Anyway, yeah. You should get going.” he said. “Wouldn’t wanna be late– Boss’ll never let you hear the end of it, am I right?”

Rumford brushed his hair out from his collar and scoffed, ignoring the sinking feeling in his stomach. “I’ll have you know that I am very lenient with my employees, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, but it’s best to lead by example, I always say.” Neal said, beginning to shoo him out of the kitchen and down the hall. “Have a great day, dad! Sell lots of old stuff!”

Rumford balked at the front door, refusing to step outside just yet.

His son never said “ best to lead by example”!

“Neal. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

He scoffed. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Rumford’s hand drifted up to his lapel, but there was nothing there– no pink and purple and blue to answer for him– so he just narrowed his eyes, ignoring the way his conscience wrenched his heart in protest of the lie he was about to tell his son. “...No.”

“Then neither is there nothing I’m not telling you, either.” Neal said.

Rumford furrowed his brows, trying to decide whether or not that response was even grammatically correct.

Decided it was too early in the morning for that.

“...I have to get to the shop.” he said at last.

“Okay!” Neal said, already closing the door in his face. “Later Pop! Have a good day!”

“You too–”

Thwack!

Rumford flinched and blinked at the door in front of him.

His son was up to something. Hiding something. Of this he was certain.

Nevertheless, a smile soon crept over his face, reflecting back at him in the glass.

Belle was coming today.

He was going to woo her. Sweep her off her feet. Tell her little nothings that would make her giggle and blush.

He was going to have a great day.

*****

MR GOLD

PAWNBROKER • ANTIQUITIES DEALER • PERSONAL PROPERTY APPRAISER • CONSERVATION & RESTORATIONS Certified and accredited by the ISA, ASA, and AAA.

Belle smiled at the lettering on the shop’s window, feeling a ridiculous sense of pride over Rumford’s qualifications. Personal property appraisers in the United States didn’t require any state or federal licensing in order to practice, so that Rumford still took the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice seriously enough to maintain membership in all three major professional personal property appraisal associations was, well– undeniably sexy.

It had been a long, albeit scenic drive from Storybrooke, and as Belle had made her way down South Salina Street, she found it no wonder that Rumford had chosen Syracuse’s historic district to open his shop. She could recognize all sorts of architectural styles from the buildings she passed– Victorian Gothic, Art Deco, and Beaux-Arts! Italian Renaissance Revival and Italianate!

She’d found Rumford’s shop in a charming Federal style building and managed to secure herself a parking spot right in front.

Her man was waiting inside.

All there was left to do was walk in.

Oh, she’d dreamt of this day. More than a few times.

She’d open the door and step inside, her heels thumping loudly on the hardwood floors announcing her arrival. He’d be in the corner, dusting off some trinket, and pause to look at her.

“Hello,” he’d say. “Please, come in. Is there anything I can help you with?”

As a matter of fact, yes– there is,” she’d say, approaching him closely. “...Dr Gold.”

He’d admire her chutzpah. Stop and set down the piece he was dusting. Wet his lips. “And what might that be, dearie?” he’d ask with one of those crooked smirks on his face.

She’d gently drag a finger along the length of his tie before giving it a sharp tug, pulling him toward her. “This,” she’d tell him, and she’d press her lips to his, and he’d be totally into it, and they’d make out and end up doing it in an antique chair or something.

At least, that’s how it usually played out in her dreams. But this was no dream. She was really here, and she’d already made out with Rumford one and a half times in actual, real life.

No, no. This would be very different.

Because she was in love.

She was going to walk in there and give him a peck on the cheek– and he was going to blush and smile and just look so cute!

Belle opened the door, and a bell jingled musically overhead.

It was bigger than she was expecting, filled with bookcases and cabinets that blocked her view. They were all filled to the brim with little trinkets in a charming cacophony of sizes, colors, uses, and styles. The shelves and armoires formed little walls around staged dining and living room sets– some matching, while others were made up of eclectically paired end tables, sofas, and accent chairs, forming their own little found families. Heavy oak desks were scattered about, each of them topped with an old typewriter and no less than two antique lamps. Clocks and paintings covered the walls, while little frames and other such Objets d’Art covered every available surface.

Belle’s eyes settled on a glass cabinet filled with books, and she drifted toward it without a thought. Encyclopedia sets and atlases took up most of the shelves, but the remaining space was occupied by the likes of Mark Twain, Hannah Crafts, Louisa May Alcott, and Edgar Allan Poe.

She couldn't help herself. Reached a hand out to open the cabinet and–

“Looking for Mr Gold?”

Belle jumped and pulled away from the case, finding a young woman with blonde hair smiling at her. Her loose flannel and combat boots were a far cry from Rumford’s suits, and a stark contrast to the elegance and delicacy of the furnishings that surrounded them.

“Well– you won’t find him in there,” the girl chuckled, leaning against the case and patting an hand on it. “This here is just reference books and American literature.”

“...O-oh.” Belle managed. Words were hard when one's heart had just leapt out of their chest.

“In fact, you won’t find Mr Gold anywhere,” she said, hiking her brows.

“I-I’m sorry,” Belle said, “This is his shop, isn’t it?”

“Well, of course it is.” She nodded at the lettering on the window. “It’d be bonkers if it wasn’t– seeing as it’s got his name on the window an’all.”

Belle looked back and forth between the window, the girl.

This wasn’t how she imagined her first visit to Rumford’s shop at all. Was expecting a lot more… Rumford.

“You’re Belle,” the girl said, and extended a hand. “Name’s Tilly.”

“It’s… lovely to meet you, Tilly.” Belle slowly shook her hand, feeling more confused by the second.

Where was Rumford?

Sure, she was over an hour early– but she had an excuse for driving well over the speed limit!

Whoever decided that sixty miles an hour was an appropriate speed for a three lane highway, clearly never had to drive an excess of 400 miles to spend time with a man as charming and sexy as Rumford!

Anyone would develop a lead foot!

A set of heels began clacking across the floor, and Belle snapped her head around to look. Strutting toward them was another young woman, with bright red hair. She was dressed far more professionally in a pencil skirt and silk blouse, but as she got closer, Belle noticed she was wearing glasses with magnifying loupe attachments that made her look like some sort of mad scientist.

“Welcome to Mr Gold’s pawn and antiques!” she greeted brightly, extending a manicured hand. “I’m Ariel. What can I help you with today?”

Belle glanced anxiously around the shop– hoping a familiar, handsome face would come and sweep her away. “Um… well, I–”

“Psst.” Tilly nudged Ariel’s side and whispered something into her ear.

Her brows creased. And then, “Oh!” she gasped, “Are you sure?”

“Uh-huh,” Tilly nodded and cupped her hands over Ariel’s ear, whispering something too hushed for Belle to make out– something about pie?

A smile slowly spread across Ariel’s face. “You’re Belle?” she asked, and Belle didn't have anywhere near enough time to answer before she went, “Oh, this is so exciting! I mean, wow! Look at you! You're like, really cute!”

“Oh.” Belle chuckled uncomfortably, wrapping her arms around herself. “Uh… th… thank you?”

“But gosh!” Ariel shook her head, as if snapping out of a trance. “You must be looking for Mr Gold!”

“Yes!” Belle leapt at the mention of his name.

Yes, yes! Rumford! Where was Rumford? She needed to give him a kiss so she could see him blush! And maybe tell him she loved him! Was it too soon for that?

“I mean, yes,” she cleared her throat and smoothed out her skirt. “I um... I am.”

“I’m sorry!” Ariel laughed. “You're a bit early. Mr Gold is out on a house call at the moment. He should be back in–” she squinted at her wrist watch, blinking and shaking her head before adjusting one of the loupes out of the way so she could see properly. “...About fifteen minutes.”

Belle frowned. “A house call, you said?”

Ariel struggled to blink her eyes into focus a second time before giving up and taking her glasses off. “Yeah! We get a lot of those, actually. If the client has like, I dunno–” she shrugged, “something big that would be too much of a hassle to bring in?”

“Or a lot of something smalls.” Tilly said. “We once had a guy with a collection of over six hundred model trains.”

Belle’s lips parted, her eyes glazing over as she tried to picture it.

A house call.

Perhaps another place, another time, another universe.

Herself, with a massive collection of things in need of appraising. Rumford knocking at her door, prepared to take inventory of it all. He’d probably walk around with a little clipboard as he inspected each item with care, and she could offer him a cup of tea as he worked. Maybe a storm would hit, and it’d be far too dangerous for him to drive. She would have no choice but to insist he stay for dinner. He’d have no choice but to accept. And then she could ask him if he’d mind it if she changed into something more comfortable. Like a silk négligée.

“But, don’t worry!” Ariel said, squaring her shoulders. “Mr Gold gave me a specific set of instructions for what to do in the event that you arrived before he got back!”

“Oh.” Belle tucked her hair behind her ear, and her silly scenario behind a polite smile.

“The first of those instructions was to offer you a bottle of water and-or a snack.” Ariel explained dutifully, lifting her chin.

She could be the lonely, recent divorcee looking to part with all her ex-husband's material possessions (now hers, of course) so that she could finally pursue her dreams of traveling the world. Rumford could be… Rumford. He'd have to stop by the house a few times– because there'd be so much for him to appraise– and they'd strike up a heated romance. There'd be conversations that got too intimate, looks that lingered too long, until finally– on the last of his visits– they'd fall into bed together. They’d lie in each other's arms afterward, and she'd lace their fingers, look into those brown eyes and whisper, “Come to Paris with me.”

Ariel cleared her throat. “...Might I interest you in a bottle of water or a snack? Belle?”

“Oh. Oh, no thank you.” Belle chuckled and shook her head.

“Mr Gold ordered a charcuterie board fresh from the deli a few blocks down just for the occasion, that's got six different cheeses!” Tilly added to tempt her. “...That’s how you know he cares–” she winked. “He tries to feed you.”

Belle nibbled her lip. “Well, maybe when he gets back,” she said. “We can um, try to feed each other.”

Tilly scrunched her face. “Huh?”

Surely little cuts of cheese would be as sexy and fun to feed Rumford as cookies or strawberries, right? Maybe a dollop of Brie on her finger so he could–

“Alright then!” Ariel clapped her hands together, snapping Belle out of her fantasy again. “The second thing was to give you a brief tour of the building, starting with showing you where the restroom is in case you’d like to use it before we begin.”

“Oh, I’m fi–”

“Right this way, please,” she interrupted, spinning on her heels and heading to the back of the shop. Belle followed after her, dividing her attention between her host and the lovely bits and bobs everywhere. They neared the sales counter, and rows of sparkling watches, rings, and pendants lined the glass case.

“This building was built in 1847 and originally served as the offices for the Syracuse Times newspaper,” Ariel began. “The newspaper went defunct in 1923, and the building was abandoned until 1930– when the city took ownership and repurposed it into low income housing.”

There was sound of a car driving by, and Belle quickly looked over her shoulder to see if it was a certain black Cadillac.

It was a just a Honda.

“During the war,” Ariel continued, “the units were vacated and the building faced neglect, which led it to condemnation in 1944. But then– in 1948– it was purchased back from the city by the Mills family as part of a historic preservation effort. After the repairs were completed, it served as a department store, and throughout the seventies, the upper floors were renovated and converted into luxury apartments. However– as the other buildings in the area continued to decay, so did the value of the here’s the bathroom on your right.”

Ariel stopped abruptly at a door marked Women, and Belle almost stumbled right into her.

“Oh. No, I’m fine.” she assured. “Please, go on.”

Ariel blinked. “Right, then. Where was I?”

Tilly slumped against the wall and folded her arms over her chest. “The part where they tried to gentrify the block for the third, fourth, and fifth times, I believe.”

“Ah.” Ariel smiled. “Yes. You see, this retail space was an art gallery in 1989, a designer boutique in 1993, a posh nightclub from 1994 to 1998, and then another art gallery– all before Dr Gold first leased it in 2003 after having moved from Glasgow with nothing more than his wife and son, two PhDs, three Master’s degrees, and a dream. It’s been Mr Gold’s Pawn and Antiques ever since, making his shop the longest-running business on this block in over fifty years!”

“Oh wow…” Belle marvelled– not that Rumford being a sensible and successful business owner came as any surprise!

“Mr Gold’s Pawn and Antiques has become quite a fixture here in Syracuse’s historic district.” Ariel boasted. “You’ll find it mentioned on several tour programs in the area, and has been featured in several national publications dedicated to the fine practices of pawnbroking, antique collecting, and antique restoration.”

“Some of which I hear have readership in the dozens,” Tilly deadpanned.

Ariel pursed her lips and slowly turned to Tilly with a scolding look. “Anyway, Belle,” she said, “Feel free to have a look around, and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to–”

“What's it like working with Rumford?”

The question had leapt out of her mouth without her permission, but all her enthusiasm. “You know. Out of uh, curiosity. Because… sixteen percent of couples meet at work? And it's… a side of Rumford I haven't really…” she cleared her throat, “Well, I mean technically he was working when I met him, but–”

“It's amazing!” Ariel squealed. “I was only hired as an assistant, but over the years, Mr Gold has taught me all sides of the business. Pawnbroking, market value appraisals and insurance valuations, jewelry and watch repair...” She leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper. “He started letting me make inventory purchases last year– I don't even have to check in with him if it costs us less than five hundred dollars!”

Belle laughed with giddy excitement. Could it be, that Ariel shared her enthusiasm for all things Rumford?

“He must think very highly of you,” she said. “I don’t imagine Rumford would entrust such responsibilities to just anyone.”

“You think so?” Ariel asked, and Tilly rolled her eyes. “Because I mean, it’s such a privilege working with Dr Gold. He’s just… the best in the business. You know, my father always used to tell me I was wasting my time hoarding junk. But then one day I saw Dr Gold recount the provenance of a fork on TV– and that’s when I realized I could actually make a career out of it!”

Belle gasped and inched closer. “I remember that episode!”

Of course, she remembered all the episodes– but it wasn’t every day (or any day, for that matter) that she got to talk to someone about the Roadshow!

“Milwaukee Hour Three in 2012?” Ariel asked.

“Mhm! That’s the one!” Belle nodded. “He was wearing a navy suit that day,” she sighed. “Looked so handsome...”

Ariel opened her mouth to speak, but cut herself off. “I… can't say I noticed. But–” she continued, “it was the same Milwaukee event where he appraised a set of antique corkscrews!”

“The ones that came in the cool wooden box!” Belle remembered.

Ariel gasped and pointed an affirming finger at her. “Yes! My favorite was the brass one that looked like–”

“A seashell!” Belle finished.

Ariel’s mouth opened wide into an awestruck grin, and Belle could only mirror it right back.

“I’ve never watched an episode of Antiques Roadshow in my life.”

They deflated then, their little moment over, and turned to look at Tilly.

“Mr Gold caught me trying to steal a Rolex.” she said. “Well, six Rolexes. ”

“Oh my.” Belle raised her brows and blinked. “That sounds like quite a story.”

“Mhm.” she nodded. “He asked me how much I expected to sell ‘em for, and when I told him, he laughed and said they were worth at least a hundred times as much– and that if I wanted to sell them, I might as well do so from behind the counter and earn a proper commision.”

Ariel wrapped an arm around her shoulders affectionately. “Tilly here snuck her way into our jewelry case and into our hearts.”

Tilly returned the gesture, and Belle thought the two of them looked liked sisters, hugging like that. “Working for Mr Gold is like having a second dad, really,” she said. “An awkward, fancy, dad.”

“He is, isn’t he?” Ariel thought out loud. "You know, I had my first Marine ball with my boyfriend last year, and I was telling Mr Gold how nervous I was, because I’d never been to anything fancy like that before? He spent the rest of the week teaching me table etiquette and how to Waltz!” she laughed. “Had me reformed into a proper lady come Friday!”

Belle drew in a deep breath, her mind already sprinting through the possibilities. “...Rumford knows how to ballroom dance?” she asked.

“Mhm!” Ariel nodded. “Said his aunties taught him.” She stared ahead blankly for a moment, then clicked her tongue. “I remember his allergies were really bad that day…”

Tilly snorted and traipsed back over to the sales counter. “I don't think those were allergies.” she said, pulling up a chair and sitting down.

“Uh-huh,” Ariel nodded. “Oh yeah. He said the ragweed was making his eyes–”

“If those were allergies, then he must have also been allergic to the time I told him I got my GED.” Tilly said, slipping her phone out of her pocket and tilting back in her chair.

“No…” Ariel dismissed with a playful roll of her eyes. “He just got a little emotional that day because he was so proud of–”

Tilly raised a brow at her, and Belle found herself smiling again. Did Rumford know his employees saw him as a father figure?

Oh, how she had the mind to kiss him! Again!

...Had it been fifteen minutes yet?

Ariel perked up and pointed a thumb at the door behind the counter. “Anyway, hey– I gotta watch in the back I'm working on right now. You wanna see? It's a vintage Cartier from like, 1930 or something.”

“Oh, I'd love to!” Belle nodded. Here she was, being invited to the back room of Rumford’s shop! Who knew what wonders lied beyond that door!

“Gah, it's so cool!” Ariel squealed, waving Belle over. “Come, come!”

She thrust the door open, and as Belle followed her inside, she didn't know where to look. There were boxes piled high on sturdy shelves and pieces of furniture covered with heavy tarps– some labeled with what she could only imagine were clients’ names.

A stately desk sat to the left, backed by a row of file cabinets, and Belle decided it must be where Rumford spent the better part of his days carrying out the less glamorous side of his work– hunched over a ledger or scattered pages of research with a creased brow.

Ariel led her to a long, wooden workbench on the opposite side of the room. The wall behind it was lined with crowded shelves and cabinets, and tools ranging from the tiniest forceps to the heaviest rubber mallet hung from a segment of pegboard.

“Customer brought this in last week,” she explained, taking her seat and putting her glasses back on. “Now, we only do quartz watch servicing in-house– we don't have the proper facilities to do mechanical watches– but we're taking care of all the cosmetic work on this one before we sending off to our watch guy.”

Belle sat beside her and it was only then that she saw it. The thing had a distinct rectangular face framed by white diamonds and a mesh link band in gleaming white gold.

“It’s beautiful,” she said in a whisper, scooting closer for a better look. “You know, for all the jewelry I've seen on the show– I’ve never actually seen what goes into repairing it.”

Ariel picked it up and held it under the light. “Few of the stones were missing, and a whole bunch of them are loose,” she explained, using a tiny pair of tweezers to point. “It’s a pavé setting, so the tricky part is tightening the prongs for one stone without loosening the stone next to it.”

She gave one of the outermost stones a wiggle to demonstrate, then swapped her tweezers for a pair of pliers and carefully nudged the prong into its rightful place. Belle watched her repeat the process a few times, moving from one stone to the next. At one of them she hesitated, and inspected the watch more closely. “See now, this one’s gone flat,” she said, and Belle tilted her head, squinting to see. “It can’t grip the stone at all, so it's gonna have to be retipped, and that’s a whole other–”

“Miss Halloran?”

Belle’s ears pricked at the sound of his voice.

Rumford. Rumford was back!

“Back here, Mr Gold!” Ariel hollered. She continued to work for a few seconds, then suddenly dropped her tools and jumped to her feet. “I mean, is there anything I can help you with, Mr Gold?” she offered, scurrying to the door. “Hang on, I'll be right–”

Ariel bumped into him at the doorway and froze, but that didn't keep him from peering over her– or rather around, as he she was considerably taller than him in her heels.

“Belle.” he smiled, face poking through the doorway.

Smoothing out her blouse, Ariel took a step back and let him in, Tilly following close behind.

Belle rushed to her feet, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Hi, Rumford,” she smiled back, but her voice only came out as a whisper as she drank up the sight of him.

Oh, what a dish he was! Looking so wonderfully kissable in his purple shirt and pinstripes!

“Oh, Belle,” he smiled again, making his way over and wrapping his arms around her.

Belle closed her eyes, relishing how warm and cuddly his hugs were. And how yummy he smelled. And–  

“How was your trip?” he asked. “Didn't get lost on the–”

She cupped his face in her hands and reached up on her toes to peck him on the lips. “It was just fine,” she assured him.

“I-I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long. I tried to be quick, but I-I–”

“Hardly at all.”

“Good,” he relaxed. “That's good.”

Belle swept a lock of hair away from his cheek. “You look really handsome today.” she said softly.

He scoffed and looked away, cheeks shy and pink when he looked back at her. “You have a habit of saying that.”

“Well, you have a habit of looking handsome.”

His smile widened, and Belle felt him grasp her hand– and a tell-tale brush of his thumb against her knuckles let her know what was coming next. “I’d say you have a habit of looking beautiful, but I’m afraid it would be inaccurate; you, sweetheart, simply are beaut –”

Rumford paused with her hand only halfway to his lips when someone cleared their throat, robbing Belle of her kiss.

“You know what, Tilly?” Ariel said. “I think it’s past time we dusted the showroom.”

Tilly frowned. “What do you mean? I just did it the other–”

“I said I think it’s past time we dusted the showroom.” she repeated, jerking her head toward the door.

“Oh!” Tilly gasped. “Right, right.”

Rumford furrowed his brows. “The showroom looks fi–”

“Filthy! I know!” Ariel rolled her eyes emphatically.

“Shameful.” Tilly agreed.

“Anyway, it was lovely to meet you Belle!” Ariel said, opening the door to the closet and grabbing an armful of various cleaners, furniture polishes, and rags.

“Mhm! Charmed!” Tilly added, rolling out the vacuum. The wheels got stuck on the door trim, and she hoisted the thing up, dropping it noisily onto the hardwood floor.

“Easy now!” Rumford winced, “Watch the... floors.”

They hurried out of the room, hollering further niceties until the door slammed shut behind them, leaving Belle and Rumford standing in silence.

He darted his eyes back and forth between her and the door, rubbing a hand over his neck.

Belle bit back a smile, slowly wrapping her arms around him for another hug. She nuzzled against his shoulder and let out a happy sigh when she felt him hug her back.

Rumford's hugs had a way of warming her from the inside out and the outside in! Oh, if only she could fall asleep in his arms like this!

Well, she supposed that in a few hours she probably would be!

Belle slowly pulled away to see his face, and he stared back, the corner of his mouth giving a slight twitch– as though whatever he was feeling couldn’t be contained by his smile. He wet his lips, parted them as if to speak, but hesitated.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I-I got something for you.” he said at last. “A-a gift.”

Belle tried not to grin too widely. “I um, got something for you too,” she said.

“Oh,” he chuckled nervously. “You see, I– well, I was debating when I ought to give it to you, but… well, now you’re here, I– It seems silly to wait.”

Her grin broke free as she laughed, and his cheeks rounded into a smile.

“Well, my gift is um… perishable?” she said. “So–” she slipped away to dig through her bag where she’d set it on the workbench, carefully pulling out a white box. “It's um… Not much, but… well, I tried to remember your favorites.” she said, holding it out to him.

He hesitated, then opened the box.

“Oh, Belle…” he chuckled and shook his head, and Belle’s cheeks were already becoming sore from smiling. Had anyone ever given her as much cause to smile as her Rumford did?

She had a smile on her face yesterday, when she'd stopped by the bakery. But it wasn’t the promise of taking home some white chocolate raspberry cookies that had her in such high spirits, nor the mint chocolate chip, or the salted chocolate chunk and almond. No, no– it was the thought of the look on Rumford’s face when she gave them to him!

“I thought we could um, enjoy them later.” she said, licking her lips while she stared at his own.

“Sweetheart, this is too much.” he smiled.

“We’ll have to share them with the ladies, then.”

“P-please.” Rumford shook his head and walked over to his desk. Setting the box of cookies down, he unlocked one of the drawers and retrieved a small, oblong box adorned with blue ribbon. He had his own eager smile on his face as he walked back over and handed it to her. “O-open yours.”

Belle hesitated before plucking from his hands, immediately noting its weight– and a slight rattle inside that made her heart tingle and her palms sweat.

Jewelry, jewelry, jewelry!

Belle scolded herself for the thought. She was far from materialistic– but the significance of being gifted jewelry by one’s sweetheart wasn’t lost on her, either. Jewelry was serious! They were serious!

“I’m um… guessing it isn’t cookies,” she chuckled, tucking her hair behind her ear.

He wet his lips and blushed, rubbing the back of his neck again. “‘Fraid not.”

She slid the ribbon off the box, and her fingers trembled as she pulled the lid off.

“Oh, Rumford…” she gasped. “It's beautiful.”

A bracelet! A bracelet! A bracelet! Gold! A string of gold with little flowers dangling like fairy lights! Roses! Gleaming! As if the petals had been kissed with morning dew! Jewelry! Shiny!

“I-I saw it and I just… well, I knew I couldn't let it leave this shop unless it was on your wrist.”

She blushed and nibbled her lip, fighting back another smile.

Rumford gave the box a pointed glance. “May I?”

Belle offered her wrist to him and nodded eagerly.

She watched, practically vibrating, as he gingerly removed the bracelet from its box. Sucked in a breath when his fingers brushed against her wrist, warm and rough next to the cold, smooth chain. There was the gentle click as he fastened the clasp, and there it was! A little piece of Rumford she could have with her wherever she went!

She played with one of the little rosebuds, poking it with her finger, and smiled up at him. “Thank you.”

“D-do you like it?” he asked.

“Rumford, I love it. It’s perfect.” she assured him.

She admired it on her wrist again and had a fleeting thought, but oh no. She couldn’t dare.

He caught her sideways glance and tilted his head. “What is it?”

“Could you um… tell me about it?”

A small smile slowly bloomed across his face. “Oh, darling, I'd love to. Please– sit,” he said, gesturing at a lavish settee on the far wall. Its wooden frame was intricately carved with scrolling flourishes and acanthus leaves, and the whole thing looked like it belonged in the decorative arts wing of the Louvre more than it did the cluttered back room of a pawn shop.

Belle stopped short of it and turned around. “I feel as though I shouldn’t be sitting on this,” she admitted.

“No– go on,” he chuckled. “It’s fine. We’ll be reupholstering it next week.”

Belle frowned. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s a French Rococo piece,” Rumford shrugged. He stared at it for a moment and scowled. “That Jacobean upholstery the previous owner had it fitted with is hardly appropriate,” he explained disdainfully, taking her hand and inviting her to sit. “It’s appalling, the sort of things people think they can get away with.”

“Oh,” Belle giggled. “Well, in that case–” she dropped herself onto the seat cushion unceremoniously.

He smiled down at her as he unbuttoned his jacket, but Belle's imagination only had but a few seconds to run with that particular visual before he finished and took his seat beside her.

She gave him a moment to smooth out his tie before squirming against his side, at which point he laid her hand palm-up in his lap and tucked his thumb beneath the chain of the bracelet, rubbing her pulse point.

There was no way he didn't realize what he was doing.

“Perhaps first, sweetheart,” he said, “You might... humor me?”

Belle shifted to face him better and wet her lips. “I'd love to humor you, Rumford.”

He scoffed and looked down at their hands. “I was actually wondering if... you might describe it to me.”

She smiled and tilted her head at him. “I don't understand.”

“For you to look at me and see someone worth your while, Belle– you must see the world far more beautifully, and in such more vivid color, than I do. The things in this shop have become so pedestrian to me over the years. I can't help wondering what it must be like, to see things through your eyes.”

Silly man! she thought. Did he really think she was going to let him get away with speaking such ill of himself?

Belle reached her other hand up to cup his cheek, searched those brown eyes for any hesitation, and when she found none, pressed her lips to his.

“Of course you're worth my while, Rumford,” she told him as she pulled away, and he blushed and smiled just like she imagined he would.

“Oh, Belle, I...” he trailed off and rubbed his thumb into another little circle on her wrist. “Thank you.”

“But let's see now...” Belle pressed her lips together and studied the thing closely. “Well, um… I'd say it looks like an art nouveau piece.” she decided.

He lifted her wrist up and lowered his head to peck it with a kiss. “Then you'd be absolutely, one hundred percent correct, sweetheart.”

“Oh,” she giggled. “Rumford…”

“Go on.” he said. “Explain your rationale, Miss French.”

Belle fought back a smile.

Miss French.

“Well… if it came from this shop, I imagine it must be from no later than than the mid twentieth century, and a floral motif like this would have gone out of favor come the 1920s.”

“Very good.”

“But um… other than that, I'm not so sure. It just… doesn't look like it could be any older than the mid-nineteenth century. I'm afraid I can't articulate why, though.” she admitted with a frown. “I just can't–” she shook her head and laughed. “Oh my, this is going to sound silly, but I just can't picture it being worn by one of the heroines of my Regency novels.”

“That's fine,” he smiled, and shifted beside her. “And perfectly accurate. You see– enamel first surfaced in European jewelry during the baroque period, pioneered by the French artist Jean Toutin of Châteaudun.”

“Oh,” she gasped, feeling her arm break out in goosebumps at his effortless pronunciation.

“However, its popularity never quite rivalled that of diamonds and colored gemstones. Enamel was prone to chipping, and so come the eighteenth century, innovations in cutting techniques made bright, sparkling pieces with brilliant-cut diamonds the standard. Little of these pieces survive, though. Diamonds– due to their immense value– were often refitted and reset into new, more fashionable pieces over time, rather than kept as heirlooms.”

“That’s a shame,” Belle frowned.

“Indeed. You'll find such pieces in museums, but they're incredibly rare in the antique market.”

“Do you have any?” she asked. “Here, in the shop?”

His eyes drifted up to the ceiling as he thought about it. “...Not at the moment, no.”

“Hm,” Belle accepted simply.

He smiled and wet his lips. “Now, while floral motifs gained popularity all throughout the nineteenth century, it wasn't until the rise of art nouveau that jewelers began to really revisit enamel for their designs. The avant-garde weren't concerned so much with the value or longevity of the materials used, as much as they were the merit of the designs themselves. Diamonds were used as accents rather than centerpieces–if at all– as you can see here,” he explained, rolling one of the small rosebuds between his fingers so that the small stone in the center could catch the light.

“I like that about it,” she decided. “Not so flashy.”

“I agree,” he said, and they were so close, and he was so close.

Belle laid her free hand over his, slowly brushing her thumb back and forth over his knuckles.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

Her heartbeat quickened at the warmth and nearness of his voice, and she glanced back up at him. “Could you tell me more?”

Rumford scoffed. “Of course,” he said, wrapping his arm around her a little more tightly. “You see, many of these designs possessed all the… eroticism one might expect of any work of art from the movement. Nude women, mermaids and fae– all things far too scandalous or otherwise ostentatious for the average wearer. As a result, art nouveau jewelry was most often worn by glamorous showgirls or demimonde, who were–”

“Unmarried women with sugar daddies.” Belle cut in, wetting her lips.

Rumford smiled. “...That's right.” he said, wetting his own lips and brushing his thumb over her wrist again. “Good girl.”

Belle sank her teeth into her bottom lip and shifted in her seat. “I um, once read a book, where the protagonist was one such woman.”

His mouth curled into a crooked smirk. The same kind of smirk he wore in her dreams, right before they made out.

“That doesn't surprise me one bit, Miss French,” he said.

“Oh?” she teased. “And just what are you saying? Dr Gold?”

Was he being naughty?

“That one often becomes what one reads. And that you, darling, are as ethereal and bewitching as–”

The door to the showroom cracked open, and Ariel's arm reached through the opening, groping for the keyring hanging just beside the light switch.

“Sorry!” she hollered from behind the door, before knocking the keys off of their hook and onto the floor. “Forgot the– Whoops!”

Her hand withdrew, then reappeared along the floor, reaching again.

“Just ignore me!”

“Miss Halloran.” Rumford sighed. “For the love of– just come in, will you!”

Her hand froze, then disappeared again. “Okay!” she said. “I'm coming in!”

The door opened slowly and Ariel tiptoed inside, clearly trying to avert her eyes. She inevitably found them on the settee, and raised her hand in a tiny wave. “...hi.”

Rumford furrowed his brows. “Why is everyone behaving so bizarrely today?”

Ariel tilted her head. “I'm not– Oh!” she giggled and nearly dove to the floor for the keys. “There they are! Sneaky things!” She snapped back up and needlessly smoothed out her blouse. “I’m sorry– Wh-who's being bizarre?”

Rumford looked at the clock and sighed. “It’s four o'clock on a Friday.”

“Mhm,” she nodded. “Sure is, Mr Gold.”

“I think we're all eager to see ourselves home, no? Why don't you and Tilly start closing up?”

“Okay, sounds great.” she said, but made no move to leave.

Rumford raised his brows. “Miss Halloran? Was there something–?”

“Yeah. Yes. Um… Tilly was wondering if maybe she could uh–”

“Yes,” he smiled. “Yes, she can take the charcuterie board home.”

*****

Neal stopped scrolling through the app on his phone when he heard the front door crack open.

Over an hour earlier than expected.

Quickly plugging his phone into its charger, he jumped off his bed and bounded for the stairs.

“Hey, Po–” he froze midway when he saw her.

Tiny. Tiny brunette. In an even tinier skirt.  The only thing about her that wasn't tiny were her shoes. Big, platform, stripper shoes. And yet, even with them on, she was still tinier than Pop.

So, so tiny.

Neal quietly retreated back up the stairs and watched the woman smile as his father gently removed her jacket. He pressed a doting little kiss to her shoulder and she spun around, giggling and making a comment about what a gentleman he was. He scoffed and Neal caught him blushing when he turned to hang her tiny jacket on the coat rack.

Pop turned to face her again and cupped her elbows, leaning in closely and rubbing little circles into her skin with his thumbs. Neal couldn't make out what he was saying, but given the context and the way she was blushing and demurely looking away, he had a few ideas.

He shook them away.

The tiny brunette nodded, they shared a quick peck on the lips, and Pop settled his hand on the small of her back, leading her toward the kitchen.

Oh, no.

This couldn't possibly the librarian he'd been telling him about. Pop told him she was younger and that she was beautiful– but surely this woman was too young, too… well, he wasn't about to use the word hot to describe a woman his dad was seeing but, if the platform shoes fit…

Neal finally continued his trek down the stairs, stomping loudly to alert them to his presence. He didn't need to walk in on anything he wasn't meant to see, after all. But when he rounded the corner to the kitchen, he caught his father in the middle of–

Grabbing a glass out of the cabinet.

“Ah. And here I was beginning to think there was an elephant in the house,” Pop deadpanned, stepping over to choose a bottle from the wine rack. “How many times do I have to tell ye tae stop stomping around like that? Old house like this, it–”

“Carries, I know.” Neal rolled his eyes.

Pop shot him a scolding look. “Do you?”

No correct answer to that, Neal quickly decided, and didn't say a word.

“Well, it's not important.” he dismissed, setting a bottle of wine out. “Son, I…” he spun around and rubbed his hand over the tiny woman's back, smiling at her. “I'd like to introduce you to Miss French.”

Yup.

Definitely his librarian.

This was no good. He wasn't supposed to be home for another hour, but she definitely wasn't supposed to be here for another hour.

It took Miss French a moment to finish making eyes at his father– a moment Neal used to muster as much calm as he could. No matter the fire and brimstone waiting to rain down on the three of them, the occasion called for politeness.

“Hey.” He finally offered his hand out. “S’Neal.”

“It’s lovely to meet you, Neal.” she smiled, giving a startlingly firm handshake. “Your dad's um, told me a lot about you.”

“Oh. Great.” he said. “Miss… French.”

“You can just call me Belle.” she said, looking back at Pop expectantly.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “I'm sorry, darling. You keep telling me and I keep–”

“Rumford, it's fine,” she hushed, taking his hand and smiling up at him. “Besides–” she whispered without really whispering at all, “I think I might like it when you call me Miss French…”

There was a flash of something strange in Pop's eyes, and the corner of his mouth tugged into a crooked smirk. “Is that so?” he murmured in her ear and tugged her a little closer. “...Miss French?”

“Rumford!” Belle giggled and smacked his arm. She suddenly fell silent and nibbled her lip, and good God, Pop was smoldering at her.

Gross.

Neal cleared his throat loudly. This was fine.

He would just need to act as surprised as they were when the time came. “...Right, well. I just came down to grab a soda, so–”

“Please–” his father cut in, “stay. We're about to start on dinner. We're making your favorite pork chops with red wine sauce, you know.”

Oh, hell yes.

“Hmm… pass. I uh, have homework?” He lied, quickly nabbing a soda can from the fridge and making a bolt for the stairs.

“Homework?” Pop asked. “Son, your classes haven't even started.”

“Oh, right. Homework… I meant, I have um…” he snapped his fingers, pretending to think of something.

Pop sighed. “Have you heard from your mother?” he asked.

“Uh… yeah!” he answered too quickly, laughing nervously. “Yeah, she landed like, half an hour ago.”

“Well... aren't you picking her up?”

Neal took a few heavy gulps from his soda can. “No. Why?”

“She's your mother.”

He shrugged. “So? She's a grown woman. She knows how to get an Uber– which is more than I can say for you.”

“Unbelievable.” Pop shook his head, but Belle giggled.

She had a sense of humor.

This was good.

“Hey– mom's the one who wanted to move back to Livahpool,” Neal said. “That she has to hop an eight hour flight and an hour cab ride every time she decides she wants to see me is her problem.”

Pop pressed his lips together. “So you're meeting her at the hotel at least?”

Neal's mouth hung open.

That was it. He was cornered.

“Uh… see, here's the thing about that,” he said. “You uh… you said Belle was coming this weekend.”

“Aye.”

“Well, today's Friday , so… technically… not the weekend?”

Pop wet his lips. The way he always did whenever he was pretending to not be angry about something. “What are you saying?”

Neal took a deep breath and braced himself. “I... might-have-told-mom-it-was-cool-if-she-came-over-for-dinner-tonight.” he blurted out as quickly as he could.

“What.”

“I was trying to be nice!” Neal said in his defense. “I thought– you know! Family dinner! All three of us! A one night offering to appease the gods!” he explained, gesturing wildly with his hands.

Pop tilted his head. “Your mother is… on her way to this house? Right now?”

“...Yes?”

“Oh, bloody hell.” Pop groaned. “She was supposed to– she was supposed to stay out of my hair.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “You know what? It's fine. This is all… going to be just fine.”

“Yeah! It's just like, Christmas came early this year!” Neal said. “But… you know. Just the bad parts.”

Pop sighed again. “No communication in this house.” he muttered under his breath. “W-when did this happen? Ye didnae think to tell me, son?”

“It… slipped my mind?”

“Did it?” he asked, and that was also definitely a rhetorical question.

“It did until this morning!” Neal admitted. “And I was going to tell you before you left so you'd have time to mentally prepare yourself, but you were acting really weird and it was killing the vibe!”

Pop reeled back, clutching a hand to his chest. “I was killing the vibe!?”

Neal snuck a glance at Belle– who, to her credit, seemed more entertained than anything.

“I didn't think it would be a big deal?” he grasped. “I mean it sucks, but it's not like, an emergency.” He swallowed hard, and pulled his trump card– “Look on the bright side: It's not like my life was in danger!”

The corners of Pop's mouth pinched in a way that said, I'm not angry. I'm just disappointed.

“What!?” Neal whined. “You're always telling me to like, be nicer to her and crap!”

Pop sighed. “I know, son. I know…”

“Oh! Oh!” he clapped his hands together, “I’ll just call and tell her not to come!”

Pop glared back at him like he had two heads. “No… don't... do that.”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause it's no’ proper!” he cried. He took a deep breath, and then another. “Look. It's… it's not your fault.” Pop said calmly. “She should have checked with me first.”

Belle rubbed his shoulder and hushed a few words of comfort into his ear. He looked back at her with a weak smile, which grew stronger when she pecked him on the cheek.

The whole thing felt so weird and foreign, and yet… nice, Neal thought.

“I'm sorry,” he mumbled. “It's just– you know how she does that thing. Where she's all, ‘I miss you, I don't see you enough…’ And then you feel guilty, so you just agree with whatever she's saying, and next thing you know, you've sold your second born–”

“It's fine.” Pop said, with all the acceptance of a man prepared to face his death. “It's just one meal, as you said. After all, what's the worst that could happen?”

Neal knew better than to answer that.

A/N: Thanks for sticking with this story y'all. u da real MVPs.

There's lots of big things on the horizon here, but updates will probably continue to be slow while I work on my Rumbelle Big Bang fic.

[cassether]

Chocolate Sauce and Candy Canes

Pairing: Darvey

Category: Romance/Fluff/Christmas

Summary: Donna gets into a predicament trying to remove some unwanted mistletoe from the bullpen and Harvey shows up to rescue her.

AN: My Darvey Christmas contribution :D

Harvey enters the bullpen eyes skimming the overzealous festive decorations in search of Donna. It's past nine and everyone's gone home, save for the named partners upstairs, and his brows furrow unable to spot her amidst the array of colorful lights. The text she sent him was ambiguous at best and he checks it again making sure he didn't miss anything.

Downstairs, need help - D

Not a lot there he can read into and he calls out her name hearing a sound (squeak?) from above him. Turning, he runs his gaze up to where she's sat perched on top of a metal shelving unit. He's assuming it used to house the mess spilling out at his feet and he steps over the folders and papers rounding the clutter to stand beside her dangling legs. She's at least six or seven feet up, head just about skimming the ceiling, and he shoots her a bewildered look. "You want to explain this one to me?"

There's a note of intrigue beneath the question and heat crawls along the back of her neck as she innocently holds out a sprig of mistletoe.

He spots it and raises an eyebrow blowing air into his cheeks. "Please tell me you weren't-"

"I wasn't hanging it." She defends, though in hindsight the reason behind the ridiculous predicament isn't much better. "Someone put it up here and one of the associates complained. I was trying to get it down when..." she swings her hand motioning to the broken shelves below. Thanks to her yoga sessions she was able to pull herself up in time but getting down turned out to be more of a challenge.

He glances at the metal heaped on the floor and worry drives his gaze back to her. "Are you okay?" She nods but the reassurance doesn't quite settle the unease rolling through him and he exhales slowly. She was lucky. If the thing had toppled she could have been seriously hurt. Fortunately she wasn't and he uses sarcasm to try and deflect from the concern. "You know there's this ingenious invention called a ladder."

She flips her hair to the side rolling her eyes at him. "Are you going to help me down or not?"

The height isn't a problem. He can reach the top of her legs without any issue but the stability is more worrying and he pushes the side of the unit testing its foundations. The things seems sturdy enough and he stretches up motioning to her cell. "Pass me your phone." It'll be easier for her to slide down without holding it and he takes the device placing it safely in his pocket, pointing to her seven-inch stilettos next.

"You want me to take off my shoes?" She asks incredulously, feigning offense at the suggestion.

"Donna..." there's a note of warning to his tone, "I'd like to avoid a trip to the emergency department wherever possible."

She concedes with a reluctant 'go ahead' and he slides off the first shoe tossing it to the ground, wincing at the glare she shoots. He doesn't apologize but is more careful with the next one placing it down by his feet. After today he's seriously going to consider buying her a functional pair of flats for Christmas. "How did you climb up in the damn things anyway?'

"I could go into battle with those shoes on." She insists, folding her arms across her chest with a huff. They're her most comfortable pair of Jimmy Choo's and there was logic behind her reasoning. The extra height would have been the boost she'd needed if the stupid shelves hadn't careened down with a domino-like effect.

"And who exactly do you think is coming up there to fight you?" He asks with a smirk, starting to see the humorous side of things. He's still not pleased she attempted the feat on her own but the situation is kind of funny or at least he's starting to think so.

The amusement in his expression becomes apparent and despite her embarrassment she relaxes under the warmth of his gaze. "You should be thanking me from stopping a sexual harassment suit." She waves the sprig of mistletoe with a teasing smile, "and don't even think about copping a feel on the way down."

A laugh builds in his throat and he puffs it out with a wink, "you and I both know that wouldn't be harassment."

She blushes at the insinuation but doesn't fluster.

Much, anyway.

"You're an idiot."

He grins at the insult lifting his hands in mock defense. "Hey, if you don't want my help I can always go find Louis." It's an empty threat and they both know it. He wouldn't dare rope Louis in scared she would actually break something and he concedes to the fact, shrugging out of his suit jacket and hanging it over the nearest petition.

She wiggles herself closer to the edge taking a deep breath as he crosses back rolling up his sleeves. It looks higher than it probably is but she's still nervous and tries to cover the anxiety with a playful warning. "No sneaking a look up my dress mister."

There's a smart retort on his lips but he swallows it not trusting his body will identify it as a joke. After all, he's about to have his hands full of her and attempts to clear the less than appropriate thought from his mind. "Don't worry..." his lips turn up innocently, "I'll be a complete gentleman. You ready?"

She hesitates with a decided 'no' poised on the tip of her tongue. Although his hands reach almost to her thighs they don't seen close enough to take her weight and she panics darting her gaze around the room. "Maybe we should try to find a ladder?"

The doubt expands uncomfortably in his chest and he lowers his arms regarding her seriously. "Donna, I'm not going to drop you."

There's a trace of hurt beneath the assurance, unreadable in his expression but she knows it's there. Only it isn't Harvey she doesn't trust, it's gravity, and she ducks her head sheepishly. "It's not you, I just... what if I'm too heavy?"

He isn't worried in the slightest and offers her a confident smile. "You won't be."

She thinks it over, her gaze trailing down to the muscles caged beneath his fitted shirt. She knows he goes running daily and boxes but her height is above average and she's still not convinced by the math. "You don't even know how much I weigh."

Warning bells sound off at the comment and he knows better than to encourage the conversation. A women's age and weight are an inevitable minefield and he leans against the unit with a smirk, "that's a trap and I'm not falling for it." She rolls her eyes turning her head away and he lets out a loose sigh, lifting his fingers to brush the inside of her calf. When she glances at the contact he softens his expression holding her gaze. "Donna I won't let you get hurt, I promise."

There's nothing but assurance in his voice and she bites the inside of her cheek swallowing her nerves. "Okay."

Relieved by the response he lets go and angles his body to the side, stretching until his fingertips press against her thigh. "Just reach for my shoulder and I'll take care of the rest. All right, on three."

She exhales slowly, waiting for the count, and pushes off the edge letting out a gasp when he sweeps up her knees catching her around the waist with a jolt. She flings her arm around his neck to keep from falling but his hold is effortless and she meets his gaze feeling heat burn her cheeks.

"You okay?" He checks to make sure she isn't hurt and is relieved by her quick nod. "Good-" he readjusts her weight but doesn't let go, "because I'm not putting you down until you swear to me you won't do anything that stupid again."

She pouts, fairly certain the threat isn't real but there's no doubt in her mind the concern is genuine and her embarrassment gives way to a light smirk. "Unless mistletoe becomes a monthly tradition I can safely say that was a once off."

He shakes his head with only a trace amount of amusement in his tone. "Nope not good enough." She fixes him with a look but he doesn't care. He isn't going to relent not until he hears her say it. "I'm serious Donna, that whole thing could have collapsed."

There's worry beneath the light warning and it stirs through her chest prompting a genuine response. "No more climbing on furniture... I promise."

Technically the agreement means he should put her down but having her in his arms feels long overdue and he hesitates trying to formulate some sort of reasoning when Louis' voice rings out across the bullpen.

"Harvey! Donna? Are you guys down-"

He stops dead his eyes widening at the sight of the firm's COO in the named partner's arms. A sprig of mistletoe thrown haphazardly over the the lawyer's shoulder.

"Louis-"

"This isn't what it looks like."

They both simultaneously try to defend their innocence but he just stares with semi-excited shock. Not what it looks like his ass. Do they think he was born yesterday? "I knew it! I mean I didn't know know it, but I knew it!"

Harvey inwardly groans feeling Donna stifle a giggle at the reaction. Screw it. The easiest way out of the awkward confrontation is to wear it and he does, plastering on a confident smirk. "Louis you're right. It's exactly what it looks like and we're kinda in the middle of it, so..."

Louis' face turns about six shades of red as the insinuation drills though him. He does not need a visual and shields his gaze stumbling back awkwardly. "Yeah sure... I'll just, you two keep-" he shakes his head trying to clear a parade of unwanted images, "you know what... I need a day."

Donna buries a laugh into Harvey's shoulder as Louis barrels out and she admonishes him with a light slap. "That was mean."

He hikes up an eyebrow, half-way between flirting and serious. "Who said I was joking?"

She holds his gaze suddenly heightened to the feel of his body pressed against hers and the 'sure of himself' smug look threatening to disarm her. "Harvey," the soft caution spills out and her heart skips when it doesn't seem to deter him.

"Donna." He parrots back, side-eyeing the object bunched around his neck. "You are holding mistletoe and it is Christmas."

The smirk on his lips makes her almost forgot about the building tension and she breaths out an indignant huff, "since when do you believe in festive traditions?"

"Since beautiful women stared dropping into my arms with them." He grins broadly, pleased with himself and enamored by the pink flush that speckles across her cheeks.

She lets the boyish amusement wash over her but the harmless flirting is tipping into something more dangerous and she resolves to steer them away from it. "You need to stop it."

It's hardly a forceful command and he ignores it curling his fingers ever so slightly around her rib cage. "Why?"

"You know why." A shiver runs through her body as she mirrors his words from what feels like a lifetime ago and a brief flicker of doubt seems to knock him down a peg. She could leave it at that. Work her way down from his arms and shrug it off but instead she sighs, doing what he couldn't and giving him an actual answer. "Because it's never just a kiss between us Harvey."

He gives the comment honest thought. She's right but that's sort of the point and he relaxes his jaw masking the need to dive into the push and pull going on between them. He wants to, is ready to, and he leans in closer teasing her lips with his breath. "Maybe that should tell us something."

Her pulse drums loudly in her ears as he hovers just shy of kissing her, his hoarse whisper making her feel dizzy with anticipation. "You're still holding it." It takes her a moment to realize he means the mistletoe, that if she wants out the sprig is her chance to do so, but she doesn't let go bunching it more tightly against his neck instead.

His mouth is on hers in an instant the kiss gentle but demanding and she rakes her hand along his stubble encouraging the tentative exploration. It isn't like the last time or even the other time. It's new, full of craving and fascinating leaving her wanting more when he breaks it with a smug smile. She swallows, the need to be on an even playing field washing over her and she finds his gaze with forced composure. "You going to put me down now, hero?"

His lips wind into a lopsided grin as he obliges letting her slide to the ground, pressing his hand to the small of her back to keep her steady. "Told you I wouldn't drop you."

There's a hint of egotism to the claim and she exhales slowly, testing the boundaries between them. "You also said I wouldn't get hurt." It's a question and a statement in one, the need to understand his intentions drumming through her, and she stills as his fingers slide up to push back her hair.

"I'm not about to break that promise either." His mouth spreads assuringly, hand dropping to edge of her waist. This is who they are; they're friends who flirt and drink, call each other up at all hours and the 'more' is just an extension waiting finally to be explored. "I think it's about time we started a new tradition, don't you?"

He pulls her closer and a flutter of excitement builds in her stomach, her eyes gleaming curiously. "Mistletoe and whipped cream?" It doesn't sound as sexy as strawberries and she cringes trying to come up with another suggestion when his breath blows hotly against her ear.

"How about chocolate sauce and candy canes?" He sucks lightly on her neck, the demonstration rewarded with a shiver and he moves to the other side nipping her skin and lavishing it with the same treatment.

"I might need you to draw that for me."

She teases it with a content sigh, prompting him to draw back and let out a low chuckle. "It's a little complicated..." he insists expression lit with amusement, "how about we go back to mine and I show you?"

She grins broadly, her hands working down to tug the edge of his tie. "I'll get the candy canes."

.🅜Ⓔ🅡Ⓡ🅨 Ⓒ🅗Ⓡ🅘Ⓢ🅣ⓜ🅐ⓢ.

[ladyoftheloch126]

Taster of my 19days TianShan fanfic Adversity is a Gift - Chapter Thirteen Ready, Fight!

He Tian was currently sitting in the passenger seat of his brother’s BMW, on his way back to the organisation’s office.  The silence in the car was telling, confusion being the biggest contributing factor.

Why had his dickhead Uncle made him go to the prison, when he was going to off those attempted rapists anyway?  What an unbelievable cluster fuck, such an utter waste of time.  Was that his Uncle’s aim, make him work his ass off for nothing?  Aah it wouldn’t surprise him at all, lately his Uncle did everything in his power to make He Tian’s life a living hell.  Tian rested his weary head against the cool window, watching the scenery fly by in a green blur as they made their way through suburban areas into Beijing centre.

He Tian thought about the terrified guard at the detention centre, typical coward didn’t know what to say or where to start.  He stuttered and stammered through their entire conversation.

“What?”  Tian’s furious growl was loud in the waiting room

“I can’t bring them to you because they all committed suicide this morning at 10am,  they hung themselves and left identical notes.”  The guard He Cheng had bribed was shaking in fear, sweat ran down his temple from under his prison uniform cap.

“Fuck!”  He Tian cursed loudly and banged the nearest table with a clenched fist.  “Can my name be connected to those three?  My name was used yesterday to gain access to them?”  Tian got up in the guards face, his words were spat out through gritted teeth.

The guard gulped and nodded.

“Get those records and destroy all trace of me!  I want no fuck ups, make sure you do it or we will come to your house and kill your wife.  I don't have to tell you how serious this is, do you understand?”  He Tian stepped even closer to the guard, so he could whisper his instructions into the man’s ear.

“You ask too much of me!  I will be fired when they find out, what about me?  How can I live if I can’t work?” The man’s eyes grew wide with panic.

“I don’t want to hear you whining like a bitch, I want to hear you say “No problem sir, I will take care of it.”  Do you understand?  Do you love your wife?  Do you love your family?  If you do….then don’t disappoint me.”  He Tian patted them man hard on his cheek, making the other man wince.

“No problem sir, I will take care of it.”  The man nodded, one of his pale sweaty cheeks was now red from abuse.

“Good.  No trace, I want no trails to us, otherwise you’re not gonna like the consequences……”  Tian put a heavy hand on the guard’s shoulder and took a lesson from his Uncle, squeezing hard to get his point across.

“I understand, aah!”  The older man winced in pain, but he merely kept nodding like the neck of a plaster cat which wags its head.

“He Cheng will be in touch, I guess the deal you two brokered has fallen through, no reduction in interest for you!”  He Tian winked sardonically and strode out the door.  Serves that crooked guard right for mortgaging his house out from under his family to gamble.  He Tian had no time for useless assholes like that.  Tian got back to his brother’s car and relayed what had happened, bring on brotherly confusion.  Both of them were at a loss as to why they were even at the detention centre.

Half way through the drive Cheng’s mobile chimed, Cheng glanced at He Tian.

“Can you look at the screen to see who it is?”  Cheng was a diligent driver, no texting and driving for him.

Tian picked up the iPhone, which was incased in a sleek black cover and read the short to the point message out to his brother.

Qiu:  We have a redheaded boyfriend issue.

He Tian froze instantly.

“Does that mean your little boyfriend is with Qiu?”  He Cheng’s voice grew loud with disbelief.

“No, it can’t be, how the hell would he….”  Tian’s sentence trailed to a stop.  Was Shan at Jian Yi’s?  No…it can’t be he was at school, it was still during school hours, everyone should still be at school!  Why would Momo be with Qiu?  He Tian had a bad feeling in his gut.

“Faster Cheng, I feel like this day is going from shit to shitter by the second.”  His brother had been sitting at a steady 70mph, but now he stomped his foot on the accelerator and started speeding them back to the office.

He Tian took out his mobile and tried calling Mo.  It rang and rang but eventually went to voicemail.

“Call me back you fuck.”  He Tian stuffed his phone back in his pocket with a curse.

“Message Qiu for me, tell him what happened at the prison.”  Cheng unlocked his phone, then he handed it to his little brother.

He Tian did as he was told for once and soon had a messages back from Officer Qiu.

“He wants us back at the office now.”  He Tian started to casually scroll backwards through the messages between his brother and brother Qiu.

“What are you doing?  Give me my phone back Tian.”  He Cheng tried snatching it until he realised he was still driving, then held his hand out.

“I’m just googling something, calm down.”  He Tian went back through previous texts and raised his eyebrows at some of the conversations between the two men:

Monday 9.37pm Qiu:  Pick up beer, I’m getting you shit faced drunk and then banging your brains out. Cheng:  You promise?

Tuesday 10.05am Cheng:  Get toilet roll and antiseptic cream on the way back. Qiu:  Antiseptic cream? Cheng:  My asshole resembles the flag of Japan.

Thursday 12.40pm Cheng:  Why today did you have to go to your ‘other’ employment? Qiu:  A good man’s work is never done. Cheng:  Send nudes. *Picture of Qiu’s crotch, semi hard cock, clearly took in a bathroom.* Cheng:  I was fucking joking!! But this will work.

“What is wrong with using your own phone?   Hey what are you looking at?!”  Cheng tried to see, but Tian casually switched to some bullshit horoscope website which was current on his brother’s browser.

“Nothing.”  He Tian waved the phone at him.

Next he went into the pictures and he was wheezing internally because his older brother and Mo Guan Shan had more in common than he thought.  Looks like brother Qiu liked to send Cheng a lot of nudes and like Momo, Cheng had kept EVERY single one.  Swallowing back his amusement, he relocked the phone and gave it back to his sweating brother.  Everyone knows you should never hand your mobile over, unless you were willing for someone to paw through your content.  It was an unspoken law.

“Concentrate on driving brother.”  He Tian nodded at the road and they settled into a  tense silence for the remainder of the journey.

=========================================

Things were hotting up at the office, the beer was flowing, toasts were shouted and Mo was told to wait, whilst six boys not much older than himself were taken into a separate room, and all of the men present piled into the room with them.  Brother Qiu had abandoned him too, but She Li was back glued to his side, even going as far as to fling an arm over his shoulder again.  Urgh.

“We can’t see what happens?”  Mo asked his long lost asshole friend for the night.

“You can’t witness the ceremony it’s steeped in tradition and secrecy, if you want to see inside that room then prove yourself in this fight and work your ass off until they deem you worthy.”  She Li tipped back another beer, he didn’t seem drunk though.  Mo had stopped drinking all together, last thing he needed was to be staggering about shitfaced, swinging and missing.

“How come you’re not inside?”  Mo had a nervous fluttering in his stomach that was part excitement and part apprehension.

“Me?  I’m not a Beijing member so I’m not required to go in there.”  She Li grinned and relaxed back against the wall.

“So when those guys come out, will they still be Blue Lanterns?”  Mo was curious about the hierarchy, it seemed like an army.

“No, they will be official gang members, 49ers.  Like me.”  She Li finished his beer and put the empty bottle onto the table beside them.

Like He Tian.  Mo thought about how old Tian was when he went through all of this, shit poor kid.

“You’re still here?”  A low voice sounded from across the room.

“Head.”  She Li inclined his head respectfully.  “Still, just crashing the initiation.”

Mo couldn’t help but stared as an elegant man approaching them.  He was fucking tall!  As tall as He Tian, he wore a killer suit, one of those ones you only see in magazines, or on models on billboards.  He was handsome, his hair was short and well groomed, face unlined making it hard for Mo to work out how old he was, the man could be 30 or 60.  His aura was overwhelming, intimidating even.  The dude was thin, maybe his suit made up for a weak body?

“Who’s this?”  The man walked over to a sideboard full of crystal decanters, chose a low tumbler and then poured out some amber liquid.  Was it whiskey?

“Old friend from Middle School, he’s here to ask permission to serve you, Boss.”  She Li’s silky voice finally made its way into his thick head and Mo froze as the man approached him.

“Good luck, I might stay to enjoy your performance.”  The man’s grin made all the hairs on the back of Shan’s neck stand up, then the man walked away.

Mo Guan Shan hadn’t uttered a single word.  He stood there like a dumb redheaded statue, but he knew who that man was now, knew his face and voice.  Shan’s heart pounded and his fists clenched as he watched the retreating back of his boyfriend’s abuser.  He Tian’s Boss went into the room where the initiation was taking place and closed the door behind him with a soft click.

“Don’t worry, he has that effect on everyone.”  She Li had obviously took note of his frozen state.

“That was….”  Shan finally found his voice.

“Our Dragon Head.”  She Li stood in front of Mo and took in his current state.  “You can fight in your trousers and shirt.”  She Li spun around as the door opened and Huang Fu came out laughing, jovial men poured out of the room behind him.  The new 49ers were slapped on the back by nearly a hundred hands.

Mo took off his coat and school uniform coat and stuffed them in his bag, along with his rings and the earrings Tian bought him years ago.  He was ready for anything these gangsters threw at him, he didn’t give a fuck now.  He was pumped that he had laid eyes on that molesting fuck.  Shan tensed when the man in question also exited the room and stood chatting with Huang Fu.

“Okay, on to this afternoon’s entertainment!”  When Huang Fu shouted this, the men in the room cheered and clinked glasses.

“We’re gonna see if this new recruit has the balls to stand his ground against two of our new 49ers!”  The room erupted with jeers and chants about Mo’s lacking anatomy.

“Over here boy!”  Huang Fu motioned for Mo Guan Shan to come over, and when Mo got to the centre of the room, he felt like every eye was on him.  

Betting was already taking place, were they for or against him?  Shan stood proudly with his shoulders back, hands in pockets and his A-typical glare in place.

“Haha I think I like him, he looks like he can fight!” “No way, he’s gonna lose, they’re seasoned fighters, idiot!” “I am gonna put 500 yuan on the redhead kid!” Everyone threw insults at each other and Mo Guan Shan in particular, until Huang Fu held up his arms and beckoned for silence.  He approached Mo and nodded to two cocky looking fuckers.  They grinned as they stripped off their suit jackets, rolled up the sleeves of their dress shirts and suddenly before Mo had time to rethink they were ready to go.

“This isn’t about killing, or serious injury.”  When the incense master spoke, Shan thought to himself was this like a pre-fight talk?  A bastard referee? What did they call it, fucking UFC!  “This is all about aggression……”  The man nodded.

Silence hung in the room.

Before Mo could react one of the dudes flew forward and punched him with enough force that his head snapped back, making him curse.  Shan’s attempts to shake off the throbbing ache in his jaw were short lived, the other guy ran in with a leap and brutally kneed him in the stomach.

Mo staggered back, involuntarily dropping to one knee as he proceeded to cough his guts up.

When Mo Guan Shan looked up, it was just in time to see a fist smashing into his face.  He felt the other guy’s fist twisting the neck of shirt until he choked, hauling Mo to his feet by it.  The sound of the thick cotton collar ripping was loud in his ears.

Punches rained his face in a beautiful symphony of violence, until he had blood running hot down his chin.  It was then Mo Guan Shan thought that he might be screwed.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14818106/chapters/36045018 

[theonceoverthinker]

OUAT 2X07 - Child of the Moon

...Do I seriously have nothing better to do than just sit around writing long ass reviews for a show that already ended?

...Well then, I suppose ANITA LIFE!

Shut up, you love them. Now go under the cut for some actually semi-intelligent thoughts!

Press Release

Ruby’s fear about turning into a wolf during the first curse-free Storybrooke full moon is confirmed when one of the town’s residents is viciously murdered, and Ruby is the prime suspect; Decker - aka King George - threatens to expose David as a shepherd, not a prince, and not fit to run the town as sheriff; and Leroy stumbles upon some treasure in the Storybrooke mine that could help bring Mary Margaret and Emma back into our world. Meanwhile, in the fairytale land that was, Red Riding Hood finds a kindred spirit in Anita (Annabeth Gish), a charismatic and mysterious leader of a pack of humans who, like Red, turn out to be wolves.

General Thoughts - Characters/Stories/Themes and Their Effectiveness

Past

Red’s journey in this episode is so well put together. The insecurities established in “Red-Handed” and then re-established here about her half-wolf identity acts as a great source of conflict. You can see how that sense of fear is decreased as Red spends more time with the wolfpack, and after establishing that bond, gets tested against an equally powerful bond with Snow. This is a great conflict because it’s entirely character based and expands on what we already know about Red.

Present

Not all segments need a message to work, but their needs to be some level of growth, and while it does happen to Ruby, it’s only through being given information and a pep talk that she’s able to reaffirm her control over her wolf form. While I genuinely liked this segment for it’s plot, characters, pacing, and the broader story, I feel like Ruby was somewhat sidelined in her own episode because what is reinforced is never gleamed through her own experiences or anything that she learns about herself. It’s David who investigates the mystery and he and Belle who never give up hope while Ruby largely defaults to regarding the situation as her fault until David gives her the evidence to contradict that. While I commend Ruby for being a realist and very mature about her situation, I wish that there had been a moment where she attempted for her own happiness (Think like a “Let It Go” moment) or if there was a moment that she noticed that called her murder into doubt.

Insights - Stream of Consciousness

-Those mine crystals look so bad! XD

-You better not be driving after drinking that beer, David! You’ve got a kid in the car!

-I’ll take those 38 lasagnas!

-Ruby is so amazingly mature. She understands her capabilities, but takes into account risks as to protect others.

-Snow is one hell of a fighter!

-Also, I can’t help but feel like that’s the first time Snow ever saw her wanted poster (This is before she met David). Look at that amazing frustration and sadness in her eyes as she’s seen how Regina has scarred her reputation. And that’s all before she and Red even converse about it moments later. Great acting, Ginny!

-I can’t get over how great Red’s costume is. It’s perfectly balanced between being something that gels with the classic fairytale while still looking like something a young adult would wear.

-Stranger stalking Red: You might want to get your eyes checked for jaundice! XD

-”Wh-wh-what are you doing here? Where’s David?” Damn, that hurt just watching it. I can’t even imagine how Regina must feel hearing Henry all but reject her comfort. :(

-”He got an emergency call this morning and asked me to look after you.” Good job, David! That was very good pushing aside your hatred of Regina for Henry’s sake!

-I just realized that Ruby is essentially Elsa in this episode! XD

-Ruby is fucking tough as nails! We’ve got to get her into a Street Fighter movie or something!

-I really want to know more about Quinn! The actor played him very well and he has this air to himself of both a vagabound and someone with something a bit deeper to him. Like, he’s an octave down from Killian on the drama-meter.

-”Is this some kind of trick?” Red, don’t follow the man into the scary basement until he answers that very important question! Didn’t Granny teach you stranger danger?!

-I want to live in an underground castle! Holy shit! I’d have all the space I want, stay cool, AND avoid other people! Hell to the fucking yeah!

-”I’m your mother.” My season 4 vibes and her later attitude are compelling me to say “I don’t care.”

-”It’s Billy’s truck.” “Who do you call to tow a tow truck.” It’s my personal headcanon that Billy’s truck is Mater from Cars. XD

-”I certainly never cared what would happen to them after they woke up...until now.” I love that look Henry gives Regina as she says this. It’s such a subtle Regal Believer moment.

-”Sometimes in sleep.” Why do I feel like that line was specifically put there for ass covering?

-”Once one controls something, one no longer need fear it.” Another instance of a villainous character (Though not in this episode!) giving the moral of the episode! That said, I wish it was said to Ruby herself, but I’m not peeved about that. Also, Rumple’s posture is incredibly comforting as he crouches to Henry’s level and gives him the necklace for free, giving some nice pre-confirmed Grandpa Gold feels.

-Charming! Good job calling out your cursed self for his shittiness!

-It may just be the result of my recent foray into the MCU, but I am getting some crazy Ego vibes odd of Anita.

-”That thing. That she-wolf.” George, you are the WORST.

-”Protecting your friend instead of everyone else.” He literally has her locked in a jail cell! It’s not like he’s forcing her to roam free!

-That was a great display of a Gopro camera on a wolf!

-I like how the montage was unclear about the exact amount of time it took between Red’s entrance into the castle and that latest transformation.

-George, you have the tiniest fucking group possible for this rebellion! How successful do you really think you’re going to be?

-I like the visual cue that the wolf gang sleeps like a pack.

-”Of course not.” I love how Snow clearly doesn’t believe that Red’s pack will hurt her, but still wants to be supportive of Red.

-”David see the good in you.” Ummm, what about you, Belle? Girl, you know I love you, but you already know all about Ruby’s goodness! She took you in!

-”I’m sort of an expert when it comes to rehabilitation.” Ummm, I’d say you’re getting there, but expert is a little too much.

-”I need to pay for all I’ve done.” Umm, Ruby. Your old village couldn’t kill you. What makes you this the D-List Storybrooke mob will do any better?

-I don’t know why, but I find it so funny that King George’s cursed name is “Spencer.” I think it just makes me think of iCarly.

-”May you always run free below the moon’s pale light.” This is a really well written line and I wish we could’ve heard it again outside of this episode.

-I like how in the D-List Storybrooke mob, only one person had the common sensibility to bring a fucking flashlight!

-Granny! You could’ve killed someone! That was a big Michael Bay-worthy explosion! I can only hope you sensed that that building was abandoned beforehand otherwise you’d have a body count!

-So someone in the D-List Storybrooke mob calls out “we’re not sheep,” and I’m just laughing because they followed George on a fucking dime!

-So I love how this is more or less David’s arc in “White Out” as well! XD

-George is so fucking confident about that hat, like there aren’t at least a couple of other magical items in this town! XD

-Also, how the hell did he get the hat?

-Red’s monologue in the final leg of the flashback has me thinking: What happened when Red and Granny reunited after the events of this flashback? There must’ve been some serious resentment on Red’s part and I wish we got to see how that resolved itself.

-Ruby, not that that run isn’t well earned, but you owe Belle on hell of an apology!

-Snow, your clothes are so clean right now! Did you find a laundromat in the Enchanted Forest?

Arcs - How are These Storylines Progressing?

Storybrooke getting Snow and Emma back - We gain one method of communicating with the EF and lose a way of getting there. I find that this arc is pretty good so far. The steps feel appropriately paced and I enjoy that the arc actually has a dead end. It makes for opportunities to use more characters (Ruby, King George, and Jefferson) and given them growth while allowing for the plot to feel more like a journey.

Rumple’s Redemption - I pointed this out in “Insights,” but Rumple’s more comforting attitude towards Henry, especially since neither knows they’re related yet, is a good follow-up step to the redemption that Rumple’s attempting for himself that was established in “Broken.”

Favorite Dynamic

Red and Snow - Red and Snow’s friendship has always been this nice delight, and in this episode, there’s a marvelous setup and payoff to it. Snow is beyond supportive to Red, understanding her and yet still fighting for a future where they can be happy and safe together. Like, she risks traveling by Regina’s bloodthirsty men for Red and is willing to give the wolfpack the benefit of the doubt for her! And even whe Red opts to stay with the wolfpack, Snow is nothing but understanding and gives a very in-character reason as to why! Honestly, I’m borderline shipping these two because they’re so good together!

Writer

Last season’s human home runs (Ian and Andrew) are at it again. The writing for this episode is largely great, using very rich dialogue and a good theme of taking control of your own life to deliver two well put together segments.

Rating

10/10. This is a legitimately great episode. It’s entertaining, and our mains are in fine form. The lore of the OUAT world is used well, as it contributes to the story in the past segment and not just the plot (An important distinction). While I take a small issue with a less impactful Ruby in the present, it simply doesn’t take away from the incredible storytelling that goes on elsewhere throughout both segments.

Flip My Ship - Home of All Things “Shippy Goodness”

Billy/Ruby - While I never thought much of them in “The Price of Gold,” their bit of flirting is absolutely heartwarming and Ruby’s grief following Billy’s death is so sad.

Red Beauty - These two! These fucking two! Belle and Ruby are just the two most supportive beans in the world! Also, “think of it as girl’s night.” Am I the only one thinking about how chains and whips can be quite exciting, especially when one’s hungry like the wolf?!

()()()()()()()()()

Sorry if this review was a little simplistic. Sometimes, there’s not a lot to say about an episode other than “this was good,” and I didn’t just want to say that a million times, but next time I’ll make like that episode’s title and see how “Into the Deep” I can go! For now, thank you for reading and to the fine folks at @watchingfairytales for putting this project together and giving my reviews a home on their page!

Season 2 Tally (67/220)

Writer Tally for Season 2:

Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis: (20/60)

Jane Espenson (17/50)

Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg (20/50)

David Goodman (10/30)

Robert Hull (10/30)

Christine Boylan (7/30)

Tags: ouat, once upon a time, watching fairytales, ouat episode code, ouat rewatch, jenna watches ouat, ships mentioned

Operation Rewatch Archives

[ciaran-nyc]

Week Seven: Greta Thunberg Documentary: "I Am Greta"

1. "Why would I need an education if there is no future?"

When Greta is sitting in front of Parliament and has a discussion with an older woman, she is challenged to go to school so she can eventually make a change. This quote really emphasizes the immediacy of the issue of climate change and why she is taking action. There is the continued narrative that we can continuously push off climate change and telling Greta after she gets an education she can work to make a difference is the issue. Rather than waiting, Greta has opted to leverage the celebrity she has to make a difference.  

"The climate is the defining issue of our time.”

Greta uses this phrase to convey the seriousness of her protest when directly questioned about her motives. This exchange is greatly framed by the age dynamic of Greta and the adult she is speaking with. Greta and her generation will witness the most horrific effects of climate change and she is acutely aware of that.

"Once the climate crisis has gotten your attention, then you can't look away."

After getting the invitation to a UN conference, Greta raises concerns about missing school for her speaking engagement. The viewer is then shown Greta in a classroom as a voiceover is heard stating this quote, implying that Great is preoccupied with her crusade for climate justice. This directly points to the tension of Greta trying to maintain a semi normal life while dedicating her life to a cause.

2. In the beginning of the film, we see Greta’s great determination and tenacity as she sits in front of Parliament unwavering in her cause. She stands firm in the face of criticism and even garners a large crowd of supporters. We then cut to her father as he voices concerns about her doing this and we remember she is just a child and ultimately a person with family members that care for her. When we get glimpses into the interactions she has with her father we see a more unfiltered version of her that is not the strong face of a movement but a vulnerable human being that deserves are sympathy for the emotional toll such work does to any individual.

3. I didn’t know she was on the spectrum, had aspergers, or suffered from depression. I knew nothing of the kind of background she came from, but it was interesting to see how close she was with her father. Additionally, I didn’t know just how well she knew how to manipulate social media and digital platforms to support her message. The scene where she discusses Arnold Schwarzenegger’s following gave me the first indication of her hyper awareness. It’s clear that this knowledge allowed her to substantially grow her base. There is a scene where she is introducing her Fridays for Future campaign and decides to speak in English while encouraging people to record and share her speech, knowing that speaking in English will maximize her potential reach.

4. I didn’t realize at how fast of a rate the Amazon forest is burning; that was rather alarming because I knew it contributed to such a significant portion of the planet’s oxygen production. Additionally, I was unaware of how many different young activists there were across the world.

5. I didn’t realize how quickly the movement grew, I had figured Greta had been working for a considerable amount of time in climate justice. I have a false memory of Greta coming into the spotlight and beginning her work earlier than she did with her celebrity having a slow build. I do remember Greta’s celebrity coming to a peak in 2019 when she embarked on the sailboat to NY, but I was tangentially aware of her because she was frequently in the headlines, not anyone I ever sought out or investigated information about her. I think this movement took off as it did because Greta was such an unlikely leader and her dedication to this effort made others recognize their own privilege and how they could contribute. Greta is also very savvy and well informed; her preparedness and passion make her very charismatic and a leader to who is easy to rally around.

6. Early on in the film, Arnold Schwarzenegger was mentioned to have shared a video of Greta’s on Twitter to his four million followers. Although he is a politician, Emmanual Macron’s global recognition is beyond that of just a politician and has reached a celebrity like status. His meeting with Greta very much served as a cosign of her efforts and added a legitimacy to her as an activist. Her meeting with the Pope also served as a major moment in her being recognized by a figure that is held in the highest regard by an entire religious sect.

7. The Paris Agreement is an international treaty on climate change, adopted by 196 countries in 2015. The goal is to limit global warming below 2 degrees celsius. This goal is difficult to reach because there are so many moving parts and countries that are acting without concern for the climate crisis. Under the Obama Administration, the United States was initially a major proponent of the Paris Agreement, but with the changing of power, Donald Trump backed out the agreement. President Biden has returned to the agreement, but such instability in commitments pose serious threat to accomplishing long term goals over the course of many years.

8. At conferences, Greta was used as a pawn to simply give off the appearance of leaders caring about the climate crisis. Although she was given a platform, Greta’s words were not taken seriously at these events and she voices frustrations about this. Greta’s past bouts with depression led her to withdraw into herself, only speaking to her family and refusing to eat. We see that in the midst of a very raucous crowd, Greta gets overwhelmed and refuses to eat. There is a back and forth argument with her father, where she eventually gives into his demands for her to eat. It is evident in these moments her celebrity status takes a great toll on her mental health. Her dedication to climate justice drives her to seek perfection in her work and, in striving for perfection, she overextends herself, as is apparent when she is crafting a speech in French.

9. I think Greta served as an example, showing that it is possible for all young people to actively make a difference, but teenage girls were most able to recognize themselves in her. The template Greta laid out showed how easy it was to leverage one’s position in the world. For young women and girls in particular, her outspoken nature and strong will defied stereotypical expectations of both gender and age, and demonstrated alternate ways of being. Further, the fame and positive feedback Greta received as a result of her efforts encouraged others to follow in her footsteps.

10. I think this footage really got to the heart of the entire film as she was detailing her struggles on the boat and how she wished she could just live a regular life. The immense pressure Greta is under reflects the responsibility her entire generation will have to undertake to try and save the planet. By highlighting Greta’s pain and vulnerability, her humanity was put in focus and when contextualizing the climate crisis affect on actual people it is harder to deny its impact. I didn’t follow her voyage in real time, but remember it being a popular topic of conversation.

11. Unfortunately, I was unable to participate in the Climate Strike. I was working at a job that if I had missed a day I would have missed a paycheck and potentially lost my shift, so I had to prioritize my financial stability. There was certainly an internal struggle as I wanted to participate, but felt unable to. The choice I made felt selfish, as I was ranking my own interest above the collective good. However, I was not just responsible for myself and had to consider the commitments/promises I made to other people in terms of my bosses/coworkers and family who I would be more dependent on if I lost employment. This tension I experienced, although rather low stakes, forced me to contemplate the idea of how capitalism is often at odds with environmental conservation.