#which means writing it will be hell. but like. in a fun challenging puzzle kind of way. I say. optimistically.

[essektheylyss]

presented without comment

[astaroth1357]

request: an MC thats very good w playing games or like,,, is proficiently skilled in all game categories or smrhn

alsp hi xander i love ur writing

and can i giv u a kith? if so: mwah 😚

Well I hate to tell ya, sweetie, but I’m not Xander. I’m Jazzy. Hello! I can see why you’d want something written by Xander, though. He’s mad talented (better at this than I am quite frankly) and he’s on the list of people I wish I could write as well as. I guess we can both take a moment to be sad that I’m not Xander… *sigh*... to be Xander… 😔

Oh well, I am who I am and I don’t begrudge that fact. Meanwhile, I’ve wanted to do more shout-outs so everybody go read @sevendeadlymorons! If you’re not… I mean… why not? He’s more than worth your time. In the meantime, I hope I can entertain you despite my not-Xanderness.

Brothers React to an MC Who’s Good at Games and Stuff 

Lucifer

Honestly couldn’t care less about the MC’s game proficiency in most cases. So they’re good at games? Good for them, he’s sure they’re happy.

But when they’re playing against him on the other hand…

Well, Lucifer may or may not be skilled at whatever game you set him on (he’s a very quick learner so never underestimate him), but he’s whole new levels of competitive when he wants to be. ESPECIALLY if he already thinks he’s hot shit at something.

Video games? Not his forte. Table top games? One word for you: Chess.

Lucifer believes that he can and will whip pretty much anyone’s ass in chess. That includes Satan, Solomon, Levi, and even Diavolo. He is at grandmaster level.

So imagine his shock, no, his disdain to have lost a game of chess to the MC… The moment they said "Checkmate" he stared at the board in front of them for a solid five minutes trying to work out where he went wrong…

And he wasn’t having that.

He and the MC now have regular chess matches in which he wins some and loses some so the tally stays pretty evenly tied. Really it’s all good fun... (but if they think he’s going to let them go home when he’s on a losing count, they’re Dead. Wrong. He’ll drag them back to down just to play chess with him until the score is right again. He DOES NOT lose, you hear? 🤨).

Mammon

Guess who’s found his gambling buddy?? 

No, really. He and the MC can make a KILLING at a Poker or Blackjack table! He’s never seen anyone better at poker than they are!! They have nerves of steel and give nothing away, so he’s lost more than a few hands to them before...

Even past the casinos, they’re perfect for making bets on! He once arranged a Devil Cart competition between the MC and Levi and took bets around RAD for who’d win...

Naturally, everybody assumed the Devildom’s resident Super-Otaku would win hands down, but the MC had this insane last minute save with a blue shell and pulled ahead in the last lap!!

He was like, the only person that bet on the MC and he got soooo much money that MC found HIM crying and hugging a bag of Grimm after the match…

Any time they win a game that gets him money, he’ll treat them like royalty for the next week. Man knows not to bite the hand that feeds him!... and creditors at bay... 😬

It may get slightly annoying that Mammon won't stop telling them about gaming competitions where they can get him more prize money, but hey, at least he's supportive, I guess.

Leviathan

Oh they are either his best friend or mortal enemy… Sometimes both in the same day.

Our boy hates losing, can't stand it any better than Lucifer, you KNOW the second he knows there's someone out there who even has a chance of beating him, he gets serious. This is not a "friendly rivalry," MC.

When they’re playing any game against each other, he'll call them by their gamertag/online persona to keep himself focused (yes, even if they’re playing Monopoly). They can't be his MC right now, they gotta be the person he's going to beat...

He's NOT opposed to dirty tactics to win, either. Saying things that will get them mad or flustered mid-match? Check. Using his tail to distract or tease them? Check. Just being a general nuisance/annoyance in game for the hell of it? Guilty as charged!

He's both a sore winner AND a sore loser, so unfortunately MC, you really can't win here... He'll be obnoxious regardless of the outcome.

However… when they’re on the same team, it's really something special. They don't just destroy the competition, they bulldoze over them like an armored tank barreling through rush hour traffic!

These two are legends in the online gaming community and have even started a streaming channel on the side. Sometimes your worst enemies also make the best allies... Who knew? 🤷‍♀️

Satan

Is surprisingly impressed by their gaming prowess. Are they just supremely skilled or incredibly lucky, you think…?

That being said, he's not the biggest gaming man on the planet so he's not too competitive with them one way or the other.

When Satan plays a video game, he usually goes for story-based, single-person experiences anyway so it's not like he could compete with them even if he wanted to.

That being said, they do share an informal challenge of sorts when it comes to puzzle/detective games (a not so guilty pleasure of his). He likes to try and beat the levels first, so when they start playing a new one they'll both compare time spent and scores.

He even enjoys playing those Devildom-style AR murder mystery games with them! It’s pretty cute to watch Satan get into it, he dips into his inner Levi and cosplays as some of his favorite TV drama detectives for the occasion and insists they dress as his co-star (best just go along with him. It’s not a bad time, even if they have to carry around an old tobacco pipe for a few hours).

Asmodeus

Good at games? That sounds dangerously like they're another Levi… 🙄 What about party games? Oh oh, or drinking games??

Actually scratch that. How about ANY game while drunk? That sounds pretty fun doesn’t it??

Like Drunk Truth or Dare!! Oh that's a favorite of his… 🤭

To be fair to the MC, the booze does diminish their skills somewhat (because that's kind of what it does in general) but not by all that much… It's pretty impressive.

He once challenged them to a game of Drunk Twister figuring that they'd be too unsteady to actually win for once, but no. If anything, the alcohol must have numbed the stretching pains because they bent over him like a pretzel!

Not that he was complaining or anything… 😏

He likes to take the MC to parties where he knows a game or two will be played just to show off to the crowd and brag that they’re HIS lovely, talented human! You go, MC, beat that competition to a pulp! 😌

Beelzebub

Sports count as games too, right? Well, they aren't half bad at those either.

Beel found it surprising that he found a human who could actually keep up with him. His brothers rarely want to play practice games with him anyway so it’s pretty exciting to have a sports partner at home!

He likes to ask the MC to help him train with practice matches or to go over certain moves or maneuvers he’s having trouble with. It’s not uncommon for the brothers to come home and find the two of them tossing a ball around in the front yard or something.

And the both of them on the same team? Forget it. It takes the dream team of Lucifer and Mammon (who aren’t just arguing with each other for once) to even come close to a challenge for them.

He also enjoys playing the occasional video game with them, though he treats it a lot like playing with Levi and just assumes he’ll never win unless he gets lucky - which does happen from time to time.

He doesn’t mind losing that much as long as he’s having fun, and if nothing else he can always win against them in an eating contest… He’s got those on lockdown. Come at’em MC, he’ll pack away an entire fridge before you’re done with your first plate. Try him.

Belphegor

So Belphie enjoys a good game or two - video-based or otherwise - it comes with the lazy-bastard territory. He may not be as skilled as Levi, but he can hold his own in some genres.

But he’s given up on beating the MC looong ago.

Do you know how much practice it would take? How many hours that he would have to use?? The hours where he could be napping instead???  Yeah, no thanks. They can continue to be the reigning Super Smash Devils champion for all he cares.

Buuuut even he has to admit, it’s pretty relaxing to watch the MC play something in the background... There’s a certain sort of satisfaction to watching someone who’s good at a game just play it straight through.

If they’re set up in Levi’s room or the Common area then Belphie may come over, set his pillow up on the floor, and watch them play. He may even throw in a comment or two like, “You missed a health pack,” or “Better save now,” but other than that he likes to just let them do their thing.

The MC has had many an all-nighter with Belphie spectating until about 4am or so. Then he’s dead to the world and they have to work out how to get his not-exactly-light demon ass onto a couch…

Or they can just leave him faceplanted and snoring on the floor. Up to them, really cause he did it to himself. 🤷‍♀️

[hermannsthumb]

Maria. *Grabs your face* MARIA. I would LOVE to see 15 bobbing for apples from the autumn fic meme written by you. Nothing would delight me more!

Anonymous asked: Halloween prompt #15 please!!... "Bobbing for apples but we meet accidentally underwater lady and the tramp style." OR "I thought we'd have fun bobbing for apples but you actually hate it and are really mad now"

15. Bobbing For Apples

from autumn fic prompts here

KATE ❤️__ ❤️for you id write anything... and anon the lady and the tramp scenario is so fucking funny/good

---------------------------

It’s a really good thing that Hermann has Newt, because if Newt’s being honest, he has no damn clue what the poor dude would do without him. Work himself to death, probably. Or spend every Saturday night alone in his bunk. So depressing. Newt considers it his big charitable act of—well, of all time—to force Hermann into social functions, whether it's fun nights out at the bar (with Newt!), or down the hall a few feet for awesome movie marathons in Newt’s quarters (with Newt!), or something like tonight, which is a super awesome and fun Halloween party that, like, everyone on the base was invited to (including Newt!).

Hermann was all set to spend another night alone (probably changing the batteries in all his calculators or rearranging the hangers in his closet) when Newt dragged him out, more or less by the collar of his argyle sweater, with multiple threats to make his life a living hell the following week in the lab if he didn't comply immediately. "Seriously, dude," Newt had said, ominously, while Hermann looked at him like a furious cat ready to take a swipe, "you're gonna put in those vampire fangs and get drunk with me, or you're gonna regret it. I mean it." Newt was not opposed to blasting the shittiest depths of his Spotify account over his bluetooth speakers or using Hermann's favorite coffee mug to hold his dissection tools. Luckily for both of them, Hermann decided the risk wasn't worth it.

Newt knows Hermann is bound to recognize how selfless Newt is being and thank him for it eventually. Probably. Maybe a few years from now. For now, Newt is enjoying the warm and fuzzy feeling of having done a good deed, and also of drinking a considerable amount of spiked punch.

Hermann is not enjoying either.

"I did, in fact, have plans for tonight," he tells Newt, sipping his ginger ale and observing Newt with a fierce scowl. He flat-out refused the booze Newt tried to push on him. It's fine, whatever—it's enough for Newt, right now anyway, that he actually came. They'll work up to bigger stuff like that later.

"Like what?" Newt says. "Doing a crossword puzzle and watching the second half of that boring-ass documentary you put on last weekend?"

Newt considers it an affront to the very concept of movie nights that Hermann used his pick on a documentary, and one about the jaeger program that didn't even bother interviewing him, no less. Newt loves a good documentary, don't get him wrong, but movie nights are for escapist shit. You don't see him switching on Godzilla. Plus, having to watch stock footage of Dr. Gottlieb Sr. blabbing his mouth about how smart he was while you were debating making a move on his son (who was currently in you bed, looking super cute in your sweatpants, because he'd forgotten to pack pj's) was kind of a mood-killer. "It wasn't boring," Hermann sniffs, which tells Newt that his guess was dead-on. "It was...interesting. And anyway, just because they aren't your idea of plans..."

"Okay, whatever," Newt says. "Let's just have fun. That's the point of a party."

He throws an arm around Hermann's shoulder and drags him closer, until their heads knock together painfully. He hears Hermann growl low in his throat. Newt doesn't say, soon, we won't have the time to do stupid shit like this anymore, so we should enjoy it while we can, even though he wants to. It's better to not make fun stuff depressing. Plus, Hermann might decide to take that as an invitation to bail and put on his documentary. Instead he reaches up across Hermann and flicks his chin. Hermann's whole body stiffens. "I can't believe I got you into this super awesome party and you're not even pretending to be thankful," Newt says.

With no great deal of difficulty, Hermann pushes Newt off of him. Newt lands heavily back in his chair, making the whole thing wobble, and he laughs as he just manages to catch himself from falling off the other side. "You got me in?" Hermann says. "Newton, I was invited three weeks ago."

Newt stops laughing. "You were?"

"Yes," Hermann says. The corner of his lip twitches up, with a smugness so powerful Newt can feel it radiating off of him in waves. Bastard. "I took it upon myself to ask if you might be permitted to come, too." He adds, sarcastically, "Out of the kindness of my heart. I know how terribly put out you get when you aren't included in these sorts of things."

Newt considers this new information, and then discards it, because it really doesn't fit the image of himself he's been cultivating as the cool, hip friend to Hermann's uncool, unhip nerd. Like, come on, between the two of them, Newt is obviously the one you'd want at your party. Hermann's gotta be kidding. Probably. Maybe. "It's a lame party anyway," Newt mumbles.

He tries to put his arm around Hermann's shoulder again, remembers that Hermann really didn't like that the first time, and then drops it back down at his side instead. "Totally lame," he continues. Newt recalls the Halloween parties of his youth with a warm, fond glow: elaborate costumes, tacky decorations, passing around bowls of peeled grapes in the dark, carving jack-o-lanterns while his dad hovered protectively over him to make sure he didn't take a finger off with the knife. This is none of that. Barely anyone even dressed up! The lack of Halloween spirit is tragic. "There aren't even any party games."

"Yes there are," Hermann says, mildly.

He points across the room at a large metal tub that Newt somehow missed before. It looks like it's filled with water, and...

"Dude," Newt says.

He doesn't wait to ask before he's hopping to his feet and dragging Hermann along after him by his blazer cuff. Hermann swats at his heels a few times with his cane, but eventually—like he does with most of Newt's ideas—gives in. "I'm a fuckin' champ at bobbing for apples," Newt boasts. "I used to—oops, excuse me," (he runs into two guys who are, like, twice his height, upsetting their drinks, and he hears Hermann groan as something purple spills on his sweater), "I used to always win it at the fall fest when my dad would take me." And then when he went back as an adult by himself, but it was less impressive a win when you were up against a bunch of ten-year-olds.

"You do have an exceptionally large mouth," Hermann says, rubbing at his stained shoulder. "I suppose that helps." As Newt bends to investigate the iron tub, he says, "Oh, Newton, don't, it's been out all night. Who knows what sorts of germs are in there?"

Newt gets to his knees and rolls up the sleeves of his PPDC-issued labcoat. He's a mad scientist to Hermann's vampire (vampire librarian?) tonight. Yeah, it's kind of a lazy costume, but it was free—he already had everything he needed in the lab. "I can get it in five seconds, max," he declares. His record is one second, but he's the first to admit he's a little rusty, and he'd rather impress Hermann by beating his estimate. "Will you hold my headlamp?"

Grumbling, Hermann takes it. Newt sets his glasses on the ground. "You're going to get yourself bloody soaking," Hermann says, and then he complains about something else, too, but Newt is screwing his eyes shut and ducking his head into the tub, which makes it difficult to hear him. One second—two seconds—two and a half—Newt emerges victorious from the tub, teeth clenched down firmly on an apple, and accidentally splatters a large amount of water on Hermann's shoes. He pulls the apple out of his mouth with a grin and waves it at Hermann. "See. I'm a fucking pro."

He tucks his glasses back on his face to discover that Hermann is staring at him with a very strange expression on his face. Newt can't decide if it's the blacklight bulbs overhead that are washing him out and making him look so flushed, or something else entirely. Then, in a second, he's grumpy and scowling and tsking over his wet shoes. "A pro," he echoes. "Hardly. It can't be that complicated."

Newt gestures grandly at the tub and takes a bite out of his apple. Hermann can always be relied upon to never turn down a challenge, especially when it means making Newt look—potentially—stupid. Newt uses it to his advantage often. Whatever it takes to help the guy have a good time. "It's all yours, dude."

Hermann grumbles something again about Newt being too arrogant for his own good, and something else about showing Newt how to do it without making a mess of everything, then gets down to his knees with a quiet hiss of discomfort. He shoves his cane, and Newt's headlamp, at Newt, though bewilderingly leaves his blazer on. "I'll be just a moment," he says, and dunks his head into the tub.

He splashes back up no more than five seconds later. Apple-less. "Bugger," he coughs, and then coughs some more. The entire front of his sweater is soaked. "I didn't—I didn't start out right. Let me—"

Newt watches Hermann try to drown himself a few more times in mild interest before he finally intercedes. "Need a hand?" he says, getting to his knees next to Hermann.

"No," Hermann splutters.

Newt takes his glasses off again. "Yeah, you do. Okay, now watch me—"

He emerges with another apple in seconds.

Hermann grits his teeth. "Newton—"

"One more?" Newt says, his grin widening.

Back under. Another apple. He winks at Hermann when he goes in for a fourth time, and this time, he feels the water of the tank being upset as Hermann (refusing to be outdone once again) splashes in alongside him. God, Newt loves riling Hermann up like this—he gets so funny, and kinda cute, when he's mad about something. Red in the face, and scowling, and sometimes (when he's real mad) speaking in a dangerously low and rough sort of voice with his r's rolling that makes Newt shiver, just a little. Like, Newton, you worthless, pathetic little man, cease this immediately, or else I'll... He actually said that to Newt once. It made Newt feel a little warm under his collar. Hermann's probably going to say something similar to him this time, and Newt can't wait.

Ten seconds in. Newt has been cutting Hermann a little slack at first, just to see if he can catch up, but finally decides to just go for the apple that's been bobbing steadily against his mouth this whole time. (He loves beating Hermann at stuff.)

And, well, apparently Hermann goes for it too.

They both miss the apple. Newt's mouth is up against Hermann's for another five seconds before he realizes what's happening (that that is definitely not an apple, that that is definitely a mouth, that that mouth is wide and weird another to belong to only one person Newt knows, that that mouth is parting in surprise, oh my God) and then he pulls away so quickly that he breathes in what feels like half the tub of water. He falls back on his ass, coughing furiously, and it's not until he shoves his glasses back on with a shaking hand that he realizes that Hermann has done the same. "I," Hermann says. His eyes are wide. "I'm sor—"

"It's fine," Newt squeaks.

"It was—"

"I know!"

Newt and Hermann's mouths were touching for five whole seconds. Underwater, while apples bobbed against their foreheads, but their mouths still touched. Oh my God. In elementary school, Newt thinks dizzily, that would be enough to catch cooties. This was so not how he wanted his awesome eventual seduction of Hermann to go down. For one thing, it wasn't even a seduction.

"I'm gonna get a towel," Newt says.

Hermann nods. He looks strangely adorable with water droplets on his nose and his hair plastered to his head like that. Newt has to get out of here before he does something stupid, like take Hermann's pointy cheeks between his hands and put their mouths together on purpose. He doesn't think Hermann would respond to that very well right now.

"I'll get you one too," Newt says, and it takes a lot of effort to force himself to his feet.

Hermann nods again.

"Okay," Newt says, and stumbles away. Out of the corner of his eye, he just catches Hermann raising a hand to his mouth.

[maddogofshimano]

Kiryu (1988) Character Story

This one was a real struggle, but it’s very fun, so I’m glad I translated it. Here’s our card:

Summary: Set in 1987, Nishiki attempts to teach Kiryu how to use his pocket bell. He’s just horrible at reading it correctly, and a girl keeps hitting on him through it, and it’s just a real mess. He’s not sure why everyone’s so worried when they see the messages, he’s just going to turn her down!

1987 (a year before Y0, Kiryu and Nishiki would be ~19) It's been 2 years since Kiryu and Nishiki joined the Dojima Family (which, damn I guess they joined around 17) Nishiki has bought Kiryu a pocket bell (the pager thing) and is explaining how it works and that no it's not a phone and you can only send numbers.

Nishiki explains that if he sends 0906 that means to meet up. Kiryu asks how he's supposed to know that. Nishiki explains that there's a pocket bell code, 0 = o 9 = ku 0 can also = zero or rei and in this case is re and 6 = ru giving okureru which is telling someone to come somewhere.

Kiryu's a little worried that since numbers can have multiple meanings that it might get confusing. Nishiki says he'll get used to reading it. A lady is gathering pager numbers for some kind of campaign and Nishiki immediately writes his down and says Kiryu should do the same before running off very quickly to a bathroom.

Some dude starts hassling the highschooler running the signing campaign, so Kiryu promptly kicks the shit out of him. The dude was another part timer and is now fired by the boss. The girl profusely thanks Kiryu and asks him to wait a minute while she gets something from the shop. Nishiki returns and says “You're thinking ‘I didn't notice until Nishiki said it but... I'm weak to high school uniforms’, aren't you, Kiryu?”

Kiryu just ignores that and says that Nishiki sure took a while. Nishiki says  the toliets were crowded but hey that girl you got to talk to was super cute right?? and Kiryu's just like "I don't really think so?" and Nishiki tells him to stop being shy about it, or at least tell him what his type is. Kiryu says he doesn't really have a type, now get back to teaching me how the pocket bell code works. Nishiki says fiiiiiiiiiiiiine he'll be Nishiki sensei.

0 can be e - o - no - ma - re - wa - wo - n 1 can be a - i - hi 2 can be tsu - ni - me - ne - fu 3 can be sa - su - mi 4 can be shi - ho - yo 5 can be u - ko 6 can be mu - ri - ru - ro 7 can be sa - chi - na 8 can be ha - ya 9 can be ka - ki - ku - ke 1 can also be the english letter i, and therefore ai 10 can be te - to

Nishiki has given him a challenge to deciper: 10646 249

Kiryu’s guess is completely off-base, Nishiki is surprised he can’t even figure out 249 is Ni-shi-ki. Kiryu says this is too hard. Nishiki excuses himself off to the bathroom again and makes it back really fast this time. Kiryu notices he’s gotten a message from an unknown number, it’s  14106. That's aishiteru (I love you, and like a serious kind of I love you) and man oh man is the timing suspicious on this but Kiryu is very taken aback by it.

Nishiki says he doesn’t recognize the number it came from, but hey? Didn’t Kiryu just write down his number on that cute girl’s campaign sheet? Maybe it was from her...

Kiryu’s not thrilled with this prospect, but Nishiki tries to get him to ask her out to eat. Kiryu has absolutely no intention of ever asking her out and just goes back to his apartment instead.

Kiryu has gotten a new message, this one is 4592096. he's alone so he's puzzling it out and wishing Nishiki were here to help. he comes up with shikoku ni maguro which he translates as................ "tuna from Shikoku (one of Japan's islands)"! and then wonders what the hell that means.

<Part Two>

Kiryu is sitting around in Children’s Park and staring at his pocket bell. One of the younger members of the Dojima Family is a little concerned.

He asks the guy if he knows pocket bell and the guy translates it to jigoku ni okuru "go to hell", which the guy is rightfully very concerned about Kiryu saying a girl sent that to him. Kiryu asks if maybe it's shikoku ni maguro and she's asking to go together to shikoku to eat tuna? the guy says that I guess you could read it that way......... 

Kiryu asks if he could teach him how to say some things back. the guy offers up 1-1 which is H (ecchi), and condom is 56 (gomu, condom) and Kiryu thinks these are weird things to be teaching him but okay. Kiryu gets 563 and is immediately like are you SURE 56 is condom? He confirms, and Kiryu thinks damn, is she asking me to bring three condoms??  He runs off, only for the goon to be like wait 563.... that's not 3 condoms!! that's korosu (kill you), but Kiryu is already gone.

He books it back to the lady just in time to stop her from being hassled again. Kiryu: Hey I wanna talk about those messages you sent me Naomi: Huh? What messages are you talking about? Kiryu: I think it'd be a bad idea for us to go together to Shikoku... that's what I came here to tell you Naomi: I...... have no idea what you're talking about Kiryu: ................... Kiryu: .......................Uh. I was mistaken. Please forget all of that. She is now concerned about Kiryu, but also thinks he’s a little cool. 

Kiryu goes and tells Nishiki about this and gets another message, this time 564219 (koroshi ni iku, coming to kill you) which Kiryu incorrectly translates as....................... gomu shi ni iku, coming to use condoms. He believes that Naomi is sending it and that she just won't give up! He decides he has to stop her from going to his house. Nishiki is concerned that someone wants to kill Kiryu.

Neither of them tell each other their translation! Both of them assume that the seriousness with which they are responding means they're on the same page!!

<Part 3>

Kiryu: Tch, this is bad. I'm going to have to have a serious talk... Nishiki, I should do this on my own. Nishiki: (Wh-... they're threatening to kill him and he wants to go alone! I can't let him do something so dangerous!!) Nishiki: Hey, Kiryu, I'm going with you. Kiryu: !? Kiryu: W-Wait!! I'm going to make this stop! I-I'm not doing what you think I'm doing! Nishiki: ...I see. By the way... why is your face so red...? Kiryu: ...You're talking nonsense. .....Though, I didn't know you had a preference for threesomes... Nishiki: Preference for threesomes...? What do you mean...? Kiryu: .........I'm going. I'll see you after this. Nishiki: ..........Man, he sure is a strange dude.

Kiryu chases down Naomi, who, at this point, has had Kiryu save her twice and track her down twice, and makes the honestly rational guess that Kiryu might have a crush on her, and asks him if he does. He just says what the hell are you talking about? You're the one who said you're coming here to use condoms!

Kiryu goes on a stumbling speech along the lines of "Hey it's okay, I understand that you're used to men being attracted to you... and that usually they're snared by your looks... however..." and she's like I have no idea what you're talking about, why are you talking about condoms???? It finally gets cleared up that no she absolutely did not send those messages why would you assume this I thought you were cool but you're awful, fuck off and die.

“..................What did she mean by that? Is she too embarrassed to tell me the truth again.....?”

Kiryu then gets jumped by the true culprit of these text........... the guy who kept hassling Naomi! 

Kiryu beats the hell out of him for a third time, and the guy very slowly, very patiently explains the meanings of all of his texts. Kiryu has a flashback to each of the times he put his foot in his mouth around Naomi, and is mortifyingly embarrassed. 

Kiryu asks what the hell 14106 meant then, and the guy says “That’s... I love you, ain’t it? I never sent that.” Kiryu, in an incredible attempt to save his own ego, thinks well hey, maybe Naomi did send that one! 

Nishiki barges in as backup, not willing to let Kiryu get himself killed. Kiryu realizes that Nishiki read the message correctly, and Nishiki wants to know what the hell Kiryu thought it meant. Kiryu explains and Nishiki is just completely astounded at how badly Kiryu fucked this up. 

Kiryu then starts conspiracy theory-ing that Naomi must have instantly fallen in love with him, because he was her savior, but he has no idea how to let her down gently because he's not interested..................... and then Nishiki finally confesses. 

He's the one that sent the 14106 message. Messages take a little bit of time to arrive, so he did it when he "went to the bathroom" and then ran back so Kiryu wouldn't suspect anything. And then he didn't want to spoil it because seeing Kiryu act so flustered was really great. 

Kiryu is not happy, but Nishiki bribes him with ramen and all is good. 

(I had trouble telling here if Nishiki offers ramen to put Kiryu back into a good mood here, or if he was saying he sent the I love you message to put Kiryu in a good mood so that they could get ramen. Either way, it doesn’t change a whole lot)

<END>

As soon as I started translating this for Fats Clan I posted this.

I think this lands firmly between woke and bespoke. Congrats to anyone who likes Kiryu/Nishiki, you get a canon “I love you”.

This card’s title is along the lines of “the dragon yet to awaken”, fitting with a lot of Kiryu’s cards mentioning him as some sort of dragon.

To be completely honest, I can’t figure out exactly what Nishiki sent either! Kiryu's guess is とろしろにしく and Nishiki is just like come on man it's てるしろにしき which I’m just really unsure on both of them! My best guesses are that Kiryu translated it as something weird like “Go spread out white fatty tuna” ( とろ = fatty tuna しろ = white に = direction particle しく = spread out. Does he keep thinking about tuna??) and Nishiki’s as “Telephone number Nishiki is using” ( てる = TEL,  しろ = imperative of する, and then にしき is obviously Nishiki) but there’s like 15 different ways to translate them instead. 

I sympathize fully with Kiryu.

[taylorswifthongkong]

Taylor Swift broke all her rules with Folklore — and gave herself a much-needed escape The pop star, one of EW's 2020 Entertainers of the Year, delves deep into her surprise eighth album, Rebekah Harkness, and a Joe Biden presidency. By Alex Suskind

“He is my co-writer on ‛Betty’ and ‛Exile,’” replies Taylor Swift with deadpan precision. The question Who is William Bowery? was, at the time we spoke, one of 2020’s great mysteries, right up there with the existence of Joe Exotic and the sudden arrival of murder hornets. An unknown writer credited on the year’s biggest album? It must be an alias.

Is he your brother?

“He’s William Bowery,” says Swift with a smile.

It's early November, after Election Day but before Swift eventually revealed Bowery's true identity to the world (the leading theory, that he was boyfriend Joe Alwyn, proved prescient). But, like all Swiftian riddles, it was fun to puzzle over for months, particularly in this hot mess of a year, when brief distractions are as comforting as a well-worn cardigan. Thankfully, the Bowery... erhm, Alwyn-assisted Folklore — a Swift project filled with muted pianos and whisper-quiet snares, recorded in secret with Jack Antonoff and the National’s Aaron Dessner — delivered.

“The only people who knew were the people I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and a small management team,” Swift, 30, tells EW of the album's hush-hush recording sessions. That gave the intimate Folklore a mystique all its own: the first surprise Taylor Swift album, one that prioritized fantastical tales over personal confessions.

“Early in quarantine, I started watching lots of films,” she explains. “Consuming other people’s storytelling opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines?” That’s how she ended up with three songs about an imagined love triangle (“Cardigan,” “Betty,” “August”), one about a clandestine romance (“Illicit Affairs”), and another chronicling a doomed relationship (“Exile”). Others tell of sumptuous real-life figures like Rebekah Harkness, a divorcee who married the heir to Standard Oil — and whose home Swift purchased 31 years after her death. The result, “The Last Great American Dynasty,” hones in on Harkness’ story, until Swift cleverly injects herself.

And yet, it wouldn’t be a Swift album without a few barbed postmortems over her own history. Notably, “My Tears Ricochet” and “Mad Woman," which touch on her former label head Scott Borchetta selling the masters to Swift’s catalog to her known nemesis Scooter Braun. Mere hours after our interview, the lyrics’ real-life origins took a surprising twist, when news broke that Swift’s music had once again been sold, to another private equity firm, for a reported $300 million. Though Swift ignored repeated requests for comment on the transaction, she did tweet a statement, hitting back at Braun while noting that she had begun re-recording her old albums — something she first promised in 2019 as a way of retaining agency over her creative legacy. (Later, she would tease a snippet of that reimagined work, with a new version of her hit 2008 single "Love Story.")

Like surprise-dropping Folklore, like pissing off the president by endorsing his opponents, like shooing away haters, Swift does what suits her. “I don’t think we often hear about women who did whatever the hell they wanted,” she says of Harkness — something Swift is clearly intent on changing. For her, that means basking in the world of, and favorable response to, Folklore. As she says in our interview, “I have this weird thing where, in order to create the next thing, I attack the previous thing. I don’t love that I do that, but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I still love it.”

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: We’ve spent the year quarantined in our houses, trying to stay healthy and avoiding friends and family. Were you surprised by your ability to create and release a full album in the middle of a pandemic?

TAYLOR SWIFT: I was. I wasn't expecting to make an album. Early on in quarantine, I started watching lots of films. We would watch a different movie every night. I'm ashamed to say I hadn't seen Pan's Labyrinth before. One night I'd watch that, then I'd watch L.A. Confidential, then we'd watch Rear Window, then we'd watch Jane Eyre. I feel like consuming other people's art and storytelling sort of opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, "Well, why have I never done this before? Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines? And why haven't I ever sort of freed myself up to do that from a narrative standpoint?" There is something a little heavy about knowing when you put out an album, people are going to take it so literally that everything you say could be clickbait. It was really, really freeing to be able to just be inspired by worlds created by the films you watch or books you've read or places you've dreamed of or people that you've wondered about, not just being inspired by your own experience.

In that vain, what's it like to sit down and write something like “Betty,” which is told from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy?

That was huge for me. And I think it came from the fact that my co-writer, William Bowery [Joe Alwyn], is male — and he was the one who originally thought of the chorus melody. And hearing him sing it, I thought, "That sounds really cool." Obviously, I don't have a male voice, but I thought, "I could have a male perspective." Patty Griffin wrote this song, “Top of the World.” It's one of my favorite songs of all time, and it's from the perspective of this older man who has lived a life full of regret, and he's kind of taking stock of that regret. So, I thought, "This is something that people I am a huge fan of have done. This would be fun to kind of take this for a spin."

What are your favorite William Bowery conspiracies?

I love them all individually and equally. I love all the conspiracy theories around this album. [With] "Betty," Jack Antonoff would text me these articles and think pieces and in-depth Tumblr posts on what this love triangle meant to the person who had listened to it. And that's exactly what I was hoping would happen with this album. I wrote these stories for a specific reason and from a specific place about specific people that I imagined, but I wanted that to all change given who was listening to it. And I wanted it to start out as mine and become other people's. It's been really fun to watch.

One of the other unique things about Folklore — the parameters around it were completely different from anything you'd done. There was no long roll out, no stadium-sized pop anthems, no aiming for the radio-friendly single. How fearful were you in avoiding what had worked in the past?

I didn't think about any of that for the very first time. And a lot of this album was kind of distilled down to the purest version of what the story is. Songwriting on this album is exactly the way that I would write if I considered nothing else other than, "What words do I want to write? What stories do I want to tell? What melodies do I want to sing? What production is essential to tell those stories?" It was a very do-it-yourself experience. My management team, we created absolutely everything in advance — every lyric video, every individual album package. And then we called our label a week in advance and said, "Here's what we have.” The photo shoot was me and the photographer walking out into a field. I'd done my hair and makeup and brought some nightgowns. These experiences I was used to having with 100 people on set, commanding alongside other people in a very committee fashion — all of a sudden it was me and a photographer, or me and my DP. It was a new challenge, because I love collaboration. But there's something really fun about knowing what you can do if it's just you doing it.

Did you find it freeing?

I did. Every project involves different levels of collaboration, because on other albums there are things that my stylist will think of that I never would've thought of. But if I had all those people on the photo shoot, I would've had to have them quarantine away from their families for weeks on end, and I would've had to ask things of them that I didn't think were fair if I could figure out a way to do it [myself]. I had this idea for the [Folklore album cover] that it would be this girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830 [laughs]. Very specific. A pioneer woman sleepwalking at night. I made a moodboard and sent it to Beth [Garrabrant], who I had never worked with before, who shoots only on film. We were just carrying bags across a field and putting the bags of film down, and then taking pictures. It was a blast.

Folklore includes plenty of intimate acoustic echoes to what you've done in the past. But there are also a lot of new sonics here, too — these quiet, powerful, intricately layered harmonics. What was it like to receive the music from Aaron and try to write lyrics on top of it? 

Well, Aaron is one of the most effortlessly prolific creators I've ever worked with. It's really mind-blowing. And every time I've spoken to an artist since this whole process [began], I said, "You need to work with him. It'll change the way you create." He would send me these — he calls them sketches, but it's basically an instrumental track. the second day — the day after I texted him and said, "Hey, would you ever want to work together?" — he sent me this file of probably 30 of these instrumentals and every single one of them was one of the most interesting, exciting things I had ever heard. Music can be beautiful, but it can be lacking that evocative nature. There was something about everything he created that is an immediate image in my head or melody that I came up with. So much so that I'd start writing as soon as I heard a new one. And oftentimes what I would send back would inspire him to make more instrumentals and then send me that one. And then I wrote the song and it started to shape the project, form-fitted and customized to what we wanted to do.

It was weird because I had never made an album and not played it for my girlfriends or told my friends. The only people who knew were the people that I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and then my management team. So that's the smallest number of people I've ever had know about something. I'm usually playing it for everyone that I'm friends with. So I had a lot of friends texting me things like, "Why didn't you say on our everyday FaceTimes you were making a record?"

Was it nice to be able to keep it a secret?

Well, it felt like it was only my thing. It felt like such an inner world I was escaping to every day that it almost didn't feel like an album. Because I wasn't making a song and finishing it and going, "Oh my God, that is catchy.” I wasn't making these things with any purpose in mind. And so it was almost like having it just be mine was this really sweet, nice, pure part of the world as everything else in the world was burning and crashing and feeling this sickness and sadness. I almost didn't process it as an album. This was just my daydream space.

Does it still feel like that?

Yeah, because I love it so much. I have this weird thing that I do when I create something where in order to create the next thing I kind of, in my head, attack the previous thing. I don't love that I do that but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I just still love it. I'm so proud of it. And so that feels very foreign to me. That doesn't feel like a normal experience that I've had with releasing albums.

When did you first learn about Rebekah Harkness?

Oh, I learned about her as soon as I was being walked through [her former Rhode Island] home. I got the house when I was in my early twenties as a place for my family to congregate and be together. I was told about her, I think, by the real estate agent who was walking us through the property. And as soon as I found out about her, I wanted to know everything I could. So I started reading. I found her so interesting. And then as more parallels began to develop between our two lives — being the lady that lives in that house on the hill that everybody gets to gossip about — I was always looking for an opportunity to write about her. And I finally found it.

I love that you break the fourth wall in the song. Did you go in thinking you’d include yourself in the story?

I think that in my head, I always wanted to do a country music, standard narrative device, which is: the first verse you sing about someone else, the second verse you sing about someone else who's even closer to you, and then in the third verse, you go, "Surprise! It was me.” You bring it personal for the last verse. And I'd always thought that if I were to tell that story, I would want to include the similarities — our lives or our reputations or our scandals.

How often did you regale friends about the history of Rebekah and Holiday House while hanging out at Holiday House? 

Anyone who's been there before knows that I do “The Tour,” in quotes, where I show everyone through the house. And I tell them different anecdotes about each room, because I've done that much research on this house and this woman. So in every single room, there's a different anecdote about Rebekah Harkness. If you have a mixed group of people who've been there before and people who haven't, [the people who’ve been there] are like, "Oh, she's going to do the tour. She's got to tell you the story about how the ballerinas used to practice on the lawn.” And they'll go get a drink and skip it because it's the same every time. But for me, I'm telling the story with the same electric enthusiasm, because it's just endlessly entertaining to me that this fabulous woman lived there. She just did whatever she wanted.

There are a handful of songs on Folklore that feel like pretty clear nods to your personal life over the last year, including your relationships with Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun. How long did it take to crystallize the feelings you had around both of them into “My Tears Ricochet” or “Mad Woman”?

I found myself being very triggered by any stories, movies, or narratives revolving around divorce, which felt weird because I haven't experienced it directly. There’s no reason it should cause me so much pain, but all of a sudden it felt like something I had been through. I think that happens any time you've been in a 15-year relationship and it ends in a messy, upsetting way. So I wrote “My Tears Ricochet” and I was using a lot of imagery that I had conjured up while comparing a relationship ending to when people end an actual marriage. All of a sudden this person that you trusted more than anyone in the world is the person that can hurt you the worst. Then all of a sudden the things that you have been through together, hurt. All of a sudden, the person who was your best friend is now your biggest nemesis, etc. etc. etc. I think I wrote some of the first lyrics to that song after watching Marriage Story and hearing about when marriages go wrong and end in such a catastrophic way. So these songs are in some ways imaginary, in some ways not, and in some ways both.

How did it feel to drop an F-bomb on "Mad Woman"?

F---ing fantastic.

And that’s the first time you ever recorded one on a record, right?

Yeah. Every rule book was thrown out. I always had these rules in my head and one of them was, You haven't done this before, so you can't ever do this. “Well, you've never had an explicit sticker, so you can't ever have an explicit sticker.” But that was one of the times where I felt like you need to follow the language and you need to follow the storyline. And if the storyline and the language match up and you end up saying the F-word, just go for it. I wasn't adhering to any of the guidelines that I had placed on myself. I decided to just make what I wanted to make. And I'm really happy that the fans were stoked about that because I think they could feel that. I'm not blaming anyone else for me restricting myself in the past. That was all, I guess, making what I want to make. I think my fans could feel that I opened the gate and ran out of the pasture for the first time, which I'm glad they picked up on because they're very intuitive.

Let’s talk about “Epiphany.” The first verse is a nod to your grandfather, Dean, who fought in World War II. What does his story mean to you personally? 

I wanted to write about him for awhile. He died when I was very young, but my dad would always tell this story that the only thing that his dad would ever say about the war was when somebody would ask him, "Why do you have such a positive outlook on life?" My grandfather would reply, "Well, I'm not supposed to be here. I shouldn't be here." My dad and his brothers always kind of imagined that what he had experienced was really awful and traumatic and that he'd seen a lot of terrible things. So when they did research, they learned that he had fought at the Battles of Guadalcanal, at Cape Gloucester, at Talasea, at Okinawa. He had seen a lot of heavy fire and casualties — all of the things that nightmares are made of. He was one of the first people to sign up for the war. But you know, these are things that you can only imagine that a lot of people in that generation didn't speak about because, a) they didn't want people that they came home to to worry about them, and b) it just was so bad that it was the actual definition of unspeakable.

That theme continues in the next verse, which is a pretty overt nod to what’s been happening during COVID. As someone who lives in Nashville, how difficult has it been to see folks on Lower Broadway crowding the bars without masks?

I mean, you just immediately think of the health workers who are putting their lives on the line — and oftentimes losing their lives. If they make it out of this, if they see the other side of it, there's going to be a lot of trauma that comes with that; there's going to be things that they witnessed that they will never be able to un-see. And that was the connection that I drew. I did a lot of research on my grandfather in the beginning of quarantine, and it hit me very quickly that we've got a version of that trauma happening right now in our hospitals. God, you hope people would respect it and would understand that going out for a night isn't worth the ripple effect that it causes. But obviously we're seeing that a lot of people don't seem to have their eyes open to that — or if they do, a lot of people don't care, which is upsetting.

You had the Lover Fest East and West scheduled this year. How hard has it been to both not perform for your fans this year, and see the music industry at large go through such a brutal change?

It's confusing. It's hard to watch. I think that maybe me wanting to make as much music as possible during this time was a way for me to feel like I could reach out my hand and touch my fans, even if I couldn't physically reach out or take a picture with them. We've had a lot of different, amazing, fun, sort of underground traditions we've built over the years that involve a lot of human interaction, and so I have no idea what's going to happen with touring; none of us do. And that's a scary thing. You can't look to somebody in the music industry who's been around a long time, or an expert touring manager or promoter and [ask] what's going to happen and have them give you an answer. I think we're all just trying to keep our eyes on the horizon and see what it looks like. So we're just kind of sitting tight and trying to take care of whatever creative spark might exist and trying to figure out how to reach our fans in other ways, because we just can't do that right now.

When you are able to perform again, do you have plans on resurfacing a Lover Fest-type event?

I don't know what incarnation it'll take and I really would need to sit down and think about it for a good solid couple of months before I figured out the answer. Because whatever we do, I want it to be something that is thoughtful and will make the fans happy and I hope I can achieve that. I'm going to try really hard to.

In addition to recording an album, you spent this year supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the election. Where were you when it was called in their favor? 

Well, when the results were coming in, I was actually at the property where we shot the Entertainment Weekly cover. I was hanging out with my photographer friend, Beth, and the wonderful couple that owned the farm where we [were]. And we realized really early into the night that we weren't going to get an accurate picture of the results. Then, a couple of days later, I was on a video shoot, but I was directing, and I was standing there with my face shield and mask on next to my director of photography, Rodrigo Prieto. And I just remember a news alert coming up on my phone that said, "Biden is our next president. He's won the election." And I showed it to Rodrigo and he said, "I'm always going to remember the moment that we learned this." And I looked around, and people's face shields were starting to fog up because a lot of people were really misty-eyed and emotional, and it was not loud. It wasn't popping bottles of champagne. It was this moment of quiet, cautious elation and relief.

Do you ever think about what Folklore would have sounded like if you, Aaron, and Jack had been in the same room?

I think about it all the time. I think that a lot of what has happened with the album has to do with us all being in a collective emotional place. Obviously everybody's lives have different complexities and whatnot, but I think most of us were feeling really shaken up and really out of place and confused and in need of something comforting all at the same time. And for me, that thing that was comforting was making music that felt sort of like I was trying to hug my fans through the speakers. That was truly my intent. Just trying to hug them when I can't hug them.

I wanted to talk about some of the lyrics on Folklore. One of my favorite pieces of wordplay is in “August”: that flip of "sipped away like a bottle of wine/slipped away like a moment in time.” Was there an "aha moment" for you while writing that?

I was really excited about "August slipped away into a moment of time/August sipped away like a bottle of wine." That was a song where Jack sent me the instrumental and I wrote the song pretty much on the spot; it just was an intuitive thing. And that was actually the first song that I wrote of the "Betty" triangle. So the Betty songs are "August," "Cardigan," and "Betty." "August" was actually the first one, which is strange because it's the song from the other girl's perspective.

Yeah, I assumed you wrote "Cardigan" first.

It would be safe to assume that "Cardigan" would be first, but it wasn't. It was very strange how it happened, but it kind of pieced together one song at a time, starting with "August," where I kind of wanted to explore the element of This is from the perspective of a girl who was having her first brush with love. And then all of a sudden she's treated like she's the other girl, because there was another situation that had already been in place, but "August" girl thought she was really falling in love. It kind of explores the idea of the undefined relationship. As humans, we're all encouraged to just be cool and just let it happen, and don't ask what the relationship is — Are we exclusive? But if you are chill about it, especially when you're young, you learn the very hard lesson that if you don't define something, oftentimes they can gaslight you into thinking it was nothing at all, and that it never happened. And how do you mourn the loss of something once it ends, if you're being made to believe that it never happened at all?

"I almost didn't process it as an album," says Taylor Swift of making Folklore. "And it's still hard for me to process as an entity or a commodity, because [it] was just my daydream space."

On the flip side, "Peace" is bit more defined in terms of how one approaches a relationship. There's this really striking line, "The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me/Would it be enough if I can never give you peace?" How did that line come to you?

I'm really proud of that one too. I heard the track immediately. Aaron sent it to me, and it had this immediate sense of serenity running through it. The first word that popped into my head was peace, but I thought that it would be too on-the-nose to sing about being calm, or to sing about serenity, or to sing about finding peace with someone. Because you have this very conflicted, very dramatic conflict-written lyric paired with this very, very calming sound of the instrumental. But, "The devil's in the details," is one of those phrases that I've written down over the years. That's a common phrase that is used in the English language every day. And I just thought it sounded really cool because of the D, D sound. And I thought, "I'll hang onto those in a list, and then, I'll finally find the right place for them in a story." I think that's how a lot of people feel where it's like, "Yeah, the devil's in the details. Everybody's complex when you look under the hood of the car." But basically saying, "I'm there for you if you want that, if this complexity is what you want."

There's another clever turn-of-phrase on "This is Me Trying." "I didn't know if you'd care if I came back/I have a lot of regrets about that." That feels like a nod toward your fans, and some of the feelings you had about retreating from the public sphere.

Absolutely. I think I was writing from three different characters' perspectives, one who's going through that; I was channeling the emotions I was feeling in 2016, 2017, where I just felt like I was worth absolutely nothing. And then, the second verse is about dealing with addiction and issues with struggling every day. And every second of the day, you're trying not to fall into old patterns, and nobody around you can see that, and no one gives you credit for it. And then, the third verse, I was thinking, what would the National do? What lyric would Matt Berninger write? What chords would the National play? And it's funny because I've since played this song for Aaron, and he's like, "That's not what we would've done at all." He's like, "I love that song, but that's totally different than what we would've done with it."

When we last spoke, in April 2019, we were talking about albums we were listening to at the time and you professed your love for the National and I Am Easy to Find. Two months later, you met up with Aaron at their concert, and now, we're here talking about the National again.

Yeah, I was at the show where they were playing through I Am Easy to Find. What I loved about [that album] was they had female vocalists singing from female perspectives, and that triggered and fired something in me where I thought, "I've got to play with different perspectives because that is so intriguing when you hear a female perspective come in from a band where you're used to only hearing a male perspective." It just sparked something in me. And obviously, you mentioning the National is the reason why Folklore came to be. So, thank you for that, Alex.

I'm here for all of your songwriting muse needs in the future.

I can't wait to see what comes out of this interview.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

For more on our Entertainers of the Year and Best & Worst of 2020, order the January issue of Entertainment Weekly or find it on newsstands beginning Dec. 18. (You can also pick up the full set of six covers here.) Don’t forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.

[ak47stylegirl]

Hmm... sicktember, huh? Let's go for #10 and I'm going to be boringly predictable with Scott :D Your choice of caretaker.

This was fun 😁 I know you love Scott and Gordon, so the choice of the caretaker was easy lol 😂 I hope you enjoy it! I went with a little bit of a different writing style with this fic, so hopes it's good 😅

I'm doing this challenge by asks, so send in a number and a bro, and I'll get to writing 😄 Overload my inbox!! 😁

----

Glass crunched under his feet.

“Wow…this place was asking to become a danger zone...” Gordon muttered, gingerly tipping over an empty beaker with a finger. “What even was this place?”

It was hard to tell what was dust and what was rubble from the earthquake; everything was in some form of ruin or decay.

“The building is listed as an office complex, owned by lee frank industries, but….” John frowned, sounding perplexed, “something doesn't add up….”

Frustration was evident in John’s voice, because there was nothing that John hated more than a puzzle piece to a mystery being just outside his grasp.

That or false information, especially incorrect space facts…oh boy, does John go feral if you joke that the sun is just a planet that‘s on fire.

So does Alan, though he's more the barking puppy variety, Gordon thought with a smirk, oh that was a great mental image…

“You’re right about that, John….” Scott reported, stormy blue eyes scanning the room, back rigid. “This looks more like a lab than an office, and not one that reaches any legal safety requirements either….”

Gordon straightens unconsciously, becoming more alert and focused. He understood what Scott was implying and what that could mean…

The building’s stability may not be the only danger…

There was a tense pause on the comms before “I’m contacting the GDF….” John's voice filtered over the comms, each word heavy with the severity of the possible growing situation.

“Good plan, John….” Scott nodded, looking left and right down the long complex “in the meantime, Gordon and I should look for survivors….”

“FAB….just..” John’s professional mask slipped for a second, his voice softening, “be careful down there, okay?”

“Will do…” Scott nodded, with a small, confident smile, catching his eye, “Gordon will search the left side of the building, while I take the right, all agreed?”

“FAB”, Gordon and John replied in unison.

“Good”, Scott’s eyes hardened, his commander persona coming to the forefront, “comms stay on at all times, is that understood?”

Acknowledgement was voiced, and in Gordon’s case, in the form of a mock salute, and an ‘Ay, Ay captain!’

Scott’s eye roll could be felt from space.

----

So far, the left side of the building was devoid of life, a ghost town of broken glass and rubble.

And bodies.

“I found another one, John..” Gordon grimaced, crouching down next to a middle-aged female, who was crushed by a shelf, chemical burns making her unrecognisable.

“Damn it, Scott was right, this place was a safety hazard waiting to happen…” Gordon looked around the small stuffy room, bottles of chemicals stacked haphazardly, sharp objects just discard all over the place.

Brains would have a fit if he saw this…

“Had any luck on your end, Scott?”

“Not so far, but keep-” the sounds of harsh coughing could be heard over the comms, “-keep l-looking….”

Gordon frowned, “Scott, are you alright?”

There was more coughing before Scott replied, “I’m f-fine…I just-” Scott groaned, his words starting to slur, “-I just cau-caught my..my b-breath, I-”

There was more coughing and a thud on the other end, followed by Scott’s comm going dead. “Scott?! Scott, are you alright?! Answer me!”

Gordon started to run full speed, all thoughts of lab safety abandoned in his panic. All of the alarm bells in his head were ringing; something’s wrong, something’s wrong.

Something’s wrong!

“Gordon, put your helmet on now!” John barked over the comm line, causing him to halt and follow without question. “There is an unknown gas radiating from Scott’s location! GDF and Virgil are on route now!”

Gordon took off in a sprint again, helmet now secured. “Good! We may need it! Do you have eyes on Scott?”

Gordon flew around a corner.

“He’s still not responding; vitals show he’s conscious, but none of them are in a healthy range.”

John sounded worried. Not a good sign. As was the yelling he could hear as he neared Scott’s location, but something was off about it.

The only one yelling was Scott.

He slowed down his pace, not wanting to run into an unknown, possibly dangerous situation unprepared.

“No! No! Gordon! Please, wake up!” Scott could be heard screaming; his voice filled with pure anguish. “Please!!”

A shiver ran down Gordon’s spine, “John, you don’t have any clue what that gas does, do you?” He whispered tensely; honestly a bit freaked out by Scott’s cries.

“I’m working on it….” John growled, sounding beyond frustrated that vital information was alluring him. “Don’t engage Scott until we know what we’re dealing with, okay?”

Gordon scowled, hearing Scott scream and cry his name again. “Sorry John, no can do….” He turned the corner, finally laying eyes on his brother.

Scott was hunched over a body, screaming his name and begging the dead body to wake up, sob rattling Scott’s shoulders.

Scott thought that body, a young adult male, was him, Gordon realised in horror, his face going ash white.

“Scotty?” Gordon spoke softly, taking a cautious step forward, his hands held up in front of him in a gesture of peace. “You’re okay there, bro?”

Scott’s head snapped up at his entrance, blue eyes locking onto him. Blue eyes which were cloudy and glazed over.

Gordon grimaced, taking another step forward.

Yeah, Scott wasn’t in his right mind; that was plainly obvious.

The situation changed so fast Gordon barely had time to react as Scott launched to his feet with a snarl, yelling, “You!”

Gordon barely dodged Scott’s punch, his eyes going wide. “Whoa! Scott, it’s me! Gordon!” He pleaded as he dodged Scott’s attacks.

That seemed to just make Scott angrier, “don’t you lie to me, you bastard! You killed my brother!!” Scott jumped at him, finally managing to knock him off his feet.

This was bad! This was very bad! Gordon thought as his big brother started to punch him, pinning him down with a crazed look in his eyes.

Virgil and John were yelling at him over comms. He had to do something! Gordon thought as he struggled against Scott, whose punches were becoming more painful.

Gordon’s elbow stuck Scott’s cheek, stunning Scott long enough for him to shove Scott off, and put distance between them.

“Scott! Stop this! I don’t know what you’re seeing, but it’s not true!” Gordon yelled as he once again began to dodge Scott’s attacks, his ribs protesting immensely. “Please, Scotty!”

Scott’s attacks stopped, blue eyes clearing for a second, “Gordy?” Scott’s voice trembled, sounding so terrified.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s me, Scooter….” He took a hesitant step forward, a plan forming in his mind. “We were on a rescue, remember?”

He took another step forward, seeing that Scott was staying still, slowly reaching for the emergency sedative in his sash.

Scott’s eyes latched on his hand movement, eyes going wide, and the anger returned. “Ahhhrgh! Get out of my head!” Scott shook his head, gripping his hair in his fists. “Your tricks won’t work on me, Hood!”

Well, that explains a lot…

He took another step forward, “Scotty, I promise I’m not-“

“Enough lies!” Scott screamed, tackling him to the ground, his head hitting the ground hard, being momentarily stunned.

“No!” Gordon cried out as Scott knocked the syringe from his hand, it rolling just out of his reach.

“It’s over, Hood!” Scott sneered, blue eyes devoid of their normal kindness and love, “you’re never going to hurt my family ever again!”

Gordon looked into emotionless eyes, and felt proper fear of his brother for the first time in his life.

Scott wasn’t going to stop; he was going to...

Gordon growled, his eyes hardening in detention as his fist met Scott’s nose. Scott cried out in pain, distracted for a second, and in that second, he was able to wrestle Scott under him.

While Gordon was quick and agile, a good fighter in his own right, Scott was stronger than him. The fight quickly escalated into a wrestling match, neither letting the other get the upper hand.

Gordon spotted the syringe near them, just as Scott got the upper hand, slamming him into the ground.

No matter how much he struggled, Scott had him well and truly pinned this time, one arm pinned above his head.

One arm was free, but mobility was limited by Scott’s body weight on his upper shoulder and arm. But he had to try!

“Scott! I’m just tr-” Scott pressed his forearm against Gordon’s throat, beginning to cut off his air supply “,-t-trying to help you!”

His fingers brushed against the syringe, it slipping just out of his grasp. So close! So close!

“Like hell you are!” Scott cried, tears of anguish and fury pouring down his cheeks. “What have we ever done to you?! What have my little brothers done?!”

Tears pickled at the corners of Gordon’s eyes, his vision darkening just as his hand finally gripped the syringe.

He didn’t hesitate, slamming the syringe into Scott’s thigh with all of his remaining strength. Scott cried out, the pressure on his throat disappearing as Scott leapt away from him.

“What did you-” Scott stumbled, falling on his butt, eyes starting to blink rapidly. “What did you just...just inject into me?!”

Gordon slowly sat up, wrapping an arm around his ribs. “Scotty, it’s okay….” He moved towards Scott, who tried to flinch away, but only ended up collapsing onto his side.

“No, no, this, this can’t be h-happening..” Scott whimpered in despair, unable to lift his head or stop Gordon from moving towards him. “P-please, not G-Gordy….”

“I’m right here; I’m right here, Scotty..” Gordon pulled Scott onto his lap, wrapping his arms around him tightly. “It’s alright, shh come on, go to sleep now….”

Scott’s eyes were becoming heavy, each blink becoming more prolonged than the last, “No, I can’t…I gotta…I gotta…“

Scott’s breathing evened out, eyes slipping close and not opening again. Gordon sighed in relief, slumping backwards, Scott’s head resting against his chest.

“You owe me big time, big brother…” Gordon whispered with a small pained smile, hearing Virgil’s voice in the distance. “So very, very much….”

[goldeneyedgirl]

Who’s ur favorite and least favorite twilight character and why?

LOL, oh man. Prepare for Discourse, Anon. 

My favourite character is Alice (that might be very obvious). I think she was wasted in Twilight, and that she has so much potential. 

She has no recollection of being human. She is a totally blank slate with a gift that is essentially an extra sense or limb. Like, this girl cannot be ‘okay’. I believe in my heart of hearts that Alice functions differently to other people. I mean, I infer from canon that her visions taught her everything that she needed to know - from how to feed, to how to convince Jasper, to how to join the Cullens. She’s going to get the wrong answer? She’ll change what she says!

And that is utterly fucking terrifying - especially if she was aware and doing it intentionally. But I do not think she is, in that sense. I just don’t think she would have any idea of how to live without her visions showing her what to do next. Alice is a hostage to her own gift, and always has been. 

Even her interactions with Bella and Edward in canon are really uncanny, like she’s playing a role - which is more reflective of SMeyer’s piss-poor writing ability than any sort of intention - but indicative that Alice is Not Okay, and kind of explains a lot about how the Cullen family is portrayed. 

A lot of what I love about Alice, and her relationship with Jasper, are things I’ve absorbed from fan-content - what we can infer from the information we’ve been given. Her conviction about her and Jasper, to me, is beautiful and both terribly childlike, and something someone who has suffered deeply would absolutely cling to as a lifeline. The idea that Jasper isn’t just her husband, but her very best friend and confidant as well, paints such a lovely picture of the symbiosis they have. I think that, whilst it’s normally Poised, Confident Alice to Rescue Struggling Depressed Jasper portrayed in fandom, that there is a distinctive possibility that two individuals who were both fucked over in the gift department and were holding onto reality by a strand found each other and rescued each other might be closer to the truth.

I also LOVE fashion, so I kind of get Alice on that level; and I treat Alice - when I write her - as someone with mental illness (like myself) because I find that very satisfying to write, and to explore. I can PROJECT, which is super fun.

Jasper’s a close second because holy moly, he has so much potential from a fic-writing perspective? This is a man who was not a good person as a human - like, there are Varying Reasons he would join the Confederate Army and be proud of being a Major, but that’s a TOTALLY different piece of discourse so we’ll put a pin in that because statistically, it meant he was a racist fighting for racist ideals. And THEN he is changed into a vampire and joins the Southern Wars, falling further into evil as far as violence, hate, and senseless death goes. 

Like this man was a full monster.

And it was eating him alive.

So he just walked away. Alice did not save him. Peter did not save him. Jasper walked away. Peter gave him the opportunity to do so. Alice offered him goals and a way to improve who he is. There’s nothing he can do about the evil he sowed, the legacy he has created. And he has to live with that every single day for eternity. Has to deal with the burn of his thirst, exacberated by years of gorging on human blood, every single day. There is no solution to/for Jasper. It’s one hell or another. And that is so much fun from a fic-writing perspective. 

Plus his dynamic with Maria is so crazy fun - Mother? Lover? General? What does ‘good terms’ even mean? I assume it’s code for ‘cold war’ or ‘not actively seeking the other’s destruction’, but who knows. I love that. 

Jessamine is also super fun and beloved by me, but that’s because she’s either Jasper-derivitive or my particular portrayal of a separate character, so she doesn’t count. 

As for my least favourite, that honour goes to Edward. Full disclosure, I have not read Midnight Sun, only skimmed parts, because the only thing worse than that would be reading EdBella fic. 

I think he’s an arrogant, misogynistic, controlling little brat, honestly. He’s above the rules and the laws when it suits him - at the cost to everyone - and he condemns Rosalie and Jasper so quickly and thoroughly with very little in-text justification. 

He says that Rosalie is vain - well, Captain Dipshit, maybe after being violently and fatally gang-raped by a group including her fiance Rosalie might deal with a lot of body issues - and copes with them the best way she can. Maybe after being raised with a priority of being beautiful above all else, and then harmed in such a grotesque way because of her beauty, and then becoming more beautiful might fuck with your mental health a little, Eddie.

Edward has a bad habit of classifying women in absolutes like Madonna/Whore, depending on his personal beliefs - which, as a frozen 17 year old from the 1900s, is fairly goddamn dubious. Rosalie and Tanya are both ‘bad’, Esme, Alice, and Bella are all ‘good’. But there are no women that Edward fully ‘trusts’ or allows to ‘win’/direct him. He prizes Bella because of her unreadable mind - she is a puzzle and something to possess. They are never partners. Edward uses Alice, Who Tries Her Very Best, as a weapon against Bella multiple times. I often wonder if it isn’t Edward who encourages Alice, off-page/off-screen, to play dress-ups, to make Bella into what Edward expects in a wife. 

Edward is over-indulged by both Esme and Carlisle; honestly, with his gift, I wouldn’t be surprised if he manipulates the family into their slightly toxic dynamic (it’s hard to tell because of SMeyer’s obvious bias, and the perspective of the novels) because it benefits him so much. It puts him second only to Carlisle - Jasper cannot be trusted despite his comprehensive understanding of vampires, especially when it comes to turf battles, and Emmett’s just a frat boy. Or is this the portrait Edward has painted so he gets to be #1 Son?

Edward is the goddamn architect of every disaster the Cullens face because what he wants is dangerous and illegal. Without Edward’s Volterra Tantrum, Aro never would have challenged the Cullens in Breaking Dawn. Victoria’s attack would have been neutralised before the Cullens even got wind of it. Bella never would have gone cliff-diving or solo-hiking if Edward hadn’t dumped her in the cruelest way possible. 

I honestly, truly believe that Edward shouldn’t have had a mate, let alone a wife and child. 

Also, movie!Edward looked like he needed a fucking shower and a flea dip in nearly every scene. 

Bella’s a close second because I have known girls like Bella and fuck me, they are deeply unpleasant to be friends with. She fucks over EVERYONE in pursuit of Edward. I understand that she doesn’t have the same interests as Alice, but not once just she make a suggestion for an alternative activity or a compromise (and that could be Bad Writing again, because Bella appears to have very few hobbies beyond ‘reading’ but it’s what we’re working with). 

In fact, I would argue that Alice tries her very best to be Bella’s friend, but it’s a futile attempt - Bella tolerates Alice because of Alice’s proximity to Edward. If Alice had been a human student at Forks High, you can bet that Bella would have dumped her as fast as possible. Bella has very few moments where she’s positive about the people around her outside of the Cullens (by association with Edward) or Jacob. Charlie gets mostly pity. Everyone else is looked upon with disapproval and judgement (which, again, reflects toxic writing tropes.) 

And Bella martyrs herself at every opportunity. There’s a lot of discourse where Bella’s neglectful childhood is examined, but Bella fucking lunges into the ‘victim’ role at every possibility. And ultimately, I really don’t see Bella maturing or learning anything at all through the series. It’s always about what she wants, above everything else. She succeeds because she and Edward are incredibly selfish individuals who are enabled by the parental figures around them. 

Second runner-up is Carlisle. 

[justasimplesinner]

Hello, may i have some Scarecrow and riddler falling for a "new robin" please? Thank you!❤

how did you know i always wanted to write that?? but let's just settle for a sidekick since most if not all robins were just kids when they started running around in a bright colored suit at night and fighting crime

Riddler falling for Batman's new sidekick hcs:

Batman always makes his sidekicks face Riddler as their first Rogue, because not only is he not physically dangerous, but he always tests the mind, not the strength. his puzzle rooms, contraptions or whatver it is he's got in store are a great excercise and require quick thinking. it's a great way for him to test if you're able to outsmart your opponents

maybe it wasn't love at first sight, but Ed certainly took interest with you. you were very eager and cunning, thinking way ahead of Batman and you almost seemed to... enjoy solving his puzzles. and you, contrary to Batman or any of his sidekicks, were pretty talkative and not in the sense of trying to insult, threaten or make fun of him. you were just honest to god a chatty individual

the joy on your face when you actually managed to beat his challenges was nothing short of sincere and heartfelt, and honestly, Edward didn't even have it in him to be mad at you. you've gained his attention that night

word got around, you were facing more and more Rogues and most of them had a very similar impression. you weren't just another furry trying to deal with their anger issues by beating up criminals, you honestly wanted to change something and contrary to Batman, didn't see crushing their bones as a means to help them

you became his new obsession. he started to gather as much info about you as he could, started to personalize his riddle rooms and demanding you - and only you - to take part in his games and attempt to solve his riddles. soon enough, Batman stopped even coming with you, because he had faith that you'll manage. he deemed you ready to work on your own and even on patrols, both of you covered different parts of the city which made you a very efficent duo

and every time you took part in Eddie's games, he was talking to you, more and more, wanting to learn as much as he could about you, trying to pinpoint your identity. and then gathering intel to bring you down turned into honest discussions. he honestly wanted to talk to you. and he was always thankful for your non-violent ways of bringing him back to Arkham

he remembered one time, when he honestly told you that he doesn't want to go back, when he spat out everything that he hated about this god forsaken place, you... let him go. and no matter how much he wanted to call you stupid for letting him manipulate you, he knew he was speaking from his heart and you knew that

he had no idea when he started to seek you out intentionally, thinking up game after game, pulling heist after heist, just to see you. he had no idea when he started to talk with you about more... personal things, about worldviews, and even... family. but he knew when he fell for you, and knew that he fell hard. and he knew that it was a disaster. because this thing, any thing between you two had no right to exist

and yet, he couldn't help his stupid smile and couldn't stop his stupid heart from fluttering, and no matter how much it would hurt (which he was sure it would), he couldn't just stay away from you

Scarecrow falling for Batman's new sidekick hcs:

your first encounter happened while he was teaming up with Ivy. and while Batman took most of the heat and fought Poison Ivy, you were pursuing Scarecrow to stop him from releasing his toxin

what surprised Jon was the fact that you didn't immediately try to beat him to the ground and cuff him, instead opting for a calmer approach. and as much as he wanted to believe you were manipulating him, he realized that you meant your every word and understood their cause. you understood that awareness of all dying ecosystems should be spread and you almost supported the radical ways, because people needed to learn. but most importantly, you understood that fear came hand in hand with control and making people see the terrifying things they've done may be a wake-up call

Jonathan wasn't even that tied to eco-terrorism, that was Pamela's gig, yet your understanding and knowledge really did impress him. he didn't go down without a fight though, and if it wasn't for Batman, maybe he could've even enjoyed the effects his toxin had on you and gotten a better look at your psyche. but all he remembered before blacking out was that you didn't scream once

he quickly realized that you always helped Batman with capturing him, and you always found a way to be one step ahead from the Bat to get a little time to talk to him before the whole "beating his ass and dragging it back to Arkham" thing. and you weren't making fun of him or trying to "save" him from the life of crime,  oh no. you were actually, honest to god, asking him about his research. you were slowly easing him into sharing more information and if he wasn't a skilled psychologist, maybe you'd even succeed

at first he thought you were just trying to get him to share the whole making process of his toxin or the formula to produce the antidote, until he realized that you were... honestly curious. you studied his works and you were actually curious about his work. hell, you admitted to admiring his dedication and genius. and with the questions you asked him, he had every right to think you might even be a college student writing their thesis

you once caught him on patrol when he was grocery shopping and instead of taking him back to the Asylum (which he just escaped from a few days ago), you simply talked to him. you talked to him like he was your professor, and yet again were referring to him as "Doctor Crane" (which immediately put you in his good graces) and after an entire hour or so in the cold of the night, you let him go with a promise not to track him to his hideout. Jonathan didn't know why, but he believed you

he never even realized that he practically waited for you to show up, expected you'd come quicker than the Bat, hoped he'll be found just for the chance to talk with you. your knowledge surprised him and his knowledge impressed you, and he found a person that's finally interested in his work because of scientific reasons and not to make sure he's unable to continue his research (or spread terror, same thing)

the realization that he actually seeked you out and craved your company hit him very hard and after so long it was almost pathetic. he suddenly started recognizing his "symptoms", he noticed the small changes, the feelings you induced in him. how he felt some unstoppable force pull him constantly in your direction. because despite the fact that you were working with Batman, you were - or seemed like - a true scholar. because you were kind and never wanted to resort to violence. because you were sincerely interested in him and his research and seeked his company and you appreciated him-

he thought it pathetic, that he was actually so alone and unlikeable that his enemy was the closest thing to a friend he had. that he was only feeding his crush by sometimes - only sometimes - indulging in a fantasy of what would it be like to meet you during his college days. of what would it be like to actually be able to be with you. of what would it be like if it was actually possible for you to return his feelings. but he couldn't help himself. and after all, it's common knowledge that the forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest

[jiejie-eonni-onee-sama]

Speaking her language

For the charming @empress-writes​ 💙💛🧡💖

Hope you’ll like the story!

The South of France is a safer place for the Basterds, as they took a break after their last mission.

They were currently hidden in a remote cottage near the small village of Gassin. Its inhabitants were kind and helpful, which was a blessing for Aldo Raine and his men.

"No news from the superiors, Lieutenant?"

"Na yet, Donny. But ya can be sure that we're gonna heard about them, one way or another!"

"So, let's enjoy our free time!" happily exclaimed Hirschberg as he ate a piece of cake.

"Can you sometimes stop eating, you glutton?" admonished Andy.

"But Mrs. Dupin's pies are so delicious!"

As the others were gently chatting, Wicki was gazing at (Y/N) (L/N), the only woman in the group. He could not help but smile while looking at her as she read a book. 

If you ask him, he would probably answer that everything she did was perfection. To sum up, he fell heels over head in love with the woman.

Of course, the other Basterds were aware of it and never missed an opportunity to tease him about his crush. Even Hugo loved taunting him!

Wilhelm's daydreaming was interrupted by Utivitch, who shyly asked:

"Hey, (Y/N)?"

"Yes, Smithson?" answered the woman with a gentle smile.

"What are you reading?"

"Oh, I was reading Les lettres de mon moulin by Alphonse Daudet. It is a French collection of short stories about Provence!"

"Okay... Wait, you understand French?"

She laughed.

"Uti, can you remind us what is my job here?"

"She is the translator, you dummy!" growled Hugo.

"Don't be so harsh, Stiglitz!" scolded Hicox.

"Indeed, I am the translator of the group."

"Of course!"

"By the way, how many languages do you speak?" inquired Omar.

A sly grin appeared on her face.

"What if we played a little game?"

"YES! A GAME!" happily screamed Andy, Michael, and Simon.

"Ouch! My ears!" grumbled Wicki.

"Okay, let's play! What are the rules, doll?" asked Donny.

"It's simple: I'll talk in a language to each of you in turn, and you have to guess how many languages I can speak!"

"Sounds good to me! Start whenever ya want, pretty!"

Suddenly, all the Basterds were quiet and waited for (Y/N).

While she was mentally choosing the first player, the other Basterds noticed the enamored gaze of Wicki towards the blonde woman. Time to play some trick on the suitor...

"I'm going to start with... Mr. Hicox!"

"I'm always ready, my dear!"

"Eres muy guapo. ¡Un verdadero caballero!" (You're very handsome. A real gentleman!)"

"Mmmmh... I would say that you speak Spanish!"

"Exactly!"

"And what did you say?"

"I told you that you were handsome, and you look like a real gentleman!"

The Basterds laughed and whistled.

"Well, milady, you're absolutely astonishing! Hearing you speaking Spanish is like listening to a nightingale!" answered the British spy with a seductive wink.

The young woman chuckled before asking:

"You sweet-talker! Alright! Who's next?"

"Why won't you ask Omar?" snickered Michael.

"Go to hell!" grunted the latter.

"Don't worry, Omar: it's only for fun. Are you ready?"

A charming smile came across Omar's face:

"Please, go ahead!"

"Okay... Nǐ hěn yǒnggǎn, wǒ hěn gāoxìng chéngwéi nǐ de péngyǒu!" (You're brave, and I'm happy to be your friend!)

Omar was puzzled.

"It does not sound like a European language..."

"You're right, it's not from Europe..."

"Mh, that's tricky... I don't know!"

"Give it a try!" she gently encouraged him.

The soldier scratched the back of his head:

"Er... Is it Japanese?"

"Sorry, but no. It was Chinese!"

"CHINESE? REALLY?" yelled Omar under the laughs of his comrades.

"Yes, indeed. I learned it when I was younger, thanks to my nanny who came from Shangai! And if you want a translation, it means that you're brave and I am happy to be your friend!"

"Alright... Well, thank you! It was beautiful! Especially when it comes from you!"

"You charmer!"

Wicki raised an eyebrow: he started to guess what his friends were doing, and he was not pleased...

"Fine, let's go back to the game, would you? The next one will be... Donny!"

"At your orders, baby doll!" 

"Then, I start... Sei forte e affascinante! E amo il tuo sorriso!" (You're strong and charming! And I love your smile!)

"Ah, so easy! Italian!"

"Bravo! You're right!"

"And what did you mean?"

"I said Donny is strong and charming... and I love his smile!"

Donny put his large hands on his chest, faking to be enthralled.

"And she speaks Italian! Gosh, this woman is perfect!"

He blew her a kiss.

"Please, receive this proof of love from a Bostonian guy!"

Laughing at his antics, (Y/N) mimicked catching the kiss and holding it against her heart.

"Thank you, Donny!"

As for Wilhelm, he gets annoyed. He did not know if they were trying to woo her for real or if they were just pissing him off. In both cases, he hated them at the moment.

"Okay. For the next turn, I'll ask for... Lieutenant Raine!"

"Here I am, pretty woman!"

"Fine, let's go... 'ant qayid rayie qawiun washajae wajadhab jadana!" (You are an astounding leader. Sturdy, brave, and so attractive!)

"Uh, that's a tricky one! Sounds like the Cree language..."

"Unfortunately, Lieutenant, I don't speak Native American languages."

"Okay... So, is it Danish?"

"No."

"Hm... Perhaps Portuguese?"

"Wrong answer. It was Arabic!"

"WOAH!" exclaimed all the Basterds, impressed.

"God, you awe me! And what did you mean?"

"I was saying that you are an astounding leader and that you are sturdy, brave, and attractive!"

Aldo smirked and gave her his best seductive face.

"Girl, give me back my heart, would ya? You stole it since the first day!"

(Y/N) heartily laughed.

"Please, Lieutenant: you're a charmer!"

"Only for you, sweetheart!"

"Verräter!" (Betrayer!) gritted Wicki.

"Fine, let's go! I choose... Andy!"

"At your service, milady!"

"Okay, I start... Du är söt när du ler." (You're cute when you smile)

"Uh... Does this language exist?"

"Of course!"

"Okay, Kagan: use your brains... Ah, I know: Danish!"

"Almost..."

"Swedish?"

"Good answer!"

"Well done, Kagan!" laughed Archie.

"Thanks, sir... But I'm sure that if (Y/N) goes to Sweden, they would hate her!"

"Why?"

"Look at her smile: it's like the sun, the snow would melt in a blink!"

"Oh My God, Kagan! That was the corniest thing I've ever heard!" roared Michael as he clutched his sides.

"Well, I find it cute. Thank you, Andy!"

"You're welcome... By the way, what did you mean?"

"Oh, I said that you're cute when you smile!"

Kagan fiercely blushed.

"Thank you, Miss..."

"Pleasure is mine... Hey, Michael, do you want to try?"

"I never say no to a challenge, especially from a beautiful lady!"

"Let's see... Vy geniy i prekrasnyy chelovek." (You are a genius and a lovely man). 

"Woah, Woah, Woah! What the hell is that language?"

"I assure you, this is a real language!"

"Uh... German?"

"NO!" answered Wicki and Stiglitz, offended.

"Calm down, guys! Okay, so if it's not German... It's Russian!"

"Bravo!" (Y/N) clapped happily.

"Wait a minute... If I did not miss the track, we know that you speak 6 languages! And I don't know why, but I think you know more!" said Utivitch.

"That's right! Okay, now, who wants to try?"

"I volunteer!" exclaimed Smithson.

"With pleasure! Let's see which language I use with you..." she wondered.

She got an idea and started to speak in a foreign language:

"Anata wa watashi ga imamade deatta naka de mottomo omoshirokute shinsetsuna hitodesu!" (You're the funniest and kindest man I ever met!)

"Ah, I got it! If it's not Chinese... It's Japanese!"

"Splendid!"

"Well done, chap!" laughed Simon as he applauded.

"Thanks, pal. And may I know the meaning of your sentence?"

"Of course! I said that you are the funniest and kindest man I ever met!"

"And they dare to say perfection does not exist! Obviously, they did not meet our lovely (Y/N)!" shouted Utivitch.

"Please, don't exaggerate!" blushed the young woman.

Wicki clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles went white. He swore to God that they would pay for their antics.

"Okay, the next player would be... Simon!"

"Yes, ma'am! Always yours!"

"You trickster! Fine, try to guess this one... אני מאוד מעריך את החברה שלך." (I really appreciate your company)

"No... You speak Hebrew? The language of our people?"

"Indeed."

"But it sounds beautiful when it comes from you! Okay, you know what? After the war, I'll marry you!"

"Oh, Simon! Don't be so crazy!" she laughed.

"I'm already crazy in love with you!"

"And you say I am corny, Michael..." sneered Andy.

"Forget what I said!"

After she stopped laughing, (Y/N) declared:

"So, I think we had three players last. Well, let's the game begin with Hirschberg."

"Hooray! Here I am!"

"Alright! So, try to find this one... Jesteś uroczym żarłokiem." (You're an adorable glutton)

"Well, that's unusual! Er... I don't remember hearing this language before!"

"Give me suggestions!"

"It is a Slavic language?"

"Not at all."

Gerold sighed.

"Damn it, girl! It's a freakin' riddle!"

"Watch your language in front of a lady!" scolded Hicox.

"Don't worry, Archie: I've heard worse before!" said (Y/N) with a smug grin.

"Mh, I don't know... Is it Turkish?"

"Not at all, but I am currently studying this language!"

"Er... Nope, I don't know!"

"It's Polish!"

"My my, she is impressive!" chuckled Aldo as he took a bite of his bread.

"And what did you say?"

"I said that you are an adorable glutton!"

Hearing that, the other Basterds roared with laughter.

"AH AH AH AH! Well done, (Y/N)!" shrieked Utivitch.

"Hey, that's not fair!" yelped Hirschberg.

Upset that she would offend her friend, the woman apologized.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you, Gerold. I did not mean to..."

"It's alright, (Y/N). Likewise, I'll always forgive you!"

"Oh, why?"

"Because you are beautiful!" answered the soldier with a huge smile.

Relieved, she happily laughed while Wicki contained himself to punch someone's face.

"Okay, now, let's go on with Hugo!"

"I'm listening..."

"I'm sure you'll recognize this language... Du erinnerst mich an einen Wolf: einsam, mysteriös und faszinierend." (You remind me of a wolf: solitary, mysterious, and fascinating.)

"German, without hesitation!" smirked Stiglitz.

"Indeed!"

"And what did she say?" asked Donny.

Hugo stood up and walked towards her.

"She compared me to wolf. She said that I am solitary, mysterious, and fascinating..."

"(Y/N) got the point!" smiled Michael.

Stiglitz arrived near the woman and kneeled with deference.

"You won... I surrender to your beautiful voice! I could not resist you speaking my mother tongue with such delicacy!"

"Nice touch, Stiglitz!" exclaimed Archie.

"Oh, Hugo! You must be exaggerating: I'm pretty sure my accent was a disaster!"

"The only thing pretty is you, (Y/N)" grinned Hugo as he gently kissed the woman's hand... while he looked out of the corner of his eyes at Wilhelm with a roguish glance.

"Trottel!" (You jerk)!" gritted the latter through his teeth.

At the same moment, (Y/N) was amused by her friends' antics: they always treated her like a queen and were very respectful towards her. But this time, she felt that there was something else, like if they were playing a prank on someone...

"You guys are all amazing! But let's finish this game with the last player: Wilhelm!"

Hearing his name, Wicki snapped out of his anger and said:

"Yes, I'm ready!"

"Okay so, let's see if you will be able to find this one... Mon cher Wilhelm, tu es un homme courageux, loyal, et séduisant." (My dear Wilhelm, you are a courageous, loyal, and attractive man.)

The Austrian Jewish man smirked:

"Without any doubt, I would say... French!"

"Precisely! You had a good ear!"

"And what did you say to Wilhelm? I'm curious..." asked Hirschberg with a playful tone.

(Y/N) slightly flushed before answering:

"I told him that he was a brave, loyal, and attractive man!"

"How cute!" laughed Aldo.

As for Wilhelm, he was struck: definitely, he was in love! With a smug smile, he said:

"Merci beaucoup pour le compliment, jolie mademoiselle!" (Thank you very much for the compliment, lovely miss!)

(Y/N) was impressed by his hidden talent.

"Oh, what a surprise! I did not know you speak French!"

"I know a few... but I'm sure I would not reach your level!"

"Don't underestimate yourself!"

"Heck, she could give some “private” lessons, if you want!" smirked Andy while wiggling his eyebrows.

"Keep your dirty thoughts for you!" snarled Wicki.

"Okay guys, calm down! Now that everyone answered (Y/N), did anyone count how many languages she can speak?" asked Archie.

"I did sir! And she speaks in 11 languages!" replied Utivitch.

"11 LANGUAGES?" shouted the others.

"Indeed, you counted well, Smithson. But I also speak Portuguese, Dutch, and Slavic languages. And I'm currently learning Turkish, Hindi, Danish, Korean, and Finnish!"

"Girl, are ya planning to learn all the goddamn languages around the world?" asked Aldo, flabbergasted.

"Maybe... Seriously, I've always been interested in languages since I was a little girl and I never stopped my passion! Luckily for me, I was gifted with a good memory..."

"We noticed it." shrugged Hugo.

"Man, we're lucky to have her with us!" stated Hirschberg.

"Well spotted, private!" 

They enjoyed the afternoon, when (Y/N) had to go to the village for some groceries.

Once she left, Wicki turned his angered glare towards his comrades.

"May I know WHAT THE FUCK were you all doing earlier? Wooing her as if you did not know what I felt?"

"Don't be mad, Wicki: we just wanted to make a joke!" said Utivitch who tried to calm his friend.

"I did not find it very funny!" growled the Austrian.

"Don't be so ill-humored! We'll never steal her from you. Of course, we all love her, but she is like a sister or a best friend to many of us!" retorted Kagan.

"Damn right, Kagan. But Wil, ya better tell (Y/N) what ya feel for her! Stop tripping and man up!" ordered Aldo.

"And how I'm supposed to do that?"

"Use your brains, Wicki, and take a guess: why don't you use something she likes to declare your love?" muttered Hugo as he smoked his cigarette.

"Something she likes..." mumbled Wilhelm as he lost himself in his thoughts.

Suddenly, an idea popped up in his mind, and he slightly grinned: maybe he can try something interesting. 

He got up and searched in his bag a book his mother gave him before his departure. Wilhelm felt that the answer to his issue was between the pages of this poetry collection... 

Later in the evening... 

The cool summer night was calm and appeasing for the Basterds as they were finishing the meals brought by their French accomplices. 

At the same time, (Y/N) went for a small walk through the forest. She enjoyed the peaceful surrounding of the woods and sat on a tree stump to gaze at the shining stars who enlightened the dark blue sky.

The young woman slightly shivered as she felt the gentle breeze caress her bare arms.

"Can I join you?" asked a familiar masculine voice.

Startled, she turned and was relieved to see Wilhelm.

"Oh, it's you! You scare me!"

"I'm sorry!"

"It's fine... You can sit with me!"

Thanking her, the soldier sat close to the young woman. 

He felt a knot in his stomach as he was nervous: God, this girl would be the death of him!

He straightened up himself and declared:

"It's a nice night!"

"Indeed: I've always appreciated summer nights. I don't why, but it always soothes me... And it reminds me of this beautiful painting entitled Starry Night."

"Made by Van Gogh in 1888, if I'm right?"

"Exactly. It was a representation of a starry sky in Provence... where we are!"

"Interesting, I did not know this part of the story..." smiled Wicki.

He leaned closer and said:

"You know, this landscape reminds me of a poem..."

"Really?"

"Would you like to listen?"

"I would enjoy it!" (Y/N) smiled.

Wilhelm cleared his throat and declaimed:

Es liegt der heiße Sommer (There lies the heat of summer)

Auf deinen Wängelein; (On your cheek’s lovely art:)

Es liegt der Winter, der kalte, (There lies the cold of winter)

In deinem Herzchen klein. (Within your little heart.)

Das wird sich bei dir ändern, (That will change, beloved,)

Du Vielgeliebte mein! (The end not as the start!)

Der Winter wird auf den Wangen, (Winter on your cheek then,)

Der Sommer im Herzen sein. (Summer in your heart.)

When he finished reciting the poem, he saw a beautiful smile across (Y/N)'s face.

"Wilhelm, it was amazing!"

"Danke. Maybe you know the author..."

"I think it's Heinrich Heine!"

"Exactly! It’s the poem titled There lies the heat of summer."

"He wrote such beautiful masterpieces about love."

She shrugged with a sly smile.

"I'm a helpless romantic!"

"Don't apologize: it's one of your qualities!"

He added with a slight blush on his face.

"Besides, this poem has a special meaning for me..."

"Honestly? Why?"

"Yes. Well, when I was younger, I told my mother that I would say this poem to the girl I want to spend my life with..."

"Oh, that's so charming..."

(Y/N) interrupted herself when she realized what happened.

"Wait a minute... Did you mean that..."

Wicki nodded.

"You've guessed right: I love you, (Y/N). Since the first day in our team, I knew you were meant to me. But I was a coward for a long time and I did not know how to tell you the truth... until tonight!"

There was a silence until the young woman let out a relieved sigh:

"Thank God, what a relief!"

"What do you mean?"

She fidgeted with her fingers, slightly embarrassed.

"You know, Wilhelm... You were not the only one who was shy about their feelings!"

"You mean... that it's reciprocated?"

She agreed with a slight nod and a timid smile.

Assuaged by this revelation, Wicki leaned closer to her face, letting a few inches between their lips.

"Ich liebe dich, (Y/N)..."

"I love you too, Wilhelm..."

And they gently kissed, their lips sealed in a tender moment... 

Meantime, the other Basterds were spying on them, delighted smiles on their faces.

"Finally! He said it!" smirked Aldo.

"Look how cute they are!" grinned Utivitch.

"Indeed, they are. But remember guys: if you want to stay alive, don't cha flirt with her!" stated Donny.

"We took note, Don'. Should we celebrate this new couple?" asked Hirschberg.

"We'll do it when they'll come back to the camp. For now, let's them enjoy this moment alone!" tenderly smiled Andy.

"Gentlemen, we shall come back before they notice our presence. Moreover, we have a celebration to prepare!" simpered Hicox.

"The British's damn right! Let's go, boys!" discreetly cheered Michael.

"I'm so excited! It's like another Valentine's Day!" laughed Simon.

As they went back, Hugo looked back at the lovers with a small grin on his face.

"Well played, Wicki. You managed to speak her language, after all..."

Well, he was right: Wilhelm and (Y/N) found the perfect language between each other: the language of love...

Thank you for the reading!

I hope you’ll like it and I’m looking for your requests!

Take care and see you soon! 😘🥰😍🤩😷

[popculturebuffet]

Amphibia Weekly Reviews: Bessie and Mircroangelo/The Third Temple “The Things We’ve Set into Motion Cannot Be Stopped”

Hello all you happy people. It’s been a long road, with an even longer road trip, but the season’s almost over: just two more weeks of Amphibia.. and with all the build up weighing down on our heroes two things are clear: this cannot end well for Anne or anyone involved, and this is going to hurt. It’s going to hurt a LOT. it’s going to be some...

... how have I not used more MST3K gifs. Questions for later. Point is with emotional pain immient, a revolution on the way this episode only ratchets up the tension.. while also sparing some time for makeover jokes and a breather episode about snail mentorships, fashion montages and giant crabs. I do love me some giant crabs. And i’ll tell you allllll about it under the cut. 

Bessie and MicroAngelo:

This episode finds our heroes preparing for the third and final temple, loading up the wagon and preparing weapons, maps, potions, all that good stuff. 

We end up getting two plots out of this. The first is the titular one: so Polly can help prepare, Hop Pop gives Bessie the task of watchin gher snail and certified cutie MicroAngelo, that tiny Snail who I assumed would disappear forever after his intitial apperance because that’s usually what cartoons does. But much like One Piece, Al Ewing and that owl what watches me while I sleeps, Amphibia never forgets. 

It’s some Looney Tunes style shenanigans.. not the bugs or daffy, more on him later today, kind more the “Bigger more responsible party protects the smaller more vunerable or reckless one” kind you’d see eveyr so often. Tom and Jerry also really loved this. And Amphibia wears it well, with some good gags and really cute bonding and some really excellent animation on Bessie, giving the old girl plenty of life and animation. The only part I genuinely do not like is Hop Pop  blaming Bessie for.. running after micro angelo afte rhe ran off. Aka doing the job you assigned her. 

Someone i’m looking at. Regardless otherwise it’s just some fun, adorable slapstick with a downright precious ending. And hop pop DOES apologize.. and wish he was a cute snail. I do not have time to unpack all the implications there nor ponder what Hop Pop would look like in a snail costume. This week’s given my brain enough nightmares. 

So anyway, our subplot has Marcy trying to give Anne a Makeover... and her past attempts with Sasha have been objectively horrifying so Anne is rightly scared, though the armorer who comes to help with it has a blue crab so tha’ts where all my attention. I fucking love crabs.. they just look so neat. Some see the fact a spider crab being out and about in animal crossing as horrifying. I see it as oh look at my cool terrifying crab friend. About the only crab I don’t like is this asshole. 

And even then he can be VERY funny. .he’s just also an exploitative douchebag and having worked in food service, let me tell you I.. I get why Squidward is the way he is. That said Krabbyland is a masterpiece entirely because he’s such a terrible person, so it ballances out when the show’s doing it’s best. 

Point is I like crabs and I like this subplot.. though mostly because it says a LOT about who Anne and Marcy are and where there at. Part of why Marcy is so gung ho about helping Anne is she figures this is her last shot to be whoever she wants to be. But really she’s just projecting: it’s been obvious since we properly met her that Marcy.. likes living HERE more than earth. On earth she’s an outcast: her hyperfixations, her tendency to babble about things she likes, her smartness... alll things that just make people turn away from her or pick on her on earth, with only two people relaly understanding and appricating her.. maybe more but we don’t know the situation with her parents yet. As someone who is a lot of those things, I get where she’s coming from. 

So ending up in a world straight out of an rpg... she florished. Everything that made her life difficult at home suddenly made her florish: her skill with RPG’s meant she could blend in easily with the courtly high class of Newtopia, gave her a love of taking on missions, and allowed her to put her hyperfixation, knowledge and enthusasim to real world use, creating massive improvments in an already ritzy city. Everything that made her an outcast in our world made her a hero there. It’s why I worry about what’s to come: to both Grime and Andrias.. she’s the perfectly made pawn: too desperate to have Sasha back to see the kinfe he wants her to plant in Marcy’s, and too happy to be accepted to see the rpg convention, the benevolent ruler turning out ot be a puppet for the big bad, starring her in the face. Amphibia’s given her her freedom.. but it’s also left her very vunerable and may leave her alone. 

As for Anne.. she realizes how far she’s come: from selfish and kind of distructive to selfless and self reliant.. and still kind of destructive but hey, you can’t cahnge eveyrthing about yourself. It’s why when given heavy armor.. all she needs is the core of it.. something simple to guard her but nothing too complex. She’s fine with who she is.. and it’s why she’s in the best place of the three girls. And why she’s left smack in the middle of the war to come. A war she can’t stop and that will leave her having to choose one... or do the right , hard thing and choose neither and try and free them from the bad influences they’ve embded themselves in. Either way this is going to hurt both her and the audience. 

Final Thoughts: Bessie and Mircoangelo is good classic cartoon fun with a suprisingly deep subplot. Simple, but a nice pallete clensar, especially since the next episode is pretty tense and given it’s ending and eveyrthing that’s been building this season, it’s likely only going to get worse from here, so it’s nice to have a quick and breezy break before hell comes to frogtown. 

The Third Temple:

Before we get to the final temple we get a flashback showing how Sasha met Anne and Marcy. The other two were playing on the swings when two big dillholes pushed them off and Sasha selflessly and fearlessly stood up to them. And promptly beat herself up more than the bullies who dodged her and eventually got so freaked out by whatever the hell this was they ran and a friendship was born. But noticably she’s a lot diffrent 7 years ago, aproximately, than she is at 13: she’s every bit as fearless and willfull.. but the compassion she once had got buried under a need for control. It’s easy to see now WHY Marcy and Anne loved her so much: she was their friend, their protector, she cared about them.. and while she never STOPPED somewhere along the way it became less about doing the right thing for the women she loves and more about getting her way. 

And now the two have had time to heal from what their friend girlfriend became.. it’s time to rip that wound wide open as finally, after almost a season of waiting, Sasha reunites with Marcy for the first time and Anne for the second. 

Naturally her return is in time for her gem to be charged, though our heroes unware of that didn’t seek her out before going in. This time Frobo’s riding claw though weirdly dosen’t come inside. Which is a problem with Frobo’s addition to the cast as the whole: they’ve kept him out of any episode since his induction into the family and only properly explained it once. It just dosen’t make a lot of sense to me; Yes he is massively powerful but his childlike thought process counters that. He’s easy enough to write in but is left out becasue the writers don’t want to deal with an extra character. And I had more than enough of that shit when watching Ducktales. I don’t need it when your main cast isn’t NEARLY as large or hard to juggle. It’s just galling to have spent an entire season showing he was following them, give him a whole episode.. and then just forget about him because i’ts convient. Hopefully he’ll play a bigger role as things progress and we find out where he came from because his misuse is a dark spot on an otherwise great second half of the season. 

Frobo does get to prove himself useful though and open s the temple door he just weirdly dosen’t come along. But this does leave the door open for Sasha to come in as our heroes struggle with the first puzzle: Turns out this dungeon was built by a bro, seriously the temple languge is very broey and VERY hilarious contrasted with how normal for a fantasy setting the others were, as is fitting the strength gem, so our heroes have to compete feats of strength. Unfortunately this does not mean wrestling the ghost of Jerry Stiller to the ground but instead fighting some Lava Worms, and fighting just ONE of them and lifting the provided warhammers is a challenge for Anne.. and she’s the only one who can with Marcy not having enough upper body stregnth and the plantars all de-hydrated spongebob style. 

So naturally Sasha ends up being their savor, easily dispatching them and getting some help from grime who while also dehydrated, is still phsycially strong enough to be of some help. Marcy is overjoyed to see her.. and is the only one. Given Marcy hasn’t been on the wrong end of Sasha and Grime like they have, it’s understandable: while Marcy’s grappled with Sasha’s actions and grip on her and Anne, it’s been clear it hasn’t hit her as hard as it has for Anne and she likely dosen’t get the full scope of it like Anne does. To her Sasha just made a mistake and she’s back now and tha’ts what matters. To Anne and the Plantars... sasha and grime tried to kill them and Sasha then tried commiting suciide to save them. The scars of that haven’t really healed for them, nor should they. 

And given Sasha has spent the season clearly blamiing everything on Anne defying her and has been raising an army based on her resentment, and given she flew into a jealous blinding rage at finding her exes were fine and dandy without her she.. wholheartdly apologizes. 

Yeah she apologizes.. but tellingly while she talks about her and Grime being left homeless following the battle.. she leaves out everything after: The fight with Yuan, the growing rebellion, driving her friends away, the horrifying army Grime now commands. Something’s off. 

Anne naturally dosen’t trust her to do this herself and insists on coming along sitll. The next task is juts.. asking how much you lift bro, which Sasha easily passes by lifting, bro. 

The final test in Jim Crunch’s Temple of Fitness, I mean who else could’ve wrote this, is of course a big fight with a giant statue of a toad, fitting how each temple so far was built by one of the civlizations: there were frog statues and symbols in the first temple, the second was guarded by a newt and the last now has a toad guard.Though curiously.. the test itself is wholly designed for a human. Before it wasn’t 100% clear even with the hyroglyps if the chosen ones had to be human or not.. but now it’s impossible to argue otherwise. There were hints : The fact the guardian pegged her as a possible chosen one on sight , the ruins in the background of the title cards which also depict the watcher with a thousand eyes (which is what i’ll be calling him till we get his, her , they or it’s actually name. ).. but here the chamber includes a gravity increase dbz style, meaning our heroines are the only ones who can stand as the Plantars and Grimes frog and toad bodies respectively aren’t strong enough to stand anymore. And while Marcy tries it ends up falling on Anne and Sasha with Sasha being Angry Anne doesn’t trust her.. and Anne not refuting it, pointing out she has EVERY REASON not to. As she puts it “it’s not just toad tower”. For most of their lives Sasha has been controlling, caring about what she wants and not what the people she loves wants. It wasn’t just the fight there... it was simply the wakeup call to how bad a person Sasha had been. 

And for the first time in the episode.. Sasha is geniune, apologizing for what she did, and genuinely admitting how she treated Anne wasn’t wrong. it was something she coudln’t admit to herself episodes ago.. but faced with both loosing two more people due to her behavior, and having plenty of time to reflect on said behavhior.. she finally relaizes it’s her. Fuck man.. what else is there to say. 

Oh right the giant monster thing, which Anne trusts Sasha to finish.. and we get anothe rDBZ homage as Sasha removes part of her armor, which creates a CRATER, which lowers her weight enough to fight the thing. She gets a thumbs up and the honor of recharging it. 

Anne suggests opening the box.. but Marcy is VERY quick to shoot that down and suggest talking to the king. And while her reason SOUNDS good,, they don’t want to get warped somewhere ELSE at random.. it’s very clear from her actions and how quick she tried to stop it that she needs them to get to Andrias for whatever he’s talked her into. And I emphasis talked her into: Marcy trusts the king, and was in a very emotional place when he was about to talk to her at the end of season 2a... and he knew it. He knew she was at her most vunerable, most malable and trusted him completely.. and knew right then and there was his shot at getting vengance.. for him and his master. Whatever he has planned.. it’s not good. The mechancial lovecraftian horror he keeps in his creepy basement full of lost souls is a dead giveaway from that. But I don’t.. fault Marcy for it. It’s not just because I sympahtize.. to her Andrias is a good noble king trying to help her. He’s the kindly mentor she always wanted, a person who enjoys her skills dosen’t care how much she talks and has complete faith in her, something even Anne struggles with. 

But it’s VERY clear, to me at least he’s been likely using her from the moment they met: to her sh’es just an optomistic pawn, someone gullible enough to do whatever he says. I’ve always felt that her “missions” probably had some darker purpose she wasn’t aware of: getting Andrias things he needs for his army, an army she has no idea is opressing people. She’s insulated from that and instead surronded by adoring people who accept her for once. Even going to wartwood, she hasn’t yet made the connection between the toad towers and what their purpose is. I think deep down she might suspect this stuff.. but she can’t ACCEPT that the one person who every had nothing but faith in her.. is a horrible person who opresses others and somehow has even WORSE plans in store. 

Sasha likewise is facing the pressure of her parental figure.. while her patching it up with Anne was legitmate... her and Grime’s own plans rely on getting in there and Grime simply sees the other two as pawns , and just like the king he wants he wants to overthrow, their use expires once his plans in motion. 

But the thing is.. it’s clear despite assuring Grime she’s still all in.. her face in the last shot, as seen above.. says otherwise. Her apology was legitmate, not just an attempt to get close to the one thing in her way of power, but what she’s come to realize: she’s gone from blaming Anne for it.. to realizing it was her. But she’s also stuck: while Marcy is unaware of the strings her pupeteer is pulling her towards.. Sasha is all too aware of what her mentor is planning. And the thing was she was all too willing to go for it. She blamed Anne for what happened at the tower, blamed Anne for turning marcy against her and blamed the plantars and co for turning anne against her. But in the harsh light of day... none of that’s true. Marcy dosen’t hate her, neither does anne, they didn’t turn against her.. they were just tired of her shitty behavior and wanted the friend they found that day on the playground back, the woman they loved who’d go to hell and back for someone and not the bitter, manipultive person she became. She’s once again realized it was her fault.. the question is if that’s enough for her to do the right thing or not. And the hardest question of all is IF not reblling isn’t the right thing. Wfhile the Toad’s probably shoudln’t be in charge either, Andrias REALLY shouldn’t. There’s NO easy answers here, no happy outcome that makes everyone live’s better. There’s no easy way out, no shortcut home.. just the louder and louder drumbeats of war and one girl’s decision of whose side she’s going to take.

Final Thoughts on the Third Temple: As with the other four sasha episodes thus far, this was frogging brilliant. Shoudln’t be a suprise and it makes me both look forward and dread the war to come

Next Week: The plantars try to bury the hatchet with Sasha and Grime, the girls enter a battle of the bands, and the finale comes ever closer.

If you liked this review follow me for more, and join my patreon. At just 2 dollars a month you get acess to my discord, exclusive reviews, and get me closer to my stretch goals. See you at the next rainbow

[path-of-my-childhood]

Taylor Swift Broke All Her Rules With Folklore - And Gave Herself A Much-Needed Escape

By: Alex Suskind for Entertainment Weekly Date: December 8th 2020 (EW's 2020 Entertainers of the Year cover)

The pop star, one of EW's 2020 Entertainers of the Year, delves deep into her surprise eighth album, Rebekah Harkness, and a Joe Biden presidency.

“He is my co-writer on ‛Betty’ and ‛Exile,’” replies Taylor Swift with deadpan precision. The question Who is William Bowery? was, at the time we spoke, one of 2020’s great mysteries, right up there with the existence of Joe Exotic and the sudden arrival of murder hornets. An unknown writer credited on the year’s biggest album? It must be an alias.

Is he your brother?

“He’s William Bowery,” says Swift with a smile.

It's early November, after Election Day but before Swift eventually revealed Bowery's true identity to the world (the leading theory, that he was boyfriend Joe Alwyn, proved prescient). But, like all Swiftian riddles, it was fun to puzzle over for months, particularly in this hot mess of a year, when brief distractions are as comforting as a well-worn cardigan. Thankfully, the Bowery... erhm, Alwyn-assisted Folklore - a Swift project filled with muted pianos and whisper-quiet snares, recorded in secret with Jack Antonoff and the National’s Aaron Dessner - delivered.

“The only people who knew were the people I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and a small management team,” Swift, 30, tells EW of the album's hush-hush recording sessions. That gave the intimate Folklore a mystique all its own: the first surprise Taylor Swift album, one that prioritized fantastical tales over personal confessions.

“Early in quarantine, I started watching lots of films,” she explains. “Consuming other people’s storytelling opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines?” That’s how she ended up with three songs about an imagined love triangle (“Cardigan,” “Betty,” “August”), one about a clandestine romance (“Illicit Affairs”), and another chronicling a doomed relationship (“Exile”). Others tell of sumptuous real-life figures like Rebekah Harkness, a divorcee who married the heir to Standard Oil - and whose home Swift purchased 31 years after her death. The result, “The Last Great American Dynasty,” hones in on Harkness’ story, until Swift cleverly injects herself.

And yet, it wouldn’t be a Swift album without a few barbed postmortems over her own history. Notably, “My Tears Ricochet” and “Mad Woman," which touch on her former label head Scott Borchetta selling the masters to Swift’s catalog to her known nemesis Scooter Braun. Mere hours after our interview, the lyrics’ real-life origins took a surprising twist, when news broke that Swift’s music had once again been sold, to another private equity firm, for a reported $300 million. Though Swift ignored repeated requests for comment on the transaction, she did tweet a statement, hitting back at Braun while noting that she had begun re-recording her old albums - something she first promised in 2019 as a way of retaining agency over her creative legacy. (Later, she would tease a snippet of that reimagined work, with a new version of her hit 2008 single "Love Story.")

Like surprise-dropping Folklore, like pissing off the president by endorsing his opponents, like shooing away haters, Swift does what suits her. “I don’t think we often hear about women who did whatever the hell they wanted,” she says of Harkness - something Swift is clearly intent on changing. For her, that means basking in the world of, and favorable response to, Folklore. As she says in our interview, “I have this weird thing where, in order to create the next thing, I attack the previous thing. I don’t love that I do that, but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I still love it.”

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: We’ve spent the year quarantined in our houses, trying to stay healthy and avoiding friends and family. Were you surprised by your ability to create and release a full album in the middle of a pandemic? TAYLOR SWIFT: I was. I wasn't expecting to make an album. Early on in quarantine, I started watching lots of films. We would watch a different movie every night. I'm ashamed to say I hadn't seen Pan's Labyrinth before. One night I'd watch that, then I'd watch L.A. Confidential, then we'd watch Rear Window, then we'd watch Jane Eyre. I feel like consuming other people's art and storytelling sort of opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, "Well, why have I never done this before? Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines? And why haven't I ever sort of freed myself up to do that from a narrative standpoint?" There is something a little heavy about knowing when you put out an album, people are going to take it so literally that everything you say could be clickbait. It was really, really freeing to be able to just be inspired by worlds created by the films you watch or books you've read or places you've dreamed of or people that you've wondered about, not just being inspired by your own experience.

In that vein, what's it like to sit down and write something like “Betty,” which is told from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy? That was huge for me. And I think it came from the fact that my co-writer, William Bowery [Joe Alwyn], is male — and he was the one who originally thought of the chorus melody. And hearing him sing it, I thought, "That sounds really cool." Obviously, I don't have a male voice, but I thought, "I could have a male perspective." Patty Griffin wrote this song, “Top of the World.” It's one of my favorite songs of all time, and it's from the perspective of this older man who has lived a life full of regret, and he's kind of taking stock of that regret. So, I thought, "This is something that people I am a huge fan of have done. This would be fun to kind of take this for a spin."

What are your favorite William Bowery conspiracies? I love them all individually and equally. I love all the conspiracy theories around this album. [With] "Betty," Jack Antonoff would text me these articles and think pieces and in-depth Tumblr posts on what this love triangle meant to the person who had listened to it. And that's exactly what I was hoping would happen with this album. I wrote these stories for a specific reason and from a specific place about specific people that I imagined, but I wanted that to all change given who was listening to it. And I wanted it to start out as mine and become other people's. It's been really fun to watch.

One of the other unique things about Folklore — the parameters around it were completely different from anything you'd done. There was no long roll out, no stadium-sized pop anthems, no aiming for the radio-friendly single. How fearful were you in avoiding what had worked in the past? I didn't think about any of that for the very first time. And a lot of this album was kind of distilled down to the purest version of what the story is. Songwriting on this album is exactly the way that I would write if I considered nothing else other than, "What words do I want to write? What stories do I want to tell? What melodies do I want to sing? What production is essential to tell those stories?" It was a very do-it-yourself experience. My management team, we created absolutely everything in advance — every lyric video, every individual album package. And then we called our label a week in advance and said, "Here's what we have.” The photo shoot was me and the photographer walking out into a field. I'd done my hair and makeup and brought some nightgowns. These experiences I was used to having with 100 people on set, commanding alongside other people in a very committee fashion — all of a sudden it was me and a photographer, or me and my DP. It was a new challenge, because I love collaboration. But there's something really fun about knowing what you can do if it's just you doing it.

Did you find it freeing? I did. Every project involves different levels of collaboration, because on other albums there are things that my stylist will think of that I never would've thought of. But if I had all those people on the photo shoot, I would've had to have them quarantine away from their families for weeks on end, and I would've had to ask things of them that I didn't think were fair if I could figure out a way to do it [myself]. I had this idea for the [Folklore album cover] that it would be this girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830 [laughs]. Very specific. A pioneer woman sleepwalking at night. I made a moodboard and sent it to Beth [Garrabrant], who I had never worked with before, who shoots only on film. We were just carrying bags across a field and putting the bags of film down, and then taking pictures. It was a blast.

Folklore includes plenty of intimate acoustic echoes to what you've done in the past. But there are also a lot of new sonics here, too — these quiet, powerful, intricately layered harmonics. What was it like to receive the music from Aaron and try to write lyrics on top of it? Well, Aaron is one of the most effortlessly prolific creators I've ever worked with. It's really mind-blowing. And every time I've spoken to an artist since this whole process [began], I said, "You need to work with him. It'll change the way you create." He would send me these — he calls them sketches, but it's basically an instrumental track. the second day — the day after I texted him and said, "Hey, would you ever want to work together?" — he sent me this file of probably 30 of these instrumentals and every single one of them was one of the most interesting, exciting things I had ever heard. Music can be beautiful, but it can be lacking that evocative nature. There was something about everything he created that is an immediate image in my head or melody that I came up with. So much so that I'd start writing as soon as I heard a new one. And oftentimes what I would send back would inspire him to make more instrumentals and then send me that one. And then I wrote the song and it started to shape the project, form-fitted and customized to what we wanted to do.

It was weird because I had never made an album and not played it for my girlfriends or told my friends. The only people who knew were the people that I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and then my management team. So that's the smallest number of people I've ever had know about something. I'm usually playing it for everyone that I'm friends with. So I had a lot of friends texting me things like, "Why didn't you say on our everyday FaceTimes you were making a record?"

Was it nice to be able to keep it a secret? Well, it felt like it was only my thing. It felt like such an inner world I was escaping to every day that it almost didn't feel like an album. Because I wasn't making a song and finishing it and going, "Oh my God, that is catchy.” I wasn't making these things with any purpose in mind. And so it was almost like having it just be mine was this really sweet, nice, pure part of the world as everything else in the world was burning and crashing and feeling this sickness and sadness. I almost didn't process it as an album. This was just my daydream space.

Does it still feel like that? Yeah, because I love it so much. I have this weird thing that I do when I create something where in order to create the next thing I kind of, in my head, attack the previous thing. I don't love that I do that but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I just still love it. I'm so proud of it. And so that feels very foreign to me. That doesn't feel like a normal experience that I've had with releasing albums.

When did you first learn about Rebekah Harkness? Oh, I learned about her as soon as I was being walked through [her former Rhode Island] home. I got the house when I was in my early twenties as a place for my family to congregate and be together. I was told about her, I think, by the real estate agent who was walking us through the property. And as soon as I found out about her, I wanted to know everything I could. So I started reading. I found her so interesting. And then as more parallels began to develop between our two lives — being the lady that lives in that house on the hill that everybody gets to gossip about — I was always looking for an opportunity to write about her. And I finally found it.

I love that you break the fourth wall in the song. Did you go in thinking you’d include yourself in the story? I think that in my head, I always wanted to do a country music, standard narrative device, which is: the first verse you sing about someone else, the second verse you sing about someone else who's even closer to you, and then in the third verse, you go, "Surprise! It was me.” You bring it personal for the last verse. And I'd always thought that if I were to tell that story, I would want to include the similarities — our lives or our reputations or our scandals.

How often did you regale friends about the history of Rebekah and Holiday House while hanging out at Holiday House? Anyone who's been there before knows that I do “The Tour,” in quotes, where I show everyone through the house. And I tell them different anecdotes about each room, because I've done that much research on this house and this woman. So in every single room, there's a different anecdote about Rebekah Harkness. If you have a mixed group of people who've been there before and people who haven't, [the people who’ve been there] are like, "Oh, she's going to do the tour. She's got to tell you the story about how the ballerinas used to practice on the lawn.” And they'll go get a drink and skip it because it's the same every time. But for me, I'm telling the story with the same electric enthusiasm, because it's just endlessly entertaining to me that this fabulous woman lived there. She just did whatever she wanted.

There are a handful of songs on Folklore that feel like pretty clear nods to your personal life over the last year, including your relationships with Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun. How long did it take to crystallize the feelings you had around both of them into “My Tears Ricochet” or “Mad Woman”? I found myself being very triggered by any stories, movies, or narratives revolving around divorce, which felt weird because I haven't experienced it directly. There’s no reason it should cause me so much pain, but all of a sudden it felt like something I had been through. I think that happens any time you've been in a 15-year relationship and it ends in a messy, upsetting way. So I wrote “My Tears Ricochet” and I was using a lot of imagery that I had conjured up while comparing a relationship ending to when people end an actual marriage. All of a sudden this person that you trusted more than anyone in the world is the person that can hurt you the worst. Then all of a sudden the things that you have been through together, hurt. All of a sudden, the person who was your best friend is now your biggest nemesis, etc. etc. etc. I think I wrote some of the first lyrics to that song after watching Marriage Story and hearing about when marriages go wrong and end in such a catastrophic way. So these songs are in some ways imaginary, in some ways not, and in some ways both.

How did it feel to drop an F-bomb on "Mad Woman"? F---ing fantastic.

And that’s the first time you ever recorded one on a record, right? Yeah. Every rule book was thrown out. I always had these rules in my head and one of them was, You haven't done this before, so you can't ever do this. “Well, you've never had an explicit sticker, so you can't ever have an explicit sticker.” But that was one of the times where I felt like you need to follow the language and you need to follow the storyline. And if the storyline and the language match up and you end up saying the F-word, just go for it. I wasn't adhering to any of the guidelines that I had placed on myself. I decided to just make what I wanted to make. And I'm really happy that the fans were stoked about that because I think they could feel that. I'm not blaming anyone else for me restricting myself in the past. That was all, I guess, making what I want to make. I think my fans could feel that I opened the gate and ran out of the pasture for the first time, which I'm glad they picked up on because they're very intuitive.

Let’s talk about “Epiphany.” The first verse is a nod to your grandfather, Dean, who fought in World War II. What does his story mean to you personally? I wanted to write about him for awhile. He died when I was very young, but my dad would always tell this story that the only thing that his dad would ever say about the war was when somebody would ask him, "Why do you have such a positive outlook on life?" My grandfather would reply, "Well, I'm not supposed to be here. I shouldn't be here." My dad and his brothers always kind of imagined that what he had experienced was really awful and traumatic and that he'd seen a lot of terrible things. So when they did research, they learned that he had fought at the Battles of Guadalcanal, at Cape Gloucester, at Talasea, at Okinawa. He had seen a lot of heavy fire and casualties — all of the things that nightmares are made of. He was one of the first people to sign up for the war. But you know, these are things that you can only imagine that a lot of people in that generation didn't speak about because, a) they didn't want people that they came home to to worry about them, and b) it just was so bad that it was the actual definition of unspeakable.

That theme continues in the next verse, which is a pretty overt nod to what’s been happening during COVID. As someone who lives in Nashville, how difficult has it been to see folks on Lower Broadway crowding the bars without masks? I mean, you just immediately think of the health workers who are putting their lives on the line — and oftentimes losing their lives. If they make it out of this, if they see the other side of it, there's going to be a lot of trauma that comes with that; there's going to be things that they witnessed that they will never be able to un-see. And that was the connection that I drew. I did a lot of research on my grandfather in the beginning of quarantine, and it hit me very quickly that we've got a version of that trauma happening right now in our hospitals. God, you hope people would respect it and would understand that going out for a night isn't worth the ripple effect that it causes. But obviously we're seeing that a lot of people don't seem to have their eyes open to that — or if they do, a lot of people don't care, which is upsetting.

You had the Lover Fest East and West scheduled this year. How hard has it been to both not perform for your fans this year, and see the music industry at large go through such a brutal change? It's confusing. It's hard to watch. I think that maybe me wanting to make as much music as possible during this time was a way for me to feel like I could reach out my hand and touch my fans, even if I couldn't physically reach out or take a picture with them. We've had a lot of different, amazing, fun, sort of underground traditions we've built over the years that involve a lot of human interaction, and so I have no idea what's going to happen with touring; none of us do. And that's a scary thing. You can't look to somebody in the music industry who's been around a long time, or an expert touring manager or promoter and [ask] what's going to happen and have them give you an answer. I think we're all just trying to keep our eyes on the horizon and see what it looks like. So we're just kind of sitting tight and trying to take care of whatever creative spark might exist and trying to figure out how to reach our fans in other ways, because we just can't do that right now.

When you are able to perform again, do you have plans on resurfacing a Lover Fest-type event? I don't know what incarnation it'll take and I really would need to sit down and think about it for a good solid couple of months before I figured out the answer. Because whatever we do, I want it to be something that is thoughtful and will make the fans happy and I hope I can achieve that. I'm going to try really hard to.

In addition to recording an album, you spent this year supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the election. Where were you when it was called in their favor? Well, when the results were coming in, I was actually at the property where we shot the Entertainment Weekly cover. I was hanging out with my photographer friend, Beth, and the wonderful couple that owned the farm where we [were]. And we realized really early into the night that we weren't going to get an accurate picture of the results. Then, a couple of days later, I was on a video shoot, but I was directing, and I was standing there with my face shield and mask on next to my director of photography, Rodrigo Prieto. And I just remember a news alert coming up on my phone that said, "Biden is our next president. He's won the election." And I showed it to Rodrigo and he said, "I'm always going to remember the moment that we learned this." And I looked around, and people's face shields were starting to fog up because a lot of people were really misty-eyed and emotional, and it was not loud. It wasn't popping bottles of champagne. It was this moment of quiet, cautious elation and relief.

Do you ever think about what Folklore would have sounded like if you, Aaron, and Jack had been in the same room? I think about it all the time. I think that a lot of what has happened with the album has to do with us all being in a collective emotional place. Obviously everybody's lives have different complexities and whatnot, but I think most of us were feeling really shaken up and really out of place and confused and in need of something comforting all at the same time. And for me, that thing that was comforting was making music that felt sort of like I was trying to hug my fans through the speakers. That was truly my intent. Just trying to hug them when I can't hug them.

I wanted to talk about some of the lyrics on Folklore. One of my favorite pieces of wordplay is in “August”: that flip of "sipped away like a bottle of wine/slipped away like a moment in time.” Was there an "aha moment" for you while writing that? I was really excited about "August slipped away into a moment of time/August sipped away like a bottle of wine." That was a song where Jack sent me the instrumental and I wrote the song pretty much on the spot; it just was an intuitive thing. And that was actually the first song that I wrote of the "Betty" triangle. So the Betty songs are "August," "Cardigan," and "Betty." "August" was actually the first one, which is strange because it's the song from the other girl's perspective.

Yeah, I assumed you wrote "Cardigan" first. It would be safe to assume that "Cardigan" would be first, but it wasn't. It was very strange how it happened, but it kind of pieced together one song at a time, starting with "August," where I kind of wanted to explore the element of This is from the perspective of a girl who was having her first brush with love. And then all of a sudden she's treated like she's the other girl, because there was another situation that had already been in place, but "August" girl thought she was really falling in love. It kind of explores the idea of the undefined relationship. As humans, we're all encouraged to just be cool and just let it happen, and don't ask what the relationship is — Are we exclusive? But if you are chill about it, especially when you're young, you learn the very hard lesson that if you don't define something, oftentimes they can gaslight you into thinking it was nothing at all, and that it never happened. And how do you mourn the loss of something once it ends, if you're being made to believe that it never happened at all?

On the flip side, "Peace" is bit more defined in terms of how one approaches a relationship. There's this really striking line, "The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me/Would it be enough if I can never give you peace?" How did that line come to you? I'm really proud of that one too. I heard the track immediately. Aaron sent it to me, and it had this immediate sense of serenity running through it. The first word that popped into my head was peace, but I thought that it would be too on-the-nose to sing about being calm, or to sing about serenity, or to sing about finding peace with someone. Because you have this very conflicted, very dramatic conflict-written lyric paired with this very, very calming sound of the instrumental. But, "The devil's in the details," is one of those phrases that I've written down over the years. That's a common phrase that is used in the English language every day. And I just thought it sounded really cool because of the D, D sound. And I thought, "I'll hang onto those in a list, and then, I'll finally find the right place for them in a story." I think that's how a lot of people feel where it's like, "Yeah, the devil's in the details. Everybody's complex when you look under the hood of the car." But basically saying, "I'm there for you if you want that, if this complexity is what you want."

There's another clever turn of phrase on "This is Me Trying." "I didn't know if you'd care if I came back/I have a lot of regrets about that." That feels like a nod toward your fans, and some of the feelings you had about retreating from the public sphere. Absolutely. I think I was writing from three different characters' perspectives, one who's going through that; I was channeling the emotions I was feeling in 2016, 2017, where I just felt like I was worth absolutely nothing. And then, the second verse is about dealing with addiction and issues with struggling every day. And every second of the day, you're trying not to fall into old patterns, and nobody around you can see that, and no one gives you credit for it. And then, the third verse, I was thinking, what would the National do? What lyric would Matt Berninger write? What chords would the National play? And it's funny because I've since played this song for Aaron, and he's like, "That's not what we would've done at all." He's like, "I love that song, but that's totally different than what we would've done with it."

When we last spoke, in April 2019, we were talking about albums we were listening to at the time and you professed your love for the National and I Am Easy to Find. Two months later, you met up with Aaron at their concert, and now, we're here talking about the National again. Yeah, I was at the show where they were playing through I Am Easy to Find. What I loved about [that album] was they had female vocalists singing from female perspectives, and that triggered and fired something in me where I thought, "I've got to play with different perspectives because that is so intriguing when you hear a female perspective come in from a band where you're used to only hearing a male perspective." It just sparked something in me. And obviously, you mentioning the National is the reason why Folklore came to be. So, thank you for that, Alex.

I'm here for all of your songwriting muse needs in the future. I can't wait to see what comes out of this interview.

*** For more on our Entertainers of the Year and Best & Worst of 2020, order the January issue of Entertainment Weekly or find it on newsstands beginning Dec. 18. (You can also pick up the full set of six covers here.) Don’t forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.

[bibliocratic]

i found writing proposal fic really fun !! or wedding planning :) maybe u would also find that fun? x

jonmartin post-160 proposal fic

Jon tries to write vows.

Hunched over, crow-spined and squinting in the feeble cast of the firelight, he scribbles, mutters, scratches out, furrows his brow and clenches his fingers and snarls under his breath in irritation, at his fumbling incapacity for words. He was not born with a poetic soul, and his admiration for Martin's humble offerings grows each passing minute. His words sputter out of him with all the ease of water from a broken tap.  

Jon has taken first watch, and it's a duty he approaches solemnly. They've broken into a boarded-up hairdressers, set up their sleeping bags and meagre provisions and the small fire in a waste-paper bin for warmth in the cramped office space at the back. Every noise, creak and snap and distant shriek has Jon straightening, widening the circle of his Knowing like a fishing net, giving it an exhausted push outwards that gets harder each time. The lawless world they are in has at least one advantage; nothing but the most fool-hardy of things wants to touch the architect of this nether-world of horrors, nothing skulking or spiralling or swooping wants to challenge an unfettered Avatar. It's more people, these days, that they have learned to avoid.

Martin twitches in his sleep. Sleeping bag pulled up over his face, head pillowed by folded-over barber capes,  his body snug against but turned away from Jon, who is sitting up, his back supported by plastic wrapped boxes of industrial-size shampoos and hair rollers. Jon frowns again, his lines only deepening as he listens to the soft, undisturbed in and out of Martin's breathing. Because he wants to get this one right. To place words like mosaic tiles to create the imagery of his intention, to capture everything he feels he needs to say.

Martin deserves this. Jon can give him so few words, these days. Jon wants to give him ones that will mean something.

His impatience is one of the few things that the last few years hasn't chewed out of him. He huffs, irritable and discontent, his frustration leaden under his skin, and scrunches up another paper to sacrifice to his petty mood.

When Martin takes the next watch, he finds a nest of fire-scourged paper balls dying in the embers.

–

Jon tries to find rings.

His intention is to be a few minutes. He unpeels himself around dawn from Martin's heavy arms, gently shushing the unhappy noise this draws from his mouth. The jewellers is ten minutes from where they've holed up today, and Jon steals away guiltily,  keeping his Eye on Martin long after he's left to make sure he doesn't wake up to find him gone.

Jon is away too long. He reaches the small, high-street shop with no issue, doesn't even need to pick the shattered lock of the door. Inside, he finds a scatter of rings and necklaces, but they're all soot-charred, twisted from an unnatural heat, their metals warped irreparable.  And then there is something tooth-filled in the recesses of the jewellers, something that smells the human stench of him and feels hungry, and it takes Jon an hour to give it the slip, leading it into a fog-bank half a mile away to be subsumed by the greedy pull of the mist.

He Looks out of himself, and against the borders of him, he feels a blanketing heat-shimmer of terror and knows it isn't his own.

His long legs take the streets at a run, huffing as he reaches the grey-stone public square at the centre of the city, exposed and empty of people. Getting nearer, he hears a looping, repetitive nightingale whistle, low and plaintive. It stops, waits, and starts up again.

Jon, with perfect mimicry, makes the high harsh caw of a crow in reply.

Martin is standing at the door of the Wagamama's they broke into, his feet unshod by shoes, his hair uncombed and flattened at one side. The creep of dawn is not so faint that Jon can't see the pale wash of his face, the tightness of his jaw, the relief that cascades across it like the release of a dammed-up waterfall when he sees Jon haring his way across the vacant, space of the square to greet him.

“Where were you?” Martin demands even before he reaches him.  His hands running over him as soon as Jon gets close enough, checking for hurt, injury, his voice high and pitchy and failing to translate his panic into something else. “God, I woke up, and – don't do that Jon! Anything could've – I had no idea where you'd – and what the hell were you thinking?”

Jon's hands motion, miserably, desperate to soothe and knowing it can't be that easy, sorry, sorry, sorry.

“Where did you go?” Martin repeats, insistent, almost angry but forcing it down to simmer at a panic-laced frustration. He doesn't usually push, usually recognises the limits of what Jon can communicate, allows them both space to sit down with paper and pencil and is patient with the slower exchange of this. But his shirt is coated with sweat around the throat and arms, his hands curling into fists to stop their juddering, nerve-shocked motions, and Jon tries to imagine how he would feel, should he wake up, and find Martin gone.

He pauses before opening his mouth.

“Looking for something,” he says carefully with a stolen clear-cut pronunciation, bathed in an entitled, self-absorbed air. Rifles through his records, despairing to find no words that he can chop-and-change together like a collage of explanation, glances up at Martin's distressed expression.

“Did you find it?”

Jon shakes his head.

“I feel like an idiot,” he tries again in a pleasant, justifying voice, and wishes someone had put to records some better expression of apology. Wishes someone had used the right words in the appropriate manner; stronger still, wishes his voice was his own again, a domain he could claim unsullied by the burden of his title. That he could say something, anything to wipe the blanket fear from Martin's scruffy face.

“Yeah, well,” Martin grumbles after a while, wiping at his eyes. “I knew that already.”

Sorry, Jon signs again, but Martin is stilling his hands, gentle even now, and bundles him into a tight, bone-squeeze of a hug.

“Don't do that to me again, Jon, please,” he whispers shakily.

Jon doesn't try and find rings again.

–

Jon tries to plan a proposal.

He knows, deep down, that the best intentioned version of himself is a planner. Likes order and alphabetized files and organisational stationery, is happiest with a well-crafted spreadsheet or a completed to-do list. Jonathan Sims is a man easily satisfied by things as they should be, appeased and engaged by the challenge of a logical puzzle, a knotty problem he can sort by analysis and application.

He also knows that there is another version of himself. The one that rashly takes an axe to possessed tables and jumps into fog-bound seascapes and soil-choked coffins after the people he loves.

He does try. He thinks of picturesque spots he can take Martin, places where the scenery isn't so horror-fucked, where there are still banks from which they can watch sunsets. But the picturesque spots, when they aren't shadow-infested or crawling with overzealous fungal growths that warn of Corruption nearby, are chilly, and there's not exactly time to stop and admire the views much anyway. The sunset-stained bank is a near success; drought-scoured and pocked with frost-damage, but the evening colours are unashamedly glorious. Jon spends hours trying to muster the courage and words and correct gestures, only for Martin, drained and wiped out  from a run-in with the Flesh, to fall asleep on Jon's shoulder, his hair flopping over his face, a comforting dead-weight. Jon adjusts them carefully so Martin's head is cushioned against his thigh, and scratches his fingers soothingly through his hair as he watches the sunset alone.  

But one day they're making their way through the Peak District, and they've found a tumbling river with a small waterfall. Martin's flicked water at him with a butter-wouldn't-melt smile, and Jon replied in kind, and Martin had made a shrieking giggling scandalised 'Jon!' as he continued splashing him. And it might have been the way the water dripped down his face and over his freckles, or the way the dim daylight caught his profile, or it might have been the bold and untempered heat that burnt like a forge in Jon's chest to hear the high, bright sound of his rare happiness, but whatever it was,  the other version of Jon resurfaces. Decides that he doesn't need romantic scenery or rings or vows or other people's words in his mouth, that life is short and this can't wait and he wants this, wants Martin, more than anything.

First, he drags Martin to him. On his tiptoes, arms locked around shoulders, feeling Martin hum, surprised but pleased as he kisses him.

It is a good kiss. One of his best. Jon feels a little bit smug about it when they separate and Martin is slightly out of breath, a comet-streak of heat across his face, looking a bit struck at Jon's forwardness.

Jon seals his first kiss with a second, smaller, softer kiss, making sure Martin's looking at him.

Then he lowers himself onto one knee.

“Jon, what are you – ?” Martin asks, his face creasing with confusion. But Jon has chosen the most unsubtle non-verbal gesture he can, and refuses to look away from him, gazing up and waiting for the penny to drop, even as his knees complain on the hard rocky ground, even as his own doubts swarm that Martin won't understand, Martin won't want to, Martin might say no.

Martin gives a little sucked-in gasp.

“Jon, are you, are you asking...?”

Jon is nodding, almost feverish, and Martin's face has gone the colour of a vibrant sunrise, moisture welling up in his eyes. Jon reaches out, takes one of Martin's hands in his smaller hold, touches with the pad of his thumb the space where, if he could, he would have slotted a ring.  

He lets go and precisely and delicately, he signs I love you. They don't have the vocabulary for grander expressions, but Jon doesn't have anything else he needs to say anyway.

“Jon, you – god, I love you,” Martin replies, damp-voiced and faint,  a broad and beaming  smile widening across and lighting up his face. There's not a pause before he's eagerly going to his knees to join Jon, pressing fierce, hopelessly charmed kisses against his lips, cradling his face in his hands, and Jon's so dazed by the onslaught, it takes him a minute to sign Yes? at Martin.

“I – oh, yeah, yeah! Of course, yes,” Martin replies, still struck by a thoughtless delighted giddiness.

Then: “Oh! Oh, oh, wait just a minute I – ”

He's digging his hands into his left trouser-pocket, tugging it out, pressing what he's found into Jon's hands.

Jon opens the travel-knocked, slightly cracked box to see two unpolished plain bands sat snugly in their display, and his own smile blossoms like a firework on his face.

send me prompts if you fancy!

[perhapsitmaybedragons]

Of Gingerbread and Flies

For creativerocket-jpg - I’m your gift giver for Good Snowmans. I hope this is ok - this is what came out when I tried to write using your prompts (which I loved, by the way). Plenty of The Them, Crowley, Aziraphale and Beelzebub.

         Summary:            

Beelzebub would like to challenge Crowley. But the Them step in to make sure the competition is more appropriate for winter activities. And of course, no one likes games more than The Them. So who will triumph in making the best gingerbread house?

Can be read on ao3 here or read below: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28534104

Crowley grumbled, unsure of what had awoken him. Whatever it was, he decided to ignore it and rolled back over, resolute in his decision to sleep in. It was a cold day and best spent, in Crowley's opinion, bundled up under the covers. Maybe he could talk Aziraphale into joining him if he offered the angel some cocoa. It wasn't Crowley's favorite but it could be all right if you punched it up with the right kind of alcohol.

“Seriously, wake up,” Came the voice that had first roused him. That wasn't Aziraphale's voice. Crowley bolted up, startled. His eyes went a little wider when he found the Them standing around his bed. “We can't get started without you,” Adam repeated.

“Get started with what, exactly?” Crowley grabbed for his sunglasses and shoved them on. The Them didn't mind his eyes, but he still preferred covering them up.

“Dear,” Aziraphale finally joined the others in the bedroom. “The Them has uh...made a bargain on your behalf, it seems.”

Crowley pulled himself out of bed and snapped his fingers to replace his sleeping outfit with his preferred tailored suits (well, if miracles can be counted as tailored). “Someone needs to start at the beginning with this,” He snapped his fingers again, this time in the direction of Wensleydale, “You. Nerdy little human. You tell me – No, Adam,” He shushed Adam before he could start in, “I want this straight and to the point. Wensley's better at that stuff and you know it.”

Adam opened his mouth to argue but then seemed to think better of it. Instead he just shrugged. Excited to be the one chosen, Wensleydale launched into his explanation. “So Adam knew something bad might happen here at your cottage today so he said we should come over here and sure enough,” Normally he wouldn't speak so quickly, but he was also keenly aware that they were on a time limit. Which he really should explain to Crowley immediately, but well...first things first. “We found Beelzebub outside your window – that's what Adam said their name is, anyway, and-”

“Beelzebub?!” Crowley yelped. “Angel, Why didn't you wake me up?!”

“Because, by the time I knew about it the Them had already taken care of it. Beelzebub's waiting for us in the living room.”

“We moved all the way out here to the Downs to get away from everything. How is it you four keep showing up here?” Crowley tried to look cross. Apparently he was failing, given the way all of the Them were smirking at him. For a mad moment he thought he saw the same expression on Dog.

Wensleydale cleared his throat to get permission to continue. Crowley nodded at him and gestured for him to get on with it. “So we found Beelzebub outside your window,” he repeated, “And they said they were here to challenge you and Aziraphale because apparently you made them a laughingstock-”

“I never zzssaid that,” Beelzebub pushed the door to the bedroom open and glared at everyone. “No one zssaiid that I was ever a laughingstock.”

“You didn't have to say it,” Pepper shrugged. “It was kind of obvious by you being here in the first place.”

Beelzebub vibrated indignantly at them. Crowley wondered for a moment how they managed to do that in a humanoid form, but decided it wasn't worth it to ask. “So they asked me to join them in this ridiculous challenge.”

“I mean, maybe it is ridiculous,” Brian shrugged, “But you agreed to it. Didn't have to twist your arm or anything, either. You just said yes.”

“Demons must take on what we're challenged to,” Beelzebub insisted. Crowley made a face at them.

“I don't think that's true,” He pondered all the times the Them had challenged him to increasingly ridiculous things, wondering if he hadn't been able to say no due to some demon bylaw he wasn't aware of or whether it was his own fondness for them. He was pretty sure it was the latter, but he would probably be pretending the former was true going forward.

“So here we are,” Wensleydale continued. “We're all building gingerbread houses and who ever has the best one wins. Aziraphale is the judge.”

“Because since he's an angel he won't be biased,” Adam explained. Crowley resisted the urge to laugh at that.

“Okay. So I'm ...making a gingerbread house? Or you lot are?” he asked the Them. They all nodded. “So I'm making on or you are?” he repeated, hoping for a real answer this time.

“All of you are,” Aziraphale cut in to explain. “I judge, but everyone else makes them. If Beelzebub beats you they get to take you with them. If they beat the Them, they take me. If they don't beat either of you then they don't get anyone and owe something to the Them. Though they haven't told me what it is they want.”

“Isn't hell supposed to be leaving me alone?” Crowley demanded. “Pretty sure that was a condition for me leaving you all alone after that holy water incident.”

“I'm not all of hell, am I?” Beelzebub pointed out. “I'm not in hell, I'm here. And this is personal.”

“Of course it is,” Crowley rolled his eyes at them. “Do I miracle in the gingerbread or do we have to waste time making it first? Or are we doing one of those annoying kits?”

“You slept in quite a while, dear,” Aziraphale shrugged. “The Them and I already got all the gingerbread made. It's only fair if it's all the same kind of biscuit, after all. So I helped them with that step – did you know it's rather difficult to make a biscuit that can be used for construction but still tastes nice? But I think we succeeded. They're still gingerbread, but they're also chocolate and I put some ancho powder in there, quite lovely-”

“Can we get on with thisszzz?” Beelzebub insisted. “I don't have all day.”

“I mean, don't you?” Pepper asked innocently. “What do you do all day down in Hell, really? Just ...sit over and poke souls with a pitchfork, I imagine. This is probably way more fun.”

Beelzebub didn't answer.

“At any rate, we should probably move on. Let's stop standing around in my bedroom and get started on this whole …” Crowley wanted to call it a fiasco. He'd never baked before and never decorated any type of dessert before. And he supposed the rules probably demanded that he not use any miracles. He confirmed this with Adam, who looked indignant at the suggestion.

“What kind of competition would it be, then? Pepper, Dog, Wensley and Brian can't do miracles. Where would that leave them? I mean, yeah, I'm on their team but it still wouldn't be fair. Even though we have been practicing.”

Apparently this rule was news to Beelzebub. They stamped their foot in irritation. Crowley smirked at how childish they were being, but didn't say anything. “You mean I have to do this the ...human way?!”

“Yeah. That's what makes it fun,” Adam insisted.

The kitchen was already well prepared for the competition. Aziraphale had even thought to put some tarps down on the floor to minimize the mess, as though they weren't going to just miracle it all clean later. There were three long tables set up in different parts of the room, and Crowley made a mental note to tell Aziraphale to stop watching so much Great British Bake Off. Each table had a stove built into it, the gingerbread on the side, paper and a pencil to draw designs out with and of course tubes of frosting.

“Crowley, dear, you'll be over here,” Aziraphale gestured to the table closest to the front, directly in front of a stool that Aziraphale now perched on. Beelzebub took the table to the left behind Crowley and the Them took the one on the right.

“Aziraphale, sir?” Wensley piped up from their table. “Actually, could we have some water and sugar? I read that burned sugar holds the houses together better.”

“Are you old enough to cook?” Aziraphale asked, looking embarrassed as he was clearly trying to puzzle out the Them's ages. “I just don't want any of you to hurt yourselves.”

“I can do it,” Brian insisted. “My mom taught me how to cook. She said it's the first step in learning to look after yourself. I just have to clean up any messes I make.” Brian always tried to clean up said messes, but no matter how hard he tried his mother always found a spot later. Multiple spots, really.

Aziraphale did a complicated gesture with his right hand and a boiling pot of water appeared in front of the Them on their stove. Brian checked it carefully and confirmed the sugar was already in it.

Crowley watched them carefully, then glanced over at Beelzebub. They hadn't started any construction yet. In fact, instead of even attempting to build they'd popped a piece of gingerbread in their mouth. Crowley watched as Beelzebub closed their eyes, apparently savoring the flavor. Their eyes popped open and they grabbed another handful, scarfing it down. Crowley couldn't blame them. Aziraphale had become an excellent baker. Even Crowley could be easily tempted by Aziraphale's treats.

He took a nibble off one piece of his own gingerbread and conceded that it was definitely very tasty. But unless Beelzebub ended up eating all of theirs and had to forfeit, he still had to construct something. He took two pieces and frosted them together, wondering if he should follow the Them's example and make burned sugar. He decided against it. He didn't know how to make it and would probably just burn through one of Aziraphale's pots and make the angel grumble at him.

He stepped back, trying to admire his handiwork. All he had done was make a triangle. It slumped the moment he let go, the pieces falling over each other. He sighed and glanced over at the Them. They were remarkably good at teamwork. Brian was cooking, Pepper was assembling, Adam was the designer and Wensleydale was making adjustments on the fly when things didn't work out. And Dog ate any pieces that fell on the floor. Crowley sighed and turned back to his own gingerbread, trying to figure out what to do.

After several minutes of trying several things only to have them work out disastrously, Crowley glanced at Aziraphale, who smiled back at him, then pulled out his pocket watch. “I do believe we forgot to tell Crowley about the time limit.”

“Sorry Crowley!” The Them chorused, none of them looking up from their creation.

“How long?”

“You have ..oh, ten minutes left.”

“Ten minutezz?!” Beelzebub grumbled. Crowley checked out their table and snickered. Beelzebub really had spent the whole time eating instead of working. They now had two sad little pieces of gingerbread left. Nothing someone could really make something out of.

“Nine now, since you both groused for so long,” Aziraphale corrected cheerfully.  Crowley hissed at him.

Crowley took a few marshmallows from a nearby pile and started fiddling with them, then slapped some of his gingerbread together in heaps that he thought vaguely resembled what he was going for. By the time Aziraphale called that time was up Crowley figured he'd done about as well as could be expected.

“First, Beelzebub's,” Aziraphale motioned for everyone to join him at Beelzebub's table. They had a single piece of gingerbread left, which they had stuck a chocolate chip on.

“It's uh. Modern art,” Beelzebub tried.

“Excuse me. I invented modern art,” Crowley piped up, “I know modern art when I see it and this isn't it. Unless you have a pretentious way of explaining why the chocolate chip is alone – like it's meant to be a fallen and the gingerbread is the cruelty of -” Aziraphale caught him in the ribs.

“Crowley, you're not helping.” Which wasn't true. Rather, Crowley was helping the wrong one in this case.

“A lovely attempt, Beelzebub,” Aziraphale said graciously. They glowered at him. “Ah, now to Crowley's creation,” They all moved together from Beelzebub's table to Crowley's.

Crowley had haphazardly thrown what was passable for a house together, but more interesting were the two snowmen out front. Both were composed of two marshmallows shoved together. He'd melted some away from one so that the snowman looked skinny. To this one he'd added a piece of black licorice as a scarf. To the other he'd placed a yellow M&M on the top, pressed down so that it might give the appearance of a halo. “'S Me. Me and Angel,” He explained unnecessarily. Aziraphale looked touched. Adam let out a small “aww,” which the rest of the Them then echoed (Well, Dog barked it, but softly).

“Well, that's enough of mine. Let's see what Hellspawn and the others came up with, shall we?” Now it was Crowley who led everyone to the final table. He felt immediately sheepish on seeing what the Them had come up with.

The house was something to look at. A Victorian model all done up in gingerbread – as the kids had planned it was held together by burnt sugar but the frosting had been utilized to draw bricks on the sides and shingles on the roof. A dog – Dog by the look of the one inside out ear – had been carefully crafted out of modeling chocolate. There were four kids building a snowman (and here Crowley was surprised to find they'd also used marshmallows for their snowman – it made him feel he'd done something correctly). The kids looked to be made of a mixture of modeling chocolate and fondant. It wouldn't pass for professionally done – some of it was lopsided, one kid was missing an ear and they hadn't bothered to mold feet on any of them – but it was still a triumph.

“Fine, fine, they won,” Beelzebub threw up their hands. “I concede. Even Crowley's was better than mine. I'll leave now.”

“You can't!” Adam insisted. “There's too much gingerbread for all of us, and it's really cold out there.”

“You do understand they're going back to hell, right?” Crowley interrupted. “Cold is not exactly the problem there.”

“It doesn't matter. It's cold, we have all this gingerbread, we should eat it together,” Pepper argued. “You rarely ever eat, Crowley. This is too much for just us and Aziraphale. And Beelzebub really liked the gingerbread, didn't you?”

“Er uh...maybe,” Beelzebub's eyes darted away from the kids and Crowley found himself snorting at the situation. These kids could easily face down all the forces of hell, just by being their usual sweet selves, he figured.

“So?” Crowley asked. “Will you be staying?”

Aziraphale's eyebrows went up. “Crowley, are you asking Beelzebub to spend the rest of the day with us and the Them?”

“Do we have a choice? This lot already decided for us, I think. Besides, they like your gingerbread. Thought you'd be happy about that, at least.”

“It was very good,” Beelzebub admitted, their voice small. “I'd like to stay.”

“Good,” Pepper said with a nod. “I think that's what we were going to ask from you anyway, for our winning.”

“Right,” Brian agreed. “You have to stay.”

“All right. But any tricks and Angel here gets out the holy water.”

Beelzebub's eyes grew to the size of saucers. Apparently it hadn't occurred to them that Aziraphale could get holy water whenever he pleased. The truth was there was never any in the house and Aziraphale was unlikely to allow it for fear of any of it accidentally splashing on Crowley.

It was agreed that Beelzebub could spend the rest of the day with them. Crowley and Aziraphale had both learned that it was almost impossible to argue with the Them once their mind was made up and well, if they ended up with another demon who, while not on their side exactly might be ...adjacent, well, where was the harm?

So they passed the rest of the day with Aziraphale showing Beelzebub how to make the gingerbread, the Them showing them how to make snowballs (and of course, then having an ensuing snowball fight – Beelzebub had excellent aim and was delighted to find that the Them kept arguing about who got them on their team). By the time the sun was setting they were all back inside, gathered in front of the fire. Aziraphale threw a blanket around Beelzebub's shoulders, then wrapped himself and Crowley in another one.

“Your hands are always freezing, dear,” Aziraphale complained. In answer Crowley put his hands up Aziraphale's shirt. “Ughk! That's not funny!”

Beelzebub chuckled then took a long sip of their hot cocoa. “This is why you like it here, huh?”

“It's part of why I like it here,” Crowley answered, his arms wrapping protectively around Aziraphale. “There's even more good stuff. You'd be surprised... You should come up again. Let the Them show you around.”

Beelzebub took another sip, mulling it over. “I'd like that.”

“Oh look!” Adam pointed out the window, “The snow's started!” Crowley resisted the urge to point out that it was only snowing because Adam felt it should be, deciding to enjoy the view instead.

All in all, even he had to admit, snuggled up with Aziraphale like he was, surrounded by some of the people he liked most (minus Newt and Anathema and plus Beelzebub, who may be coming around but was still not someone to be trusted or liked, at least not yet). Even Crowley had to admit this was a pretty perfect day.

[baidar-oroq]

22-Argy-bargy

(Pearl Lane, Ul’dah, after “Where The Heart Is.”)

Baidar quickly came to discover that he was not made for cities. 

Certainly not cities like Ul’dah, where the days were hot and windy, dust coming from Thanalan on the summer breeze, the nights still humid. He was still a creature of the Steppe that he carried with him, after all, of the endless expanse under the stars, the horizon not blocked from view by buildings built of sandstone blocks, crowded against each other almost in desperation. The streets of Ul’dah were filled at almost every hour of the day with people, many of them, especially in Pearl Lane, living there, without homes, with seemingly no one to care for them. This puzzled Baidar, who had been raised to put the needs of all in the tribe first, especially since to him Ul’dah seemed to be a place of great wealth and power and doubtlessly could do more for its people than it did. He’d asked Alphinaud why this was so (only later learning just how sensitive the recent history of Ul’dah was to him, which prompted a much belated apology) and Alphinaud had spun a story of rich, powerful syndicates that refused to lift a hand to help the needy while also exploiting them. 

Baidar had digested what he’d learned, and asked, simply “Couldn’t I just go stop them? When an unjust ruler wins the Nadaam, the next year an alliance rises to overthrow them, choosing a winner to rule.” That this had led to the rule of the Oronir for the first time is something Baidar does not choose to mention. 

‘Would that it were so simple,” Alphinaud replied. 

To Baidar, it was that simple, but he allowed that challenging the Syndicate to a Nadaam would likely not be easy to arrange. 

However, while he was not made for cities, and certainly not Ul’dah, there had been a single advantage to it; namely an empty apartment in the building that Kage lived in, right next door in fact that became vacant a week or so after Alphinaud had introduced them. And if the two of them were going to be Scions together, there was a value in the two of them being close by. So Alphinaud, with the aid of Tataru, had secured Baidar the room, paying half a year’s rent in advance since Baidar had incurred sizable debt in acquiring his dragoon armor. So he settled into life in Ul’dah, with Kage as a neighbor, a friendship beginning to grow between them, albeit at first with reluctance on Kage’s part. There was a sadness to Kage, something that had played a part in why he had left the Steppe, that made opening up difficult for him.

Well, Baidar amended, opening up for people who he worked with. It seemed that Kage was capable of opening up enough to be able to bring miqo’te men home at night from the Quicksand, judging from the noises that came through the thin walls of the building on many nights. Baidar would stuff his pillow over his head on these occasions and try to sleep through it, or failing that, think pleasant and completely unlikely thoughts about Y’shtola Rhul. 

It was after one of these nights, in the mid-morning, that Baidar was awoken by the sound of shouting from the alley below, two voices raised in argument.

Baidar rolled out of bed, pulling his lance from the floor where he kept it, already alert, the instincts of a life of remaining alert at all times in case a rival tribe chose to attack the camp taking over. He looked around for a moment as if expecting someone to attack him from his...somewhat messy dresser, then heard a voice, a Roegadyn by the sound of, shouting. “You fucking cheated, you bastard! You know you did!”

“How the hells can someone cheat betting on the races at the Saucer?!” another voice, Hyur by all rights, replied. “I put down gil on the winner fair and square, you’re just a book who doesn’t want to cover!”

Other voices rose in a clamor, and Baidar sighed and made his way out of the building, grateful he’d chosen to just take his boots off before falling into bed. As he did, Kage appeared behind him, unarmed, a frown on his face. “Sounds a little violent out there.” He nodded at the lance. “Taking precautions?”

“Always be prepared,” he said with a smile as they stepped out into a bright, humid morning. “We’re Scions, aren’t we? Supposed to fight for justice and all that?” Kage scowled as they walked towards the alley, the arguing continuing. “This could turn violent, after all. You know Ul’dah. Plus, I’d like to get a little more sleep.”

“Dreaming of Y’shtola again?” Kage asked.

“Ha. Ha. Are you ever going to let me off the hook for how I acted when we met her?”

“Not any time soon.” 

The two Xaela rounded the corner into the alley and took in the scene. A crowd of around ten people surrounded a door into the neighboring building, where the Roegadyn stood, hands on his hips. In front of him was the Hyur, an extremely attractive Miqo’te lady dressed in barely notions on his arms. “I’m telling you, I don’t believe it,” the Roegadyn shouted. “You’re a fucking cheat, I know it. No one gets the first four right at the chocobo races! Not at those odds!”

“How the hells could I cheat? Bribe the riders to throw the race?” The hyur shook his head. “If I had that kind of money do you think I’d be betting down here on Pearl Lane?” The miqo’te on his arms pouted, and Baidar wondered just how much of the winnings were going to be spent on her. The crowd around them erupted in commentary, half of them seemingly taking the Roegadyn’s side, the other half the Hyur’s. 

“Not sure this is going to turn to violence,” Kage remarked.

“Not likely, but still.” Baidar coughed into his hand, then raised his voice and shouted “Gentlemen, ladies, what seems to be the bother?”

“Seems to be the bother?” Kage muttered. 

“Heard Alphinaud say it,” Baidar answered as the crowd collectively turned to look at him. “Thinking it might not have been well received.”

The Hyur sized the two of them up and seemed to quickly realize that there would be a certain value to having two large and exceptionally strong Xaela on his side in this disagreement. “This man owes me thirty thousand gil! He runs a gambling establishment here, and takes bets on the chocobo races at the Gold Saucer! I made a perfectly fair bet and he seeks to...to cheat me.”

“You’re the fuckin’ cheater! I ain’t covering that bet! No one’s ever done what you did!”

The crowd broke out into another round of argument, and Baidar was beginning to regret coming down here when, from above, a small boot flew down and struck the Roegadyn squarely between his eyes. “Ow! Godsdammit who threw that!” he roared.

A second boot flew down and crashed into the side of his head, staggering him. Baidar and Kage followed the path of both boots and found an open window on the side of their apartment building, where an ancient Lalafell woman stood. She was their landlady and owner of the building, Momoro Moro, and despite being nearly blind clearly had an uncanny aim. She hefted yet another shoe in her hand and yelled “Clumsy Boulder, what the hells is going on here?!”

The Roegadyn became noticeably pale.“Mrs. Moro! I...I apologize profusely. I didn't mean to disturb you.” The third shoe flew down and walloped him in his shoulder, drawing a yelp. 

“You should have thought of that before you started yelling. No idea why a sore loser ever thought he could run any kind of gambling. Pay the lad off and stop yelling about it before I make sure the wrong people hear about it.”

“Again, I am sorry, Mrs. Moro! It won’t happen.” He bowed deeply. “But, if I may, my name is not Clumsy…”

“Really think you should let this go,” Baidar said, walking up as the crowd began to disperse. “Hey, Mrs. M. Want me to bring up your shoes?”

“You fuckin’ better!” she shouted as she slammed her shutters closed.

“Justice is served, then?” Kage asked as the Roegadyn, who was probably going to be stuck with the name of Clumsy Boulder for a while, retreated into the neighboring building, presumably to collect the gambler’s winnings.

Baidar picked up the shoes, grinning. “Worth it just to see Mrs. M hurling shoes at people. Let’s go see her, then.” He might not be built for cities, and he did not, as yet, have a single idea why a clear criminal was terrified of Momoro Moro, but at times cities could prove entertaining.

(The oh so entertaining Momoro Moro is a creation of my partner in crime, @voidsharkffxiv, and she’s one of my favorite characters in our mutual RP. Fun to write Mrs. M!)

[a-stitch-in-time-and-space]

anon: Not sure what the ship name is, but Julian x Miles x Keiko seems like it would be so cute?

You are correct! And I am slow, sorry, sometimes my brain suddenly cannot focus on the thing I want it to focus on, but I eventually do!

what is this ship name?

Julimikei? Keimilian? Milkeilian? Julkomil? (I write these with the knowledge that “jul” in Danish is Christmas)

1. Who’s in your ship and is it monogamous, poly, open, etc?

So I'm someone who runs with canon, meaning Keiko and Miles are married. However I'm not a fan of the idea that marriage is inherently monogamous in future, or even that “marriage” is the same thing (marriage is just the easiest version to describe it to a 20th/early 21st century audience). Meaning I get to decide at some point Miles and Julian approach Keiko and are like, “heeeey, me and Julian have been talking and we were thinking that we might want to make what we've got official” and Keiko laughs and is like “took you long enough!”

So at first it's just Miles who's married to Keiko and Miles who's also married to Julian, but then Keiko and Julian spend more time together and get talking about the roles of plants in medicine (and then Keiko one day admits that she wishes she could have someone around more interested in her work, a la Miles' “I wish Keiko was a guy” admittance) and long story short, Keiko and Julian also get married.

Julian has other partners, Keiko has other partners, Miles is just devoted to this little family (and doesn't understand how they have the time).

I don't think Miles or Keiko have sex with Julian. I also increasingly read him as sex-indifferent in general.

2. Is the ship romantic in nature?

I mean kinda? Gosh I really shoot myself in the foot as someone who's politically aromantic and just kind of hates the connotations of the word “romantic” (beyond the ideas of “having a romantic nature”- then hell yeah I'm a romantic) - it's exclusive in the sense that they marked it using the particular ritual of what we'll call “marriage.” Using modern terminology, I'd say with Julian it's queerplatonic, with the O'Briens it's romantic.

3. How often do/can they see each other (due to living on different planets, having stressful jobs, etc)

Julian travels all around, while Keiko sometimes has to do stretches of travel off-earth. Miles is the one who stays put the most. The kids generally live with him or Keiko, but whenever Julian's sort of stably in one place (or at least on one ship) for awhile they come to him, especially when they're a bit older and want to see the galaxy in a... reasonably? Safe way?

Julian promises he won't take Molly into the middle of a plague again, it was one time okay?

4. What are their things to do together?

Holodeck dates still happen. Darts still happen. Also Julian asks Keiko to teach him a bit about gardening, because he wants to impress Garak and he finds it's surprisingly fun. Keiko generally has the single braincell, but sometimes that task falls to Miles. It's never Julian.

Miles still remembers coming home from a long day of teaching to find their house had become overgrown with creepers that have covered all entrances and need to be destroyed with a very potent weed-killer very carefully lest any of Keiko’s rarer plants are damaged, due to a failed experiment (it wasn't failed, huffs Keiko. If anything it was overly efficient, adds Julian in a chipper voice. Miles vows out loud that those two are never allowed to do science unsupervised again. It definitely happens again.)

5. How do they say “I love you” without directly saying “I love you”?

I miss you. Come back soon. Remember the time... I brought you this. I thought of you while...

It's the little, simple words and sentences. The three of them together can simply be defined as “comfortable.”

6. Who unironically likes old earth movies and who suffers along?

I want all of them to be old-earth-movie fanatics. They've done all of the special recreations, holosuite drive-throughs, the Cronenberg marathon, Kurosawa, Azimov, Dirty Dancing play-alongs where you're one of the characters, a bunch of 21st century scifis that these days are considered quaint...

7. Are any of them spiritual and any of them decidedly not?

I don't think any of them really are. Keiko's not a believer, but she's got traditions that she maintains. Miles celebrates St. Patrick's Day and whenever Julian's visit coincide, the two of them recreate any battle of the Irish versus the English.

8. Who’s more open about their affection and who’s more taciturn, but shows affection through unconventional means?

Miles O'Brien is never going to be the best at expressing himself emotionally, but he's certainly better than he once was. It took him awhile to even be able to kiss Julian in public, but he got there, especially after Keiko showed no such qualms. Julian is jubilant whenever he sees them, Keiko showers him with flowers.

Miles is self-conscious about his inability to be as good at things like presents and gestures, but the others know that he loves them and don't need him to be otherwise than he is.

9. Who likes space and who prefers a good ol’ planet?

Julian Must Go Into Space or he gets antsy. Miles Must Stay In One Place or he gets anxious (that place could be space, but right now it's earth). Keiko is fluid. She goes where the plants take her.

10. Finally, what are their favourite things about one another?

Keiko loves them when they're together because Julian lifts Miles' spirits better than anyone else (it used to make her anxious that she wasn't “good enough,” but she realises now that it's more to do with the two of them having been through some bad things and having that vocabulary).

Individually she loves Miles for his dedication and hidden passion that only comes out when he feels safe, usually with her or Julian or in the classroom, and the way he's so intelligent, even if he talks it down occasionally.

Julian is almost the opposite. He needs to know he's smart and he keeps his heart way out on his sleeve. He offers affection without being asked for it and blossoms when that affection is returned.

Julian falls in love a lot. He finds people to be pretty great. The O'Briens are special because they were the first time it really worked out for him and it didn't happen in any sweeping dramatic way like he'd imagined (that would be saved for Garak a few years down the line), it just... fell into place. For once he didn't feel like the lost puzzle piece and since being with them he never has.

Miles is shared interests, understanding one another intimately, not fearing being vulnerable with one another.

Keiko is challenge and being allowed to be expressive without feeling stupid, and the two of them talking rapid-speech about their interests

Miles thinks Keiko is way smarter, kinder, all around better than he is – that's not an insecurity, he's just amazed that this person wanted to be with him and thinks he's great in return. She challenges him and loves a challenge, which pushes him to always be his best self.

Julian is... well he's Julian who somehow crowbarred himself into his life. Adamant and ridiculous and intensely caring and smart. Insecure underneath it all, which maybe was what made him fall in love before he realised it – Julian Bashir wasn't arrogant because he thought he was above people. He was arrogant because he thought he needed to be and because he didn't know he had other things to offer. He's not like that so much any more though, and Miles finds he tries to make it his mission to make him laugh.

Together, what Miles loves the best is how comfortable in his own skin he feels around those two. He can't explain it, they just make him feel safe.

[rumpelstilskenlovesfanfic]

Of cocoa and fire

Pairing: Bucky x reader

Word count: 1.3k ish

Warnings: Some snark and swearing.

Summary: My entry for @arawynn​’s Festive Winter Wonderland Writing Challenge! I am posting this from my sideblog, hope that doesn’t bother you too much (main is @rumpelstilskinxoxo) Thank you so much for hosting and for allowing me to participate!!! 💕💕💕

My prompt was “Want some cocoa?” and I also went with the mobster AU because I am a sucker for it and always wanted to give it a try.

-----

„Here you go, a hot chocolate with peppermint. Enjoy!“ You carefully hand over the steaming mug to the grinning little girl before watching her wander off with her parents further into the little Christmas market in front of the local hospital.

They truly outdid themselves this year: There was a booth with cotton candy and candy apples and chocolate covered fruits, a grill with hamburgers and sausages, a booth with all kinds of christmassy cookies, DIY tables with lots of tinsel, glitter and holly. A little carousel, Santa Claus as well as a snow fairy to take pictures with, so the children who don’t celebrate Christmas can also have a cute holiday memory framed. A little petting zoo from the local shelter to find some animals a new home. A very wholesome affair, all in all.

As a physician at the hospital, you volunteered your free evening to help out, currently manning the hot cocoa station with your friend and coworker Christine, who ran off finding some more peppermint sticks. Turning around, you noticed someone standing off to the side of the booth.

„Want some cocoa?“

The man just barely turns his head to you. There is a deep scowl on his otherwise handsome face, and he is wearing all black - expensive looking coat and suit, a scarf for fashion rather than warmth, a signet ring catching the light. „We have dark chocolate, milk and white, as well as a vegan option,“ you smile while listing the options, hoping to spread some holiday cheer. A deeper scowl, you notice two large figures looming behind him like shadows. „There is a lactose free one as well?!“

„Do I look like someone who drinks cocoa?“ he sneers, taking you aback, because this is a fun little Christmas market, there really is no need to be hostile. Patience is for patients so you have none for him and his attitude. „Well maybe it’d help with that frown on your face, you know, chocolate and it’s endorphins and all,“ you say rolling your eyes, turning back to the mugs behind you.

He scoffs. „I’d watch that tone, don’t you know who I am?“ You look over your shoulder, now it’s your turn to frown. „No, I don’t, and with that attitude of yours I don’t feel like I am missing out.“ He opens his mouth to answer but you’re not finished and fully turn back to him. „Honestly, what is your problem? And what a stupid question? Have you ever heard someone say „Don’t you know who I am“ and thought “well no but you sound just delightful, I’d like to find out“? Yeah, me neither.“ A snort from behind the man makes his scowl impossibly deeper. „So if the holiday cheer is bothering you so much, I have a simple suggestion: don’t be here.“

You make a movement with your hand indicating the market around you, then straighten shoulders and step to the other end of the booth, where a couple was looking over the menu. When you’re turn around again, the man and his shadows are gone. But Christine is back, and now she is sporting a scowl. What is up with everyone today?

„Erm, what were you talking about with James Barnes of all people, don’t you know who he is?“ She sounds almost irritated, making you scoff. „Why do people keep saying that? No, I don’t know who that is and he was pretty rude, so I couldn’t care less.“

„What did you say to him?“

„I told him to fuck off.“

Christine shrieked. „What, why would you do that?“

„What is your problem, he didn’t want hot chocolate in the first place so it’s not like it was bad for business!“

„That was James Barnes.“

„So you mentioned.“

„He is a fucking mobster and is rumored to basically run this whole city,“ she whisper-yelled.

You snort. „I’m sorry, did you just say mobster?“

Christine nods, which makes you full on laugh. „Where am I, in a CW show all of a sudden? Do we have to save the hospital in a dangerous game of violence and broken trust while family secrets pile up?“

You rolled your eyes. Christine just hushed you and looked around anxiously. „Will you be quiet, who knows who works for him around here!“ Her concerned tone made you look around, too, before shaking your head at her.

„You are seriously telling me that we have a mobster in our midst who came to this market to - what, check up on his assets?“

„Well maybe not his assets but his company sponsored the carousel and most of the food.“

„That doesn’t sound so mobster-y to me.“

„Well rumor has it Macavity Inc. is just a front for all kinds of shady stuff.“

„I’m sorry, what?“

„Officially he is the CEO of his company, Macavity Inc. …“.

„As in Cats?“

„What do you mean?“

„You know, the musical! Cats!“

„I don’t think I’ve ever seen it.“

You hold your hand to your heart in mock shock. „Chris! That is an educational gap that needs to be closed asap!“

Christine sighs.

„Anyway, there is a character named Macavity and he is literally the law-evasive bad guy.“ You laugh, starting to sing, „Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity - He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.“

A fit of giggles interrupts your performance. „Seems to me this mobster is very extra. And I highly doubt that no on in the NYPD has seen Cats so that must be very frustrating, him basically telling them that he is doing illegal shit. You know, via music.“ More laughter bubbles out of you. „I do respect his flair for the dramatic.“

Christine gives you a concerned look, whether it is for the mocking of the notorious mafia boss or the ongoing giggle fit is hard to tell.  

..........

It was pretty late by now, most of the patrons had left already and you were cleaning up the booth and packing away the mugs when a sudden scream made you look up.

„OH MY GOD, FIRE!“

You saw one of the nurses frantically looking around, making you spring into action. Grabbing the water bucket from the washing up, you ran to her, yelling „Wanda, careful, the hay!“

There was a decorative bale of hay next to the table which had caught on fire and it was dangerously close to burning as well. Suddenly someone pushed past Wanda and grabbed the bale, pulling it forcefully and away from the flames. You emptied the water on the fire before Wanda threw a thick blanket over the table as well, extinguishing all the flames.

„Phew, how the hell did that happen?“, you asked, running a hand through your hair.

„God I don’t even know - one moment I was putting supplies in a box and the next there was this fire, I guess I must have bumped the table and a candle fell over, I -„ Wanda sighed, putting her face in her hands.

You wrapped her in a hug, „It’s okay, nothing happened, are you hurt?“ you rubbed her arms soothingly.

„No, no I’m fine.“ She took a deep breath. „And everything was going so well up until now!“

„Don’t worry, everything still went well, no one got hurt.“ You gave her a comforting smile. “And the market was such a success, happy faces and holiday cheer everywhere!”

You gave her arms a reassuring squeeze, then turned around to see who had grabbed the hay bale, possibly preventing the fire department from showing up. “That was some quick thinking...”, you stopped in your tracks as you saw who it was: the snappy man from earlier, now dusting hay of his coat.

The maybe-mobster looked up. „You reacted very fast as well“, he sounded almost impressed.

„My sister is a fire fighter, I picked up a thing or two from her stories.“ You were still a bit dumbfounded and not sure what to make of him not only still being here, but preventing Carol from showing up as said firefighter.  

He straightened, looking at you so intensely you almost squirmed. He gave a curt nod to Wanda, then spun around and walked away, leaving you stare after him with a puzzled look on your face.

“Thanks, by the way”, you called after him. He raised his hand to acknowledge that he heard you, but otherwise kept walking and vanished between the booths.

“What the fuck just happened?”