#Mags can be really fucked up if you really sit on his concepts for long enough

[kakusu-shipping]

I was the sadistic po3 ask and you are so right. I honestly hadn't thought about it for very long its the vibe he gives off initially but the more I think on it the more I realize hes the type to fall little by little and then all at once. The type to call you an idiot and give you advice in the same statement, to notice immediately when you change your hair style or a new shirt. The moment he realizes hes the type to do the oh. oh. oh no. Like thats his vibe. hes a dick but a loving one.

Okay FIRST OF ALL anon that post is almost two years old at this point so. Welcome back. I'm sorry I was so harsh to your Sadistic Yandere P03 concept.

SECOND P03 acts of service Tsundere type is so funny I love that for him. He will deny he did that for you, or if he accepts it he expects gratitude of the highest caliber.

This doesn't feel very Yandere to me though this is very base P03 affection to me. But that's because to me P03 is the least Yandere out of the Scrybes.. and I think that's why the polycule broke up before you arrived??

He was the object of their obsessions, and it was smothering and toxic and terrifying. He hated it, he was scared, he was cadged, he could never do anything on his own or go anywhere without checking in on someone. He never had his own space, never had control...

Yandere P03 would then push that cycle of abuse onto you, take control from you, not forcefully, but just a little bit at a time. Manipulate your space slowly so you have fewer and fewer options on where to go, like shortening a leash on a dog. It takes time. It takes routine.

This though, the acts of service and catering to your comfort, is Post Recovery P03. A P03 who's had time, a LOT of time, to himself, to his space, and found loneliness. He wants you to want to come back, because deep down he needs you, but doesn't want to admit that, because to him it's wrong to need someone. It hits too close to home, make him feel too much like the other scrybes.

He'll give you reasons to want to come back, and it'll remind him of how Grimora would always lend him things so he'd have reason to return. How she'd gift him everything he'd wanted so he'd come back, how she'd loose several matches in a row, and only win the one he'd said was his last game, so he'd stay and challenge her to a rematch

He'll follow on your heel as you wander around his factory because it's dangerous and maze like, and it'll remind him of the feeling of being followed, of being watched, by Magnificus everywhere he went. The suffocating feeling of never being anywhere alone, of eyes that saw his every possible future always on him. He'll deny his affections to you and remind himself of Magnificus doing the same when he'd stumbled into a room covered wall to wall in paintings of himself, in situations he knew Magnificus was not with him

He'll spend time tailoring his game to your play style, making sure cards you like are more plentiful, making sure the puzzles are engaging and challenging, and he'll remind himself of Leshy, the worst of them all, and that cabin full of intrigue. Of story and hard fights and difficult puzzles and nights of "Just one more round" turned three and four. When he floats just above you to feel superior he'll be reminded of the wall that use to be a door that he'd pressed himself against Leshy towered above him, a man who'd say one thing and feel another, who'd played the hero over and over in their games, and revealed himself the villain when P03 attempted to leave

He doesn't want to need you in the same way the other Scrybes had needed him

#Emile's Writing #Ask to tag #P03 X Reader #PO3 X Reader #Yandere #Mentioned anyway and discussed but not really the main point I guess #Well I mean kind of actually #Inscryption X Reader #GN!reader #Post Yandere Polycule P03 is probably my favorite way to write him #He was the object of their affection and he got away but not unscathed #Mags can be really fucked up if you really sit on his concepts for long enough #God. GOD. #TWO YEARS. #It's been two years huh I haven't touched much Inscryption X Reader sense then #You caught me on a Yandere kick again anon #I don't know where you've been for 2 years but glad to see you #Sorry I shut down you Sadistic Yandere idea so quick I was not jiving with it back then #And idk I have a VERY specific take on P03 #He just got out of a very toxic relationship give him some space #He needs you he doesn't want to need you but he needs you #He just needs some time to learn that it's okay to need someone...

[aeondeug]

So while I was reading GtN and HtN I occasionally stopped to be like “Wow, it’s great how these can be just so gay!” And like. That is really great. Super great. I love that about them. But I also remember at least once stopping and going “Wow, it’s great that there’s no homophobia here!” And like at the time I just kind of nodded along to myself. Around when I just finished GtN, I remember being very fond of the bit after the book with like the guy explaining like. The deal with necro/cav relationships in The Media and throughout history and how actually none of these things have ever been romance. This is just a pure relationship, unaffected by naughty things like ROMANCE. WHY DOES EVERYTHING NEED TO BE ROMANCE?! shouts the author of this paper. And I laughed at this. Because it reminded me a lot of people who do this shit with queer love. They do it with history and just go “Why does Sappho have to be gay, why can’t she just have passionate feelings for her BFFs”. Which is mindbogglingly stupid to me and anyone who has so much as LOOKED at some of the poem fragments. But like people do say that shit. And they do this a lot over like queer anything in fiction unless it like punches you in the face with rainbows immediately. “Why do Bubblegum and Marceline have to be gay? They’re just friends!” is a take that I legitimately saw on the day of the finale. And not just once. I saw it a few times. And I’ve seen that happen over so many ships in so many things, whether or not the ships end up canon. “Why does it have to be gay?” and the specific sort of outrage over it I’ve seen in essay length posts is just common, and that sort of outrage reads very similar to the argument that dude made about necro/cav relationships. It reads like that and close enough so that I made a joke about it even. I didn’t think too, too much on this at first though because I mean. We have Abigail and Magnus. They’re right there. A man and a woman, a husband and a wife. So like I was able to simultaneously go “omg it’s just like those why can’t they just be friends WHY DOES IT NEED TO BE GAY people” and also “wow it’s nice that there are spooky negative queer experiences of SADNESS here”. Which has got me thinking. Ok. So we have that essay. Now what else do we have in the books? I suppose could point at the entirety of Gideon and Harrow’s just furious refusal to admit that they might actually be in love with one another. Even though it appears to be obvious to literally everyone else in the galaxy. And is obvious to the readers. Hell, Gideon even has a moment of feeling like she needs to tell Harrow something the day before she dies. Something which is heavily romance coded, I don’t know the word for it. But like a “Wow I feel a need to tell them something and it’ll be my last shot” before a death just kind of always reads “It was an ‘I love you’. They needed to say it and didn’t get a chance”. So we’ve got that and, specifically, we’ve got their outrage at the suggestions. Gideon stresses that she’s JUST Harrow’s cav. And she’s very fucking insistent on that. Part of the why is that she knows Harrow is in love with a fucking dead girl in a casket but like. It just hits a certain way. There’s also Harrow’s just repeated disgust she expresses towards the concept of necro/cav relationships. She needs to explain away to herself that like, well, Abigail and Magnus were ALREADY married before he was named her cavalier primary so maybe that makes it fine. And even then she’s not like super duper comfy with the idea. A taboo has been broken, Harrow feels, and she needs to get really rules lawery to find any comfort with that. Other small things that feel of note to me here are the nature of the ways we know that these two are gay outside of like. Their weird thing for one another. With Gideon we’re introduced to it basically immediately with her joke about titty mags. Harrow specifically makes a comment at some point that some of the magazines Gideon gets are very gross, yes. Her interest in women is explicitly made sexual from the get go, and the idea that The Gays are just weird sex fiends and there is no love there is a frequent one. With Harrow meanwhile we know because she says she’s in love with the girl in the Locked Tomb. Who is very much dead. A thing that is fucky enough that like there is an entire song and dance about “GIDEON THE FIRST IS MAKING OUT WITH A CORPSE??????” and how Harrow is a hypocrite for being so offended by that all. Also the girl is behind the door. She is something that isn’t supposed to be seen or known about or, heaven forbid, woken up. That is all the ultimate taboo and Harrow not only fucking broke that but she looked at the girl and went “Wow I’m in love” on the spot. So we have this collection of things that could be read as some sort of metaphor for like...The taboo nature of queer love. “Why can’t they just be friends?” and issues of purity and the lack thereof. And we have characters who are very clearly in love but who can’t just admit that because they think there’s something fucking wrong with that. Gideon’s JUST her cav and Harrow is also in love with a dead chick. We also have Magnus and Abigail around who are just like. Happily married and fine with things regarding their whole necro/cav aesthetic. Ianthe doesn’t seem to give a shit that Gideon’s into Harrow at all. There’s a fondness for necro/cav relationships enough that there’s an entire romance genre centered on them and like characters in the cast are fond of those, some of them. Things appear to be Fine, at least as far as their friends are concerned. Maybe the asshole writing the essay that kicked this pondering off would have an issue and a stuffy old grandma would pitch a fit. But like their friends don’t have a problem with necro/cav shit. But we still very much have Gideon and Harrow being “Well no. We’re just a necromancer and their cavalier. GOD.” Now part of what got me thinking about this is that I recently decided to start watching Bly Manor. Because fuck it we haven’t yet. And specifically part of why is I remember seeing an analysis of it done by Rowan Ellis which had this bit where like the argument that “Bly Manor proves you can do queer stories without homophobia being a part of it!” is brought up and like...Ellis is like “Ok but we very much do just lock a queer woman in a literal closet while she screams to be let out”. And lo and behold in the first episode we very much do just lock a queer woman in a literal closet while she screams to be let out. In an episode showing that she’s like just unable to go back home for...some reason. And that she has some sort of difficulty with her relationship with her mother. No, the show is not having the character literally go “Wow I sure am in the closet and I kind of fucking hate that woe is me I am so gay”. But figuratively? It’s all over the place in that first episode. I’m not sure about the others because I haven’t watched them, but it is there in the very first one. And that’s something horror does very well. It takes things that are scary and uncomfortable and bundles them up in shades of metaphor. It hides them from  you by showing you the thing cleverly disguised. Maybe you do not notice it the first time through perhaps. Maybe you felt that a certain thing like the closet scene resonated very hard with you and you’re not sure why. But you perhaps don’t consciously go “Aha! It is the horror of being closeted!” Upon looking back on it or back through it though you might notice it. And be like “Oh that was there. Holy fuck.” Now maybe you’re also someone who isn’t like. Comfortable. With straightforward depictions of specifically queer suffering. Maybe it’s just too scary. But with this show hiding it in a metaphor you got to sit through that. You got to be brave enough to sit through a very, very scary thing. And afterwords you go to think about it. This is the power of metaphor and it’s something horror has been very, very good at doing for ages. Maybe racism or homophobia or whatever else is too nerve wracking for you to look at face on in media, but maybe you can watch a movie or a show where the horror of those things are very much there but cloaked in metaphor. And so maybe we are getting that with Gideon and Harrow’s weird issues around how “taboo” their feelings are. Two people who are just unwilling to believe that it might be that thing, in part because that thing is “taboo”. Except instead of the taboo being literally “They’re lesbians, Harold,” it’s instead cloaked in a comforting metaphor of necro/cav relationships and some dude who is really fucking offended at people’s space ao3 fanfictions about his historical favs. Which is important because every fucking scrap of anything one gets is an argument. It can’t just be that they’re in love. It’s that you must PROVE it and some asshole with a degree or just a bone to pick is going to come by and be like “WHY CAN’T THEY JUST BE A NECRO AND A CAV” about it all. And like I’m someone who’s known they’re into other women for a long while now. At least half my life. We have conquered that hurdle. But we haven’t entirely unpacked all the weird little societal bullshit that is still in there. Hiding. Lurking. And that societal bullshit specifically frames that sort of love as something gross and taboo and “Why Can’t They Just Be Friends?”. With that last thing hurting a lot. I’ve constantly run across people going “Why can’t they just be friends?” or going “They just have a sisterly relationship!” about things I shipped. Even when those things involved shit like the characters kissing on screen or mentioning that they’ve been dating in a sequel series. I can’t simply like my ships. I can’t simply see myself in romance. Because my sort of love is so taboo that it is, in itself, a debate. Maybe being shown the thing cleverly disguised as another thing might help me unpack that. At the very least it helps me look at it. When it’s something that hurts a lot to this day.

#the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #spoilers #this is a bit painfully long #but i have FEELINGS about uncomfortable things being hidden in metaphor #and that metaphor being the thing that helps you be brave enough to look at it

[weirwoodking]

who do you think will be on the throne at the end? is there a chance it will be a woman? do you agree with the theory that bran will be king in the north bc he symbolizes winterfell? idk if i see dany on the throne bc i don't feel like she belongs in westeros, i think she would be better off with a throne on the other side of the narrow sea but i really don't know what i'm saying

It’s very hard to make predictions for ADOS, because we don’t have TWOW yet. So much can change about the story and the characters in one book, thematically and narratively. Think of how much the plot was influenced by just that final Bran chapter in ADWD. 

But, here I go anyway.

My short answer is: no one. (And no, I don’t mean Arya)

Let’s get into it.

Part 1: How the Show Tainted Everyone’s Brains

Obviously, a lot of people care about the Iron Throne plot. Sometimes too much. I do believe that this is mostly because of how much the HBO show changed everything about the story to make the Iron Throne seem like it was more important than anything else. Like promotional posters of all the actors each sitting on the throne, the name of the series itself being changed to “Game of Thrones”, actors getting asked in every interview “who do you think should get the Iron Throne?” as if it’s the last cupcake at a birthday party that everyone’s fighting over, the final episode was titled “The Iron Throne”. The marketing for everything was “it’s the fight for the Throne!” up through the eighth season. It made the object itself become a huge pop culture symbol.

It almost felt like the show was trying to make it seem like the goal of the Night King (a character not in the books) was to sit on the Iron Throne! The show portrayed it as if the Others were just a little distraction that needed to be dealt with so the characters could get back to arguing over the Porcupine Chair. However, in ASOIAF, it’s the exact opposite. The Porcupine Chair is what’s distracting the characters from the real conflict, the Others.

It’s almost comical how that has somewhat transferred over into the fandom, the “game of thrones” is what’s keeping everyone from focusing on what really matters, the “song of ice and fire”.

Part 2: GRRM’s Quote

It wasn't easy for me. I didn't want to give away my books. Every character has a different end. I told them who would be on the Iron Throne, and I told them some big twists like Hodor and "hold the door", and Stannis' decision to burn his daughter. We didn't get to everybody by any means.

-George R.R. Martin

So, he “told them who would be on the Iron Throne”. Something important about this quote is that he doesn’t say who. And, of course, the Iron Throne gets destroyed at the end of the show anyway. Show!Bran doesn’t really “end up on the Iron Throne”. Show!Dany does. George never said that who “ends up” on it in the books is who ends up on it in the show. He’s said that the Shireen thing and the Hodor thing will “happen very differently” in the books anyway. And, of course, another major part of that quote is “every character has a different end”.

I don’t think that who sits the Iron Throne last is necessarily going to be the ruler of Westeros at the end. For example, Cersei (or Aegon) may be the last person to sit the Iron Throne. Or even Euron (however, even though his goal is to rule post-apocalyptic Westeros as a god from the Iron Throne, I don’t think he’ll actually get there). If wildfire is hot enough to melt iron, I could see the throne being destroyed during whatever fiery shenanigans go down with Cersei and JonCon in TWOW. I think it would be fitting for the fight over the throne to end in the next book. ‘Cause the winds of winter are coming, baby, and it’s gonna be time to start dreaming of spring.

Part 3: The Weirwood King

The idea/theory of Bran becoming King has been around for a long time, long before the HBO show even started airing. This is because of the Celtic myth of King Brân the Blessed, whose name means “Blessed Crow” or “Blessed Raven” in Welsh. Other than the obvious connection with the name, Brân the Blessed’s story involves a magic cauldron that can bring the dead back to life. 

In the myth, Brân’s head is cut off and continues talking (think of how Bran’s most powerful aspect is the magical powers of his mind), because in Celtic mythology the head is believed to be where the soul is.

Celts had a reputation as head hunters. According to Paul Jacobsthal, "Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the otherworld." (source)

Catch that? “Otherworld”. There is another myth (Irish, specifically) called the Voyage of Bran, in which the title character goes on a quest to the Otherworld. The Otherworld is a supernatural realm in Celtic mythology. It is also where the sidhe (a.k.a. aos sí) live. Remember, the sidhe are what George has said the Others are inspired by. In Irish mythology, the Otherworld is called Tír na nÓg, Mag Mell and Emain Ablach, in Welsh mythology it’s called Annwn, and in Arthurian legend it’s called Avalon. Fun fact, “Avalon” was the title of the novel George was writing when he had suddenly had the idea of a scene in which a young boy and his brothers see a beheading and then find a litter of direwolf pups in the snow. And so ASOIAF happened.

I’ll leave that there, and try not to go down the great big rabbit-hole of Celtic (and other cultures) mythology connections in ASOIAF. The takeaway is: ASOIAF has been influenced by these myths.

I do believe that Bran is going to be King. Not just because of his ties to this mythology, but also because of symbolism in his own story. The most notable one being…

Under the hill, the broken boy sat upon a weirwood throne, listening to whispers in the dark as ravens walked up and down his arms.

[...]

The singers made Bran a throne of his own, like the one Lord Brynden sat, white weirwood flecked with red, dead branches woven through living roots. 

[...]

His father and the black pool and the godswood faded and were gone and he was back in the cavern, the pale thick roots of his weirwood throne cradling his limbs as a mother does a child. 

- Bran III, A Dance with Dragons

Bran is also the only one of the Stark kids who still thinks of himself as royalty:

What was he now? Only Bran the broken boy, Brandon of House Stark, prince of a lost kingdom, lord of a burned castle, heir to ruins.

- Bran III, A Dance with Dragons

Bran is the heir to Winterfell. It doesn’t matter if Robb named Jon his heir in his will, the will was written under the pretense that Bran and Rickon were dead.

However, Bran doesn’t have any connection to the Iron Throne. It’s far more likely that he would sit on a weirwood throne, because of, y’know, everything about his story. So, if Bran was King of the Seven Kingdoms, I don’t think it would be on the Pincushion Stool.

If Bran is king of the realm, I do think there would still be a separate Lord/Lady of Winterfell, but I do think that there’s a possibility of a Pevensie siblings ending, where all the Stark kids would rule together as the Lords and Ladies and Winterfell.

Something that I’ve never really seen talked about regarding the idea of Bran becoming King of the Seven Kingdoms is the religious differences between the North and the southern regions of Westeros. Of course, the show didn’t deal with this at all. For fuck’s sake, they had Cersei blow up the Westerosi verison of the Vatican and face no backlash. It was so laughably absurd how Show!Cersei’s destructive reign was shown to have like… zero impact on the Seven Kingdoms. 

In short, I’m not too sure that the Kingdom who is majority Faith of the Seven worshippers would react too well to a weirwood-tree-Old-Gods-warg-wizard-king. I mean, when Janos Slynt finds out Jon is a warg he calls him a “thing”, a “creature”, and a “beastling that is not fit to live”, and wanted to execute him not just for being a turncloak but for being a warg as well. And Jojen warns Bran of these things, saying that his own folk may want to kill him if they know what he is.

But… all of that anti-magic attitude might not matter after night falls. 

Part 4: Winter is Coming

I believe that the Long Night is going to be very devastating for the Seven Kingdoms.

Martin is a big believer in making things have meaningful, permanent consequences in his stories. I don’t think that an apocalyptic event like the Long Night is something that’s just gonna get dealt with in a quick snap and have no lasting effect.

A lot of people are going to die. I don’t mean main characters, I mean people that would not survive a normal winter and sure as hell won’t be prepared for this one. Westeros’s food stores have been severely depleted by the War of the Five Kings, and we’ve been told multiple times in the text (particularly AFFC and ADWD) that feeding people during this winter is going to be extremely hard.

Besides that… the whole, uh, invasion of the eldritch ice beings thing might have a bit of an impact on the realm. 

I won’t go into depth about how the Seven Kingdoms will be affected by the Long Night, ‘cause we really have no idea. But, however it all goes down, I do think it will have lasting changes for the people of Westeros. The impact that it leaves may make the concept of Bran being a wizard-king more acceptable. “Oh, well we’ve just seen zombies and winter elves, so what’s too surprising about a magical greenseer warg king?” I think that Westerosi culture becoming more aware and accepting of the existence of magic is the only way that Bran could become the king of the whole realm. The Westeros at the end of the series is not going to be the place that it was at the beginning.

Part 5: Dany: A Home, Not a Throne

To sum up my thoughts on our dragon girl, I don’t think Dany will end up on the Spiky Toilet. I don’t want Dany to be on the Spiky Toilet.

Now, my personal speculation (which a lot of people disagree with, which is fine) is that Dany will never see King’s Landing before the Long Night. I personally don’t think that Dany will ever meet Aegon or Cersei. I don’t see there being enough time in the story for that. Yes, GRRM said that there will be a second Dance of the Dragons, but he also said that the second Dance does not have to involve Dany. He may have originally planned for it to be Aegon and Dany, but probably not once the Meereenese Knot happened.

The Meereenese Knot is what Dany’s ADWD plot is referred to as. GRRM did not intend for Dany to stay in Meereen as long as she has, but because of his “gardener” style of writing, that’s where the story led him. GRRM has said that one of the hardest parts of writing the Meereen plotline (which involves Dany, Barristan, Quentyn, Tyrion, and Victarion) is trying to find a way to cut the plot knot he accidentally got himself stuck in. He has said that Tyrion and Dany will meet towards the end of TWOW, which means that Dany will most likely be spending a large portion of her story with the Dothraki. That part is a completely blank page, but I believe that Dany will meet Tyrion possibly ¾ of the way into the book, and sail for Westeros at the end.

I won’t write a full meta about this here (because that’s not what this post is about), but to summarize my prediction: Aegon VS Cersei is going to be the battle in King’s Landing, a battle which will destroy the city. Dany (who has already rejected sailing for the Throne multiple times) will still be stuck in Essos, dealing with everything she’s still got going on, and will sail for Westeros at the end. Not for the Throne, but to go North for the real fight (remember that Marwyn is also on his way to Meereen to tell Dany that they need her).

Because Dany's purpose is not to fight for the Iron Throne, it’s to fight the Others. Dany (fire, light, and life) VS the Others (ice, darkness, and death) is the main thing the title refers to:

“Well of course the two outlying ones, the things that are going on north of the Wall and Daenerys Targaryen on the other continent with her dragons are of course the Ice and Fire of the title, the Song of Ice and Fire.” 

- George R.R. Martin, 2016

One of the most important excerpts that shows us where Dany’s story is headed is this:

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.

- Daenerys III, A Storm a Swords

Dany has a short prophetic “this is what I was meant to do” dream. Dany could possibly have more dreams about the Others in TWOW, visions that will make what Marwyn has to tell her more believable. It’s not like that dream was the only one Dany has had that alludes to the winter threat, Dany has had visions about this since book one:

The red door was so far ahead of her, and she could feel the icy breath behind, sweeping up on her. If it caught her she would die a death that was more than death, howling forever alone in the darkness. She began to run.

- Dany IX, A Game of Thrones

Anyway, there’s just a lot more foreshadowing in the plot that this is what Dany is meant to do. I think adding in another conflict into her story once she leaves Meereen would make the story feel bloated and would severely fuck up the pacing.

I don’t think Dany will ever see the Iron Throne. The themes of her story have never been about her wanting the Iron Throne for what it is, but for what it represents to her. It represents the possibility of a home and of feeling safe for the first time in her life, what Dany truly wants. I think that it’s absolutely fine if Dany never sees the Throne or sits on it, and that it makes more sense for her narrative arc if she discovers that she can find a home somewhere else, not necessarily where she thought it would be. 

Part 6: Final Thoughts

So, in conclusion, I don’t really give a shit who ends up placing their ass on the Forbidden Laz-E-Boy, I care about the War for the Dawn. I care about seeing the characters I’ve followed for the past five books coming together to fight the real conflict of A Song of Ice and Fire. Also, even if we do get a Scouring of the Shire-type post-climax for ASOIAF, it doesn’t matter. People don’t see the Scouring of the Shire as the climax of Lord of the Rings, they see the climax as Aragorn leading the forces of good against the forces of evil and Frodo and Sam throwing the One Ring into Mount Doom. Whatever ending resolution comes after the climax of ASOIAF, it doesn’t change what the climax is.

"Do you think your brother's war is more important than ours?" the old man barked.

Jon chewed his lip. The raven flapped its wings at him. "War, war, war, war," it sang.

"It's not," Mormont told him. "Gods save us, boy, you're not blind and you're not stupid. When dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who sits the Iron Throne?"

"No." Jon had not thought of it that way.

- Jon IX, A Game of Thrones

TL;DR:

My prediction: Cersei will be the last person to sit the Iron Throne, which will be destroyed in the Wildfire of King’s Landing. After the Long Night devastates the Seven Kingdoms, Bran will become the King of this new Westeros that has been majorly affected by the return of magic. Also, it would be real nice if Dany found her red door.

God I hope my rambling made sense

#sorry that this took me over a week to answer #ask #anon #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #long post

[thevioletjones]

31, because I can’t see it fitting Ian/Mickey easily and know you’re a good enough writer to prove me wrong ☺️

Thanks! I tried. 🙂

Prompt 6: “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.”

Ian’s Box of Crap

Being currently unemployed, Mickey didn’t have much of a leg to stand on when attempting to deflect Ian’s demands that he get chores and household tasks done while his husband was out earning an honest paycheck. He wasn’t even allowed to shake people down anymore, let alone pull robberies, or get back into the drug trade. Ian had made it clear that divorce wasn't off the table if Mickey deliberately did something stupid that got him thrown back in prison for a long stretch.

He didn’t much like being told what to do, but what he liked even less was not having Ian in his life. He’d had to go too many years without him in the past, and nothing good ever came during those times. Unfortunately, Ian Gallagher was it for Mickey Milkovich. That meant that he actually had to stay in line and put in the work if he didn’t want to lose him again. Ian wasn’t as soft as he used to be. Never really had been at his core, but the maturity of age had cemented his backbone rather rigidly, and Mickey was actually loathe to piss him off too badly these days.

So he did the bullshit grunt work requested of him, just to keep the peace. He was tired of fighting every day of his life, and what was the point of marrying Ian if they weren’t going to try and make each other happy?

In the past couple weeks, Mickey had done everything from laundry and dishes, to vacuuming and mopping. He’d patched up a couple of big holes in the wall that Frank had made, and fixed the loose parts of the wooden outdoor steps and banisters, both front and back. He’d even gone so far as to babysit the tiny, helpless Gallagher spawn a few times, which had been interesting and somewhat terrifying. Then Ian had given him this look when he caught the scene one afternoon, eyes shining, smile beaming. It reminded him of that brief time they’d helped take care of Yevgeny, which made Mickey’s head spin. He didn’t need Gallagher getting the whole ‘having kids’ thing back in his head right now. Mickey was in no way ready for all that. Hadn’t been the first time, and they’d all seen how that turned out.

Today, he was supposed to clean out the attic. He told Ian that asking someone outside the family to do it sounded like a bad idea. How was he supposed to know what shit the Gallaghers wanted to keep, and what they wanted to get rid of? What if he made a mistake? If anyone had asked him what to keep from the hoarded piles of shit in the Milkovich house, he would’ve laughed in their face, then set everything on fire. Mickey wasn’t the sentimental type. So did Ian want him to just toss everything?

Ian had rolled his eyes, clarified that Mickey was a Gallagher now, and given him a run-down. Anything that had obviously been made or cherished by a Gallagher kid, any family photos and albums, or small boxes of keepsakes, those stayed. Anything that wasn’t being used by anyone, but could be of use and handed down to the youngest or recently shacked up of them, set them aside to be put in rotation. Anything that worked, but they already had one of or didn’t need, donation box (because apparently they actually sometimes donated shit to the local shelter). And anything that looked completely unnecessary for anyone, throw it in a Best Choice trash bag, but don't take them to the curb yet. Ian would go over everything when he got home to make sure it was sorted correctly.

“So you’re gettin' me to do all this boring-ass grunt work, then you’re gonna have to go through it anyway? What the fuck, man?” he’d asked.

“It'll make the whole thing way easier on me, so can you just shut the fuck up and do me the favor? I’ll blow you later for your trouble.”

“Like you wouldn’t be doin’ that anyway.”

Ian had shrugged. “If you don’t, I won’t.”

“Threatening to withhold sex? That’s a bitch move if I ever heard one.”

“Whatever, deadbeat. You want me to support you, gotta help out when I ask. A blowjob would just be a bonus, because I’m generous of spirit.”

“I’m not gonna forget this hardcore manipulation, Firecrotch. I’ll get my revenge eventually.”

Ian merely kissed him on the nose. “Sounds like a plan. See ya.”

And he was out the door.

“Asshole,” Mickey’d muttered under his breath.

And now, a few hours later, here he was; sitting on the dusty, hard planks of the weird-smelling Gallagher attic, sorting through the memories and forgotten things of the family he’d married into less than six months ago. He’d dawdled as long as he could on the couch, eating junk food and watching his favorite daytime game shows, judge shows, and salacious ‘who’s the baby daddy?’ shows. The only hint of fun left in the remainder of his day was in the bong and the beer he’d brought with him up the rickety ladder. After every box sorted, he’d take a rip or two and chase the smoke with a long swig of cheap alcohol.

The most interesting things he’d found so far were some old pictures of Ian when he was little, his hair a curly mess, and his pale skin covered in dark freckles. His smile was too big for his face, and he looked goofy as all hell. Nothing like the hot hunk of man he was today. It was the Ian Mickey remembered from Little League a million years ago. And maybe he’d set one of the photos aside to keep for himself and taken some pics of others with his phone, so what?

Mostly he’d had to sift through little Debbie’s ridiculous girly shit, and Frank’s completely random assortment of insignificant trinkets with a side of what looked like bondage gear. He’d since moved on to a group of boxes obviously labeled by Carl when he was younger. He recognized the scrawl, occasional backwards lettering, and lack of possessive apostrophes. The words were short enough not to be atrociously misspelled, and consisted of a Gallagher first name in plural, followed by: ‘box of crap.’

Everybody had one, including Fiona, who hadn’t taken it with her when she’d left Chicago, and the kids she’d raised as her own, behind. The most scandalous item in there was a dildo of decent size that Mickey definitely would’ve packed in his suitcase if he’d been the one moving away as a single chick. The thought crossed his mind to pilfer it for his own collection, but he figured that Ian would be weirded out by the association. Sex toys were probably the only thing Gallaghers never shared between them.

Carl had a box of his own, semi-well-hidden compared to the others, and Mickey discovered why when he’d managed to get the copious amount of packing tape off. It was full of straight porn mags with big-tittied women and shaved pussies, underneath an array of dangerous weapons the family had forbidden him to have when he was underaged. He found everything from nunchucks, to throwing stars, to switchblades, to brass knuckles. No guns or attempted homemade bombs, thank fuck. He chucked the porn in the trash pile, cuz nobody needed to see that shit, and set the switchblade aside for himself, deciding to give the rest to Ian to sort out.

He saved Ian’s box for last, opening it up to find a grab bag of old army decorations, tattered paperbacks, comics, a bunch of loose paper covered in scribbles, and a stack of notebooks.

Mickey didn’t realize Ian was such a huge nerd that he’d kept his high school notebooks, but giving a quick flip through the first two revealed they weren’t school-related at all. He remembered Ian going through a phase when he was always writing shit down, ranting about having great ideas he needed to save for posterity. Before he went to the hospital. A manic phase. Probably one of many he’d cycled through, yet Mickey had missed some of those extremes.

Everything had been so chaotic then. He’d pushed Ian away, then gotten the same treatment in return. Their typical messiness pervaded everything back then. And now, he had in his hands Ian’s unfiltered thoughts about what happened back then.

“Fuck,” he said to himself, setting the notebooks down and going for the beer/weed combo again.

There were exactly two ways to go about this: he could put the notebooks back into the Ian box and not invade his privacy, or he could skim through them and hone in on the interesting relevant bits and maybe get a few long-pondered answers. On the one hand, Ian would probably get pissed if Mickey read them. On the other hand, Ian never had to know about it, did he?

It really wasn’t much of a choice… he’d always been curious as to what the hell was going through Ian’s head back in the day. They’d never exactly been great at talking things out, and he didn’t have it in him to try and make Ian relive some of the lowest moments of his life just to give Mickey some peace of mind. Plus, they were always facing some new bullshit obstacle head-on, so the past always just kind of got lost in the shuffle of their present difficulties.

Mickey took a deep breath and opened one of the notebooks again. The pages weren’t dated, and a lot of it didn’t make much sense. There were many lists with lines crossed out, but they didn’t describe things ‘to do,’ more like an endless inventory of concepts and feelings. The thought patterns were totally abstract, and Mickey couldn’t really make heads or tails of them. It hit him sharply in the chest when he realized that when Ian had been out of it, he’d really and truly been fucking out of it. These seemed like the crazed rantings of an unmedicated schizophrenic babbling on public transportation. It pained Mickey to the core, and it scared the shit out of him too.

He flipped through it fairly quickly, then opened the next one. It seemed to be calmer, more legible, and less unintelligible. It was more like a diary with bad poetry sprinkled in, and it only took a few pages for Mickey’s own name to jump out at him among the wall of words. It must have been written during Ian’s lost months, after going AWOL from the Army when he was 17.

He described running away from Chicago, scamming his early enlistment, crashing and burning his way out of bootcamp, shaking and selling his ass as a club boy, snorting, smoking, and swallowing all manner of substances, and crashing anywhere from penthouses to flophouses with sexual favors sprinkled in liberally. It was like the chronicle of a person going mad and coping in all the wrong ways. It surprised Mickey how emotional it made him to read these things in vivid detail. He’d completely forgotten how worried he used to be about Ian. When he was gone, when he went missing again, and when he started doing irrational things that could’ve ended so much worse than they did.

Ian was the one that had to live out all the drama and trauma of his disorder, but Mickey was the one caught on the sidelines, not having a single clue what to do or how to fix it. He’d never felt so useless or helpless in his entire life, even through all the bullshit he’d suffered growing up with Terry as a father. Maybe it was because of his age, or how Ian made him feel a certain way he’d never felt before. He just remembered hating it, and being so fucking sad.

These pages reminded him that through the mania, Ian was a bottomless well of sadness himself.

It was tough text to get through, and more than once, he felt like maybe he shouldn’t be reading it at all. Ian had never intended for other people to see his innermost thoughts, even Mickey. But it was impossible to stop now that he’d opened that floodgate. It was like reliving a part of their shared history through the eyes of his partner in crime. It was too fascinating.

After countless pages of dark tales from the void, Mickey came upon a page that was actually addressed to him. Surely, Ian had never intended to hand it over, but it was his nonetheless.

Mickey— I never had the balls to tell you this, But you’re the only boy I’ve ever loved. I thought you loved me too, But now I’m not so sure. I’m so confused and I go back and forth, Never really knowing what to actually think, Or what the truth is. All I really realize now is that I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you. It took you forever to let me, And now I just do it with anyone, Cuz I don’t fucking care. I just miss you, And I wish you were here. But also, I don’t, Cuz I don’t want you to see me like this. I’m having a great time on my own adventure, But also not. You shouldn’t be a part of it right now. You’re on your own strange journey, I guess. Maybe one day we’ll be on the same road together again, And also for the first time, since we never really were.

Mickey barely had enough time to sniff and wipe away the stray tear that had fallen, when his husband’s voice startled him out of his reverie.

“You’re still up here?”

“Jesus Christ!” he cried out with a visible jolt of his body.

His head snapped toward the attic hatch, where Ian’s dumb red head was surveying the musty space. Mickey let the notebook fall from his grasp, but Ian was already climbing the rest of the way in before it occurred to him that he was about to be caught red-handed with journals that were supposed to be deeply private. He could only flip it closed and grab his beer to polish it off, before Ian was crouching in front of him and taking a seat.

“Can’t believe you actually did this for me, to be honest,” Ian said with a chuckle, glancing at the bong. “Anything left?”

“Baggie’s right there,” Mickey replied nodding his head to the left.

“Nice.”

Ian got distracted with loading a bowl, so Mickey very subtly tried to nudge Ian's notebooks aside with his foot, like maybe if they were slightly farther away, he could claim complete innocence as to knowing what they were.

He watched Ian take a couple hits before passing it to him, and Mickey welcomed the opportunity to temper his suddenly sullen mood.

“How was work?” he asked between hits, before passing back to Ian.

Ian snickered and furrowed his brow. “You never ask me about work.”

Mickey shrugged. “Don’t mean I don’t care.”

“Uh huh.” Ian looked even more skeptical, and finally glanced around at what Mickey had in his vicinity. That sent his brow up high, in a decent imitation of Mickey’s usual expressiveness. “Oh. That my box?”

Mickey gulped and nodded. “Yeah. Just sorting it out. Should’ve just left the whole thing for ya. Sorry.”

Ian’s gaze snapped to his face. “You read stuff.”

It was a statement rather than a question.

“Just a little,” Mickey admitted. “I shouldn’t have. Fuck, I’m an asshole.”

But Ian only shook his head. “Nah, it’s okay.”

“You don’t have to say that. I’d be pissed.”

“I’m not. I promise.”

“Really? You’re not mad?”

Ian shook his head again. “No. Actually, I’m kinda relieved.”

“How the fuck so?”

“It's all stuff I wanted you to know. I mean, part of me used to be really ashamed, maybe still is, but… another part of me always just wanted to be totally honest with you. In a way I haven’t ever been with anyone. Even Lip. But I didn’t have the words to say it, you know? And I know a lot of it is just scary rambling. I don’t even understand what some of it means, but the stuff that’s real… the lucid stuff… it’s depressing as fuck, but it’s the truth. We didn’t always tell each other the truth, but we showed each other. And this was something I couldn’t really show you. So maybe you were meant to find these. Do my dirty work for me.”

“Damn, Gallagher, that’s kinda heavy. These were… kinda heavy. Made me feel shit I’d forgotten about, you know?”

Ian nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t read ‘em in years, but I remember. It’s why I wanted to put ‘em away, I guess. Plus, I didn’t want someone else snooping around and finding out too much. I mean, you never know in this house. It’s possible every fucking Gallagher already read them, but I hope not.”

“Ian…” Mickey started, but didn’t know exactly what he wanted to say. Words of reassurance? It was all in the past, and Ian was doing so well now. He was diligent about his medication, and he hadn’t spun out of control since before prison. Anything Mickey said now would just be cold comfort, since that notebook version of Ian barely existed anymore. Ian was always afraid that it would recur, but Mickey wasn’t. They were truly in it together now, and he’d never let Ian cross the threshold into the uncontrollable. “I wish I coulda been what you needed me to be back then. However impossible it was. Some of it was my fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t even my fault, really. It was some shitty shit that happened to me. I reacted the only way I thought I could. There’s no use in either of us wishing we’d done things differently now. At least we got the right outcome, right? We’re together.” He clasped their left hands so that their wedding rings touched. “Forever.”

Mickey couldn’t help but snort. “Okay, you didn’t have to get that gay about it. I already had to suffer through a buncha your faggy teen poetry. I deserve a break from the high drama of it all.”

Ian laughed, kissed his hand, dropped it, then smacked him on the cheek. “Fuck you.”

“Just say when,” Mickey responded with a smile.

“After we go through all this shit, Romeo. Explain the piles.”

“Well,” said Mickey, pointing to the nearby corner, “Carl has a shitload of contraband in there. Weapons, not drugs. Frank has some shit that might be S&M gear, not sure, then aside from your lunatic journal ramblings, everything else is boring as shit. Oh, and Fiona left a big blue dildo.”

#ian x mickey #fanfic #gallavich #fanfiction #asks #answers

[mirrorforevers]

the wrong side of the bed • damon albarn/reader

smut with feelings, i guess. sorry if is this is too long – this prompt excited me too much. i hope you guys like daft punk - though this is not a songfic, but you’ll get why - and i promise i’ll write something not involving sadness and alcohol someday. this is unbeta’ed, and english is not my first language, so have mercy

thank you so much for the music teacher prompt, anon! hope you enjoy it x also, just in case you haven’t read my graham/reader fic yet, here it is too.

tw: unprotected drunk sex

word count: 4.477

Music has been a very important escape mechanism for you recently. Your job has been hellish, and getting your degree has also been a chore - in the midst of so many deadlines and professional disappointments what has been a light for you is Damon Albarn, your newly divorced music teacher who is old enough to be your dad.

You detail these little “buts” as a mantra whenever the subject is him, whether in internal monologues or when you talk about him with your close friends. You never really believed in relationships between two people of very different ages, and you felt like you needed to remember those details whenever you could to keep that completely carefree crush from becoming something you couldn't control.

You started taking classes with him every Saturday after you were cast on your city’s production of a musical. You knew it was a very small step for a career in the industry, but it was very significant for you. You were exhausted from any activity that involved learning given how tired you were from college, but learning music with Damon was definitely something that you didn't even place in the same mental category. It was with him that you vented about how your week was, how you missed your parents who lived absurdly far away from you, it was with him that you shared the small victories of the day-to-day that were too insignificant even to share with your longtime friends. Which is funny, since this symbolic relationship was built in a matter of 2 months. Damon, in the beginning, was very reserved and “gray”, and it was amazing how in a matter of such a short time he shown himself to be someone so energetic, observant and empathetic; although a little bit of a control freak sometimes. When the wild waves of life seemed to take you everywhere at the same time and left you lost, despite so little time in your life, Damon became a constant.

And it worries you.

What are you going to do when the money to pay for his classes runs out? Certainly, although significant, what you had seemed to be was, above all, a friendship of convenience. You were very different people, with very different aspirations, and especially at very different points in life. As much as you liked each other *as friends* and considered yourselves people you wanted close by, Damon had a well-lived life to sustain. He would not have time much less willpower to listen to your complaints and insecurities in a context that did not involve an exchange relationship. At least, that's what you thought.

Saturday was also one of the two days you could wake up late, so in addition to having a rare time for your leisure, you were able to rest at least a little more than normal. That particular morning, you noticed that there were two missed calls from Maggie on your cell phone. Maggie was one of the producers of the musical. She used to bring you very decisive and very good news. If she called you, you did whatever it took to answer her right away. An unbelievable wave of anxiety takes over you. “Hello, Mags, you called?” You say, excited, but very nervous. Dealing with people who have your dreams constantly in their hands is somewhat stressful. You bite your nails.

“Hey, Y/N, yes. Um. You okay?”

“Yeah, thanks for asking. What happened?” You notice that Maggie's tone is different. The funny thing is that everyone is always so apathetic in the artistic world, and Maggie was the only person you knew so far that showed any kind emotion.

“So… you were dropped.”

Ah.

“I’m-I’m sorry?”

“You… were dropped. We made some changes here and there and you won’t be on our show anymore. If anything changes again, we’ll call. I promise.”

“Thank you. Bye.”

“Good luck, kid.”

Um.

Your stomach drops, and for a moment you feel like you've been punched. Maybe you've been wrong all along.

My God. My God. My God.

You feel like your entire world has collapsed around you. There aren't even reasons for you to keep going to class. All that effort and money spent... are now in the trash.

Artists spend a lot of time investing in themselves. You always have to become better. Faster. Learn techniques. Reinvent yourself. Stay beautiful. And you don't believe that in your first real experience in this world... that happened. Most likely a friend of the director took your place.

My God.

You swallow the tears, after all, you told everyone you knew that you knew how this world worked and you wouldn't be shaken if something like this happened. No one is watching you right now - but you still feel that you would disappoint them if you cried.

But you couldn’t smile anymore. Nothing could take away your expression of shock and uncertainty.

Not even funny posts on Reddit. Not even funny memes sent by your friends in the morning.

Nor the message from Damon confirming the class of the day.

I won't be able to go today ☹, you type, and you erase it.

Hey, I got dropped from the musical. you type, and you erase it.

How are you doing? Definitely not.

I’ll be there! 😅 You hit send.

Hope we finally figure out that bloody solo, he replies.

You do not answer.

You change your clothes, without your motivational playlist playing in the background this time. The beginning of a great plan going on in your life was no longer there. You didn't even pick up your headphones and the subway ride was completely silent, except for the ambient sound.

You arrive at school, and Damon welcomes you with the usual tight hug, and wide smile. You give a yellow smile in response, and he immediately realizes that something is out of place. “Is everything okay?” His expression quickly changes to one of concern. Your stomach drops even lower. Maybe it hit the ground by now.

“I…”

You don't want it to end. Your dream ended, but not this, too. This cannot end. “Can we try another song today? One not from the musical?” You ask, exasperated.

“Uh… I mean-”

“Please?”

"Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today?" He laughs nervously. “But... the musical’s why you’re here. I’m confused--”

“I know, but pretty please?” You insist, cringing by now to keep from crying.

“Um. Sure – but did something happen? Tell me. I’m-I’m here to help.”

“I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. Please.” You feel your voice weaken more and more. You don’t wanna cry, though your eyes are already burning. “Please, Damon.”

“Right. Okay.” He says, raising his hands in defeat. He starts collecting his material.

“What are you doing?”

“No class today. Something clearly happened and we need to talk it out.”

“I-I got sacked. But there’s no need to…”

“I got it. C’mon. I’m not a monster, I won’t charge you for talking it out. All we’ve worked for… fucking cunts.” There’s the visceral side of him. “You gotta tell me how it happened.”

“Okay.”

He only leaves your two chairs in place.

After you two sit, he starts. “This happens quite a lot in this world. And every student reacts the same.” Though this sounds a little too insensitive, you imagine it’s the truth, and his tone does the job of conveying his compassion. “Did they call you? Or did you find out through somewhere else, like Patti LuPone?”

“Huh. At least they called me. They just straight up told me I’m no longer in the cast.” You say, totally not comforted by that. But it would be even worse if you found out by other means. “I don’t know what to do now.”

“Don’t let your spirit be broken by that – you’re really talented, and I don’t like paying compliments. You know that.”

“Talent is not enough sometimes. That’s also something you’ve said to me before.”

He goes silent, and you start apologizing in the same instant.

“No, no, you didn’t hurt my feelings.” He interrupts you. “That’s true. But you’re really young, I shouldn’t have said that to you. Shit like that happens all the time. We learn a lot from it and you have your entire life ahead of you. That was… limited of me.”

“I know I’m almost getting my degree, and there’s other things for me to do… but fuck. I-- I really wanted that. You know how much.”

“I do. I also know exactly how you’re feeling now. We’re always so excited when this kind of thing happens. We plan our entire lives based on that one fragile and uncertain plan, and then boom, it’s gone. We always count on the fact that we’ll eventually have to decide between our career and something else when the choice comes, but what do we do when it doesn’t come? I know how that feels. Also--”

He grabs his guitar. You roll your eyes. “Don’t tell me you have a song for that.”

“I don’t.” he answers. “But I do have a story to tell you.”

For the next two hours, he tells you all about a very ambitious audiovisual plan that he tried to engage in his early 30s. Among countless questions and answers, Damon Albarn showed you through his history how very determined he really was. He goes into the most minute details about the ideas he had for a film and several concept albums for a virtual band that, in your opinion, sounds like something very innovative and, at the same time, incredibly palatable to the mainstream. You thought that the band he was part of when he was even younger was already very wronged because, from what you heard from the demos, they were really incredible, but the fact that such a project didn't go ahead ... just proved to you more and more that talent sometimes really wasn’t enough. Just when you thought you couldn't admire that man more.

“So, believe me when I say I know how that feels.” Goddamn. He looks at his clock, and almost jumps at how the time flied. “Bloody hell, I have another student in like, 5 minutes.”

“God, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. This is a tale very few people know about. I’m glad I shared it with you.”

“…That had potential. Don’t give up on it.”

“Don’t give up on your plans either. I really mean it when I say you’re talented as fuck.”

You couldn’t help but smile through the dried tears and puffy eyes. You say your rushed goodbyes. But before can you leave the room, he holds your arm. “Wait. I know it’s hard, but don’t spend the rest of the day thinking about it. Do you want to do something tonight?”

“Uhhh—what you have in mind?” You can’t believe your ears.

“I don’t know. Do you drink?”

“More than I should.”

“Perfect. So I know a place we can go. Any preference of hours?”

“After 7 pm, I guess?”

“Works for me. I’ll send you the address soon then.” He says. You stand still, frozen, still processing what just happened. He’s blinking as if he just told you how’s the weather outside. “Now you can go.”

“O-kay. See you in a few hours then, Damon.”

“See you in a few hours, Y/N.”

You tried to hide your excitement, in vain. You smiled like an idiot.

This was one of the scenarios of your daydreams when you were walking around, talking quietly to yourself. Damon Albarn, your newly divorced music teacher who is old enough to be your father, just asked you out. You don't care if it was pity. After such disappointment, you allow yourself to create a little more of that stupid, inconsequential hope that your life would take an exciting turn for the first time.

He sends you the address a few hours after your class/conversation, when you were starting to get ready to meet him. It was a pub that you already knew well, and had visited with some friends in the past. You choose a dress that has become your “uniform” recently, for valuing your body type well and for translating your style in a way that is both stylish and very comfortable. When you finish getting ready, you take a deep breath. There is a world of difference between what you wanted to happen and what you think will happen. But you do not care.

The tragic call you received in the morning barely crosses your mind on your way to the pub.

Upon arriving, you find Damon - always so punctual - sitting in the corner of the lounge fiddling with his cell phone while he takes a few sips of a drink that you have no idea what it is made of. You never took him for a complex drink guy. He is really full of surprises. You feel slightly self-conscious out of a sudden, stomach churning in anticipation. He raises his eyes, and his gaze meets yours. His usual welcoming smile makes all your worries go away. You couldn’t help but smile wide too.

“Hello there. A stark contrast to this morning’s Y/N.” He notes, looking you up and down after you two share a tight hug, that smile still there.

“My plan tonight is to forget everything that happened before we talked, okay? Just let me forget about the call!” You answer, playfully, trying to pretend you weren't in the least ... affected ... by the way he received you.

And the time you spend together goes as usual. It’s amazing how there’s no space for awkward silences between you two. To one thing you tell him, he brings you three more things to tell, and vice-versa. You two just… click. You make each other laugh, and even if things don’t go the way you daydream about, which is totally okay, given that he’s twice your age and you’re not sure if you can handle the implications that age difference has, you’re glad to call him a good friend. He’s amazing, and you’re having a great time with him.

By your fourth beer and his fifth fancy drink, your conversation enters a territory that hasn’t been truly explored by you two yet. His romantic past. You only knew he was divorced because he mentioned it very vaguely one day, nothing else. You didn’t know why, who was her, or when. But apparently, he was about to tell you.

“We were both really… young… and didn’t have a clue of what we were doing with our lives. She was a musician too, Justine. Not anymore.”

“Because of what happened between you two?” You ask, the beers gradually taking the indiscretion filters out of you.

“Maybe. I don’t know. She seemed tired of everything. She wanted a life I’m not sure I would be able to live. I also pressured her a lot, I tried to create a version of her that somehow fitted all my expectations and, long story short, we weren’t right for each other. But I still think she’s incredible. I still admire her a lot. Not sure how she feels about me though.”

“Are you still in love with her?”

“Oh, no. There’s a big difference in admiring someone and being in love with them, kid.”

After that sentence of his, for the first time that night, an uncomfortable silence hangs between you - Instant Crush, by Daft Punk, almost ironically, starts playing on the pub's speakers. You feel like you're in a movie.

You're still a kid, aren't you?

“Definitely.” You finally answer him, finishing 70% of the bottle in a few gulps. You become a bit more lightheaded after that, and your eyes start to struggle to focus. You try to hide how slurred your voice wants to sound. “I confess I still don’t know how to really differentiate between the two.”

“Oh yeah?” His wistful tone gives place to one of amusement. “You never told me about your exes. Feel free to.”

“This is not about them.”

He turns to you, after a one-sided staring competition with his own cup. His voice is calm, and somehow even deeper, when he asks you: “Then who is this about?”

You gulp. The cramped space you were sitting on somehow feels even smaller. And hotter. You feel drops of sweat sliding on your belly. You’re sitting by his side, not in front of him, and that interaction feels almost… primal. You two are trapped by a huge table in a corner very few people can see.

“I think I need to go to the loo.”

He lets you, and you feel his eyes following you to the restroom.

My God. My God. My God.

You take a much longer time to do everything than you really need while reflecting on the dialogue you just had. You feel the ground is starting to spin, and the desire to sleep on literally any place grow. You’re drunk. And confused. And anxious.

You spend some good minutes staring at your own face in the mirror before you return to your table. He’s still in the moment, judging by the contemplative look on his face. This is the point of no return.

This is no movie – this is a fucking RPG.

“It was full,” you justify.

“Yeah, it’s always pretty crowded in there.”

That goddamn awkward silence again. You try to talk at the same time, but he wins.

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Yeah.” You clear your throat. “It’s… about a guy. He’s a…current… thing. Not from the past.”

“Right.” His tone is serious, more teacher-like than he has even acted while actually teaching you.

“I met him through an ad. I was looking for music teachers in my area and I found him. He had a fair price.” He was now smiling in disbelief, shaking his head. You’re both tipsy and you don’t care if your words are slurred anymore.

“And?”

“I have classes with him every Saturday. It’s the event of the bloody week for me. I can’t believe I’m saying that now because at first he seemed quite intimidating and not open to any meaningful interaction. Like, all frowns and monosyllabic answers and all.” You steal his drink, and he’s not even bothered. “We talk a lot, and even though we talk every day I somehow always thought he didn’t give a fuck about me when we were out of class. That he only saw me as a student, not as a friend, you know? I think about that chap every single day too. He’s handsome--like. Fuck. And he pays attention to everything I say. He’s always so nice to me, he makes me feel welcome. A part of… something.” You take a few more sips, and he gently takes the drink out of your hand, mouthing an ‘enough’. “He’s old enough to be my dad and I feel guilty for thinking of him that way. He invited me for drinks when my world fell so I could get my mind out of the shambles my life’s in and I almost died because I’m madly in love with him for a while now, but I don’t want to ruin everything. I don’t know what to do now. People shouldn’t start things thinking of how they’re going to end, but, you know?”

“They should, though. He’s indeed too old for you. And your life isn’t in shambles.”

“But…”

“Everything sounds pretty lovely in theory, but, he’s probably thinking that he’s going to slow you down in a way. You’ve got too much life to live. He’s probably really tired of everything he’s already lived.”

“But I love him. He makes me laugh! I don’t wanna have children.” You whine.

He muffles a laugh. “It’s not that-“

”Please take me home tonight.” You plead; your tone more serious now. “I know what I’m doing, I know where I am. Just please take me home.”

“Y/N…”

“Please, Damon. If you don’t feel the same then fine, call me an Uber and I’ll get over it.”

That triggers something in him, apparently, and he kisses you deeply and intensely. His hands caress your back and the whole kiss, though a little disjointed because of the state you’re both in, is full of affection and love. His lips taste of strawberry vodka, and your mind is spinning.

When your lips part, you stare at each other for a while, thousands upon thousands of thoughts per second, unsaid. “Are you sure you wanna come with me?” He asks, kissing your hand.

“Yes. I am.”

-

After he fumbles with his keys, you’re finally in his apartment – it’s surprisingly nice and tidy. Judging by how carefree he’s with his looks, you imagined that characteristic would overflow to other aspects of his life.

From the Uber drive home to his door, his hand never left yours.

He locks the door, and you stand staring intently at each other, sizing each other up like men before a fight. This time, you start the kiss, with a little less hurry than before. But the desire is still burning hot on both of you.

“Do you have any idea of what you’re doing to me?”, he murmurs, discarding his jacket while he does his best to not break the kiss. You take this as a signal to start taking off your clothes too, starting by kicking off your shoes. It has become a choreography of sorts - his hands grasp your buttocks and pulls you closer after you’re done with them, drawing a gasp from you.

“I wanted you for so long.” You reply, your hands exploring his body below the fine fabric of his shirt. You motion to take it away from him, and he lets you, completely entranced by how red your lips look from everything it went through. He guides you to his sofa, quickly adjusting it so it’s comfortable enough and serves as a bed for both of you.

He lies down first, eagerly waiting for you to stay on top of him. You finally do, and you feel like a goddess from the way he looks at your body. You take off your dress, and now you’re almost fully exposed to him. You have no bra on, and his hands immediately travel to your breasts, fingers running tantalizingly over your nipples to get them stiff and erect before he pinches them between his fingers, smiling at the whimper his actions elicit. You start bucking your hips on the rough fabric of his trousers, and you feel him harden below you. “God, you’re… something else.” he whispers, and you respond with another whimper, biting back a full on moan when your clit hits the perfect spot. You separate your legs a little further so you can feel him better, drawing a groan from him. He takes this a signal to take his jeans off, eyes not leaving your hips.

Now that a distance of an entire layer is shortened between you, the contact is even more intimate, and the bulge of his cock straining against his underwear is driving you mad. You’re aching for him. He brushes against you and your moan is higher than you expected, and you immediately cover your mouth in order not to wake up his neighbors. As he feels the wet heat of you around his painfully hard cock, he takes your hand out of your lips, grip then tightening on your hips as he pushes you down right on to him. Your moan is even louder. “Let them hear.”

“Fuck-Damon-I’m getting so close--” As if you just gave him a command, his hands now grab the flesh of your inner thighs, massaging them further and further up until he reaches the center of your arousal, and the sound you make when he pulls your panties to the side and runs his finger between your folds while still grinding against you is somewhere between a whine and a whimper. “Fuck, you’re so wet,” he says, voice rough from how excruciatingly aroused he is. “Come for me, baby.” Your clit was more exposed now, pressed more tightly against him and you whine in relief when your orgasm finally floods through your body.  

Before you could fully recover, he finally frees himself from his underwear and, with your help, effortlessly aligns himself with your (quite ready) entrance. You bury your head in his neck the moment he enters you in one swift motion and your moans are almost like cries by now - the overstimulation is driving you insane. You take his face on your hands and give him a passionate kiss while he gradually picks up a merciless pace inside of you, the more heated the kiss becomes the more shamelessly you ride his cock. “Shit,” he mutters, massaging your breasts in an almost desperate way. It’s too much - you’re almost becoming one.

You could tell by how frantically he fucked you now that he wasn’t going to last much longer. His thrusts were becoming irregular and you were so close once again. His head falls forward, buried in between your neck and shoulder - his cock twitches inside of you and his movements become staccato, his mouth curving into a beautiful ‘o’ shape as he comes inside of you. His movements stop before you could reach your second one, but the entire situation you were on was so arousing to you that just by touching yourself while still feeling him inside was enough. Not letting you alone in this, one of his hands focus on one of your nipples while the other one is below yours, providing pressure above your clit. And like that, you come undone a second time, head above his shoulders.

For a few minutes, your panting was the only thing that could be heard inside of the apartment.

“Thank you. You were amazing. ’s been quite a long time.” He notes with a tender kiss on your forehead. After a while, and with much reluctance, he slides out of you, and gets up to fetch a warm, wet cloth and carefully clean you both, finally collapsing next to you with a groan.

“It was everything I expected.” You confess, smiling.

“Did you… think about me like that when you…?”

“Of course. But let’s save this talk for another Saturday.”

#damon albarn #graham coxon #alex james #dave rowntree #blur #britpop #fic #prompt #au #smut #damon x reader #damon albarn x reader

[ilguna]

Metanoia - Chapter Five (f.o)

Summary: you will be crowned victor of the 75th hunger games.

Word Count; 4k

Warnings; swearing

NOTES: i give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

It’s really funny how they set a uniform to wear for the private session with the gamemakers. They haven’t really done that before, and you know that because of your years of mentoring. They don’t have a set outfit that they want the tributes to wear. Sure, they have guidelines, but nothing this strict.

It’s a tracksuit jacket that goes up to your throat. You zip it up all the way, squinting at yourself in the mirror, because this wouldn’t have been your first choice for a uniform. You don’t look too terribly bad, it’s just the fact that you’ve never worn something so… hideous.

Despite this all, you pull your hair out of your face again, it’s even messier than it has been the past three days for training. Progressively, you’ve begun to care less about what you look like. You’ve been zeroing in on as many skills as you can gather like a hoarder. You spent the first day just training, and the last two days learning the useful stuff. The shit they don’t teach in the academy.

It was a good couple of days, even if you were forced to make conversation with the hogs of the stations. The good news is that Cecelia is much more tolerable than Woof. Woof is incompetent, the man will die in the bloodbath. He doesn’t move fast, he doesn’t think straight, and he’ll be a target for you.

You weren’t expecting very much out of him in the first place. He goes right onto the list of the other imcompetent competitors. The list has tripled past your expectations. These games are going to be a walk in the park.

Brutus is already waiting in the main room when you get out there. He’s got an orange in his hand, already peeled. He looks up when you enter, and without a word, stands and heads for the door. This afternoon, Neysa and Edmond will be nowhere in sight. You haven’t seen Theo in days, but that’s no matter.

Neysa and Edmond will be consulting with the stylist to make sure that the interview outfits are matching. Amias is already working with whoever is working with Brutus, but it’s for more understanding. Neysa knows what you would like to wear, and Edmond will have an idea for what Brutus would like.

Brutus holds out a single orange slice.

You prick it from his fingers popping it in your mouth. When you bite down, the juice explodes in your mouth. It’s sweet, a little tangy. You don’t pride yourself with oranges, since they’re such a rare thing to come across in District Two. You guys might be rich and a favorite, but it doesn’t mean you get everything that you desire.

The elevator brings you down to the same floor you’ve been for the past three days. The ride is short, the doors open, you guys step out and head towards the room where you’ll be waiting to be called in. This shouldn’t take very long. After everyone gets inside the room, it’s only three people before it’s your turn.

Walking in, there’s only a couple of people here already. A few of which you’ve actually talked to, during your time of rotation in the training room. Cashmere and Gloss already sit by the wall up front, so you allow Brutus to go in first, since you’ll be sitting on the end of the row.

There’s three rows of four to fit all twenty-four of you in here. The way that things are laid out in here kinda make sense, but you wish that they had allowed District Two to be up against the wall. You’d rather be leaning against the cold concrete while your body is beginning to heat up.

You’re not mad, you’re not embarrassed, this is something that doesn’t belong to you again. It could very well be nerves, again. Since it basically feels the exact same as it did last time…

Maybe the jacket is too much, because there is no reason why you should be feeling like it’s ninety degrees because you’re anxious. You unzip it, and then slip out of the jacket. The second that it’s done though, there’s a whistle behind you.

Gloss turns to look to see who it is, but it doesn’t take a genius to know who’s going to keep harassing you. It’s Finnick, and he’s probably just come in here with Mags. You haven’t turned around since you got inside, mainly because you don’t care who comes in or out. You just want the room to be full already so this show can get started.

“Welcome to the gun show.”

“I really can’t wait until I can knock your fucking teeth out.” you roll your eyes, even if he can’t see it.

Finnick laughs, “I’m not that bad.”

“You are that bad.” you say, “I still don’t know what your goal is.”

“I thought we could be friends.”

“You thought wrong, my friends are sitting right here.”

Brutus snickers but doesn’t say anything, you can practically hear him ask, ‘we’re friends?’

If he’s thinking that, then so are Cashmere and Gloss, but they’re clearly smart enough not to say anything about it. At least they have some intuition that’s telling them that you don’t want to be talking to Finnick. And the best way to escape a conversation is to set grounds, even if they are lies.

“Who says you have to stop there?” Finnick asks.

“For fuck’s sake, just leave me alone.”

If Finnick has anything else to say, he gives it up. The silence is instant, and you welcome it in with open arms. Besides from the occasional ‘whoosh’ of the automatic doors, or the whispers of tributes talking to each other, the room is quiet. 

In no time, the room is full of all the tributes, and Gloss is being called in for his evaluation. As the clock ticks, you can feel yourself grow more anxious. It’s like a bottomless pit in your stomach, or as if you’ve been told that you’re being broken up with. It’s more of a grief feeling.

It’s awful, you don’t like it.

You look down at your wrist, reading over the words again. You run your thumb over them as if they’ll wipe off easily. Of course, they don’t budge even in the slightest. The whole idea of soulmates is crazy.

It’s a dumb concept. Who says that you have to end up with them, anyway? There’s plenty of people that you know, that never followed the rules because they didn’t care. There’s also the fact that you never know if that person is actually alive. It’s not like they fade after the person dies. They’re still as brand new as the day you got them.

You always thought that you’d be able to just overcome it, but with your repelling personality, no dice. That’s fine, you don’t like anyone, anyway. You’ll be content enough to live out the rest of your life in District Two, with two kids--Tanith and Zavian. One who won’t leave you alone, and the other won’t bother to visit.

You won’t be alone forever, you have them, and the occasional person who’s ballsy enough to visit you in your big, old, grand house. And if you can find a single animal you could get as a pet, you’d consider having them around, too. Turn your whole house into a zoo, like the old man that used to live next door, back when you weren’t a victor.

His house was overflowing with animals. Dogs, cats, he had two horses, a cow and a mule in his backyard. In his house were the chickens, goats and pigs. His house was covered in hay and smelt like piss and shit because he never cleaned it. He was too old and too stupid to be running something like that. However, you think he got taken down two years after your win. You went to visit your old house for a few things that you’d remembered that you wanted to move in and the house was just… gone. Like a controlled fire had taken it out.

You can’t say that you feel bad for him, he’s the entire reason why the street smelled so bad. In an upper-class neighborhood like yours, you’re surprised the neighbors hadn’t taken him out any earlier. He’s also the reason why you never opened the windows or doors for more than ten minutes… and why you never went in the backyard, either.

Brutus’ name is called. You fist-bump him, “Good luck.”

“Thanks.” he says.

Cashmere passes him on the way in, she gives you a dainty smile, and then continues her walk out of the room. It’s Brutus, and then it’s you.

“Is The (Y/n) Rosecelli nervous?” Finnick asks.

“I’m not.”

“You’re bouncing your leg like you’re trying to get it to fall off.” 

You hadn’t even realized it. You stop immediately, leaning into your hands as you rub your face, “I’m not nervous, someone else is.”

“Someone else?” 

You look over your shoulder at Finnick, “As much as playing stupid looks on you, don’t start now.”

Finnick is quiet, and then he sputters out a laugh, “You have a soulmate?”

“Everyone does. Mine just happens to be emotional, which is a total drag.” you hiss, “I don’t need to be feeling like this right now.”

The urge to bounce your leg again is like an itch, and you can’t help but to give in.

“I heard taking deep breaths are a fantastic way to calm yourself down.”

You ignore Finnick, it’s not your emotion. You’re confident. You’re excited. You’re enthusiastic. You’re calm. You have nothing to be worried about. You’re going to do great.

You can feel it all start to cease.

You’re an amazing fighter. You’re going to get great scores. You know what you want to do. You’re going to win. You’re the best one here.

One deep breath in, slowly letting it out, it’s like the anxiety wasn’t even there in the first place. Your leg stops, you cross them to ensure it, and continue repeating things to yourself. A much needed ego boost to keep your hands from shaking and your mind from collapsing.

Whoever your soulmate is, you’re beginning to hate them. They’re fucking up basically everything. It’s embarrassing, and you’re never embarrassed.

“Wow--”

“Zip it.” you snap, eyes focused on the door.

“District Two, (Y/n) Rosecelli. Report for individual assessment.” the voice over the intercom says.

You uncross your legs, throwing your jacket over your arm as you stand. You move out of the aisle and head towards the door. On the way in, you see Brutus with a grin on his face.

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.” you say.

You pull the jacket on now, zipping it up to your throat, because the room is air conditioned. With no one being in here, it makes the room colder. There’s no body heat to be worrying about. Even with the jacket on, you can still feel the cold air through it. 

You stand in front of the gamemakers, looking up at them. Plutarch Heavensbee--the new head gamemaker after the last one was killed. Word travels between mentors and victors like disease. Obviously it had to do something with the berries that Katniss and tried to eat. The fact that they were inside the arena in the first place was heinous enough. But to use it against the gamemakers, and Crane allowing it to happen…

“You have ten minutes to present your chosen skill.” Plutarch says.

You give a quick nod, wandering over to the nearest hologram station. You got to play around with it on the first day, and realized that going up to the hardest mode wasn’t even hard. It was medium. You broke a sweat after doing it for the third time in a row, and the gamemakers have definitely seen you mess with it before.

They have to assess you over a period of days, not just one. The private session is designed to show off anything that you wouldn’t want the other tributes knowing.

Which is exactly why you skip over all the regular throwing stations, and head right into the bow and arrow one. They have their own tv holograms that they’ll be able to watch you from. 

It’s not a skill you necessarily like. It helps with distance fighting, but since bow and arrows have been associated with Katniss, you’ve basically faded this into nothing. However, you pick up the bow, playing around with the strings to test the tightness. A quiver of arrows is pulled over your shoulder after.

You program the game easily, but before you step in, you turn around and fire an arrow just to see how awful the bow is. It’s not too bad, it’s actually fairly similar to the one they have at the academies. These ones are just tighter because they’re brand new.

You go inside after that. The holograms start off fairly easy. Now that you’re inside, you can see why it was so easy for Katniss to know where they’d be coming from before they were generated. The way that the orange beams move is a clear giveaway.

It takes one arrow for each person, always the center of the chest. If they’re moving, then you make an exception for the head, since it’s the next best thing to wipe someone out immediately.

You can feel yourself go into concentration mode. The beam moves, you spin around. You release the arrow at first chance, nailing the hologram. You grab another arrow, the beam moves, you spin around, release the arrow, get the hologram. Over and over until it’s finally done.

You wish you had some sort of watch so you could know when your time is up, but you decide that this is enough. You place the bow back where it came from, as well as the quiver, which has three arrows left. The arrows inside of the station will be cleaned up by some poor avox, it’s not your job.

You step right in front of the gamemakers again, waiting for them to dismiss you. When they do, you thank them, and then leave the room. You can hear them call in Beetee next, and you pass him on your way out too. Just before you also leave the little waiting room, Finnick and you make eye contact.

And on his face is a half-smile, half-smirk.

--

You plop down on the couch, leaning back against the cushions. Caesar Flickerman introduces the name of the game: tribute training scores. The entire couch is full. From right--where you’re sitter--to left, it sits Amias, Neysa, Edmond, Brutus and Brutus’ stylist. On the adjacent chair sits Theo.

He won’t look in your direction, it’s humorous.

Caesar starts it almost immediately, beginning with boys. Gloss lands himself an eleven, and Cashmere gets herself a ten, which makes you wonder how badly she messed up during her session. She’s supposed to be a career, not some average moron. Anyone with basic capabilities can get a ten.

Next is Brutus, he gets a nice eleven, which makes you all cheer for him in excitement. You want to hold your breath for your own, but you realize that’s not a reaction you would have. So, instead you give a big smile and lean back, crossing your arms. Confidence will get you out of this.

“District Two, (Y/n) Rosecelli with a score of eleven.” He gives a big smile, and you give a look to Brutus.

“And that is how it’s done!”

Brutus laughs, the two of you lean over for high-fives before going back to watching Caesar. Beetee and Wiress get boringly sad and average scores, but there’s not much to expect from them either. They didn’t do anything that would be entertaining over those three days. They get sevens.

The smile fades from your face once Finnick comes up. Your face straightens out and you lean forward. Brutus notices this, “Interested?”

“I gotta know how easy he’ll be to kill.”

“District Four, Finnick Odair with a score of eleven.” Caesar says, “And District Four, Mags Flannagan with a score of six.”

Finnick’s score is no surprise, but you are a little worried over Mag’s. She could have at least gotten a seven considering she did just about the same that Beetee and Wiress did. You suppose it makes sense in a way, though. She’s not going to be a good fighter, and they have to consider that too.

At least you and Finnick are on the same playing field, but he’ll be torn between protecting himself and Mags. You don’t really want to be the one to kill her, but another matching pair of District Four skulls on your arm is just too tempting.

You bring your arm over, looking at it as Caesar announces the next scores. You’ve got quite a collection. You didn’t kill any of District One’s tributes, but you did kill your district mate because it had come down to you two. If you want to keep traditions, Brutus would have to go on too. You wonder if he knows that part of your history.

It skips over District Three, but you got both from four. None from five or six, but you got the doubles on seven, the guy from eight and the girl from ten--oh, and the girl from twelve that had ran into the cornucopia like a dumbass. The total comes out to eight, which really is quite a lot.

Except that year a ton of people had ran into the cornucopia, more than usual. The girls from ten and twelve, and the boy from four had run in. As for the other five, that same day you took out the boy from eight. Your allies had taken out others, since they wanted at least something they could take credit for. 

Four on the first day, and the other four in the span of a week. You were the one with the most kills, you were showered with gifts. No one really stood a chance, not even your district mate. You kept track of the tributes throughout the entire game by carving lines into your arm. The second that the twenty-second guy was dead, you turned on your mate immediately.

It was too quick, it had taken the gamemakers by surprise. The way you turned, grabbed his head with one hand and used your sai’ to stab right through. He crumpled to the ground like a sack of flour, and you stood in the middle of that field, waiting for your crowning.

An entire minute of silence, which made you doubt that you were the winner. You had to count the cuts on your arms to double-check. You had done it each time after you’d heard a cannon, it should be accurate. And while you waited for them to announce your win, after you were sure it was yours, you made that final line.

Obviously they had wanted some fight, looking back on it. The final two should have been easy entertainment, and even sentimental, considering you guys were both from District Two. But there was no hesitation, you were already exhausted from fighting the last guy, and you just wanted it to be over with.

The reason behind why you’d chosen to wipe out the District Four tributes is funny, in some sick way. Of course, your games were right after Finnick’s, and you absolutely hated the way he won. Using his nets to drag people into the water and then uses his trident on them.

It’s the entire reason why you spared nothing for either of the four tributes. You didn’t even fuck with them a little bit like your allies had wanted. You killed them, and you made sure that the cannon had gone off before you’d even bothered to move on. You were so paranoid that they would try something like Finnick had done, again.

As much as people don’t want to admit it, you pay attention to things. Your brain is always turning. You’re keeping track of things, remembering plans and techniques. If you come up across anyone inside of the games, then you’ll know how to act. What they favor more in fights and all that. Not to mention, people like the morphlings and where they like to hide in the trees, what they’re looking for specifically.

It’s a whole ‘nother reason why you’re a perfect candidate. You’re prepared.

Anyway, districts five and six both get that same average score as three. Johanna Mason lands herself a nice ten, and her district mate Blight gets a nine. Not surprising for Johanna, but it is for Blight. Normally guys get higher training scores--and that’s not a sexist thing either.

It’s how your first games went. You had gotten a nine, and it must have been something you’d done during your training days. Unlike other districts, the careers aren’t really told to keep from showing off their skills. In fact, you’re encouraged to. It’s an intimidation tactic to weasel out the weaklings.

And you’re typically ordered to pick your favorites that look like good allies, and after private training day--which is then when you’re able to see the score--you send a formal request for them to be in the alliance. It’s a whole thing, more trouble than it’s actually worth, and it doesn’t happen very often because of it.

District eight through eleven get mainly average scores, there’s a few who stand out more than the others. And then it hits District Twelve.

“District Twelve--” Caesar’s face twists unexpectedly, “--Peeta Mellark, with a score of twelve.”

“What?” you nearly yell, pushing yourself up into a better seating position, “How?”

“That’s--”

“District Twelve, Katniss Everdeen with a score of twelve.”

“That’s impossible.” the blood must have drained from your face, and there’s a faint feeling that overcomes you, “No, no--no!”

No one has ever hit twelve. Twelve is the highest and one is the lowest. People have gotten close to twelve, clearly. You’ve got an eleven and a few others do too, but twelve…

“What did Katniss say to our alliance invitation?” Brutus asks, “Neysa!”

Neysa looks worried too, “Uh--Haymitch told me that she said no, or that she was at least thinking about it.”

You allowed Brutus to send in that request after watching Katniss shoot those arrows, but it was only Brutus that was asking. You weren’t included in it. Had Katniss said yes, she would have been dragged into the alliance altogether, whether you like it or not, you would have had to make friends.

And there’s a very good reason as to why she probably said no. It’s the alliance thing with Finnick, isn’t it?

You pucker your lips, “Neysa I need a moment with you.”

She looks over at you, Caesar Flickerman has long since been forgotten. She nods a little bit, everyone else in the living room looks confused as to why you couldn’t have just said it in front of them too.

You bring Neysa as far as you can manage without making it suspicious. Even then, you’re dropping your voice to a whisper, and turning your back to the living room so Brutus won’t be able to read your lips.

“What is it?”

“Tell the District Four mentors that I want to be allies with Finnick,” you say before you can catch yourself and change your mind, “And I don’t mean for him to join us, I mean for me to join them.”

“Them?” Neysa looks suspicious.

Shit, “Finnick and Mags. What else would I have meant?”

It was a smooth recovery, enough to get her off your back.

“You’d just leave everyone like that?” Neysa doesn’t like this, you can hear it in her tone of voice, “It’s just as much of a dumb idea as running solo is--”

“I just want to see what he says, I don’t have my mind set in stone.” You give her a look, “Neysa, come on.”

“Fine, but you will tell me your plan if it works out like you’re envisioning.”

“I wouldn’t dream of leaving you out of the loop.” You tell her.

“Is there anyone else?” she asks.

You think for a moment on who would be dumb enough to accept but smart enough to do it too. A light bulb then goes off, “Peeta Mellark.”

#ilguna #finnick odair #finnick odair imagine #finnick odair oneshot #finnick odair fanfic #finnick odair x reader #finnick odair metanoia #metanoia #metanoia chapter five

[onereallygoodlambonastick]

1, 2, 7, 8, 9 and 10 please

finally some good fucking food, thanks anon;

1. What themes would you like to write about that you feel don’t get explored very often?

Generally speaking, I think the in-betweens, the casual time-skips, and the quick intermissions are the things that get glossed over the most. The “missing scenes”, if you will--the hours after a squabble between a team, the morning before the battle, the months where a child sat idle, the dreams that turned into prophecy. 

I also think the theme of re-connection is not often explored--its always “love on first sight” kind of deal, but what about the enduring kind of love, the kind that stays like an ache in your bones? the one you remember and miss? the one you long for like a phantom limb?

2. What are some common elements of stories you are tired of seeing? What would you avoid writing about? 

This varies wildly between fandoms, but probably the thing they all have in common is: mindless smut. Just straight up down and dirty fucking, with no motive or prompting or characterization. Just the author smashing two guys (usually) at the hips and being done with it. 

That’s fine; we all love to see it. It’s just so dull sometimes. 

I need some intricacy, some intimacy, some ache, some angst, some destructive lines and some ruthless gut-punches, you know? Not a guy coming for the fifth time. 

For the AFTG fandom: I’m tired of seeing people being fine with the way Sakavic treated her characters and coddling Neil & Andrew in the face of it. I don’t hate Andreil, I feel like I should say, but so much of it relies on one or the other sticking people with their knives or fists and that’s such a toxic love, a misconception of what a “good” relationship should be. Now, there are some brilliant fics I’ve read that are just gorgeous with the concept of Andreil--that was what I wished Sakavic had the ability to achieve in her series, while giving dignity to Kevin Day and the rest of the characters that were there and LIVED despite the romance. 

So, obviously, I would avoid doing any of the above I just mentioned, and pray that you will too. Just let these ppl breathe, alright?

For the AoT fandom (yeah i dabbled cuz the manga is just. depressing man): same issue---too much fucking, not enough talking and emoting. Why are there so many goddamned high school AUs? My god. I need a fic that gets down and dirty with the shit going down in the manga and take me through it so I can stand to continue. What about the grief and mourning and the betrayal of it all? Can I get me some of that? Lord, don’t go near the Levi/Eren tag. Y’all just don’t even knock it. Go to Levi/Erwin or something. Or just don’t. Don’t.

For the BNHA fandom (lol. a staple): actually, there’s quite a bit of diversity here so I geniunely can’t complain about much. The sheer magnitude of the English-speaking fandom helps on that end, I suppose. I do think there should be more fics looking at the Shit n Grit of Hero’s society tho, Stain-style. The people the heroes couldn’t save or didn’t want to, the forgotten bodies and the cooling hands, the victims that never got closure, the heroes who got maimed and multilated and couldn’t get back on their feet once the limelight left em. Those sorts of things. I think the fact we see thru the rosy-eyed worldviews of a bunch of green-eared kids deludes people to the fact that People Are Fucking Bad and Disgusting almost all the time. So exploring that, I think, is far more worthwhile. 

But I will also take injury aftermath. I’m not a monster.

For the KNY fandom: EYYY we talk about grief and suffering a lot which if you haven’t noticed, is kind of my Jam! Actually, this fandom prob hits a lot of my sweet spots: role reversals, grief/mourning aftermath, SabiGiyuu, Sabito Lives, the usual! Can’t really say much abt this. Except, there’s a lot of Demon Sex and Rape and, uh. Guys? Can we go back for a hot sec?

For the Code Geass fandom (*rubs hands in glee*): SO this is the fandom I’m most active in aside from AFTG at this precise moment. It’s pretty dead, tbh. My favorite two fics in the AO3 archive was published in 2014 and the author hasn’t written for my fav pairing (Suzaku/Lelouch) since. So. There’s that. There’s also a lot of fucking here! And gross cishet dynamics, but, uh, whatever. I think the Emperor Lelouch/Knight of Zero Suzaku has been overused and abused for rough sex and just general Angst-ing it out. I wanna see how their dynamic plays out like that for sure, but what about when they still had secrets between them a mile wide and had to tell each other half-lies and half-truths? How about them coping with the fact of their betrayals and the death of their loved ones at the hands of each other? Where’s the hardcore shit? 

Think this fandom doesn’t want to dig their fingers in too deep. Shame. 

Another thing: CC is not an immortal seductress. My god give her pizza and some fucking DEPTH. She’s a walking encyclopedia, not some mysterious slut machine! Get your stereotypes and fetishes outta here!

Final thing: TALK ABOUT THE SHIT SUZAKU HAS BEEN THROUGH! He’s not just Lelouch’s boytoy or knight! Stop that! Examine his abuse, his time with the military, his span as a pawn! Look at his motivations and his internalized disgust for himself as a Japanese that was ingrained in him by an oppressive fucking system! Why does he bow? Why is he silent? Speak for him!

7. Favorite description in your wip? (If asked more than once, respond with a new piece each time)

Suzaku watched him watch the discoloring, and Suzaku watched the stillness change into the bare bones of animosity. It was almost kind, the way Lelouch turned his face away and shifted his grip to snatch up the antiseptic.

Neither of them spoke as sharp hands dabbed at the slightly split skin and wet bruising. It stung, but only a little. Long minutes passed like this, Lelouch exchanging swabs for cloths, Suzaku sitting still and watching him work.

Neither of them mentioned the scatter of old deadened skin, puckered across Suzaku’s build like a migration of mutilated fish.

8. Favorite dialogue in your wip? (If asked more than once, respond with a new piece each time)

"You know I can't be seen with you two."

"And I just warned you to not be a coward." Lelouch's eyes gleamed. Again, the challenge was there, and like a fool only Lellouch could make of him, Suzaku took it, open-mouthed and open-palmed.

"Fine," Suzaku said, not knowing what he'd promised himself to: a dinner or a duel. Even though the last time Lelouch picked up a sword it was wooden and he was tiny and cute and clumsy. But Lelouch didn’t need blades to cut. "I'll be there. Does Nunnally still enjoy a good scone?"

"Bring the blueberry ones," Lelouch said, extending the comment like a plank between them, and leapt off the wall, into the white sun. "One for the bastardly son and one for the disowned daughter."

Suzaku followed him out into the blaze of heat, feeling the crude perch of his laughter at the base of his throat. He was so fucking dramatic. "Which one of us do you mean?"

9. What scene was the hardest to write for you and why?

From the same wip fic from above--I’m stuck on the “light” kind-of crackish scene where Suzaku is literally just exasperated with Rivalz and his porn mags. Like I just can’t write it. It’s too.....friendly. And “nice”.

10. What scene was the most fun to write for you and why?

Out of the same fic as above: probably the scene from #8. It was fun to see how coy and rough-mouthed Suzaku could get once he’s together with Lelouch. Just to see them fool around with each other whilst keeping secrets but also somehow be honest was very satisfying and interesting to write out. They are just boys, there. Just boys. In love.

#aftg #all for the game #code geass #suzalulu #bnha #aot #kny #my writing #my fic #soy replies #asks

[capricxs]

🎉 for a hug filled with laughter maggie & vincent asfksdj

i think you’ve sent this before so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“maggie, you look like shit.” there’s a voice behind her in the teacher’s lounge. her head is in her hands over her cup of coffee. at first, all she does is groan in response. “party too hard last night?”

“you could call it that.” she mumbles.

“hungover?” brenda clicks her tongue, “and on a thursday morning. unbelievable. to be young again.” she sighs.

“no, i was just up very late last night.” maggie lifts her head, picking up her mug and throwing her tupperware of vincent’s leftover dinner into her bag. she watches brenda lean against the counter, stirring her coffee.

“doing what, dare i ask?” she raises an eyebrow.

maggie presses her lips together and blushes, keeping her eyes on her lunch bag. it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

“jesus christ.” brenda whispers. thankfully, they were the only two in the lounge at the moment. “how many times?”

maggie taps her finger against her other hand, squinting her eyes. it takes a few seconds for her to recall the previous night and give a number. “four? four i can remember. kind of just all blurs together after the second time.”

“unbelievable.” she whistles. “how does he do it?”

“i still don’t know.” she puts her head back in her hands. “like, i feel great. on a level. everything in my body hurts, but like, i feel really fucking good.”

“of course you do, you got porked more times in one night than i do in a year.”

“don’t call it that.”

“oh right, because what you guys do is love making.”

“it was very far from that last night.”

“i’d ask for details for my own fantasies, but as colleagues, i don’t really want to know.”

“makes sense.” she moans into her mug. 

“so pardon my prodding but like, how much of your relationship is sex?” brenda says a bit quieter, stepping forward and sitting in the chair in front of maggie.

“what do you mean.” she looks up curiously.

“i know you two love each other,” brenda nods, “it’s gross to watch you two. but like, how much is rooted in sexual attraction?”

“i… i don’t know.” maggie hadn’t really considered it. their love was just their love.

“you guys talk about marriage and kids right?” brenda leans forward, sipping her coffee.

“yeah, all the time.”

“well, as much as you two are obsessed with each other, children are really going to make it hard to have a wild sex night in the middle of your week. even if you two are still madly attracted to each other, your relationship is going to shift.”

“that’s fine.” maggie shrugs.

“sure, you say that as you know the concept, but do you really know what it’s like in practice? is that love still going to be intense if you two aren’t allowed to be so intimate?”

“what are you saying, brenda?” maggie laughs.

“i’m just suggesting.” She shrugs. “maybe you two should try your hand at, you know… not fucking for a while. i know it’s not going to cause some great rift or anything, but just be in love for a week without wanting to tear each other’s clothes off.”

maggie stays silent for a while, leaning back in her seat. she holds her mug to her chest and thinks about the concept. their sex, as wild as it was, is just sex. maggie knows it’s a frequent in their life, more so than most adults. maybe brenda has a point. there’s no doubt she’s in love with vincent beyond her sexual attraction, but spending time with him, apart from the thought of when they get to feel pleasure in the next possible moment away, might be nice. to just be in love with the man she has.

—-

“you want to what?” vincent laughs over the stove, hand towel over his shoulder.

“it was just something brenda and i were talking about at work.” maggie shrugs, picking up her glass of wine as she sits at the table. “like, when was the last time we had a date night that just ended in us cuddling in bed in out pjs?”

“that’s never happened.” vincent replies quickly. “that’s why i like date night.”

“right but date night is like every other night then where we end up fucking.” maggie rolls her eyes.

“mags, are you unhappy with out sex life?” vincent turns around from making dinner, crossing his arms over his chest with a concerned look. “if we need to try something different to excite you i’m not afraid—” 

she stands up from her seat before he can finish. “baby, no no no, not at all. it’s so good.” her hands reach for his biceps, rubbing tenderly. “like so unbelievably good and i can’t stop thinking about how good it is. but like, that’s why i want to try it.” she shrugs, blushing with embarrassment. “like we have so much sex, i just want to spend time with you. just fall in love with you over romance and talking about life and walking the dogs and everything.” she smiles. “i mean brenda brought up a good point that what happened last night, and our intimate lives are going to drastically change if we have kids.” she looks up at him, a hand reaching to scratch his beard. “it’s not a test or anything i just want to try something different. fall in love with your beautiful mind and heart like i did when we first started dating, you know?”

his hand finds her waist, letting out a slow breath and looking over her in thought. his thumb rubs over her waist and he rolls his head back. “god you’re going to kill me.”

she grins, leaning up to give him a kiss. it’s long, and slow, and deep the the point that maggie couldn’t linger long. “it’ll be so good.” she nods.

vincent presses his lips together. “you’re going to have to wear all your turtlenecks. for my sanity.”

she raises up her hands in defense. “as you wish.”

“can we have a quick round before starting?”

“no!” she laughs, hitting his chest playfully. “go back to making dinner.”

“alright, alright.” he turns back around, stirring the food. he blows out a puff of air from his chest. “so no making out?”

“not if it gets hot and heavy.”

“over the clothes?”

“no sir.”

“you can’t call me sir.” he turns back around to point the spoon at her. “it makes me feel things.”

“alright, vincent.” she shakes her head and says his name in a sharp voice, trying to make it sound formal.

he sighs again, turning back to the stove. “i love you mags.”

“love you too, baby.” she pulls out her phone, flipping through it as he goes back to making dinner.

—-

that first night wasn’t hard. they had dinner. maggie had work to get done so she stayed at the kitchen table to grade homework while vincent read. there were tender touches as they passed one another. maggie would scold him when his hands got too bold. it was fun, she thought, trying to condition him not to be so handsy in their passing moments.

they showered separately, vincent claiming he couldn’t control himself if he saw her naked. they got ready for bed and laid there for a while, talking about their days. maggie shared more about her conversation with brenda. brenda, who was much older, having kids of her own who were were eight and eleven, and sharing her perspective of companionship. as much as she liked to complain in comparison to her and vincent, she’d never traded her husband for anything.

they fell asleep, his hand around her waist, nose tucked into neck. the next morning, she felt refreshed.

second day wasn’t too bad. she got ready for work, and by the time she went down for coffee, he already had his shoes on, kissing her goodbye and saying he had reservations for them for tomorrow evening. told her to remember to wear a turtleneck as he checked out her braless chest, and then sighed, walking out the door.

it was cute. she laughed about it the whole time she went to work. getting there, she explained to brenda that vincent went along with the plan, and brenda grinned.

the day went fine. maggie only thought about intimacy once, which was typical, and reminded herself that this was good. she was excited for date night.

“so you’re not going to have sex all weekend?” brenda asks as she stop by maggie’s classroom long after the kids have left, and the teachers stay back to do their own work.

“going to go as long as we can handle.” maggie says over her papers. “don’t think he’d last longer than a week, honestly.”

“that’s a generous guess.” brenda snorts. “i give him until sunday night.”

“we’ll see. he’s a good man more than he is a sex fiend. he knows i want this so he’s going to try his best. i said i want to make it past the weekend at the least, so he’ll do it.”

“alright.” she states in an uneasy manor, walking away from the door, leaving maggie to do her work.

dinner is already made by the time she gets home. vincent said something about leaving the shop with the kid for the night. it was sweet. the wine was poured, the music was swimming. the dogs were too tired from their long walk to greet her at the door. he took her by the hand and seated her at the table, bending down to give her a kiss hello, and taking her bag from her arm.

the enjoyed their meal, laughing about their day, her listening about his customers, her sharing about her students. vincent handed her the save the date they got in the mail from one of their mutual friends. he stared her down at the table seriously and had said “you can’t tell me not to fuck you at one of the most romantic kind of events known to man.” 

she laughed, getting up from dinner to put it on the fridge so they wouldn’t forget. on her way back, she leaned over vincent, running her fingers over his hair and kissing his head.

“you think i’m being silly. i just want to be in love with you for a bit.”

his hand wraps around her waist, rubbing over her hip. “no, i get it. you want to be reminded that our sex isn’t the only basis of our love.”

she frowns, tilting his head up. “it’s not a bad thing, i promise. i’m not worried.”

“i know.” he gives her a comforting smile, his other hand wrapping around her. “there’s nothing wrong with wanting to go back to basics of being in love.”

she smiles back at him, bending down to kiss his forehead. “you’re so amazing.”

“your food is getting cold.” he lets her go, only to give her ass a slap.

she stands back, giving him a glare. “not intimate! just obnoxious. there’s a difference.” he grins.

once they put the dishes away, he picked out their movie while she grabbed the package of cookies for them to pick at. she picked up his favorite on the way home. on their third date, she randomly texted him, asking what his favorite cookies were. she bought three boxes and he came over, the spent the whole night bingeing the next season of the crown. while tonight definitely wasn’t a night of bingeing, she wanted to find that joy again of getting crumbs everywhere and cuddling until their limbs went numb.

the kissing got a bit tough. maggie had to pull away, as much as she didn’t want to, and go back to watching their movie and picking off bits of their cookies. it wouldn’t be easy, but she liked actually watching a movie for once.

finally crawling into bed after getting ready, they slept as they did the night before. a long chat in the dark, and him holding her until they woke up refreshed in the morning.

vincent had errands to run, so maggie kept to herself all saturday as she waited for the time when she’d have to get ready for dinner. he didn’t come back until she had already gone to the bathroom to put on her makeup. they talked between the door, maggie assuming he was changing while she finished with her face. she curled her hair, wore her favorite green turtleneck. it was a nice change of pace, wearing jeans and her tall boots. she was covered, but she knew she still looked good. maybe it wasn’t the same as her polkadot dresses or anything that showed off her chest or legs. she looked mature, but good. 

putting on her gold necklace, and touching up her red lipstick, she pulled the door open.

she found vince sitting on the couch, flipping through a book with his shoes already on. he, too, dressed relatively mature and casual. she was glad to see she wasn’t under-dressed for whatever he had planned.

he looked up from his book when she grabbed her purse from the back of a chair, his eyes lighting up. “you look beautiful.”

“thanks.” she smiles. he stands, putting the book down and grabbing the keys from their hook. 

the car ride was short. she had no idea where he was taking her, and even when he pulled into the parking lot, she hadn’t recognized the place. “it’s new.” he said out loud, like he knew what she was thinking when she got out of the car.

pizza. of all things. he said he read about it in a foodie article. the best new place for pizza in town. of course, she would have been excited about anything he picked, but the fact that he had picked someone so mundane made her heart swell, just a bit.

they got their craft beers, and sat along with the chatter of the restaurant around them. for a while, they just looked at each other. maggie with her blush creeping up under her makeup, vincent with his smile lines under his beard. even without the intimacy, she imaged they were pretty sickening to watch.

“you might be killing, but i’m enjoying this.” vincent finally breaks the silence, laughing through his words.

“yeah? me too.” she grabs her napkin and places it on her lap. “it’s nice to get to re-learn about you. or, learn new things mostly.”

he grabs his glass of wine, sipping at it and keeping his eyes on her. when he puts it down, his hands fold together. “what’s my favorite color?”

“what?” she laughs, eyebrows knitting together.

“well, you like relearning about me, i just want to make sure you remember.”

“so you’re quizzing me?”

“i am. now what’s my favorite color?” he watches her, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossing over his chest.

is he amused? does he think she’ll fail? or is this just a wildly interesting concept for him that he can’t help but want to dig deeper.

“uhm, yellow, i’m pretty sure.”

“pretty sure?”

“i don’t know, not like i buy you fucking flowers or something.” she snorts.

“alright, well i guess you’re right. what’s my favorite movie?”

“back to the future.”

“second one?”

“if you can be overwhelmed, and underwhelmed, can you ever just be whelmed?” she grins.

“god i love you.” he laughs, raking his fingers through his hair. “last one.”

“if you ask me your favorite book, i’m just going to go home right now.” she shakes her head. “on our first date you said hamlet but i just figured that was because you wanted to sound cool and get in my pants.”

vincent doesn’t reply, licking his teeth behind his lips and shrugging. “no comment.”

“you’ve also read the hunger games series three times since we’ve been dating so really, who knows at this point.”

“that’s hearsay.”

“that’s hearsay.” she says in a mocking tone.

he laughs, his hands falling to his legs, where she imagines he’s rubbing his palms against his tights. “you nervous?” she asks quietly, leaning forward at the table.

“you make me nervous, yeah.” his smile lights up the whole damn room and now she’s got goosebumps. “you’re so beyond me sometimes it all catches up at once and i suddenly get nervous.”

“well there’s not much to be nervous about, not like you’re getting lucky at the end of the night.” he laughs, and she grins, her finger running over the rim of her glass. “my turn now.”

“go ahead.”

“what’s my favorite color?”

“easy. blue.” he says quickly, and with confidence.

“favorite movie?”

“empire records.”

“book?”

“trick question, you don’t read books.” he grins.

“not true.” she shakes her head, wagging a finger. “i just have you to do all the work for me.”

“so what’s your favorite book?”

“you’re right, it is a trick question, I don’t have one.”

she looks to vincent, who’s lips are parted in shock. “i’m sorry mags, i can’t do this anymore. guess it wasn’t the not sex rule that did us in but your inability to love books.”

“hey, i like books! i’ve just never found one i loved enough to be my favortie.”

“then it’ll be my job to find you one, okay? before i die, i will make sure you have a favorite book.”

“alright.”

the server comes just in time, bringing them their pizza and warning them to wait as the pizza’s very hot. they both thank him and maggie grabs the plates, handing on to vincent. “one more.”

“shoot.”

“what’s my favorite date been?” her teeth peak from her lips and she’s got her forearms against the table.

“can i say all of them?”

“you can, but it’s not the right answer.”

he holds her gaze for a while then. it wasn’t a moment for something corny. she had a genuine answer and she was wondering if he could figure it out. their eyes were glued to each other, he was searching as if she’d hide the answer behind her irises and she was trying to give it to him. 

“we’d been dating for five months.” he says carefully. “you call me the night before crying. i didn’t know why at the time but i knew you needed me. so we made plans. i picked you up. i could tell that things weren’t okay because there was mascara on your cheek that you hadn’t noticed, but you still tried which i thought that cute. you hugged me in the car and thanked me.”

maggie licks her lips, watching him speak. his eyes aren’t on her’s, he’s tracing patterns in the table and thinking carefully.

“we went to the grocery store. i hardly had any time to plan a big romantic date so i took you down every aisle of the store and told you to pick out one thing you liked in every aisle. it made you laugh, so i figured it was working. even when we went down the grain aisle, i made you pick out your favorite bread, or when we were in the storage aisle and you picked out your favorite tupperware. then you watched me try on a bunch of clothes that you picked out. i left you in the beauty section to pick out some flowers. i came back to find you crying so i just held you for a while. i never told you but it was the date i realized i loved you. i never wanted to see you cry and i was going to spend the rest of my life trying to put a smile on your face.”

“then you bought me a dozen loofas.”

vincent laughs. “i forgot that part, yeah.”

“you took me home and made them into an art project.”

“it was conceptual.”

“i threw it away.”

vincent holds his hand to his chest and gasps. “margaret, i can’t believe you! what kind of girlfriend are you?”

maggie shakes her head, unable to hold back her grin. “you’re right though, that’s my favorite one. it was also the date i realized i love you too. but it was when you took me into the cereal aisle and you were watching me look at all the different options. i had almost started crying then, and i think you could tell so you started trying to guess my favorite kind. but you made sure to pick ones on opposite ends of the aisle so you would run back and forth. it stopped me from crying and kept me laughing.”

“yep, i did that.” vincent laughs, looking at the pizza and picking a piece off. “i’d do it again if it kept you smiling.”

“i knew then you’d do whatever you could to keep me happy, no matter what work it took.”

“hopefully i’ve never disappointed you on that.”

“never.” she shakes her head, grabbing a slice herself. 

—

dinner went by perfectly. they ate the whole pizza themselves, completely devoured with zero trace. they had a hard time looking away from each other. they shared their memories, went even further back to before they had started dating.

they walked a few blocks after dinner, holding hands and pointing at things around them. a couple shops were still opened so they slipped inside before they could close. it was only until the area started to look baron that they headed back to the car.

they took their time getting ready for bed when coming home. they kept kissing each other, but maggie kept each one short so they couldn’t get too intense. he took his shower while she took off her makeup and did her skincare routine. he kept offering her to join him but she warned him each time how it would be unwise. he sighed, and they continued talking through the shower curtain. maggie stayed until he turned the shower off, when she quickly ran away to avoid being exposed to what was ultimately her finest weakness.

he climbed into bed, arm sliding around her waist. when she felt him, she turned around. “you want to make this hard for me?” she said, fingers running through the hair on his chest.

“you don’t wear a bra every night you go to bed so i think we’re even now.” he shrugs.

“that’s unfair, i can’t possibly sleep in a bra.”

“i can’t possibly sleep with a shirt.” he says like it’s an obvious statement.

“you’re just trying to fuck with me.” she rolls her eyes.

“maybe i am.” he pulls her closer. “i had an amazing night with you.”

“i did too.” she nods, fingers running across his chest.

“it’s going to be the first date night where we don’t have sex afterwards, huh?”

“yep.” she pats his chest. “goodnight.” she kisses his cheek, turning around and propping her head on the pillow. “i love you.” she reaches back for a moment to scratch his scalp.

“love you too.” he kisses her cheek.

it takes a while to fall asleep, but she eventually does. it’s refreshing when she wakes up in the morning. clear, awake, ready for her sunday.

she’s up before vincent but her stirring only causes him to stir. he’d rolled onto his back over the night, an arm pinned under her. when she hears his morning moan, she reaches back to pat his chest, causing him to roll over and grab onto her as he did last night.

it only takes a second before a giggle slips past her lips. “vinnie.” she whispers.

“yes, baby.” he grumbles.

“i think you’ve got a problem.”

“what is it baby?”

“you having a nice dream?”

“yeah, why—” he stops, rolling off of her. “can’t fucking believe this.” he huffs, and her heavy laughter should wake her up. “fuck off.” he throws the blanket off, sitting over the edge of the bed.

“i’m sorry i can’t help you, i would love it if i could.” she chuckles through her words.

he mutters back in a mocking tone, standing up and stretching from the bed. “it’s like i’m fucking fifteen again.”

“well i’m very flattered i have that affect on your body.” she moves to lay across the bed, grabbing at his leg. “i love you.” she says in a sing-song tone. he turns his head to look down at her with a glare. “you’re being such a good boy for me, vinnie.”

“fuck, now you’re just rubbing my nose in it.” he throws his arms up and she rolls over, hands over her chest as she laughs. 

“i’m sorry. i’ll stop. i’ll go make breakfast and you can go… handle yourself.” she snickers, getting off of the bed. she walks around the bed to stand behind him, hand on his arm and her lips on his shoulder. “you’re still very handsome with unexpected morning wood.”

“very encouraging, dear.” he sighs. “just go make some eggs.”

“on it.” she nods, heading out of the bedroom.

“i’m going to fuck you so hard when this is over!” he says behind her. 

“i’m counting on it!” she replies.

#nemesisrps #* otp: maggie & vincent.

[punkwixes]

2017 fic roundup

i wrote a lot of taz fic this year! here’s a masterlist of sorts.

an emptiness, waiting: magnus dissociates. taako is more useful than one would think.

so this is from december 2016, sue me. a short fic about magnus having a bad day.

the world might cut you down again: In all your years of friendship, you’ve never seen Taako at a loss for words. Up until now, he’s never so much as asked for help, but you’re pretty sure that’s what he’s trying to do.

something about trauma and grocery shopping and being okay until you’re not. inspired a comic from @nokiwiki!

the way i thought that we’d end up: “Sir?” Magnus is startled by the quiet press of Angus’s small hand into his larger one. “What are you planning on doing when all this is over?”

He can’t help it, he laughs a little at that. “I don’t know, I wasn’t really planning on making it that long!”

five times magnus joked about dying, and one time someone didn’t find it funny.

standing guard over what didn’t happen: “You’ve given up a lot in the past three rounds, and we’d hate to see you lose your motivation!” Edward continues. “In this game, you’ll get to recover one sacrifice you lost here in Wonderland!”

“But only one!” Lydia gestures again and the room lights up, colored bulbs around the walls shifting back and forth, turning everything into a dizzying blur of light. The walls are mirrored, Taako notes, probably so that, no matter where you stand, you have to look at your companions as you’re selling them out.

an exploration into what the recovery game might have looked like.

mags n cheese: Taako attempts to give cooking lessons. Magnus winds up making the task a little harder than originally anticipated.

magnus is a disaster at cooking and taako is a disaster at Literally Everything Else. they make an edible meal, somehow.

kindness won’t save anyone: Taako rolls over, pulling an arm over his eyes – half for dramatic effect and half because the room is so fucking bright it’s making his head spin a little. “Magno. My dude. My pal. I am absolutely fucking dying.”

“You’re not dying, you have a cold.” Magnus says, and – he sounds like he’s smiling, the bastard. Fuck him, he doesn’t know shitty this feels.

it’s not a complete year without at least one sickfic. that’s my story and i’m sticking to it.

let the river in: The last time Magnus had seen the kid, right after they’d been born, Kravitz had gingerly placed them in his arms, and. Well. That was that. Taako hadn’t even minded, just smiled tiredly and sent him to go sit out on the porch with Lup and Barry, who fought over who got to hold the kid next while Lup held his hand ‘till he stopped crying.

postcanon kidfic abt the concept of Parenting While Traumarized.

hard to know who might not be your friend: “Yeah, I – I’ve never met an elf before!” Magnus blurts out. Fuck. What he wants to say is, Taako, your weird needle-point teeth are cool and also very intimidating, I am in awe and slightly afraid, but he’s also very, very drunk.

a short fic about trauma and trusting people you shouldn’t and being really fucking gay for sharp teeth.

from here on out i wear this face for both of us: Lup thinks for a moment. “Sure, I didn’t expect to start off my first day in my brand-new flesh body having…. fuckin’ six panic attacks or whatever, or unable to walk because I haven’t done that in a decade, but. Getting to be myself, getting to feel things, getting to touch people again… it’s worth it.”

“Mm.” Lucretia’s half-asleep, stroking her fingertips up and down Lup’s bicep, and even that small amount of physical contact is grounding. She could get used to this.

postcanon fic, written way before the finale, about the common headcanon that lup would clone her new body using taako’s blood.

entropy: “Can I ask,” Lucretia says. For a moment, she’s worried that she’s shattered whatever peaceful silence they’ve earned, but her words don’t feel quite real in the predawn light. Lup doesn’t say anything, just keeps stroking Lucretia’s hair. “Did – did it hurt? When…”

Lup takes in the question for a good moment, and when she speaks, her words are careful, measured. “When we died?”

stolen century era. lucretia burns out after being alone for a year. the crew does their best to show their appreciation for her.

#the adventure zone #adventure zone #my fic #I Guess?? #ok to reblog

[dear-chaton]

1-100 bb

BAbe lol why it’s fine but oh dear lord who’s ready to another long af ask?

Bc I just answered some of these I will link to the first part here^^

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? More milk than cereal bc I don’t care if it get soggy

4: how do you take your coffee/tea? Lots of cream, milk and sugar.

6: do you keep plants? Nope

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? Writing I guess? I didn’t pick up drawing or painting till late last year

9: do you like singing/humming to yourself? Always, singing to myself as I fill this out right now haha

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? Side but curled up nearly in fetal position bc I’m lanky as hell

12: what’s your favorite planet? Mercury?

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? Either really pastel or grungey

15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! In space metal sticks together ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

16: what’s your favorite pasta dish? Lasagna

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. I like to point out friends spelling mistakes on discord and pin them so that everyone sees bc I’m slightly dyslexic so it’s funny when I do catch mistakes

20: what’s your favorite eye color? I love green and blue eyes

21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. There’s many of those lol

22: are you a morning person? Nope

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets? No, I don’t like to have one single person that knows every single little thing about me, I have multiple people that know many things that I trust to them but often those things rarely overlap

25: what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into? No where?

26: what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit? It’s a tie between my pug shoes or my cat shoes bc they have memory foam soles since I work on my feet all day I wanna have some comfort on my off days

27: what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor? Just plain regular bubblegum

28: sunrise or sunset? Sunset

30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared?  Oh yeah plenty of times

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends. It was after a friends party last year and we just sat in her living room comparing the average guys dick size for some reason 😂

33: what’s your fave pastry? Croissants

34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it? It’s a really big bunny rabbit, I don’t think I ever named it to be fair and yeah I keep it on my bed nearly all the time and it’s something I use to comfort me if I’m sad and wipe away the tears if I cry :’)

35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often? Yes lol but I more so collect them than use them

36: which band’s sound would fit your mood right now? Either skillet or Pentatonix

38: tell us about your pet peeves! Hate when people cut me off when I’m saying something, I barely talk so when I do I’m a little miffed if I don’t quite get to finish my train of thought, I also hate when people chew loudly in a quiet setting like please no save me

39: what color do you wear the most? A navy blue or a jade green

40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what’s it’s story? does it have any meaning to you? I guess the most important to me is my purity ring and I’ve had that thing since I was 13 so nearly 8 years I’ve been wearing it and yeah

42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! It’s kind of quiet and quaint but it’s fabulous to have study groups there and sit there for hours I feel bad for the people that deal with us but it’s so nice

44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? Being in the back of my boyfriends car, cuddling him

45: do you trust your instincts a lot? Ha nope

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of. What’s the favourite movie for cats to watch? The Sound of Mewsic (you can pry cat puns out of my cold dead hands)

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? Heights and yes still hate it

49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought? I love cds and the last one I bought I can’t actually remember it’s kind of been a while^^

50: what’s an odd thing you collect? Bears from each state

51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them? Misbehaving by Pentatonix or The Only Exception by Paramore

52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far? That despicable me meme bc I love those movies okay

54: who’s the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face? My friend Stirling who just had to put his dog down :(

55: what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point? Screeched and lunged for my phone I guess erm

56: what are some things you find endearing in people? Just the small things you don’t think of when you think of a particular person like someone will bring a blanket to our group between breaks and we’ll all huddle underneath it or someone will push two couches together so people can cuddle and/or spoon and be cute like stop being so freaking cute sometimes okay,

57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics? It’s interesting I’ll say that

58: who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why? I am bc I’m the oldest of my friends and therefore the only one who’s roughly allowed to drink but no seriously my role on two discord servers is a toss up between Wine Aunt or Wine Goddess like I don’t make this shit up

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves? Have never really liked poetry so uh

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind? Orange juice

63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be? On my bookshelf there’s all my favorites out on display but the rest are kind just shoved into boxes

64: what color is the sky where you are right now? It’s dark out bc it’s nearly midnight 

65: is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with? My best friend even though I haven’t been the greatest friend and not talked with her in a while >.

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like? Soft with white and light blue flowers I guess?

68: what’s winter like where you live? Hot and humid most of the year with a week or two of what the fuck Florida

69: what are your favorite board games? Checkers

70: have you ever used a ouija board? Nope

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it? Most definitely

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns. Always ready to fight

75: tell us about your pets! I had a puppy that I had to give away over the summer, she wasn’t really a puppy she was a little on the older side but I really loved her and miss her a lot

76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t? Studying but my classes are pretty easy

77: pink or yellow lemonade? Neither

78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I don’t mind them but since my nephew likes them I tolerate them

80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why? One wall is just a hot pink bc that was the color of my sheets at some point but I’m gonna paint it to a pastel mint hopefully soon

81: describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of. Like an iceberg, so cold it pierced my soul (idk either man)

82: are/were you good in school? Pffffffft that’s hilarious

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones? I wanna get one tattoo is it’s simply ❝&❞ and on my left inner wrist

85: do you read comics? what are your faves? No not really, haha

86: do you like concept albums? which ones? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idk

87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? Homeward Bound bc that is my shit okay

88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

90: talk about your one of you favorite cities. I don’t like cities so um yeah

91: where do you plan on traveling this year? Er maybe to the city to go to a con but otherwise not planning to travel much

92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? Drowns it with cheese, after taking a lactaid pill of course

93: what’s the hairstyle you wear the most? It’s almost always with a headband of sorts

94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday? My friend Mags

95: what are your plans for this weekend? Going on a date and going boating with my family

96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? I always procrastinate them lol my computer must hate me

98: when’s the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it? It was 6? Years ago and I didn’t have the right shoes and slipped on some mud and fell

99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them. I have a YouTube playlist for that shit lol there’s like 100 songs i listen to on repeat

100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why? Future bc hell if I’m about to relive my past again no thanks fam I’m good

Really Fucking Cute Questions

#Anon #answered #kiwi talks shit #ask meme

[trustlup]

do you have any other polyblaster hcs?? that concept is?? so incredibly blessed

it’s actually a Huge thing for me and @starsshinedarkly77 (we’re both poly and project ya) and i’ll throw them under a cut because it’s Long and i know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea and mentions some NSFW

so uh first a lot of how it all starts 

like? ? it’s relatively kinda easy how a lot of the relationships form like it’s just a need for sex or any sort of intimacy esp during this horrific experience they all need comfort and yeah there’s crushes getting thrown around too but for the beginning and i’m saying mostly around mags and lu it’s just a need for release and relaxing 

lup and mags are actually the first two who get together just, like purely out of they’re dicking around joking and like damn i’m so fucking horny lol and they just kinda look at each other like oh. oh hell yeah. and needless to say they go down on each other in the gym 

like i’m not sure if romantic feelings ever get thrown between the two (or if mags ever feels too romantically for any of ipre) but they both have such an intense and pure love for each other that just happens so quick that everyone’s like, oh, sweet, thanks for getting the bond engine this week

granted they’re also hell kids because they fuck too much (hi this is my monthly promo for hypersexual lup and mags thanks) and if they’re both missing and someone in ipre has to find them there’s a kinda nose goes because they have no shame

a lot of the relationships form from simply. someone wants to be held and sometimes it’s nice to be held by the same person multiple times. 

and i think that’s why barry starts going to mags–just hesitant because he’s not exactly sure how him and lup are but like, he just fucking needs contact and mags is like lol dude lets hug it out and they just start cuddling and then lup needs in because she wants to cuddle him too and that’s how barry ends up in between them and it’s just.. so nice (they also have sex because uh needs) 

the crush between barry and lup is,, glaringly obvious and mags i s like,, uh ya gonna go for it or what and they’re both  uh yeah of course but they don’t 

taako like, is chill for a good amount of time, he really does not wanna fucking touch that group because that’s so much drama just waiting to happen (hint: it isn’t) 

until, he gets, touch starved to hell and wants to be wanted so fucking bad and surprise surprise mags is like yo you are so fucking hot and taako just preens under his praise like fine, i guess I’ll be With you

i mean i could write an entire 5000 word essay on lupcret about how they get together but it is a huge mutual crush until they get together and they’re just,, love,, they’re definitely the first romantic relationship on the ship

sweet young lucretia has a compulsive heterosexuality crush on mags because uh?? everyone is attracted to him?? so i am too?? he is objectively hot?? and she tries to have a threesome with him and lup and she’s like nope nope i ‘m a lesbian thank s

but her and lup just have a very very sweet and dependable love after trying to isolate herself from lup and lup is like, no i love you, i want to be with you, and lucretia just cries she’s so happy and forehead touching is a HUGE thing of theirs just a thing of i will hold you through everything, you are my love, don’t worry just look at me

merle and dav have nearly the longest slowburn that everyone else on the ship snicker like just fuck like the rest of us

it’s actually…surprisingly sweet and they go through the whole dating shebang and they’re kinda quiet about their relationship until one day davenport proposes and merle fucking loses it and tells everyone about HIS HUSBAND ISN”T HE BEAUTIFUL and dav is like it was nice trying to keep it quiet

ok now into more just hc:

cuddle piles and somehow all of them manage to fit onto one couch like lup and taako will just be sitting there already folded into each other and magnus will come up and lift them just a bit so that they can be on his lap  and then barry sits behind magnus somehow and lucretia is behind lup and if merle behaves he can also be on there but davenport only rarely joins the couch because it gets hot as hell and he doesn’t want the sweat

a fight breaks out about who is better taako or lup in bed and magnus and barry are put on trial and it’s a full cycle fight until they split up what they are better at  and it’s a complete cop out and taako and lup are pissed at them (luc is toted around on lup’s lap as the only beloved)

there’s a constant fear of entering the kitchen because whatever twin that is working in the kitchen will often require a kiss for access to the which,, dissolves to make outs or more,

there isn’t a single clean and pure surface by cycle 10 

there’s a lot of uncomfortable fisting jokes because no one knows if it’s true or not who has . been . fisted. (hint: only one of them)

the bonds between them get very very strong after a while because after so much trauma they just need each other, they’ve seen each other die and they love each other so much it just hurts so much to see each other hurting

magnus loves sitting on lup’s lap

magnus ends up having a huge fling one cycle with a local girl and it ends in him getting betrayed because he was just a big meat bag and she needed him to kill someone (and uses blood magic to make him) and it’s . bad. but thankfully in the next cycle he has the support of them and it’s a huge character growth thing for him

people bake favors for the twins so. much. to try and gain favor and just to do something nice. mags and lucretia often team up to make something nice for lup. 

and vice versa the twins are known for gifting pies as apologies

mags has a huge habit of telling everyone that they’re the most beautiful people he’s ever met and that he loves them dearly and he wants them to know how much he treasures them and it’s so fucking earnest and beautiful that they all make a pact to love him deeply

no one sleeps alone after a certain point, the trauma of everything just gets to them and they need the comfort, some nights involve the main five all together

someone ask me about the time mags and lup find barry’s dildo 

there’s a lot of kissing, platonic and otherwise, it just becomes so normal to kiss each other on the foreheads and lucretia is notorious for kissing on the shoulder, just a quick peck 

h o l d i n g h a n d s

magnus has a habit of holding someone’s hand and bring their hand up to his mouth to kiss it

magnus has bandanas that each one of them wear as almost “tokens” of “courting” him

lup wears her in a ponytail or around her head, taako does the same plus around his thigh or ankle, barry wears his around his neck arm or forehead, it takes a bit of coercing but eventually lucretia takes one despite being a “only friends lover” and wears it on her ankle 

barry is the best at dancing and it drives all of them crazy 

there’s a lot of bets and competitions that go around and i couldn’t name them all but the one me and ssd were talking about recently was who can get mags off the quickest so Yeah

i uh, could go on but yeah you get the idea, i really like the polyblaster, basically they’re all very intimate and close to each other regardless of romantic or not

#paz.replies #oofa doofa #this is a lot #nsfw/ #obv this contains a lot of non canon ships so if that's not your thing #don't read #they just all love each other and are intimate with each other #Anonymous

[inhalareexhalare]

“Let Him First Cast a Stone at Her”

Two occurrences in this early morning:

(1) I brushed off Ms. Len when she asked if I could deal with her bank deposit on my way, since yesterday I experienced the worst long wait ever. That particular bank has poor manpower and technology. Now I regret letting that opportunity to help pass me by.

(2) Reyna’s all anxious again from her mistakes at work. She thinks they’re minor and careless, but it’s exactly the simplicity of the mistakes that makes her feel bad about herself. Simple mistakes that she could have avoided, she thinks.

To Reyna:

Kung may mag-judge man sa iyo, sabihin mo walang kwenta siya JK HAHA

[If anyone ever judges you tell them they’re fucking useless JUST KIDDING HAHA]

Sabi nga ni Jesus sa Christianity, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

[Jesus of Christianity did say,...]

Remember, walang may karapatan na husgahan ka. Ginagawa mo ang pinaka-best mo, at alam mo yan.

[Remember, nobody has the right to judge you. You do the very best that you can, and you know it.]

Pero kung gusto mo ng improvement anyway, pwede mong i-note nalang yun para new habit na haha "always doublecheck" :) Malamang magkakamali ka pa rin kasi di naman tayo robot, pero magiging mas konti na probably ang frequency! :D

[But if you want to work on self-improvement anyway, you can note it instead to turn it into a new habit haha “always double-check” :) You will certainly still make mistakes since we aren’t robots, but you’ll probably less frequently miss it! :D]

I still feel bad about Ms. Len hahahuhu

Oh wait! She responded in e-mail! Yay she would like to take my re-offer of doing that deposit (as long as it’s on the wayy)

From Ms. Len:

Wait for a moment.I will go there.Thank you very much.

To Ms. Len:

Thank you so much for taking the trouble! Noted!

2019-02-28 08:40 Philippines Thursday

I.. 

I am seriously trembling, fuck.

I am overwhelmed with excitement as I crave for this social development.

Ms. Len and I hugged. She said sorry for the trouble, but that she also really appreciates it, because two secretaries that sit adjacent to her cubicle like to pick on her schedule. They spread weird rumors about her taking too long with errands (and are suspecting that Ms. Len is busy chatting with people and having fun despite it being the time for work.) 

So this is quite a help in saving her time. I told her not to mind them. I love them as individuals, but they’re letting their perspectives run over Ms. Len this time. Those two are known for having less responsibilities as Ms. Len as people also say that they are unreliable or slow. Which makes them not understand how Ms. Len can possibly have so much errands/responsibilities to be running out and back to office the whole day.

For people who some others belittle, they should understand what Ms. Len must be feeling if they just try. :<

People just like to pick on other people. Especially if they don’t think getting to know others better is worth their time. Let’s try to break the cycle, shall we?

2019-02-28 09:32 Philippines Thursday

I ran into Richel, one of my cousins, who is now in her early college years. I was able to properly express my pleasant surprise. It’s been so long that I thought we’d have a lot of troublesome ice to thaw between us but hey, we were good. I told her that I missed her (and I didn’t know that until I said it), and she met me with similar enthusiasm and told me that she and her family would actually love to have lunch together with me someday.

I thought I’d be allergic to her since ever since I left home, I hid from my relatives ( I didn’t like to be talked about or pried on, and I didn’t want unnecessary burden on my dad and everyone although I think this absence of mine might have just worsened the gossip fuel haha) But we were cool. She didn’t know how to talk to me but in the spur of the moment I initiated so that was a surprise.

I wonder if I should take them up on that offer? I dislike feeling like I have to explain myself, but isn’t that exactly what socializing is about? Helping each other understand each other?

Okay, a part of me still doesn’t want to, but I guess I should. If they initiate of course. I am technically sent the invitation through someone else’s intention, but I don’t want this gathering to be started by me because then it would be as if I want to push my ideas onto them.

Nevertheless:

Mission: Share Your Opinion.

2019-02-28 11:27 Philippines Thursday

Waaah. I couldn’t share my opinions at our meeting. I couldn’t even speak up or make a sound. Even when Dr. Virg started lightening up to me with jokes on my silence.

I just didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t relate to them. Worse, I couldn’t find my voice. My voice was also weak even when it was Dr. Seth asking. I guess the whole, general air can give so much effect on comfort. I saw them somewhat as a group of people I couldn’t relate to. 

Retirement? Salary? Nationwide competition? The only thing I could relate to was that scandal they talked about around a certain graduate who lied for years to their parents regarding studies and even graduation. That student made up a lot of stories which sounds so familiar to me because my brother did that before. 

So I could only empathize. Troubled, repressed individuals who don’t know who to go to for help. Or just plainly can’t because they’re no t used to asking for help.

I couldn’t speak because I’d just be adding fuel to their gossip. 

I had no idea what to do at all, although I did my job right when it’s about business.

I don’t understand what Dr. Virg and some others in the room expect from me. If they were in my position, I wonder what they would talk about? I could be the clown/joker and say some pretty stupid things just to get a laugh and a level of comfort, but that wouldn’t be me.

Hm. Whatcha think, reader?

I really believe now that small talk is important, but what could I possibly talk about? I’m clueless here...

All I can think of for now, is improve the volume of my voice. Be adventurous with it. Don’t let their expectations intimidate you.

But I’m severely lacking in improvisation in this case. Strange. 

Do I really just lack information? Is that it? But their topics are too irrelevant to me.

Seriously, what do you say to:

“Ey, Lobo. You and Phoebe should be hosts to this event. Haha!”

Don’t worry it wasn’t an attack. Or at least that’s how I heard it. Phoebe is an apparently soft-spoken staff member. I could only smile or chuckle along.

I have no idea what to say. Hm. If I do have to give an opinion though, I’d ask if the event was undercover because I’m too quiet to host it. I wonder if they’d relate though. I have pretty weird contextual language, just like anyone does when there’s a huge gap in culture.

What if, instead, I say, then the event would be chaos, because I'd make a pretty speechless and therefore powerless host. Hosts exist to control the flow. I exist to observe the flow.

...

...too serious? This has always been a kind of problem haha

I like this part of me, but most don’t relate.

But I think I’ll try my second idea next time. My way of showing affection is adding some flavor and insight into things.

-

WAIT. I think I found another hole. I’m too busy looking for a short response, since I know they don’t think of me highly yet for me to steal more than a minute out of one turn.

(1) Do they actually think that? If so, there’s nothing to do about it. I can only shut up, or be fake.

(2) Maybe they don’t think that. If so, then I should give myself a push and try.

(3) The truth is that I really just don’t know what they think; So I must try, and keep trying. Unless it’s really evident that (1) is true, then that’s the time I drop it.

I should give it tries.

Mission: Steal Time, Test Waters!

But I still think I wouldn’t have gotten this idea at the time, since I keep thinking about the comfort levels of the other speaker and what they are probably expecting out of me. So, a revision of the previous mission:

Mission: Share Your Opinion (Think Underlying Concepts)

2019-02-28 15:14 Philippines Thursday

Huh. I don't feel so attached to Karu now, even though it's nighttime.

I'm actually pretty happy and excited on my own.

I'm genuinely excited for his gig tonight and for his net gigs, and for his new flute!

Even though I won't get to hear it until maybe a weekend morning.

You know what? I don't feel bad at all. I watched a few short films, snd then manga, and then pondered for a bit on what I could develop in that collab story I have with Nynaeve.

And I'm going to bed pretty darn happy.

I am absolutely comfortable right now.

Hm.

It feels so free to rid yourself of unnecessary reins.

Chains that shackle unnecessary burdens like self-expectations, obsessions, self-depreciation, etc...

Why did I want Karu home at night before again?

The anxiety was triggered by extreme loneliness and envy. Unforgiving to myself for having such feelings, I would beat myself up and fixate on things about myself, and then I wouldn't be able to stop with the obsessive thinking if I didn't remember to do my calm spell and breathing exercise.

Now, I just have peace. Freedom. So much freedom that I find it easy to set other people free. Set Karu free.

I guess it's hard to find peace if you're looking for it. Peace is in everything around you; in everything that taught you important lessons; in everything that you love to do; in everything that you discover new.

You don't do tricks and hacks to get the peace of mind that you crave for; you just do things for reasons that actually matter to you—you do things for getting better, and for growing up.

Don't rush it, but don't delay it.

Don't resist it.

Literally be yourself and always find ways to enhance yourself.

This was Pa's truest words, when he wasn't held down so much by the pressures of society: (I was crying tears at the age of 19, having experienced my first of societal/social failures—flunking a subject.)

"I don't need you to be the best out of everyone. I want you to be the best of yourself."

2019-02-28 22:41 Philippines Thursday

What is this. I'm still not afraid of getting up in the morning!

Because how do I know it’s all gonna work out? I don’t.

Focus. IT'S A LEAP OF FAITH.

2019-03-01 06:00 Philippines Friday

PS watch Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse!

#chrono7 #social #progress #mission #goal #relative

[lakesandquarries]

You’re Around (Till You’re Not Around)

Characters: magnus, taako Other Tags: Angst, that’s it, it’s literally just angst Warnings: spoilers through episode 57 Summary: Magnus can’t feel. Taako pretends not to. Other Notes: Takes place near the end of episode 57, when thb is camping. Lots of spoilers.  title from “older and taller” by regina spektor.

AO3

He can’t feel the fire.

Magnus can’t feel a lot of things now, to be fair, but something about not feeling the warmth is especially bad. He doesn’t feel cold, either. He doesn’t feel the breeze or the fire or the air or the grass beneath him. He doesn’t feel anything. Hollow, maybe. Wooden and hollow and empty and blank.

He’s been in this body less than a day, and already he hates it. He can’t feel, can’t eat, can’t protect his friends, can barely sleep. They’ve been camped for an hour and still he’s awake, remnants of visions clinging to his mind.

Two suns. Purple sky. Nothing else unusual, but - two suns.

Was it warmer, there? Was it like a perpetual midsummer day? Was the world in a constant state of heat and light and fire? Other things must have been different, beyond the suns, beyond the sky. Was the ocean purple too? Why can’t he remember?

Was he happy? How did he end up here

He scoots himself closer to the fire, holding his hand up, pretending he can feel the warmth.

Will he ever actually die? He wishes he could shut his eyes, block out the emotions and thoughts he’s having, but his mannequin face is blank. He doesn’t even know how he’s seeing. Is he dead, now? How many times has he died? How long will it be until he can see Julia again, if he ever gets to see her again? Would she even recognize him?

And, the worst thought, the one he’s been pushing out of his mind as hard as he can: Was Julia even real? Is he even real?

Nothing seems real, right now. He moves his left hand closer to the fire, slowly, tentatively, inching it further and further, until his pinky catches fire.

He doesn’t feel it. The wood burns and turns to ash and crumbles and still he doesn’t feel it. When the fire starts to creep up to the rest of his hand, he shoves it into the dirt, until every sign and spark is gone, and he doesn’t feel that either.

A desert, a cup, two people. Jack and June, he can assume. The Temporal Chalice. He was the visitor that brought Jack and June, wasn’t he? He’s known that, or been sort of vaguely aware of the concept of it but unable to actually coherently think about it, since they got home from Refuge.

Home, he thinks. Is the Bureau really home anymore? Can they ever go back? The Director will be furious when she learns what’s happened, if she learns what happened. Can he even trust her?

Can he trust anyone?

He’d like to think he can trust Taako and Merle. He loves them, after all. Not the way he loved - loves - Julia, but it’s still love. Taako had thrown himself into the void to save him, and what else could that be considered? And Merle - well. Merle may be grumpy and gruff, but he’d have walked out long ago if he really wanted to. But he’s still here, and he’d pulled them back from the void.

They love each other. But trust? Trust is hard. Trusting them means telling them about his life before. Trust means telling them about a little dog and an angry crowd, about hands twice the size of Magnus’ teaching him to turn wood into art, about a beautiful girl who grew into a beautiful woman, about a mad and vicious governor and the rebellion that stopped him, about showing mercy to his worst enemy, about a hand carved gazebo and the words “I do” and that brief period of bliss.

It means telling them about leaving. About coming home to find it gone. About finding bodies and barely being able to recognize them. About the way he wakes up some mornings and turns to her only to remember she’s gone.

How does he put that into words? How does he explain the empty pit that opens up in his chest every time he thinks of Raven’s Roost?

And, with what he’s seen since being dragged back from the void by Taako, how does he even know it’s real?

A desert. A red jacket. A cup.

Who is he?

If he wasn’t in this awful shitty wooden excuse for a body, he thinks he’d be crying. As it is, he’s making these awful noises, somewhere between a sob and a gasp, and he can’t even cover his mouth because of this stupid awful mannequin body.

“Yo,” he hears, and then he turns to see Taako, rubbing his eye and sitting up slightly, chest just barely poking out of the ridiculous sleep sack he insists on using.

The glamour he was using earlier was gone, and now Magnus really notices the differences in his appearance. The bags under his eyes are heavy, his hair’s lost some of its shine, even his nose seems…less, somehow. Taako, but slightly to the left. Not unrecognizable, but…unsettling, almost.

“Mags?” Taako says, sitting up fully now. “Might be the new face, or lack thereof, but, uh, you’re kinda staring.”

“Oh,” Magnus says, turning his gaze to the ground. “Right.”

“Are…you okay?” Taako asks, spinning a few strands of blonde hair, not looking at Magnus.

Magnus stares at him.

“Jeez, it’s just a question,” Taako says, rolling his eyes, but then he looks back at Magnus and he can see the faintest glimmer of worry in his eyes.

“I - I don’t know?” Magnus says, finally. “I don’t - this whole thing is just -” he waves his hands, unable to find the words. Taako stands, walking over so he’s standing in front of Magnus.

“It blows,” Taako finishes for him.

Magnus droops. “Yeah. How're…how’re you holding up?”

Taako waves his hand. “You know me. Taako’s good out here, right?” He grins. It doesn’t reach his eyes.

Magnus doesn’t comment. Taako’s never the type to share, and it’s been a long day. Pushing him will just make him shut down more.

“We’ll,” Taako starts, then stops. Pauses. Stares off into the distance and thinks. “…Shit’s fucked,” he says, finally, sitting down next to Magnus.

“Yeah,” Magnus says. Taako looks at him, scrutinizing him almost.

“We should draw you a face.”

“Draw me a face,” Magnus repeats.

“Yeah. Like, no offense, but the whole “faceless mannequin” thing is kiiiinda creepy.” He leans forward and plucks a stick of charcoal out of the fire, then turns to Magnus and raises an eyebrow.

“Why not,” Magnus says.

He doesn’t feel Taako drawing. But he watches as Taako draws, and he can almost imagine what it’d feel like. Taako is focused, the kind of serious, deep focus Magnus almost never sees from him. He’s got his tongue sticking out a bit, reminding Magnus of a cat.

It hits him again how different Taako looks. Like some of the inherent Taako-ness of his face has been drained away. This close, he can also see Taako seems a little less healthy, too. His skin is desaturated, missing its usual vibrance. Even his eyes seem duller.

Taako used to glow. It’s not that he’s ugly now, just…

He’s lost his glow.

“Done!” Taako announces, stepping back, then frowning and stepping closer. “Hold up. Can you kneel down for me? Yeah, perfect.” He draws a few more quick lines, then looks over Magnus and gives and approving nod. He darts over to his pack, grabbing a small mirror from inside. “Check it,” he says, grinning at Magnus and handing him the mirror.

It’s…well. If Magnus is being totally honest, it’s not very good. The eyes are crudely drawn circles with little lines to represent eyebrows, the nose is just a triangle, and the mouth is just a single line.

But there’s a little line, right through Magnus’s eye, like the scar he got in that bar fight so long ago. There’s more scribbles on the side of his face, and the top of his head, almost like sideburns and hair.

Magnus looks up. Taako’s watching him, biting his lip, fidgeting with his hands, spinning one of his rings around his finger.

“So?” he asks.

“It’s perfect,” Magnus says. Taako snorts, rolls his eyes. But he looks away and Magnus sees the faintest hint of a glow in his eyes..

“I wouldn’t go that far, homie. But I’m glad you like it.” He flashes Magnus another grin - one that almost reaches his eyes, this time - before taking the mirror and putting it away. Magnus looks down at his hands, at the grass, and thinks.

“Taako?” he says, after a moment of silence.

“Yeah?” Taako says, glancing up at him. He’s crawled back into his sleep sack, face just poking out.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah,” Taako says. “Things’ll be okay, right? We’ll figure something out. We always do.” He smiles at Magnus. Not his usual snarky grins, but…a comforting smile. Or the closest Taako can get, at least.

“Yeah,” Magnus says, but he doesn’t believe it.

“Get some sleep, dude. Want me to cast sleep on you?”

He shakes his head. “No, no. I’m fine.”

“If you insist.” Within a few seconds Taako is snoring. Magnus sighs, lies down on the ground, tries to get comfortable.

Realizes that being comfortable isn’t possible anymore. Sighs again. Looks up at the sky, the stars. Thinks about a different sky, with different stars.

Sleep, he reminds himself. Everything will be better in the morning.

(It’s not.)

#the adventure zone #taz #magnus burnsides #taako taaco #magnus (taz) #taako (taz) #thezonecast #cora writes #adventures of cora

[zenosanalytic]

HoXPoX Liveblog: House of X #5

And Now HoX#5! Here Is The Link

On to House of X #5! The cover's a Savage Land variant with a, to me, too skinny Rogue, though as always her Gloves and Boots are On Point. Emma Frost's also there, looking bored/annoyed, sitting on the head of an Apatosaurus 

Opening X Quote Summarized: Mutants were never given a chance, unlike them(humans presumably but we'll see given the trinary organization of man/machine/mutant[the consonance compels me to use a plural noun I dislikeX|])

Mag's summation of the switch to agriculture is a bit rose-colored; in most cases it was also associated with the explosive growth of disease, slavery, war, exploitation, gender stratification, so much else. Also misleading: society has ALWAYS existed... 

...at BEST you can draw a direct line btw ag and cities, but even there it's iffy, given new archaeology suggesting some early, pre-agricultural ritual-site-settlements. Of course he's propagandizing, and Mags rarely says anything that without it serves a purpose.

The quote, as always, seems to be the theme. Mags is talking abt a new gen of mutants not defined by being hunted but by social life/"civilization"(again these arent exclusive) Im thinking this might be a bit New Mutant focused we'll see. 

(oh yeah lots of golds and greens on those pages, so Beginnings/safety again) Ok the eggs WERENT something Krakoa did: they're the product of 5 combined mutant powers! They're Quick-Clone Eggs!! Neat!!! I was hoping to see some powers-derived technology.

Puts a different spin on the opening scene of HoX#1, though; kinda lame to give Xavier visual credit for the work of other mutants, even if it was done to preserve the reveal. They're the one's being "godly" here, not him.

ah ok cool, so Xavier uses Cerebro to copy their minds, then transfers them back into their bodies! HAHA; it really is a reverse of the Machine's concept of Ascension; technology and biological quirk used to preserve&resurrect individuality, rather than subsume it in "perfection"

Philosophically I really love this, as it's in so many way the OPPOSITE of the Platonic Idealism of their enemies(The Sents, The Genetic Puritans). The Mind/Spirit to be preserved is NOT the Perfect Pure One but the Unique Individual...

...and it's not done through the working of One Great Spirit or Machine, but through the Uniqueness of individuals working in Concert. They dont even reject a place for machines given Cerebro's role&Xavier's Cybernetic contribution. Its Full Luxury Mutant Cyborg Socialist Utopia!

and THAT'S just the introduction! The scene continues after the credit-page: Storm is giving a speech and there's some cool symbolism; the sun shining through the pale lavender leaves of the tree-entrance to the resurrection chamber beneath a green sky... 

...A new beginning, knowledge/power/safety, out of death/endings, a a cycle of death broken by a new cycle of death and returned-life. 

In, again, a refashioned echo of the X3 Phalanx scene, where the elder tested Phalanx to see if their knowledge was preserved to see if they were, Storm "tests" the resurrected, asking them personal questions...

...But there the preservation was judge only the individual & faith, here the Preserved speaks for itself; is judged by public witness of their words by those who know and love them best and acclaimed alive again by all. Here is Proof not Belief. Here is Validation not Doubt.

THEYRE GONNA FUCKING RESURRECT THEM ALL HELL YES!!! I love this not only out of a love for the Mutant backlog, but also for how this works on a meta-level: this is declaring Dawn of X, the larger Marvel project, to be an Undoing of Decimation and...

...in discourse with HoX 4, critiquing both Genoa, Decimation, and the corporate impulses behind them(ie, killing lots of mutant to "rationalize" the canon and for shock value) by treating them seriously as in-world traumas.

Nightcrawler is SO SHORT! I LOVE HIM!! Also everyone's touching their naked bodies so correction: Full Luxury Mutant Cyborg Socialist POLYAMOROUS Utopia uvu uvu uvu

and some Infopages recapping how the Resurrection works just to be clear about it(and suggest some interesting possibilities)

Cut to the UN, Xavier and Emma talking about the, Successful, Vote. Frost seems to have Compelled the Russian ambassador to abstain against her government's orders. This is followed by an infopage detailing nations that have rejected Krakoan treaties; Wakanda's a Big one

I wonder if they're going to touch on that in the next few books or if that's something they left for the Dawn of X series. Storm's got a long, friendly history with Wakanda(I think?) and I've never heard of Black Panther being hostile to mutants :?

Cut back to Krakoa; Apoc and his allied mutants are arriving(Marrows with them; I thought she was an XMen? Looking it up it seems there was a vers where the Morlocks were victims of Sinister's experimentation in Apoc's name). 

Building on that, Sinister was with Apoc's group. They have a long association but he was behind the "database" for the Ressurection protocol, so I wonder why he's showing up here? Is this just the arrival of "generic mutant villains"?

Final page is a splash of Xavier and Apoc shaking hands in welcome Xavier saying "Welcome Home". The sun is in the top left corner shining down through the trees in oranges and light purples. The fuschia "eyes" of Krakoa look on from the right. Apocs smiling abt as much as he can

There's something interesting to talk about here. Apoc identifies Krakoa as mutants "finally becoming what he always intended them to be", again this suggestion, present from the start, that Krakoa involves taking on a possibly corrupting nationalism&supremacism.

The dangers of those ideologies are obvs, but the context of the comics, where mutants have mostly been wiped out by repeated atrocities non-mutant humans refuse to prevent or help in stopping, & Moira's xp, I think explains why this would seem worth risking.

I do still feel like there's a deception going on here though. It cant be missed that Moira's Sixth life is hidden in the timeline charts, and that HoXPoX ends with their Sixth issues, and there's still the question of why X3 is included if its a "failed" tl.

Three issues left! I'll try to finish this up tomorrow. So far I've been liking it though I was expecting something a bit meatier from the reactions to it online.

#X Men #Hickman et al #Marvel #HoxPox #House of X 5 #House of X #HoXPoX Liveblog #zA Liveblogs

[theworstbob]

the thing journal, 7.23.2017 - 7.29.2017

documenting how i enjoyed things i watched or listened to. in this post: jackie brown, weather diaries, burn your fire for no witness, kiss me once, body talk, the outsiders, the happiest day in the life of olli maki, and my krazy life

1) Jackie Brown, dir. Quentin Tarantino: One item among the long list of my Cool Guy demerits is that it took me 20 years to watch the Tarantino adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel. Once you set aside the fact that low-key fuckboy Tarantino pretty much only wrote this movie so he could write the n-word as many times as he pleased, this is just incredible fun. Pam Grier is amazing in the lead role, it’s just such a joy watching that character get forced into this situation then slowly start to realize she’s smarter than everyone else in the situation. Also, Samuel L. Jackson in a ponytail. I don’t know whose choice that was, but whoever decided that Samuel L. Jackson’s character needed the scummiest ponytail of all time, they are a hero and deserve a national holiday dedicated to them.

2) Weather Diaries, by Ride: So one fun thing about Amazon Music’s recommendation system is, it sucks and. Amazon Music keeps recommending I listen to good kid M.A.A.D. city, an album I bought four years ago on Amazon. So I don’t know why I trusted it when it said I might enjoy this because I enjoyed Sheer Mag. I was in the mood to rock again. Need to Feel Your Love is great! This was boring Britrock nonsense, and not the dreamy ethereal London Grammar kind, not something I could get behind, just intermittently captivating slowscapes that were nothing at all like the classic rock offered by Sheer Mag. And, I mean, I guess I get it, the people who are listening to Sheer Mag are the people listening to indie rock, and Ride is the sort of band the indie rock people usually listen to, and I should have realized they were basing this selection off the tastes of indie rock people and not what Sheer Mag actually sounded like. And I guess the album isn’t bad, I just don’t need something like this in my life.

3) Burn Your Fire for No Witness, by Angel Olsen: If I learned anything from my journey through notable 2014 releases, it’s that it takes something way strong to transcend my disinterest in indie rock. Like Weather Diaries, this is fine, but this genre just isn’t for me. You wanna know what is for me? You wanna know what gets me going, what gets my brain a-thinkin’ and my fingers a-drummin’?

4) Kiss Me Once, by Kylie Minogue: Fuck. Yes. I am not ashamed to admit that I am always going to be into the trashiest pop music you can dredge up. Give me someone singing over electronic beats. Give me an album which has three songs of eleven with the word “sex” in the title. I am not concerned with sounding music smart. I think it’s really neat that Ride and Angel Olsen are able to convey complex emotions with their music, and I’m sure if I ever gave them a true sit-down and really thought about them I might find something to like, but how come we always think sadness is more complex than happiness? Kiss Me Once is no less authentic just because it has more electronic elements and has songs about things that are nice. I will make this point until I am red in the face and hoarse from the screaming: it’s way harder to express positivity than negativity, and I am always going to be more drawn to works with positive and hopeful thoughts than I will be to sad dark souls.

5) Body Talk, by Robyn: Unless that music is made in Europe. When I say I was disappointed in this album, I am sort of lying, because no album with “Dancing on My Own” can be disappointing. “Dancing on My Own” is a perfect song, and any album with it on it is a phenomenal goddamned album. (You know how hard it is to make a sad song with a beat that hard? Listen to all the plodding-ass sad-sack covers that completely miss the fucking point. Kings of Leon should be banned from music for what they did to this song.) I just couldn’t connect with the rest of the album. Maybe it’s because I listened to this the day after Kiss Me Once and it felt redundant, or maybe I’m just a little too accustomed to American music and had trouble adjusting to anything remotely foreign. But I really liked the Kylie Minogue album? ...Was this just not gay enough for me? Like, Kiss Me Once sounded like a missing piece of the Scissor Sisters oeuvre, and this sounded like electronic pop music with precision producing. I don’t know if I have any right to make this critique as a straight cis white male, but I think my main problem with this album was that it wasn’t gay enough. It’s like Cameron and Mitchell on Modern Family. Yeah, the show is funny, it’s being made by professionals and the years they’ve spent honing their craft shines through on occasion, but those characters aren’t nearly as compelling as they could be. Same thing here, the album’s just a little too reserved, a little too afraid to let go and travel to the Kylie Minogue place.

6) The Outsiders, by Eric Church: Setting aside the silliness of a dude on a major label calling himself an outsider (he performed the title track during halftime of a Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving Day game played on the Fox network. Tru rebel hours), Eric Church is still one of the few men in country music making ambitious and engaging songs. I’m willing to put up with occasional snoozes like “Talladega” if they’re gonna come between songs like “A Man Who Was Gonna Die Young” and “Give Me Back My Hometown.” Are there men in country music who’re more creatively engaging than Church? Yes, of course, and certainly none that  pose a pro-marijuana stance as a bad boy credential. (”Oooh, I’m such a rebel, I smoke ganja.” Yeah hey so does my mom. Drugs are boring and you’re boring for liking them.) But Eric Church is a fine enough access point to those cooler things. He’s definitely several notches up from the bro country cohort, but he’s just dull enough that you’ll be willing to search for more.

7) The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki, dir. Juho Kuosmanen: This film offers an intriguing counterpoint to Creed. Creed is all about a man punching (swish!) over his head and trying to prove himself in the highest-pressure situation imaginable. This film is about a man who gets put in that high-pressure situation and realizes he wants no part of it. I think this society praises people who rise to the occasion and do their hometown proud and pull off the upset, but no one makes movies about the underdogs who end up losing, the Directional Michigans of the world what get throttled by the Dukes, and this film gives some shine to the people who’d rather be amateurs, who neither need nor want the adoration of millions and the intensity of fame. Olli Maki is clearly uncomfortable having to be a symbol for Iceland’s hopes and dreams, never more relaxed than he is when he’s in the country with the woman he’s fallen in love with, and this film treats it like a victory when he ends up getting beaten down by the champion boxer. (I love the other boxer. “Hey. Y’all just gotta stand there and smile and not say words. Look like you don’t know where you are.” Role of a lifetime. Dude nailed it.) It’s a unique take on the typical sports movie. Someone decides they’d rather not push themselves to greatness and remains ordinary, and you’re left saying, “Yeah, that makes sense. She’s a good woman, and getting punched heckin’ hurts! Way to go, Olli!”

8) My Krazy Life, by YG: Man, this guy is not entirely cool with the concept of women, is he? There was one song on Still Brazy I have to skip because it makes me so uncomfortable, and there’s nothing here quite that gross, but there’s more than a few lines that completely jar you from the album. Like, if you push through, there’s a lot of good. YG just slugs some of these beats, particularly “Really Be (Smokin N Drinkin)” (which also contains one of the better Kendrick guest spots). He can take these electronic bleep/bloop beats and pound them into the ground until they’re ugly enough to be gangsta rap, and the production is just glossy enough to smooth over some of the rougher edges of YG’s personality. It’s a really cool album, but man, it’s almost not worth the amount of effort it takes to enjoy it. Still worth, but you gotta ask some difficult questions about what you value from your music.