#i hope to learn something at the very least

[starcurtain]

Female Guidance in Aventurine's Life

One thing I haven't seen discussed in much depth yet, but which I think is especially interesting, is the consistency of female guidance in Aventurine's life: Every single person who we have seen on screen offering Aventurine assistance or making a positive difference in his life is female (with one exception, yes, I'll get there).

Under the read more cause it's longggg:

Before even diving into his family, let's just get the obvious out of the way: Aventurine is, at least supposedly, blessed by a goddess. The very origin of his good fortune--be it actual blessing or curse--comes from the literal "mother goddess" who watches over him. This is one of the only instances in Star Rail where a god character is specifically given a gender, and Gaiathra is not ever ambiguous. She is the classic female fertility goddess with all the trappings of other famous triple goddess figures of the real world. Aventurine's personal belief in the goddess may be shaky, but he nevertheless continues to treasure his people's faith. Thus, at the core, we can say Aventurine is a character who is guarded by the most quintessential mother figure possible.

Now, with the most obvious out of the way:

We know that Aventurine's father died before Aventurine was even born, and therefore he would not have any memories of his father, leaving him to be raised by his mother and sister.

Both women clearly made an enormous and lasting impression on Aventurine; they haunt every single one of his memories of Sigonia and are the key elements of the family Aventurine longs to return to. While he flirts with the concept of death as a way to see his family members again, it was also his mother and sister who instilled in him any sense of self-worth and meaning to his existence, the only things keeping him from giving up on living. His mother believed him to be blessed; his sister insisted to his face that not even the only remaining remnant of their mother had any value in comparison to his life.

It is for his sister that Aventurine first begins expressing a self-sacrificial nature, and from his sister that this self-sacrifice is reinforced when she uses herself as a shield to help him escape massacre at the hands of the Katicans.

It is also from his sister that Aventurine learns many of the deeply meaningful actions he holds onto to the present day, despite having been so far removed from his own culture.

Conversely, every one of Aventurine's early negative experiences on screen appear to have been driven (at least primarily) by men.

Although the Katican tribe of course would have both men and women, the tribal societies on Sigonia appear to be on the fairly traditional side, with Aventurine's mother staying at the camp with her child while his father was the one to go out and hunt for offerings for Gaiathra. This is also supported by Aventurine asking Jade to take him to her "chief" later on. Therefore, it is likely (although of course not guaranteed) that a majority of the Katicans' army was male, and that Aventurine's early experiences with outsiders consisted almost entirely of indiscriminate pillaging and massacre at the hands of what the Avgin viewed as savage, invading warriors. In separate instances, Aventurine was traumatized by these warrior figures three times--first with the loss of his father, then his mother, and then finally his sister.

And even their hope, supposed to come in the form of the "men in black" from the IPC, completely abandoned them, leaving Aventurine once again betrayed by masculine figures that were supposed to be there to protect him. Led by Oswaldo Schneider, another cruel male authority figure, the Marketing Department of the IPC permitted the wholesale slaughter of Aventurine's people--something which we know Aventurine is now aware of.

Then, of course, the next piece of Aventurine's backstory we're given is his male slave master. I don't really need to say anything about this, do I? This man violated Aventurine's human dignity and bodily autonomy, and forced Aventurine's hand in a life or death battle for which Aventurine still punishes himself mentally, even years in the future.

In part to escape the difficulty of his situation and rise to a position where he would have enough resources to--he thought--help his people, Aventurine joins up with the IPC. But when he attempts to make contact with a powerful man in the organization, Diamond, he is instead met by a woman, Jade, who against Aventurine's own expectations determines that she will raise Aventurine up (or use him as a tool, depending on how you currently choose to interpret Jade's motivations), granting him wealth and status beyond his imagination.

(And this line in particular is interesting, because you can take it one of two ways: 1) Aventurine comes from a patriarchal planet that traditionally put men into positions of power [thereby making his own slavery an emasculating act, aligning him further with disenfranchised women]; thus, he is making the assumption that to get anywhere in this organization, he will need to work with a man; or 2) He actually was counting on Jade taking his bet and helping him right from the beginning, because Aventurine perceives women as inherently more likely to protect and aid him than men would be.)

In the end, Jade does exactly as she claims she will, launching Aventurine into a position of power while also closing golden handcuffs around his wrists. She positions herself not only as his supervisor, but as his advocate and ally. She entrusts him with her Cornerstone, a sign of significant faith in his abilities. She even seems to be keenly aware of his bias towards the mother figure, referring to him as "child" in their conversations.

Whether this is genuine or a manipulation tactic can certainly be debated (and I'm not inclined to think at this point that Jade is a genuinely good role model or selflessly supportive person in Aventurine's life), but whatever the case, women are the only people Aventurine even remotely considers to be "in his corner."

We see this even earlier, in Aventurine's call to Topaz. Like with the example of his mother and sister, Aventurine trusts in Topaz's ability implicitly, and considers her above anyone else when it comes to completing the mission in Penacony.

Although of course we don't know if Aventurine has any other friends or allies among the Strategic Investment Department, it seems very likely that Topaz, yet another woman, is the one he is closest with. At the very least, she is the only IPC character (so far) that Aventurine has a complimentary voice line for, one that shows his respect for her talent:

Over and over again, the story aligns Aventurine with female figures in positions of authority, and demonstrates that he is comfortable (although maybe not too comfortable, in the case of Jade) with relying on them and trusting their judgment, just as he did with his mother and sister.

And this pretty much goes off the charts in Penacony, where Aventurine has more involvement with the female cast than virtually any other non-female character (even the Trailblazer!). We set the pattern off right away, with Aventurine immediately being placed into a negotiation situation with Himeko, respecting her role as the Express's leader and working to get himself aligned with the Express by acquiescing to her request for support.

Then there's the fact that Aventurine is the one who finds Robin's body, an event which, although he didn't let it show too much, was almost certainly traumatic for him, given the violent death of his own sister.

Next, twice in Penacony's story, we see Aventurine seek out Sparkle for information. He may not personally like her and her comments may be both racist and dehumanizing, but Aventurine does rely on her--being the only character explicitly seeking her aid, which no one else in Penacony seems to want.

In 2.0...

And in 2.1.

Now, say it with me, guys: Aventurine built an entire portion of his grand plan around the idea that if he looked pathetic enough, a female character would absolutely come and help him. And sure enough, the women come through for him, always! Sparkle gives him the exact last clue he needs to confirm his belief that he could use "Death" to reach the true Penacony, sealing the deal for the rest of his plan.

His plan which also hinged significantly on Black Swan's involvement too, another woman that he views as, if not trustworthy, then at least intelligent and hyper-competent.

Contrast all this, of course, with the treatment Aventurine receives at the hands of Sunday, the lone opposing male character he faces in Penacony.

Sparkle implies that Sunday would humiliate Aventurine in an unmistakably sexual and degrading way, and Sunday himself professes this same desire to see Aventurine humiliated.

Then we're "treated" to the moment in which Sunday uses the Harmony's (or perhaps actually the Order's?) power against Aventurine, in a scene which is supposed to reflect an interrogation but is also, very clearly, another nonconsensual violation of Aventurine's bodily autonomy and dignity by a man. While ostensibly seeking confirmation of the Cornerstone ruse, Sunday instead subjects Aventurine to unnecessary questions about his past on Sigonia, which recall and force Aventurine to re-endure memories of his trauma.

Even if this is what Aventurine prepared himself for and planned to have happen, the pain he experiences is very real, and he suffers both the physical and emotional consequences of Sunday's assault all the way up to his "Death" and possibly even beyond.

(Also, Sunday fans please don't get too up in arms with me for this; I also like Sunday! It's okay for characters to be morally grey!)

I think there's one other interesting example I would bring up here too, and that's Aventurine's conscious decision to weaponize his own masculinity against the Trailblazer. Through the 2.0 and 2.1 Trailblaze missions, Aventurine deliberately acts in an off-putting manner to the Astral Express crew, particularly the Trailblazer, in order to build up to the 2.1 climax where the Trailblazer is supposed to view him as an unrepentant villain and attack him without hesitation.

In order to achieve this uncomfortable, villainous effect, what does Aventurine do? Exactly what other men have done to him.

This is especially apparent if you're playing Stelle because of the ingrained societal taboo of a man entering a woman's personal space without consent, but even as Caelus, it is very clear that Aventurine is leveraging behaviors typically used to show dominance: In a complete 180 to all Aventurine's other body language in the game (normally quite withdrawn, frequently in defensive postures with his arms crossed or hand behind his back, almost always standing several feet away from other people), Aventurine violates the Trailblazer's personal bubble, looming over them (Caelus was sitting in this cutscene, lol), forcing eye contact, and commanding the space while informing them that they will have no choice.

For someone who was hunted, enslaved, had his movements restricted with chains, and due to his own slight stature has very likely been towered over by others who were intentionally asserting their power over him all his life, it is clear that Aventurine associates dominant, typically more masculine-coded physically-imposing behaviors with discomfort and even villainy.

Any girl who has ever had a man loom over her like this will realize very quickly: Aventurine wanted to make himself scary so he made himself act more like a bad man.

(Yes of course I know "not all men." I'm not saying every man behaves in this domineering way or that women cannot be domineering too, obviously, just that Aventurine had a very specific image in mind when constructing a "villainous persona," and the physically controlling tactics most typically used by aggressive men toward women was his immediate go-to.)

But where does that leave Dr. Ratio, the one male character actually on Aventurine's side?

Frankly, I don't want to derail my post about how intensely Hoyo chose to hammer on the message of "Women will protect you" in Aventurine's story with a discussion about a mlm ship, but the take-away here is going to lead in that direction anyway--so yes, Dr. Ratio is the exception.

What is interesting is that he does not come across as an exception at first, and in fact initially appears as another male character being rude and dismissive to Aventurine. Like, there are still people out there calling Ratio an unrepentant racist for this one.

Of course, it's later clarified that this is an act--likely even these insults were scripted specifically to give Sunday's spying ears the "insight" he needed to exploit Aventurine during the interrogation.

But even though it is an act, Aventurine still has noticeable trouble putting his faith in Ratio. He does genuinely doubt him a few times, despite knowing that they are working together to fool the Family.

Even his voice line about Ratio confirms that he doesn't think Ratio particularly cares for him; rather, he thinks Ratio simply tolerates him because he's slightly less unintelligent than those around them.

Ultimately, the entire act with Ratio ends up being a mirror of the real scenarios Aventurine has been experiencing with men his whole life (at least as far as we are shown his life). Men abandon him to fend for himself (unwillingly, like his father, or willingly, like Diamond leaving Aventurine to deal with Penacony alone on the inside). Ratio keeps leaving Aventurine completely alone. Men attempt to humiliate him and violate his boundaries (like Sunday and his slave master). Ratio insults Aventurine's appearance and intelligence repeatedly. Men betray him (like Oswaldo Schneider and his men leaving the Avgin to die). Ratio "betrays" him.

I'm not saying when Aventurine devised the plan for their act, he consciously drew up a list of all the ways men had hurt him in the past and had Ratio re-enact them one by one, but like... that's what happened, whether or not Aventurine intended it.

And okay, the shrinking scene in Dewlight Pavilion was just for fun and probably only slightly fetishy, the devs promise; yes, it was supposed to be a joke! ...But it's also not a mistake that this is yet another instance of a male character in a glaringly metaphorical position of power over Aventurine. Aventurine's tiny in this scene! He's completely vulnerable! He's in a dangerous position and the male character could very much hurt him in this moment.

But Ratio doesn't. (In fact, his line here is supposed to be sarcastic, very ha ha--but also, what is Ratio really saying? "I won't do anything to you without your express consent." What a good guy.)

Virtually everything negative that we see in 2.1 is Ratio doing these things as an act at Aventurine's own request. He doesn't actually disdain Aventurine; his own voiceline about Aventurine reinforces that he sees Aventurine as talented and intelligent.

Whatever you think he was apologizing for in their early scene, he's the only person we're ever shown in-game apologizing to Aventurine at all.

He worked hard to "betray" Aventurine but only as he was instructed to do, and immediately checks in on Aventurine's well-being afterward, even urging him to give up the plan if it becomes too much to handle.

And then, of course, there's the note: "Do stay alive. I wish you the best of luck."

After this point, it cannot be denied that Ratio is unequivocally on Aventurine's side, wants to help him, and is not doing so out of any sense of self-gain but largely because he is a good person who simply cares about Aventurine's fate. By the end of 2.1, it can no longer be doubted that Ratio is the exception to the "gender rule" of Aventurine's life, which--the story shows us again and again--was that guidance, protection, and care for Aventurine come from women, while men repeatedly represent dismissal, betrayal, or pain.

Ratio is, at least as far as Aventurine's story shows us, the proof that men can be good, that things are not as black and white in Aventurine's life as they might appear, and that--if you do choose to ship him with or see Aventurine as attracted to men--his attraction could be validated (and potentially reciprocated) by a male figure who would not bring additional harm to Aventurine's life. Aventurine makes the final decision to live after seeing Ratio's note--the exception to the rule ultimately proves to be the last piece needed to keep him alive.

But I promised I wasn't going to derail my own post about w o m e n, so let me get to the final point, and the one I really wanted to talk about: Although Ratio gets virtually all the credit for "saving" Aventurine in the fandom, Aventurine was actually saved by, you guessed it, another woman.

Not going to lie, the reason I started this post was specifically because I wanted to talk about how Acheron and Aventurine's dynamic was completely unexpected but actually fits flawlessly with the theme of feminine guidance in Aventurine's story.

Despite the fact that Aventurine made Acheron's life much harder and actively used her as a chip in his grand gamble, she doesn't blame or chastise him for those actions. Although she expresses some incredulity that Aventurine is actually that lucky, she then turns around and congratulations him for his ingenuity, immediately supporting him despite the fact that they don't even truly know each other.

Then it gets even more interesting. Acheron, who frequently hits her companions with deep and sometimes very emotionally fraught questions, asks Aventurine: "Have you never wavered?"

We as players know for a fact that Aventurine is constantly wavering, constantly doubting himself, his luck, and whether he'll even live--or even wants to live--to see tomorrow. But we also know that Aventurine is not forthcoming about those truths, refusing to express them to anyone, even himself. The only way we hear those dark truths is through his "future" self (who by the way, is once again another male figure cutting Aventurine down--of course it's himself but it's also, from the player's perspective, once again reinforcing the message that he isn't going to find safety or kindness in an adult male presence). Aventurine almost constantly deflects and diverts when his emotions or struggles are brought to the fore (unless he's divulging them for the specific purpose of allowing someone else to weaponize them). "I'm fine," he says, like a lying liar who lies.

But he doesn't lie to Acheron.

He chooses to be completely candid with her, to lance open the deepest wound of his life--that he can win and win and win and still have lost everything. The glitz and the glamour has all been stripped away here, at the end of everything, and Aventurine finally feels safe enough to admit that he fears he has absolutely nothing in his life worth living for.

And then, we get this direct parallel: Aventurine looks to Acheron, the woman now before him, for guidance, for explanation, exactly as he looked to his sister in the past.

He needs help, he needs answers, and he is continually seeking that help from the female figures in his life, whose support and kindness echo the lost care of his mother and sister.

"Go where you should be," Acheron tells Aventurine, guiding him across the river of death just as his sister insisted that he flee through the rain toward life.

Look guys, Acheron's even the one who reminds Aventurine to look at Ratio's note in the first place because apparently being an emanator of Nihility gives you x-ray vision, but my girl just gets no credit at all for being Aventurine's real savior, come on now!! Yes, Ratio's note was the final reminder Aventurine needed that someone would be waiting for him on the other side, but Aventurine would never have even gotten to the point of being willing to read that note if Acheron hadn't stepped in and provided him an answer to his question.

She feeds him back his own answer: "Why does life slumber? To rehearse the death for which we are not currently prepared." It is Acheron who reminds Aventurine that giving into the Nihility is pointless, and that rather than simply embracing a meaningless death, it is up to humanity itself to find and make meaning by living. It's this, not Ratio's note, that Aventurine gives as his reason for choosing to go on when asked by his own younger self. It's Acheron's words that finally give Aventurine an answer--why do we live just to die? Because there are people we can still make proud. Because when we go into death, we should do so with our heads held high, having achieved our own sense of purpose in this life.

Ratio gave Aventurine a promise: Someone is waiting for you to come back.

But Acheron gave Aventurine a reason: If life is inherently meaningless, doesn't that just mean you are free to give it meaning yourself?

She saved him, as women have been saving him all his life.

Anyway, this has already been horrendously long, but really what I wanted to say is that I think it is absolutely fascinating how consistent Aventurine's writing is when it comes to portraying where his support comes from and who he seeks guidance from. (Psst, just in case you still haven't figured it out, it's women!) In virtually every instance we are shown, we see the message reinforced that women are Aventurine's greatest allies and role models, while male figures are continually positioned to intentionally or unintentionally let him down and cause him distress.

"But women playing the supporting role to a male character is nothing new, Star, why are you so excited by this?"

Because the role women are playing in Aventurine's life is not the subservient supporter and emotional crutch role that female characters all too often play to male counterparts. None of the women in Penacony or Aventurine's past were there to do the emotional labor for him, to be a trophy or prize, or to cater to his needs. They don't exist solely to help him fulfill his character motivations; they aren't following him around waiting for his next request as their only role in the plot.

Instead, with Aventurine's story, we almost have an inversion of gender roles, where the male character eschews the stereotypical "men are leaders, fighters, and stoic heroes" archetype. Instead, no matter how hard he tries to hide it and keep a stiff upper lip, it is clear from 2.0-2.1's story that Aventurine is a deeply insecure, lonely, and explicitly traumatized survivor of genocide, slavery, and exploitation. Unlike most male characters, who are very rarely portrayed as genuine victims--because come on, shouldn't men be strong enough to fight back? Shouldn't men be able to shrug it off when they are hurt, emotionally or physically? (Of course I'm rolling my eyes here!)--Aventurine is belittled, humiliated, emasculated, and victimized on-screen, roles almost exclusively reserved for women, for whom surviving victimization in fiction is seen as noble.

Meanwhile, the women in Aventurine's life take on the roles traditionally given to male characters. They're both emotionally and physically his protectors. Aventurine's sister gave her life to guard his safety; Acheron ensured he could safely pass beyond the river of Nihility into the Primordial Dreamscape. They give him the tools necessary to succeed where he could not succeed on his own. His plan could never have gotten off the ground without Topaz and Jade entrusting their Cornerstones to him. The knowledge and capabilities of the women around him--not their "feminine charms"--are what allow them to help keep Aventurine on the right path even though he does waver. Even women who disrespect him, like Sparkle, still play a positive role in his life, able to provide him insight gained with their own intellect and talents.

When he has no one to rely on and doesn't know what to do, Aventurine is able to continually turn to the women around him, asking for and receiving not servitude or fawning, but their genuine wisdom and guidance.

tl;dr: If nobody else has him, Aventurine knows this random woman he met two minutes ago on the street will have him, because the women in his life literally never let him down.

(It's just so, so good, and ultimately, it should be very clear why Aventurine's story is as popular with women as it is! A+, Hoyo!)

#honkai star rail #aventurine #acheron #topaz hsr #honkai star rail meta #character analysis #there's a bit of #ratiorine #in here too #but mostly I ramble about WOMEN #thematic parallels #thematic parallels everywhere #it's long #I'm sorry but not really #sometimes you act like a normal fan #other times you're me #and write essays that wouldn't be out of place in gender studies class #also I hit the '30 images per post' limit and had to make do #please ignore the terrible merging I did of the photos #don't perceive my MS Paint job

[livebeginning]

I went through some of the official material to find sources that might be useful when writing Raphael and Haarlep (may also be helpful when writing Mizora and Mephistopheles). Here's a collection of what I found, with some notes.

Overview:

Cambion and succubus stat blocks

More stat blocks

Devil contracts

Avernus

Magic in Avernus

Map of Avernus

Blood War

Soul coin

Menu

Infernal Cambions

Mephistopheles

Ranks

Devil Cults

From the Monster Manual:

Cambion stat block

BG3 only players might not be familiar with these spells, so I'm linking them here: Alter Self - Detect Magic - Plane Shift

Note that this version for Plane Shift only works on the cambion themself, whereas the spell normally works on up to eight willing creatures, or one unwilling creature. Raphael might have used a variant of the spell to unwillingly transport the player and companions to the House of Hope and back.

"Telepathic Bond" is an interesting ability that Haarlep doesn't have in BG3.

There is a spell called Shapechange but it seems to work very differently from Shapechanger.

Also, the whole "taking your form and you can feel when it's being use" thing isn't mentioned here, it might be something unique to Haarlep or something they learned, rather than an inherent ability.

From the Monster Manual Expanded:

More stat blocks

From Descent into Avernus:

Devil Contracts

I feel that in the Infernal Hierarchy, Raphael falls into the "Duke" category, which is probably unusual for a cambion. (He is not an archduke, as archdukes are the rulers of the hells. He wants to be one, but isn't yet.)

The contract forms we see him use in the game are close to "Infernal Scroll" (the contract the player can sign) and "Song of the devil" (the contract he made with Yurgir).

Avernus

"Pieces of cities stolen from other planes" might also be the case with the HoH, though Raphael probably added the devil statues later on.

Magic in Avernus

Good to keep in mind when writing a wizard character!

Map of Avernus

Blood War

I don't think Raphael works directly for Zariel. He still has to follow her laws though, as we can see in the HoH, where the archivist is expecting a visit from Zariel's High Inquistor.

I think Raphael might be paying the hell equivalent of taxes to Zariel for living and operating out of Avernus. He may also occasionally sell useful items or souls to Zariel's forces, to profit from the Blood War. He does mention one of his goals is to end (win) the blood war, so he is at least on Zariel's side, if not fighting with her directly.

Soul coin

That's about 13 cm and 150 grams.

Menu

Some dishes one might be served in the hells. Raphael also mentions "Cocktails and Canapés" when talking to Yurgir, so that's something that exists in this world!

From Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes:

Infernal Cambions

This could be the reason why many of Raphael's attacks create Hellfire, which is something Mephistopheles invented.

Mephistopheles

Ranks

Like I said above, I think Raphael has the title of Duke, which would put him at rank 12, but I think rank 11 would also be realistic.

Devil Cults

I don't think Raphael would worship Mephisto, but you could easily argue he has inherited his affinity for fire magic through genetics.

Also note that unlike most other devils, Raphael is not trapped in the Nine Hells. As a cambion he can plane shift once per day and can easily access the Material Plane. He might still want a cult worshipping him for other reasons though.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 raphael #raphael bg3 #dungeons and dragons #bg3 resources #mizora #mephistopheles #haarlep

[obsidianbaby]

Don't Love Me Like A Brother - Prologue

Brothers Best Friend Series - PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1 -

series synopsis - ronnie's younger brother, tyler, is a famous youtuber & influencer and is best friends with the sturniolos. This series will be following ronnie's life as she befriends the triplets and catches herself developing feelings for a certain someone...

**series will contain smut as it develops but warnings will be added to those specific chapters

**found myself writing a few flashback chapters before present day just to build up the established friendships bc I'm impatient and don't want the slow burn to drain anyone 😭

warnings/notes - no smut in this as it's just the prologue to introduce y'all to the story.

a/n - starting this series and im very exciteddddddd i hope y'all fuck with a slow burn, friends to lovers best friends brother type beat. Buckle up mfs it's gonna be an angsty ride

a/n pt 2 - im not gonna share who ronnie develops feelings for just yet I want y'all to be on edge okok enjoy MWAH xx

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PROLOGUE

ronnies pov

having a brother who's famous on social media is humbling to say the least.

The amount of fan girls who have followed my accounts just because they're obsessed with him makes me question many people's sanity (including my own).

But tyler is one of my best friends. And thank god for my dad, who from the jump, did not tolerate any misogynistic bullshit from my brother.

Raising two kids as a single dad after my mom passed away (before ty and I were older than the age of 5) was tough for him and he embraced the times when he needed support (like when i first got my period, bless his heart he bought almost every type of menstrual product off the shelf).

His values were the perfect structure for us to grow up following; respect, open communication, giving our best efforts to everything (even if the only effort we could offer up was a 60% instead of a 100%)

My childhood friends would always whine about how "chill" my dad was. And it's not cause he didn't care, (he probably cares too much) but he didn't want to shield us either, knowing we need to learn how to exist in the world without him constantly up our asses.

"As long as we can talk about shit at the end of the day then we're good" one of his favorite mantras he would spew to me and ty when we would get caught doing something you might call a "right of passage" as a teenager.

And since it was just the three of us, we've always leaned on each other a lot. Sunday family dinners at nans' every week, taking turns helping my dad at his shop after school (he's a car mechanic), movie nights every thursday night where my dad would close up shop early, setting up the projector in the shop garage and ordering us pizza. My brother has been a best friend to me since I held him in my arms at the age of 3 when he was born.

And of course, we have the usual chaotic fights to the death like most siblings do, him pranking me in the most annoying ways, me making fun of his dumbass, him eating all of my food, me stealing his cool clothes, him begging me to uber him around everywhere, etc.

But we also just really enjoy each other's company too; going on late night walks around town, sitting in bed staying up talking all night, playing mario cart for hours (id always kick his ass), going adventuring together to forests or beaches, hanging out at the skate park together (me laughing at him eating shit and him chasing me around trying to whack me with his board), us both ditching our friends to stay at home and yap to each other instead, us having campfires in the backyard with both of our friend groups together, working on restoring mom's 1967 ford mustang together that she left us when she passed.

So when he came to me a few years back, during the pandemic, asking my thoughts on him posting on youtube, I was in full support (after teasing him that no one would find him, an 18 year old lanky white boy about to graduate high school funny or interesting. I have to keep him humble ya know?)

But his first few videos on youtube went viral and his following kept growing daily, especially when he started posting on tiktok too.

He's had me (and even my dad) featured in his videos which i don't mind at all (since im the one that's editing them)

I can see why the internet loves him (i did help raise him of course).

But since he's hit over 3 million on youtube last year, he's been doing a shit ton of collabs with other influencers and youtubers; the sturniolo triplets, larray, emma chamberlain, jake webster, tarayummy, vinnie hacker, carrington, etc.

And these days I try to stay behind the scenes as much as possible, trying to enjoy my solitude away from the opinions of crazy fans. (why do they care so much about what im doing anyways?)

Yet he understands (thank god) and he's always inviting me to come hangout with the friends he's made through social media, and i can't lie and say i don't enjoy being in the company of such dope (and attractive) people.

END OF PROLOGUE

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a/n - hellooooo i have a few more parts already written for this but im gonna wait to see how this post goes first (because i have a dire need for validation and praise) anywaysssss thank you for reading mwah xx

#sturniolo #sturniolo smut #matt sturniolo #matt sturniolo smut #chris sturniolo #chris sturniolo x reader #chris x reader #christopher sturniolo #matt sturniolo x reader #matt x reader #chris sturniolo smut #nick sturniolo #matthew sturniolo #sturniolo triplets #nicolas sturniolo #matt sturniolo fanfic #chris sturniolo fanfic #nick sturniolo fanfic

[justkending]

Mr. & Mrs. Hunt (Chapter 2)

Series Summary: Two of the most stubborn people in the group partnered together for an undercover mission are also the two people with the most hatred for each other, so what could go wrong? Or is it, what COULDN’T go wrong?…

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger Reader

Word Count: 3900+

A/N Note: You guys... Thank you for the overwhelming support on this series. You guys are the sweetest :) I've loved reading your series and promise I love them; just haven't had the chance to respond! Again, thank you for the love, as it's all turned back to you!

As for the chapter... Let's make it more fun (otherwise known as interesting) ;)

_________________

Bucky’s POV

Hidden bugs weren’t new business to us, so after disposing of the picture frame, they gifted us with a note saying, “For your new home, and your first picture in it! ;)”... It was an easy ‘accidental’ drop. 

However, quickly after that, wouldn’t you know it? A new basket showed up on our porch with another set of welcome-to-the-neighborhood gifts from the whole neighborhood this time…

Y/N had ‘accidentally’ placed the newly potted plant, that they had somehow added a very impressively hidden camera on, too close to the edge of the entryway table, so when she came through the door quickly with her arms full of more boxes, the pot was no longer usable. Shame… We did buy our own pot for said plant, so we still got a new piece of greenery without the bugs. 

After those two failed attempts, we hoped our show of clumsiness warded off the assholes and made us less intimidating. And yes, I use that word because I could read easily from our first meeting that they were sizing us up. Analyzing our act and manipulating themselves into our lives in a careful yet planned manner. 

For extra measure on the clumsy showcase, Y/N drove into the trashcans I had forgotten to pull to the curb, making a public display of her character’s clumsiness. Though I later learned she was actually just pissed that I forgot to put them out and found a way for me to pay the consequences in our squabble on the lawn. 

A squabble that started out a hundred percent authentic and then turned into a fake makeup season when the neighbors peaked their heads out. 

“This jughead would forget his head if it weren’t on his shoulders,” Y/N slapped my chest before patting it harshly and smiling at the seventy-year-old next-door neighbor, Gertrude, who always happened to find her rose bushes interesting, only when people were outside. 

She smiled and laughed at Y/N’s wide grin before waving her on as she snipped a few thorns. 

“God, I hate it here,” Y/N said through her teeth, holding her fake smile as she walked past me into the house.

A few more preplanned acts happened while we were outside to show the community that our accidental breaking of their bugs was just that—accidental. It was not planned and discovered at all. 

It had been two weeks so far, and we’d already been invited to a food truck social, a street parade for a family leaving the neighborhood, and an outdoor movie night. All events you would have thought had the same planning committee as the MET Gala with how thorough they were… At least, that's what Y/N said, and I choose to believe that it holds some form of significance.

Tonight, we went over to another couple's house that was high up in the HOA group for a neighborhood barbeque, one where Y/N’s damn lilac tennis dress she had worn to workout with a neighbor, made more than half the dads and men too old and married to be staring, struggle to keep their eyes off her. 

I had told her that keeping a hand on her during most of the party was for the act, but genuinely, I didn’t care for how the men of the group gawked at her. Something gave me a bad feeling about it. And I didn’t understand why Y/N wasn’t phased at all or even slightly uneasy, considering she was just as trained as me to assess and sense all that attention.

As soon as we were behind closed doors back in our secure home, my first question was, “Did you really not feel their eyes on you?” 

She was in the middle of taking off her shoes, talking about some information she had gotten from a group of stay-at-home wives, something related to our mission, but I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around how unphased she was with the unnerving type of attention she was getting there. 

“What?” She paused as she bent to take off a tennis shoe. 

“All those guys, the husbands, and pervs at the cookout. You didn’t notice them staring at you?” I asked again, rolling my sleeves of button-down I had on up to my elbow.

She stared at me for a moment and then rolled her eyes as if she had figured out where I was going with this. Spoiler: she was far off the mark. 

“Listen, if you’re saying that thanks to this dress, which, yes, is a little short, but who the hell cares, is the reason why men were,” she straightened, kicking off both her shoes fluently, now only in socks. “Gawking at me, as you put it-.” 

“I didn’t say that,” I straightened, furrowing my eyebrows. 

“Oh, but you did,” she sassed with a shrug, continuing. “Under your breath when you came up, and you staked your claim by never taking your arm away from my waist for the night.”

“I didn’t say that,” I shook my head. I said it in my head, but I hadn’t said that out loud… Had I?

“Ugh, whether you did or didn’t, I could tell you were judging,” she huffed, rolled her shoulders, and walked past me to the kitchen, going straight to the fridge.

It took me a minute, but I figured out where her mind had gone. “I was judging them, Y/N,” I  shook my head. “I was judging the horny, married, and dusty-ass men that couldn’t keep their damn tongue from falling to the floor with you in the vicinity. Like their wives had deprived them of any kind of physical touch for the last decade, and they couldn’t keep it in their pants any longer.” 

I realized I may have explained more of my thought process than I intended, but she shut the fridge door she had hidden behind and turned to me, scanning, assessing. 

“You were jealous.” The corner of her lip raised at her statement. 

“What?” I scoffed. “No, loser,” I scoffed again, and clearly, I wasn’t selling my answer because she didn’t lose her growing grin. “I just took notice of how much attention you got, and it concerned me that the ideas most of those men were having were far from civil ones.” 

She stared at me for a minute, and I felt uncomfortable in my own skin as she weighed her options regarding how she wanted to react. We still had plenty of fights, but they have been somewhat decreasing lately, and I was hoping we could keep that streak going.

Her assessing stopped, and her grin grew again. “Awe, the Tinman does have a heart.”

And she ruined it. Surprise, surprise. 

“It’s sweet that you care, old man,” she twisted the lid to the drink she had pulled out of the fridge and took a swig before looking at me. “But that’s just a day in the life of a woman. Nothing new to me or anyone with the double X chromosomes.” She shrugged nonchalantly. 

“I mean, obviously, people look at you,” I started, and she balanced her elbows on the counter before resting her chin on her fist. I continued before I realized my wording. “Before you-”

“Obviously?” She emphasized my word choice. “Keeping notes on an awful lot of things lately, huh, Buck?” she whispered my name like it was a secret, and I knew it was for the odd case someone could hear us, but something about her tone made my chest freeze. “Tell me, what else do you notice…?” She tilted her head one way as she stared at me. 

I wasn’t going to lie and say her words didn’t flustered me, but as a reflex, I jumped back into the normal banter.

“You’re not funny, jackass,” I deadpanned and turned on my heel to walk away.

“Oh, stop being such a baby,” she shouted after me, and I heard her sock-clad feet slide on the hardwoods to catch up with me. “Listen, I think it’s nice you’re taking notice of stuff like this. Most men never pay attention to those kinds of things because they don’t have to. It’s not really a normal day-to-day experience for them, so they don’t get it. They don’t HAVE to get it.”

I stopped and turned in my march, and she slid into me from just two steps behind me. I caught her easily, bracing my hands on her biceps to steady her. She let out a huff of air as our chests flushed to each other and then looked up at me. 

“You’re murder strut is too fast for me to keep up with,” she mumbled, scrunching her nose in a relaxed way. 

I closed my eyes for a minute but didn’t let go of her before I channeled back my seriousness. 

“I’ve learned men are assholes, trust me. In this field, we come across some of the worst misogynistic weasels to exist. Wear whatever you want. You have scary dog privileges now. The attire issue isn't what I was getting at,” I replied, thinking of the reference the Parker kid had explained to me recently.

Her smile was unlike any I had the pleasure to be on the receiving end of, and I immediately mentally captured it, worried that I’d never experience the genuineness she was sharing with me in this moment again. 

“Scary dog privileges, huh? Someone’s been brushing up on their TikTok trends.” She laughed, scanning my face as I scanned hers. “Peter finally invested in his version of Duolingo? This one labeled new-age-slang-for-100-years-and-older?”

“Actually called, Born-in-1910’s-and-on-the-comeback-of-a-70-year-coma-new-age-lingo. Very helpful,” I retorted, and the surprise on her face as she laughed at me made my grip on her soften, my thumb unconsciously running over the bone on her wrist. 

The action brought both of our eyes to the feeling, and in the next second, we had three feet between us. 

“I’m going to go take a shower.” Her rush to get around me in the narrow hall caused her to brush along my arm, and it was like the sparks that ignited when I held her tried to reach out for each other again in the brief contact. 

“I’ll be in the kitchen,” I grumbled, walking quickly in the opposite direction. 

____________________

Y/N’s POV

The last two weeks have been frustrating, but somehow, Bucky and I have learned we work together surprisingly well. We still had our bickering fights and annoying quarrels, but stick us in a house for a few weeks, and we realized we did well at balancing each other out. 

Where I hated doing the dishes, he made sure they were done every night. Where he hated doing laundry, I folded and sorted the linens and clothes. I hated cooking, and he somehow was really good at it. I loved to bake when we had free time, and he loved to taste test. I sucked at most things gardening-wise, and he had shown me how to prune overgrown flowers in our gardening bed. Bucky sucked at interior decorating, so I was in charge of making our fake abode look like a real one. 

Overall, we do pretty well, considering we hate each other's guts. Ok, well… I don’t necessarily hate his guts, even if I act it. I just have a very low tolerance for his bullshit and don’t mask my frustrations when they hit their limits. As for being a fake wife to him where he has to treat me well… He’s been a picture-perfect husband from a suburban wife’s perspective.

The only thing we’ve successfully avoided that I was worried about is sharing the same bed. 

After confirming with the higher-ups that our house was bug-free, we claimed our own rooms (me in the master, of course) and set up our own space. Keeping the facade of a happy married couple outside of those rooms and the house was easy, but I dreaded the day we would have to show more affection and closeness than what we already had. 

So far, a kiss on the cheek, holding hands, a hug from behind, and a normal amount of PDA that showed we were in our honeymoon phase yet did not want to make others fully uncomfortable did the job enough. But after Bethanne commented about when we planned on having kids, I figured we might need to bump up our act since she gave a passive comment about us being ‘rather tamed for a newlywed couple.’

Before I could bring up the comment to Bucky once we got home, he seemed more bothered by the men at the party than anything. 

I didn’t expect him to notice such a minute thing, but if there was one thing I had learned about Bucky these last few weeks, it’s that he’s very attentive to details I wouldn’t expect him to be on.

Then, to further my confusion about the situation, something seemed different in our intimate hallway space run-in, and both of us scurried away as if the touch of each other burned. 

After my shower, I got dressed in my pajamas and heard the TV still on in the living room, where Bucky tended to station himself for a few hours before bed. Well, his bedtime. Another thing about us was that I wasn’t much of a night owl, but I did appreciate knowing someone was on alert while I slept. And even if he didn’t do it for that reason, I’m sure, I liked hearing the TV still on when I tended to wake up in the middle of the night. I felt safer…

“Hey,” I leaned against the wall coming into the living room and saw that he had Brooklyn Nine-Nine on with a computer sat in his lap. 

He looked up and gave me a quick head nod before going back to the screen in front of him. “What’s up?”

“Just needed to fill you in on some of the things I learned at the cookout,” I let out a yawn as the day caught up with me and moved to the single chair across from him on the couch. 

“Hit me,” he rolled his shoulders back, never looking away from the blue light. 

“Don’t ask for things you don’t really want,” I teased, and he looked above the screen at me with a glance that seemed to be holding back a smile before rolling his eyes. 

“What’d you learn?” he followed up with. 

I went on to tell him about the neighborhood drama. All things that may or may not have any major plays to our mission, but information nonetheless. 

“Did you ask any of them about work?” Bucky asked once I had covered most everything. 

Our undercover jobs were simple. I worked from home as a data entry clerk. Something boring that Charolette Hunt has been hoping to get out of and find her passion. All this led to me asking around about job connections and if there was anything I could swap over to for a ‘more exciting work life,’ otherwise known as drug trafficking jobs if they were available. 

As for Beau Hunt, Bucky’s cover, he was the owner of a transportation company. Considering how well he was doing, he took the last two weeks off to move into his first home with his new wife before having to get back into the work ethic he had been thriving in the last ten years. 

All perfect pieces to get the answers and resources from our sketchy neighbors we came here for. 

“I asked Katrina, one of the wives of a guy who works closely alongside Reggie. I figured that was a good seed to plant,” I answered, pulling my legs up to my chest and resting my chin on my knees as I watched Jake Peralta chase a bad guy down the streets of New York. I missed the homeland. “She said she’d ask around, which is what I needed. What about you? Any of the 'dusty-ass husbands' have fun details to share?”

“Nothing more than statistics of sports teams and rookie starters for the state college basketball team,” he sighed, and I turned over to see him staring at me before turning back to his computer quickly. “Reggie was giving me a hard time, though.”

“Oh yeah?” I hummed, angling myself to him. “Bethanne was giving me a hard time, too.”

“Think it’s related to the same thing?” Bucky chuckled, looking back at me, but whatever was in his eyes just seconds ago was gone now. 

“Say on the count of three?” I smirked. 

“One,” he nodded.

“Two.”

“Three.”

“When we’re going to consider joining parenthood,” Bucky said. 

“When we’re having kids,” I said at the same time. “Almost a jinx if you didn’t word it so damn robotically. Did fucking Vision channel into your damn cyborg brain?” I laughed, and I heard a slight scoff from his direction before I rolled my head back and looked up at the ceiling. I stayed quiet until Bucky broke me out of my thoughts twenty seconds later.

“What are you thinking?” I heard the computer shut and then be placed on the cushion next to him. “I can hear the gears working past their limit.” His weak version of a retort.

I lulled my stare at him and deadpanned a bitchface at him. “You talking to yourself again?” He rolled his eyes at my comeback, and I decided to bypass the banter. “I think we need to step our game up. Ms. Bethanne thinks we’re ‘tamed’ for a newlywed couple. In other words, she thinks we’re prudes.”

“We’ve hit the PDA marks we need to,” Bucky stiffened just enough for a trained eye to see, but he tried to brush it off as getting comfortable in his spot. 

“Hmm, so maybe one of us is a prude,” I shrugged, moving my legs under me and leaning on one side of the chair. 

We hadn't kissed, although I would peck one on his cheek, and he would place one on top of my head. But that's as far as either of us had been willing to go.

I know our job may require us to go beyond that, and I was willing to keep it strictly professional even if necessary, but Bucky seemed to want to avoid it by all means. Message received.

“I’m not a prude. I just don’t understand why people have to be so touchy in public. It makes everyone uncomfortable,” he argued. 

“Not everyone finds discomfort in those acts. A lot of people think it’s cute.”

“I’m not one of those fucking people.”

“Well, you better figure out pretty fucking quick how to become one of those people because this operation kinda depends on it.” I sighed, standing up and stretching. “Listen, I know you hate me and all, but if we’re going to get this done and over with, we need to-”

“I’ve never said I hate you,” Bucky interrupted. I looked down and saw him staring at me with stern eyes.

“Actions have convinced me otherwise.” 

“The same could be said for you.” 

“I don’t hate you,” I clarified after carefully studying him for lies. 

It was an intense stare-off, but not one where I felt like I had to win it. One where I felt we were both taking a step into new territory, and neither of us knew what to expect. 

Bucky’s burner phone rang right before I could follow up with my peace offering, and we saw it was the fake caller ID Steve was under. He picked it up and put it on speaker. 

“What’s up, punk?” he answered, and Steve scoffed on the other end. 

“Just your biweekly check-in. Anything interesting enough to make this phone call longer than 5 minutes?” he asked. 

“Don’t think so,” Bucky sighed and filled him in on the steps we had taken to further the investigation. Planting our gossip seeds where necessary and waiting for the garden to grow. 

The call ended with Steve informing Bucky that he ‘started back at work’ tomorrow and would need to go to a specific meeting spot for updates. A way for us to get news that couldn’t be tracked with phone calls and messages. And after two weeks of gathering information and only four check-ins in that time, things were meant to pick up now. 

I had decided to head back to my room when a normal conversation between the two started up and strayed from the mission talk. Then, about 10 minutes later, Bucky was in my doorway as I got ready for bed. 

“Sorry, Steve wanted to know if we had torn each other’s heads off yet. Nat and him have a bet going,” he said, leaning on the doorway and crossing his arms over his chest. 

I shrugged, pulling the comforter back on the bed. “No need to apologize. And who’s winning?” 

“Steve gave it 3 weeks, so he’s still in the running.”

“He’s being generous,” I laughed, fluffing a pillow before sitting on the edge and looking at him. 

“I don’t know. I think we’ve managed to stay surprisingly civil given our relationship,” he smiled softly as if the conversation wasn’t dangerous grounds and could easily go one way or the other. 

“Helps that we have to act for most of it,” I fiddled with my nails. 

“Would you rather we didn’t get along?” he asked, and I could see the start of our normal frustration with each other trickle back into his tone.

I stared at him for a minute. Not sure what my goal was here, but it definitely had flipped from wanting to make every minute with him, his own personal hell.

“Fighting has become tiresome. I’m content tolerating the situation.” A bit of a hypocritical response, sounding robotic, but there was no lie behind it.

He stared at me like I had to him. 

“Right. Tolerating,” he nodded with pursed lips, pushing off the door frame and walking down the hall to his room. 

Something about his attitude made it hard for me to brush off the change in tension. I stood up and walked down the hall. When he was already in his room, I was taking up as much space as I could in his doorway now. 

“What’s with the annoyance?” I asked, looking at him as he arranged some things on his nightstand. He turned around, body lax and almost defeated looking. 

“I’m not annoyed. Why would I be annoyed with you ‘tolerating me’?” he said nonchalantly with a shrug of his shoulders. 

“I don’t know, but you clearly are,” I gestured to him and crossed my arms. “Would you rather I treat you how I have before this? I mean, we can go back to-”

“Obviously not, Y/N,” he cut me off with a scoff, and I was shocked at the sheer anger that I would suggest such a thing. His use of obviously made my brain scramble as well… The second time, that word had messed with me tonight.

“You’re confusing as hell, Barnes,” I squinted my eyes at him and decided I wasn’t in the mood to handle a bipolar 100-year-old man tonight. Maybe it was best if I just called it a night. 

Turning in my spot four steps away, I didn’t expect the hand around my bicep to stop me in the middle of the hall, leading to a pensive look on his face as he stared at me.

“What?” I furrowed my eyes at him and looked at the contact unwavering on my elbow.

“I—” he started and then stopped. An internal war played out with surprising clarity on his face. I raised my eyebrows and waited.

We stared for an hour—okay, nine seconds—but it’s all the same with that level of intensity.

“Never mind.” He dropped my arm and took a step back. 

“Seriously?”

“I don’t want to start something.”

“There’s something to start?” 

“No, but I’ll wait until you’re in a better mood to,” he debated on his wording. “Discuss it,” he settled on, turning on his heel. 

“I’m not in a bad mood,” I huffed, and yeah… That didn’t help proving my point. 

“Sure thing,” he shook his head before walking into his room, carrying on as if he hadn’t dropped a strange and confusing bomb on me that I now needed answers to. 

“Goodnight to you, too,” I grumbled as I walked to my room and shut the door behind me.

Marvel Tags:

@thejourneyneverendsx​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @death-unbecomes-you @mythos-writes​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​  @srrymydood​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @xa-dia​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @redhairedfeistynerd​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @morganclaire4​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @connie326​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @captain-asguard​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @mollygetssherlockcoffee​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @teenagedreams-bucky @shower-me-with-roses​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @livstilinski @basicallylool​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @starryeyeseunbyul​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

My Lovelies forever:

@natura1phenomenon​ @lauravicente​ @kakakatey​ @traceyaudette​ @notyourtypicalrose​ @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce​ @sandlee44​ @thorne93​ @thefaithfulwriter1​ @essie1876​ @greyeyedsmile14​ @capsiclehan​  @xostephanie​ @averyrogers83​ @awesomenursingstudent​ @gh0stgurl​ @cs-please​ @jjlevin​ @rainbowkisses31​ @deannotmoose​ @their-bibliophile​ @kitkatd7​ @willowbleedsonpaper​ @mariaenchanted​ @snffbeebee​ @couldabeenamermaid​ @rebekahdawkins​​ @alyispunk​​ @billyseye @hallecarey1​​

Bucky Barnes Tags:

@chloe-skywalker​ @charmedbysarge​ @jbarness​ @bellamy-barnes​ @katiaw2​ @aikeia​ @stopjustlovethemcu​ @enchantedbarnes

Mr. & Mrs. Hunt Series:

@jackiehollanderr @mrs-bucky-barnes-73 @theroyalmanatee @wintrsoldrluvr @alexakeyloveloki

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #justkending #marvel series #marvel #bucky barnes series #reader insert #marvel fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader insert #bucky barnes x avenger reader #bucky barnes mini series

[oldshrewsburyian]

So, in Busman’s Homeymoon, Lord Peter buys Harriet Vane a mink cloak worth 950 pounds (according to the Dowager Duchess’ journal entry), but he buys Tallboys for “only” 650 pounds.

Even bearing in mind that real estate really did used to be cheaper, do you understand how that is possible? Or how to find out more about relative purchasing power? I used an online calculator website which gave me some figures, but it still seems insane that one could buy an entire Elizabethan farmhouse for 2/3 the price of a garment! Very curious to learn from others who understand this better than I do.

It has been so long since I did my modern history exams in grad school that I don't have a purchasing power bibliography at the ready. So this is based on what relevant information I know/remember, but it's a bit shaky/vague.

The mink is a luxury garment for several reasons: the price indicates not only the quality of the furs, but the labor that went into making the coat as a finished product. Also, it's a status marker, and we know from the context of the series (and how Peter buys shoes, hams, razors, books) that this will be the best that money can buy.

Meanwhile, Talboys is a somewhat dilapidated property that Noakes needs to get rid of quickly for cash in hand. I think that its cheap price is something of a plot point, because Sayers is just that clever! And in 1938, there just are not a lot of people with the money in hand to purchase a property like that. And a much, much smaller subset of those people would choose to invest it in a slightly dilapidated Elizabethan farmhouse in a village that is nowhere in particular.

Sorry I don't have a better answer, but I hope this is at least somewhat helpful!

#wimseyverse #asks and answers #busman's honeymoon #lord peter wimsey #my detection obsession

[lets-play-a-game]

The old game

(Little snippets of Ashtons backstory because I wanted to write hehe)

Cw // Death, torture, injuries described in detail.

( @oscarsgallery @m-xxavier @pinkcherryblossomphonecase )

A young Memory

It was around 2 in the morning now, I looked around the bloodied field at the others I was sent on this mission with, I was definitely the youngest here and it was a miracle I was alive. Purely because I was grabbed by someone who tended to take care of me during training and held while we had been shot at, thanks to him I was alive, but also thanks to him I could feel the warmth drain from his body over time. I hated the feeling of his blood on my face, against my skin. I wanted to scream or cry or just die on the spot.

Eventually someone grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the body of the only person I trusted in this hell of an organisation, it’s not like I could have stopped them so I just forced myself to my feet properly and walked to the car that was here to bring those of us still alive back to the base. I half expected to be scolded or killed for how little I’d been doing any time I’d been sent on a mission, I didn’t. Not tonight.

However in the morning when I showed up again because what other choice did I have? I was informed by my boss that I was being moved around, I wouldn’t be on missions anymore, I couldn’t be grateful for long. I found out what I would be doing for the next four years.

They tried to dress it up as something important, I was told I would be an expert at interrogation but I knew what I really was, I was just bait. If a mission was going wrong, throw me to the enemy and let them rip me apart so everyone can get out. Then if they're feeling generous send someone to get me.

That was fine, that was natural for the mafia, I hated it but surely that wouldn’t happen too often? Not on missions but the training happened too often for me to ever recover. Every time my injuries felt better then I was back in that room covered in my own blood. I had to learn how to not react to pain, not to respond to threats. I screamed for the first few months, which always led to being scolded but after some time I got used to it and got better at it. Four years does that, sometimes I thought training was worse than when the enemy actually did torture me. My least favourite training activity was having those who were being taught to torture other had to practice on me, some were young like me and obviously felt bad but it was our jobs and we couldn’t do anything about it.

The next goodbye

I had given up on my own safety, I was laying on the floor after work. I couldn’t speak or walk so I just lay here and waited until I could. Maybe tonight I’d finally die, I didn’t want to keep doing this, I could taste blood and I didn’t even care now. The footsteps didn’t make me feel very safe but what did it matter? Someone else to drag boiling hot metal against my neck? Maybe cut something off?

Much to my surprise neither occurred, soft and gentle hands slowly lifted me to my feet. Even when I collapsed again they simply picked me up and carried me out, apologising and telling me I’d be safe. For now I’d listen, believe the hope I’d be safe for once, that’s when I finally passed out.

I woke a few hours later, wrapped in a blanket with bandages around all my injuries. I could finally look at the person who’d carried me home, he could be no more than a year older than me, so he must be around sixteen then. In my four years of torture nobody had carried my injured body anywhere but here he was, caring for me.

By the time I noticed what he was up to, he’d realise I was awake and started making his way over carrying some food. I could eat anything right now and I hoped it was for me.

“Hey there buddy, you’re awake I see,” even his voice sounded soft, too soft for the mafia. He was too kind for the mafia.

It took far too long for me to realise I was the one he was speaking to, “obviously.. who are you?”

He introduced himself, and so did I. His name was Corey and he was the one who saved me from the constant pain. If I was hurt he’d patch me up, if I needed to cry he was there to hold me. It was amazing and I was so thankful to have him with me. If only it had lasted long enough for me to know how to properly thank him.

I was sore, still bleeding as I made it into his apartment. Only to find it a mess of blood so I ran to his body, he was alive and breathing for now, I could see right through him. Whoever had done this would pay for this.

I scooped him up and held him like he always held me, telling him he’d be safe and everything was okay. It wasn’t, we both knew it but I was going to let him die peacefully so I just held him, running a hand through his hair. His tears stopped as he slowly reached closer to death. I took the time to tell him about stuff he’d like, like how I saw a dog on the street on the way home. All so he died thinking of something good and he did. I hope he did.

It was the same thing that happened four years ago, I was sitting at some hour of the night holding the body of someone who I trusted. I sat all night holding the body until I collapsed from everything.

I promised him that I would fix everything and live a good life to make him proud.

(picrew Picrewの「多分なかよし」でつくったよ！ https://picrew.me/share?cd=hvAiDscWir #Picrew #多分なかよし )

[steddieasitgoes]

for a fortnight there, we were forever

Happy Birthday, @nostalgicbones !!!!

I hope you have the best day ever and enjoy this little fic about Steddie getting into Supernatural. Apologies in advance if I got the details wrong, everything I know about this show I learned from tumblr lmao.

wc: 2.1K+ | rated: T

Read on ao3

Steve’s tired. The kind of tired that sits deep in his bones. A once-in-a-lifetime trip to visit Robin in her year abroad interpreter fellowship has kept him busy the last two weeks. Adventuring all over Europe as Robin rambled in languages, Steve couldn’t even imagine learning himself. They saw art, explored kitschy tourist traps, ate so much delicious food, Steve’s pants sitting a little lighter around his middle, and managed to avoid an international incident except that one night in Italy when Robin had to translate their way out of an arrest.

It’s been some of the best two weeks of his life, but he’s ready to be home. All he wants now is to kiss Eddie hello, scrub the last six hours of travel from his body, and then curl up on the couch with lukewarm takeout and his boyfriend’s arm around him. In that exact order no matter how much protesting Eddie does. If Steve doesn’t get in the shower he’s going to start peeling his skin from his body.

He doesn’t expect Eddie to be waiting by the door for him like some devoted pet, but when he unlocks the front door and doesn’t hear footsteps, he’s slightly concerned.

This is the longest they have been apart in years and some part of him figured Eddie would be on him the minute the Uber dropped him off in the parking lot, especially after he denied Eddie’s offer to pick him up at the airport. It was a nice offer, but the last thing Steve needed after a day and a half of travel was to get into the car with a frustrated Eddie because airport traffic is the root of all evil — he learned his lesson after last fall’s teacher’s conference.

Instead, Steve toes off his shoes and pads down the hallway toward the glowing light coming from their living room. He passes the kitchen on the way in and has to stop himself from making a pitstop. Messy isn’t strong enough to describe the scene. It looks like Eddie threw a rager in the small confines of their kitchen — solo cups everywhere, dishes overflowing from the sink, a half-eaten pizza box open on the counter that surprisingly hasn’t been touched by their cat Shiloh.

Steve can feel his anxiety spiking as he takes it all in. Eddie may not be obsessively organized like he is, but he’s never been one to be this messy. What if something bad happened to him in the last day and a half he’s been traveling? It’s been hard to keep up with texts with the all-time differences and layovers. Surely someone would have called him if something bad happened — at the very least, their house would be surrounded in yellow tape by now since Dorien is a busybody who regularly sounds the alarm if they’re more than five minutes late putting out their trash cans on pick up day.

It’s comforting enough to propel Steve forward, further down the hallway, until it spills out into the living room. His eyes catch on the mess for a moment — more empty take-out boxes and half-drunken water bottles along with over two dozen balled-up pieces of paper — but then he relaxes when he spots Eddie amongst the mess.

His curls are pulled back in a messy bun, and his body is kinked in a weird position as he drapes himself over his acoustic to scribble something down in his notebook. The television is on, casting him in a cool blue-gray tone, but the volume is too low for Steve to hear what’s on.

“Eds,” Steve calls, keeping his voice soft and even so as not to startle Eddie. This isn’t the first time he’s found Eddie in a focused state like this. It’s better not to startle him out of him, a lesson Steve learned the hard way in the early days of their relationship after failing to heed Wayne’s advice. “I’m home.”

“Stevie!” Eddie leaps up from the couch, acoustic be damned as it clatters to the patterned rug. His arms are around Steve in an instant, pulling him flush with his chest and burying his face in his unusually greasy hair.

“Missed you,” Steve says, wrapping his own arms around Eddie’s warm middle. He pulls back just enough to connect their lips. It’s not exactly the welcome kiss Steve was expecting with Eddie’s unexpected stumble scratching his chin but it’s perfect all the same.

“Missed you too.” Eddie ducks his head, nuzzling into the crook of Steve’s neck for a second before pulling away. His nose scrunched up when he looks at him. “I love you, Stevie, but you smell.”

Steve chuckles, shaking his head as he slowly untangles his limps from Eddie. “Are you sure it’s me and not this place?” He gestures at the state of their living room and then looks up at Eddie. It’s the first time he’s gotten a chance to really take him in; too preoccupied with getting his much-deserved welcome kiss in. He looks tired, almost as bone tired as Steve does, which doesn’t make any sense since he’s been at home the last two weeks. Sure, managing the record store is a lot of work, but not enough for his eyes to look this red-rimmed and bloodshot as if he’s been smoking for days, which Steve knows isn’t the case because the house doesn’t smell. “What have you been up to?”

A grin tugs at the corner of Eddie’s lips, a smile taking over his entire face until his red-rimmed eyes are squinting and crinkling at the edges. “You know that show Erica is always talking about? Supernatural. I started watching it the day you left, and well… I finished it three hours ago.”

That explains the mess and Eddie’s exhausted state. If there’s one thing his boyfriend is known for, it’s losing all sense of time and human responsibilities for the sake of art — his own or someone else’s.

“How many seasons?”

Eddie yanks a strand of hair from his bun free to tug across his lips before dropping his head. He mumbles something, too low for Steve to register.

“Eds.”

This time Eddie sighs and picks his head up but continues to hide his sheepish smile behind the lock of hair. “15.”

“Jesus, Eddie!” It’s nearly double the last show Eddie became obsessed with, not wanting to do anything but watch episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer until the final credits rolled for the last time. He went 36 hours without sleep before Steve practically held his eyelids shut. “Have you even slept?”

“It’s really hard to sleep without you.” Steve knows Eddie didn’t mean it like that, but he can’t help the pit of guilt that sinks to the base of his stomach. “And once I started, I couldn’t stop. Supernatural demanded to be watched.”

Okay, so maybe it’s not all Steve’s fault. It’s just Eddie’s compulsive need to finish things he starts — at least the things he cares about, their half-built patio furniture, on the other hand…

“I’m never leaving you unsupervised again.”

Eddie smiles at that and reaches for Steve’s hand again. “Good, because I have to catch you up on the show!”

“It’s that good you already want to watch it again?”

“It’s that good, Stevie. And I need to revisit some scenes so I can get this love song, right.”

“Wait,” Steve says, dropping Eddie’s hand. His arms cross on instinct, head tilting to the side as he studies his boyfriend. “Love song? I thought you only wrote love songs about me.”

“The Destiel men deserve an original love ballad for all they’ve been through.”

“Destiel? Men? The show is gay?"

Eddie chuckles, shaking his head with enough force that more unruly strands break free from the worn elastic. There’s mischief in his eyes and a crooked smile pulling on his face and no matter how much trouble that look has gotten them into before, Steve can’t help but love it.

“You have so much to learn, my pet. Go shower, wash that gross plane smell off of you, and I’ll order us food. If we start right when you’re done we can probably get through half of season one tonight.”

Steve crinkles his nose at the request. It’s not that he doesn’t want to watch TV with Eddie, that was part of his plan when he got home. But he did just spend two weeks away from him, and well, he did have a few other plans in store for them after he settled in for a bit.

“Seriously? I’ve been gone for two weeks, and you want to spend our first hours reunited rewatching a show you just finished?”

“Trust me, baby, you’ll understand once we start watching,” he says, kissing Steve’s temple before patting his ass to get him moving. “I’ll even let you take one of those long, steamy showers while I get everything ready. That should be enough time for the Amazon shipment of tissues to arrive.”

“Tissues? I’m going to cry watching a show about supernatural things?”

“Excuse me,” Eddie scoffs. “You sobbed through that one episode of Buffy so do not judge me right now.”

“Will you at least warn me when something bad is going to happen so I’m prepared?”

Eddie shakes his head and mimes, locking his lips before throwing the imaginary key behind his shoulder. “At least you’ll have a shoulder to cry on. Now go, shower or else we won’t get through enough episodes tonight.”

Steve rolls his eyes but compiles, not without stealing another kiss first.

____

Steve hates to admit it, but he’s hooked from episode one. If it was up to him, he’d probably pull the same move Eddie did and binge the entire show in two weeks since he has no other summer vacation plans, but Eddie made him promise not to watch any new episodes while he’s at work. Turns out being an owner doesn’t mean he can call out for an entire month just to watch a television show, a rant Steve listens to for fifteen minutes before Eddie finally shuts up when he presses play on the remote.

It becomes a daily part of their routine right up until episode 18 of the final season. Steve knows something terrible is about to happen the minute the episode begins because Eddie won’t let go of his hand, but he’s still not prepared for the catastrophic events.

“He can’t die like that!” Steve shouts, jumping up from the couch. Eddie’s quick with the remote, passing the credits before the autoplay feature kicks in and starts the next episode. “What the fuck!”

“I know,” Eddie says, patting Steve’s shoulder in the hopes of placating the anger he knows is boiling in his blood. “I scared Shiloh with my shouting when I first watched it.”

“I don’t even want to finish it now.” He’s pouting; he knows he’s pouting, but he can’t help it.

“Aw, come on, Stevie. You have to see it through.” Steve huffs beside him, clinging to one of their stupid throw pillows as Eddie reaches for his laptop on the table. How can he go on the internet at a time like this? Steve feels like he just watched a friend die in front of him! “Besides it’s just the end for them in the show. There are tons of alternate endings online.”

“They shot more than one ending and released it? That doesn’t seem right.”

“Not the creators, they’re idiots,” Eddie says, shaking his head. His fingers fly across the laptop keys, typing something into the search bar before turning the screen so Steve can see. “But the fans take care of each other. This is an entire page of fix-it fics.”

“Fix it what nows?”

Eddie blinks at Steve as if he’s just sprouted two heads. “How have we been dating for five years, and I’ve never shown you the wonders of fix-it fics? Get ready to have your mind blown, sweetheart. Some of them even have art attached!”

“Where do you even find stuff like this?” Steve studies the page Eddie has open. An art piece of Dean driving his beloved Impala, with an arm thrown over the back seat. It’s beautiful.

“Okay, that’s it. After we finish, I’m giving you an education in the world of ao3 and Tumblr. You will be a changed man when I’m done with you, Steve Harrington.”

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?’

“Never,” Eddie lies, not even trying to hide the mischievous smile on his face. “If you want to see Cas live, this is the way, baby.”

“Fine. But let’s finish the last two episodes first. It can’t get any worse.” Eddie bites his lip, ducking his head but he’s too slow for Steve’s quick eye. “It gets worse doesn’t it.”

“Fix it fics, Stevie. It’s all okay in the fix it fics.”

#steddie #steddie fic #steddie fanfic #steddie ficlet #steve harrington #steve harrington fic #eddie munson #eddie munson fic #stranger things #stranger things fic #dani writes

[theres-honey-on-saturn]

Ok so bare with me for a moment,

Imagine that it was in the middle of July and you, Jack and Aaron went out to a lake for a little day vacation. You previously told Aaron that you didn’t feel right excepting his invitation considering it sounded more like a family event, and you didn’t want to impose. He told you that Jack really wanted you there and this would be a great way for him to give back to you for everything you’ve done for him and Jack.

You can’t say no to that, can you?

So there you were, carrying juice coolers and snack bags down to the sunny waters, the two Hotchners at your side.

It was nice, you could actually admit, when you leaned back on your hands, sitting on your perfectly laid out towel on the dock. You saw Jack and Hotch swimming in the clear water, Jack paddling around in his floaties and Hotch in just his trunks.

You took off your shades, averting your gaze on your boss’s toned body but has that subtle touch of a sexy dad bod. You chastise yourself mentally just as the two boys climb out of the water and onto the dock for some refreshments.

“You should come in, the water is nice today.”

Hotch’s voice caught you off guard, but you handled it in stride.

“I’m okay. I got my snacks up here with me, my book. You boys have fun splashing around, I’ll just stay dry..”

“You sure?”

Hotch cracked open a bottle of water, and you couldn’t help but notice how his biceps flexed in response.

You wanted to bite your lip.

But you didn’t.

“Yeah, I’m not really a big fan of - ah!”

You shrieked/ giggled as a spray of water pellets hit your face and body. Jack, who was grinning proudly to himself, had shook off like a wet dog and slashed you on purpose. You gave him a a single warning glare then shoot up from your towel, and the chase was on.

Jack screamed and laughed, running out of your grasp as you were behaving in a similar manner.

“I am so gonna get you back!”

You found your self running in chaotic circles around Hotch, who was in fact smirking watching the two of you play. Jack seemed to have thought that his father could keep him safe from your imposing hands, keeping close to Hotch every chance he could.

When you dodged in front of Jack he somehow shimmied from your grasp and the little bastard had thought it would be so hilarious to shove you into the lake. With a surprised yelp, you went toppling down into the water and unbeknownst to you, you had accidentally dragged Hotch down with you.

It was dark for a moment, you hadn’t opened your eyes yet. Trying your very best not to have a panic attack under the water, you reached around feeling for something tangible, something to grab onto. Suddenly, a pair of large hands grabbed your waist and pulled you up. You didn’t hesitate to hold onto your savior, gripping their shoulders for dear life.

You felt your bodies surface, and you finally opened your eyes then, seeing how your head is buried into Hotch’s shoulder and finger nails digging into his arms.

You were mortified to say the least.

With a gasp, you attempted to put some space between the two of you. But the moment you felt his hands release your waist and you were beginning to sink, you sprang back onto him, this time wrapping your arms around his neck in a startled panic.

Hotch let out a chuckle that rumbled through your entire body.

“Can’t swim?”

He asked, his arms secured around your waist now. You shook your head, pulling back slightly to look him in the face. His hair was dripping wet and his eyelashes had droplets of water he tried to blink away. Up close he was definitely more attractive than you hoped. You’d seen him on multiple occasions but right now was the first time you saw him so himself, comfortable and smiling. His gaze on you had your face feeling warm.

“Never learned.”

You wiped your face with one hand, getting the water from your eyes.

“Well, I apologize for this unfortunate circumstance.”

Hotch said, and he was serious too, although the way he fought a smile made you think he was enjoying watching your reaction. You realized that you were skin to skin with your boss. His bare chest pressed against your white tank top that was soaked through, showing your red bikini top.

You caught his eyes flash downward, and wondered if you had imagined it.

He shifted your position in his arms, and you being paranoid, grappled at his shoulders again and had wrapped your legs around his hips. For security reasons, obviously.

Hotch laughed, looking at you with a raised brow.

“Please…just..don’t let me go.”

You breathed, genuinely scared to sink to the bottom of the lake.

“Don’t worry, I got you.”

He said as he began to move towards the dock.

“You promise?”

A velvet laugh and then, “I promise.”

And because Aaron Hotchner was a man of his word, he held onto you the entire time.

#aaron hotchner #criminal minds #aaron x reader #fictional character #fluff fluff fluff #Hotch being an absolute gentleman #got a bit carried away with this one sorry its kinda long

[leonawriter]

Okay apparently I'm going to do a study on this introduction, because going back to it? Especially knowing more about Hakuba via more recent Magic Kaito chapters? Fascinating stuff.

So. Hakuba's introducing himself, and he starts out by bringing up "My father spoke of you often" and "It seems you're a very sharp detective." Both of those are positive!

Hakuba is... high society, compared to Hattori simply hanging out around high ranking people and treating them like normal. Hattori argues with Kazuha in a very down to earth way, while Hakuba knows how to drink tea and probably how to set the table with a full set of cutlery (or at least how to use them).

So, Hakuba using their fathers to introduce himself is, to him, a normal enough way to say "I've heard good things about you, we're similar, I hope we can get along well."

What's more - Shinichi realises that, pretty quickly. Even if they hadn't met previously, he'd have been able to figure out by the words being used, that Saguru's father knows Heiji's father, or that they're in the same business.

If anything, I'd say that this slight culture clash is the second step of things going wrong between Hattori and Hakuba here, right after Hakuba being present at all, since Hattori had wanted Shinichi to take his rightful place where Hakuba is currently sitting.

Strike one, strike two.

Unfortunately, it gets worse from there, and I'm gonna go into it.

But then Hakuba brings up that he's not even fully based in Japan. To which, mostly Hattori is just "wait, what?" - but although I'm sure he means it simply to be as clear as possible, that could also be read as "I would say that, but I'm actually better." As in, being smug.

Strike three.

Still with "Kudo is the high school detective of the east, that's obvious, isn't it?" and rubbing salt into the insult to Hattori's bro with "they'd have liked me to represent the east in his place" but...

Oh boy.

This... this is also where I just stared and held my head in my hands because now? Because of something Hattori's said, and what he's going to continue saying/leaning into... we need to go back in time.

All the way back in Hakuba Saguru's first appearance, the papers say "just returned from London," suggesting (as I've seen someone say before) that he'd spent at least some, if not much, of his youth in Japan.

Certainly, he doesn't seem to speak with an accent in the present day, so he can't have grown up in the UK and only sometimes lived in Japan.

In Japan, however, he is referred to as...

In Nakamori's (uncouth) words at their first meeting, "Y-you're that bastard from London!"

No mention of how he has a fully Japanese name, partially Japanese features, a Japanese father, and no accent.

His introductory splash also frames him with the Union Jack behind him, showing off his Holmes cosplay and light hair. Almost all the major characters in the series have blue eyes, but here it's rather... plainly emphasising his Western features. His non-Japanese-ness.

Now, I do have to wonder if Gosho wrote that back in 1990 and hadn't given much thought to it. I certainly don't think it was intentionally cruel.

However, by volume 40, released in 2003, he's learned a bit more about social prejudice, and shows this with the Professor's First Love story:

This shows something that happened 40 years ago in-universe, with a girl of Japanese-American descent who has light, gingko colour hair, being very aware of how different she is, and not wanting her friend to see. She calls her hair "weird" and starts to cry.

Coming back to the present - content released in 2006 - let me go back to Hakuba Saguru.

Hattori "That's obvious, isn't it? And yer not even from this country to begin with."

Oh, Hattori. Only the previous case had you seeing how words can be as sharp as knives, and can hurt people.

Saguru doesn't seem too bothered at first, however...

First off, he points out that it isn't even his fault he's "taken Kudo's place" in the first place!

They contacted his housekeeper, who he's been shown to be very close with (I'd hazard a guess to say that, having not seen his mother at all, or seen her mentioned, Baaya is closer to him than his parents are), and when she heard that her charge would only be taking someone else's place since they weren't there, she got offended on his behalf.

Saguru, who loves this woman like she's literally his nanny, could hardly say no at that point.

More to the point: how he says "But it appears I am unfit to represent the East..."

So now we have Hattori having come in wanting his best friend to be represented and not sidelined just because of circumstances out of his control, and being in a bad mood immediately because of someone else having been called in. He also possibly inflates the number of cases he worked on or solved, by including childhood adventures, leading Saguru to point out that his count is only low if you only count the ones in one country. Saguru attempts to make friends with him regardless, and that doesn't work because Hattori is still stuck on how Saguru is "taking Kudo's place" and then focuses in on how Saguru "isn't even from this country" which... starts leaning into the uncomfortable territory of "Hattori I love you to pieces but are you being racist/xenophobic right now?"

I say that in the context of how Japan has a really big problem with seeing anyone who isn't fully Japanese as Not Japanese Enough, as I went into earlier. I don't think he's aware how he's coming across, by the way; he's simply got a big case of foot-in-mouth.

So now instead of having come to this conclusion organically and naturally, Saguru is offering to take the place of "Guest Participant from Overseas" to placate Hattori.

I'd imagine he won't be wanting to tell Baaya about that, for sure.

Saguru goes on to suggest that Conan (i.e, Shinichi himself) should represent the East instead.

I reiterate: they could well have come to this conclusion over a friendly conversation, because of how they have five detectives. But instead now Saguru has ceded his position to (as far as he knows) a child. A very clever child, but a child nonetheless.

The next time we're back at the island with Hattori and the others, he's already decided he doesn't like "that smug guy."

As said before, there are plenty of things that Hattori could have picked up on that'd suggest Saguru "looked down on people" and "had a prideful way of thinking" and he certainly could appear smug in his achievements.

Hattori himself says that Saguru was "was like a copy of [Kudo]." But he has decided he doesn't like Hakuba, therefore he won't like Hakuba.

A moment of Saguru bonding with Natsuki over their natural brown hair, a shared trait - we can see him smiling after saying "But... there aren't any tv cameras yet, so you could do what you want for tonight?"

In a way I feel like I'm making too much of a big deal out of this one thing, but I'm not the one bringing attention to it - Gosho is. Gosho's the one who reminds us that kids get into trouble for their natural brown hair, and Saguru got that too.

Those who've read Magic Kaito will know that he DOES have a Japanese school uniform - but as we saw at the start of the post, when he arrived, he arrived from his school in London.

This further emphasises how he's set apart from the others.

(An aside: it's entirely possible that his "school abroad" is more likely him going to sixth form, since our Secondary schools last (or did for me) up to the age of 16, and depending on the time of year he may have transferred over to the new school year already. Or he's just finishing his last year of Secondary. We don't know.)

Honestly... I'm going to leave this at that for now, because for one thing the post got away from me a bit, and became longer than I expected, and for another thing, I've covered the majority of the first meeting and both of them getting off on the wrong foot.

In short:

Hattori arrived with an idea of slipping Shinichi into the event, and was offended and upset when someone was already in his place. He, being the loyal friend he is, wasn't willing to simply let it lie.

Instead of backing down and accepting the situation and make friends with the new detective - who Shinichi knew and was acting friendly with, and who was willing to befriend him - he let his bad mood get the better of him and made offensive remarks of his own, most of which to the others would seem entirely unwarranted.

Because of that, Hattori still has a bad opinion of Saguru, and Saguru's opinion of Hattori has gone from "my father's spoken of you [positively]" to "rude asshole."

Neither of them are innocent, but when you look at them individually and fairly, neither of them are the only one in the wrong, either.

Like... no wonder they don't get along from here on? Wow.

I did not expect there to be so much in it, but there we go.

#dcmk stuff #leona rereads dcmk #dcmk #hakuba saguru #hattori heiji #[head in hands] these two... #hattori I love you but pls

[bbcphile]

WIP Wednesday

Happy Wednesday! Have DFS's POV from my MLC longfic, which should probably be subtitled "banter with knives."

(DFS just learned LLH gave away the Wangchuan flower and needs to lose his shit about it in private. Instead, LLH is grilling him about something FDB let slip and is also inwardly losing his shit about it. They're both trying to pretend they are ok.)

(You can find earlier excerpts here.)

Warning: Suppressed panic attack/flashback

Silence stretched.

This was absurd. They should have been celebrating. Or picking up where they left off this morning before everything had fallen apart.

And instead, Xiangyi was about to subject him to an interrogation that would make Sigu Sect proud. 

He just had to pull himself together first.

Di Feisheng made his fingers release their grip on Xiangyi–it felt harder than trying to heal his severed meridians without Yangzhouman–forced his breathing to stay steady, closed his eyes, and started to meditate. 

Five counts breathing in, five counts breathing out. If he focused his attention on his hands, he could almost feel the metallic thread woven through his inner robe against his fingertips, the–oh fuck, he had been in just his inner robe this entire time, too exposed, too vulnerable, too much like the first time she–

–stop that, he snapped in his mind. Breathe in for five counts, out for five counts.

Five counts in, five counts–

“So,” Xiangyi interrupted. Di Feisheng barely suppressed a startled twitch. “Did you lend Xiaobao your whistle for Wuyan, or does he have his own now?” 

Di Feisheng swallowed and managed to pry open his mouth. Not answering would look worse than playing along. “It’s a spare. In case he found you before I did.” Maybe he could distract him. He arranged his lips in an approximation of a smirk. “Why do you ask, Xiangyi? Jealous?” 

Xiangyi snorted. “Nice try, Di-Mengzhu, but your parrying needs some work. You’ve gotten sloppy these last few months. Now, I assume the medicine Wuyan rushed here last night was for you. At least in part. So what else are you and Xiaobao hiding from me?”

Di Feisheng gritted his teeth, despite knowing Xiangyi was watching his every move, every twitch, every breath, for weaknesses. The fucking audacity of this man. “Nothing compared with what you hid from me.”

There was a long pause. Then a weary, wry puff of air. “I take it back. You still aim true.” 

Di Feisheng pressed his hands harder against his legs to force them steady. Fuck, he couldn’t do this. Not now. Either he’d lash out and give Xiangyi more things to hate himself for, or he’d let something slip that he couldn’t afford to share. Both were too dangerous to risk.

He swallowed hard and let his hands curl around Dao’s scabbard. “You want to know? I’ll tell you. After I meditate for half a shichen.” And by then, he’d have mastered himself enough to handle whatever Xiangyi would try to drag out of him. It wasn’t actually a surrender.

There was a short silence. A whisper of hair against fabric, probably Xiangyi tilting his head to inspect him for clues.

“Ah, so you’ve moved on from holding people hostage to holding conversations hostage. Very clever, Di-Mengzhu. But it won’t work. I still won’t accept qi from you until you’ve reached thirty percent of your total neili. You’re not going to change my mind with a little silence.”

His fingers clenched around Dao until his knuckles turned white. Of course Xiangyi would make him work for the right to pull himself together. He took a long, slow inhale. “It’s not to change your mind. It’s to not destroy your furniture,” he growled, hoping the slight tremor in his voice would come across as just anger. 

Another short pause, then a longer soft sigh. “Alright, a-Fei. Take as long as you need.”

#mysterious lotus casebook #my fic #WIP Wednesday #Di Feisheng #Li Lianhua #Dihua #Feihua #Difanghua #spoilers: he does not take as long as he needs #There is no amount of time that would be enough to prepare for the conversation they have coming #Which is possibly the hardest thing I've ever had to write?

[dr-futbol-blog]

The Storm/The Eye, Pt. 4

Finally, the Genii arrive at Atlantis with Acastus Kolya at the helm. With Robert Davi acting, it's rather on the nose how much the events of the story follow the plot of Die Hard with Kolya as Hans Gruber and Sheppard as John McClane. And, as I mentioned the polysemic storytelling used by the series, the role of Holly Gennero is played by both McKay and Weir.

McKay and Weir are captured by the Genii almost immediately.

They're clever enough to keep their communicators on so that Sheppard can eavesdrop on the discussion. McKay is clearly frightened, even more so than Weir because he actually has experience of these people from before, but he's not about to give them anything that would jeopardize Sheppard (not even his own name, confirmation of which Sora provides for Kolya). Rodney is a brave little toaster but he's way in over his head. You can see by the minute tilt of his chin that he just entered What Would Sheppard Do? zone, he's trying to navigate the situation the way he thinks John would.

The fact that Weir responds verbally to Kolya's inquiry about his identity and McKay does not but is recognized anyway is exactly how the entire scenario plays out main text / sub text wise. We are verbally told: Elizabeth, from contextual cues we are able to interpret: Rodney.

We actually cut from Sheppard's reaction to what he just overheard to the storm brewing outside. Because if he was frightened of the storm and what it might do to this newly found home at the beginning of the episode, he's now terrified.

In the Genii home world when they were held hostage, McKay and Sheppard both attempted to keep the other safe in their own ways, and they continue doing just that here. Sheppard is using his military training, McKay is using his brain (and Weir is using her skills as a negotiator). McKay is trying to convey information that Sheppard could use by "accidentally" leaning on the communication panel but at the same time, he's letting him know that they are both still alive and unharmed. It's notable that all of the characters are lying to keep each other safe. They are saying counterfactual things in the hopes that the others might be spared.

Also notable: Kolya is smart enough to know that they are lying.

McKay seems to realize that he has no experience in dealing with the kind of sociopath Kolya is but he tries his best. He's being careful not to antagonize them unnecessarily and is also lying about the most important things.

Kolya has figured out that McKay is too important to be there. There must be a reason why he stayed behind. The Genii clearly recognize his importance on a lot of fronts, the least of them not being that he's the one that knows how to use the C4 to build an A-bomb which is something that the Genii don't know how to do. He would go as far as to injure McKay but it's doubtful he ever had intention of killing him.

But even under physical torture, he didn't give up Sheppard. The Genii only learn that Sheppard is in fact in the city through the radio he left in the armory himself. The only reason he gives out the plan to save the city is that he has such faith in Sheppard. This is why he looks guilty when Kolya and Sheppard have this exchange:

Kolya: Your offer is very generous, Major. Sheppard: Yes, it is. Kolya: However, Doctor McKay recently shared with me there's a plan in action to save the city. Sheppard: He did?! Kolya: He did.

Like, McKay overhears this and thinks that he's disappointed Sheppard; as though Sheppard is expressing surprise that he would do such a thing. The last thing McKay wants is to let the Major down. What their exchange is actually about is Kolya letting Sheppard know that he has hurt McKay enough to get information out of him, and Sheppard gets this.

And Sheppard's plan is to rescue them. He hides the thing that he knows the Genii care most about, the thing they can't do without, it being the C4. He's holding the most important thing to the Genii ransom because he hopes that this will be enough for him to get back the most important thing to him. Everyone is attempting to find the leverage and use it.

Knowing that Sheppard has walked into an ambush, even though he is afraid McKay tries to help him the only way he can which is by pointing out that something is invaluable (reminding them that they might break the only thing that can save the city if they start shooting at him). Likewise, Sheppard only went to the grounding station with the hope that doing what the Genii asked would keep Weir and McKay safe. And boy is McKay relieved to hear the Sheppard managed to dodge the ambush:

Note that it's McKay's reaction we get to this, and his alone.

Now, Sheppard makes the mistake of mentioning McKay because he just can't keep him out of his mouth. When you're thinking about something or someone, it's going to come out of your mouth. He tells Kolya that he's going to get "an earful from McKay for" his soldiers breaking the controls to the grounding station, and then this very thing actually happens. What he actually did was to demonstrate to a really intelligent sociopath that he knows McKay pretty damn well. Too well. And that he cares about him because damn, if that didn't signal familiarity between them.

Starting to play hardball, Kolya tells Sheppard "Say good-bye to Doctor Weir". But note that he actually looks at McKay just before he says this, thinking about something. Kolya and Sheppard are playing a game with extremely high stakes.

Now, it seems like Kolya threatening Weir is too much for Sheppard. It's the mention of Weir that throws him off the edge, right? Makes him threaten to destroy to whole city if he hurts her. Weir, and not McKay. Easy, heteronormative reading. That's what they say, after all.

The thing is, we've seen before that Sheppard is both a strategic thinker and (especially in Underground, S01E08) that especially when it comes to the Genii, he thinks that the less information they have about them, the better. He lied about the number of puddle jumpers they have. He was willing to let them know that they have a ship, but not that they have many ships. He stopped McKay from spilling the beans on how much weaponry they have. Each and every one of the characters have been lying through their teeth all through the ordeal to keep each other safe.

Kolya is likewise a strategic thinker. He's trying to figure Sheppard out. He has two hostages and he's trying to find out how he can use them for leverage. He knows all of them are lying.

Some people watch the episode and come to the conclusion that Sheppard cares about Weir the most because Kolya threatens her and he loses it. And like, he doesn't mention McKay so he must not care about him as much as he does about Weir. But it is precisely because McKay is the one he cannot and will not lose that he plays it out as though Weir is the one he cares the most about here. Giving the enemy that kind of leverage like revealing the thing you actually can't live without would be stupid. And Kolya figures it out anyway.

Sheppard tells him that if he hurts Weir, he would rather blow up Atlantis with all of them in it, indicating to him that Weir is the one he cannot afford to lose. Anything you do, just please don't kill her. And yet we end the episode with Kolya telling Sheppard that he is about to kill one of the two, and he's not telling him which. Having just glanced at McKay before he decided to test Sheppard out by threatening Weir by name.

Why would he do that? If Kolya believed that Weir was the one Sheppard cared most about like he indicated to Kolya, why would he not simply use the leverage Sheppard had just (on purpose) given him? Why suddenly be vague about which it's going to be?

Because Kolya can play 4D-chess too. And it's when Kolya tells Sheppard that he is going to kill one of them and he does not know which that is going to be that Sheppard actually capitulates, not when he threatened to kill Weir a moment ago. Notice that Sheppard was still relatively cool and level-headed when Kolya was just threatening her life; when her life was on the line, he was still negotiating with Kolya. But suddenly he loses it.

Note that while he's shouting throughout this dialogue because he's outside in the storm trying to get his voice heard, his tone of voice changes throughout:

Kolya: You killed two of my men. Sheppard: I guess we're even! [flippant] Kolya: I don't like even. Sheppard: I'm not finished yet! [bravado] Kolya: Neither am I. Say goodbye to Doctor Weir. Sheppard: The city has a self-destruct button. You hurt her, I'll activate it. Nobody'll get Atlantis. [still calmly negotiating, able to formulate a plan of action] Kolya: Even if it exists, Major, you need at least two senior personnel to activate it -- and I'm about to take one of them out of the equation. Sheppard: Kolya?! Kolya?! I'll give you a ship! I'll fly it out of here for you myself! KOLYA!! [suddenly desperate]

Sheppard is willing to do anything and say anything to keep McKay safe. The man he's fallen in love with. His home. The person he cares so much for that a stranger he's known for all of five minutes was able to figure it out and use it against him. Threatening Weir wasn't the thing that pushed him over the edge, it was not knowing which one the gun was pointed at and the fear that Kolya had figured him out, had his ticket.

This is when Kolya made himself into Sheppard's mortal enemy. And it's notable that in every one of their subsequent encounters, Kolya knows to use McKay to get to Sheppard.

Continued in Pt. 5

#stargate atlantis #sga #sga meta #john sheppard #sheppard is bi #rodney mckay #rodney is gay #ep. the storm #ep. the eye

[cluescorner]

I cannot imagine being a Damian stan right now. You've got both Zdarsky's bullshit (where he clearly doesn't give a shit about your boy) and The Boy Wonder (where Juni Ba clearly gives so many shits about your boy) coming out on the same day. The whiplash must be insane. I hope y'all get some nice warm soup for your efforts jfc

#damian wayne #damian al ghul #damian al ghul wayne #batman #batfamily #for all of the issues that come with having Steph as your fave having too much wild shit happening at once is never one of them #btw I quite like The Boy Wonder Issue 1. wow shocker an artist and writer who I have liked everything they've ever done #has once again written something that I am enjoying with art that makes me want to be part of its world. #it's almost like Juni Ba is really freaking talented or something #like I have some problems with it but it seems like many of those are part of the point. Damian is learning that his siblings are more #three-dimensional than he realized and that is part of this 'coming of age' story merged with fairytale #so I can't be mad at the oversimplistic defining of Dick and Jason and Tim until the conclusion of the series. that might be the point. #I hope that the series will address Steph as a Robin but if not then frankly it's not an issue unique to this series. #I'll be annoyed and disappointed but ultimately roll with it like I am with Babsgirl being here. There's too much good stuff here to get #hung up on shit that seems to be almost an editorial mandate at this point. at least that's where I'm at. #I am also very sorry that Chip Zdarsky is massacring your boy. he has 'X (Tim for him) is the best Robin so everyone else must suck' diseas #where a writer really likes one specific Robin and in trying to uplift them demeans all of the other Robins. instead of like...just writing #for that one character only or alternatively not demeaning the other characters in order to make his blorbo look good #it's wild because I actually think his writing for Tim is pretty solid. but he's not writing a Tim series. he's writing a Batman series. #and if you are going to write a Batman series and include other Batfamily members you need to actually write them well. #instead of assigning them like 2 personality traits while Tim gets to be a whole character #I accept that behavior in fanfic where I have lesser standards because it's fucking free. not a comic run that wants me to pay #tens of dollars in order to understand what the fuck is going on. he's been going for a while now it's gotta be a lot of money. #I can buy Steelworks with that money. I can see John Henry and Natasha Irons in a trade. Fuck you Chip. #it's why it takes such a special person to write a good ensemble story/a good Batfamily story. you have to be good at writing a LOT #of different characters. which I don't think most people are. I sure as hell am not. I can write maybe 3 at a time confidently well. #and you also have to give all of them at least SOME love or else people will be upset that you aren't focusing on their fave #and also the writing as a whole will suffer. Chip Zdarsky is a pretty good Tim writer. I'd maybe read a Tim solo written by him. #I would not read a story focusing on multiple characters that I like written by Chip Zdarsky. because every character who isn't Tim #is at least a bit weak/inconsistent/out of character INCLUDING FUCKING BATMAN. THE NO. 1 GUY MOST ARE HERE FOR

[ecoamerica]

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

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[m00ngbin]

Actually I give up. If I fail I fail

Surely this won't feel like the ego equivalent of getting beat up with an aluminum baseball bat

#its too late we got a teacher too late #they should pay me when i fail #they should give me a hundred bucks #its not MY fault that everyone is going to fail. its the districts and i think they should pay me for emotional damages or something #this is going to be very damaging to me. emotionally. #dont look at his hand ok i drew this in like one minute #“oh joel dont be so negative youre going to do fine. youre only going to fail if you say youre going to fail” #YOU DONT UNDERSTAND #I LEGITIMATELY DID NOT HAVE A TEACHER FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR UNTIL LAST MONTH #AND BLESS HIS HEART OUR TEACHER IS DOING EVERYTHING HE CAN BUT ITS NOT ENOUGH #I HAD TO LEARN EVERYTHING ABOUT THREE DECADES IN UNDER THREE WEEKS #it did not work out #and the pass rate last year was 30% and they DID have a teacher the entire time #there is no hope #at least this is it #after this im done #pretty much an easy two last weeks after this #i just have to not wish i was dead after this exam

[sysig]

A hero is only as good as his weapons, so make ‘em count (Patreon)

#Doodles #Original #Another idea smol and I are working on together :D Been a bit! #She came up with the concept on this one and I fell in love with it <3 She's very cool hehe #If you're familiar with the game Minit it has Something of a similar premise - not the same strict time pressure but yes on the time loop #Y'ever notice how in some games it seems like the wandering trader or traveling shop seems to come upon you rather than the other way around #:3c Hm ♪ Wonder how they'd know where you were gonna be :3c #The crux is that you play as the weapons shop owner and you're responsible for supplying the hero and his team with weapons! #Except the BBEG has gotten wise to how the hero keeps defeating him and it sick of it - so the shop owner is cursed to be in a time loop! #I love the concept <3 It sounds so fun to play in and there's still plenty of room to think about the mechanics and how it would be played #As well as the art design! :D #We threw around some character concepts - she's really into Baldur's Gate 3 at the moment so of course they had some influence in hers hehe #Only got the starting party for the moment but there are plans for a full team of 4 plus the shopkeep >:3c And various other NPCs lol #A lot of the gameplay would basically boil down to being a bartering simulator hehe ♪ #Very RPG trade-this-for-that style quests - under a time limit! Hehe #Since it's the type of game that pretty much requires replaying sections time-loop-style it's all about how quickly you can trial and error #And then hightail it to where you need to be lol #I think we were also tossing around a nap mechanic to skip right to the time loop reset in case you mess up a run haha #I gotta get back to Majora's Mask at some point I swear #We still have a good bit of concept work to do on the art side of things - she's also been really into pixel art lately and I love pixel art #I also managed to pick up a full release of one of the RPGMakers :D So that's an exciting possibility! #I haven't learned most of its ins and outs yet but I do know About importing custom assets at the very least >:3c #Same with Novelty and I haven't done that yet either lol - all in due time! I hope!!

[thecruellestmonth]

Normal Batman fans: I don't want to engage with parts of canon in which my fave is an abusive asshole. I choose to engage with other stories instead, and I ignore stories that I dislike.

Nasty toxic Batman fans: Ooh, Bruce is being totally gross again, don't mind if I do~

Good Dad Bruce™ stans: Yes, I fully acknowledge that every single one of Bruce's kids is deeply—at times suicidally—traumatized by his parenting failures in canon, but he is NOT a bad parent! Bruce LOVES his family. Sometimes COMPLICATED PARENTS make their children feel WORTHLESS and ISOLATED, and then don't do anything to fix it! It's totally NATURAL, Bruce is just a COMPLICATED parent! He's COMPLICATED! Bruce LOVES his family. COMPLICATED, I say! NOT ABUSIVE! Would an abusive parent put a hand on his child's shoulder in a vague display of warmth once every few years??? Hm??? Yeah, I DIDN'T THINK SO, YOU STUPID ABUSE VICTIMS!! Bruce LOVES his family. He does nice things—why are you ignoring all the nice things that he's done? He is just an IMPERFECT person, he has made some teeny tiny mistakes repeatedly with 5+ separately acquired children over a twenty-year period. Bruce is just a regular IMPERFECT human being—which means that you critics are the UNREASONABLE MONSTERS imposing PERFECTIONIST standards on a poor innocent middle-aged baby adult man! Bruce LOVES his family. How could we expect exceptionally privileged hyperintelligent parents NOT to regularly use their position of power to make 4-6 children feel inadequate, unsafe, and alone?? What ridiculously high standards! Bruce LOVES his family.

#I hope you impressionable youngsters are learning the warning signs of abusive families and cults during your time in this fandom. #Bruce Wayne hate club #COMPLICATED PARENT BRUCE WAYNE #You know I personally like my own cobbled version of Bruce Wayne too. I like to ignore canon as I please. #But some of you stans work overtime to come up with the cruelest most hurtful insensitive and vomit-inducing IGNORANT opinions about abuse. #So eager to sanitize decades of a grown rich white male hero living his power fantasy on the backs of vulnerable and traumatized kids #--in your zeal to make sure that the world's most popular superhero doesn't suffer a whisper of criticism-- #you choose to echo the excuses given to powerful people who use their power to hurt and control smaller people. #'He is complicated—' His behavior is abusive. #'He didn't intend to—' He did something abusive. #'But he LOVES his family!' He is an abusive piece of shit and he needs to do better. #'Well he is just an imperfect human—' Nobody is asking him to be perfect. Not everyone perpetuates abuse and refuses to change. #'But you have to understand that he had a very terrible childhood.' Every single one of his kids has had an inarguably worse childhood. #'Hm. That version of Bruce really is an abusive asshole. My homebrew isn't and he wouldn't do that.' DING DING DING! WINNER WINNER! 🥳👑👑👑 #'Bruce is an abusive asshole. He is the perfect meow meow for my fiction about toxic families and dark themes.' YES. YOU WIN. 💗👏👏👏😘😘😘 #IMPERFECT PARENT BRUCE WAYNE #negativity #fandom discourse #anti Bruce Wayne #child abuse mention cw #The funny thing is that this blog discusses Jason Todd the most but I'd say he probably suffered the least abuse. #At least he's a villain. What is Bruce's excuse for the way he mistreats and neglects the others?

[nappingpaperclip]

honestly I’m fucking tired of calling my reps and begging them to care

I’ve been calling them over and over and over for the past four months begging and pleading them to speak out about what is obviously genocide

I don’t think they listen, most likely their underpaid interns got instructed to throw notes or voicemails out, but even if they do they don’t fucking care. It’s exhausting.

The White House comment line is only open for 4 hours 4 days of the week during hours most people work. If you’re able to call and wait for 20 minutes to finally speak to an intern they take a brief note and you can only hope they don’t immediately throw it out.

I’ve been doing this since I was a child. begging my reps to care about children being shot in school. begging them to care about my own schools getting bomb and gun threats every year. begging them to care about the fact that people don’t feel safe around cops. begging them to care about the growing number of people in my city becoming jobless and homeless and dying of covid. begging them like a dog to care at all about people’s lives and happiness.

I don’t know. I’m just fuckin’ tired

I won’t give up though. It’s not the only form of activism I do or the main one I give my energy to. I hope the same thing for anyone reading this. You shouldn’t just be boycotting and calling your reps, you should be attending vigils and protests and speaking about the issue of genocide to your friends and family

I’m just tired of people pretending like our representatives actually give a fuck what we think over their lobbyists and investors cause it is and has always been clear to me that they don’t. America has never been a democracy and if you think that you are deluded.

#vent #don’t take this post as permission to give up 👍 #tomorrow I will be calling my reps and playing for them the recording before Hind’s death. I heard it so they will too. #I’m just tired of being told to call my reps whenever an atrocity happens. like they will ever listen #I’m not on the right tax bracket for them to listen #.txt #after the Parkland shooting I participated in a school walkout organized by high schoolers all across the country #a political club at my school had a table to write letters to our reps about gun control. very nice and I of course wrote one #I just wish it would have been read and not immediately thrown out you know #I was in 1st grade recess when I learned about the Sandy Hook shooting #at least when you’re a kid politicians pretend to care about your opinions. #when you are a kid you’re told that your voice matters and that young people should speak up more but when you’re an adult you suddenly #aren’t old enough or mature enough to understand #your thoughts experiences hopes dreams and feelings don’t matter until you’re 35 I guess and even then it will always be something #they only care if you have money to give them

[ecoamerica]

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The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

#ACLA24 #ACLA24Leaders #youtube #youtube video #climate leaders #climate solutions #climate action #climate and environment #climate #climate change #climate and health #climate blog #climate justice #climate news #weather and climate #environmental news #environment #environmental awareness #environment and health #environmental #environmental issues #environmental justice #environment protection #environmental health #Youtube