#it's a blank slate for someone else to impose their will on

[screechthemighty]

Fun fact about me is that I'm taking a headcanon I came up with for Sephiroth and recontextualizing it for Wolfwood, so

One hand strayed up to his hairline. He used to have a scar there, where one kid had beamed him right in the head with a good-sized chunk of stone. It had never been an especially big scar, but the regeneration the Eye had forced on him had worn it down to nothing. Just like the scrapes on his knees, the chunk of his left elbow that he’d taken out after falling off the roof, the slight pale mark on his right cheekbone…even that one he regretted losing. The only marks he had left on him were the callouses on his fingers and shoulder from the Punisher, and that was because he was carrying it around so much that the chemicals couldn’t keep up. Constant wear and tear.

there is that.

#it's about forced alienation from your body #it doesn't belong to you anymore. it can't even carry the history of your hurts--big or small #it's a blank slate for someone else to impose their will on #shinra or the eye same difference #the way I was thinking for Sephiroth is that he's literally never had a scar once in his life #it's just another way he's not like other people not quite human. a sign he's being lied to #he just doesn't know about what #now for Wolfwood the only thing he's ''allowed'' to keep are the things that mark his servitude #every other bit of his history gets erased as his cells regenerate #big hurts (hinting at integrating his anime backstory here) #small hurts (childhood injuries proof that he was once just a normal kid) #it's all chipped away bit by bit #definitely exploring this concept more later #anyways I love pain and hurting #fic blogging

[respectthepetty]

I know you have. I’m sure you have.

But I’ve just finished watching kbl Blueming and I KNOOOOOOOOOOOW you would have had a lot to say about it.

Colours, frames, shadow, lighting.

Hit me with it please xx

Anon, I love that you are the first person to finally ask me, a color fundi, about Blueming because the show with a color in its name has to have color-coded boys in love, no? And one of them has to be a Blue Boy, no? So since you finished watching it, let me summarize the colors.

The Blue in Blueming

Siwon is the Blue Boy. BUT he is the negatives of his color: distant, sad, and impersonal.

And the reason he is this way is because he doesn't want to be a Blue Boy. When he was younger, he was bullied, so now, he tries to be a blank slate and hides his color under whiteness.

However, he can't hide his true color. His backdrops tend to be blue.

He is lit by blue lighting.

Or blue finds its way on him, like when he bumps into the blue painting.

And it's all because Daun, a mysterious and sophisticated Black Brooder, sees past Siwon's illusion which startles Siwon. The first time they meet, Siwon lies to Daun and tells him he has lunch plans with someone else. Siwon really doesn't, and Daun catches him in his blue and black striped sweater.

Siwon tries to hide his color, but it's already too late. Siwon's blue is starting to show over the white instead of hidden underneath it.

Siwon wants to prove he is better than Daun and attempts to keep an icy distance from Daun, but Daun is not competition, and his neutral color shows that.

But Siwon MUST prove he is superior and ends up getting drunk in his dark blue with light blue striped shirt with a black cardigan haphazardly tied around him when out at a bar with Daun near.

Daun takes a passed out Siwon back to his cold and lonely house, gives Siwon his black jacket to rest on, and takes off his blue socks with a bit of warmth coming from Siwon's direction. But interestingly enough, Daun is already gone for Siwon and framed in the muted blue next to him. And this is where we realize that Blueming is a story about Daun falling in love with a Blue Boy, which causes that Blue Boy to embrace his color.

The next few days, Siwon, who is embarrassed, ties to avoid Daun, but Daun has a gift for Siwon in a blue bag. It's the blue socks Daun took off of Siwon when he was passed out on his bed.

Siwon bumps into the blue painting trying to run away from Daun, which leads us to that beautiful bathroom scene where Daun helps remove the paint from Siwon's ear (and Siwon's sister flirts with his friend). Daun gives Siwon a drink afterward, and Siwon is officially shook-eth. The boy who normally looks at himself every chance he gets can't bring himself to look at his reflection and hasn't since the moment in the bathroom. So he sits in his blue "the pinnacle of life" shirt.

Daun calls him to wish him sweet dreams and requests they work on their assignment the following day. They spend all day together, riding around in the blue.

Daun ends up spending the night at Siwon's under the "GOOD GUY" sign hanging above Siwon's blue bed in the warm light compared to his cold house, but Siwon tries to be anything but blue while laying in the red.

Even with the space Siwon is still imposing, Daun shares that it is his birthday and Siwon tells him the man he ran away from earlier was his father. Siwon focuses on Daun spending his birthday with him feeling bad for not getting Daun anything, but Daun tells him he just wants to spend more time with him. And Siwon has fallen.

He gives Daun coupons to his house. He starts wearing Daun's black. But the blue secret he has been hiding gets exposed, when after finding out who Daun's parents are, his classmate from hell pieces together that Siwon's film is based on his childhood, and the blue starts leaking out.

Siwon and Daun argue, but Daun returns Siwon's blue bike to his house, which makes Siwon realize he can't keep repressing his true color. In the warm light, he questions why this handsome, charming, and sophisticated Black Brooder likes him, a guy who likes Mean Girls rather than new age French films, much to the surprise of Daun because he didn't think he was being obvious about his crush (boo boo, we ALL knew). They make up, and Daun, with a coupon in one hand and a packed bag in his other, spends the night at Siwon's, being the good guy he is.

The next day, Siwon is the bluest boy in his "This is never that" sweater, while Daun, who is a bit lighter in his grey cardigan, grabs Siwon's hand.

The classmate from hell doesn't magical fall off a curb, so he pops up bringing trouble with him, but Siwon has a film to focus on, so Daun decides to help by taking his Blue Boy to the beach.

They kiss in the warmest light.

And the blue blooming Blueming is complete with the boys' black silhouettes bathed in the blue light.

That's where the series ends. Daun gets his warmth from Siwon, and the boys are fully immersed in the blue. Done! Finished! It was great! Except Siwon still has an assignment to film. He wears Daun's black while talking to his child actor who is portraying him in the blue with the blue bike.

He finishes his film, and after the screening, he meets his boyfriend's mother while sharing green and neutrals with him, but he overhears that Daun used his position to sway his mom to pick Siwon's film, and Siwon is pissed.

Siwon doubted himself his entire life. He hid is color because he never thought he was good enough as he was. Daun asking his mother to select Siwon's film brings all those fears back to Siwon about not being enough, yet he doesn't hide his blue. His love for Daun is still there in the black, but Siwon's blue is just as present as he stands in front of his friend and his sister in her "Life is not a game" sweater.

Even though he is upset and feeling the aftermath of this revelation, his blue is still present

Daun tries to apologize while wearing blue, but Siwon is still very upset at the doubts Daun's actions have caused to rise within Siwon.

And Daun is forced to return back to his cold home, only to be alone with sprinkles of Siwon's blue and left to dream of his warmth.

Daun tries again to apologize, this time wearing a darker blue, with Siwon in his grey (or is that the lightest blue?!) Volcom cardigan with the mouth of the smiley face over his heart being taped up. BUT IT WORKS!

Siwon accepts Daun's sincere apology, and the boys return to the blue blooming on the beach. Daun kisses Siwon in his black-striped shirt that looks blue when the warm sunlight shines on it, and they walk along the shore feeling hopeful about their future, together, now that both have blossomed with the love they have been given.

Because in the end, love is what makes colors bloom and puts the blue in Blueming.

#blueming #siwon x daun #the colors mean things #color coded boys in love #the color exchange #blueming the series

[kikis-writing-world]

Somewhere Safe

Pairing: Eddie Munson x F!OC (Melanie), Wayne Munson x F!OC (Marjorie) Melanie is very "blank slate" and is basically a reader with a name, described as having "familiar tuft of hair" but I believe that's it.

Word Count: 4.3k

Warnings include, but aren’t limited to: Domestic abuse/violence (OC has been struck and yelled at, but the details are left out/vague. She is possibly dealing with PTSD/the immediate anxiety that comes with processing recent trauma. Please take care of yourselves, loves.) Mentions of past violence/fights, mentions of past traumatic childhood. Mention of beer and weed, no consumption.

Click Keep Reading only if you have read the Rating and Warnings and understand the warnings may not be complete to avoid listing spoilers. As AO3 says ’creator chooses not to use warnings’.

A/N: This was once a part of a bigger piece that honestly, I don't even remember the plan for. I don't know why it's an OC and not a reader insert, but I couldn't be bothered to go back and change it. I think this is still quite nice as a stand alone, so I hope you enjoy it. Just the Munson men being sweet, oblivious, dumb but well meaning men lol Divider by @saradika

Eddie was buzzing as he got home from band practice. More than the couple of beers he drank or the joint they had passed around, he was high off the music. Riffing with the guys was the most addicting of all the vices he knew, and he knew his fair share. The adrenaline of the blaring noise as he pictured himself on stage in front of thousands. The triumph when they play something perfectly, nailing the tricky timings and working together to make a masterpiece. It was like nothing else he knew. Even playing live, the handful of unenthusiastic drunks that are only at The Hideout for the cheap beer have a way of dulling the thrill. In Gareth’s garage, there was no Debbie Downers to kill the vibe. Just him and his boys living the dream.

The music was fresh in his head, coming out in a hum as he opened his bedroom door and flipped on the lights. He toed his shoes off carelessly, barely taking the time to kick them out of the way. One shoe rolled helplessly over the carpet while the other bounced hard against the wall next to the door. It likely added to the numerous scuffs on the ancient paint, Eddie’s bad habits furthering the wear and tear on the trailer.

With every bit of concern he couldn’t be bothered to show to his old, beat up Reeboks, he set his guitar case on the floor. Unlatching the lid, he handled the Warlock with near reverence, with a care that didn’t match the tempo of the music he still hummed. Once she was secure, hanging in front of the mirror, he brushed his fingertips over the strings. The muted twang of the disjointed, open chord joining his mini performance for no one. The strings continued to sing out as he shrugged off his jacket and vest as one, tossing them blindly on his bed.

"Oof-"

“Hmm mm mm-AUGH!” Eddie interrupted his humming with a shriek as he heard his mattress exhale in a huff. He spun, eyes wide and hands raised to- he wasn’t sure, but they were raised. He stared, heart beating wildly in his throat as he finally noticed the unexpected, human-sized lump under his covers.

He lowered his arms slowly as the lump squirmed but didn’t otherwise move. Over the self-imposed deafness of loud music and the panic sending blood rushing through his ears, he heard a sniffle. Realization hit the same time a second wave of fear did, a different fear. Not for himself, but for someone else.

“Mel?” He called quietly, shuffling towards his bed. The lump moved in response. Arms grew from the balled-up form until fingers curled over the edge of his old, ratty comforter. The blanket was pulled down, revealing a familiar tuft of hair, a forehead, and one single eye before stopping.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.” Melanie answered softly, regretfully. Her voice was raw, cracking as she spoke. He could hardly hear her behind the comforter held to her face

Eddie grinned, approaching the side of the bed to stare down at her, hands cocked on his hips. “Was this bed just right, Miss Goldilocks?” He teased. Despite trying to lower his voice to match hers, it came out just as boisterous and loud as he usually did. The ringing in his ears would take a while to regulate.

Her fingers dug tighter into the edge of the blanket, but she didn’t come out any further. “Sorry, Ed, I shouldn’t have come over wi-”

“No, no, no.” He cut her off quickly, sitting on the edge of his bed. “It’s fine.” He reassured her, resting his hand on her shoulder - he hoped. He was pretty confident he wasn’t sitting on her but he couldn’t really tell where any part of her was under the blanket. She was too curled in on herself.

She halted her apology, blinking sluggishly up at him. He ran his thumb back and forth, trying to comfort the girl still hiding under his comforter. He was about to ask if she planned on coming out anytime soon when she revealed the other side of her face.

Eddie’s thumb and the rise and fall of his chest, the only parts of him that were moving, froze. Her left eye, the one she had kept hidden until now, was swollen. A deep red bruise, nearly purple, had already started blooming in the inside corner of her eye near her nose. The cheek underneath was splotched dark red and was puffy. Eddie had been in enough fights to know what it looked like when someone was clocked in the face. Still, he had to ask.

“What happened?” His voice was low, nearly growling. Seeing the injury had turned his blood cold, sobering him quicker than a cold shower and hot coffee injected directly into his veins combined. He swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. His mouth was suddenly dry. He knew it had nothing to do with the weed he’d had earlier.

She shook her head, “nothing-”

“Don’t.” He interrupted before she could even start. “That’s not nothing.”

Her eyes watered before she turned away, shaking his hand off her arm as she rolled to face the wall. “I don’t want to talk about it, Eddie.”

He stared down at her back, arm still outstretched towards her as his fist clenched and unclenched helplessly in the air. He wanted to find out who hurt her. He wanted to hurt them. He wanted to hurt them worse than they hurt her. He wanted to shake her until she told him who to direct this anger to. He wanted to ask Wayne for the combination to the gun locker so he could take Wayne’s hunting rifle-

Eddie stood suddenly, needing to stop his train of thought before he did something stupid. He strode from the room silently, stomping heavily through the trailer.

Mel curled up on herself as she listened to Eddie’s retreating feet. She clenched her fists into the blanket, biting her sore lip as she tried, unsuccessfully, yet again to stop herself crying that night. 

The glasses resting in the drying rack rattled together as Eddie passed through the kitchen. She was sure he was leaving. The next sound wasn’t the creaking of the squeaky front door as she expected, but the sticky, peeling sound of the refrigerator door opening. It slammed shut a moment later, making the glasses rattle again before the stomping of Eddie’s return.

She couldn’t stop the trembling through her body as he approached, silent tears rolling down her cheeks. The stomping, the slamming, the rattling; she squeezed her eyes shut, prepared for him to yell and scream and tell her to leave and never come back and-

The bed sank as Eddie sat down again, a gentle hand aiming for her shoulder once more. “Here,” he offered. To his credit, his voice was several decibels lower than the last time he tried to speak quietly. He could hardly hear himself speak, but he was terrified to spook the shaken girl in his bed. He could see the way she shook under the covers.

It took a moment for her to blink her eyes open, the left one aching something fierce. She turned to look over her shoulder at Eddie. A bag of store brand frozen peas filled her vision. It was opened and half gone, a rubber band looped around the bag to keep it sealed in the freezer. She looked past the bag to Eddie’s concerned frown.

“Put this on your eye. It’ll help the swelling.” He instructed, waiting for her to take the bag from him. His fingers twitched, itching to press the bag there himself. He refrained. She was reminding him of the possum he’d chased one night when he was drunk. He wanted to help the animal that had gotten itself stuck in some old fishing line, but all it knew was Eddie was big, loud and threatening. The only reason he hadn’t ended up in the hospital for possible rabies was the poor creature caught the sleeve of his leather jacket when it tried to lash out. He didn’t want to scare her, like the possum, so he waited impatiently.

Mel rolled over, sitting up against the wall behind Eddie’s bed. She wiped the tear stains off her face - haphazardly on the right but delicately on the left. Her hand shook as she took the frozen peas from him. Gingerly, she pressed it to her face. She hissed at the cold, forcing herself not to flinch away from the initial sting.

Eddie winced in empathy. He knew the feeling well. “It’ll start to feel better, I swear.” He promised, standing slowly. “Wait here, kay?”

Mel nodded shallowly, keeping the peas on her face as she moved.

Satisfied with her response, Eddie gave her a weak smile before rushing back out of the room again. He was too antsy to walk normally, practically running into the living room at the front of the trailer. All of the earlier adrenaline was being funneled into doing whatever he could to help his friend, who came to him when she needed somewhere safe to hide. The thought made a zing of pride zip through his chest. He brushed it off quickly. It was selfish. He wished she didn’t need a safe place to hide at all.

Mel could hear Eddie in the living room from her spot on the bed. He was muttering to himself, making little grunts and groans of strain now and then. When he started approaching again, his footsteps were slow and heavy. Her brow furrowed in confusion before the ache of her abused face forced her to relax once more. She leaned over, trying to see down the hallway.

She saw the TV from the living room before she saw Eddie. It was a small, black and white TV set that didn’t like to work when the humidity was too high. Despite its size, it still weighed a ton.

“What are you doing?” Mel asked as Eddie continued into the room slowly.

“Movie night.” Eddie grunted. He stopped in front of his dresser, staring at the mess littering the top. Guitar picks, a lighter, a couple empty beer cans, a few pencils - nothing important.

“What about Wayne?” Mel asked, starting to sit up. Before she could move closer to help Eddie make room for the TV, he had the set balanced against the dresser with one hand as he swept the dresser clean with the other. Everything clattered to the ground, bouncing here and there until it settled on the carpet. “Eddie!” She huffed, looking at the added mess to his already chaotic bedroom.

Eddie was unbothered, both at the idea of upsetting Wayne’s morning routine after a night shift and at the mess he’d made. Wayne’s morning routine was sacred, and messing with it could ruin the man’s whole mood. Eddie shrugged it off, knowing his uncle would understand once Eddie had a chance to explain the situation. “He’ll deal.” He answered simply, pulling the power cable free from where it had gotten trapped under the TV.

Mel worried her lips, gnawing on the already tender flesh. She really didn’t want to upset Wayne. He had never been anything but kind to her before and she hated the idea of losing that. She couldn’t stop the memories in her mind, twisting and mixing until it was easy to picture Wayne above her, screaming and yelling as she held her aching face.

Eddie was oblivious of her concerns, taking her silence as acquiescence. He plugged the TV in, using the outlet in the wall freed by the amp still sitting in the back of his van. It should be fine there for the night, he’d deal with it tomorrow. He hummed a made up song as he worked, rarely able to concentrate quietly. He jogged into the living room and back quickly, this time with the VCR.

“Here’s the plan, stan,” Eddie joked lightly as he connected all the cables. “You’re gonna pick a movie, any movie in the damn place, and we’ll watch it. Ladies’ choice tonight.”

Melanie was skeptical. Eddie always seemed to have a problem with her movie choices unless she picked the one he was not-so-subtly hinting at. She didn’t have time to argue as Eddie continued.

“You decide, I’m gonna take a 3 minute shower. Honestly, it would be torture to get to close to me right now. I reek.” He laughed, taking an exaggerated whiff of his own underarm as he stood straight. “I bet I can finish before the popcorn is done!” The laugh that escaped Mel was more of a begrudged huff. Eddie took it as a win regardless.

“You’ll burn it and the whole trailer will smell worse than you do now.” Despite the jab, there was little heat in Melanie’s tone. It was entirely flat but Eddie still considered the sass another win.

“Ugh,” Eddie gagged dramatically. He hated the smell of burnt popcorn. “Fine, I’ll make it after my shower.”

“You sure Wayne-”

“-Won’t mind. Totally. He only looks like a big mean bear, you know that.” Eddie laughed. “If he’s any kind of bear, he’s a gummy bear.”

The sound Mel made was more identifiable as a laugh this time. She shook her head fondly at Eddie. “I’ll make the popcorn,” she insisted quietly, pulling the comforter off her legs. “Go shower.”

Eddie gestured for her to lead the way, swooping his arm out and letting her pass him towards the kitchen. He followed, stopping at the bathroom door. He waited, watching as she opened the cupboard and found the familiar box of microwave popcorn. She knew her way around the Munson kitchen, but he was still hesitant to leave her right now. When he was sure she found it, he closed the bathroom door behind him.

The popcorn was ready before Eddie was out of the shower, even with Mel keeping the peas on her bruises. It was starting to feel better, the cold numbing the pain. She put it down briefly when she needed to open the package, and again as she took the hot bag out of the microwave.

She found the big, stained plastic mixing bowl that served as the designated popcorn bowl and dumped it all in, tossing it around to make sure the artificial flavoring spread to all the crispy kernels. The shower turned off as she sat back in Eddie’s bed, popcorn on her lap and the chosen VHS halfway inserted into the VCR. All Eddie would have to do when he got out was push it in and it would start playing.

Mel ate a piece of popcorn, happy she hadn’t left it to Eddie to burn. She stared down at the bowl in her lap, picking pieces now and then to munch on as she waited. Being alone with her thoughts again, the commotion from earlier today echoed in her ears.

The bathroom door opened, interrupting the spiraling thoughts in Mel’s mind. She looked up, putting on a brave face for Eddie, but he didn’t appear.

“Mel?” He called from around the corner.

“Yeah?” She answered, anxiety growing as she wondered what was wrong.

“I kinda forgot to grab clothes…” Eddie admitted, a soft chuckle floating through the air. “Can you just, not look for a minute?”

Mel rolled her eyes, shaking her head fondly yet again at the man before calling back that she would, closing her eyes and waiting.

“Thanks. I’m a dumbass.” He laughed, his voice getting louder as he entered the room.

Mel kept her eyes closed, using the opportunity to press the peas harder to her eye. It was soothing now that she was getting used to the freeze. She heard Eddie rummage around, opening a drawer, then another. Fabric against fabric as he dressed.

“All clear.” Eddie announced, barely a moment before dropping onto the bed beside her.

Mel opened her eyes, startled and grabbed for the popcorn bowl before Eddie upturned it completely. Several kernels spilled onto the comforter as Eddie maneuvered his way beside her. When she glared at him, he grinned as he picked them up and ate them, one by one.

Eddie had dressed in an old, well loved WASP t-shirt. The black cotton was worn through in places, leaving the shirt littered in holes. The blue and red checkered pj pants looked more like Wayne’s style than Eddie’s. The older Munson must have either bought them for Eddie or handed them down. His hair was wet, water dripping in rivulets down his neck. They were easy to see because of the messy way he had piled all his hair on top of his head and secured it with an old, stretched out elastic. The hairdo made a messy bun that she half expected to see a little bird making a nest in.

“What’re we watching?” Eddie asked as he reached over, pushing the tape into the VCR.

The sun was hardly visible when Wayne Munson stepped out of the power plant at the end of his shift. The sky was lightening and distant birds had started to sing, signaling its impending rise. When Eddie was young and had trouble staying in his own bed - not that he could blame him after all he’d been through in his short life - Wayne would say “it’s so early even the sun isn’t out of bed yet, boy,” as the child crawled under the blankets beside him. The thought made Wayne grin as he climbed into his old, beat-up truck.

Wayne was a simple man with a simple routine. Some would call it boring, but he would call it appreciating the simple pleasures. His morning routine post-night shift had three main steps.

The first step was to head to the Cherry Street Diner, one of the few places open this early. The diner was open 24 hours, serving fresh, hot fare during the day and running a smaller, mostly pre-made menu at night. The food was still made in-house by the cook, but it was wrapped in cellophane and stored in a cooler until it was ordered. Any time of day however, they served coffee, which was what drew Wayne there in the first place.

The diner was abuzz with activity, the shift change rush in full swing as his coworkers grabbed their pre-made breakfast sandwiches and coffee in paper cups. Wayne waited patiently for the dust to settle before sliding into his usual seat at the counter and ordering a coffee, “for here.”

With the diner empty, Marjorie, the pretty, plump, middle aged divorcee that worked the night shifts, would chat with him while he sipped his coffee. The coffee might have been what drew him in, but Marjorie was the reason he kept coming back. Looking forward to her undivided attention in the quiet morning hours helped make the long shifts a little more bearable. He even pretended not to notice she switched him to decaf on the sly. When she started switching the coffee, she had also stopped nagging him about switching to get a better night’s day’s sleep, so he played along. Before leaving, Wayne settled his bill and thanked Marjorie for the coffee and her company. She flushed and smiled brightly as she thanked him for his company in return, as she did every morning. The sight chased off the exhaustion that had seeped into his bones, if only for a moment.

When Wayne got home, he started making himself breakfast: the second step in his morning routine. He turned on the coffee machine Eddie got him a few years back for Father’s Day, needing the caffeine after the long shift. Nothing he’s made in the old machine has ever tasted as good as the coffee at the diner - another wonderful quality of Marjorie’s - but he couldn’t think of a way to ask for her help without giving up the goat about his secret, second morning coffee.

With the coffee machine gurgling, Wayne dropped two slices of bread into the toaster. As he opened the cupboard for the jar of peanut butter, he checked the fridge door for any notes. Wayne wished he could be more present for Eddie, to make sure the young man was taking care of himself properly and staying out of trouble, but the fridge notes are working for now. Eddie would let him know if he they were out of something at the grocery store or if he planned on disappearing for an extended period of time and didn’t want Wayne to worry. With no note, Wayne assumed nothing was awry.

Once the toast popped up, Wayne smothered it with a layer of peanut butter. He poured himself a mug of coffee, leaving the rest of the pot for Eddie when he woke up - not that he needed any extra energy.

Wayne sunk into the old, lumpy sofa that was likely to become his bed today. There was a roll away cot tucked into the corner of the room, but it was a pain in the ass to pull out and unfold. The damn thing wasn’t that much of an improvement from the sofa for all the effort it took to drag out without the broken wheel snagging the carpet the whole way. On any given day, Wayne was just as likely to sleep on the couch as he was to sleep on the cot.

Setting his breakfast on the coffee table in front of him, he grabbed the remote for the final step of his routine: watching the morning show until he passed out. Spending his days sleeping and his nights working, Wayne often felt disconnected from the waking world. Spending his breakfast letting the cheery hosts talk about the goings on in the world made him feel connected again. He’d never admit to it, but he liked the celebrity gossip segments just as much as he liked the news.

Wayne pressed the power button on the remote. The trailer was quiet. The muted birdsong outside had picked up in volume now that the sun was rising above the horizon. The zap of power surging through the television screen, followed by the static of it coming to life, was missing. Wayne looked up curiously, finally noticing the TV was missing.

He cursed under his breath, groaning as he pushed himself up from the couch. His knees protested - the old joints ready for him to get off his feet and sleep.

“Eddie,” he called gruffly on his way through the trailer. As he reached the bedroom door, he rapped his knuckles three times before pushing it open a few inches.

The room was awash in blue light from the “missing” TV. It glowed with the blank screen from the VCR, waiting to start another tape after the previous had run to its end and ejected. Eddie was already awake, pressing a finger to his lips as he shushed his uncle as loudly as he dared. Wayne recognized Melanie as the figure curled into Eddie’s side. It wasn’t uncommon for Wayne to find the two curled up together, despite Eddie’s insistence they were only friends. Wayne knew better, seeing the secret glances between the two young adults, but he also knew that telling Eddie to do something about it would be mighty hypocritical considering his own situation.

Melanie, pressed into Eddie’s side, snored softly with her head on Eddie’s chest. Despite the room being tinted blue, Wayne could see the dark purples and reds surrounding her left eye and cheek. He also noticed the frozen peas, unthawed, soggy and likely inedible, towards the foot of the bed. He had been the one to hold frozen vegetables to Eddie’s injuries enough times to put two and two together.

He pushed the door open, concern creasing his brow as he asked “what happened?” He kept his volume down, mindful of the sleeping girl, but his tone left no room for argument. He expected an answer.

Eddie shook his head, shrugging with his free shoulder. He didn’t have the full story yet either.

Wayne swallowed hard, jaw set. He couldn’t see any bruises, blood or swelling on any of Eddie that was showing, but that offered little relief. “She okay?”

Eddie looked down at Melanie, seeming to consider the girl before answering. The room didn’t need to be lit for Wayne to recognize the look in the younger man’s eyes. Not only was it the look Eddie always had when he didn’t think the girl was looking, but Wayne was sure he had a similar look on his face anytime he watched Marjorie working.

A moment passed before Eddie looked up with a grimace and another half-shrug. Melanie snuffled softly in her sleep, wrapping her arm tighter around Eddie. The blue light from the TV made the boy look nearly purple as his face heated.

“You okay?” Wayne asked next, watching Eddie for any signs of lying. He had gotten better at lying with age, but he still had a few tells Wayne knew to watch for.

Eddie didn’t hesitate, nodding once. He was okay, but upset. Wayne understood, he was upset too.

The elder Munson sighed, rubbing his tired eyes as he considered the situation. When he opened his eyes he saw Eddie watching him, waiting for his judgment. It took three steps for Wayne to cross the room, turning the TV off and plunging the room into darkness.

“Take care of our girl,” he grumbled, turning around. He used the sunlight streaming down the hallway from the kitchen to guide his steps, trying not to step on any of the junk on Eddie’s bedroom floor. He leveled the boy with a serious look as he added “let me know if I need to get involved.”

Wayne didn’t wait for Eddie’s reply, hearing him call a quiet “thanks, Wayne” as he shut the door to the bedroom. As he sat down to eat his toast in silence, he made a mental note to buy a newspaper on his way to work, assuming that in the one morning that he missed his show, the world remained turning.

#Eddie Munson x OC #Eddie Munson x F!OC #Eddie Munson drabble #Eddie Munson fanfic #Eddie Munson fan fiction #Eddie Munson #Wayne Munson x oc #is there a tag for Wayne? lol does he have a fandom idk #I'm so bad at tagging shit what am I doing here

[darkestprompts]

Lol, I never said that Rey isn't allowed to fuck.

But the way things happen in the second game, like, just happening, wouldn't be fitting for certain storylines, his included. If he were in there and part of the mechanic, that would simply put a definite answer on what he feels about his wife: past. With no build up for it on the shrines, it wouldn't fit.

The other characters, with Audrey being the exception, didn't include romantic past at all, it wasn't important, so they are a blank slate. They may have had lovers, but it's in the past and not relevant. Audrey killed hers... but even if he were alive, she wouldn't be one to care about those strings.

But Rey's family is so important for his character that it's impossible even to pretend they don't exist on the shrines, least cheapen his whole dilemma. He's not a blank slate, and adding him to the mechanic would be a statement on where he is emotionally now. Removing him from it would be an even bigger one.

Basically, that's it. Maybe it wasn't clear on the previous rant. tl;dr is that Rey's romantic past is such an integral part of his character that being part of the mechanic (or purposefully exclude) would count for him as storytelling in a way it doesn't for the others.

And about preteen Bonnie, yes, it was exaggerated. I was actually thinking 14, 15, along those lines. 14 are kids from my pov.

Sometimes we do things called jokes.

Look. I disagree with you on every bit here again. I don't think Chris Bourassa made the decision of not putting in one of DD1's OGs and highly requested characters because he had a wife and his feelings might be complex. Any character's feelings certainly are but the relationship system isn't made to portray that because it's an abstraction. It's not an automatic fanfiction writing system and that's fine. Hell, I'd say you are massively underestimating how difficult a relationship would be for Audrey considering she was abused by her husband to the point she suspects he might have killed her. Reynauld is simply not special in that department.

Again, I disagree with you about Bonnie. A 14 yo fighting on the same level as war veterans is a bit much for me. If I were to impose my view on the game, I'd peg her as late teens. But then again, I'm not the writer, so I'm not going to lose my mind because the game went with the premise that she's as much of a consenting adult as everyone else.

You gotta ask yourself though, what's the purpose of continuously insisting the system is terrible to someone who already said they are ok with it and don't share your views on why it might be critized? It's not that deep to me, move on.

#asks #anon #dd reynauld #dd crusader #dd bonnie #dd runaway #dd audrey #dd graverobber #rey's constitutional right to fuck

[nochd]

So it happened again. A perfectly wrong statement came across my dash, this time in the #philosophy tag:

Actually, no, we should know what a woman is. If you’re going to challenge a term, you have to come up with a new definition. If we are going to have a rational conversation, all terms must be defined. If woman doesn’t mean adult female human, what does it mean? If you’re getting defensive reading this, that’s a problem. You should be able to know what you’re arguing for. You should be able to tell people what you’re arguing for. Otherwise, what the fuck are you even doing? Why are you arguing about something that, if undefined, logically does not exist? I would love for everyone to be happy. Delusion is not happiness. I need to know whether this is delusion or not.

OP has turned off reblogs and replies, but this is so exactly wrong that it'll do for a teaching moment. (I shouldn't have to say this, but just in case: please don't try and find out who they are to hassle them about it. That doesn't help.)

Language and the real world just don't have the one-to-one relationship this argument implies. Try to define the word cat or dog in a way that captures all instances of cats or dogs, leaves out all things that are not cats or dogs, and doesn't resort to just using synonyms (such as Felis catus or Canis lupus familiaris) which then have to be defined in turn.

Pretty much all concepts that we talk about in natural language have fuzzy conceptual edges that are hard to pin down to a definition. If that means they "logically don't exist", then most things in life logically don't exist.

Now of course, when we're discussing something rationally, we need to be clear about what we're talking about. There are few bigger wastes of time than debates where the opposing parties refuse to agree on a shared terminology because they think that would be yielding ground in the debate.

But that's a matter of conversational procedure. Clarity is something we impose on the real world so that we can talk about it, not something that is naturally present.

Another way to waste time in debates, one that is much used in courtrooms, is to endlessly challenge definitions. This can go on literally forever, because definitions are made out of words, definitions of which can then be demanded in turn.

However, if we're debating in good faith, it's not that hard to come up with a working definition. (Legalese is for when good faith has broken down.)

Humans are not born with blank slates in our heads. We come into the world with a starter kit of concepts, which is then expanded and fine-tuned through our interactions with reality. Most people's starter kits include the concepts of woman and man.

Now I don't know about you, but with most people I personally perceive them to be a woman or a man -- just according to the concept in my head -- without ever having seen their genitals, or a picture of their genitals at birth, or their chromosomes laid out on a microscope slide.

Even in naturist contexts, where I do see people's genitals the first time I meet them, my perception of their gender is a feeling about their entire self-presentation, not their genitals.

So although chromosomes and genitals do correlate with what gender I perceive people to be, they don't determine it. (Please look up what a "correlation" is before quibbling over that statement.)

That sort of perception, that assignment to a mental percept, is what I'm referring to when I talk about whether someone is a woman or a man or neither.

But suppose I perceive a person to be a woman and someone else perceives them to be a man, whose perception determines which one they actually are?

Their own.

A woman, by definition, is a person who perceives herself to be a woman.

It's that simple.

#gender identity #trans #lgbt #queer #biology is not friendly to transphobes #words are not reality #philosophy #semantics #language #sex determination #essentialism #gender essentialism

[adventuresinclientservice]

Can we fix what’s wrong with open plan?

You’ve heard me say this several times before, but New York Times columnist David Brooks and I don’t agree on much – his political views are a couple steps (maybe more) to the right of mine – but even so, I generally find him to be a thoughtful, rational, and sane voice in a sea of conservative-crazy lunatics and near-fascist wingnuts.  

So when he wrote recently about something completely unexpected from a political pundit, “The Immortal Awfulness of Open Plan Workplaces,“ I was prepared to take him on, figuring that, just like everything else he opines on, we can’t possibly agree on this.  

Then I read the story; he has a point.

I’m with Brooks when he cites research that claims,

“when companies made the move to more open plan offices, workers had about 70 percent fewer face-to-face interactions, while email and instant messaging use rose.”  

Open plan actually caused fewer interactions, not more?  How counter-intuitive is this?  Not as much as you might think; absent the data, I made much the same observation in a post, then in Chapter 8 of The Art of Client Service, where I point out,

“Most agencies these days are arrayed in some form of open plan, with staffers sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, or at most with a simple partition separating work spaces.  You would think it would be easy to turn to your left or right, or pop you head over a divider, when you have a question to ask or a concern to share.  Collaboration should be easy, except it’s not.  The people I’ve spoken with confess to preferring email or texting to speaking.  Agencies remain strangers to themselves.”  

Several years before Jay Chiat introduced a failed experiment in imposing an open plan layout in the Los Angeles headquarters of Chiat/Day Los Angeles – by all accounts a disaster -- my then Creative Director partner Christine Bastoni and I discovered, more by accident than intent, a possible solution to the open-plan dilemma.

Our shop was scheduled to move from one location to another within Foote, Cone & Belding’s Levi Plaza office in San Francisco, presenting a blank slate opportunity to design our soon-to-be new home according to our wishes.  No surprise, we wanted a traditional layout, with offices, and we knew we needed several spaces to serve as conference rooms where we could meet as a group or with clients.  

I don’t know where or from whom this idea came from – it could have been from Christine or from someone on her team -- but as we were reviewing preliminary floorplans, someone suggested we create a couple of open area environments where people could just hang out.

Not long after we moved, we noticed something curious:  people didn’t just hang out in these open areas, they held meetings there, tossing around ideas in a serendipitous brainstorming session, reviewing creative work, or solving the particular problem of the moment.

The conference rooms? They were like abandoned orphans, seldom used.  When clients would visit, we would ask -- “Would you like to go to a conference room, or would you prefer to hang out here?” – with most replying, “Let’s meet here,” pointing to a cluster of chairs/sofa/coffee table, opting for wide open spaces over a conference room.

Brooks rightly points out pure economics, rather than desire to foster collaboration, are largely driving company decisions driving open plan.  In spite of hard-to-refute evidence that open plan violates the collaborative and creative spirit of most organizations, it is trumped by math that says companies can fit more people per square foot in to open plan than you can with more conventional office spaces.

Covid has made this situation even more complicated than it already is, with far too many people choosing to remain remote rather than return to work. When the prospect of an office is desk after desk in an open, crowded space, who can blame them?

I wouldn’t willingly return to an office like this.  But one like what we had at FCB, with both offices and open plan spaces?

That’s an entirely different conversation.  

[keeper0fthestars]

The Way You Put That Smile Upon My Face

din djarin x fem!reader

Summary: He never does what you expect and maybe that’s what you like about him.

Warnings: if you're under 18, you should not be reading this. swearing. voice kink. yearning. suggestive references to oral and penetrative sex.

1.9k words

"The unexpected can put a heart in your body, where a stone used to be" -Ron Hall

~

It’s the middle of the day. Normally, it would be the busiest too but all the folks happily buzzing underneath your canopy suddenly decide they have somewhere else to be when the imposing shape of a Mandalorian darkens your doorway.

He never does what you expect and maybe that’s what you like about him.

You smile. You can’t help it.

Selling used goods and spare parts do not bring enough credits to make a living but you’re not doing it for the money. He knows this second-hand shop of yours is only a cover. He knows the real reason you chose this place. ‘Everyone’s hiding from someone. Or something’ was what you’d once told him.

He wants to tell you that no one would ever come looking for you anymore. Eventually, he thinks, he’ll tell you how it took him a month to find the terrible men who’d kept you inside their fortress of ivory and wealth, hidden behind their pristine marble walls of luxury, and how in one night, he’d erased it from the map.

He’d settle for not letting you out of his sight any time soon, but he knows that’s not an option.

He does have an idea though.

Setting a basket of trinkets down behind the counter, your gaze is drawn by those mile-wide shoulders. Fluid as ever and framed by his rifle and cape, the tower of armour moves with ease around your maze of haphazard clutter in your cramped little shop.

There’s no one around within earshot anymore but you’re still careful and keep your voice muted. “Missing me already.”

“You know I do,” his deep rasp tugs at a spot between your thighs, a delightful tender ache. Like you needed a reminder of where he’d buried himself last night. As if you would ever forget what the Mandalorian looks like tangled in your bedsheets, chest heaving and shining with sweat, blissed out and breathless underneath you.

He was leaving today, you knew. You have no idea how long he would be away; you’ve never once asked.

And if he was taking the time to see you again like this, you had a feeling he’d be gone a while. You struggle to tamp down the ache that rises in your chest, hoping the faint traces of him on your pillows would keep until he returned.

All this and you’d never even kissed the man, do not know the colour of his eyes.

His fingers run along the worn edge of the counter, inching towards you but stopping just shy of reaching your arm. 

The same fingers that had examined the new divot in your bedroom wall early this morning, the exact shape of your bedpost. ‘I should fix this’ he’d purred through the modulator, a little bit amused. He’d been sitting on the edge of your bed with his pants still undone, knees splayed wide enough for you to stand between and it had taken no effort at all to push him back on your pillows again. ‘No’ you’d murmured, lifting your knee over his thigh, kissing a wet trail up his bare chest. ‘Leave it....’

“Come with me.”

His voice pulls you back to the dusty shop.

What. Your eyes study the black groove of his helmet. “Where?”

The planet is one you don’t recognize.

He can’t be serious. But that blank slate makes it impossible to really know and the excited flutter pressing bright and eager against your diaphragm doesn’t seem to care that he might be joking.

Why would he want you to go with him?

You can’t-- just--

‘I-,’ you start, but the visor swivels on you at such an angle that it effectively halts any further reasoning in your head. Closing the shop on a whim was never a problem for you in the past. He knows this because he’s been the reason you flip your sign and bolt the door at eleven in the goddamn morning sometimes.

He towers over you now, the sheer size of him keeping you in place. His posture is easy though. Engulfing. Stars, he’s broad. “Do you want to come?”

I wanna do a lot of things, you think, as hard line of heat spills like fire down the seams of your rational thoughts, drowning you in arousal, pounding in your ears. Okay, now he’s definitely just riling you up.

You want to ask yourself why but the real question is:

Is this a game you want to play.

“The ship will be in hyperspace for a week,” he continues. Something else thrums underneath those calm words, something inviting that swoops low in your stomach and clenches.

“A week?” A smile tugs your lips, wondering what kind of bounty could be worth that much fuel. The black line of his visor devours you. You ache to touch him. You want to know if he’s as hard as you imagine.

“Each way,” he clarifies, the liquid dark pitch of his voice tells you exactly where his mind is now, and yes, you want to play.

You can’t exactly blame the man for thinking with his cock when the thought of climbing into his lap while he sits in that pilot's chair has you wet and throbbing on the spot.

You’re no gambler but you wonder what it would take to call his bluff.

‘Well?’ He prods.

“Kiss me and I’ll consider it.”

The visor tilts, slowly and deliberately, holding your gaze. Silent except for the creak of a leather glove, where it clenches against the wall next to your head. You feel his stare.

You want to blame the blazing sun outside for the heat climbing up your neck, but it would be a lie. Even he knew that. He knows you’re not serious.

His weight shifts onto one leg and a warm scoff crackles from the modulator in a way that tells you he’s grinning underneath that bucket.

Midday raucous from the crowd out in the square filters into the shop.

Of course, he can’t just kiss you here; you know that.

You’re only teasing. Maybe.

But, so is he.

In that instant, something beyond your perception catches his attention, almost enough for him to bristle his stance, but he lets it go- his focus staying on you. Just then someone walks in from the street and the charged moment between you evaporates.

His goodbye is silent, nothing more than a brush of his glove over your elbow and then he’s gone, cape swirling behind him as your customer asks if you have what they need.

You ignore the sinking feeling in your stomach as you watch him disappear into the crowd. A bruise caught inside your throat begins to expand in his absence. You feel hollow, like you’ve been robbed of a promise that was never meant to be.

The customer repeats themselves a third time before you catch their words.

Somehow, your lighthearted little game gets pushed from your mind as you start preparing the items they list. Even more astonishing, you happen to have everything they need.

//

With the last delivery done for the day, you decide to take a shortcut on the way back. The alley is narrow and empty, totally hidden from the late afternoon sun.

As soon as you round the corner, a silent blur of beskar gathers you up with dizzying speed, pressing you back against the wall with the smooth accuracy of someone who knows your reflexes better than you do.

Your gasp is cut short when his mouth gently collides with yours, helmet lifted just enough for his lips to find yours… And it’s all-

Slow and…

Hot breath and cold armour and a blinding thrill of tickling stubble. Overwhelmed, your eyes fall shut.

He wedges you into the stone wall, clouding your senses, blurring the world around you with smoke and leather and gunmetal, the weight of his armor melting into you. His other arm sneaks into the space between your lower back and the wall and for someone so hard and intimidating, stars, his mouth is unbearably soft.

His lips move slow, like you’re caught in a dream. Like he’s pressing hope and madness and possibility into your lungs; things he doesn’t know how to say out loud. Unhurried, like he’s suddenly got all the time in the world because he knows you weren’t joking earlier when you’d said what you wanted. 

And if he’d just... known it sooner… but he didn’t. He didn’t know beds could be this soft, he didn’t know you could be this sweet. He didn’t know a lot of things before you.

A dim corner of your brain tries to warn you. Anyone could stumble down here and see him with his helmet tipped up, balancing promise and creed between his thumb and two fingers, but fuck it’s a losing battle because one broad glove is sliding heavy and warm under the back of your shirt and you’re breathing him in and it’s hypnotizing and obscene the way your body responds to the slant of his mouth, the slow hot dip of his tongue, the way your back arches and your hips roll to meet his, the throbbing ache that flares inside your cunt when he licks inside your mouth again, hot and sluggish. He takes every whimper you give him, holds them on his tongue.

‘Shh, mygirl,’ his bare voice is like silk against your mouth, unable to control the pleased grin on his face. His lips are thoroughly wet with the taste of you now and he likes when your hands clutch at the corners of his chest plate and at his cape, he likes when you can’t catch your breath and can’t let go of him so he sinks deeper into your mouth, a soft hungry sound follows with it.

The heat of your mouth has haunted him in his sleep. The wet glide of your tongue, your plush lips under this thumb, shiny and slicked and sweet, buried around the base of his cock. Long ago you’d dug yourself deep into his skin, taken him in your mouth, seen all his thoughts.

But this. This terrifying sweet spot, between him and you. Your warm glow is in his mouth now. It’s not the only thing he wants to taste but for that, he needs you in his bed; both your hands anchored in his hair, your legs quivering around his shoulders.

He wants to take his time and lick his fingers clean...

He wants to let the visor fall to the ground…

Maybe you’ll help him. He might let you. Because he’s never held anything as soft as you in his life and he’s so fucking hard it hurts.

A shudder trembles unsteady inside his ears and it takes him a second to realize the sound came from his own chest.

The groan vibrates between your bodies, breaking through your senses, his hot breath, splintered and urgent. His voice is hoarse, thick and fuzzy like wisps of smoke inside your head.

When he finally pulls away, you’re limp and delirious against the wall, robbed of the sudden loss of his warmth. He pries your hand from him, and you feel it fall, dangling weightlessly at your side, every inch of you bereft. Breathless. Longing for more.

By the time you drag your heavy eyelids open, all you see is the back of his helmet and he’s gone again, gravel crunching under his boots with each step.

And your palm is burning from where he pressed his mouth into it before he slid the visor back down. With shaky fingers, you trace your bottom lip, all tingly and wet from the focus of his intentions. You’re not sure your feet are even touching the ground anymore.

You’re aching and your throat is wound tight because your brain only just registered what he’d said to you.

“We leave in an hour.”

~~

Update: We finally have a sequel to this!

>> The Sound of Pulling Heaven Down << can be found on ao3!

Thank you for reading, i would love to know what you think of this!

| keeper0fthestars masterlist | - | ao3 |

everything taglist: @opheliaelysia @hiscyarika @pedropascalito @sistasarah-sallysaidso @cinewhore @oldstuffnewstuff @oloreaa @fromthedeskoftheraven @punkpascal @b0n-chann @mstgsmy @wickedfrsgrl @the-wishmonger @ksgeekgirl @givemethatgold @princessxkenobi @getinthepoolkeanu @paintballkid711 @randomness501 @demigod-dragonrider-schoolidol @dearspacepirates @jaime1110 @chews-erotically @this-cat-is-dea @findhimfives @seawhisperer @fleetwoodmac-tshirt @thirstworldproblemss @stardust-galaxies @filthybookworm @emilykjh  @beskar-tano @artsymaddie @littlemissthistle @fruitsaladtree @over300books @leonib @lucifer- @recklesswit @rosiefridayrogersunday @lunarthoughts @astroboots @buckstaposition @ofstardustandbone @moonlight-prose

din djarin tag: @tiffdawg @pedropascallion @fangirlingss @lutallicaa @myguiltypleasures21

if you’ve asked to be tagged and i’ve missed you, please let me know!

would you like to be tagged? you can remove or add your username to my list 🙂✨

hearts divider: @firefly-graphics

#din djarin x female reader #din djarin one shot #the mandalorian #din djarin #mando x fem!reader #din djarin fic #yearning and fluff #*mine: writing #fic: the way you put that smile upon my face #did the tags work? I have no idea #i still can't get that one part in ch.12 out of my head so for anyone else yearning for one (1) kiss I leave this here for you #din djarin please push me up against a wall and kiss me senseless challenge

[didon]

Rashta, Navier and the true villain of The Remarried Empress

Listen, I don’t like Rashta. I don’t think I really need to explain why as most people clearly don’t. I think that she’s using very underhanded techniques to get what she needs and more. Because we all need safety and she comes from a place and status where she clearly need reassurance and that’s understandable. I find her annoying though because of the way she act and how she manipulate people. That’s my opinion. Navier clearly isn’t the only one she has hurt though so we can maybe stop using a sexist term like “Mary Sue” to describe her. The same way we need to watch our language about Rashta.

Now, I do believe that most of the hate should go on the Emperor even though it won’t because fandom is always more willing to hate on a “handsome” man rather than on any woman no matter how beautiful they are. Especially if they uses that beauty like Rashta does which was very common and still is. Not only is he the one truly being an ass to his wife, but he could have easily had people teach Rashta how to behave from the get go. Instead, he enjoys her ignorance because it satisfy his idea that he is this great person that everybody would love if they met. He cannot understand why Navier hasn’t fallen for him, despite not loving her himself, and need someone to reassure him that he is the gift to humanity he was probably told he was a thousand times growing up. He’s the true villain because he hurts both of the women, uses them to get what he wants, etc. For those that have read to the right part, let’s remember what is divorce plan actually is and how ridiculous it is.

I don’t think though that people should blame Navier for being “cold” (not that I’m seeing it here but still). She’s a young woman who was raised with an immense amount of pressure on her and she was probably taught that every single one of her actions have consequences. They actually do because whoever she talks to can be seen as favored and therefore will probably boast about it. The clothes she wear have an influence, her hair, etc. She can’t even unburden herself on anybody because that would be seen as weakness and as the Emperess she’s not allowed to have any. She has “everything” but not really because she is alone and not allowed to truly want or need for anything. Heck, people would probably talk if she were to express anything because how dare she need/want for anything, her who already has everything. She’s not even allowed friends that don’t work for her per her husband driving them away. She’s a bird that’s locked in a cage at all time and yet isn’t allowed to sing because it would make the free birds outside cry. She didn’t choose her life either, she was forced into it by her family.

That wasn’t my point while starting this though. I wanted to ask since when did slavery = bad become a hot take? I get that this is fiction, etc. but what is fiction but a reflection of our world and our values. Yes there are places were men can have multiple wives and mistresses and the women can’t say anything about it, but that’s not the case in South Korea. We’re also not talking about adultery. We’re talking about the very fact that somebody can “own” another’s life and impose their will and desire onto them. No matter if it’s fantasy or anything like it, it’s never okay. I don’t know in which universe people live but seeing an abject crime against humanity done and go “but it’s fiction” isn’t a good reasoning. The same way pure racism isn’t okay because of “fiction” or abuse isn’t okay for the same reason. I get that Rashta isn’t the most pleasant character but still. Especially since we are told here that she might be paying for someone’s else crime. Imagine how ridiculous that is. Your ancestor stole a loaf of bread or flirted with the wrong woman and the leader of your country decided that generations after them must pay for them. I know we are told that only a true “horrible” crime result in slavery but that all depend on the leader and their view of what categorizes a horrible crime. For some historical leaders, being born was a crime. That’s not counting a mad leader deciding to make their enemies disappear by selling them into slavery. Does someone really deserve to be treated as less than human because they or their parents did not agree with the political leader?

Rashta is a victim of that and is a villain sure but at least we have actual reason for her doing what she does. She evolved from the naive and trustable person we met at first, but how can she not when she’s trust in a political world with no idea how to swim in it. She’s also very much aware that her origin make her less in everybody’s mind around her. Now, does everything she does is okay or the right course of action? Of course not it isn’t. She quickly loses her innocence and start playing the game just like everybody else but she doesn’t deserve hate for that. The same way she doesn’t deserve hate for trying to survive in a world of sharks. It’s not a question of not trusting the Emperor, which she is right to do by the way seeing how he’s treated his wife and how others are treated for doing less than she is, but a question of trying to come out of all of it with her head on her shoulders and enough to live on. Does she eventually get greedy? Maybe and in my actual opinion yes, but she didn’t start wanting to steal a husband and a kingdom from someone else. Men are constantly manipulating her and using her for their own wishes and she can’t turn toward any of the ladies either because she is very much aware of how precarious her situation is. Unlike Navier, she can’t rely on being raised for the role of mistress or even her losing her status causing a political problem. She’s a nobody being used by rich men as a plaything and trying to not come out as a loser. She might be going at it wrong, but she was never taught how to do it right and you have to remember all the men that are filling her with lies and mistrust. Because pretty much every single of her “schemes” have come from a man telling her a lie or giving her a bad advice.

What I think is very interesting in this webtoon is the duality of Rashta and Navier because in a way, they end up in similar situations. They are both women that have to survive court and nobles being faker than plastic while men are trying to use them for their own gains and who have nobody to truly be able to turn to. Eventually, Navier gains people like that, but the tragedy of Rashta is that she doesn’t. She might think she can trust some people, but none of the people around her truly have her best interest at heart. The best thing for her would have been for Navier to take her under her wing while Rashta refuses to be the Emperor’s mistress (I can never remember his name sorry). By having the very same position that grants her the “security” she so need and desire, Rashta put her best ally in an enemy position and that’s what’s going to be her downfall. She might be annoying and pushing it sometimes, but we know she will drown because she’s never been taught otherwise. That’s why the true villain will always have to be the Emperor because he’s not only the one who pitted the two women by taking one as a mistress while married to the other one, but he never took the time to truly help his mistress, expecting others and especially Navier to do so for him. He could have brought her back to the palace as a guest only and Navier would have probably taken Rashta under her wing like she does for many others, but by making her a rival to Navier, he destroyed any chances she had to be able to leave him and survive which I think was something he did deliberately. There’s no way he wouldn’t have known that this would be the actual ending. He wanted to keep Rashta bound to him until he was done with her otherwise he would have asked Navier to help set her up with housing and maybe even a job. Instead, he probably held her status and her gender against her and decided to use her beauty for himself.

The lesson of this story in my opinion isn’t that beautiful women shouldn’t be trusted or that you have to be pure of heart and your history a blank slate to be worthy or anything like that but instead a lesson for women on who to trust and that we are stronger together than separated. It’s also a very clear lesson on how appearances can be wrong and it asks us the reader to truly wonder what makes someone a villain. Does wanting to survive in a hostile world make you one? Does not wanting to let someone take what is yours and what you have worked for your entire life does? Or does wanting to use others for your advantage, control them and force them to need you make you a villain?

#the remarried empress #tw: slavery #cw: slavery #navier #rashta #emperor i can't remember #Rashta isn't being painted in a good light for sure #but she's not the true villain of the story #she's not the real antagonist here #she's just another one of his victims

[tntduo-brainrot-is-real]

Fuck it, I feel like I need to clarify why I didn't like the stream.

SPOILERS FOR THE 27/11/21 QUACKITY STREAM

DISCLAMER: I am not saying my opinion is the right one and is just the way I saw the take of today's events. This is all c!.

Admittedly, I didn't have high hopes to begin with, so going in and seeing the cinematic at the start of the stream, I feel like it makes you expect more than you actually got. It's beautiful, the artwork from previous lore teasers, fantastic, it's our first look in the casino the way Q imagines it. We get so Slime, ok, not unexpected, and hell, the reason why Q thought Slime as perfect to next leader of Las Nevadas is actually good. He's a blank slate, largely unaffected by the previous events of the server. My first niggle though, is by saying Slime is like himself. Slime and Quackity, or at least Season 1 Quackity don't feel the same. Sure, the DSMP was young and so was there characters, but Q has always felt sharp, darker jokes, he's loud and outgoing, a self-imposed leader. He's never liked to live in someone's shadow so steals the show, but the problem with Slime is that he is Quackity's shadow.Slime isn't a character to follow, but he is a follower, listens to what Q says.

The one thing I did like about the way that Slime was worked with was the fact that he offered an innocent view onto Quackity's teachings, or a view of an onlooker, to be more precise. More than often, it's questions, ways to make Q re-evaluate the way he thinks, it's a good foil, I'll give Slime that.

The plot with Purpled confused me at first, if I'm completely honest. I couldn't tell who it was from the lighting making it seem like he had darker hair plus the purple suit. I honestly thought it was Karl at first until he mentioned the UFO. I may be missing lore, but I don't know where this came from, it feels slightly pulled out of thin air to me, and I'm not a fan from that front. The Sapnap and Q stuff did genuinely bring a smile to my face, I wasn't expecting Quackity to be so relaxed around Sapnap seeing him again but it definitely was like a breath of fresh air from the denseness of everything else before. I understand why Q would be so reluctant to leave everything behind, especially because he is still under the impression that he was abandoned by them.

The fact that Sapnap was also somewhat trying to get Q to join Koniko (?) Kingdom was sweet, and very in character for him, he felt so kind and chill though that whole interaction to the point Q even dropped his edge and let himself enjoy it all. I liked it a lot, and I feel Sapnap was the strongest character through the whole stream. The Karl stuff was interesting, and I do wanna point out now that his eyes were yellow/amber compared to the normal light brown which I found super interesting, though it isn't mentioned. It's clear Karl's memory is kinna fucked up, and his whole atmosphere is off, he's not bubbly, he feels distant, almost as if he's under water and the words Sapnap and Q are saying are muffled. He repeats things a lot, he's constantly moving as if he's trying to find himself, to figure out where he is.

He's able to recognise who he's with, and I liked the call-back to the El Rapids era that was through the whole part of this bit of the stream. It feels like Karl can only remember the bad stuff about Q, because that's the one thing he can really strongly recall. and he's pissed. He's angry. He yells. And Q, impulsive, rash, loudmouthed Q, lashes back in tenfold.

This is the difference between Q and Slime. Slime is friendly, he's nice to the people around him, he has a bubble around him that emits something joyful. Quackity, however, can lash out if you so much as phrase your words wrong, and he's very quick to snap and make a judgement on something before he even really even has time to think.

And that's shown wonderfully here, because he's yelling, yelling so much louder than Karl, hoping to scare him into backing down, to become the dominant person in the argument and to make it clear that only he is the correct one talking. Also at this pint, I was expecting Karl to push Q off his house, I really did, the heat of the argument and the position of them was too perfect for it not to in my mind. Missed opportunity.

Sapnap is clearly distressed, he didn't want this, he wanted them to get along, remember one another and hopefully get Q into the Kingdom. Instead he has a huge argument that he's in the middle of and is in no position to break up.

Quackity ends up storming off angrily, he's outraged at Karl, he couldn't win that argument because he couldn't get Karl to back down. Because that's what Q wants when he yells, he wants to scare them into shutting up. And he couldn't win.

Part of me feels like Karl couldn't remember everything that happened to him that day, that or he really wasn't expecting to die when he did. There is a bit of lore, though, that suggests that he may just be bitter at Q, and that's the fact that Quackity congratulated him for effectively dying for that cause. He didn't comfort Karl, just told him "Well done". That's honestly kinna harsh. But alas, Sapnap runs after Q, he is fumbling for words, he's apologising. He feels bad. Q is still angry at Karl, though, and with Saonap, he's able to use that last little bit of anger to get him away from him so he can go back to his country.

Yada Yada Prison breakout mini bit. Not that relevant right now.

The bit with Purpled continued. The trap was nice, nothing much to say about that barring one thing, I did briefly think it was going to be something to do with Wilbur, since he hadn't shown up yet, and his whole plot with Quackity has been largely neglected in these last couple months to the point where it feels like filler.

But alas, as I said, the trap was nice, it was creative, and it captured Q. I liked the fact that Slime was the one to give away the secrets to Purpled. It shows off a point about Slime that Quackity made earlier, he's naive, trusting, too trusting. Purpled thinks Q has the revive book, and while he doesn't, he still wants it for reasons we don't know of.

They fight, physically this time instead of just words, and it's fun for the minute that they're fighting until Slime gets knocked into the lava. Q followed suit and properly tries to save him, and it shows that Q actually has that spark of humanity in him. That compassion for the people he cares about deep down, and the fact that he does want to care.

He can't save slime, though Slime does seem to give himself up in a way where he has muddled the lessons Q had tried to teach him. It feels like he's having a dignified death where it doesn't call for one, and his opt out was right there. There is something very Charlie about it, I must confess, but it feels wasteful of a life. At least it shuts up Purpled.

One of the nicer parts of the lore stream is that we get to see Q's way of grieving, where he delves into his work, and tries to bring Slime back. He's distraught, he's grieving, but the fat that weeks have past niggles at me again. The whole prison escape looses the sense of urgency it once had, and it makes it feel like it's not a threat anymore, which feels bad for the story because of how much it and the prison are hyped up.

Quackity giving Slime his name is nice, and at least he has one now. and the drop in from Foolish is great, I love seeing him, but here is where another problem sits with me. He says he's been letting Foolish run things/do things for him, which slightly harms the idea that Charlie would only want Q to be in charge of Las Nevadas.

I get that Charlie is out of commission right now, but Quackity also feels like the type of guy to stay terrifyingly true to his word, so giving trust to foolish, it rubs me the wrong way.

The "Legacy" thing leads me to believe that, when Charlie wakes up, he only remembers what Q taught him, and he looses that innocence that he once has before. I really do think that could be the case, and in a way, it could be like a wake up call for Q and the way he runs Las Nevadas.

As much as I have sung some of the stream's praises here, I still dislike it, and though the visual work was great, I feel the ending and other parts were weak to the point where Q started to feel a touch OOC. The truest parts to his character was when he was being loud and rowdy, especially the bit where he talked about Dream early on because it scared Charlie. It felt weak, and I feel back for saying as much because of how exited cc!Quackity was about the stream, but I'm being honest, and those were my thoughts.

#long post #dsmp spoilers #quackity analysis #lore stream analysis #tw swearing #tntblr #quackity #c!quackity #las nevadas quackity #quackity dsmp

[bold-writing]

The One With Silver Scars || 7|| Sheepskin

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of abuse, violence, BPD.

Words: 2500+

Previous || Next

~7~

Without a way to tell time, her attempts at knowing how long she lingered there were futile. Eventually, he had started to gently card his fingers through her hair, relieving any tangles he encountered with the same gentleness he had used to draw her in against him. When he had shifted to stroke her hair, he had also freed up on of her arms—now she considered returning his embrace. It was easy to see his need for control; imposing her touch on him might be taken as her trying to force some of that control away.

Her silent debates were cast aside when the hand stroking her hair stopped and abandoned the soft strands. Momentary worry seized her, wondering if this was when he left her and ordered her back into the room with the other girls.

 I don’t want to go back!

 Instead, he only shifted his touch down to grab her wrist for a second time—much gentler than before. Using that hold to guide her, he shifted her arm forward and around his side. She took the hint and moved on her own, wrapping her arm around him in return until her hand rested in the small of his back. Once there, she made sure to hold it in place.

 He was so warm beneath her hand, pressed in against her front. It chased any cold from her limbs at the loss of her sweater.

 The steady strokes through her hair resumed.

 Don’t let go. Please, don’t let me go.

 His hold around her tightened so suddenly, it was as if he could hear her silent plea. Her arm constricted around him in response, pulling them in so close together she could feel the digging press of the keys in his front pocket. She almost wanted to clutch her fingers into his shirt but remembering the neat and pressed appearance halted her.

 It has to be perfect; nothing out of place.

 Breath hitching in her lungs, she was sure he could feel the abrupt jolt against his chest.

 “You’re not cold?” he asked in his quiet baritone. The rumble could be felt through his chest into hers.

 Inhaling deeply, the strong scent of laundry detergent and peppermint filled her senses. “No,” she breathed out. “I’m finally warm.”

 It was true. No matter the layers she piled on, there was a chill in her bones that refused to warm. No number of hot showers or hours of manual labor relieved the painful cold at her core. Yet it took only this man’s embrace to, finally, reach deep—where nothing else could. Perhaps she had hardened herself against the hatred and abuse of her parents, unknowingly freezing against possible pain.

 His gentle stroking stilled again at the base of her skull. A gentle tug against her hair had her head tipping back, lifting up from his shoulder as he did the same. The worry about his impending anger returned. However, the softness she had seen on his face before was back and gave him a younger, lonely appearance.

 “What’s your name?” she asked quietly, then almost choked on her own tongue. Why had she done that? Speaking out of turn was the reason she was still recovering from belt marks on her thighs and buttocks.

 There must have been a visible change in her complexion as the blood fled from her face. His expression firmed again, but it wasn’t nearly as stiff as the rest of the times she had seen him. “Dennis.”

 No punishment.

 Having spoken so out of turn should have left her at the very least badly bruised, but he showed barely a reaction and answered her all the same. “Dennis,” she repeated quietly. He maintained a steadying grip on her hair, keeping her face turned up toward his. Some of her colour gradually returned, removing the sickly appearance that he knew well. The rush of fear that came upon someone with such force that it chased out every once of blood. It was half expected for her to sway in place.

 Apart from when he had grabbed her wrist to stop her from taking the pail, she had not actually shown much in the way of fear. Instead, she was a carefully blank slate. Malleable and pliable like soft clay. Perhaps it was a defense mechanism; it’s difficult to bring someone’s anger down on you when you did everything asked.

 He told her to be walk, she walked. He told her to come, she came. He told her-

 “Close your eyes,” he ordered.

 She closed her eyes.

 Releasing her hair, he framed her face with his hands. So small, her thin cheeks and sharp jaw looked like they were being dwarfed between his palms. He himself was pale, but the stark white of her flesh made it seem as though she never saw of day throughout her entire life. The smallest collection of freckles painted across her nose and cheeks, but his attention was diverted in favour of the shadows beneath her eyes.

 Warm breath fanned her face, shifting the strands of shorter, loose hair that naturally fell across her cheeks.

 He remembered seeing her in the parking lot, straightening up as she turned to see where the man had fallen. The faintest hint of the shadows had been visible then, lurking beneath the pale makeup that she used to cover them. Even then, she had been carefully blank. What caused those shadows?

 He hadn’t accounted for her. Or the other girl, wrapped in the layers of sweaters and curtains of brunette hair. But he could not delay or start his planning over from the beginning. Four was more of a risk, but it was one he had to take. However, at every turn the green eyed one—Adelais—had acted against his expectations. The screaming, crying, and fighting was something he had been ready for. Not so for her quiet, patient, submission.

 It was beautiful.

 But she was not for him. She was for the Beast.

 Releasing her, Dennis stepped back. Her arm dropped to her side, limp, and she kept her eyes closed in wait. Rather than telling her to open them, he moved in behind her—just as he had when he hauled her, gasping, from the trunk—and crossed her arms across her chest with his hands shackling her wrists.

 Turning together, he walked them toward the room where the other three remained. Even when he released her wrist, she kept it at her chest. So dutifully obedient. He almost wished to find some fight in her this time, a reason to hold her tighter. No, she was pliant and patient, waiting either for a command or a strike.

 Unlocking the door, he let it swing open and nudged her forward with more force than necessary. Falling into the room at a stumble, she regained her footing quickly. Barely clear of the door and he had swung it shut behind her. The resounding click of the lock signified her return to imprisonment.

 Opening her eyes, the girls were all standing several paces back with matching looks of unease and confusion. Glancing to the left, the pail and cleaning supplies were exactly as she had last seen them before following Dennis from the room.

 They were watching.

 The familiar seething anger started to heat under her skin again.

 Ignoring them, she stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Picking up the cloth and the pink bottle for the ceramics, Adelais allowed herself to fall into the familiar routine of cleaning. Cleaning was something she did well. It had been beaten into her since she was old enough to carry a rag. Colour coding was her mother’s specialty; there was no excuse for using the wrong cleaner when they were so easily marked. Even the sponges and rags had a specific colour for each purpose.

 At least the other three were smart enough to leave her alone. No one tried to knock or talk through the door. She could hear them speaking amongst themselves, yes, but they left her out of it.

 Since she finally had the necessary cleaning supplies, Adelais fixed up the bathroom from top to bottom. The shower and sink were back to pristine, the mirror was wiped down of fingerprints, the facet and taps shined, and the hair that had collected on the floor from so many girls tracking in and out was wiped up and flushed away. It gave her at least an hour of peace—much longer than she had ever taken before, but she doubted Dennis was outside the door with a stopwatch like her mother.

 Time was even taken to straighten unused towels.

 Everything was returned to the pail, draping the rags over the lip since she had nowhere else to put them to dry, then stashing the bucket under the sink. It would have worked better if the sink wasn’t a stand-alone so she could hide it behind cabinet doors, but the size of the room didn’t provide much option.

 I want that room spotless by the time we get back. Am I clear?

 Spotless. Spotless. Spotless.

 Swallowing down the scream that wanted to break free from her chest, Adelais leaned her hands forward on the sink as she took several deep breaths. The scent of the cleaning products was still thick in the air, but that was nothing new for her.

 Neatly folded towels. Not a speck in sight. No water droplets in the shower. Mirror perfectly clear.

 “Adelais?” Marcia’s voice called through the door, breaking her from her moment so suddenly a shudder ran rampant up her spine. In case her voice was not heard, a soft knock followed. “I need to pee.”

 So much for a clean bathroom.

 Deliberately avoiding her reflection, the oldest of the group finally left the bathroom behind—as pristine as it had been when they arrived, aside from the used towels hanging on their hooks. Marcia gave her a hesitant nod as they passed one another but refused to meet her eyes. Casey was sitting on the same bed as before, Claire occupying her usual place.

 Normally, Adelais would take her spot at the head of the bed she shared with Casey, but the thought of being so close to people made her skin itch under her covering clothes. Sitting down next to the door was her other option. Resting her forearms on her knees, she dropped her head until her face was obscured by her arms and her hair. She could feel Claire staring at her. What would her cousin have to say this time? Perhaps she could accuse her of working with Dennis—that’s why he kept taking her from the room.

 “You let him hold you.”

 Predicable.

 “I can’t explain to you enough how stupid it is to anger the person with the metaphorical knife to your throat.”

 Her voice sounded so rough, as though she had given into that earlier desire and screamed until her throat was raw.

 “The other door is locked, he’s stronger than me. Would you have rather I tried to fight him, gotten myself hurt or killed when he retaliated? I wouldn’t even have gotten a hold of the key before he stopped me.”

 “You didn’t even-”

 Casey’s voice cut through Claire’s hiss of anger. “Shut up. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

 “She was hugging him!”

 “He made her.”

 “That would’ve been a good time to knee him in the balls, but instead she’s cuddled up to the guy that’s probably going to kill us. Is this Stockholm Syndrome? Falling for your captor or some crap? Seriously?”

 Marcia returned from the bathroom, frowning at the apparent argument that was going on inside the main room. “Claire?”

 “She’s fucking crazy!” Claire exploded, standing up and motioning wildly in Adelais’s direction. She continued to shout, even as Casey and Marcia tried to quiet her down. The older blonde didn’t try to defend herself—she was not entirely wrong, anyway. There was something wrong with her. None of it was her own doing, though. Abusive parents, being abducted, whatever issues she had with her memory—she asked for none of it.

 They were the unfortunate cards she had been dealt.

 Unlike Claire’s perfect hand, a card for everything she could ever want for her in her grasp. Adelais’s fingernails bit into her palms as the rage steadily returned. The time she had spent in the bathroom was nor naught.

 “Shut up!”

 Casey watched from across the room, falling to sit on the cot as Adelais surged to her feet much faster than should have been possible for someone so long-limbed. Claire flinched back as her cousin rushed forward like an enraged bull, grabbing her upper arms with a strength that did not match the thinness of her hands. Marcia wisely stayed still and silent outside the bathroom door.

 Claire was given a shake so rough that her head snapped back. “You can question me all you want. Call me crazy. Accuse me of whatever you think is going on between me and that man. I don’t care. No matter the blood we share, you are never going to be more important than my own safety.” Shoving Claire roughly, the younger blonde hit the cot with a surprised grunt. How was someone so thin able to toss her as though she weighed little more than a feather?

 Shoulders shaking with her anger, Adelais looked like she was barely keeping herself from hauling off and physically maiming her. Even the anger and disgust on the man’s face as she threw Marcia back into the room hadn’t come close to the expression her cousin was now wearing.

 Casey curled herself into her familiar ball on the opposite cot. The aggressive stance was so similar to the one that had manifested the last time she had lost her temper on the teen. She stayed close, leaning over Claire and dominating everything about her. Claire seemed to understand on some instinctual level, since she stayed reclined back on her elbows where she had been shoved.

 “The time will come when it’s just you and him. Maybe you’ll have finally pissed him off, maybe he’ll come in here and cart you off next—but I can assure you right now, when that time comes you will do exactly what he tells you. The thought of attacking won’t even cross your mind. Until then, I don’t want to hear another word about me and how I chose to keep myself from dying in this goddamned basement.”

 Adelais’s voice was almost a growl, gravel rolling in her chest, by the time she finished. Her cousin was too fearful to meet her gaze, otherwise she would have noticed the lightening of the green eyes to a sharp, chilling hazel.

 Claire nodded her head in sharp, jerking movements.

 She lingered a moment longer, pinning Claire with her stare, until she resumed her place on the floor beside their only exit.

 Suddenly, the safety that came with it being only the four of them wasn’t as welcoming as before. It was beginning to feel like a wolf had hidden itself amidst the sheep.

Previous || Next

#James McAvoy #James McAvoy Split #fanfiction #Fanfic #Split #Split 2016 #Split movie #Dennis #Dennis Split #Dennis Split x oc #Dennis Split X original female character #Kevin Wendell Crumb #The One With Silver Scars

[phemon]

Hiatus (Update)

Okay, so here’s the update on my self-imposed hiatus. I previously stated that the reason I stopped writing about Friskriel was because I didn’t like writing essentially “blank slates”. For more information, please read this

OK, read it? Good. Now, in order to keep you up to speed with my thoughts, read this excerpt from the user PastaGuy on Ao3, concerning my Hiatus. I cut out the portion of the comment that has no ties with what I’m writing.

I find the blank slate thing to be a bit exciting actually. I think that it opens up so many possibilities for different characterization between alternate versions of themselves without the restrictions that other characters in fanfictions of other works of trying to stay in character. I like seeing the differences between two different versions of Frisk or Asriel. 

Now what this user has said (thanks for that, btw.) I agree with wholeheartedly. I do like it when you have your own spin on characters. Its what defines “headcanons” and what this whole sub-genre of writing is based on.

“FAN”-fiction. AKA, fiction made from a fan’s interpretation. A crossover where Frisk is the new mayor of a town comprised solely of Undertale characters is exactly the type of thing that a fan would create, and I’m happy I’m bringing my ideas out to the world.

Now, as for what happens in the future, I don’t know. I will say that I would REALLY like to continue Undercrossing. I want to continue Determination: The Fanfic, and show what I interpret as the way that Asriel gets out of the underground. But will it be written?

For one, I’m not sure if anyone even READS my stuff anymore. I’ve known since 2019 that the spark of Undertale has been steadily dying, and there might not even be an audience for my works.

But, I still want to write it. I don’t want to stare at my unfinished works with a heavy heart, knowing they’ll never see the light of day. 

Now, something I want you, the reader, to do. Did you read my fanfics way back when? Did you wait with bated breath for every update? Would you be excited, knowing that I may be getting into updating Undercrossing? I’m not ego stroking, I just want to know if you, personally, will appreciate my fanfics coming back. Because trust me:

Someone else’s praise goes a long way.

#personal #update #fanfic #friskriel

[whiskeyworen]

Thinking about Dean Koontz novels

Recently I’ve been getting back into reading my favorite Dean Koontz novel series. The Christopher Snow series, the Odd Thomas series, and the Frankenstein series, and Twilight Eyes. Anyone who hasn’t read them, might not wanna read further cuz of spoilers.  I don’t feel like putting a page break. It occurred to me that there’s a really good opportunity for an in-world crossover, at least, of elements of those three series, if not actually having the main characters encountering each other. First is that the Odd Thomas and Frankenstein novels exist in the same world, since at some point, they both cross over at the St. Bartholomew’s Abbey. Presumably, when Deucalion arrives there, it’s after Odd Thomas has left, but it’s the same world. Which means Deucalion exists in the same world that has bodachs and spirits, as much as it means Odd Thomas exists in the same world that Victor Helios was making New Race replicants. Half way into one of the Frankenstein novels, it’s mentioned that Victor Helios is disinterested in making microorganisms or viral agents, since he thinks his New Race, developed by his BioVision company (and an absolute rats nest of shell corporationas and donors) are far superior. But it made me think ‘had someone ever made an overture to him on other ventures, that he declined?’ First thing that jumps to mind is Fort Wyvern, and the retrovirus project, if not Mystery Train. One was an experiment in ‘controlled’ genetic engineering that would probably have interested Victor for a little while...at least until he decided he’d cribbed enough notes and everything else was pointless...and the other was Randolph Josephson’s pet project; a time machine of some function or other. I’m thinking Victor might have been at least loosely associated, if only on a surface level, with Josephson, for a few reasons. First being that the casket Helios uses to house his next body/clone self in his home has chamber walls made seemingly of the same material as Josephson used in the translation chamber of Mystery Train. While Josephson’s was far bigger, and was used for a different purpose (sending things forward/backward/sideways in time), Victor used the same swirly, red-gold material to house and keep his clone-self contained. Maybe he figured out how to use it on a lesser level than the time machine, and just kept his clone at a level of stasis that cryogenics simply wouldn’t match? I dunno. The Mystery Train events happen a few years or so earlier than the events in the Frankenstein novels, but that just means that Helios was already gone and disengaged from the projects at Fort Wyvern when it all went sideways. It also means that, if it’s in the same story universe, that while Victor was replacing people with replicants in New Orleans, the retrovirus from Wyvern had already long since spread there. Which might explain why his New Race Empire started to fall apart, in addition to the strictures he’d imposed on them breaking down. The New Race members that started experiencing severe changes to personality and actions might have additionally been suffering from the Retrovirus’s changes to the hosts they were cloned from. They were New Race, and supposedly improved beyond human, but if they were based off a damaged, flawed, error-filled design...it would have propogated. And to muddy things even more, you could add the Twilight Eyes ‘goblin’ beings to the mix; shapeshifters from ancient times with a full-on hate for humanity, but who could shift between a bestial, raging form, and their human form on a whim. Things that, when they died, no matter what form they died in, they’d revert back to human to hide evidence of it. If Victor Helios had no idea these beings even existed, then some of the replicants he cloned from ‘people’ he replaced would have had the modified DNA of the goblin-things. Which, since it would have been a side-effect in cloning, might have destablized them mentally or physically over time. Or in some cases, immediately. I’m just picturing a New Race assassin trying to take out say, a prosecutor in the court system, so that Victor could replace them with his own agent...only to discover the ‘human’ they were assigned to kill is a lot harder to kill than they expected, and puts up more of a fight. Maybe not morphing into a goblin, but definitely more vicious than expected. And Victor would just dismiss it as an unpleasant surprise, not knowing these things even existed and that he was trodding on their well-worn soil. I wonder...if Odd Thomas walked through New Orleans before Victor’s empire came apart... would he see nothing but Bodachs everywhere? Would he see them swirling before and around certain people? Or would he sense the New Race’s hostility long before he saw them? Or the Goblins? Would he look around, in horror, to realize half the people he saw were horrific beasts, while the others were as blank slate as marble and full of cold thoughts, while Bodachs gleefully swept between them like summer breeze? Would Deucalion hear from someone from Moonlight Bay, a reference to the retrovirus, do the math and distance, and a bit of research, and realize “Hey, this probably really screwed up Victor’s plans. How interesting.” How would he react to learning, possibly from Chris, about the Mystery Train project and what it did/nearly did/never did/will always do, and how it was changed to Tornado Alley and moved to a different state, possibly because funding for it dried up before it reached finished product (at least, in the fixed timeline. The original timeline, the device was finished and used, which is what opened up the kettle of fish)? How would they all react to learning that a good portion of the population of the world might be Goblins? And the danger they represented? These thoughts, and the idea that all these separate events and people, all cascaded over each other and around each other without knowing, and possibly saved the world entirely by accident, entertain me. Without ever knowing that they’d dealt with each others’ enemies.

#Dean Koontz #Dean Koontz's Frankenstein #Christopher Snow series #Odd Thomas series #Twilight Eyes #In-story-world crossover

[parrhesiablog]

Polyamory and Blank Slatism

The Kiss by Francesco Hayez [cropped] (source)

I. Happiness in Polyamory and Monogamy

In discussions of polyamory, participants frequently suffer from typical mind fallacy, the tendency to believe that other people have a psychological profile similar to one’s own. Some monogamists likely believe that polyamorists have feelings of romantic jealousy as they do and are miserable. Some polyamorists believe that monogamists are suffering from restrictive socially constructed norms regarding what a relationship is supposed to be like and they have overcome the social influence by using reason. While some polyamorists would acknowledge that being poly may not be for everyone. A balanced approach would probably be to say that:

Some monogamists would be happier as polyamorous but social stigma is playing a non-trivial role in preventing them from becoming polyamorous or they are deluding themselves about the harms of being polyamorous.

Some monogamists would not be happier as polyamorous and social stigma is not playing a significant role in their decision.

Some polyamorous people would be happier as monogamous but they do not become monogamous because of pressure from a partner or because they are delusional.

Some polyamorous people would not be happier as monogamous and the social stigma is annoying at best and makes life really difficult at worst.

The difficult part about this is that these things are nearly trivially true. Yes, some people fall into all of these categories. I think that the argument is usually that polyamorous people think there are a lot of people in category 1 because of social norms and anti-polyamorous people think that a lot of people are in category 3 because they are deluding themself or a partner is pressuring them or some other factor.

II. Blank Slatism

Blank Slatism is the idea that human psychology is entirely a product of environmental forces and not influenced by genetics. Hardly anyone is blank slastist about all psychological traits but many have blank slatist positions or sympathies with regard to some traits. Blank slate arguments are not made explicitly but can be seen through implication; no one will say “that is entirely environmental” but their argument will hinge on the trait being entirely or at least mostly environmental without acknowledging the potential for a genetic cause.

I believe that some polyamorists believe or behave as if sexual and romantic jealousy are socially constructed and can be overcome through reasoning. In a recent substack post by Scott Alexander, he made mentioned that the argument “you wouldn’t be jealous if your friend had other friends” was commonly raised as an argument by polyamorous people. I commented on this that it would be difficult for me to imagine someone persuaded by this analogy. What would be a possible response: “You are right. This emotion of jealousy that I have has ceased.” I can’t imagine that happening.

In other contexts, if I wanted to convince someone to stop being jealous, I would argue that their partner is faithful and loyal. I would make the point that it is unlikely that the attractive female intern at work is going to sleep with your husband because he is a good man. This would be an argument that you need not be worried because the actual act of unfaithfulness would not take place. This could make someone cease feeling jealous. But saying something like “Why are you sad that your husband is spending time with the intern. You wouldn’t mind him spending time with his buddies” seems unconvincing because the point of concern is the love, affection of sexual intimacy being shared with someone else. This feeling does not seem so mutable to me.

It is not so mutable in my view because it is not a product of social influence but is likely a product of evolution. Jealousy is coded in our genes. Across the world, there are concerns about sexual female loyalty likely due to cuckoldry preventing one’s genes from being passed on. In the Blank Slate, Steven Pinker argues that female jealousy is more focused on a psychological connection because women would be concerned that their husband would leave them. Women that did not care if their husbands fell in love and ran off with other women likely did not succeed in passing their genes on just as men who let their wives sleep around did not either. I’ll note that there would be extremely strong selection against things like compersion, positive feelings from a partner enjoying someone else romantically or sexually. That is not to say that it does not exist.

Even if jealousy were not an emotional issue, wanting ones partner to remain faithful makes sense if you are concerned about them leaving you. While being polyamorous allows one’s partner to having the best of both worlds, they may soon find that they do not need you. If this is a concern, then not wanting polyamory may be rational in some sense even if jealousy is not experienced.

III. Moral Concerns

There is likely some moral concerns that are intertwined with disgust. To some, the idea of one’s spouse having sex with another person is quite revolting. This emotion likely carries over to seeing other couples engage in this behavior. Love is regarded as a high value and sexual novelty is regarded as a low value. Trading off between these two can be seen as something that is immoral. This feeling of moral disgust is very hard to shake for people. I do not think these things can be argued away very easily.

One other concern would be societal instability. One form of this argument would be a bunch of men who cannot get women and they resort to anti-social behavior. I feel this may be a problem but someone is not obligated to pair off with a man because he may engage in anti-social behavior. However, it might be good to encourage more stabilizing social norms but perhaps not use negative stigma to achieve them. Another form of this argument would be that this does not provide children with a stable upbringing. A man could get one girlfriend pregnant and then not commit to her or provide resources because this man does not care about her much or likes his other girlfriend more. Children could be exposed to weird social arrangements and we do not know how that would affect their development. In order to evaluate these arguments, it would take a lot more data. Usually, I just see people use hypotheticals. But it is easy to imagine someone would weigh moral concern for this sort of thing higher than they do sexual or romantic jealousy. Again, something that is hard to shake off.

Another concern is that polyamory is imposed on one partner because another partner wants more novelty. The objection would be that the partner who nominally consents but really wish it was not happening just wants to not lose their partner or the objection could be that this hastens the downfall of relationships. Usually, I just see this supported with anecdotes. I do not know if this is the typical form of a poly relationship. A poly person could always say they do not support this but this would probably be a side-effect of normalization. That poly person is not responsible for other people’s relationship disfunction but it is worth noting that many relationships would not achieve the platonic ideal of what being poly would look like.

#poly #polyamory #blank slate #blank slatism

[stardew-imagines-me]

Hi!!!! Uhm, can I ask a short story, where the farmer (in your Highschool AU) was looked down on when they first arrived at the school, but soon climbed up the ranks with their academic ability and skills in other fields, which impressed the students and caught the attention of the Top 12?

I, uh... I got carried away ;”-) I just love the high school au so much

The first days of school were hell. They were always hell regardless if you were returning or transferring, but to transfer in the middle of the year? That's basically a death wish. You knew that, but what other choice did you really have? You had no home back in the city, your mother made that clear through tear filled apologizes and painfully tight hugs goodbye. You didn't have a home in Stardew Valley, this was just some place your grandfather gave to you in case you ran into trouble - it makes you suspicious sometimes about how good he prepared everything.

You can't blame either one of them though, it just had to be this way until it was safe enough to go back. But when that would be? You weren't quite sure, mom made it clear to not wait up though. Your new years would start here.

Start here... in the personal bathrooms once again. Another lunch spent hiding away from people who would only whisper to each other about your sudden appearance, your clothes, your family. The hot topic of the school for being the city kid outsider.

The rude remarks about your intelligence or  simple existence didn't bother you. Neither did the rough pushing in the halls, or the pitiful looks you'd receive. Even having no friends made a difference. You stayed quiet and calm despite the undeserved harassment, always focusing on your school work or eating your food with your head down. What would be the point in showing a reaction when you didn't feel anything?

There was only 5 things you liked since moving to Stardew Valley. The first was shopping; you could spend your whole day in the florists shop looking at all the different types of home grown flowers, or picking out new vegetable seeds to grow inside during the winter. You visited so often you were practically best friend's with the owner; an elderly man without a wife or kids. He soon became someone to vent to when a letter from your mom arrived.

The second would be the silence of the semi medium town. You could walk for hours in the woods and find that it was nearly silent always. Sometimes living on the outskirts of town was beneficial for your mental health.

The third had to have been sleeping. Now with no running children in the apartment above you, or your mom passed out on the only bed available, you were able to sleep for as long as you wanted without disturbance. That's practically your whole weekend, just sleeping the hours away until your body refused anymore.

The fourth, surprisingly, was the students. Not the normal ones, or the ones who pushed your head into the lockers whenever they felt like it, the ones who you had to observe from far away with everyone else because they were practically the royalty of your school.

Every single one of them had a different personality, had some sort of contribution to either a large organization, or came with talent unmatched by anyone. They were all so interesting, but one thing was you had never seen them all together.

You'd think, being some of the most exceptional students, they'd be together all the time - that wasn't the case though. You'd be lucky if you even saw three of them hanging out.

They were all so busy, so the possibility of them sparing a glance at someone the likes of you was.. small.

The last thing was the garden at school. That was something you would always admit you were a little too fond of.

Gardening was the only thing you had back in the city; your cups of bamboos and pots of orchids, the baby blooming orange tree that had finally grown it's first blossom since being potted or the mint you'd talk to whenever your mother was too busy at work.. she was always busy. To have the blank, nearly dead slate of the school garden was a gift from the cruel gods who put you in this situation to begin with.

Nevertheless, you signed up for the gardening club after your 2nd month at Stardew Dew High.

You understood when the three other gardening students were distraught by the death of their beautiful green sanctuary, you would've been too. You took it upon yourself to arrive at school extra early in order to turn the compost beds, pluck the monstrous amount of weeds from the dry soil and gather what seed was left in storage.

Late afternoons when you'd spend time talking to the acting president, Sei, she would share stories about the past gardening president and how he made Star Dew high into what attracted so much attention in the first place; private school gardeners were put to shame with his natural green thumb.

"It's kind of crazy, to think that we just started out in classroom with a few tiny pots of tulips. Without Boari, we wouldn't be here now," She smiled painfully towards the dug up flowerbeds, tapping her nails against the dirt path and resting against the greenhouse.

"Well, without the sponsorship from a few of the top 12, we wouldn't have any of this," she motioned to the large expansion of land the gardening club owned, "Bless Boari's soul for being so caring, he's the only person I've seen the top 12 so fascinated with,"

You nodded, arms propped up on your knees as you glanced at Sei every now and then.

"Amy and Kai? Bless those girls souls for trying so hard to keep everything running after Boari left. We all tried out best, but in the end it wasn't enough,"

That small conversation shouldn't have meant so much, but Sei had looked so sad, Kai and Amy always worked so hard. You knew they sacrificed a lot for this club, and even despite your sad reputation in the school, they never once put you down for just existing. They always offered their table when it was open, or encouraged you during classes you had with them - the least you could do was try to bring back whatever they had before.

And that's what you did.

Since that day, you spent your lunch time in the library studying for tests that were months away and finishing packets of homework that counted for the rest of the year. You spent every morning and afternoon planting, growing, watering, turning. You trimmed the mazes', you fixed the broken shelves in the shed and even took money from you own pocket to decorate the greenhouse.

You saw less of your garden mates, you hadn't been pushed in a good few weeks and your teachers praised you every chance they could when you turned in finished packet after packet. You had secluded yourself with good reason, and the lack of attention, negative or not, wasn't unwelcomed.

But there was one thing that left you scratching your head; the amount of letters, small gifts, sticky notes and even a pack of strawberry seeds had all fallen from your locker when you opened it one morning. To be fair though, you never used the damn thing, the lock was sticky.

As you watched the garden bloom almost impossibly fast, you noticed that no one touched you anymore, in fact, everyone offered bright smiles and shameful expressions. Odd.

-

"I want you to be the gardening president," Sei held out the green leaf hairpin towards you, proud grin stretching across her face while Amy and Kai stood to the side, clapping their hands and shouting excitedly.

"What..? Why?" Club hairpins were sacred, those were the absolute deciding factor on your reputation as a student. To be the president of an important club was to join the class royalty in some way.

But to you, it was just a leaf hairpin.

"You're like the plant whisperer! What do you mean why? You've literally regrown the garden single handedly, thrown yourself into being one of the top academic students in our school, and somehow stayed modest the whole time,"

"You mean oblivious, Sei," Kai teased, snickering behind her hand while Amy smacked her arm.

"Are you sure? I mean, I don't want to impose anything," Sei shook her head so hard you were scared she would knock herself unconscious.

"Without you, our dream wouldn't have stayed. Please, take the pin before my arms break off,"

-

And with the official announcement of the garden president change, and the garden fairy's arrival, you were classified as one of the elite.

Now students asked to sit with you at lunch, or begged to be in project groups with you - you even found yourself cornered by a few students who admitted they had always loved you and want to take you out on the weekend. That was a little extreme.

You couldn't care any less about the title though, sticking with eating lunch in the green house or staying silent during class. You had to be one of the most antisocial elites so far, and with Penny or Sebastian? That's kinda saying a lot.

"Hey, you're the garden fairy, right?" You recognized that voice anywhere, if it wasn't the one and only Alexander, football prodigy.

"Huh, you are cute aren't you? Should've found you sooner," Haley too?

You turned around, empty pot clutched in gloved hands and dirt smudged across your cheeks. Dear lord, it wasn't just Alex and Haley.

"I've seen you around!" Sam said loudly, his smile really was brighter than the sun. You looked to his side where Abigail hushed him and Sebastian waved, arms crossed over his chest.Elliott pushed the glasses that were drooping down his nose up as you caught your glance, and Leah smiled next to him.

"Did we catch you at a bad time?" Penny asked quietly, tucked behind a blue haired Emily, and a frantic Harvey. You were about to shake your head when Shane injected.

"Of course we did," Maru patted his shoulder, and gestured to you again, "You shouldn't talk for other people, Shane,"

Every single one of the 12 stood in front of you, watching as you stared at them, wide eyed and clutching harder onto your pot. Out of every moment they could've found you, it had to have been when dirt was smudged across your face and your gloves soaked and muddy.

"Uhm.." You started, everyone lighting up as you finally found your voice. For some reason, all the attention shook you, and all you wanted to do was retreat to the green house and contemplate your life.

"You probably don't know why we're here, sorry," Leah said, ducking her head quickly in a tiny bow.

"We came here to see who the person was that brought back the garden," Harvey seemed all too enchanted by the very mention of the garden.

"Yes, we also wanted to see who it was that our peers were regarding as the 13th addition," Elliott's voice was comforting in the overwhelming aura each one of them produced. You nodded again, slowly and trailed Haley's hands as they reached out to touch your hair.

Emily quickly snatched her sisters hand away, giving a frowning Haley to Alex, "Manners, Haley,"

They stood there, expecting for you to say something, anything at all, but all you did was stare at them. That was until your brain completely shut down.

"Uhm.. yeah," And with that, you shuffled quickly out of the empty classroom and all but bolted down the corridor into one of the main halls and down the stairs to the gardens.

You knew as you threw off your gloves, set down the pot and grabbed your backpack in a rush, your life wouldn't be the same from then on. Still, you would go home and spend one last night alone until you walked back into school the next day a completely different person.

#sdv #sdv au #sdv highschool au #sdv imagines #sdv alex #sdv elliot #sdv elliott #sdv oc #sdv sebastian #sdv shane #sdv sam #sdv harvey #sdv haley #sdv maru #sdv emily #sdv abigail #sdv penny #sdv leah

[moon-lily]

November/FF14 Writing Prompt #10

~ Cozy ~

(A warm feeling that makes you feel like you’re home.)

Anyone who met the Viera Warrior of Light would know one thing just from the way the imposing woman carried herself: She was icy. Or rather that’s what it seemed like she was. In truth, she was more of a blank slate, wiped clean of all previous memories. According to Y’shtola and the other Scions, she used to be much warmer - a tad serious but she was far more prone to smiling and had a gentle heart. In fact, she used to know how to heal through conjuring. And now... She rarely smiled, leaned far more into handling things with violence, and was abrasive at times with others.

Alisaie didn’t see the point in making these comparisons, what mattered more to her was this was the woman who helped her explore the coils of Bahamut. A tremendous effort on both of them in many ways - the young Elezen having to deal with what happened to her grandfather, the Viera managing to recover some of her memory. And what did she remember? The Battle of Carteneau, Dalamud’s fall, and Bahamut’s release. But the more important part to these memories, the one central figure was her companion, whom she called “Talia.” 

Little bits and pieces of those memories of Talia did return to Sariel, and when she spoke of them, Alisaie could hear the joy and sorrow in her voice. A good friend now lost to the Calamity... Just as she had lost her grandfather. To be someone who could bring that kind of reaction out of the Viera had to be very special. At first, after parting ways with the Viera after their mission was complete, Alisaie thought there’d be no one else like that for Sariel.

“I hope you haven’t forgotten,” said a slightly deep yet feminine voice, prompting Alisaie to look over her shoulder and be face-to-face with the Viera herself. The sudden closeness had Alisaie jump slightly out of being startled, glaring at the older woman.

“Do you not have any sense of personal space!? Or was that something intentional to get a rise out of me,” demanded Alisaie, huffing under her breath. Sariel straightened up from bending down to be eye level with her, shrugging to the girl’s questions.

“I know it’s been some time since you and everyone else recovered from returning to the Source but-” Sariel crossed her arms over her chest, her lips turned into a small frown. Was that a pout? “I remember you promising that you’d take Lyse and I to a pastry shop in Limsa Lominsa. And we also agreed to bring Y’shtola too.” 

“Wait, wait, wait,” yelled Amaris, getting up from the table across from theirs, where she had been sitting with Alphinaud while enjoying some tea with him. The slightly older twin, who was multi-tasking with reading a book, glanced up at the pinkette as she ran over to them. “I remember that too! You can’t leave me out of that!”

“Ah, of course you can-”

“You can’t forget about Lilith either. We wouldn’t hear the end of it if she was left out,” Sariel added, Alisaie’s mouth opening slightly out of surprise at just how many she’d have to treat.

“A girl’s day out! Won’t that be fun, Alisaie,” asked Amaris, excited as ever as she threw her hands in the air. 

“What did I get myself into,” Alisaie sighed, shaking her head. From the corner of her eye, she saw Sariel step closer to her, bending down so they were eye level again. Turning her head to meet those golden eyes, she was surprised by the warm smile on Sariel’s face.

“Thank you. You know that I enjoy spending time with you, yes?”

Cheeks burning up from that, Alisaie quickly turned her head away and shrugged in her seat. “Do I appear as if I need a constant reminder of it?” 

She could hear Sariel chuckle, and then felt a hand gently caress the top of her head. The contact was gone when Alisaie turned her head again, watching as Sariel walked away and join Amaris, who was calling Lilith on the linkpearl.

Yes, regardless of how different Sariel now was from her past self, regardless of all the hurt she had experienced... There was still a warmth in her. The cozy feeling in the pit of Alisaie’s stomach was a testament to that.

#writing prompt #ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ff14 #alisaie leveilleur #original characters #cozy

[jeserai]

bits and pieces (3/7)

catradora week 2019 day 3 - futuristic/medieval

“Call me Adora when it’s just us two,” she says between giggles one day. Her face is red; Catra has her pinned down and had tickled her breathless, and the realization makes her reel back, eyes wide. Princess Adora’s hair has fallen from its high updo, and her dress is mussed from the time she’d tried to escape, and. Catra realizes that she’d stopped thinking of her as the Crown Princess a long time ago.

Catra is just a page when she first meets the Crown Princess. She doesn’t know much about her—just that her name is Adora, she will inherit the kingdom when she comes of age, and that she is the person that she will swear fealty to when she comes of age. So she’s expecting someone regal, imposing even, not a kid that looks the same age as her. She almost laughs, but seeing Scorpia standing straight and tall and entirely serious for once in front of the tiny Princess makes her realize that—this really is the Crown Princess. So she stands up straight and bites back her giggles, observing the Princess as she stands next to her parents.

Princess Adora has chubby cheeks and pale skin, her hair is braided back intricately, and her dress, braided through with gold, looks like it costs more than Catra’s parents could ever dream of affording. With the gold of her hair and dress and the softness of her skin, Catra can see why everyone in the village calls her Grayskull’s Golden Rose. Everything about her shows how delicate, how rich she is: she has never had to worry about where her next meal would come from, that she has never even worked a day in her life.

But her eyes.

When their gazes meet, Catra frowns at how dead they look—looking into Princess Adora’s eyes is like looking into a blank slate, no emotion, no life, no nothing.

That is what catches Catra’s attention in the beginning.

And maybe something about her has caught Princess Adora’s attention too, because the day after the short ceremony and lengthy dinner (Catra spends the whole time watching Princess Adora, and frequently finds that the Princess is looking back at her too), Scorpia sits her down after training, and says, “Do you enjoy training under me?”

“Not really,” Catra easily dodges Scorpia’s fist, but her knight is smiling—they both are. “I mean, I do. I really do, you know I do—why?”

Here, Scorpia hesitates, chewing at her lip like she knows that Catra won’t like what she’s going to say. “I have been informed that Princess Adora...she wants you to be her personal guard.” and before Catra can protest, because she is going to protest, Scorpia continues, “I told the Queen that you are too young—not even a squire—and so they decided that you will be her companion more than anything. When you come of age, if she still desires, you will be her personal guard.”

“What now, then?”

Scorpia reaches out—then thinks better of it and retracts her hand. “Your mornings will be spent with Princess Adora, and your evenings with me. This does mean that you will have to work harder than the other pages—and the other squires—to keep up with your training. But I figured you would be up for that task.” Before Catra can say that of course she is, Scorpia holds up a hand to silence her. “Sleep now, and I will take you to Adora in the morning. And I mean that—sleep.”

Catra rolls her eyes, but (for once) does as she’s told, if only to make her knight proud.

She wakes before dawn, and stays up until Scorpia comes for her just after the sun fully rises. “How do you feel?”

“Good,” Catra shrugs, tries for nonchalance even though her stomach is rolling with nerves. What if the Princess doesn’t like her? What if she has her thrown out of the castle or—

“I asked around last night to find out the Princess’s schedule. Morning mass, breakfast, lessons until dinner, and then she has free time until supper. You only have to stay until supper—we will meet here at sundown. Okay?”

No, it’s not okay, Catra wants to say, you’re handing me off to a brat that sits around and does nothing all day when you know I’d rather do anything else, even train with Kyle. “Yes.”

“Good,” Scorpia says, and gives her a soft, genuine smile. It’s bittersweet, and Catra quickly looks away as her eyes begin to sting with tears. “It won’t be so bad, Catra.”

Before she leaves, Scorpia gives her a hard look before saying, “And behave. Your behavior reflects on me.” There is no bite in the words though, just Scorpia’s usual softness, and Catra nods, if only because she can tell that Scorpia really did try to keep her close.

The day is...boring.

Catra barely manages to stay awake during mass, like usual—Scorpia has given up on getting her to go, but sitting slumped next to the Princess, who sits with her back ramrod straight and her eyes fixed firmly ahead, makes her skin prickle with nerves, so she tries her best to stay awake even though she retains not a single word that was said.

Princess Adora does not say a word to her, not during mass, nor during breakfast. She keeps her eyes down, the picture of icy elegance, and Catra outright snorts. Somehow, the sudden noise makes the Princess startle and look up in alarm, and that is the first time Catra sees any emotion in her eyes.

“Hey, Princess,” Catra says then, made bold by the crack in her facade. The Princess frowns a little, but she nods just the tiniest bit and looks back down at the table, and her empty plate.

“Why did you have me come here if you won’t even look at me?”

This time when Princess Adora looks up, it’s almost as if she is seeing Catra for the first time. Not like Catra wasn’t there, but as if she is just waking up after a long sleep. “I…” and her voice is so quiet that Catra actually leans in, as if that will help her hear. “I just wanted a friend, I think.”

And oh, oh. Because Catra doesn’t really have any friends either, but she at least sees the other pages every day—even the other squires and knights. But Princess Adora has no one.

She doesn’t know why, but it makes something in her heart tug. Catra stands, comes close to Crown Princess Adora, kneels at her feet, and says, “I’ll be your friend. Forever.”

And Princess Adora kneels as well, folds their hands together, and says, “Thank you.”

If Catra is being honest, she doesn’t really mind being by Princess Adora’s side once she really gets to know her. Because while the Crown Princess is quiet, demure, placid during all of her endless lessons and meetings, when it’s just the two of them, Adora, her Adora, is almost as playful as Catra is. If things were different, Catra often thinks, they would be the best of friends.

(“Call me Adora when it’s just us two,” she says between giggles one day. Her face is red; Catra has her pinned down and had tickled her breathless, and the realization makes her reel back, eyes wide. Princess Adora’s hair has fallen from its high updo, and her dress is mussed from the time she’d tried to escape, and. Catra realizes that she’d stopped thinking of her as the Crown Princess a long time ago.

“Okay, Adora,” is all she says, sitting low on Adora’s hips to let her breathe. When they hear footsteps, they both scramble up, but it’s just the Queen, who lets out a heavy sigh when she sees how just barely put together they are.)

Everyone agrees though, that they have never seen the Princess so happy, so lively. Catra preens.

But—

When the last of the pages in her year turns fourteen, Catra kneels with the other pages in front of the king as they are made squires. Squires. When it is her turn, Catra glances up and over at Adora, and sees her friend positively beaming.

But—

Being a squire means more training, and less time spent with Adora. The time they have together is like the beginning, all lessons and meetings and etiquette; Catra tries not to think about it, but Adora will be married away one day, and that will be the end of their friendship. (She can’t not think about it, especially when Adora demands that Catra help her practice her dancing. Her hands are soft, delicate, and her cheeks are flushed pink, and for the life of her, Catra can’t forget the warmth of Adora’s hip from even under her dress.)

But—

It is just the two of them (a rare thing these days) walking through the gardens, and Adora keeps clearing her throat, much to Catra’s amusement. “What’s wrong, Adora?” she drawls. She wishes she had something to help, but she does not.

“Just...something in my throat.”

“It’s just us, you can cough if you want.”

Adora glances around to verify Catra’s amused statement, then nods and coughs, loud and quite unladylike. Catra always jokes nowadays that Adora’s suitors will have quite a shock when they realize that the Golden Rose of Grayskull coughs like a man, picks up curses from every foreigner that passes through, and enjoys sparring with the squires.

“God, you sound like you just hacked up a lung,” Catra mutters. Adora hits her hard, but she’s laughing, and Catra rolls her eyes again.

“Are you okay, though? Really.” Seeing a nearby bench, Catra offers her arm and leads Adora to it, watching as she sits and fixes her long skirts around herself before sitting as well.

“Yeah...just a cough. It should go away soon. I’ve been trying to hide it.”

“Ah,” Catra shudders at the thought of medicine being forced down Adora’s throat—neither of them have ever enjoyed even the sweetest of medicines. “Still, if it persists…”

“If it lasts another week, I promise I will tell someone.”

A week. That’s probably the best she’ll get, so Catra doesn’t even bother with arguing. “Nothing strenuous until you’re better, okay?”

Adora grumbles something under her breath and nods. “Do you have to go soon?” she asks. Her voice is filled with longing, and Catra—

“If I could stay, I would, princess. You know that.”

“Yeah,” Adora rests her head on Catra’s shoulder, sighing softly again. “I know.”

(Catra is late to help at the stables again, but the phantom warmth of Adora’s body makes it worth it.)

True to her word, Adora tells her mother about her cough—only because Catra is there, and prompts her—and is promptly hurried into bed. “You two kept this secret for a week,” they are both chided, Catra standing still and somber, Adora lying trapped in bed, “Stars, what am I to do with you?”

“Queen Marlena—with all due respect, It was all Princess Adora’s idea,” Catra says innocently, “she ordered me not to tell you.”

It is only because she grew up together that all Catra receives is a stern glare and word back to Scorpia of what they’d done. (Scorpia just rolls her eyes, sighs, and forbids her from seeing the Princess for a week. “Really, the two of you spend every day together,” she says over Catra’s protests, “a week will do the two of you good. Especially with the Princess sick.”)

And a week later, when Catra finally bursts into Adora’s room—

She is still in bed. Awake, but just barely; she startles when the door bangs open and smiles wide when she sees Catra. “Catra!”

“Hey, Adora. Still sick?”

Adora wrinkles her nose and shrugs as she struggles to sit up. “I keep telling everyone that I feel fine. Father has forbade me from leaving until I get better, though.”

“Oh,” Catra turns to leave, “I guess I’ll—”

“No! Don’t—” Adora is cut off by another fit of coughing, her cheeks blotching red again as she fumbles for the handkerchief on her side table. Catra is immediately at her side, filling the emptied cup full of water and passing it to Adora when her coughing subsides.

“Adora…”

“I’m fine, Catra.” Adora’s voice is just a ltitle bit rough now, just a little bit strained. “Just please, stay.”

“Okay...I’ve got nothing better to do anyway.” It’s a bit more awkward now, at fifteen, to lie in bed together, especially with Adora trapped under all of the thick blankets, but—Adora is warm, and the familiar scent of lavender and vanilla is filling her nose, and before she knows it, Catra is fast asleep at Adora’s side. Always at her side.

What wakes her is more of Adora’s coughing; she clearly had been trying to muffle it, but she stops when she realizes that Catra is awake. “Sorry—” she manages between coughs, “I was—”

Catra stops her with a hand to her thigh, gets her another glass of water, and tells the next person that comes in to check on Adora that she needs more medicine. She leaves afterwards; can’t stand seeing her friend hurting and knowing that she can’t do anything about it.

Word quickly spreads that the kingdom’s Golden Rose is ill, and for possibly the first time in her life, Catra hates that she is so close to Adora. There are rumors all around—most to some degree that the Crown Princess is dying—and anyone and everyone that knows of her relationship with the Princess stop her to ask what’s wrong, is the Princess really going to die? All Catra does is glare at them; even if she hadn’t been forbidden from telling anyone about Adora’s condition, she wouldn’t have. She’s seen how little privacy Adora has, and—

Catra sometimes wonders if the fierce urge to protect is normal. Sure, Adora is the Princess, but she doesn’t feel anything close to the same urge towards the pages and squires and knights that she’d grown up with. Just Adora.

(But that is something she only thinks about late at night, after training, after everyone has gone to sleep.)

Adora’s cough never really goes away, but she is soon deemed well enough to leave her room, and the first thing she does with her newfound freedom is—

“Seriously, Adora?”

“Yes!” Adora laughs as she rushes passed Catra into the stables, “I missed them all so much!”

The horses. Catra rolls her eyes, fond beyond belief. Of course her Adora would miss a bunch of horses.

“You’re so stupid,” she mutters under her breath. Adora either does not hear, or just pretends not to; Catra is sure it’s the former with how busy she is with petting the horses.

The second thing she does is walk with Catra through the village, greeting her subjects with that perfect, pretty smile and gentle words to reassure everyone that she is fine, not dead or anywhere near it. Talk sweeps through the village afterwards, about how beautifully their Golden Rose is growing up. Catra rolls her eyes every time she hears the nickname, and teases Adora about it all the way home.

With sixteen comes the first ball thrown in Adora’s honor. It is also the first year that everyone, from peasants to nobles, is able to attend—also courtesy of Adora. Catra is with her when she picks her dress, a pretty red gown that shows off her tiny waist. As most of her dresses are, this one is also braided through with gold, and on a whim, Catra picks a rose and puts through the fancy bun in Adora’s hair. (“It’s not golden, but still,” she grins. Adora’s cheeks flush pink, and she doesn’t take it off for the whole day.)

The ball is much too stuffy for either of their tastes; Catra spends most of it with the other squires while Adora spends it swamped with royals and nobles and peasants alike. They’re matching (mostly unintentional) and Catra loves the way her men’s clothes fit her. Catra is the first person Adora heads to when she is free, and Catra meets her halfway, holding out a hand to ask her to dance. Somehow, even though they’d done this thousands of times before, it still feels like the first time, holding Adora in her arms as they swirl together through the crowd of dancers. And now, Catra wishes the night would never end.

But at Adora’s whispered request, she steers them towards one of the unused balconies, hiding out for as long as they can. Being alone together like this makes Catra’s heart thud hard in her chest, and now, she thinks she understands why.

After the ball, Adora’s illness worsens—everyone attributes it to the cold weather, but whatever the reason, Adora is kept indoors for almost a month. It is the longest she and Catra have ever gone without speaking to each other, and when Catra meets Adora in the library, she stops.

“You look awful,” she drawls. She’s grinning, she knows she is, but Adora really does look bad. Her skin has a sickly pallor, and her eyes are dull again, with heavy shadows under them. But Adora smiles when their gazes meet, and she closes the book she had been reading to meet Catra by the fire.

“Being inside for this long will do that to you, I suppose,” she murmurs. She’s looking Catra over as well, and she reaches out slowly, sighing out a breath when Catra meets her halfway. Catra is relieved to feel that her hands are still warm.

“Still, princess. You have to stop getting so sick—what’s even wrong with you?”

“I…” Adora looks down and to the left, and Catra knows that whatever she is about to say will be a lie. “I don’t know.”

“You can tell me when you’re ready.”

Adora quickly looks up, clearly startled, and Catra grins. “We’ve known each other for almost eight years now, Adora. I can tell when you’re lying.”

“Right, of course.” But Adora is hiding her own smile. She squeezes both of Catra’s hands tight, and she looks, for a moment, like she is going to say something, something important. But instead, “Have you decided how you’ll become a knight?”

Catra shrugs, but obediently drops the previous subject. “Part of me wants to go to war, but…” I’ll miss you too much, and I don’t know how long a war would last. “I’ve already done so much with Scorpia.”

“I wish you wouldn’t go,” Adora’s voice is quiet, and though they are standing so close together, it suddenly feels like there are miles between them.

Catra takes Adora’s face in her hands, forcing their gazes to meet, and when she has Adora’s full attention, she says, “I won’t ever leave you, princess. That, I swear.”

And—Adora is looking at her lips now, so clearly wants what Catra has realized she wanted too. But.

Before Catra can even decide what to do, Adora’s face twists and she breaks away, choking coughs spasming her whole body. Catra supports her easily—realizes how much tinier Adora has gotten, how easy it is to support her whole frame—and when Adora finally straightens, in her hands is a single bloodied flower petal.

Adora quickly hides it, but not before Catra sees—“Did you just...cough up a flower petal?”

For the first time, there is some odd mix of anger and fear on Adora’s face when she looks at Catra. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Adora—”

“Don’t tell anyone! I command you not to.” As soon as Adora says it, she knows it’s a mistake, but as the words ring out through the air and she makes no move to retract them, Catra stands tall and lets go of Adora’s wrist and waist.

“Yes, your Highness.”

And she leaves.

The next time Catra sees Adora is from afar, but she knows that the Princess has spotted her by the way her face twists. It’s been almost two weeks, and every day had been hard, especially with the knowing that Adora was sick, but they are both stubborn and proud, stupidly so, so the silence continues. And breaks, when Adora collapses in the middle of this year’s squire ceremony.

(Catra is the first person Adora calls for when she wakes, and Catra rushes to kneel at her side and grasp her hand, the both of them apologizing through their tears.)

Being bedridden at seventeen is not something Catra ever thought she’d hear about her Adora, the Adora that used to sneak out to the stables and demand that the knights teach her how to wield a sword, the Adora that wouldn’t even bother shedding all of her clothes before jumping into rivers and race Catra though the halls of the castle.

But—her Adora is bedridden now, on the King’s orders.

But—word spreads like wildfire, and Catra spends too many hours opening get well gifts and reading cards, all saying the same things, rest well, Golden Rose, or feel better soon. She sometimes switches it up, says scandalous things that make Adora blush pink and snatch the card away, only to roll her eyes and see only another well wisher’s words.

But—sometimes, Catra watches Adora sleep, hates how very obviously sick she looks. She’s always hated the comparison, but Adora does look like a rose now, or at least a faded one.

What’s worse is that no one knows what Adora’s illness is: not what caused it, not how to cure it, not why she is coughing up flower petals. All anyone knows is that it is getting worse, and fast. Catra even begins to look through all the books in the library, hoping in vain that maybe there will be something.

All she learns is that the flowers are daffodils.

It seems that the whole kingdom is on edge now, waiting for news of Adora’s condition. It is then that Catra learns that Adora really is loved by all, that she was given that stupid, stupid nickname out of nothing but fondness and love. Helpless, she throws herself into her squire’s duties, and if anyone notices, they say nothing.

Seventeen, and it is Catra’s first birthday that she spends alone. Every other birthday had been spent with Adora, but she knows that being together with Adora stuck in bed would just leave them both miserable, so she stays away. One of the boys from the stables delivers a card and a small gift from Adora, and Catra cherishes it.

It is also the day she decides that she will do something.

Scorpia is the first person she tells; her knight gives her a long look and then smiles, and it is fond, tinged with sadness. “You’ve grown up well,” she says, “I’m proud of you.” She doesn’t wish Catra well, or tell her to stay safe, or even say goodbye—that is not her way, nor the way of any of the knights of Grayskull.

(She does say, though, that if she returns successful, she will be knighted immediately. Catra says when she returns. When, or not at all.)

Adora is her next and last stop. No one but for the nurses are allowed in her room, so Catra sneaks in through the window like she’s done thousands of times before, and of course, Adora is asleep. Even in her sleep, she looks like she’s in pain, and Catra quietly kneels at her side, allowing herself one last moment with her princess, her best friend, her everything.

“When I come back, it will be with a cure or not at all,” she whispers, “I swear it, Adora.”

Adora makes a quiet noise in her sleep, and before she can wake, Catra steals away.

The worst part about her journey is that Catra knows how much Adora would love it. She would love Plumeria, Salineas, even the Kingdom of Snows, which Catra decides she hates immediately. As the days turn into months and Catra’s journey lengthens with no sign of a cure, she grows desperate, reckless. And there is nothing to be found, not even in the Fright Zone, nor even the Three Towers. In all the land, from Brightmoon to the Valley of the Lost, all Catra learns is that no one has heard of a disease that makes a person cough up flowers.

And then—Mystacor. 

It is there that Catra finds out more than what she needs to know. The disease is nameless, the Sorceress there says, and no one quite knows where it came from, just that the victim (Catra winces at the word, at the thought of her Adora as a victim) will cough up flower petals when suffering from a one-sided love. That the disease will end either when the love is requited, or in death.

Which is. Stupid. Because who in their right mind wouldn’t love Adora, and why should Adora have to potentially die for someone that stupid?

But at least she has her answer now, and nearly eight months after leaving, Catra begins the journey back home.

Upon returning, the first thing Catra does is find Scorpia; her knight practically crushes her in a hug and, upon seeing the look on Catra’s face, urges her to the castle. “They’ll want to know what you found,” she says, “everyone will.”

Even just the thought of seeing Adora again makes Catra’s heart pound hard in her chest; she wants to ask how she’s doing, but she fears the answer, so she just nods and heads for the castle. It should be easy to go through the front gate, but Catra finds herself hesitating before her feet guide her down the all-too-familiar path around to the back of the castle so she can sneak in. Scaling the wall is just as easy as it had been before she left with all the familiar footholds; Catra climbs into the room neighboring Adora’s—still just a messy storage room—and stops short at her door, heart in her throat.

She forces herself to knock—quiet, unsure, and for possibly the first time ever, Catra feels nervous to see Adora again. She did leave without saying goodbye, and it’s been nearly a year since they’d seen each other last—maybe Adora will have forgotten her, maybe she hates her. But—

“Come in,” comes Adora’s voice.

Her face goes flat when she sees Catra standing there, and Catra bites her lip, trying for her usual nonchalance. “Hey, Adora.”

“Squire Catra. What brings you here?”

Catra looks around the room, sees so many familiar trinkets, and yellow-and-red-stained flower petals everywhere. It seemed that they’d given up on cleaning the petals up, bloodstained as they were. “May I apologize?”

“You may.”

“I am sorry, even if you don’t believe it. For leaving without telling you, and for leaving at all. I’m sorry I missed your birthday, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t come bearing better news. I—”

“Catra…” Adora sits up, and a few handfuls of petals flutter to the ground with her movement. “Where did you go?”

“Everywhere. Anywhere I could. I was trying to find you a cure, and I said I wouldn’t come back until I found one. I really searched everywhere, please believe me.”

“I do.” Adora looks like she’s about to cry, and Catra rushes to kneel by her side again, twining their hands together and only relaxing when Adora squeezes her hands tight. “Did you really look everywhere, just for me?”

“I would go to the ends of Etheria for you.”

“I wish you would stay instead,” Adora sounds wistful, and though her voice is raspy now, it is still soft, still sweet. Catra loves—

“The cure,” she blurts out, “there is only one way to rid you of this disease, these hateful flowers.”

At that, Adora laughs, and when Catra meets her gaze, she’s smiling at the petals littering her room. “I grew to tolerate them, you know. They’re kind of beautiful in their own way...they’ll always lead you back to me.”

And Catra is left speechless. Adora laughs a little seeing the expression on her face, soft and fond. “Tell me then, what did you find out?”

“The disease is nameless,” Catra blurts out instead, “and not even the Sorceresses at Mystacor know where it came from. Just that.” and here she pauses, looks down at the ground and quickly says, “anyone that has it will cough up flower petals until.” pause again, “it was caused by an unrequited love, and the only way to end it is for that love to be returned.”

“That’s the only way?”

“That, or…” and Catra refuses to say it. “I’m sorry.”

And there is only silence in the wake of her words; Catra does not dare look up, keeps her gaze fixed on the floor until Adora reaches out and squeezes her hand. “It’s okay, Catra. I think I sort of knew that this was the reason.”

Again, Catra is left speechless.

“Walk with me, Catra. I wish to see the gardens again with you, it’s been so long.”

It’s not a command, not even close, but Catra nods and easily scoops Adora in her arms, ignoring her surprised noise. Carrying Adora had never been the easiest task—Catra had always been the smaller, lighter one—but now, whether because of the sickness or because of all the training Catra has done, Adora feels as light as a feather.

Sneaking out of the castle like this is harder, but still fun as it had been when they were kids still figuring out the best hallways and corridors to take, and Catra takes in Adora’s ever-familiar scent of lavender and vanilla as she holds her close. “Where to now, princess?”

“Our bench.”

The walk is quiet; Catra has a thousand things to say, but nothing will come out, and she’s sure Adora feels the same way—neither of them have ever been particularly patient people. And she’s right, because as soon as they sit, Adora blurts out, “Where did you go?”

“I told you that already, princess.” Carefully, Catra moves closer to Adora, to her familiar weight and warmth.

“No, I mean...where? Tell me about all the places you’ve been.”

And as always, Catra is helpless to obey Adora’s each and every whim. She tells Adora a story for every place she visited, answered Adora’s every question about the people, the food, the sights. Promises to take Adora anywhere she wants to go when she is better.

Adora doesn’t have much to tell; she’d spent most of her time in the castle, and even more of it stuck in bed. She’d started writing back to all the people that sent her gifts, and took up meaningless hobbies that could never compare to training with her sword or riding the horses—just anything to pass the time. She wrote countless letters to Catra, and burned them all.

Catra squeezes Adora’s hand in hers (still delicate, even with the callouses she’d earned from so many years of training) and promises that she will never leave her again.

And as cliche as it is, they lose track of time; the afternoon is honeyed and warm, made warmer still by soft words and softer actions, and even when the sun begins to dip behind the trees, they stay in the gardens until Adora begins to shiver. (Catra wishes she had a jacket for Adora to wear, but she doesn’t, so she picks Adora up again—”swept you off your feet, princess”, she jokes—and makes her way back to the castle.)

This time, they are caught, and quickly escorted back to Adora’s room; Adora whispers for Catra’s ears only that it is just like when they were kids, and Catra bites back a laugh, because yeah, yeah. She’d missed that.

If the Queen is surprised to see Catra, she doesn’t show it; she sighs and shakes her head when she sees the two of them and says, tiredly, “I should have known it would be you.”

Catra stands straight and tall, but her lazy grin belies her reverence. “Of course, your Highness. But we really didn’t do anything—I took Princess Adora out to the gardens as per her request—”

“Why do you always rat me out?” Adora demands from in bed. Her cheeks are flushed, likely from embarrassment, and Catra just shrugs and gives her a faux innocent look. She’s half expecting the Queen to punish them both, but when they both look at her, she just smiles softly.

“Whatever cure you gave my daughter, I greatly appreciate it. But as ever, please do try to be careful.” And without waiting for an answer, the Queen sweeps from the room, leaving Catra sputtering and Adora speechless.

Because she didn’t give Adora a cure, just...talked to her. And—

Wait.

“I cured you, huh?” Catra turns on Adora, relishing the panicked look on her face and the blush on her cheeks. “Why, princess, do you have something you need to tell me?”

“Shut up! I don’t have anything to say to you. Go away now, Catra.”

“So soon after I promised I’d stay by your side? You wound me, princess.”

“You know,” Adora mumbles, petulant, “that if you really cured me, that means you feel the same.”

And—yeah. “It was inevitable,” Catra shrugs, “like we were destined to fall for each other.”

Somehow, Adora’s cheeks go even pinker. Catra decides to spare her (for now) and kneels by her side again. “Princess Adora, make me your knight, so I can stay by your side forever.”

Adora huffs out a laugh and runs her fingers through Catra’s hair for a moment before tilting her head up so their gazes meet. “You always were my knight, from that very first day. You always will be.”

“Always,” Catra repeats, “I swear it.”

1 - 2 - x - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7

#she ra #shera #catradora #catradoraweek #my writing #i was told that the brief supper/dinner thing was confusing so #in medieval times dinner was what we now call lunch and supper was dinner #also daffodil symbolizes rebirth new beginnings misfortune and unrequited love