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stormsbourne · 5 months

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alright listen

I know we're all having an evaluation of how eagerly we believe people who present with even the slightest air of authority and frankly good! we all need to be less credulous of people on the internet who tell lies.

but I think there are also other lessons to learn from james somerton. namely about his raging and blatant misogyny, which I've often seen similar forms of in fandom and on this specific site. to paraphrase bombs himself in the ctrl alt del video, if you see shitty behavior within your sphere, it's important to recognize it and try to fix it instead of rejecting it and asserting that no REAL members of the ingroup are like that. and nerds have a misogyny problem. including tumblr. so let's reckon with it.

do you append "white" or "straight" to your comments about women even when those things have little to do with the topic being discussed, just to make your comments seem more legit? (and no, m/m shipping discourse does not give you a ticket to say it's all straight women -- it's fictional characters, james.) do you often theorize about how (hurriedly appended "straight/white/cis") women are responsible for a problem in fandom, nay, all problems in fandom? have you made up a guy based on a single post that annoyed you and extrapolated to say that all (appended signifier to make it ok) women in fandom are like that? do you see women as uniquely fetishizing, uniquely stupid about politics or social issues, uniquely annoying to talk to? do you assume when there's an issue, even a real one and not the fake ones james made up, that a woman is probably at the root of it?

all of this still applies to you if you're a woman. it also applies if you're gay or a person of color or trans. being an oppressed group doesn't mean you are immune from sexism, and sexism is still rampant in everyday life for pretty much everyone.

your shipping and fandom discourse isn't immune from this. no, I'm not talking about how not enough people like yuri. I'm talking about how women who like "bad" ships like r*ylo or whatever are seen as open targets for harassment. how women who are into "bad/problematic" fandoms are seen as idiots and enablers who deserve what they get. how there's an attitude that women who like shitty bad porn must think it's good, must be too stupid to know better, and must need to be handheld and taught about good, acceptable fiction. I've already talked a lot about tumblr's complete refusal to admit that fujoshi wasn't a term coined by delicate japanese mlm to complain about evil women (and I wonder if james contributed to that idiotic concept), but the way I've seen people assert that women into m/m must be straight, must be stupid, must be lying about their identities, must be hurting gay men in real life in addition to wanting some anime boys to kiss ...

I've seen how some of you people talk about amb*r h*ard, is all I'm saying, and I've seen what you've tried to do to dozens of female creatives that, for some reason, you've decided deserve to be taken down or taught a lesson. I've seen the descriptions you use. shrieking, bitchy, whiny, uppity, shrewish, karen (don't get me started on how karen has been turned into an easy excuse for misogyny). you're not bystanders to what james did and is doing, you're a part of it. sure, you might not have the nazi fetish, but you've said things about women that put somerton to shame.

just a thing to keep in mind while the plagiarism discourse is ongoing. somerton is a shithead for many reasons but this is one that's important to remember because I think people often treat misogyny like a lesser crime, a smaller concern, and it's not. just think of what laws are passing and what views popular movements have of women and then, for one moment, consider that maybe your reflexive need to blame women or pick them apart might have been influenced by the Society In Which We Live.

#james somerton #hbomberguy

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galactic-pirates · 20 days

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Romance Tropes Bracket (THE FINAL)

First round post here, second round post here, the quarter-finals here aaaaand the semi-finals here.

Please see @purlturtle's finals post here. That was a hard fought battle between Second Chances and Forced Proximity. Second Chances took the crown! Can it do so here as well?

Second Chances vs Mistaken Identity

Two titans enter the ring. Only one can emerge the victor.

A takeaway I got from @purlturtle's analysis was that Second Chances is a bit of a comfort. It's like you can mess up and still find a way back. That speaks to me because don't we all want to feel forgiven? Maybe it's just my mental health demons but I feel wrong a lot of the time, so yeah I can totally get behind the vibe of "it's ok, one screw-up isn't a failure forever".

All along I've been stretching the definition of Mistaken Identity. I have taken it to places it was probably never intended. Plus it does call to something nostalgic in me. As I've got older I've moved more into sci-fi/fantasy but growing up I was all crime/thriller. My first half dozen novel attempts were spies saving the world. So on a simpler note of Mistaken Identity, it could be argued that Second Chances is what I've been writing more recently, but Mistaken Identity was where I started. Just to add a level to the fight so it's across time as well.

Second Chances is a whole sub-genre of romance for novel-writers. I'm struggling to think of many canon examples because if they are a bit on/off does that count? I think not. Fanfic obviously is a whole other deal as that's where we can deservedly give so many ships their Second Chance - ha! fitting, for the nature of what fanfic is, the whole fixing what went wrong, I like it.

Ok having had this thought ^^ about how the trope basically encapsulates the sheer love that we put into fanworks, as much as I want to pull for Mistaken Identity I think we have our winner.

WINNER: Second Chances

So yeah, it did take the crown here as well. What are the odds? Anyway, this was so much fun @purlturtle has decided to turn it into a tumblr wide bracket. So go check out @the-sweets-stakes and let's see if Second Chances can take a tumblr wide crown...

#romance tropes bracket #fic tropes

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nightswithkookmin · 3 years

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still same anon. this was another one of my asks from months ago. basically it was a comment I made about jikook's intimacy. it was from this interview: https://youtu.be/T--BOS8oTec the moment I'm talking about happens from 3:00 minute timestamp onwards. i was saying how despite this moment being "skinship" or whatever, it kinda hit different? there's also intimacy there. bc you see how jimin doesn't have to say anything and jungkook immediately understands what to do and starts massaging his neck. jimin literally threw a glance at him, tilted his neck a lil and jungkook didn't need a second more to know what to do. I wanted to talk to you about it since I know that you're not big on skinship defining jikook's relationship, but I think there ARE jikook skinship moments worth noting and this is one of them imo.

Oh ok. Thanks.

SKINSHIP IN CONTEXT

I think skinship by it's very definition is an intimate act depending on the level of familiarity between the parties involved in the act.

From my understanding of skinship, it's basically interactions that would otherwise be viewed as sexual outside of their culture but viewed as acceptable platonic behavior between the same sex or even the opposite sex.

The objective of skinship is to be intimate with another person on a level that's only next to romance.

I remember my sister telling me how shook she was when she found out for the first time, around 2011 when she first moved to Seoul, how she couldn't even keep her pants on at a 'Jimjirban' because all the gals in there were expected to walk around butt naked in the spa. No towels, no pants, no robes butt nakedttt.

'Mehn, this doesn't happen where I'm coming from' she said to her companion.

A. I'm black.

B. I'm not flat.

C. I'm wearing my pants.

Her very naked friend, a native SK, whom she says she'd only met for like a week, then grabbed her underwear and pulled it down her thighs exposing her deforested vagina to the winds and a dozen other curious gazes. All females.

'For a second, I thought I had been tricked into an orgy of a sort. I was very naked without my consent. Wind whistling through my shy butt cracks. Watching very naked females of varying ages stare on with pride and smiles on their faces as if I had just saved a village or something and when I jiggled when I walked I could hear them gasp, amazed- Goldy, how is this not gay?'

'You think skinship between their men is weird, wait till you see their women. Wait till a very attractive Korean girl is breathing down your neck and caressing your nape and complementing your skin while showing you pictures of her boyfriend on her phone.'

She says it took her a while to get used to the skinship between women in SK and seeing the men interact in a certain way messed with her brains for a while. She said she felt her intelligence was being played with most of the time.

I guess if you want to look at Jikook's skinship as intimate then there's nothing wrong it.

Skinship is intimate at the very least.

But skinship, for all intent and purposes, is platonic and nonsexual in nature. And maybe this is a fatal flaw on my part. Or maybe thanks to my sister, I'm desensitized to this form of interaction but I have a hard time seeing Jikook's intimacy as platonic or even seeing most of their skinship as romantic- in anyway. It will make sense in a bit, hold on.

I have a hard time equating skinship with romantic intimacy. But that's just me.

I wasn't able to click on the link you sent but I'm guessing this is the moment you are talking about?

I wouldn't call this skinship. I mean it is but I wouldn't call it that. Skinship is meant to show how close two people are. How familiar they are with eachother.

This doesn't show how close Jikook are. But It shows how caring and affectionate JK is as human being, as a dongsaeng, and as a boyfriend.

I'd rather we celebrate that. JK doesn't get highlighted enough. He caters to the people he cares about. He is an attentive person.

Hate to be a grinch but I can pull up a couple of times JK has done that very gesture with Jin or Tae or Hobi. Remember Soop? Remember when Jin complained of feeling cold and JK went up to him immediately and 'warmed' him up?

Of course, Jimin kept stealing glances at him like he could throw a shoe at the back of his head if he could but that's beside the point.

The man is an empath. He's said several times he feels a lot of pain watching his hyungs go through it. Fact is, Jk cares about people. He's kind, loving and he shows this aspect of him through gestures like these.

He does it for Jimin. He does it for all the members because as he's said, they are all a family.

It's stressful hearing people claim he doesn't give a fuck about Jimin, that he doesn't care about JM because he shows affections for others besides JM.

At some point we would have to make a distinction between what acts flows from their unique personalities because of who they are at their core and what act flows from them being a couple.

Most people who see Jimin as a natural nurturer and what not are able to separate this identity from his ship moments but JK isn't accorded the same privilege. It is why most people are quick to lash out at him when he interacts with others in the same way he interacts with Jimin.

When JM acts nurturing towards V or RM or Suga he is seen a good, kind person.

When JK does something affectionate it's seen as a beautiful Jikook moment or Taekook moment or Jinkook moment and is soon swept under the carpet, soon forgotten and never tied to the personality of JK- perhaps because most of these shippers don't care to know who JK is as a person and as a human.

When Jimin does something affectionate its 'awww Jimin is such an amazing person' even if that act is merely performative sometimes.

I try not to engage in conversations that perpetuate this horrifying discrimination against either of Jikook. They are both individuals.

There are a lot of Asks sitting in my box highlighting the various ways JM is awesome and kind and amazing as s boyfriend to JK and not a single out of 500 plus posts talking about how empathetic JK really is. How thoughtful he is to even pack motion sickness drugs to go on trips even though he doesn't get motion illness and JM is the one that often complains about motion sickness on trips.

The heteronormative lens, on opposite ends of the spectrum in the shipping community, which dictates we perceive on Jikook as either feminine or masculine is a telltale sign of the misogyny and misandry prevalent within this fandom.

The fandom's heteronormative lens filters Jimin as the wildly feminine archetype, wildly fragile, sexy and womanly right down to the way we praise him as the 'good woman' in his relationship with JK- loyal, faithful, nurturing, kind, silent in that he continues to perform Jikook even when Jikook are not in a great place. etc.

Yet because he is seen as womanly or feminine, the part of the fandom that hates women hate Jimin. That's where all the slut shaming, bullying and harassment stems from- misogyny.

Jk is viewed as the opposite of that. By most, he is very masculine man and as such harbors all the traits of masculinity the modern woman detests- toxic masculinity, cheating, disloyal, fuckboy who treats women like shit. All forms of hatred and intolerance towards men is projected on to him especially by male intolerant people or dare I say feminist women within the fandom.

And you see them in the way they are always fighting for Jimin against JK as if Jimin were a fragile faithful woman whose man don't treat him right thus further perpetuating the heteronormative stereotypes of Jimin.

What's disconcerting is Jikook are both men and yet depending on how their masculinity or femininity is perceived, they are both treated very differently.

You hear Tuktukkers talk about how Jikook is as a result of heteronormativity and thus prescribe Taekook as the ideal homonormative ship- because to them, Tae and JK are both seen as two whole men.

To them Jimin is just not man enough to even be gay- isn't that the foundation of homophobia?

Gay men not seen as men at all?

Whereas amongst Jokers, Jimin's manliness is often forgiven and JK's is abhorred. Jk is too much of a man and men just ain't shit.

This may sound like an over simplification but Tuktukkers hate women, Jokers hate men and either side suck. In my opinion.

Jimin is a nurturer he cares about people including his boyfriend. JK is an empath he feels the pain of those close to him including his boyfriend and is often moved to ease or take away some of that pain.

It's thus annoying to hear people out here yell and complain on every turn each time JK interacts with the others how JK 'doesn't act exclusive' with Jimin or how he doesn't care about Jimin.

Should he not care about anyone besides Jimin just because he is dating Jimin?

It's annoying when they say the same about Jimin. Jimin nurtures everyone ergo there's nothing special or exclusive about the way he nurtures JK.

Nonsense such as these are spewed without taking into account that those acts in themselves speak directly to who these people are as human beings first and foremost; secondly, to how they feel about the person at the recieving end of their affections.

If they are treating everyone the same it's probably because they love everyone too- in a non romantic way of course. It's their love language. They love others with the same heart they love eachother with.

It doesn't take away from how they feel about eachother. JK admiring another member does not mean when he admires Jimin it's nothing. It just mean he admires Jimin too.

Not everything has to be romanticized or given a romantic context. They are each expressing themselves and their feelings for their bandmates. It's about them not their bandmates or their relationship with said bandmates.

Certain moments are just attestation to their love language be it platonic or romantic and it says more about who they are as people than what their relationship with the other person is. It's not all about their relationship.

People need to start treating Jikook as individuals. They are humans first before a ship. Shipping them shouldn't take away from their authentic expressions of self.

That's how they each end up getting cussed out in these streets left and right.

It's ridiculous.

This is JK being JK. Imma leave it at that.

This is from the same interview where Tae was talking about how they love showcasing their bond.

It's ok to celebrate it. Just see it for what it is- as flowing from JK's kind self. This is not Jikook. This is JK. Jeon Jungkook.

Don't fume or act disappointed when you see him do the same kind gesture for another member just because of the meaning you are imposing on this moment. Know what I mean?

That being said, there are certain Jikook 'skinship' moments that crosses the line of skinship right into sexual foreplay.

If 'skinship' leaves you 'sexually excited' it's not skinship. Nobody can tell me nothing.

Make of this moment what you will. Just be responsible with it. I think. But don't mind me. I'm grumpy.

Signed,

GOLDY

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impulsivelycontentious · 3 years

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No one reads this or connects it with my other online identities but since I've removed personals involvement from my other social media stuff, and I feel like bitching, I am jsut gonna go ahead and do it.

So I have brain damage. Yeaaaaars ago I threw up so hard I actually ripped open the inside of an artery in my neck, and it threw a clot, and that clot did some nasty shit on its way on through and out.

No doctor noticed for two weeks.

Everyone else did.

Good times.

Anyway.

So now I have a damaged brain. Brains don't grow back. Some areas can regenerate a few cells - notably the prefrontal lobe - but mostly brains fix themselves not by regenerating like skin does, but by rearranging the cells we have to fire to fancy new configurations.

This has been quite the ride. Because shit, it changes things.

I don't even know how much of my personality is consistent. No idea. Let alone everything else.

I have memory loss my nurologist won't akowledge because it falls short of dementia. That was the bar. "You don't have dementia, you know what year it is." Gee thanks there chief.

Anyway.

My brain wasn't too stable to begin with. I have always been prone to logic leaps that occur very quickly and not necessarily in ways other people would make them. My mind is jumbled and a little random and things collide all the time that probably shouldn't.

This has become much worse since the brain damage. See, my brain keeps wiring shit together. Shit it really shouldn't. It changes who I am, what I think, what I can think.

It's actually quite terrifying to realise you're a sack of geletine misfiring lighting at itself.

So anyway. To the point. Yes - I have one of those. Probably. It's somewhere in here.

Oh right, no, another detour. I'm autistic. "Oh yeah, they definatly didn't screen girls when I was a kid because how the fuck did they miss this otherwise" autistic.

Back to the point.

Recently I had this sensory processing ... Whatever the fuck that was. I call them.idssocistive episodes. I don't know how accurate that is. But my mind unhooks from my sensory data. Everything feels muted and unreal - sound, sight, touch, heat. Name it. It's wrong.

I hate these.

It gets particularly nasty because there are nurologicsl consequences. See, my concious mind ramps up it's interpretation of sensory data. It goes all in and leaves the rest of my existence stuffed in this tiny little box without enough space to do dick.

One effect of this is I suddenly become highly obsessive. I think it's a comfort mechanism, I require the same stimulus over and over again or to somehow mentally connect it to the same element. Of course, it could also jsut be that obsessive behaviour towards interests is part of who I am. I am autistic. I DEFIANTLY go all in when something fascinates me. But not... Not like this.

Do you have ANY IDEA how many times I watched starwars 8 in 72 hours? Any clue? Holy fricking ... Something. I watched it fast. I watched it slow. I watched it skipping ahead 10 seconds every 10 seconds. I dissected that thing in micrscopic detail.

It gets better. Because mere hours before I got hit with this episode... I was not a starwars fan.

Nope. I watched it. It was ok. I wasn't going out of my way for it.

And suddenly. Wham. Episode 8. All the time. I watched some 7 and 9 as well but it was like it was entierly because eit was connected to 8.

I cannot even.

And while this is happening, *I know*. I know. I really do. I know this isn't my normal behaviour. I know this isn't my wheelhouse. I know something is deeply, deeply wrong in my brain.

I think it might actually be an ok movie, honestly. But not THAT good. And now it's one of my favourite things. Forever. I have no idea if it's actually good. Did I not give eit a chance the first time? Is my obsessive brain simply emotionally hooked up how? Fuck, I don't know.

So that's why I'm posting today. On this day. May 4th.

I'm seeing a lot of star wars today and it's making my brain tickle with it's own ridiculousness.

Not the whole point though. Because it lasted 72 hours (I watched dit one more time after that and if wasn't near as intense).

But what happened AFTER my 72 hours as an obsessive raylo (oh yeah. I went there. I'm not even ashamed. I am also compeltely content with the end they got, because I do not see that shit working out).

Brains don't regrow. They rewire.

And suddenly, I'm drawing. Like... A lot. I filled pages of doodles. Sketches. I redrew a peice I'd been working on for about a month in a few hours and damnit, it was good. It's not professional quality but I'd never down anything that well before. This goes on for another day. And then I started a story, and I wrote 2000 words all at once.

I'm dyslexic. And words are severely impacted by my brain damage to the point it can cause me phsycial pain to force my thoughts in to words.

And here I am. Going nuts on my phone. The words just spilling out and again - damnit, it was good shit.

My brain was abstracting. Where the concious sort had been shunted, it wasn't directing the abstracting aspect of my mind.

And I was making cognative leaps. My brain was wiring itself together for creativity.

For another 24 hours.

And now, dear reader, we get to now.

I have written 200 words in the last 2 days. They feel wrong.

I started and stopped a dozen images. None of them feel right. And there are objective quality differences.

I can still draw a bit. If I'm not tired. I'm almost always tired - it's neural fatigue, it comes with surviving a brain damage.

I have somehow brain damaged my way in to better skills.

And it's... It's not a good feeling.

Doing it the first time and watching something take place in front of my eyes I don't recognise was like magic. It was euphoric. Amazing. Exciting.

Realising as time wears on that the ability to do this is intrinsically tied in to the way ones brain handles brain damage and sensory processing issues?

Not a great feeling cats. Not at all.

I find myself staring at a document willing words on tot he page that just aren't there anymore and feeling so frustrated I could scream.

Whose idea was this anyway? Why can't I keep my rewiring?

It's so hard dto explain the feeling of loss.

It's not me who did these things. A version of me, yes. But not the one we are keeping.

The one we keep struggles to hold a narrarive in her head and the narrator's tone took 3 rewritten to preserve for a single paragraph.

I don't want to stop. But how do I keep going? I'm not the author anymore and I've always struggled with adopting the tone of others.

So yeah. That's where I'm at. And I wanna talk about it. Because I don't want to be alone. But I can't escape the feeling I'm being dramatic. Terribly dramatic. And so talking about it is hard. How much is my own spin and perception and how much is real?

Did this really happen?

I think it did. But like every story I tell, I don't know. Memory loss. Cognetive issues.

I just wanna tell stories and draw. But the words hurt and the art makes me tired.

It's frustrating is all.

I hate being lighting geletine.

In case you're wondering what kind of cognative leap happened:

That one is april 4th.

And that one April 28th.

🤷‍♀️

Fucked if I know, really.

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dangertoozmanykids101 · 5 years

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My Very Own Doubtful Guest, Chapter 2

"When they answered the bell on that wild winter night,

There was no one expected - and no one in sight."

***The Doubtful Guest, by Edward Gorey.

Tom's brain went into reboot mode as he stared at the bright little face pressed against the window. The new variable of children added another dimension to his hopes and expectations. He thought about all the possibilities waiting for him through that door. Luckily, flexibility and spontaneity were strengths he loved to exercise.

As the child withdrew from his perch he yelled to someone else, "There's a man at the door! He's got flowers! Do you think they're for me?"

Another face appeared in the window looking exactly like the face that had just left. The definitive clue that this was a new face was that now two identical sets of eyes peered out at him. One. Two. Two perfect little copies of each other left multiple smears on the window from their sticky little hands and their wet little noses.

Once the faces retreated again, scuffling and shuffling sounds came directly from the other side of the door before it finally opened.

Suddenly four little round faces stared at him from the other side of the glass security door. They each had curly blonde hair, super fair skin, and bright blue eyes. The three little boys and one little girl all looked far more curious than scared.

The pair of identical matching faces were the shortest and the boldest. Climbing over each other like puppies, the two littlest ones delivered several questions all at once with each question shouted louder than the last.

"Who are you? Who are the flowers for? Are the flowers for mommy? Are you here to play? What's in the bag? Are you Clark who kills the ants?"

The older two children just stared, waiting for answers. Of course the children weren't the only ones wide-eyed and staring. Tom wasn't expecting to see children at the door. It took a few moments before the shock of seeing them wore off and his brain fully re-engaged back into the here and now.

Why wouldn't she have kids by this point? It was ten years ago that she and 'what's-his-name' tied the knot. Lots of things can happen in ten years. To happen four times was just far more than Tom had expected. Honestly, he hadn't even considered that she would probably have children.

Ten years. A lot can change in ten years. This was the first moment that doubt tried to weasel in. Why hadn't he considered that he might not be welcome? What if she won't forgive him? But all things considered, it was most definitely too late to retreat now.

Shedding his momentary look of surprise and doubt, his face morphed into a bright full smile that spread from ear to ear and overflowed out of his eyes. He'd never seen such beautiful children in his life. He wanted nothing more than to sweep each one up in his arms and listen to every word they had to say. But first, he had to convince them to open the door.

"Well, hello! I'm your Uncle Tommy."

The looks on their faces didn't show any recognition to the name Uncle Tom. Maybe she had never mentioned him to them. He buried these new feelings of disappointment and continued to focus on the children.

"I've brought these flowers for your mum. Do you think she'll like them? I know she likes rainbows so I tried to get flowers in every color."

Squatting down to their level, he held the bouquet close to the door for the kids to see better. All four noses pressed against the glass door as Tom gently dug through the bouquet. Identifying each flower with its corresponding color in the rainbow, he paused at all the right moments. The children couldn't resist helping him recite the colors.

"These roses are...." He lifted two roses out of the bouquet, just barely opened. After taking a deep dramatic sniff, he looked expectantly at the children.

"Red!" the two little boys shouted.

Nodding his head in approval, Tom warmly smiled at each child in turn. He set the roses down on the little table next to the door before continuing.

"What color comes next in the rainbow? Does anyone know?"

All the children were easily old enough to know their rainbow colors but none of them dared to answer yet. Instead they waited with baited breath, watching every move he made as though he was about to do a magic trick. He slowly moved his fingers through the top of the bouquet, lightly fingering the petals, appearing to study them closely. Gently digging his hands into the arrangement again he lifted out a huge Gerber daisy the size of a saucer.

"This daisy is your mum's favorite color. I'm sure you all know what her favorite color is."

Everyone's eyes were locked on the daisy as he spun it between his fingers like a pinwheel. As though they were in a trance, no one said a word until he asked again. "What's your mum's favorite color?"

Suddenly pulling their eyes free from the flower, they all shouted out the answer as loud as they could.

"ORANGE!"

The children burst into giggles when Tom dramatically rolled back off his haunches as though a powerful blast had knocked him down, with his feet now kicking in the air.

"Whoa!!!" he yelled. ""I'll surely never doubt your color knowledge again, my friends."

Staying on his back he pretended to have trouble getting back up. A few deep sounding groans and grunts supported his claims of helplessness. He even made another obviously faux attempt to get up, before sighing loudly in defeat.

"Would any of you Good Samaritans please help this old man get up? I seem to be stuck and I would be so ashamed if your mum found me like this. I feel like a turtle stuck on his back, belly up."

Before he even finished his plea the oldest child unlocked a series of locks and the door flung open. All four kids rushed to help him up. Two children took each of his hands and pulled, while the other two children pushed him up, not so gently from behind his neck and head. With a few more goofy grunts and straightening his shirt and jacket with exaggeration, he stayed sitting on the porch with his long legs stretched out in front of him.

The chaos that four happy kids can create was now evident. Tom just sat and chuckled, feeling his heart swell as they all talked at once, each asking a dozen questions without waiting for answers. They tugged on his sleeves, climbed on his back, and endlessly circled around him, both gingerly and clumsily jumping over his outstretched legs. They showed no sign of slowing down.

He finally spread his arms out wide to get their attention, still holding the bouquet in one hand and the daisy in the other.

"OK. OK. OK. Hold up a second before one of us gets dizzy. And that'll probably be me watching how fast you all are. Instead who wants to hold the orange daisy?"

All four overexcited children lunged to grab the flower, but Tom's long arm kept the flower out of everyone's reach far above his head. This did not detour their attempts to climb up onto his shoulders though. Fortunately no one was wearing shoes, since again they tumbled all over each other like a litter of puppies.

"Hold on! We've got tons of flowers. Will anyone want to help me get them ready for your mum?"

Finally slowing down with eyes wide in anticipation, they all nodded their heads emphatically as their hands shot up into the air volunteering to help.

"I will! I'll help! Mommy will love it! Can I help? I want to help! Can I have a flower, too?"

Carefully looking at each child, he asked, "Who's the oldest?"

The little girl immediately piped up, "I am!"

Tom leaned forward and handed her the orange flower. "Would you hold this for us, Miss.... Miss...?" As they both still held the flower stem, he leaned back with a frown and a gasp. "My dear! I apologize! I don't know your name."

"My name is Melody Baker," the little girl stated with a very proper grown up tone, immediately lighting up with pride.

Letting go of the daisy, Tom took her free hand in his and shook it with grandiose formality. His face and voice adopted the same proper tone as he greeted her in return.

"What a pleasure, Miss Melody Baker. I am Mr. Thomas Hiddleston. But since I've been friends with your mum for over 20 years, you are most welcome to call me Uncle Tommy."

Before he had a chance to turn to the three boys, everyone was startled to attention by a loud curt voice coming from just the inside the door.

"Who the hell are you?"

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This is also posted on AO3.

5 notes · View notes