hiiii haha. hello. exceptionally awkward introduction bc idrk how to start something like this so let's just jump right in. im taking a break from this account for a bit. i know i said i wanted taob out before halloween and currently im fine sticking with that deadline, but if i decide i need longer away then i will take longer away. every time ive reassured people that id never abandon a fic and updates will always come eventually i never once considered that my writing and ability to feel safe and comfortable on this site would be actively taken from me, so im not even going to apologise. i dont want this either and more importantly i dont fucking deserve it. i dont know what it is in the past year, if ive hit a certain amount of followers or 'popularity' that's made it so the natural ratio of positive to negative interactions must in turn go up, but there's been a serious uptick in weird asks for me. the annoying part is that a very small amount of them are actually objectively mean and hateful, the rest are just weird and invasive from people who seemingly dont realise that's what they're being. ive reached a point where i dont care if the intentions are good. it's not my job as a 20 year old tumblr user of all things to defend the morality of someone who couldnt even bother to come off anon. unfortunately, after blocking only one or two anons, the weird asks have decreased substantially, which says all you need to know about the fascinating and exhilarating lives led by these people, but ive also gone on to turn anon asks off entirely. this is something i actively fought against doing and had to be pushed into by my mutuals (who have been the coolest people on planet earth during this entire thing). turning off anon was a big deal to me even if it sounds silly. i felt betrayed and like id been backed into a corner because it was so vehmently something i DIDNT WANT that to feel like i had to do it anyway for my own mental health??? that sucks. so even though ive 'fixed' the problem, im still kind of reeling and uncomfortable every time i come on tumblr. i hope it's just something i need time to ease because i'll truly be devastated if this becomes 'ruined' for me. tumblr exists as the only place in the world where i am honestly every facet of myself without shame or hesitation; losing that would be insanely harmful to me. and to the people who cant appeal to the actual human behind the post, let me put that in words you can understand: we wouldn't get any more writing 😦😦😦 riots and fires and sirens, i know. so yeah. to anyone who has sent me an anon ask and you're now wondering if you were part of the problem, im firmly of the belief that you'll know if you are. when i say 'weird asks' i dont mean 'you sent me a para about your personal life just to vent or ask for advice' or 'you sent me a really deep emotional compliment about the impact me and/or my writing has had on you' - i love asks like that, so much that i put off taking a break and turning off anon solely for the joy they bring me. im sorry that it might feel like you're being punished too bc of the actions of what in reality is a HANDFUL of weird people, but this is what i feel like i have to do to feel safe and not go insane every time i log in. love you guys, hopefully ill see you soon x

I wish Julian and Martok would interact more cause I think they could have the funniest possible dynamic. they spent 5 weeks together in a Jem'Hadar prison I just know they have a friendship that looks fucking INSANE from the outside looking in

i’m trying soooooooo hard to be calm and normal and casual but oh my god i want to scream about pacific rim about chuck hansen i love media i love characters I LOVE SYMBOLISM

making a collection

making another collection with a threatening aura

Me: *having a minor cut in an awkward shape so the plasters I own don’t fit*

Tiny wildbow in my head: Use a sanitary pad!!!

tiana's been making kevin gifs this whole time and i keep glancing over and feeling the downright deranged fucking lust welling up inside of me and it's. Concerning. to say the least.

I WAS GONE ON ADVENTURES IN THE YOONGIVERSE BUT IM BACK NOW HEYO WHAT THE FUCK IS UPPPPPPP

a thing i have JUST realized, isn't the human brain amazing lol -- is that we talk about izzy's thoughts and feelings on ed, on blackbeard, about how he serves one but not the other, etc, etc, and how it means he never loved or even respected the True Man Underneath It All but rather the bloodthirsty legend of a pirate--

e x c e p t izzy is not the first person who makes the distinction between edward and blackbeard. it's ed himself, when he says "actually, i want to be called edward from now on".

before, when he was with stede, it didn't bother him at all that the crew called him blackbeard. that was his name! he was blackbeard, what else would they call him. only stede and izzy got to "ed" or "edward" him, because they were closer -- stede was his first close friend, izzy was his friend and first mate for decades. (note that fang was with ed the longest, but he doesn't call him by his name! you gotta deserve it.)

izzy doesn't do anything inappropriate or out of proportion when he snaps at the crew to call him blackbeard or captain -- that's who ed is, is supposed to be, to them. they're not friends! they even call stede captain, and have you seen that guy?

it's ed that makes the connection between his current state: draped in fuchsia robes, singing sad songs about how sad he is, showing his vulnerable and emotional state in front of people who are supposed to respect and trust his authority. and by that he splendidly loses that authority, to the point that wee john calls him ed, and when izzy snaps at him for disrespecting his captain, ed goes no, actually, yknow what, do call me edward! and then he goes on to encourage the crew to sing as well and hey, actually, why are we being pirates! we should do a talent show!

the distinction is clear here. before all that, in izzy's eyes, his boss was blackbeard, captain, ed/edward -- different names for different occasions, but one and the same guy. but now? this guy singing songs in a pink bathrobe doesn't want to be called blackbeard, he's edward! ed time now! we're going to eat marmalade and express our feelings in front of everyone! and hold talent shows! Ya Hoo !

yeah, it's no wonder izzy doesn't want that. he wants his competent captain back, and this current dude, edward? he's not him. so, uh,

dance, sender sticks a hand out to receiver and invites them to dance. // for chiyo, from rayo! ♥

actions speak louder than words | @metrictita's rayo dances with chiyo!

they've only just finished cleaning up what was left of breakfast, the last beats of " i love my body " filling the air as chiyo dries the last mug. were lyrics sung with the utmost passion? yes, of course! were butts bumped? obviously! and the grin upon chiyo's face only grows wider as a gentle voice filters through her phone's speakers.

now in its place is something new, she sings along, meeting rayo's eyes with a finger pointed right at him. oh, she feels so cheesy. i hear it when i look at you.

the implication of what she's singing along to registers a moment too late; she tries to carry on with a small laugh, and " you need to listen to this guy, rayo! he's cured my writer's block before. " yet as chiyo puts away their mugs and hangs her towel to dry, she spies rayo's hand outstretched to her, just waiting for her to take it.

chiyo hesitates. she's not much of a dancer -- the butt bumping from earlier is about as advanced as she gets -- and she doesn't trust herself anymore. she doesn't trust her heart to not have some weird, fluttering reaction ( she doesn't understand how that can happen, how her heart can yearn for more than one person at a time. it's scary, makes her feel as if she's becoming greedy. she shouldn't take his hand. she shouldn't. ).

rayo smiles, calls her that pet name she finds really cute ( yet has never said so ). the instrumental softly swells as if to spur her on, and ah, what's the harm? chiyo places her hand in rayo's ( she shouldn't take his hand, but she can't help herself. she really can't. ).

her fellow artist pulls her closer and into a twirl that has her dizzy and laughing in no time at all. it's almost enough to stop chiyo from noticing how warm rayo's palm is on her waist as they sway side to side, or how very romantic the song really is. when he dips her and she nearly falls from being too dramatic about it, she almost forgets how much she likes being close enough to smell the different notes of his cologne and the lingering scent of cigarettes. they laugh together, and it's almost possible to believe they're just friends being goofy.

they are just friends being goofy. but chiyo knows there's more to it than that, too. she knows it, and she's trying so hard to ignore it because that's the only way she knows to get through it.

again, the music swells, bigger and fuller and brighter until it's bursting ( and how perfect a sound, how it tells the feeling of a heart bursting in a way words never can ). chiyo grins as she spins back into rayo's space. " you took my broken mel-- oh! "

as the singer's voice echoes in the kitchen, rayo lifts her up and spins, arms securely wrapped around her as he laughs at her surprise. she's thrown her arms around his shoulders immediately, butterflies erupting in her stomach, but it's over as quickly as the song is. her feet are back on the ground, she's looking up at that smile again, and chiyo's trying really hard to remind herself that they're... they can't be anything more than friends. it doesn't matter that it feels right to be standing chest to chest, nor does it matter that few others can get her to dance with such little effort. this can't become " something new. "

she likes niko. he knows that -- chiyo's pretty sure all of them know that by now, as mortifying as that is. so it isn't fair that she's doing this right now. it isn't fair that she's slowly but surely growing more and more attached to all three of them, wondering what it would be like if by some impossible stroke of luck, they all liked each other. it isn't fair to them, and it isn't fair to herself, either. she's just complicating things needlessly.

so chiyo takes a step back.

" ya coulda warned me you were gonna do that, " she says, smile upon her lips and a storm brewing in her chest. she thinks she manages to act pretty normal, all things considered... save for gracelessly knocking into the kitchen table as she turns to leave. nice. " now, c'mon! we gotta leave soon if we wanna see the sea lions, and i really wanna see those cuties. "

ok for the "Hubert's dad was snatched by TWSITD" theory (i first found this on a Reddit post by u/CyberActors15)

so basically the question is. why does Hubert's dad help with the Insurrection? House Vestra has been loyal to House Hresvelg for generations, and Hubert was raised to be loyal to Edelgard. i would presume the same applies for his father. if the former Marquis Vestra was so loyal to House Hresvelg, why would he participate in the Insurrection? that just seems... odd. had Hubert's dad taught his son to NOT follow House Vestra's tradition, that would've been a lot less suspicious, at least to me, ironically enough, because that would have reinforced an idea that Vestra Sr. genuinely had a problem with House Hresvelg.

it's been shown that characters who learn dark magic are connected to the Shitters (as i not so affectionately call TWSITD). without this theory, Hubert's connection to them seems almost... tangential compared to the other characters (Edelgard, Hapi, and Lys were all experimented on; meanwhile, Hubert only has connection to Edelgard, who has a connection to TWSITD). yes, it's possible Hubert only started learning dark magic after working with them, but considering how proficient he seems to be, i'm tempted to say he might have a bit more of a history with it than we know of.

the only thing that kind of throws a wrench in this is Hubert and Hanneman's support chain

You know as I was reading this I was trying to remember which support Hubert had that talked about his dad's potential motivations for joining the Insurrection and you're right it was Hanneman that's what I was thinking of

It's definitely an interesting theory with some fascinating potential! But I don't think I buy into it, myself, for a few reasons. First and foremost: we've never seen the Twisted place multiple agents in the same arena. Cornelia was the lone agent working in Faerghus; Solon, using the guise of Tomas, was the lone agent working under Rhea's nose in Garreg Mach prior to the course of events in the game; and although they placed Kronya in the monastery a bit early, having her 'rescued' with Flayn, she becomes the sole agent working there a month later after Solon departs following events at Remire (and notably, this is in the immediate lead-up to Edelgard's attack at the end of the year -- one month of overlap between agents is frankly shocking when things are moving this fast). If they already managed to take Hubert's father, why wouldn't he be the one to introduce Duke Aegir to the rest of the Twisted organization and hook him on the Crest of Flames experiment? Why did a second agent, taking the guise of Volkhard von Arundel, need to come in to make that play? Given how sparing they are with their personnel resources, it doesn't track for me: von Vestra would have been in a key position of trust at the Emperor's side, given the link between his family and the Hresvelgs, so if he had been a Twisted agent they arguably wouldn't have needed to replace Arundel.

I think, instead, they recognized that Volkhard was the better candidate to switch -- someone who Edelgard trusted, and who could therefore extract her from the Kingdom once the Insurrection ended. von Vestra, despite his position, didn't have that kind of access -- and while his son might, his loyalty was to Edelgard alone even at that age: they couldn't trust that he would actually bring her back to the Empire for use in the experiment, rather than just staying in the Kingdom with her once they'd been reunited.

Which actually does bring me back around to that support with Hanneman. Because it's not just that Support that makes me think von Vestra was never bodyswapped: it's also Hubert's Support chain with Edelgard. He mentions that when her uncle spirited her off to Faerghus, he was absolutely bereft:

The sensation of loss that overcame me on that day defies all description. It was as horrific as if I'd lost all my limbs. I left the city in a mad rush to rescue you. My father sent soldiers to capture me. I fought them off for three days, but they did finally manage it. Of course, I was only ten. I never would've reached Fhirdiad.

By his own admission, his father sent men out after him when he ran off to try and catch up with Edelgard and her uncle -- and he spent three days, at the age of ten, fighting them off in his attempt to reach her. If his dad had already been replaced at that point, he didn't need to put in that much effort to get Hubert back: Hubert's proven loyalty to Edelgard made him a liability, since he would almost certainly oppose their designs, and they couldn't bring him to their side without straight-up brainwashing him (which clearly had not happened); and if his dad hadn't been replaced yet but was later...again, why would they let Hubert go unchecked, knowing so intimately that he was very likely going to become a problem? Hubert's presence at Edelgard's side implies to me that the Twisted didn't know how big an issue he would be: they underestimated him to their own detriment because they weren't aware of how deep his loyalty ran, which essentially precludes the notion that they had an agent in his House, since otherwise they'd recognize him for the problem he was.

(For me personally, Hubert's dark magic proficiency never seemed suspect: we know that he's Edelgard's right-hand man, and he's at this point intimately familiar with the Twisted. Unlike the other names on that list, Hubert is still the only one who hadn't been subjected to experimentation; on top of that, it's very doubtful that his dad would have been swapped out before the Insurrection had begun to foment, since a position in Adrestia wasn't advantageous to them until that point, meaning that he still had less time than Lysithea to develop the skill while being arguably more proficient with it than Edelgard, who chose a physical class over a magical one. Your list also omits Jeritza, who also learns a Dark Magic spell despite him not being experimented on directly. Personally I think that Hubert is just a proficient mage and threw himself into Dark Magic study once Edelgard made him aware of the Twisted: he's strategically-minded enough that he probably believed 'know thine enemy' applied to their magic as much as everything else.)

All this to say that I actually do think there's a valid reason for Marquis von Vestra joining the Insurrection after a thousand years of loyalty to the Imperial Lineage -- and that's him realizing what it's done to his son. Hubert admits to Edelgard that his very first memory of their time together was when she was injured, and his father scolded him for his negligence:

From the age of six, he'd been groomed to be Edelgard's protector, told to put his very life on the line for her sake, which is likely expected of the von Vestras...once they reach adulthood. Hubert's father was trying to impart a lesson early regarding what his role as Edelgard's servant was -- but then the Insurrection began, Arundel vanished with Edelgard, and his son rushed out of the city after her, heedless of his own life and fighting his father's men for three days because of the lesson his father imparted on him. However much Hubert loathes his father in the present, the feeling was not necessarily mutual -- and having come so close to losing his eldest child, only ten years old, to a bond of servitude...people change. Sometimes it takes an upheaval for people to question the way things have always been. But I tend to think that in that moment, seeing his son dragged back to Enbarr, probably still trying to fight despite barely sleeping or eating for three days in his desperation to reach Edelgard and fulfill his duty...he realized that the duty he'd given his son was a yoke upon his neck, crushing the person he might otherwise have been. And in that moment, he wondered if there might be a better existence for his son, for his other children -- not bound as servants to the Imperial lineage, erasing their lives and their children's lives so that the Emperor and his issue could fulfill their own...but able to become their own people, defined by their own interests.

Hubert: My earliest memory of you is of when you were injured. I recall being scolded most sternly by my father. "You are Lady Edelgard's servant!" he said. "You must protect her with your life!"

Edelgard: I had no idea. But House Vestra has served House Hresvelg for generations... Given that, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

Hubert: Indeed. After that, I made certain to accompany you wherever you went.

I tend to think that von Vestra betrayed his emperor for the chance giving his children a better life: one where they no longer had to define themselves solely by the Hresvelg they served. But in Hubert's case, it was too late -- he'd taken to heart the lesson that Edelgard's life outweighs his own four years prior at the tender age of six, and as such his father's betrayal of the Emperor's family became tantamount to a betrayal of his own.

First a mountain lion, now raccoons. Who keeps bringing these North American animals into Britain to terrorize the local feral cats. Very rude.

me @ brutus: now it's YOUR turn to get peeled like a banana

hello everyone i have a dentist appointment tomorrow, pls send good vibes to see if they can make my mouth stop fucken hurting

The fact that people STILL shit on Téa for “having no personality” or “she never shuts up about friendship” or “her only trait is feelings for Atem” when none of that is even true is fucking ridiculous. Like, actually WATCH the show and don’t just regurgitate memes and dismissals people propagated 20 years ago when they ignored anything involving Téa because they’d already decided they didn’t care.

And definitely don’t act like you’re doing something groundbreaking or insightful by shitting on a character for the same shallow reasons as everyone else for the past 20 years.

Doing legacy, night terrors, and dissent all right in a fucking row really is the anders nightmare train huh

oh,