trying to brainstorm names and gilgamesh goes “what about Adam?” And I was like waow… irl oc real?

What I loved about WWDITS S5 Episode 4 (SPOILERS!!!):

Sean has over 9 DUIs

“Robby Robinson”

The high five/fist bump combo

Nandor wanting Guillermo to ogle him at the gym

Nandor saying “very cool” to Alexander being Jewish

(Also having a Jewish character in general)

“Meshugas - that means stuff” (ps to gentiles, this is not a correct statement)

“Kibitzing” I love Nandor so much but he’s getting it so wrong

Was not expecting to talk about this but fair warning I will be talking about every Jewish mention in this episode I’m starved for content

“We are mishpocha”

Nice to know someone thought positively of us back then

“I had no idea there were Jews in New York City” I can’t

“Kvelling” Nandor please

“Quit your kvetching” that’s- that’s actually correct

Collin Robinson not caring about being comptroller but just wanting to drain everyone

Evie!

Colin Robinson quoting romantic movies

Nadja’s actually working!

Laszlo trying so hard to get on the antipaxon’s good side but being terrible at it

“He seemed harmless and kinda lonely” lmao

Colin Robinsons feeding off people by dropping his cards

The fact that the livestream of the debate is 5 and a half hours

Colin Robinson letting Evie come in and feast with him

The two of them still annoying/feeding while being kidnapped

There’s a supreme council of energy vampires???

Said council being just as horrible as them

Colin Robinson and Evie being in awe at how good they are

“Does this fill me with a crippling sense of self doubt? Sometimes” poor guy just wanted a friend now that Guillermo’s not spending all his time with him

Is- is Nandor trying to convert???

“All hail bureaucracy”

Colin Robinson still having to sabotage himself because he just can’t do it

“Twins”

The fact that apparently Nandor’s foreskin grew back very fast

“Now he thinks I’m meshugana, which means he thinks I’m a little bit of a putz”

“I can speak 14 languages, as long as they are English”

The fact that the antipaxons all think Laszlo is the reincarnation of some oaf that brings “good luck and good fortune to everyone”

Evie running for comptroller instead

Nandor telling Guillermo to “shut the fuck up” during the movie when he couldn’t shut up earlier

hiiii sorry to bother you with this ramble but i've been watching cobra kai mainly out of curiosity and the ups and downs i have felt when watching this show haha

i don't want to give this show a hard time, but it's so...yeah. of course i should've expected that going into the show, it's the reboot of the one movie from the 80s everyone and their mom knows of course it's not going to have the most philosophical questions but like....it both intrigues and enrages me in sooo many ways. Having just watched the sequels for the first time I was very surprised to find what it had to say about the cycle of violence and the somewhat unconventional masculinity in Daniel and...the showrunners seems to forget about all of that?

They seemed to sort of get it with the first two seasons where Johnny/the kids who walk into Cobra Kai walk out impacted in a way that the narrative doesn't see as rewarding which is really interesting! Only to...forget that? Once heavy metal starts playing, that's the cue that tells you "Oh yeah this is where the cool stuff happens! You should be rooting for them!" and I don't. I just kind of. sigh and let the scene happen

Oh and don't even get me started on how the writers seem incapable of writing the kids without having them in romantic relationships. I know they're in high school but like. It's tiring seeing these kids get together, then break up in two episodes -__- but that's just my thing with media

Ok one more thing cause I'm gonna keep rambling on and on: I really enjoyed Daniel taking Robby on as his student and just watching this kid have some sort of stability and guidance in his life was really nice so it was cruel of the writers to just rip that away (in my opinion)

Sorry for this long ramble, this show has definitely confused me but is somehow interesting enough to keep on watching

Can I just say I am somewhat enamoured that occasionally an anon will wander into my space and give me a little update on their various cobra kai and/or karate kid watches, makes me feel like we're all in this together.

And onto the message itself: everything you're saying is correct. Cobra Kai is a silly show, it's a show with many many flaws, it's a show that not only at times contradicts TKK character-building, but also its own emotional and thematic build, it's been my little "puts on clown suit and nose" show for the last couple of years, and it's one I'd never technically recommend, but for the fact that I am delighted by a great deal of it + the fandom (on tumblr -- venture into some other corners and you're reminded that the actual target audience is middle-aged straight guys who kin Johnny and think there's nothing deeper than "Daniel was the real bully" takes) has been a source of a lot of fun.

It was something that helped me during the pandemic + introduced me to some lovely people (including someone I have travelled to another continent to meet irl!)

What does this have to do with your message? Technically nothing, I just need you to know that I am both incredibly biased about my emotions around this show, because of all the real life stuff around it, and that I was very forgiving of it for quite awhile, up until s5 confirmed that yeah, the narrative that it seemed to be building up to (in its own flawed way) was uh... simply not occurring anymore.

Now I've moved past the stage of "oh okay, it's bad bad," and gone into "here's what I like," mode -- with no small degree of kvetching of course.

The way that I watch this show is on the basis of "take what you want, leave out the rest." Sometimes I'm not a fan of this approach, because it can leave out what actually works in favour of popular fanon headcanons (that can also make people who aren't into them feel excluded from cliquey spaces that dictate The Truth). But if the writing isn't up to snuff, I think it's only right to take a sledgehammer/scalpel/tool of your choice and Frankenstein that thing into proper shape!

The show has good bones -- the bones of The Karate Kid movies, and the actors (old and new) who are really into playing their roles and put a lot of work into it -- and it has good parts in its story too.

As for the rest *rolls up sleeves and gets'a'hammerin' and fixin'*

I tried pronouncing that word I sound like an idiot but it’s fun to say !! Tho idk if I’m doing it right— but yeah !! Ranting is so fun ! Also when people just rant with you !!!!

-JDA here-

Oh !! I love women who are silly and goofy that can cause problems !! I had this idea when I redesigned Bun tho I don’t do much stuff with her cuz I only draw instead of showing her actual personality so it might be hard to just know how she is by just looking at her— her old personality was just uh,,, me on my edgy emo times, she was just a bitch so yeah I’m SO glad I actually changed all that she’s like a new character— (the edgy emo vibes are for Ver now)

I get it !! Being disabled is so much fun !

Oh !! That sounds fun !! Tbh now I get why all your headcanons on characters are so easy to believe as canon—

oh i would LOVE to see the silly comic !! No I’m not on my knees wdym this is how I normally stand-

It's v fun to say!!! it's kinda just a k sound and then very quickly vetch, like it rhymes with fetch. But yeah, I love kvetching!! And when other people kvetch with/at me!!

Women deserve to cause problems I think uwu and I also think maybe they should kiss me about it too sometimes. Especially if they're trans 🥺👉👈 Also that's so relatable, changing your OC over time. They develop, which I think is very fun!! Z used to be just a lil sadboy virgin but now he's a goofy freak who FUCKS!!

>:3c I use my powers for fanfic and headcanons and (consensually) torturing people who think my power isn't real!! Nothing beats someone telling me I can't guess their kink, only to watch them lose it when I look them dead in the eyes and say "tickle fetish" lmao

Muahahahahaha you have unleashed hell upon this blog, I will post my silly comic and everyone will suffer the mediocre art I drew in 10 minutes with no knowledge of how drawing works, and also my silly little headcanons >:3c

The question by the way was about why I didn't finish my food yesterday, and the one word answer was grease which I knew she'd get cause she had the same meal

My grandma had been given some ground beef, which she gave to us, which was fine but when I put it on top of the other stuff in my bowl it just had this cm thick layer of grease it left

I don't quite know why beef from the butcher we go to is never greasy and just very high quality (you can even ask them which far any cut came from and they'll tell you, so if you felt like it you could go make sure the far didn't suck)

Store bought beef though, even the good quality stuff, it's just so greasy, and despite having a gallbladder at this point grease just makes me kvetch so hard and makes my stomach not feel great (I think just cause I have very little anymore)

welll, yesterday I got in a fight with a dude cause I didn't delete a post. I didn't want to and they kept on pressuring me to so I resorted to yelling at them and then they had a panic attack. So that was yesterday. Sorry about the no music for that day. I feel ok I guess... They probably feel like shit though. It was about them being possessive. The post, that is. I'm usually a reasonable person but I do have emotions and limits. I Guess I knew the right thing to do but I'm still gonna kvetch. Didn't really know them that well so if they cut me out it's no skin off my back. I hope they do whatever is best for them. Also TAKE A BREAK from that rhythm game! I don't want you to get arthritis or carpal tunnel! Those suck. You can hit the candy looking drum some other time. If you don't pace yourself you can't do it anymore because your body will attack you!! Don't do that! Swollen wrists aren't good at all! The music of today and yesterday is Lemur from This Town Needs Guns and Golgol b...... Dunno how to type the last name. Well the song name Start Wearing Purple is distinct enough. Obsessed with them both.

Oh dear DD: that sounds stressful! Hopefully things blow over.

But...... Senbonzakura full combo :(( /j yeah I'm gonna take a break. I don't want a fucked-up wrist bc I still wanna play viddy games and draw lol

I recommend Into The Unknown from Over the Garden Wall!! I really love otgw and that means I love this song ehe. I am a little bothered that Frozen 2 made it hard to look for stuff abt/with this song, but Frozen 2 had some fantastic songs so fjsbfjdn

The Masterplan | Mortimer Toynbee x Fem!Reader

<... Prev | Chpt 3

After a hard falling out, Toad nearly lets his tempter get the better of him during your first meeting. Almost, but... It occurs to him that, despite acting like such a bastard... He's never been treated so well in all his life before. Especially not by a human. Out of curiosity... He's made up his mind to try again with you.

tag list: @samatedeansbroccoli @smokeywhalee @mickeyperkins @the-goon-tm @thlix @ohmygillygoshoppler @it-is-i-zim @tolovaj @toynbeees @toadsbitch @lostgirllulu @the-home-kvetch (Toad tag list open to additions or reductions, whichever you prefer lol or follow here on ao3!)

tags: slow burn, some dad bod stuff bc it's me we're talking about and you guys expect it, aged up toad (adult/middle aged (so, dilfy)), mentions/threats of violence

---

By the time he reaches your porch, the sun is on the brink of setting. Toad clears his throat and lifts a knuckle to knock. He pauses.

...It dawns on him that he hasn't got a damn clue what to say.

He drops his hand to his side. Shit. All along that walk, he told himself he'd think of something by the time he got here. Looks like it never came.

Fuck it. He takes a deep breath and knocks politely. He's not talking with you just now... Maybe it'll come yet.

The seconds feel like hours while he waits for any sign of life. He wouldn't blame you for ignoring him completely, after all.

Cautiously, the door creaks open. You peak outside, catch a glimpse of him, and slam it shut.

"I told you to leave!", you shout.

"Look, I'm sorry, alright! I just wanted to-"

"If you think I'm going to give you more food or help, you can save your breath!"

Damn. He was feeling a little hungry after all that walking too.

"That's fine, I just-", Suddenly... Toad freezes up.

Why is he here? He wants to see you. To get in your good graces, just for a little while maybe... He wants to know what's so special about you. Why you're not afraid or revolted at him... What is it that makes you so fascinated. What does he have to do to see that look in your eyes again?

But how the hell is he supposed to put that into words...

"Would you forgive me if I said I lied about the sco- er... Biscuit? I really was quite good actually!", he tries his best to sound convincing. After all, he really does mean it.

You give a humorless laugh, "How stupid do you think I am, huh?"

Toad groans. Shit... This is going nowhere.

He thumps his head against your front door, "No stupider than me, that's for sure", he mutters.

You remain silent on the other side of the door. Mortimer huffs a sigh. He'll give this one last try... Then. Well, he doesn't know.

He picks his forehead up from against the wood, "Look... I know I've been a right bastard to you, and I'm sorry. You don't have to put me up or anything like that, but... C-could I ask for you to finish the sutures, maybe?"

"...Why should I trust you?"

Toad goes silent at that. He thinks hard about it for a moment. You know... It never occurred to him that trust could be a two way street between humans and mutants. He never thought... You might be scared of him... in that way.

Not because he's a mutant... Just a stranger.

"Well... You don't have to, I suppose, but... Maybe at least as much as I'm trusting you, yeah?"

You sigh. It's true, you haven't really run into any mutants in person around here... But that doesn't mean you're ignorant to the rocky relationship they have with humans. He's right... The most you can do is meet each other halfway.

And... You'd be lying if you said you didn't want to at least meet him.

The lock clicks gently. You open the door to just a crack and take a good look at that face. Well... He at least looks sorry.

You sigh, "Alright, come in", you move aside and let him pass.

He stands there awkwardly, and mutters a thanks when you finally turn to face him. You acknowledge his apology at least, but largely wave him off, "Go sit over there, I'll be back with what I need"

Toad looks over towards the couch as you've indicated. There's a little hearth, but it's in shambles. The furniture looks ancient, but at least it's not deteriorating like everything else seems to be. He trudges over and takes a cautious seat.

It gives an annoying squeak beneath his weight, but seems fine otherwise.

Despite how decrepit it is, the furniture is actually quite comfortable. Better then the near nothing he was allowed access to back with the others at least. He leans back with a little sigh.

Finally you make your return, the old wooden stairs heralding your descent.

You place your things on a side table and pull on some latex gloves, "Alright, take off your shirt"

Toad flushes immediately. He can't say a woman's ever asked him that before. It... Feels a bit more exciting then it should.

You look up, threaded needle in hand, to see he's still frozen in place, "Do you want to do this or not?", you say gruffly.

"Right, right... Sorry, uh", his hands are indecisive, hovering back and forth. Should he unbutton or... Maybe it would be faster to just take it off? But that feels so awkward though... Er, maybe...

You roll your eyes and make the choice for him. With a firm tug, the remaining buttons pop apart all in one go. You tuck the one flap of fabric behind his back and get ready to clean the spot of the open wounds again.

Well if he wasn't blushing before, he certainly is now, "Ahem, that works too..."

Careful not to do more harm then good, you make sure to avoid the cut itself while you clean, "Hmm"

"... Something wrong?"

"These are looking noticeably better since this morning. Strange"

"Oh, I... heal quick", he's not really sure why he's telling you this. Right now he's still trying to pull himself together after... That.

You stop, a tiny trace of that fascinated look back in your eye, "Really? That must be nice", you even give a little smile.

While you finish up cleaning the area for new stitches and checking over the old ones, Mort pulls himself out of his daze only to suddenly find himself feeling a little more... Self conscious, then usual.

In all his life, he's never had an experience like this. Not even close. In a house... On a couch... Pretty lady touching his bare body... It was something he'd never even thought possible to be honest...

Not for a guy like him, anyway.

He's never felt so strange about his body before either.

When he was young, it would've been a different story. He was perfectly thin, wrinkle free, and had about a fraction of the warts he has now. The touch of pink around his abs may have been attractive back then when it at least could highlight them... It was smaller, less noticeable.

Some would almost say cute.

Now, it only better serves to show off his furrowed stretch marks and round belly, like a panel of color on a beachball. Ugh, he winces at the thought.

"Ready?", you hold one of the few remaining cuts closed, surgical needle prepared to pierce.

Mindlessly, he nods then braces himself at the last moment. It... Hurts, but not as bad as he was expecting. Feels more odd than anything.

Toad grits his teeth, looking for any way to distract himself from the procedure, "...Are you a doctor then?"

You chuckle, "No, nothing like that. I'm a... Marine biologist"

"Oh", he makes a face. Whether it's because he finds something unpleasant about your answer, or it's in thanks to the first pierce of the needle, you can't say, "Do a lot of... Mpf- dissections?"

You sew along the gash methodically, going quick. This one is short at least. In, out. In, out. In, out... "A few, back in college. Why?"

"Just want to make sure you know wha-", suddenly, he hisses in discomfort as you pull the thread taut.

"Sorry, sorry...", you cinch it off and cut the line. Just two more to go, not long at all, "You're doing great so far"

At last, he's quiet at that. His heart skips a beat, all a flutter. He feels flushed, and nervous, and very... Like how he used to be. Like a kid with stars in his eyes and waiting waiting waiting.... All just for someone to come along and notice him.

But- He gives his head a little shake, coming back to reality.

That was a long time ago...

You don't look up, but you haven't missed a beat, "Doing alright?"

Toad clears his throat and pretends to not look at you, "Fine"

His eyes flick back and forth, between your hands and your face. A part of him wishes you'd say that again. Or at least... Maybe something like it. Now that he thinks about it... He can't quite recall the last time he's ever been complimented. Let alone told he's done something well.

You stay silent as you continue, but he notices you casting glances around his oblique. The pink is a bit faded out around the edges now, not as sharp of a line as it was when he was young. Perhaps just a sign of aging... Although he can't help but feel that it resembles what you get with a stretched out image or piece of plastic.

Blurry.

Distorted.

"Something wrong?", he bites.

"Hm? Oh sorry... You have very pretty skin, is all. Never seen a toad with colors like these though", you laugh lightly, and pull the thread tight to tie it off. One more to go.

Toad is shocked into silence. There's something he never thought he'd hear before. Him and 'pretty' absolutely have never been in the same sentence together.

You run your thumb down the muddled seam where the green meets the pink, crossing over a few solid stitches as you go.

Mortimer twitches a little, but only because it tickles. You however, find him to be very soft. His skin really is just like velvet...

You get another line of thread ready and run it through your needle, "Have you always had it?", you gesture to his pink patch, then gather up his skin to finish sewing.

"Mpf- Yeah... I was born like this, if that's what you mean"

"Really?", you sound genuinely intrigued, "I thought mutations didn't show up until adolescence or about that"

"Hmp, not when you're mutated this badl- Christ!", he seethes, "Could you at least try and be gentle?"

This last cut is right around his ribs. An awful spot for a needle and no drugs. You apologize but have no choice really, other then to tell him the truth about the situation, "You've been doing great so far... I promise I'll be as quick as I can, alright?"

He's none too happy to hear it, but... He can suffer a lot in exchange for a even just little praise like that.

As expected, he's not quite up for talking while you work through the sensitive area, but you're true to your word and done quickly. You tie it off and pat his side warmly. The skin of his fleshy side bounces a touch in response to your thumps.

"There, you're all done...", you get up and give his mop of hair a playful ruffle, "Door's that way", you point over your shoulder.

Toad stops mid motion, "What, that's it? You're going to tear my shirt off, then throw me out?"

"Excuse me?"

"Just a joke! Just a joke...", he puts up his hands defensively then starts to button the shirt closed again. Toad clears his throat and stands up with you, "I um... I don't suppose there's anything I could do to convince you to let me stay a bit?"

Your face crinkles in a way that immediately tells him the answer is no. A justified no after all... Especially considering he told you he had no expectations of being put up here for the night.

He cuts you off before you can give a definitive answer, "Maybe- Maybe some help around the house? I can do most anything you want, you know! I know it's a little... rough in here, after all"

At that suggestion, your face relaxes a bit with intrigue more then anything. Close... Maybe he can sweeten the deal.

"Or! I... I could let you study my healing maybe? You like froggy things, yeah? Besides...", he turns around and works the back of the shirt off his shoulders, revealing his stitches from the previous day, "Look at that! Already healing and all, right?"

He does have a point... You are quite interested in him and his... particular mutant biology. The slashes along his back are puckered up around the sutures, a good sign of being well on their way to healing. They're a bit crusted with pus though and could use a cleaning.

You take the fallen collar of his shirt and pull it back up to sit on his neck, "And... you expect me to believe you wouldn't mind that?", you ask doubtfully.

Well... Under normal circumstances, you're right and he damn well would, to be honest with you. He's been stared at and mocked and scrutinized by humans all his life. He couldn't imagine subjecting himself to being the science experiment of one.

But then...

He never expected to be treated so... well under such a condition. Over and over in the back of his head, he can still hear your voice clear as when you said it.

'You're doing well'

'Good job'

He's never heard those words in all his life...

"No, not a problem at all", he actually gives a little smile as he turns around to face you, "I don't mind, just don't cut me open, yeah?", he chuckles.

You smile a little too. Strange... His personality has completely changed since last you saw him. Hmp, maybe he realized how screwed he is if he keeps sleeping out in the bayou, you joke to yourself. Whatever the case, you suppose he seems harmless enough.

He's got a short fuse and a hot temper, but... Harmless. All bark and no bite, as it were.

"...Fine", you brush a bit of his hair out of his eyes. They're speckled and flecked with metallic colors, all around those fascinating oblong pupils at the centers. Quite beautiful, you think, "It's a deal then"

how to defend against people who want to arbitrarily dox tor users?

(Referring to this post about what Tor can and can’t protect you from.)

It’s hard.

Doxxers get you by following tiny little threads. You mention your official name just once, and the city you live in just once, not even in the same post, and they notice and they dig through all the public records they can find and they make a list of fifteen A. Nonny Mouses who could be you. Then they look up all of those people and rule out half of them because they’re too old (you mentioned your approximate age a couple times too).  Three more spend all their online time gushing about their delightful children that you said you would never have, so scratch them off too.  We’re down to four people.  You posted a picture of a cat sitting on a mailbox.  Reverse image search that cat.  45 other pictures come up, and some of them are tagged with exact locations.  You must live somewhere near Avenue Q.  Only one person who’s still on the list is even in that neighborhood, and now we know your exact street address and we can go back to the official records and get your birthdate and your voter registration and the photo on your driver’s license.

They nailed Ross Ulbricht because he’d made one post that mentioned both his official name and a handle he used as the operator of Silk Road. Admittedly Ross Ulbricht had the federal government of the USA after him, but some of the individuals who go after rando Tor users on suspicion of being Up To No Good are just as dogged and experienced.

To protect yourself against this, you have to make sure you never, ever reveal anything that could help narrow your identity down, and this is really hard, because the whole point of online social media is that you socialize. You make friends, you gush about shared interests and kvetch about shared problems, and everything you choose to say is a data point that can be used against you.

To learn more about this, good search keywords include “opsec” (short for “operational security”), “tradecraft” (because spies have had this problem for a very long time), and “identity theft” (because identity theft uses much the same techniques).  I’ll leave you with some links: “In Search of OPSEC Magic Sauce” walks through how someone tried to use Tor to post an anonymous bomb threat, but because they chose the wrong location to connect to Tor from, Tor didn’t help them at all. “Camgirl OPSEC” runs down a list of suggestions for how camgirls might protect themselves from stalkers, which is also an excellent list to keep in mind for anyone who might want to share some private information about themselves, but not reveal all of it. (I particularly endorse the part about building a list of lies that you use, consistently, when asked for private information you don’t want to reveal.)  The author of “In Search of OPSEC Magic Sauce,” known only as “the grugq,” has written a lot more on the subject; unfortunately his website is kinda broken (e.g. the “opsec” tag archive is missing most of the older stuff).

hi my love i’m hope not too late but i would like you to tell me about my loves jewish cake, anything you want to but specifically baker calum 🥰 thank you i love you

of course you aren’t too late!!! ESPECIALLY to talk about jewish cake oh my goodness meg i shall die for you i love you. alright let’s see what i can dig up

ha’ahava hazot shelanu + it’s so simple

a cut, per usual

so let’s start WITH:

ha’ahava hazot shelanu

jewish cake was a labor of love for myself. little known fact about me is that i am in fact jewish! :) and around christmas time i always get a little prickly about the surplus of christmas spirit and in this case the amount of fic for it. and i’d sort of had this hesitant idea to write a jewish fic in the back of my mind for a long time, but it felt like a really big divergence from the Cast of Characters that was for some reason a lot more dramatic than any other circumstances into which i could place them, so i’d basically been hesitating for several months. in november we had a brief conversation about it in the club which looked like this

but the idea still made me a little nervous and so i kind of talked myself out of writing it, as always. and THEN, middle of december, iba sent me this 1d fic out of nowhere with this accompanying message:

and i kinda lowkey almost cried!! it was such a jewish fic. i read the word kvetch and i almost lost it. the fic was just so unabashedly jewish. and i was like...well. that’s what ive been wanting to do. so now i have no reason not to do it.

in the ao3 notes i talked a little bit about my internal debate over How Jewish To Go with the fic because on the one hand i really do understand that it can feel alienating going into a fic with zero understanding of the culture but on the other hand since it was MY fic i wanted to make it jewish the way i’m jewish. which is like...............very. i don’t think i ended up striking a balance so much as just deciding to say fuck it and write it the way i would want to read it, but i definitely think that was the right decision for me.

there was actually one more motivator for writing this fic, especially the WAY i wrote it, in eight chapters, and that motivator was that i wanted to break 400k on ao3 before the year ended. i just wanted to have an even number and 400k was a good goal. which i did achieve thanks to jewish cake fic being the 13.6k beast that she is! so that was also part of it

NOW! as for the PROCESS. i created the doc on december 22 and i originally kind of thought it was a little bitchy to write a hanukkah fic after hanukkah had already ended but was reminded that most christmas fic is neither written nor posted on actual christmas which reassured me well enough. i had already had the idea to divide it into eight chapters for the eight nights of hanukkah and i thought that would be a nice way to showcase different aspects of the holiday (seeing family, playing dreidel, opening presents etc) and also in certain cases (like the third chapter where they do some baking) some days that weren’t necessarily hanukkah-driven but just a nice natural consequence of being on break for hanukkah. i wanted it to feel like hanukkah feels to me!! normally i don’t like people seeing the way my outlines look but this one i don’t mind sharing so here’s what i had at the top of the doc for reference while i was writing. not everything in that first list got included but most of it did !!! 

i’m not really sure how this fic ended up being cake. i never used to default to cake but for some reason as i was diving into this one it just felt right. that’s all i can say about that. meg you have genuinely shifted my approach to fic i DO default to cake sometimes now and that’s on YOU. 

the very first thing i ever wrote down for this fic was this part that ended up going in the summary:

“Happy Hanukkah,” Calum says, smiling at Luke as their fingers intertwine.

Luke murmurs, “Chag sameach, ahovi,” and Calum’s face is aglow in the candlelight.

that was The Moment for me. i didn’t even write the rest of that scene until later but i had those two lines written down straight out the gate and i knew they were gonna close out the first scene because it just Felt Right. and i was right! very cool and fun for me

now the nice convenient thing about having this fic separated into eight discrete scenes/nights/chapters was that i didn’t have to write it in order, and i didn’t. i DID write the first night/chapter first, but then over the course of maybe a week, i wrote (deep breath get ready): the first half of chapter 2 (hemmings family) > the beginning of chapter 5 (the dreidel game) > most of the scene in chapter 7 > the beginning of chapter 3 (where they bake) > finished writing chapters 2 & 3 > started chapter 4 and finished chapter 5 > finished chapter 4 and wrote the rest of chapter 7 > all of chapter 6 > all of chapter 8 aka the proposal. i deliberately saved the proposal for last because i don’t think i could have written it exactly right without knowing the events that came before it but everything else was all over the place as you can see. 

a problem i ran into a lot, and i talked to my sounding board and fellow jew sam about this among many other things, was that i had a lot of trouble characterizing very obviously Not Jewish people in a way that made them Very Jewish. not even like, Jewish But You Can Ignore It. i wanted them to be front-and-center jewish like i am and that was hard for me to navigate because obviously my speech patterns and vocabulary as an american jew are extremely different from 5sos’s as australian goyim (non-jews) like i do use hebrew words in my day-to-day communication all the time and i somehow had to keep their mannerisms but also insert mine BUT not insert so many of mine that the fic became incomprehensible and it was just. a Challenge. here’s some insight into THAT crisis

and then again writing the other characters in other chapters

i sent sam the doc when i was mostly done writing it, mainly just to be reminded that at least one person was going to appreciate this fic, which worked out nicely because she very very much did. genuinely i cannot stress enough how insecure i was to write and share this fic. like i’m gonna be really straight up with you meg, i think part of the reason i had calum and luke baking sufganiyot was because to me that felt like a sort of bribe? i basically wrote what felt to me like the least appealing fic ever and then my mission from there was to add stuff in that would convince people to give it a shot anyway. i was trying to make it worth everyone’s while. the baking was my trade-off, i was like “well yeah it’s a jewish fic but maybe she’ll be happy enough that it’s cake and they’re baking that she’ll forgive it for being a jewish fic” yes i realize how kind of hilariously tragic this sounds but !!! you never get jewish fics!!! and you especially don’t get them in fanfiction for obviously non-jewish bands!!! anyway. we’re not gonna get into this whole thing but like. even though objectively i knew that i had been told again and again people would appreciate the fic i still had doubts and knowing something and feeling secure in it are very different things.

also, i didn’t remember this, but apparently i had a lot of problems with writing the proposal! here’s a sneak peek into that mental breakdown

don’t actually think the fic specifies (making life easier for myself) but they have already had dinner in that scene. so now you know. 

i could choose to not get this elbows-deep in the details of Crises I Had While Writing This Fic but instead i am choosing to go all out. here’s another thing i had trouble with:

(i did end up using transliteration obviously but i DO think actual hebrew would have been a cool flex)

and as for the title, ha’ahava hazot shelanu is the name of an ivri lider song that i love, and it translates to “this love of ours” and i realize titling the fic in hebrew was a Choice but i did talk to sam about this as well and that went roughly like this

by the way here is the song, i absolutely love it and i cannot recommend it enough. also i’m not sure how glaringly obvious this is but the chapter titles on ao3 are just hebrew numbers. like the first chapter is echad which literally means one. and so on. are they the correct genders? i don’t know ! fuck gendered language.

one more thing and then ill move on but an unfortunate natural consequence of writing a hanukkah fic (at least the way i wrote this one) is that it necessitates presents. so i had to come up with presents for these dumb boys to give each other. and to be completely honest with you i don’t remember how i did!!! the ones calum got for luke were trickier because they were actual things. for some reason this luke was always a version of luke that just kinda like, wore makeup, so that was just a question of figuring out an eyeshadow palette that would be Nice but not obscenely schmancy (i did ask the club for help since i know nothing about makeup but as usual i ignored their replies). but that by itself didn’t feel like enough of a gift, and so i tried to think of something that would be more than just the gift of an object. like, something that would maybe enable luke to spend more time on something he loves. piano music made sense to me because it wasn’t just a thing by itself it was a thing that encouraged luke to play piano and even to improve at it and to learn songs that he could be excited about. so! that was that

the trip to israel gift was a little bit of a retcon situation i really liked the idea that luke had been planning to give that “gift” to calum for a hot sec that he’d have had it ready, but i’d already written the scene where he and mali talk about israel, so i went back to it and edited it a little to hint at the idea (luke plays it off very casually because he is a clever boy) but i thought there was something very romantic in the idea of the israel trip, of luke planning a future with calum and a trip to a place that means so much to him (to me yes maybe luke and i are the same blah blah) and getting to drag calum around to falafel places and teach him words in hebrew and it just seemed like the appropriate trip for these two cute jewish boys to plan so i rolled with it.

okay moving on slightly!! to baker calum <3 baker calum was more of a cameo in the hanukkah fic, in the chapter i wrote with you in mind, but i can talk about it’s so simple here as well because i fucking adore that fic.

it’s so simple

so the inspiration behind the fic came from the “kitchens are for lovers” rhetoric and the realization that that would be the perfect...sort of thesis to build on for a fic for you in specific, because you are, in my mind, a very kitchen-based person, given your baking habit. it actually just worked out pretty nicely for me honestly because i’ve been wanting to write a big Kitchen Romance type fic for a while and you just gave me the perfect opportunity. here’s what i had at the top of the doc for the fic for you

and then once i sort of landed on the idea for the fic, it just made a lot of sense to make it jewish cake because, well, im gonna be real w you, because i identify very strongly with jewish cake and the kitchen-romance aspect felt like a very bella thing in the same way that jewish cake felt like a bella thing. and so i wanted to be able to romanticize these kitchens to share the way that i, bella, feel about them, and that was easy to do when the characters were so similar to me. not to mention this cake already existed in my head as a very settled, domestic duo, and they had their own home and had already had a kitchen-romance scene in the hanukkah fic and the whole thing just fell together perfectly. i had this sentence in my head and it was: “Shabbat in Luke and Calum’s kitchen looks something like this.” the kind of thing you would read in a fic summary right? and especially having it take place on shabbat felt like an extra layer of domestic easy romance to me so that was kind of my guide

here was my "outline” for this:

Romance :)))

obviously calum was going to be the one doing most of the cooking/baking because he had been established as the Kitchen Boy between the two of them and maybe i realized in the course of writing it that while i was luke, you were very much calum. so the goal was then basically to romanticize (1) the kitchen and (2) luke as much as humanly possible for you (see: message sent to helen and ainslee)

unfortunately i was unable to do baker calum justice as much as i would have liked because i could not have him baking anything complex because i can’t bake anything complex and if i had tried to describe him baking something complex and then described it wrong i would have died of shame so that is why he is only baking brownies BUT they have chocolate chips which hopefully makes up for it. also i just stumbled across this which i think pretty well represents the crisis i had regarding baker calum

:)))

re: the soundtrack (so to speak), i wanted to include some songs that i associate with you meg but you see the situation is that some of those songs are 5sos/mali/atl songs and so i couldn’t include those, for obvious reasons, which did narrow down my choices somewhat. fortunately i think the mcfly worked pretty nicely i mean yeah it’s a little obvious that i was forcing mcfly into the story but they deserved to be there. i think i’ve mentioned this but i genuinely have a memory of listening to star girl on a loop in my kitchen at home and in my head the hood-hemmings kitchen looks like my kitchen because i have zero imagination so it felt to me like these songs just belonged in kitchens. and that they’d be inherently romantic. woah i think my brain is short-circuiting i’m not sure i’m making sense anymore. point being i hoped that you would appreciate it nonetheless.

a note about the short introduction, because it’s very unlike anything i’ve put in any other fic to my knowledge. i kind of wanted it to feel like the prologue to a fairytale, almost. i wanted it to feel like the beginning of a movie, when the camera is slowly, slowly zooming in from a Big Picture down to one house on one street and then through the window into the kitchen while the voiceover is very serenely describing the scene. i wanted it to feel like we were in the kitchen before even calum was and that we were standing against the fourth wall watching the fic unfold. and also, i wanted to make the fic romantic as fuck, from the get-go. there was to be no confusion: this fic was going to romanticize the living daylights out of the hood-hemmings kitchen.

(also you may have noticed that despite having “london” in the list of Meg Things at the top of the doc, the fic never actually specifies that they’re in london. that’s because this fic was really an exercise in “how much can i hint that they’re in london without outright saying it so i don’t establish a canon that i may later regret” which went as far as me asking helen what her kitchen floors and counters are made of. like. if you want it to be in london then hell yeah it’s in london but i didn’t wanna lock myself into that decision just in case so i never actually said it but i hope it kinda felt london-y anyway lmao)

so...............i THINK that’s all i have to say. “all” as if i havent just written an entire dissertation but at least it’s done now. i sure did say a lot! that was a lot!!! but also a very very fun and interesting dive into the ~process~ of writing these jewish cake fics. also, for what it’s worth, the way hanukkah fic was received basically calmed all my fears about writing jewish fic, which was a relief for me. so thank you for loving it, i don’t think you know how much that means to me!!!! i love YOU so very much

[ ♡ / ♢ ] Android!Mangle x Reader hcs.

(what’s up? it’s ya girl feeling nostalgic about animatronics and wanting to write hcs about them... hmm... uh, feel free to ask for any other characters!)

- : - : - : - : - : - : -

» she keeps you out of harm’s way. the other toy animatronics don’t think much of this; it’s not like most of them haven’t formed an odd (most of the time, with rather sadistic intentions) attachments to some of the nightguards previously, but those have always been short-lived... much like the guard themselves once they were done... ‘playing’... with them.

» oh well, not that they need to know mangle thinks of you more than as a mere ‘toy’ to prey on.

» mangle stays in your office when you come in for the nightshift and shoos away anyone trying to interrupt your alone time.

» clingy and needy. the more time the animatronic spends with you, the more she wants to be around you at all times.

» she’s also immensely protective and defensive. you could kvetch to her about someone who’s been giving you a hard time outside of work, and she’ll offer to stuff them into a suit for you.

» “y-you know, yo-o-u could always lu-lure them in here at night and m-m-my friends and i c-could t-t-take care of this g-guy for you if they’re being a m-menace.“ she suggests with that glitchy voice box of hers.

» she’s likely not joking about it either, so make of it what you will.

» endo eventually warms up to you as well and is always resting his head or wraps around on your shoulder if mangle’s close enough to you.

» mangle’s current lipstick is merely painted on and thus, isn’t real. but she’ll steal lipstick from an unsuspecting woman’s purse and put it on herself. when you think her pecks on your face are just mere gestures of affection, you’ll end up with a nice surprise the next time you look into a mirror later at home and figuring out why she kept quietly giggling the whole time when she was looking at you.

» she loves giving you a good scare every now and then; making the office lights flicker on and off as she hangs down from the ceiling and bounces onto you. she tends to forget sometimes how frail humans can be when she wraps her robotic body around in any way she can you a little too roughly.

» you learn she’s actually rather melancholic and sorrowful. she detests being treated like a pile of disposable trash who’s the laughing stock of her friend group. she misses the days of playing the character of a true pirate and telling tales of sailing ships and treasure hunting.

» you don’t think that, obviously, but it’s hard for her to let go of that nagging sense of self-hatred she’s morphed into a part of her personality.

» she doesn’t really like most adults, and while she loves children and entertaining them during daytime, she swears she can feel her patience slowly diminishing the more they put their grabby hands on her and painfully ripping her endoskeleton.

» she tells you that her real name is actually ‘vixen’. she’s immensely happy when you start referring and calling for her with that name.

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(i could have done a hundred more, but i had to stop somewhere...)

Newbie Devotee Challenge (Day 7, Loki)

Day 7: Discuss your UPG for your deity. What inspired those UPG? Afterwards, do a little research and try to find other popular UPG. Do you agree or disagree with that UPG, and why?

I have kept putting this one off (and off, and off) because the thought of tackling it has been just… utterly daunting, and I have been sick and in quarantine and just could not even. Tbh I still cannot even, really, so this is multiple sessions’ worth of compilation with little to no proofing and several days late. Oh well.

Preface: Loki is changeable. I don’t bother counting the faces I’ve seen (well, experienced, I don’t get much in visuals usually). Some of these are common, some of these aren’t common, I have no interest in justifying any of it. 

Personal and personable. The most interactive of anyone I talk to, the closest to human in terms of interface (frequently but not always), the most likely to be curious about/enchanted with petty stuff and minor details and routine things. Hang out and kvetch about shoddy academics? Throw metaphorical popcorn at the screen? Offer commentary on what’s going into the pot on the stove? Tag along with a hand in my back pocket Because He Can? Bop around the apartment (and classrooms, and outdoors, and work environment) like He’s every right to be there? Oh yes, all of the above, and much more.

Go-between/messenger/mediator. Loki’s the one who’s introduced every single other god I’ve interacted with and the one who swung open the door to my head in the first place. And He’s good at it, too, at making sure the personalities are meshing well enough and keeping an eye on any potential hot spots to defuse. Makes sense: He’s a disaster, but He’s a charmer when He wants to be, too.

Deft (until He isn’t). He’s capable of being extremely precise, careful, gentle, when He’s got sufficient incentive to do so. His own wellbeing seems NOT to be sufficient incentive; that of His people,* on the other hand, does. This is not to say He always remembers to be careful because He is also easily distracted, but He’s very good at it when He, y’know, is actually focusing. Good at repairing/fixing mistakes, too, very set on that part, if said mistakes hurt the people He’s trying to be gentle with. I have… stories. They’re mostly too personal for me to want to share, but. He’s good with the mending after.

On which note, ADHD and specifically the twin poles of distraction and hyperfocus. Sometimes He’s bouncing off the walls, sometimes He’s twitching in place, sometimes He’s sacked out on the couch, sometimes He is utterly focused on something to a degree that is damn near terrifying and also super arousing. 

Not much patience for the powerful but a lot of time for the underdog and particularly the marginalized. Also a soft spot approximately a trillion miles wide for the queer/trans/neurodivergent/monsters. And for kids. Fond of animals, too, seems to find the cats amusing and the puppy adorable. Very familiar with human limitations, very forgiving, seems more interested in getting people to acknowledge said limitations than in punishment or whatnot.

Doesn’t give a shit about societal norms or obligations, does give a shit about relational health and responsibilities. Not always great at boundaries but tries damn hard when it comes to positive interaction, attention, validation, being in your corner, figuring out What You Need and how to get from point now to point then,** ideally with lots of interesting change and growth along the way. Lovely friend, awesome if sometimes frustrating teacher, highly entertaining companion, excellent lover.*** Prioritizes relationality over contracts or bargains.****

Changeable. All of the above but also sometimes super predatory not that I’m complaining or intense or Up To No Good or going “Hey, you know what would be really fun right now…?” Feels like freefall sometimes.***** Sometimes also legit terrifying in terms of rage and destructive potential: the Worldbreaker is no joke. Likes changing faces and forms and voices and whatnot on the regular -- six encounters mean at least seven faces and not all of them will be human. Or masculine: I’ve been using He for this series by default but just as often I’ll get She or Ey. Or even terrestrial: I’ve gotten vaguely-humanoid-collection-of-stardust-and-cometflare, dark roiling engulfing ocean that is somehow both warm and impossibly calming, ping-pong ball of light and manic energy, and the sense of corvid laughter from invisible trees, among others.

Not Subtle. Except for when He is. But He really, really likes attention, and that’s easiest to get if you actually see the joke/clue-by-four/clearly hilarious and obvious sign/message/whatever. No level of humor is too immature, too slapstick, too punny, or too filthy, as long as it gets a reaction. 

*pets, projects, kids, students, lovers, friends -- He collects all sorts

**He’s… not necessarily accurate all the time. So far He’s generally had a better idea of it than I have, though, so. 

***Shapeshifter and Silvertongue, and treats the lover’s pleasure like a game/challenge. May or may not have sensation anywhere after and almost certainly will not be walking a straight line. Bratty bottom, fantastic top, shades of service dom, A++ wrt aftercare. Especially if it involves sharing chocolate. 

****Will also not hesitate to score a good bargain and/or con you into something. If He’s treating you like one of His this will probably eventually wind up benefiting you. But it’ll also probably be challenging or frustrating or otherwise a lesson in why you Do Not Make Bargains without some serious forethought; and all bets are off if He’s conning you on behalf of Someone Else. So, y’know, be careful, and for fuck’s sake don’t go to Gagnráðr for legal advice.

*****All of this is multiplied by AT LEAST a factor of ten the second the Old Bastard shows up; Trouble Coming, indeed.

Rose Gold & Lavender Skies || Nolan Patrick + Reader

Requested: Yes Word Count: 958 Nolan and you decorate a nursery 

You really should have known that he was going to be picky and opinionated. You should have expected his kvetching and whining all while you dragged him through the store. He hated everything. None of it was good enough. It was all so... ugly.

"Nols," you say, finally, turning to look at him, "We need to pick things. She'll be here in less than a month."

"I know," he says with a sigh, "but it's all so..." He lets out a sigh and wrinkles his nose. "It's just not right for her. She needs a room that matches her."

"We haven't even met her," you laugh. Your hand rubs over your belly, her kicks picking up a little. It's almost as though she can tell you're talking about her.

He walks over to you, his hand covering yours as it sits on your protruding belly. "She's my princess," he says softly, before his lips press to your shoulder, "her room needs to reflect that."

You want to roll your eyes at him, but you can't. He's been so excited and so supportive through the whole pregnancy. This is something he wants, possibly more than you. You really should have expected that he would be this pick when it came to picking the theme for the nursery.  

"What happens if she comes and all she has in her room is the furniture?" You ask, head tilting to the side to look at him. "Teeks is supposed to be over this weekend to help you paint and we don't even have the paint... We don't know what color we're using." You had no theme, no bedding. No colors.

He's silent for a moment, eyes far away as you watch him. You'd be worried if it was Nolan you were looking at. There were times when he got the distant look, mind wandering away from him before he snapped back with an idea or thought that was literally so far out in left field that you had to wonder if baseball weren't a better sport for him.

"I got it," he says suddenly, pulling away from you. "I know exactly what I want for her room."

"Do I get a say in this?" You ask, laughing at him as he starts to walk away from. He doesn't say anything, just keeps walking, forcing you to follow him "Nols, seriously. Slow down I can't walk that fast." You were eight months pregnant, the waddle was real and he had much longer legs than you anyway.

"Sorry, babe. Can't. You'll just have to run."

"If I run," you tell him with a laugh, "we might just have her right here in the store. Then we'll really be in trouble."

His laugh is genuine and true and echoes around the store. "That would be bad, but a good story to tell."

"For you," you counter. "You're not the one who has to push the baby out of you."

His face wrinkles again before he shakes his head. "Fair point. Okay," he stops and waits for you to catch up. You're in a maze of a store, trying to find the right bedding for your baby girl. It shouldn't be as hard as Nolan is making it, but it's so typical of him. He's picky and opinionated at the best of times. Of course, he had thoughts on what his daughter's room would look like.

"What are we looking for?" You ask when you've caught up to him and tucked yourself into his side. This forces him to stay in pace with you and you count it as a W.

"I saw a set in the front of the store when we walked in. It was lavender and rose gold with like a solar system on it."

You had seen it when you walked in as well, but it had only sorta caught you eye. "And you want that one?" You ask confused. It was beautiful, you had to agree, but it didn't scream princess.

"Yes, because she deserves to have the universe."

You can't help the snort, as undignified as it was, to escape.

"What?" He asks, indignantly.

"Do you try to sound like a hallmark card or does it come naturally?" He wasn't wrong and you kind of thought the sentiment was cute, but you couldn't pass up the opportunity to chirp at him.

"You know what," he says poking you in the forehead, causing you to laugh more, "you don't get a say in this. I've decided."

You hardly have a chance to protest before you're face to face with the set he was talking about. Once you're in front of it, looking at it all set up, you realize he's right. It's perfect. "At least we have the theme. You and Travis can paint the nursery this weekend while I'm busy with Ryanne having no say."

"Yes... hey... How did I get the short end of this stick?" He counters.

"I'm carrying a human who will be forced out of my vagina in a month. That's how. Suck it up."

"That visual. Thank you."

You laugh. "You're welcome. Can we go home now? My feet hurt."

"Sure thing, babe." He says before letting go of you to grab the stuff needed for the baby's room. You'd had a cart at some point but it'd gotten ditched. Nolan was macho enough to try and carry all of it his own and drop at least half of it, forcing you to bend (which was a process in and of itself) and pick it up.

At least you had the theme done for her room. You just had to hope Travis and Nolan could paint it without causing more chaos. You were not convinced.

unrelated: thoughts from doing the end of kotet twice in quick succession

odessen is actually pretty big. like, it’s got to at least be on a par with rishi. but there’s nothing done with it. it’s 99% instanced and available once only (in kotfe12 and kotet8).

kotfetet is a single player game with a sub fee. like, people kvetch about how vanilla was that, but kotfetet is truly that. it has no allowance for playing it multiplayer. it has little to no repeatable group content - star fortresses can be solod (and are arguably designed to be). ditto the championship (which is hilariously irrelevant now).

i know it would have had a time/investment cost, but there would be everything to be gained for kotfetet if you opened up odessen’s wilds as an open world questing area. have dailies for an Odessen Rep track that you need to get the decos and shit that the black market guy in hylo’s basement sells. have an instanced world boss like toborro or the geoqueen.

but more than that, make it somewhere that the players go and visit and become familiar with.

and then fuck it up in kotet8.

attack on korriban/tython work because they are the first things a new sith/jedi player sees, and are visited repeatedly during the class stories. they are Home(tm), safe from the other faction, with all the nostalgia of being a wide-eyed level one newbie. seeing that rekt is, yeah it’s a cheap emotional shot, but it works.

fucking up the odessen wilds when it’s mostly areas we’ve never seen before doesn’t work because there’s no attachment, no familiarity. rolling past a dam we’ve spent weeks grinding dailies to repair in order to buy those sweet scion robes and seeing zakuul fuck it up? yeah, that’s gonna stick as an emotional moment, because players have an investment.

(it’s why the republic/imperial taris and balmorra splits work, too. because you do all that hard work, and then you come back on the opposite faction and it’s all undone. sobrik falls to the republic, olaris falls to the empire.)

but that would require bioware to have bothered to invest their time and ours right from kotfe, instead of jerking it to how great valkorion is.

-

unrelated:

when thonna went through nathema, she kept dramath in the holocron, because she’s a sith - she’s not going to give up any potential opportunity, even though as a player i know that it changes basically nothing. which means that she theoretically had him for the fight with vaylin.

however. first time combat initiated, he got yeeted off the edge by vaylin and died stupidly about a minute into the fight. whatever, i cloaked and reset the fight. less dying this time, you stupid sith spirit, or she’ll eat u.

second round. this time he... runs out of hit points in under a minute and dies that way instead. WHATEVER. who needs healers anyway

okay but for real that fight has some stuff to keep in mind which makes it a ton easier

stay inside her purple circle at all times when attacking. she has a nasty reflection if you try to range her which will rek you otherwise.

when she’s doing her yeet move (force explosion? something like that), get out of the red circle so you don’t get yote. as soon as she does it, go back close and start attacking again. important note: she still has her reflect up, so don’t hit her from range unless you like dying to stupidity.

occasionally ‘memories of healing’ will spawn. run through them to get healed and for free c/xp

/spit on dramath’s stupid corpse

(via @autisticthrawn) put Dramath on passive when she goes into the red circle. So he would follow when I run away. Then when it’s done, I put him back on attack.

FFX Relivebloggening Part 3

Meanwhile, back in Kilika...

What was Dona intending by coming back to the Cloister? She was apparently looking for Yuna, and it's not like she knew Tidus wasn't an official guardian. Did she finally think of a comeback and actually have the guts we all wish we had to actually go back and say it? The Kilika Cloister of Trials is always the hardest for me. Every time, I forget a step or get one out of order. This time I forgot which type of sphere needed to go into the pedestal for the Destruction loot. Tidus, as usual, is the only one who finds the fayth creepy. Also, "willingly" may be a stretch - or an outright lie. It's not like there are release forms on file. They seem relatively chill with it now, but then again, they are also asking for help with dying. I'm not talking to Lulu as much as usual, because I want to keep my affection with her low. It's odd, coming off playing Tales of Symphonia where Colette gets a massive affection boost at the start, that it's so easy for the canonical romance to not be the person you get the optional dialogue with. At least for me, it's usually Lulu. (It's because she has so much interesting dialogue in the early game. I often go straight to her to chat, and up goes that affection value.) It's not that Tidus craves being the center of attention, exactly, but he's used to it, it's part of the world-as-he-knew-it, and seeing everyone focused on Yuna reminds him of how that's not the way anymore. I always save like crazy on this boat ride, because I will get the Jecht Shot. Tidus is learning to take the easy route of saying he's toxin-brained, but Yuna has never taken the easy route in her life and doesn't mean to start now. She's also...the only person in the world who actively says she believes in Tidus and his Zanarkand. (Also, flirting again. That's how people flirt, right? Say they'd like to see your home and stuff?) (Tidus definitely wants to flirt back, but unfortunately, well, "As if I had a place to show her.") It's possible to miss that conversation with Yuna entirely, or not go up the stairs to listen to Wakka and Lulu. I did the former last time I played, so I made sure to do it now. Lulu wants someone to complain with, but Wakka's too easygoing to get a good kvetch session going with. I don't entirely blame her; a lot is happening, and she's under a lot of stress what with Yuna's impending death and all. "Be discreet." Lulu, this is Wakka you're talking to. No, that's not fair, Wakka can be discreet...ish...sometimes. "Sin just takes everything away from us." And of course he's not just talking about their parents, but about Chappu, and Yuna, and everyone else they've lost or are expecting to lose. An NPC says "Sin's attacked Besaid so many times I lost count"; they've probably lost friends then too. And back to Jecht, as I flex my proto-QTE fingers. This is a straight-up memory, and he does not come off well, even though I think he's...trying, or upset that he doesn't know how to try. I think Jecht is the kind of father who thinks he must be doing okay because he's not hitting his kid the way he was hit. He doesn't realize that emotional damage also fucks people up. One reset later: meanwhile, Tidus has recognized more fully that the way he was treated was wrong, and his response is to avoid it in how he treats others. In contrast to Jecht saying no one else could do the Jecht Shot, Tidus says, "Anyone can do it if they try." Even though in blitzball, only Tidus can in fact ever learn the Jecht Shot. I checked. Yuna remembers a lot about Jecht for someone who was seven - but then, she was probably trying as hard as she could to remember the last time she would ever have with her father. All this time, and so few people have ever known that guarding a High Summoner is a death sentence. Yuna still assumes gossip would have told her if Jecht were dead - and Auron, even though neither of them have been seen in Spira since Braska died. Tidus feels like something bad's going to happen. Buddy, this is Spira. Something bad is always going to happen. Tidus is so happy to finally be in a place with a lot of people. He's a city boy at heart. I really love the announcers; they make the world feel so lived-in and "normal". I love patter like that. I mean, I also want to glare at them for badmouthing my Aurochs, but you know. Different parts of the brain like different things. Introducing: the Zombie Space Pope! And not one of your modern popes, either. One of your serious kingmaker popes. Although, I guess he's just fully king, since the maesters appear to be the holders of all temporal power in Spira as well. (Except for the Al Bhed.) Nothing will ever make Seymour's clothing make sense. Nothing. Somehow, Seymour could tell that Yuna's a summoner in the midst of the crowd. At least, he seemed to zero in on her very intently. Creep. When I was a kid, I thought he was creepy, but I didn't have a sense of the age difference. As a 30-year-old, someone who's around 27 professing interest in a 17-year-old is double creepy bad. I mean also he's planning to use her death to destroy the world, but. You know. There is only one Auron, Tidus. No one has double names in fiction. It's against the rules. The Psyches Tidus talks to definitely understand him, but pretending not to means they don't have to respond to people, especially if they're rude. Yuna is clearly angling to hold hands here, and Tidus just does not notice. "Hey what if you whistled for me like a taxicab?" "...Not what I had in mind but okay." (Of course they manage to make this heartrending later.) To Tidus, this is "a pretty big town"; to Yuna, this is a city, the second-largest in the world. Cultural context is everything. Yep, Tidus, you thought you were famous before. Back there, there were still plenty of people who didn't care about blitzball. Here, it's this or studying scriptures. Forever amused by how the building they walk into is clearly labeled, "Bar", while the building next door is labeled "Cafe". Maybe there's a reason you didn't find Auron there... I assume Yuna got "kidnapped" by someone overhearing her asking about Auron, saying they knew where he was, and leading her off. I assume she was too polite and didn't want to kill anyone, or she could definitely have Valefor'd them to smithereens. (Maybe a Silence Attack was involved. Does Silence cut off summoning?) Don't ask about blitzball physics. Or biology. Or...anything, really. Just destroy your opponents. Was claiming to be holding Yuna hostage for the game a cover to avoid admitting that they were really kidnapping the summoner for her own good? Seems weird. I have to assume the "Psyches" in this game are ringers relying on "all Al Bhed look alike", because there's no way the Aurochs got that many goals on Nimrook at level one without their best forward. Lulu just fucking. teleports onto the boat. She has no feet and therefore cannot jump. Among my favorite exchanges in this game: "I hope you hurt them." "A little." There's definitely something to be said about Yuna being mixed-race with the complicated way actual mixed-race people are treated in Japan (and the US, for that matter). Buttttt I am not the person to say it. I'll just gently whisper that Yuna is matrilineally Space Jewish. One of Lulu's flaws that she has to get over during the game is that she's dealing with her grief over Chappu by comparing everyone, especially Wakka, to him. Maybe Chappu was a better blitzer than Wakka, or would have been fine after having what I assume are several cracked ribs from illegal tackles, but the fact that Lulu says it in no way means that it's true. #WakkaDefenseSquad2k19 That said, what Wakka has to get over is his racism. Which is obviously a much bigger issue. It seems almost benign here, since it was in fact Al Bhed who just attacked Yuna, but...it gets worse. I'm probably going to have to see this cutscene several times. But I will be victorious. I am, however, impressed that Lulu can catch Wakka when he collapses (Yuna plz heal his ribs) without going down with him. He's a big guy and most of it is muscle. And the inscription actually says, "To the memories of childhood - farewell," which is particularly touching and, of course, sad. If this were fencing, a decent referee would give Bickson a black card for unsportsmanlike conduct. (For those of you who are unaware, a black card means you have to leave not merely the event but the venue. Non-participants such as coaches can also be black-carded.) First try: kept the score tied 2-2 in the first half, got Tidus the requisite level so he can use Jecht Shot. Got off a Jecht Shot early in the second half and kept the Goers from scoring until Wakka came in. Aaaaand I got Wakka the ball at the four-minute mark for our fourth goal and victory! I AM SUPREME! I'm not saying I would have realized I was gayce a lot sooner if not for that FMV of Auron slipping his arm out of his coat, but I'm also not not saying that. So cool! Auron is not cool. This is an important fact to know about him. He seems cool, but internally he is panicking 50% of the time and sad and gay the other 50%. But I was a teenager and didn't know that competence is fake actually. Spiran ecology count: another dog, happily observing the Aurochs' farewells. Speaking of said farewells, they're kind of unnecessary as I will be getting Wakka back on my team the very second I have an opportunity. Tidus is...not entirely wrong about this all being Auron's fault. I mean, on a macro level it's not since he's just doing the best he can with this shitty situation, he didn't create the situation, but on a micro level he definitely did toss Tidus into Sin's magic traveling sphincter. Like, this was definitely in the plan, although it goes much better than he has any right to expect - he was probably expecting to pick up Tidus and Yuna separately, not find them already buddy-buddy. I really respect Auron for telling the protagonist some facts at least earlier than your average protag gets to know what their father has become. Which is a chronic protag problem. He's also gently patting Tidus on the back, which is about the limits of his emotional support skills. He tries, but... Auron, when he's done being a cagey bastard, correctly identifies Lulu as the One To Talk To if he wants to receive information. She has the map, the color-coded notes, and the safety pins stuck to the inside of her purse. She's the big sister I wish I could be. "I understand. I think." Tidus does not understand, because Yuna is deliberately not telling him the important part: she needs to practice smiling when she's sad about how she's going to die soon and people are so encouraging and happy to see her do it. And now, the scene that everyone loves to make fun of. Look, people, it's not bad. If the ha-ha-ha were supposed to sound like normal laughter, that would be comically bad, but it's not. It's a couple dumb trauma babies fake-laughing badly until they give themselves the giggles while their friends watch in confusion! "I want my journey...to be full of laughter." She may not have much time, but Yuna wants to pack in as many good things as she can, while she can.

Pronoun tips from binary men and women

Every once in a while I am asked (or see someone asking) how to use pronouns other than he/him and she/her. The person asking is usually a man or a woman unfamiliar with nonbinary stuff generally, but they’ve got a particular nonbinary person in their life whom they care about and they don’t want to mess up. Maybe they keep misgendering their nonbinary friend and they feel guilty, or they want to take the burden off the nonbinary person who keeps having to correct them, something like that.

When binary people lack that confidence with pronouns, they seek the advice of nonbinary people. Not only are we likely to give advice that’s not ideal for binary people (because we’ve got skin in the game, all our friends are nonbinary so we’re used to it, etc.), but it is another facet of that dynamic of the privileged group (in this case binary people) placing their burden onto the marginalised group. Binary people should be asking advice from other binary people who’ve mastered pronouns.

So, I asked, and a bunch of binary people answered. I got advice from trans and cis binary people (men and women), and I’m collecting all the common stuff and the stuff I thought was good, all here for your perusal. If you know a binary person who’s struggling to get pronouns right, pass this along.

[This article assumes that you know a specific nonbinary person and you want to get better at using their pronouns, though the advice can be adapted. It also assumes that you’re familiar with the concepts of singular they and neopronouns, and you accept that they’re grammatically correct.]

Update: Now available as a printable on Google Docs, in case you need to hand it to someone in person!

~

PRACTISE

Something that came up over and over, from cis and trans people, was that just like learning anything language-related, practise is essential. And like anything language-related, it is definitely possible to learn!

“If you can get into a hobby like, say, knitting, and learn how to use 'knit' vs 'purl' vs 'cast' vs 'bind' and so on, you can absolutely learn whichever pronouns are correct for the people you talk to, or about and use them as needed.“ --An anonymous cisgender binary person.

Practise a little bit every day. Language is maintained through regular and habitual use. “Pure repetition leaves these pronouns on the tip on my tongue.” --Anonymous cisgender binary person

Talk about the person and use the correct pronouns. You can talk about them to yourself or to a non-judgemental friend. Do this while they’re not around, so they don’t feel uncomfortable. “It really helped me having a friend [to practise with] who I trusted to not judge me when I got it wrong.“ --An anonymous cisgender binary person.

Think about the person and use their pronouns. “I would narrate what they were doing in my head using their name and chosen pronouns, so like. ‘They sat down and opened their textbook for the class.’” --Mason

Write about someone and use the pronouns you want to learn. Something magical about writing fixes things in our memories. Write about the person whose pronouns you’re trying to learn, or write a story about a fictional person with those pronouns. Compose a selection of phrases that use all five forms of the pronoun, and write them down. Rewrite a passage of a book you’re reading with different pronouns. “Every time you bugger up someone's pronouns, write a paragraph about them in your journal as practice - just, like, nice things about them - and do make it about focusing on them and who they are, not at all about your mistake or punishing yourself for it.“ --Anna K

Listen to/read works by other people using the pronouns. Podcasts, YouTube, fiction and non-fiction books, newspaper articles, queer socials where folks have a lot of nonbinary friends...

“Practice getting it wrong as well as getting it right, so that you can correct yourself smoothly and automatically.” --Anna K

~

TRICK YOURSELF

"Imagine your friend has a tiny buddy on them, like a puppet in their pocket, and you're talking about your singular friend and their buddy, so: ‘them’. Eventually you'll get used to saying they/them/their.” --An anonymous cisgender binary person.

Draw on your prior experience. If you’re queer and you’ve had to do the Pronoun Dance when talking about your partners before, pretend to yourself that you’re deliberately hiding someone’s gender from the person you’re talking to. If you’re used to not knowing friends’ genders because you only know them online, pretend to yourself that you’ve never met your nonbinary friend AFK before. “The most effective way I can get myself in the mental frame to consistently use they/them pronouns for someone who I've previously known as she/her or he/him, is by thinking of it as like I don't wish to disclose this person's gender to the audience (even if the audience is myself, in my thoughts).” --S

Many people commented that tricking yourself often naturally and accidentally leads to...

~

CHANGE HOW YOU THINK ABOUT GENDER

“View the people you're talking about as people, and their gender(s) as valid. This is the most helpful thing.“ --Kaelen

Start using singular they when talking about people whose genders you don’t know. This was recommended by a LOT of binary people. It cements the idea that you can’t know someone’s gender or pronouns unless they’ve told you, and it detaches pronouns from gender presentation and your own assumptions based on appearance.

Research genders that defy the binary. Get comfortable with the subject, understand that what people tell you about themselves is important and personal to them, and accept that any gender that someone earnestly tells you they experience is valid.

Get used to the idea that you don’t know anyone’s gender until they tell you. “If I knew Shirley used they/them pronouns, I might slip and say ‘she is over there’ but if I train myself to believe I am not fully aware of their gender (only they are!) than I can say ‘they are over there’ more confidently and assured.” --Maria

Think of people as masculine and feminine instead of male and female. “Something that I'm sure also helps is seeing certain looks/types not as "male/female" but as fem/masc. There can be a masc female, a fem male, and so on and so forth.” --An anonymous nonbinary trans-masc person.

~

IN THE MEAN TIME

If you’re struggling, use the person’s name in a pinch. It’s better than misgendering them, and it can keep the natural flow of conversation going so that it’s not all about their pronouns.

When you mess up, correct yourself and move on. “I think I'm a lot less likely to make the same mistake again if I catch myself and amend it.“ --helen

Don’t say sorry, say thank you. "If you misgendered someone and are corrected pls say “thank you” rather than “I’m sorry” - apology forces that person to tell you it’s ok, which is strange. THANK YOU suggests that u understand it’s not okay and you’re grateful to have been corrected!” --Dan Owens on Twitter.

~

BE KIND TO YOURSELF

Accept that you’ll make mistakes and that’s okay. “There is no fast, there's no short cut for it except making sure you do it regularly, and correcting yourself when you inevitably get it wrong. It isn't actually a huge deal, most non-binary people recognise the difference between a slip up (particularly if you knew the person pre-coming out) and wilful misgendering.” --CJ Atkinson

Privately say/think kind things to yourself when you get it right. Learning new pronouns can be really hard and positive reinforcement is good for you!

Forgive yourself when you get it wrong. Don’t beat yourself up, because everyone gets it wrong sometimes and you can’t learn if you don’t make mistakes. “Don't punish yourself for slipping up. As long as you're trying you're good.” --An anonymous trans binary person.

Start easy and work up. “When it comes to neopronouns they become easier to use after learning they/them because you've already got a base to work off of, if you will.” --An anonymous nonbinary trans-masc person.

~

DON’T PUT IT ON THEM

It’s your responsibility. If you’re reading this then you probably already know this! No one should have to work to have their identity recognised and respected, no matter how uncommon their pronouns are. “Not putting the onus of correction on the person I've misgendered has been key for me.” --helen

Don’t ask a nonbinary person to correct you. It is exhausting and depressing to have to correct other people on your pronouns all the time. If you need someone to correct you, ask your binary friends to correct you and each other, whether the nonbinary person is within earshot or not.

Don’t talk to them about how hard their pronouns are. Nonbinary people have to deal with a steady stream of “I’m really sorry, I am trying but it’s just so hard.” We know it’s hard for some people and we get it, but we also know that it is possible and quite frankly, as the people in the middle ring of the Kvetching Order we’re not the ones you should be complaining to.

McArfield fic (Tony night redux)

Ahahaha I am just FILLING EVERYTHING AT ONCE this is kinda combining the prompt for drunk Andrew/sober-ish James again with @jamespttr​‘s suggestion that Andrew just start publicly calling James his boyfriend before James even realizes they’re dating, lol, and obliquely her idea that they figure out the way they feel about each other is NOT a typical side effect of playing Louis and Prior, lololol, and also i’m throwing in this prompt for “fic where james teases andrew abt his answer for the fmk question at the tonys!!!!!” for good measure, lolol, with maybe a smattering of someone else’s prompt for third-person POV lolol, except then i also saw that picture of james and andrew and it just competely scrambled my brain so idek anymore *just bakes a giant cake of this fluff *

_______

It takes a hilariously long time for James to begin to understand that this thing that they do isn’t Andrew’s ordinary thing that he does.

Like when Andrew comes to the stage door after the show and wraps his arms around James’ waist and bites his ear, and people at the stage door start asking them if they’re actually dating IRL, and James flushes and ignores the question but Andrew hums and winks at everyone at once, and James eyerolls and has to un-derail his thoughts.

Like when they’re at the Drama Desk Awards and Andrew uses up his entire time praising James, and then blows James a kiss that James automatically catches when he’s coming offstage, and then puts his hand in James’s and laces their fingers together when he sits back down, like that’s just the way they are.

Or like when Andrew starts ordering James’s drink for him at bars without asking because somewhere over the past two years he’s learned what James is having, and so it only makes sense to return the favor, and James finds himself fetching drinks for Andrew, to be met with a soft, “Thanks, babe,” and a quick kiss on the lips.

Or the time Andrew gets way too drunk at some party they’re at over in the Ace, and he just kind of wants James’s hands on him everywhere.

“You’re supposed to be an amazing dancer,” he says grumpily, trying to drag James onto the dance floor. “Why aren’t we dancing?”

“Well, I don’t just give it away,” James says, laughing and letting himself be tugged forward into the throng of bodies.

“You’ll give it to me, though,” Andrew tells him smoothly, confident as anything, and slinks against him like they do this all the time, and they don’t quite wind up making out on the dance floor, but it’s a very, very close thing.

Actors are constantly hooking up and fucking backstage, and James is no stranger to this lifestyle, but he is a bit thrown not long after that when people start giving him and Andrew space when they enter a room and find the two of them together, like they’ve interrupted something private.  

“Did we turn a corner I missed?” he asks Andrew one night, tucking a lock of his hair back behind Andrew’s ear. They’re in Andrew’s dressing room, casually wrapped around one another, because that’s how they are, and Andrew hums and then snakes his hand up James’s shirtfront.

“While you weren’t looking, we took over the whole damn block,” he says calmly, and then he sinks to his knees and opens James’s trousers.

So then they’re fucking on the regular, and that’s something James isn’t altogether prepared to analyze, even if he did think it meant anything (it doesn’t), and even if he thought Andrew was prepared to deal with what it might mean for his straight-for-now status (he isn’t).

But it’s also good, good and natural and addictive, and, and dizzying. And that’s terrifying: James is the kind of guy who likes quick, simple, easy fucks, none of which this is; and it’s Andrew, and that’s even more terrifying; but it’s also Andrew’s body and hands and mouth and Andrew murmuring James’s name in that ethereal orgasmic voice; and Andrew’s perfectly Andrew-ish way of approaching sex. Like the way he will suddenly decide they should be having tantric sex or yogic sex without telling James first, or deciding to experiment with appendages that he then loses around James’s dressing room and has to spend a hilarious amount of time finding again because they tend to just fling stuff everywhere and deal with the fallout later.

And, and Andrew is Andrew, and James is leaving for Scotland after all of this is over, and nothing is set in stone, James knows that, and they’ve never talked about it, but then Andrew does some panel talk and refers to James as “my wonderful boyfriend, James McArdle,” and just completely glosses over the opportunity to clarify whether he means James and himself or Louis and Prior, despite the confusion of everyone around him.

And then Tony night, when Andrew jokes that he’ll marry Mark Rylance and then fuck all his other fellow nominees, and then slides his hand in James’s and says, “Unless someone brings me a better offer.”

“What, better than Mark Rylance?” James laughs. “You’re joking.”

“Well, I did say all my fellow nominees,” Andrew says. “Didn’t say which award.”

“You’ll have a long list of partners, then,” James says.

“And I’ll put you at the top,” Andrew says, staring shamelessly at James’s mouth.

Later, at the Carlye for the after party, he’s chatting with Joe and Zach about their favorite son of a bitch, and in the middle of kvetching about how difficult it is to stay in Louis’s headspace, he remarks, “And it’s so hard to sort out your own feelings from his, like, I don’t know how you and Stephen or you and Christian managed to extricate yourselves from what was happening onstage—” only to see them exchanging blank looks.

“Like, sexually, you mean?” Zach says. He laughs. “Christian and I never had that problem, I was already in a relationship, and we didn’t get wires crossed.”

“Stephen and I totally fell in love,” Joe says, “in a way, you know — like, we still talk all the time, we’re still incredibly close friends. But, no, we never confused our feelings for the character’s.”

“But you were playing them for so long,” James says, feeling like someone’s sucked all the air out of his lungs.

Joe looks at him and snorts. “I think you should probably go have a chat with your boyfriend,” he laughs.

James laughs, gobsmacked. “Apparently, I should.”

He doesn’t have to wait long, because Andrew finds them and beelines into James’s side. He curls his arm around James’s waist, and James follows suit automatically.

“Hey, lover,” Andrew says, kissing James’s cheek, and James unthinkingly presses a kiss against his forehead before his brain suddenly grinds to a halt.

Oblivious next to him, Andrew is asking, “Have the three of you had some kind of ceremonial wisdom exchange? Have you imparted unto my one and only all the secrets of prior Louises?” He giggles. “Prior Louises!”

“Oh, yes,” ZQ says sagely, casting a shrewd glance at James. “I think we’ve given him a full dose of our combined homosexual fairy dust.”

“Ooh,” says Andrew. He turns to James. “Sounds kinky,” he says. “I hope I get some of that glitter on me later.”

“You are a walking glitter stick,” says James.

“Then you’d better take me home and crack me open,” says Andrew calmly.

There’s a beat where James just stands there, his hands on Andrew’s waist, adjusting to the surreal reality that they’re here, they’re doing this, and he looks like a possessive boyfriend because he is one.

He takes a breath, turns and nods, “Gentlemen,” to Quinto and Joe, and silently pivots Andrew away from them and out of the room.

“Oh!” Andrew says. “You’re taking me somewhere, where are we going?” He laughs. “Actually, you’re frogmarching me, how adorable.” He lets James half-tug, half-shove him along the corridor and away from the party into the men’s lounge, which is not an ideal place to have this conversation but is, at least for the moment, empty.

“Ooh, privacy,” Andrew says.

The moment the door shuts, he turns to James and says, “You look so amazing tonight, I just want—” and kisses him, full and deep. James slides his hands around Andrew’s waist and kisses back for an intoxicating, breathless moment until he forces himself to focus and pulls back.

“Andrew,” he says, cupping Andrew’s cheek. “People are going to come in here, they’re going to see us together, they’re going to make assumptions. Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” says Andrew, “Now kiss me some more.”

“I am—” James laughs a little hysterically. “I am desperate to do that, but you’re a little drunk, babe.”

“Ugh,” says Andrew. “You’re so good at this, why do I have such amazing taste in sexual partners, I always get people who respect me when I want them to shag me.”

“Let me take you home and I’ll respect you all night,” James murmurs, pressing a kiss against his temple.

Andrew pulls back. “We’ve never done that, you’ve never stayed at my place.”

“You’ve never invited me.”

Andrew blinks at him. “I dunno how to do this,” he says blankly.

“What is this?” James asks him, honestly unsure.

“Be your boyfriend,” Andrew says, and James feels gut-punched for the second time that night.

“You’re leaving for Scotland,” Andrew says, pressing himself against James’s chest, “We’re not supposed to be doing this, I told everyone I was straight, and you should have won a Tony instead of me.”

“I don’t think those all connect up logically,” James says, pressing a kiss against Andrew’s wonderful, perfect mouth.

“James,” says Andrew, expelling James’s name in a plaintive little sigh. “You know I, we, this isn’t just—it’s not, right?”

James takes Andrew’s hands in his and stills him. “I know, sweetheart,” he says.

“Good,” Andrew says. “Because it’s really, really, really not.”

James smiles and kisses him. Beside them, the door opens and immediately whoever’s behind them sputters, “Oh! Oh, gosh, sorry, I—”

Andrew breaks away and beams, “No, no, come in, I’m just making out with my boyfriend.”

James turns apologetically to the person beside them — who is, of course, Andrew Lloyd Webber.

“Sir,” says James dumbly. “I mean—My Lord? Sorry. Er. Sorry. We were just, er, sorting some things out.”

Andrew grins and presses a kiss to James’s cheek. “We’re boyfriends,” he tells Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber in a conspiratorial voice. “You’re only the third person to know.”

Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber looks between them.

“No,” he says mildly, a gleeful smirk spreading across his features. “I’m pretty sure we all knew.”