Feel free to copy/paste my tags if you like them, JUST GIVE ME AN @takiki16 OR AT LEAST A ‘PREV TAGS’ CREDIT BEFORE YOU DO!
Fandom should always strive to be better. Proud participant in the End OT3 Racism campaign, which called on OTW (@transformativeworks) to address harassment and racist abuse on AO3 and to encourage fans and members of AO3 to push for change and make fandom a better and more welcoming space for all. Read the call to action to learn more about the campaign. Check out this post for a brief rundown of some of the reactions.
imagining a world where arlan dies just a tad too early for dunk to claim he’s a knight and he instead meets steely pate who takes him on as an apprentice
Quite frankly yall need to be projecting more on the doms. Make the DOM have guilty sexual fantasies !!! Maybe the DOM is shamefully staring at the ceiling after waking up from a dream!!! Yall are cowards. Do none of you have any appreciation for the noble dom identity crisis. Do none of you have any respect for guilty sadists with control issues and who desperately want autonomy for once in their damn lives and who just want to Keep someone, for once, who want to be allowed to Want and Take . Do NONE of yall have any respect for sadists realizing with horror how badly they want to hurt the person they would do anything to protect and take care of and make smile? Cowards, all of you.
Ultimate basic white girl name, like the lass who sat next to you in school and had pigtails and drew little hearts over her “i”s. The Duke Leto of the Atreides, House Major of the Galactic Padishah Empire… and his girlfriend, Jessica. Hilarious.
She falls in love with the biggest wife guy in the universe, and he won’t marry her. Hilarious.
Duke Leto loves her and trusts her fully, despite knowing that she’s a witch from the long line of witches who do rapey mind control stuff for eugenecist reasons. He just reckons she’d never do that to him. And he’s RIGHT – she’s been painstakingly trained in mind control and she never uses it on him and they just have consensual sex like normal people, thanks very much. Hilarious.
She’s been raised, conditioned, and trained so she can accomplish one (1) task: have a baby girl with Leto. When it comes down to it, she reckons he’d be disappointed at the gender reveal so decides to have a boy instead, upending 10,000 years of meticulous planning and concerted effort. THEN, she ends up having a girl with him afterwards anyway. Hilarious.
She births a messiah to make her bf happy and piss off her bosses, and then births an abomination completely unintentionally. Hilarious.
Despite her Bene Gesserit training and bodily awareness and general deep understanding of things, she somehow doesn’t realise that going through the Spice Agony while pregnant will have an effect on her foetus??? Corazon mio, smoking a cigarette has an effect on your foetus. Not eating enough spinach has an effect on your foetus. Taking a massive overdose of a lethal drug was probably going to have some foreseeable side effects. Hilarious.
When Leto II and Ghanima are preborn and 9-year-old Leto II tells her that he and Ghani can remember her and their granda getting it on in extreme visceral detail and her first reaction is to that mentioning it was a little gauche of him, actually. Hilarious.
In conclusion Lady Jessica funniest character in Dune actually, no notes
no cuz jessica became the ultimate girl name bc of the character… the name spiked in popularity after dune was released… i assume herbert just wanted a weird name for his character and it ended up becoming mainstream
(trying this again bc it posted all jank the first time)
a month ago i said i was a bees dick away from finishing this, but some bees dicks are bigger than others bc im still not done
thinking ill have to go back and retcon some things to get the story back on track, but until then here's the beginning of chapter three
Neither of them spoke when they entered the tent. It was a familiar stalemate, neither one of them was particularly free with apologies, at least not ones spoken. Dunk was too stubborn, Baelor too princely. I will not apologize. Not for this, Dunk thought. Maybe it would be the smart thing to do; to go to one knee and beg Baelor's pardon, and lay the blame on Ser Donnel. He wouldn't do that. It was ill done to conceive of the plan behind Baelor's back, that much was true, but the idea itself was sound enough and Dunk had told Ser Donnel that he would at least try to convince Baelor.
After long enough had passed that it was clear Dunk was not going to break first, Baelor spoke. “I can not run from this Duncan, you must understand that.”
He did not sound angry. Dunk had been prepared for that, had been prepared to argue. He didn’t know what to do with the pleading tone Baelor used, like he was begging Dunk to understand. Baelor did not beg, he rarely even asked. Commanding came to him as easily as breathing, Dunk knew. Yet this was unmistakable. What was unspoken was still clear enough; don’t have us fight again, not now.
“Maybe I'm as thick as everyone tells me, but I don't understand it.” Dunk said. A lie. He did understand, at least logistically, that it wouldn’t be as easy as Ser Donnel had made it out to be, even for just Baelor and his guard. It was certainly possible though. And what Dunk truly didn’t understand was why Baelor was determined to dismiss the idea outright, why he was so eager to charge into a battle they were almost certain to lose.
“How many men do you think will still follow me when they find out that I left them to die? That I ran like a whipped dog while they fought for me. We are already losing this war, I can not afford to lose any more support.”
“It won't matter how much support you have because you'll be dead,” Dunk said, perhaps more bluntly than he had intended it.
“No,” Baelor said. He was not pleading anymore, now that Dunk had started this Baelor was all cool logic; reducing the problem to its simplest notes, devoid of any emotion, a tacticians mind. It served him well on the battlefield, but it drove Dunk mad when it was used against him. “That is when it will matter most of all. This war does not end with me. If I die, these men must fight for Matarys.”
Matarys, a second son who was never meant to be king. Who had been hidden away on Dragonstone for most of the war. Who had never won any great victories, or proved his valor in battle. Who was not well known by the men, not loved and respected the way Baelor was. It would have to be Baelor’s legacy that inspired these men to keep fighting. It didn’t have to come to that though, not if Baelor would just see sense.
“And if you die and the war is still lost? What good will it have done then?” Dunk asked.
“No good at all, but it is a risk I am willing to take.”
“Does your own life mean so little to you?”
“It is not for me to decide what my life is worth-”
“I swear Baelor if you start talking about the fucking seven right now-” Dunk snapped, but was cut off before he could finish.
“It is not about the Gods, it is about duty.”
“Oh fuck your duty.”
“Really?” Baelor was unimpressed. Somehow, his lack of reaction made Dunk even angrier. He wanted an argument now, though he could not explain why.
“Yes. I do not care about your duty, I care about your life. I would walk Bittersteel to the Iron Throne myself if it meant your life.”
“The only way I can escape this war with my life is if we win. We cannot win if Bittersteel holds Crackclaw point. The only way we even have a hope of preventing that is to win this battle, and pray that Dyre Den and Salt Stone don’t fall. That is our only hope at survival. You know as well as I do there will be no mercy for me and my family if we lose. Bittersteel will rip out House Targaryen root and stem. So if you wish to protect me, help me get my armor on.”
It was clear that in Baelor’s mind, that was the last word on the subject.
“Truly, this is the only way?” Dunk asked. “Not the only way you like, or the best way. It is our only option?”
“I would not lie to you.” Baelor said, and Dunk knew it was true.
“Do you believe we can win this?”
There was a long pause, which did not bring Dunk any comfort. “Battles have been won against worse odds.” Baelor said. It was not an answer, not truly, but it told Dunk what he needed to know all the same.
“Right. Well.” Dunk said. The last vestiges of his anger withered away, replaced by a dull resignation. “Armor it is then.”
Their armor was in a pair of heavy wooden chests, which Baelor must have started unpacking while Dunk was talking to the other kingsguard; a few pieces were already tossed on the bed. Dunk quickly finished unpacking the rest of it, while Baelor dressed in his arming doublet, and started to work on his greaves. The fastenings were tricky to do for oneself though, and wouldn't catch.
Dunk lightly swatted his hands out of the way, “Let me do it,” he said. He doubted Baelor had armored himself in the last ten years, maybe ever. A Prince would have always had a squire, or more likely two as he did now. It wouldn't do for Baelor to die because he had put his own armor on improperly.
He took the piece from Baelor, knelt in front of him and pressed the armor into place around his calf. The stud found the opening easily, and clicked into place with a metallic snick. Dunk repeated the process on Baelor’s other leg. It was easy to fall into the old routine, even one ten years in the past. Baelor’s hand came to rest on Dunk’s head, fingers tangled in his hair. That never used to be part of the routine. Dunk closed his eyes for a brief second, and let himself imagine that the messenger had never come. That he was still sitting at Baelor’s side, his Prince stroking his hair, everything blessedly calm. They used to spend hours like that on quiet evenings in Baelor's solar, Dunk dozing off while Baelor finished his work for the day. If he thought about it too much, the longing became an almost physical sensation, heavy in his chest.
“You’ll distract me if you do that,” Dunk said. The hand went away without a word. He could not allow himself that sort of comfort now. He could not be Duncan, in the honey sweet way Baelor said his name when they were alone together. He needed to be Dunk, the squire, who had put on his Ser’s armor a thousand times, who had quick deft hands, who was not slow and clumsy with want. And after that, he would need to be Ser Duncan, a knight of the kingsguard, who fought without fear to protect his prince. There was no place for Duncan here.
“I am sorry to reduce you to the role of a squire,” Baelor said. Dunk wondered if after all these years Baelor still did not realize the hold he had on Dunk, that there was nothing Baelor could ask of him that he would not do.
“I am reduced to nothing, not if it's for you.” Dunk said.
Baelor's hand twitched minutely, as if he had wanted to touch Dunk again, but had restrained himself.
Dunk forced himself back to work. Cuisses next. He pointedly did not let his hands linger on Baelor’s thighs as he did up the buckles, and secured the laces to the arming doublet.
“You have been good to me Duncan.” Baelor said. “Better than I have deserved.”
It sounded like the beginning of a goodbye. Dunk let the words wash over him, tried not to linger on them. He worked his way up Baelor's body.
“I haven't told you, not properly, what you mean to me. But it does not escape me that this might be the last chance I get.”
No, Baelor had never told him, not in words. But that wasn't their way. Baelor had all his courtly graces and fine words, but he did not use them for Dunk, who did not care for such things. Baelor had shown him though, from the very beginning, had never allowed Dunk to have any doubt that his place was at Baelor's side. [words words words]
Baelor started to speak again, but Dunk stopped him. “I can’t,” he said, shaking his head, “I can’t hear that right now.” Each word Baelor spoke pulled Dunk farther away from where his mind needed to be; drew him down a winding path of thoughts and memories, none of which were useful, all of which made his heart start racing, made his skin feel too tight, made him feel vaguely ill.
“Tell me after.” Dunk said. That was better, after was a promise that they would both survive long enough for Dunk to hear it. Baelor pursed his lips unhappily, but was silent after that.
colugos are amazing!! there are only two species of them and they’re found in southeast Asia. they may resemble bats, but they’re in their own order (Dermoptera) and their closest relatives are primates!
they’re also sometimes referred to as flying lemurs which is funny because they neither fly nor are lemurs :) they ARE able to glide though, and they eat fruit, leaves, and flowers. their incisors are super cool and have grooves that help them feed and also groom themselves!!! they are so interesting and amazing and more people need to know about them!!!!!!!!
