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imaginesappho · 7 days

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1.3 | STORMY REVELATIONS [ CC ]

“In which secrets are spilled.”

THE LONGEST DRIVE OF her life ended in a decrepit shack in the middle of the sea. A storm had started raging before they’d reached the rock upon which the rotting structure stood. It kicked up the wind and sprayed the walls with icy mist which seeped in through the cracks.

Elodie shivered after a search for something to shield her from the elements proved futile. Not even the fireplace could provide heat as it was far too damp for a fire to start. With only one bedroom, Dudley had claimed the couch, leaving Elodie and Harry to huddle on the dirt floor.

She didn’t know what her father hoped to accomplish by putting his family through this. They had already seen what the letters had to say and realized some of the animosity towards them—resentment which was entirely new to her. A deep hatred she’d felt radiating from her father. A fear which vibrated from her mother and brother.

At least she still had Harry. She supposed he had always been more of a brother to her than her own. He’d been there for her through everything in her life just as she’s been at his side for however much support she could give.

Elodie looked down when he shifted again. He’d tossed and turned for the past hour, unable to find even a patch of comfortable earth. She shrugged off her cardigan and draped it over his restless body. Her skin froze under the exposure, but she didn’t mind if it meant he could be a little bit warmer.

Her finger traced a distinct shape in the dirt. An image slowly started to appear. It was nearing midnight. She could only work with what was in front of her, but she knew he would most likely be ignored again, so she wanted to do something for his birthday. Even if that meant a mere wish and outline of a candled cake.

Harry’d had some bad birthdays in the past—most of them weren’t even acknowledged by anyone but Elodie—but she felt this one might be his worst yet. She also felt it was her fault. Maybe she should have listened to Harry when he first saw her letter and told her parents then. Maybe then her father wouldn’t have been driven so mad trying to stop them from finding out that he felt the need to whisk them off into the sea in the middle of a raging storm.

He shifted again and rolled over. His eyes cracked open to look up at her. She offered a small smile.

“It’s almost your birthday,” she whispered. Dudley’s digital watch read five minutes to midnight.

Harry groaned quietly and moved himself to sit up. He rubbed at his eyes behind his glasses, blinking away what little rest he did manage to get. She reached over to fix the wire frames when he nudged them askew. His glasses never did fit correctly, which was probably because they hadn’t been made for him. Vernon had grabbed them off of a Santa figurine years ago when he learned Harry needed help to see properly. She didn’t know how well they actually worked for him.

He looked at the cardigan on his legs. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked, noting the bumps along his cousin’s arms and how she shivered with each wind gust. He shook his head. “Here. You need it more than I do.”

Elodie wanted to protest. She wanted to tell him to keep it because he was cold, too, but the additional warmth called to her. It was too tempting to deny. Instead, she thanked him quietly and guided her arms back through the sleeves, hugging the fabric close to her body.

“I’m sorry I got us into this mess,” she whispered. “We wouldn’t be here right now if I hadn’t opened my mouth.”

“Don’t say that, Edie. None of this is your fault.” Harry looked towards the door leading to the bedroom where Vernon and Petunia slept. “It’s theirs. They shouldn’t have kept it from us.”

“But I’m the reason we’re here,” she reiterated.

“Uncle Vernon is the reason we’re here. He just wants to lock us away and pretend we don’t exist.”

The words stung. She wiped her burning tears away roughly. He shuffled closer and hugged her. Harry knew better than anyone what it felt like to be cast aside by your own family. He’d dealt with the loneliness of it his entire life. It was newer to Elodie, who was used to having her parents’ love even if they did tend to favor her brother.

Elodie still believed her parents loved her in their own way. Deep down, she knew they cared. They didn’t hate her—they were scared and wanted to protect her. Eventually they would come around and things would return to normal. They had to, didn’t they?

She looked at Dudley’s watch again and sniffled, pulling away from her cousin. “It’s midnight,” she announced. “Make a wish.”

She pointed down at the rough sketch in the dirt. The candles were crooked and the cake was lopsided, but Harry didn’t seem to mind. He closed his eyes for a moment before blowing. The dirt scattered and erased the image.

“Happy birthday, Harry.” Elodie leaned her head on his shoulder.

Suddenly, the rickety door thumped in sync with the flashing thunderstorm. Harry and Elodie jumped as the entire hut seemed to quiver under the force of whatever was on the other side. It thumped again, louder and more deliberate than the first.

Dudley shot up from the couch with a dazed look to his eye. He mumbled something about a cannon in his half-asleep stupor. Another loud bang echoed through the shack and vibrated the dilapidated wood slats. All three children scurried to their feet and sought out a place to hide.

Harry pulled Elodie behind the wall of the fireplace while Dudley cowered beneath a windowsill on the opposite side of the room. She could see the color change in her hair—or, rather, lack thereof. It had turned completely white as snow. While Elodie still didn’t know exactly what happened with her hair, she had figured out the colors were tied to her emotions.

White must have meant fear. It seized her entire body.

Vernon barged through the bedroom door with a rifle in his hand. Petunia followed closely behind him, eyes wide with apprehension.

“Who’s there?” demanded Vernon, raising his voice to be heard over the storm. “I’m warning you—I’m armed!”

The family waited with baited breath as the noise seemed to stop for a moment. Then, a particularly forceful thud knocked the door off its hinges and sent it crashing to the ground. Elodie gasped at the looming shadow illuminated by lightning standing within the frame.

Dark, shaggy hair seemed to cover his entire face in a wild mane and beard. Two beetle-like eyes glinted from beneath the tangled mess. He seemed to be a giant—he had to duck to enter the shack, his large figure just barely squeezing past the doorway.

The giant stooped to pick up the fallen door and fit it easily back into its splintered frame. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he said gruffly. “Couldn’t make us a cup o’ tea, could yeh? It’s not been an easy journey…”

Vernon aimed the rifle at the giant of a man. “I demand you leave at once! This is private property!”

“Dry up, Dursley, yeh great prune.” He grabbed the barrel and aimed it up towards the ceiling. It fired, blasting a hole that rained debris. Dudley whimpered.

The giant turned his attention towards him. “An’ here’s Harry! Mind, haven’t seen yeh since since you was a baby, but you’re a bit more round in the middle than I expected.”

“I-I’m not Harry…” Dudley’s eyes widened when the man addressed him.

Harry started to move when Elodie grabbed his arm. She pleaded with him silently. He pried her fingers off gently. “Stay here,” he whispered.

“Harry…”

“Don’t come out until I say, okay?” He waited for her to nod before he stepped out behind the wall. “I’m Harry.”

The giant grinned. “Well, o’ course yeh are! A very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat for yeh. Baked it myself.” He reached into his black overcoat and pulled out a box that looked like it had been squashed. “Mighta sat on it at some point, but I imagine it’ll taste fine just the same,” he said.

Elodie peered out to get a better look. Harry gingerly opened the box to a sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry scrawled in green icing. He thanked him, astonished that a complete stranger had gone out of his way to get him something.

“Who are you?” Harry set the cake aside.

“True, I haven’t introduced meself.” The giant chuckled and held out his hand. It completely engulfed partway up Harry’s arm. “Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. But yeh can jus’ call me Hagrid. Now, where’s li’l Elodie?” he asked.

Vernon and Petunia made a strangled noise. “You leave our daughter alone,” said Petunia. Her face blanched. “She will not be involved in this.”

Before Hagrid could respond, Harry spoke. “She’s already involved.” He looked back towards where his cousin hid in the shadows. “Edie, it’s okay,” he said.

Elodie slowly stepped out from behind the wall. Her hair had faded from platinum to more of a stormy hue. She swallowed thickly as she looked up at the giant of a man who had just made himself comfortable on the sunken couch.

Hagrid beamed. “Nice to finally meet yeh, Elodie. S’pose you two know all ‘bout Hogwarts o’ course.”

They shook their heads. Elodie looked to her parents. Vernon and Petunia idled in the background, seeming uncertain of how to proceed. She knew if Hagrid had been smaller in stature, her father would have made sure to make him leave. But, for the first time in her life, he seemed afraid.

“Well, where did yeh think yer parents—an’ yer aunt and uncle, Elodie—learned it all?”

Elodie and Harry frowned. Vernon and Petunia had never spoken of Harry’s parents unless it was with ill intent. They would say his father had been an unemployed drunk. Though, Elodie now realized, they never did talk about his mother directly. Only that the both of them had died in a car accident before Harry turned two years old.

“I’m sorry, but…” Elodie hesitated, glancing to her parents again before returning her gaze to Hagrid. “Learned all of what, exactly?” she asked.

Hagrid grew furious. His eyes gleamed dangerously. “It’s them who should be sorry!” he roared before rounding on her parents. “Do yeh mean to tell me that these kids—this boy an’ girl!—know nothin’ abou’ any of it?!”

Elodie jumped at his booming tone. Her hand shot out to grab her cousin’s. He gave it a small squeeze to reassure her, even though he seemed a bit frightened himself at the change in demeanor.

“They will not be going, I tell you!” Vernon grew red in the face. “We swore when we took him in, we’d put a stop to all this rubbish—and now he’s gone and corrupted my precious daughter!”

“Precious daughter?” Elodie’s voice whispered through the wind but still managed to reach everyone’s ears. She thought she’d be happy to hear those words, feel the love she had once experienced, but only darkness festered from them.

Her hair bled into garnet, starting at the tips and fading all the way to the roots. “You’ve locked me away for the past month,” she spat. “You isolated me from everything. Mum is the only one who still tried to love me—but you haven’t let her!”

“We did it for your own good, sweetheart,” said Petunia, reaching out as though begging her daughter to forgive her. “These people are dangerous. We didn’t want you to end up like… We want you to be safe.”

“No. You want me to be normal. Well, I’m not normal. You know I’m not normal. When are you and Daddy gonna accept that?”

Tears burned the backs of her eyes, and this time, she let them fall. She’d tried so hard to be strong. She was tired of pretending. Now, she needed them to see how much they’d hurt her—because maybe, if they knew, they would want to remedy it. They’d apologize and promise to accept her for who she was.

Vernon sneered. “We will never accept that you’re a freak like him. We didn’t raise you to be one of them.”

“But she is one of them—we both are,” argued Harry despite still not knowing exactly what that meant. “You knew this whole time and didn’t tell either of us!”

“Of course we knew,” snapped Petunia, the loving mother façade broken. “How could you not be, my perfect sister being what she was? She got her letter and went off to that—that school—and oh, Mother and Father were just so proud to have a witch in the family!”

Elodie pinched her lips together. Her aunt—Harry’s mother—had been a witch. A witch, like in a children’s storybook. Maybe that meant she was one, too, and Harry was a wizard. Magic had proven to exist in their lives. Everything seemed to make a little more sense now that it was being laid out in the open.

Petunia continued, “I was the only one who saw my dratted sister for what she really was—a freak! Then she met that Potter at school. They left and got married and had you”—She pointed at Harry with disgust—“and I knew you’d be just as abnormal. And then she had to go and get herself blown up, and now we’re stuck with two of you!”

There was that knife again. The blade dug in deeper still. Maybe she should be used to it by now, but she wasn’t. Their words still sting like a hundred hornets all at once. They were still her parents. At one point, they’d been her entire world.

Even when angry, she still felt the pain of the severed bond.

“Blown up?” Harry looked at his aunt and uncle accusingly. “You told me they died in a car crash!”

“CAR CRASH!” Hagrid’s roar made everyone in the hut jump. Vernon and Petunia scuttled back into the corner. “A car crash kill Lily an’ James Potter? It’s an outrage! Harry Potter not knowin’ his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!”

Petunia huffed. “Well, we had to say something, didn’t we?”

Vernon bulked up. “They will not be going, I say! I refuse to pay some old crackpot fool to teach them magic tricks!” he persisted.

Hagrid reached into his overcoat again and produced a pink umbrella. Elodie found the imagery a bit funny—or she would have if the current situation wasn’t so serious. Someone as large and gruff as Hagrid carrying an umbrella that was little more than a branch compared to his size.

He pointed it at Vernon and threatened, “Never insult Albus Dumbledore in front of me, muggle.” Elodie and Harry glanced at each other uncertainly. “Non-magic folk,” explained Hagrid absently upon seeing their confusion.

From the corner of her eye, Elodie noticed Dudley sneaking off with Harry’s cake. He already had chocolate smushed in his hands and smeared across his face. For once, she couldn’t exactly blame him. All they’d had to eat all day was a piece of toast, tinned tomatoes, a bag of crisps, and a banana. But Harry had never had anything that was his, and a cake was better than nothing at all.

Elodie, still fueled by the anger and hurt, snapped at her brother. “Dudley, that’s Harry’s cake!”

Hagrid looked over and switched his aim. With a crackle and jet of light, a pig’s tail sprouted from the boy’s buttocks. He, Vernon, and Petunia all shrieked. Dudley started crying and begging his parents to remove it. Even Elodie cracked a small smile at the mayhem. Her brother did have it coming, in her opinion.

The giant turned back to them. “I’d appreciate if yeh didn’t mention this to anyone. Strictly speakin’, I’m not allowed to do magic.”

Elodie raised an eyebrow but agreed with Harry to keep it between them. Hagrid beamed at them and pulled a pocket watch from his pocket. She wondered how much he actually had hidden in that overcoat.

“Bit behind schedule, I’m ‘fraid. Best be off now,” he said.

The children watched him cross to the door. He pulled it back out of its frame and let it crash into the dirt once more. Elodie flinched at the rain and sea spray being whipped in by the wind. She’d nearly forgotten how bitingly cold it was outside with everything that had distracted her.

Hagrid turned to see neither of them had moved from their spots. “Unless yeh’d rather stay, o’ course.”

He hummed knowingly and walked out into the harsh weather. Harry grinned and started after him. Elodie hesitated. She looked over to her family as they continued to wrestle with Dudley’s newest appendage. None of them bothered to even acknowledge she was still there.

Harry paused at the doorway. He called her name gently. She blinked and turned her reluctant gaze back towards her cousin. He said nothing more but held his hand out for her to take.

Elodie spared a final glance at her family before placing her hand in his.

#harry potter #philosopher's stone #sorcerer's stone #hermione granger #harry potter fanfiction #lesbian #wlw #wlw fic #gxg #chasing colors #elodie dursley #imaginesappho

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deepnerdblog · 1 year

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nerd shit redux

Reaper has a looper program called Super8 that basically lets you set midi trigger pads to turn Reaper into a livelooper setup, basically a script to enable looping features. I plan on learning it because I love loops and loop based song writing. So each trigger can set a lane active, or mute a lane, or maybe set a lane to be 4 times longer, or jump to a lane that has fx for lead or drum, or what have you. I have a usb keyboard that used to let you assign midi signals but the software currently stopped working. Old Axiom keyboards had awesome customizing software so each knob could be assigned any midi variable. Be cool if it worked but now I have transport tape style buttons that give Midi instrument change sequences instead of easier to use Midi CC code or some such. Solution? Either find a way to filter those midi codes and turn them into Midi CC, or simply label actual black note keys at a specific octave for my live loop controller. I really am curious if there is a good generic control footpedal pedal that can output ctrl voltage for eurorack, midi CC, on/off, sliding pedal CC, all the bells and whistles in a convenient pedal box. I know there are good utility midi foot pedals, but when you add in voltage out and whatchamacallit, the voltage that sets the amount on pedals/multifx (similar to eurorack CV but not 1 to 1 the same). So yeah, going to tap a keyboard and set it up for looping synths, guitar, drum machines live into reaper with the Super8. *But wait there is more fiddly bits*, there is a secondary recording medium. QSC mixers can have external midi to trigger transport buttons like rewind, record, and goto time, as well as arming and disarming channels- so that with super8 can mean I can have one surface triggering recording on both devices. Also reapers super8 can't record midi if i read that correctly, so maybe i can make a setup that puts midi in the laptop but also syncs the recording/tranport buttons on both devices (which is nice to have regardless of live looping). QSC made the firmware for their entry level digital mixer do a lot of the cool shit the fancier models can do. I love the sound of a SM7b mic recording a acoustic guitar into the QSC mixer/recorder with Kush Omega series vst to give it that teeny bit of mastering. I realized a little bit ago that suddenly I can record guitar and not hate the sound, and it's been a challenge how to make that fit into synths, drum machines, and 'writing music in the box'. Thus I need to learn super8, and also having both recording systems start on one button press is pretty sweet. (ideally sync doesn't shit the bed and i don't have to use LTC/MTC timecode as a master clock or anything).

so that's an ongoing project - meanwhile I also need to learn more songs on guitar and piano and improve my sense of pitch. its coming together nicely but it behooves me to be both playful and architectural in my approach. building a framework to vibe out on, but also improving the application of playing keyboards or multitracking things without having to fuck with it in editing.

multitracking

whats been useful is multitracking without headphones, as well as having vintage headphones with a really warm ear soothing midrange tone. i believe i saw concert footage where J Mayer was wearing vintage headphones. trying different things and the options help prevent ear fatigue. i've been making forays into mixing miced guitar with amped electric guitar. At some point I'm probably going to tackle full tracks with arbitrary limits to instruments, and layer classical, acoustic, electric tracks. Even a doubletrack of the same instrument sounds nice and 'phasey' thicc, but switching up instrument timbres and layering them is just appealing and feels musical. meanwhile i've tried layering piano chords from the triton behind acoustic guitar and it also sounds 'thicc' and charming. it is also finicky as all get out as a skill.

fucking with a odd idea wearing headphones until my ears hurt this morning.

i've been trying to fuck with some crazy not quite chocolate and peanutbutter type mixing elements to loop a particularly swingy classical sample with a improvised beat. i hit an entertaining wall this morning because i was trying to shoehorn a loose recording of this piano genius into a eccentric beat along with snips of riffing on guitar with a chewy bassy guitar humbucker sound. Competing tinny and shiny piano (with a elegant recording from fifty or more years ago) versus Triton drums versus the trimmed out random guitar pulsing experiment. And I kind of liked it, but the piano had been tweaked to fight a accelerating swingy performance, and there were some neat edits, but between the goofy beat and a lot of time stretching and trimming, the whole thing is chaotic af. Will have to return to it after resting my ears. years ago i filtered a movie sound track theme and alternated the filter and the sweeping sound of the chords slowed down and then added a buzzy detuned bassline - which didn't suck, but it didn't not suck enough either. why didn't it not suck? partially because i chopped it up, made three unrelated loops out of it that didnt glue back together as a song, and also because the buzzy detuned bassline was *not in key*. So now I'm fucking with a genius spanish piano sample and in the back of my mind I'm thinking 'should i learn to play a simplified version of this on piano? or do i just run this thing through melodyne and write out the main part of the theme so i can verify how things fit note per note.

One thing that really stood out as i time stretched and trimmed these loops is that when the edits were nudged 'just so' the beat underlaying the loop really would give a 'driving feel' or nudged the other way would be backbeat style off but in a close groovy kind of way.

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crispyjenkins · 3 years

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Rexobi. I really just wanna see Rex and Obi-wan drinking together and complaining about the disaster that is Anakin Skywalker. They decide to team up to get anakin to calm the heck down and to talk about his feelings. Anakin doesn’t realize what’s going on but gets the idea he needs to play matchmaker with his master and his captain. He thinks he’s the smart one but he’s really not

(i have once again chickened out of your full prompt and instead give you the leadup to rexobi getting anakin to talk about his feelings.

i uhhh may be unable to think of anything but a rexobi au à la this post by @norcumii and @dharmaavocado about roleswap-ish senior padawan obi hella vibing with this mutant clone that can’t get above the rank of captain even as an arc trooper because the kaminoans are Like That, and qui-gon is going spare, because between anakin somehow being allowed to be in charge of a whole battalion and obi-wan picking fights with every single seperatist leader, he and cody never get a moment of peace. and like. just obi and rex being dumbass 20 year olds trying to deal with a general/master like anakin in the middle of a war. i don’t have TIME for that though

thank you for the prompt as always, i think this is the only rexobi/obex prompt i’ve ever gotten and this ship is criminally underappreciated. like?? kadavo?? anyways here’s whatever this is)

Alt+R to Quick Reblog on Desktop, Hold the Reblog Symbol to Quick Reblog on Mobile

Not for the first time, Rex wishes Kote were the one here dealing with this, because “how to comfort your favorite Jedi” hadn’t exactly been covered in ARC training – actually, Alpha probably withheld the information on purpose, the fucker.

But Kote is on the other side of the galaxy with the 187th and just as upset they’re not here in Rex’s stead: it’s barely a month off General Kenobi returning to his own face, and Rex knows his vod would strangle the entire Senate if given even half a chance for deploying them separately on their general’s first mission back after the Hardeen... incident.

And Fett’s Ghost knows Rex’s own general is going to pitch a fit when he finds out Rex is here instead of taking leave like the rest of the 501st, but Kote certainly wasn’t about to let Kenobi go all the way to Alderaan unguarded so soon after his supposed death; and honestly, Rex would have been offended if they had asked anybody else to do it. Thankfully, Kenobi hadn’t seemed offended when Rex had shown up at the Jedi Temple’s flight hangar before he could take off; instead, he had been rather amused.

Even luckier, Alderaan is barely a day’s jump from Coruscant, so they don’t have to spend too much time awkwardly pretending that Rex hadn’t attended the man’s funeral in Kote's place (that he would have attended anyways), or that Rex doesn’t know Anakin hasn’t spoken to his former master since their debrief to the High Council about Cad Bane. Which Rex should absolutely not know in the first place, but Anakin is his friend, for better or for worse, and Ahsoka thinks her master airs far too many of his grievances to his captain.

It isn't until their cruiser is making the descent over Alderaan that Kenobi finally addresses the tension between them, which only proves that Kenobi is well aware of it, but had put it off as long as he could. It's a humanising observation, that Rex wishes he could have had when he isn't the only vod in a ten mile radius that isn't the pilot, because at least then he wouldn't be the sole receiver of the soft smile Kenobi gives him as he joins Rex to wait by the shuttle's access hatch.

Rex thanks his progenitor's laughing corpse he has his bucket on, because all he can do is stare.

"You are worried about Anakin," Kenobi says matter of factly, though not unkindly, and Rex lets out a breath that's almost a laugh.

"I promise I am far more discrete with my thoughts in the field, sir."

Kenobi chuckles warmly, tucking his arms behind his back to watch the planet under them grow larger as they approach. "Do try not to worry so much, my dear, this will all resolve itself in time."

It's hard to stare right at his gentle assuredness, so Rex looks away. "You have far more faith in his ability to forgive than I, sir."

That laugh strains at the edges. "Yes, well, I'm afraid some of my lessons seem to have been... lacking."

Rex has regs carbon-printed on his brain, he knows that even without the direct chain of command, the soft push and pull of his relationship with Kenobi, the steady, serene growth of it, is... problematic, for so many reasons that he wouldn't know where to start. Not least of all is rank, how much more important a Jedi is than a replaceable CC-track washout, but, well, Rex had washed out for being too emotional, so it's not as if he's exactly unused to reacting to things inappropriately for a good little soldier.

"It's not my place, sir," he murmurs, remembering Kadavo, remembering Umbara, remembering the hand Kenobi had laid on his shoulder for far too long after the Blue Shadow virus, and has Rex really been this gone since then? "just say the word and I won't mention it again. But just because Kote isn't here doesn't mean you have to... shoulder all of this alone."

In fact, it's wildly not his place to make such an offer, however implicit, but that month on Kadavo did happen, and Rex isn't so self-deprecating to believe he hadn't had a heavy hand in helping Kenobi make it out on the other side as well as he did. He doesn't think so little of the bond they had formed then, to believe that Obi-Wan is unaware of it.

Not when he smiles at Rex like that, like he's a warm cup of caf after a week in the trenches, like Rex is... worthy of such sincere affection.

As the shuttle settles around them and the pilot announces their arrival over comm, Obi-Wan simply says, "I did not for a moment believe I was, my dear."

"You and Rex seem close."

Normally Obi-Wan can feel Anakin coming from an entire corridor away, but he also knows Quinlan has been teaching him a few Shadow tricks, so he isn't entirely surprised when Anakin appears at his elbow in the empty bridge looking like a smug necu.

Aside from eating firstmeal with Kote in the mess, Obi-Wan hasn't even seen Rex today, much less interacted with him: as he understands it, Rex is trying to round up the remaining 501st shinies that are running around the Negotiator, so Obi-Wan really doesn't know where Anakin had gotten that notion. Recently, at least.

Anakin rolls his eyes and scoffs, leaning back on the railing next to him and crossing his arms. "Please, Master, even Snips has noticed."

Obi-Wan refrains from telling him that anyone with a modicum more self-awareness than him has noticed. Be that as it may, "This is one of those times where I truly don't know what you're trying to say, my dear: I have been close with Rex since he was in the 212th."

It isn't even an exaggeration, that there had been... something between them before Anakin whisked Rex away to his own battalion after his knighting, though back then it had been nothing more than friendship. If he recalls correctly, and he does, the cleanup of the Ryloth capitol had been the first time since then that they had worked closely, while Anakin had been on the ground with the locals and Mace had been with General Syndulla, and Obi-Wan had found he still quite enjoyed the way they worked together. Their time on Naboo combating the Blue Shadow virus had only endeared the captain more to him —he does remember a slip in propriety in his relief that Rex had been rescued safely with Padmé and Ahsoka, a hand left too long on the captain's shoulder until Kote had called him away— enough that Obi-Wan had been both relieved and horrified that it was Rex there to support him on Kadavo.

"Cody said Rex was the one to go with you to Alderaan; you sure nothing 'happened' while you were there?" Anakin chuckles to himself like he's being incredibly clever, like there isn’t a hickey visible over the collar of his under tunic.

Obi-Wan raises a brow slowly and refrains from rolling his eyes. "Despite what you may believe, Anakin, not everyone leaps into committed relationships after life-threatening situations." Not that Alderaan had been life-threatening, it had actually been as close to actual leave as Obi-Wan has had the entire war.

"Please, it took Padmé and I ages to–"

Anakin seems to swallow his tongue, then, face rapidly going purple, and it really is a miracle the entire Republic doesn’t know about his marriage; the GAR certainly does.

Sighing, Obi-Wan checks the chrono and decides it isn't too early for another cup of tea. "If you have a specific question about my relationship with Captain Rex, I do wish you’d be direct, my dear."

Anakin splutters. "Relationship?!"

"Great Maker, Anakin, you’re easier to spook than a half-starved blurrg." He pats Anakin’s arm, his sonbrother floundering for anything other than abject confoundment, as Obi-Wan turns away from the bridge to go locate both tea, and his commander to hopefully finalise their newest mission orders. "Don't worry," he calls over his shoulder, "I'll actually let you come to the wedding, unlike someone."

Not that Obi-Wan has any such plans, Maker knows he and Rex have yet to address their feelings in the first place, but he'd be lying if part of him doesn't want to conspire with the captain in question —and perhaps Ahsoka— to see just how far they could take this before Anakin realises they're stringing him along.

Remarkably, Rex is waiting by Obi-Wan’s office with a flimsi cup of tea and a harried smile that promised quite the day chasing after shinies, and Obi-Wan decides conning his former apprentice can wait.

Mando’a: vod/e — “brother/s”, “comrade/s”, “sibling/s”, technically gender neutral but used most often in fandom as “brother/s”

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anarmorofwords · 3 years

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I kinda wanna write a better version of tlh where Tatiana is still insane but there's no Belial bc that makes zero sense to me

In this version there would be:

Kamanna done correctly with actual genderqueer rep and not toxic relationships

Barbra and Oliver bc fight me she didn't die

Genie and Filomena bc I love them and all the lightwoods are queer

The gracelet doesn't even happen bc I refuse to write that

Grace is pretty much still the same but she breaks off their(hers and james') relationship bc she notices that he loves Cordelia

No bad James. He's not a shitty person to Alastair, and he doesn't treat Cordelia like a sex object

Anna puts a stop to Kellington and Matthew's relationship before it gets serious. She also tries to get him to stop drinking all the time

Alastair apologizes around seeing them again for the first time. The merry thieves are a little reluctant because of some of the things he did but they don't actively try to keep him away from events that they're at

Matthew notices how Alastair looks at Thomas and locks them in the sanctuary with Genie and Cordelia's help

Grace gets badly injured due to a mistake in necromancy and Christopher helps her treat it without letting people know

Lucie meets Jesse, and falls in love ofc, so in order to bring him back successfully she asks Malcolm to train her in using her magic

Matthew opens up to his mom about the incident. She doesn't blame him at all and instead apologizes for often putting her work before him

Matthew finds out about Charles and Alastair because he found Alastairxs break up letter to Charles

Matthew, the mother hen he is, decided to attempt to murder his older brother, only being stopped by James who had been there at the right time

Kamala ends things with Charles and tells Anna that she still loves them and hopes that she will give her another chance

Anna told her that they needed time to think, and that she is worried how Kamala's reputation will be affected if anyone besides their friends and Anna's family finds out

Kamala respects her decision and doesn't contact her until Anna's ready to talk about things

The merry thieves don't ignore Christopher and they actively listen and help him

The merry thieves also aren't terrible to Grace bc they realize she's been isolated alone with Tatiana and 1) she might not understand what's saying/doing is wrong or 2) that sometimes she's trying to push them away so her abilities don't accidentally make them do something

Good tid parents

James and Alastair being respectful to each other despite personal differences

Matthew, Alastair, Kamala, Christopher, and Grace being besties, or as I call them, the neglected squad

No fetishizing mlm/wlw

Domestic cuddles and taking care of the other one when they're sick

Jesse/Lucie/Matthew pairing bc I love them and I refuse to pick between lucie/matthew and lucie/jesse

Christopher teaching Grace the elements(at the time) on the periodic table

Tatiana dies at the end yay

It's very unpolished and I'm open to b hearing any feedback and/or suggestions that anyone may have

The idea came to me and I decided it would be best if I told someone before I forgot

hi, I'm sorry it took so long,but I wanted to properly answer this and I keep having either internet connection issues or little time

DON'T BE SHY, WRITE THIS 👀

In all seriousness tho... THIS IS ABSOLUTE PERFECTION?!? I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START I AM UTTERLY IN LOVE WITH THIS IDEA, I NEED IT

Look, I've been on the verge of rewriting ChoI, and I keep saying I want someone to write a TLH that will live up to its potential, but I've never actually came up with a proper idea for it, and you?!! YOUR BRAIN DARLING THIS IS GENIUS

ok hold up I'll just react to each and every single one so

yes please?!? I mean it started off so sweet in EEV?! Also actually genderqueer Anna and not dancing around the subject like CC is doing now?! That's what they deserve, and that's what we all deserve too

yesss please. also just,,,, Barbara, the feminine, not-wanting-to-fight-which-doesnt-make-her-less-badass queen that she is, getting the page space and appreciation she deserves

that's actually brilliant?!? it would be so great, just imagine the new girl arrives for her travel year and Genie is completely awestruck. I'm so invested in Joshwood it's difficult to imagine not having them, but this is actually the only valid alternative?!

ok that's fine. I think it could still happen and be done well, but tbh for now... the gracelet doesn't seem to have done anything relevant to the plot itself? I mean yeah it messed up James's life and Jordelia, but what did it give Belial? Tatiana? nothing. It makes no sense atm.

could be! maybe she's still encouraged by Tatiana to befriend/seduce him, but without the gracelet it doesn't work out? or maybe James somehow manages to realize that she's in danger and he actually like,,,, kidnaps her? idk idk

yes. YES. just,,,,z James is a sweet compassionate literature nerd who accidentally makes a good leader and he actually cares about people, and not just judges them from his high horse; he does still have hero syndrome, but he's kind and respectful and overall a good character

ANNA INTERVENES ABOUT KELLINGTON PLZ. PEOPLE ACTUALLY NOTICE MATTHEW'S STRUGGLES. JAMES DOES, TOO, BECAUSE THERE'S NO GRACELET.

ok yes, so what about: basically TMT don't harass Alastair and accept his apology, and realize they were also being stupid and mean at times at the Academy (especially Math). Matthew doesn't want to accept Alastair's apology, because of The Sin, but his behaviour alerts the rest of TMT and they inquire what's wrong and he tells them about the sin and that's how he later tells his parents (because his friends encourage him) and as you say, she just hugs him and reassures him it's not his fault; so after that Matthew slowly begins to heal and accepts it wasn't Alastair's fault, and also since they've kind of adopted/started including Alastair in things, he can't help but notice he's actually changed and he even starts to grow fond of him

then like you said, Matthew notices Thomas likes Alastair PLEASE HE SO WOULD. I'm not sure about the Sanctuary, if it actually happens (I'll get to why later on), but him and Lucie get really invested in the matchmaking schemes, they include Genie/Kamala because these two are friends with Alastair (both? Or at this point only Kamala?) but they also share some Moments during their scheming/talking about love 👀 (yes I'm a Fairdale shipper, I think it's time to expose myself lol)

Which leads me to (sorry I'm going off order rn) YES YES YES LUCIE AND MATH PLEASE. A FELLOW SHIPPER, HELLO, NICE TO MEET YOU. But since we're actually fixing him then we can give Jesse a personality and I'm totally down for poly Math/Lucie/Jesse

Lucie seeking Malcolm's help in secret, morally gray heroine style?!? no, it's probably not legal. but also has there ever been a Shadowhunter like her? If the Law doesn't expect such situations, it can't really forbid them...

Plz Matthew ready to strangle the carrot when he learns about their relationship, YES. sure, maybe he's still not the biggest fan of Alastair, but he's seen how much the boy's been through and starts to develop an attachment to him, and besides, NO ONE DESERVES TO BE GROOMED AND TREATED LIKE THAT. He's SO MAD at Charles, and he confronts him about it - remembering Kellington as he does, and it makes him sick to think his brother would do the same thing to someone. Maybe he gets very emotional over this and later finally tells his friends about Kellington? Maybe they didn't know before, only Anna did? So when they all realize what was happening then they comfort him etc? Or maybe it's just Alastair that learns now, and the others knew before, and they share a bonding moment over that?

Injured Grace seeking Kit's help is a genius idea I didn't know I needed

Kamanna giving each other time and space and deciding they need to question their relationship and figure out if it actually makes sense would be great. Anna realising she's very privileged and Kamala doesn't have those same opportunities, and also in general realising coming out should never be pressured or forced. Just,,,, Anna being self-aware and respectful towards Kamala. Well-written Anna. Plz. Also Kamanna is actually developed and not just "in love" because,,,,, they're attracted to each other? Maybe even remaining friends while Anna makes up their mind?

yeah just TMT being more compassionate and less judgy because they're not written by Judith so her bias isn't projected onto them

It's not a want, it's a need. They adopt Alastair and Grace eventually. Like, maybe not literally - although, Grace? - but you know what I mean.

I think they all should just have various friendship dynamics and switch between them, because people need more than one friend group

no fetishizing, no watching your brother make out with his lover, yessss

yes domestic cuddles, affection, taking care of wounds, all those things. plz.

Gracetopher bonding over science yes

obviously. or maybe she's imprisoned?!

ok, now for some more notes/my ideas etc., if you don't mind:

I actually think Belial could still be featured? After all, I don't think Tatiana could do much on her own, and since she seeks help from demons, it makes sense to include a Greater Demon as well. But Belial would have to be a stronger villain, written better; I'll think more about this

if that was the case, the serial killer plot could still happen, but be done better. and it would allow for a scenario I talked about with @littlx-songbxrd to happen, where it's Alastair who's falsely accused of murder. It creates a great opportunity to explore some things, because we know Alastair is much more likely to be seriously suspected, considering all the prejudices and bad rep his family has and all that

...what do you say to well-written Jordelia? 👀 Cordelia hasn't been obsessively in love with James since childhood, she only had a crush then. And now that they meet again, she's fond of him but not in love, not straight away. They're both grown up, and different people, but as they spend more and more time together, they fall in love. What if Cordelia gets to flirt with some other boys first? What then. What if she ends up choosing James, instead of going for the only boy she's ever had feelings for and idealized since childhood. What if we even make it friends-to-lovers and have James be a little jealous at some point?! but not in a possessive awful way, just "oh damn oh no"

Now I won't know peace until this exists BUT THANK YOU

#ask answered #thank you this is brilliant #alt tlh #save for later #the last hours #tlh #anti cc #yes I'll be adding/thinking more about this I AM OBSESSED

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criquette-was-here · 3 years

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Long Due Replies

Hi everyone! It’s been some crazy few months for me. Real life has taken over completely so I didn’t have a chance to pay attention to my inbox. There are lot of asks on troubleshooting and I apologise for not being able to help on time. I hope everyone who needed help has got it somehow >.< There’s a crazy amount of messages, so I’m going to hide it under the cut.

@shutupshirley said:

Hi Criquette, I’m sorry because this is dumb, but I don’t understand how to install your neighbourhood lighting mod on an installation of Ultimate Collection... do I change out every lighting.txt file I can find across all the expansion and stuff packs? :/

Thank you!!!!

Hi @shutupshirley! I’m not a big specialist on windows version of TS2 and UC but I believe there are two folders you have to look at and they are ‘Fun with Pets’ and ‘Open for Business’

Anonymous said:

What do you imagine residents of Feverfew are called? I keep doing Peruvian but like Ferfewian or some

Oh, yes, I was thinking about this matter at some point! Feverfewian is what I came up with. I even found a wiki article about different names for different town inhabitants to sort of made it up a bit, but I haven’t write down the result I had and now I’ve lost it. I think feverfewians sounds best, it can even have some silly derivatives like ‘fewies’

@3sushiroll said:

Hi Criquette, I'm getting into SC4 and have been getting the hang of it while using the sims 2 hood planner. I've been starting to use bridges and have been using yours. When I put in the tile measurement into the hood planner (ex: 15 tile = 8 in SC4), it doesn't exactly line up in game. Does this usually happen for you and you put in a piece of fake road in the middle or am I just doing it wrong and it should line up super nicely? Thank you for all your wonderful creations!

Hi @3sushiroll! Yes, TS2 parses SC4 roads this way. I always put some decorative road in the gap or I make the shores narrower so that the bride would overlap the road. But to make slopes where the road ends equal, you have to use TS2 terraforming tool to make this flat empty piece of terrain right after the road end into slope so that it would look like the opposite.

Anonymous said:

Hi there, hope you're doing well! I downloaded your simple walkways set and noticed that they float. They don't sit on the ground properly. Is there anything I can do on my end to make them sit closer to the ground? Any help would be appreciated, thank you!

Hey anon! Thank you! Yes, this old set of walkways was made this way. Maxis made neighborhood mode roads float, so I had to do the same with road related decorations. But now you can use these Cobblestone paths or side walks from the Rural Charm, they’re as close to the ground as possible.

Anonymous said:

hey! would it ever be possible for you to create recolors of the cobblestone sidewalks in red brick/cobblestone?

Hi anon! I don’t think so :| I can’t even find the time to fix some Ferverfew related issues >.<

Anonymous said:

Hi Criquette. I liked Feverfew very much. I would like to make some of the houses multi-unit, keeping your doors in place. Is it possible to add the function of apartments to these doors? :)

Hi nonne! As far as I’m aware, you can only default replace those apartment doors which is quite useless. What you can do, is to put an apartment door right behind the front door. This, obviously, would eat up the space but could work as a solution.

Anonymous said:

Hello! I just downloaded Feverview and it's gorgeous! I can't believe all the little details you added, the effort and love you put into this project is incredible. I just had a small question: a few residential lots are fake apartments, I was wondering if you know how to turn them into functional apartments

Hi anon! I’m glad you liked Feverfew! ^__^ In theory, you can use SimPE or Lot Editor to change lot type from residential to apartment and then implement apartment doors somehow, but since I don’t have AL in my Super Collection, I have zero experience in that.

Anonymous said:

Hi Criquette! :) I just realized recently that if I delete objects in game, I have to delete first the recolors of it. I've already deleted a bunch of objects without knowing about this, so now my downloads folders has houndreds of recolors without meshes. Do you know about anything I can do to find and delete these orphans? (Delphys download organizer just can't make difference)

Hi anon! I’m definitely not a helper on the matter of keeping Downloads folder organised, sorry ^^’‘ I would thing about finding sets of files with similar names keeping eye on the absence of the word ‘mesh’ in the names, and looking at the file size at the same time. And that would take ages, obviously.

@ardyyy4 said:

Hello Criquette. I love Feverfew so much. But I have a problem. The grass and NHood objects are flickering together and it looks bad. How can i fix it? Thanks.

Hello Arda! That’s because of the neighborhood camera you’re using. I’d recommend you to install this particular camera just to get rid of flickering.

Anonymous said:

Hello! First of great content! Always been a fan! I was wondering if you could give a bit of advice with hood deco, I have downloaded an Ocean floor from Gwenke, and in lot view it only shows up at the very far edges, around my lot it is missing (it does show when render is set to small though). And it shows on beach lots too, I was wondering if you know of way to make it so that it is seen no matter what the view distance is etc? (I have the relevant cheats on btw) Thank you in advance!

Hey nonnie! Thanks :) Have you ticked off object hiding in the settings? Other than that, it could be camera issues.

Anonymous said:

is there a way to stop neighborhood decor from fading? I know there is the „boolprop dontmergenhflora“ cheat, but I still get some fading. for excample when I look at the lot from the street the NH decor by the street fades

That’s definitely sounds like object hiding option from the game settings :}

Anonymous said:

Hey how are you ? I hope all is well. I was wondering how is it that ts2 has no ski deco but in ts1 we had ski slope and skate lake !?? I was wondering can you and the sim community make deco or interactive items such as a ski slope or even snow shoes or just something that goes with seasons n BV pack ?

Hello anon! I hope you’re well too! Ski slope and winter sports related decos is something I wanted to make since 2016, but never had enough time to do so. Sometimes I even think about available TS2 technologies to make an animated ski lift and umm.. may be in the next ten years? ^^’‘

Anonymous said:

hello!! i'm sorry if u already answered something like this (i searched but found nothing) but the better nightlife isn't working for me :(( i put the better nightlife+voielle water on download fold and the decorations still flashing in pink light, i did something wrong? (i use win10) sorry for the inconveniente

Hey anon! Sometimes you have to do these weird steps in order to make it work:

remove Better Nightlife + water mod from your downloads folder,

load the game, load the neighborhood, make some changes, exit game

put Better Nightlife with water back. Toggle day/night with ‘L’ key to see if it works. If it’s not, than the problem is somewhere else. Pink flashing also could be unrelated to Better Nightlife, so I’d recommend to check TS2 graphics setting for Win10 manuals available.

Anonymous said:

Hello there, I'm having a problem with the rural charm, on lot view the roads have yellowish boards (idk how to explain exactly). I saw that was because of CuriousB terrain, but I don't have it downloaded anymore so I'm kinda confused. What should it be? Sorry for bothering,,,

Hello, anon! What’s current season you’re having in your game? It can be the season lighting differences that make roadside and terrain grass colors different. If it’s not, I’d check the Downloads folder to see if there’s still some terrain DRs I’ve forgot about.

@pinkflamingosims said:

Hi criquette! I was wondering if you have any idea why some hood deco cc crashes on mac, like palm 1 to 4 from the tropical 4t2 set by leoz94. Leoz94 says the only difference is the high polycount, but I don't think that's it, it looks a bit high to me but not insanely so, I have other stuff in that range with no problem... Have a nice - evening?

Hey @pinkflamingosims! I hope you’re doing well! Yes, some hood decos are really make the game crash and frankly speaking, I think that’s jsut package related issues like broken references in the resource tree. The best way to fix this type of hood decos is to make a clean and stable new clone and replace mesh/textures again.

Anonymous said:

Hello and thank you for amazing Feverfew map! I have a problem... ground is flashing red and I cannot fix it, do you have solution for this problem? It's been soooo long when I last played Sims 2 so apparently I did something wrong when installed CC. :(

Hello anon! Thank you! Oh, red flashing could be the result of lighting mod not being installed correctly. I’d start with getting rid of any lighting mods to see if it helps.

@marv61 said:

Hi Criquette. I just downloaded your terrain of Forkshire, it looks great! I know it has been since 2009 that you uploaded the terrain but I was wondering if you have a completed Neighborhood with houses, trees and all for download? I would love to play your version. Thanks.

Hi Patchman! Oh, goodness no! :D That was 12 years ago, those TS2 files are long gone since then.

Anonymous said:

Hi Criquette, first things first, I love your work thank you so much, you inspire me! Now the question: I have been using the dirt roads from your Rural Lanes set and found that sometimes it is difficult if not impossible to fit them to the slopes of steep terrain. Would it be possible to instead create road pieces as a texture like your Neighborhood Decals? That way they would "stick" onto the terrain regardless of shape. Wondering what you think? Love!

Hello and thank you, anon! The problem with the decals – we can’t see it in lot mode yet. And it must be a DR only so we’d have to ditch one of the Maxis’ decals for dirt road, which isn’t great too.

Anonymous said:

Hi Criquette! Will Betternightlife mod ever be updated to work with lighting mods with dawn and dusk? Is there any that already works with it? I really want to use the light up hood decos!

Hey anon! You can use it with lighting mods that add dusk and dawn to the game. For instance, there’s one here by @dreadpirate.

Anonymous said:

Hey Criquette! I recently used your template to make lit-up hood deco buildings using the Better Nightlife mod. The day text was great! However, the night texture was being clipped by the day texture. That is, some parts of the day texture was showing through the night texture. Is there a fix for this?

Hello nonnie! I’d recommend to check the meshes to see if day/night parts clip through each other and if they aren’t I’d check if all the day/night TXMT data is correct.

@criquette said:

I've installed Fewerfew following all your istructions. Apparently it works but the night lamps are flashing pink even ig I've installed the mod better night light. It seems that this mod does not work properly. Any recommendation?

Being Criquette, you should know the solution to that issue yourself :P Just kidding, sorry, couldn’t resist! If it flashes pink only by night than you have to check your ‘Downloads’ folder for conflicts. If it’s flashing constantly day and night, than I’d better check graphics setting using some windows related guides available across the Internet.

Anonymous said:

Hello, I love Feverfew and it's amazing. I have a problem where Linden Tree 1A isn't showing up in my game even though it's in my downloads folder. Also the railroad tracks are flashing blue, and those are in my folder too. Thanks in advance! :)

Hello anon! What type of the trees you’re using? Stand alone or default ones? If you’re using defaults, you can find the trees under Maxi’s oaks accordingly. As for the flashing blue railway tracks, check if you have this set in your ‘Downloads’ folder :)

Anonymous said:

Hello Criquette, before asking for help, I came to say that the Brazilian community loves your creations. But, to get to the point, anyway, I have been thinking about creating a Hood (inspired by Rio de Janeiro), so I would like to know how to create Deco Hoods for my game (the statue of Christ), I can't find that anywhere, Would you help me?

Hi there! Ah, most kind, thank you ^^ Well, there’s no big deal in creating hood decos. You have to switch your SimPE to advanced mode and after that neighborhood decoration will be visible in the catalogue to be cloned. I assume you already know how to make lot mode objects and know how to create, edit or convert meshes/textures though.

@hideshio said:

Hello! I found your train set (and it's AMAZING) on mts and was wondering if you had a railroad crossing sign? With the lights, X, and the red/white hand that goes down. Or the lights that go across a pole above the railroads. Thank you! =D

Hello @hideshio! Well, there is a railway crossing sign with lights and red/white hand included in this set :D it’s not animated though. But still!

Anonymous said:

Hi criquette, I’m a huge admirer of you work and I was wondering if you had any advice regarding road placement. Specifically the difficulty of road pieces that are deco only being able to be placed underneath the actually roads leaving it looking a little off.. if there a way to raise them higher before placing them or some kind of work around?

Hey anon, thank you! Unfortunately, there’s no way to make decorative road pieces work for lot mode and neighborhood mode at the same time. If you lift them so they look okay in hood mode, they will float in the air in lot mode. Since my latest creations are lot mode oriented, I’ve decided to save my efforts on making road pieces even with neigborhood mode roads.

Anonymous said:

Hey Criquette. I noticed that in my Feverfew none of the buildings across the street of Feverfew Sports Hall show up. I know those are supposed to be hood deco and look like duplex buildings, but I can't figure out what I'm missing. I deleted and redownloaded everything and couldn't fix it. Also the river ends at the first bridge in front of the cathedral, so the boats next to it appear to be flying. What is going on?

Hey anon! There’s definitely some files missing. If you’ve checked and redownloaded all the files, try to replace the Feverfew neighborhood folder with initial one. The game never restores disappeared hood decos by itself. Even if they were placed in the folder after their absence is discovered.

@simping-simmer said:

Hi Criquette, am I remembering correctly that there is a trick you can do with SimPE to change the height of individual pieces of hood deco? I’m struggling with putting ships in my dock because if I change a CC ship’s placeability to be able to be on both land and sea, it just sinks, but if I only keep it on sea, it can’t get close enough to the shore to place it in my docks. Does this make sense at all? Lol

Hello @simping-simmer, you’re absolutely right. You can change the height of placed hood decos via SimPE. Things you need to do are described here and here

Anonymous said:

Hello! I love all your work. I was wondering if you had ever thought of making some desert roads along the lines of the Terrain Mod: Dusty Roads for Desert Neighbourhoods by Stev84? I love the way this looks in my desert, but unfortunately, this mod makes the road in live mode a floor, which then makes you unable to place driveways.

Hey anon! Thanks ^^ Frankly, I don’t have any plans on creating any desert related CC at all :|

Anonymous said:

Hello Criquette. I would like to thank you for all the amazing work you have done creating content for sims 2. Thanks to you all my projects are possible. My question is: Chainlink fences for neighborhood deco... Do they exist? Searching the web these past day only found for build mode. Do you know of someone who already make some for deco hood? Or kindly will you be able to make some if its not much work? My sports fields and Industrial zones will be pleased for sure! Once again, thank you! :)

Hey anon and thank you! I don’t think hood deco chainlink fences were created by someone yet, but they definitely would be a great addition to the game. I was going to create some while working on Feverfew, but never had enough time to do that. May be i’ll make one at some point in the future!

Anonymous said:

Hello, Criquette. Do you know of any way to place lots without the area around it moving? I downloaded Ousmeo's remake of your Dullsfielde and read his og post using the waytime machine. When viewing that post, Tumblr recommended similar posts, one of which seemed to be a tip to prevent good deco from moving when placing lots nearby, but that post wasn't archived, so I can't visualise it. My guess is that if anyone else knows about this, it must be the best hood decorator that ever was ;-)

Hello anon! Ugh, this TS2 ‘feature’ is driving me mad quite often too! Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to get rid of it. The only way to fix the consequences is to backup initial hood folder and when you finish placing lots, replace spoiled terrain with the initial one with SimPE or HoodReplace.

#replies #answers #asks #Anonymous

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michibikionmain · 3 years

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This isn’t THE tommyinnit villain essay but it sure is one of them

Ok ok so 4 those of u who aren't on discord with me: i have two main essays that have been in the works for MONTHS, these being my Complete Dream character analysis essay going in-depth for nearly all of his canon interactions and finding his character traits and motivations through the story, and my Tommyinnit (and Wilbur Soot) were Always The Villains on the server essay talking about how the only reason so many people view them as the good guys or heroes is because we see the story from their perspective mainly. This essay? Is not either of those. BUT, it does go through a lot of my thoughts on Tommy and Dream’s characters so I figured I’d post it. maybe itll help me organize my thoughts 4 my Mega Projects lol

@ranboocore bc u helped me pop off on this so hard LMAO

Warning, it’s VERY Tommy Critical, what a suprise. I do not like Tommy as a character lol. idk what triggers yall might need me to tag but if u need one in particular pls lmn!

My biggest issue with tommy's character is that he SAYS hes learned but he never does he is exactly the same person he was at the start of the server just More Sad and with Trauma, when out of all the characters he's had the most push to change. c!Tommy is a very tell-don't-show character which can make it hard for some people to connect to him, especially those who don’t directly share his trauma or see themselves in his character. Of course, there is still a MASSIVE amount of people who relate to his struggles and thus love him regardless of his writing, but those who can't relate to him will always feel some kind of barrier until the things they've talked about are actually shown to the viewer instead of being spoon-fed to them.

It is a very beginner writing thing, and I'm hoping that Tommy is figuring out how to fix this, maybe with support from the many other writers on the server. There's the 3 you mentioned, plus fundy, niki, and maybe tubbo who also play dnd, plus Dream who said he would've been an English major and does a lot of personal writing for fun. I think the biggest issue in the writing lies in the individual ccs being inexperienced in the medium, particularly with planning out their own character growth.

Another glaring issue I have with c!Tommy is how he's framed to be sympathetic and he goes through all these horrible things without acknowledging his role in any of them. The things that have happened to him are a direct result of his actions, but the thing is HE won't acknowledge and so it falls flat. This isn’t to say that being abused is his fault, because it’s NEVER the vicitm’s fault, but being exiled? His multiple fights with c!Dream? His friendships falling apart? Losing the disks in the first place? They’re the direct consequences of HIS OWN actions, but he never acknowledges this and constantly just... brushes off any accountability by either saying that it’s Dream fault or simply SAYING he feels bad without properly showing it through redemption and GROWTH.

Denial is useful in storytelling sometimes, but Tommy's character has been in denial since the very beginning of the server and at this point it's just exhausting. He only ever switches between denial and depression, not really going through all 5 stages of grief properly. His violent/upset reactions would be more powerful if they were any different from how tommy usually acts, but this is always how he is. When he “lashes out” because he’s reached the end of his patience, it doesn’t SEEM like the snap it is because that’s just... it’s seriously just his standard reaction to everything. It hold no WEIGHT to see c!Tommy yell at someone violently or threaten to fight them because he does that anyways!

Static characters can be a good thing, and can be interesting if done correctly, but not every character SHOULD or CAN be static in a story.

Static characters need to have their position or behavior challenged and question, where they look into if the way they see and interact with the world is really the 'correct' one or just evaluated to see if they truly believe in them. This questioning period is CRUCIAL! and NEEDS to be well done in a way that ACTIVELY SHOWS the conflict between the two ideals. If they decide to hold onto their beliefs/continue their behavior then, it feels deserved, because rather than just being a flat "they do thing its who they are" they have defined WHY. WHY is a very important question to think of when telling the difference between dynamic and static characters. The why of a character is ESSENTIAL to developing them as a relatable, sympathetic person rather than a flat story telling device. It makes them a human rather than a puppet. When a character's motives aren't well defined or discussed, they're doomed to fall flat in everything else, because the WHY is the foundation of what makes them who they are.

c!Tommy has an underdeveloped "why", his motivations are weak, rarely properly discussed and when they are it doesn't particularly stick with him. His motivations change without showing us the internal struggle that should come from literally shifting your driving principles. There are some good MOMENTS of him reevaluating the importance of certain things, but they're so spread out and contradictory and immediately spat one that they're hard to piece together. He TELLS us what his motivations are as well, which is another big flaw when it comes to all that but we don't have time to unpack all THAT Anyways, the key to static story telling is reaffirmation. The character goes through a complete journey and ends with the same beliefs because they've looked into why they have them and determined that they still matter to them. A great example of static writing in my eyes is c!Techno, who since the beginning has believed that governments are bad. c!Techno enters the server to destroy a government, and still ends up doing that because he sees and we see him experience that the reasons he didn't like government before still hold true and he has no reason to support them any more than before, and so his anarchist beliefs are REAFFIRMED, proving to him that they way he handles things is the right one for him.

c!Tommy’s attachments are all just... they're all so weird. like he LITERALLY SACRIFICES HIS LIFE MULTIPLE TIMES for L'manburg. By action of sacrifice it seems like it should be the most important thing to him, but then he throws it away for some disks that mattered less to him just a minute ago. But then it's all about how c!Tubbo is worth more than Anything and maybe he's found something more important! but then he shoves THAT out the window for the discs again ig!!! but then it's about l’manburg again? Make it make sense.... pls....

Here's smth that really irks me about Tommy's character, and is kind of weird but give me a second to explain: Tommy has never actually permanently lost much of anything on the server. Every punishment he's ever received he's tried to find some way around. And like... I'm not expecting him to be HAPPY to face the consequences of his actions but seeing him constantly have his cake and eat it too is very irritating, especially when there are characters who DO have to deal with actual permanent sacrifices. The whole thing with the disks. where he WILLINGLY OFFERED THEM UP AND GAVE THEM AWAY THEN SPENT FOREVER TRYING TO STEAL THEM BACK WHILE CLAIMING DREAM STOLE THEM FROM HIM, is the biggest example of this, but it's generally his characters way of dealing with things. He's very backhanded and conniving, constantly calling himself "big man" except for when he wants things from people and he plays up the "iM a MiNoR" card to try and get them to give him things or feel bad. He's not just some sweet innocent kid like people paint him, he knows damn well he's messed up and while he SAYS he feels bad about it, he has never once really shown, with his ACTIONS, regret for what he's done except for the stuff with c!Sapnap, which could it could be argued he did because he thought it would help get c!Sapnap on his side to fight Dream and he knew c!Sapnap was a skilled warrior and could possibly be persuaded to fight with dream.

c!Tommy is in NO way some sweet innocent child, he knows what he's doing. He KNEW l'manburg was a drug empire, and wanted to turn his hotel into the same He was FULLY prepared to just murder c!Schlatt for legally winning an election that he KNEW was rigged AND INTENDED TO HELP RIG HE LITERALLY TEAMED UP WITH c!TECHNOBLADE KNOWING THAT HE INTENDED TO BLOW UP L'MANBURG AND ONLY LEFT WHEN HE REALIZED IT WASN'T GOING TO ACTUALLY HELP HIM--

The line of c!Wilbur saying "Tommy, are we the bad guys?" wasn't him mentally going batshit it was him realizing that the entire time they've been doing terrible things. c!Wilbur was literally ALWAYS Vilbur but the time people CALL Vilbur is when c!Will himself realized he was a villain.

#like. VERY critical #i do not like the child can you tell?#im sorry tommy fans but i am not one of you #and before you ask: Yes I have and do watch his perspective of the SMP just so i can try to understand his thought process #dream smp #dsmp #dream smp analysis #dsmp analysis #critical analysis #prince/pea and i pop off about this so much LOL #this is the first of MANY essays/collective analysis bits ive written about Tommy #lets see how many ill have by the time i finish going through the discord #tommyinnitcritical #discourse #ig. i saw a lot of ppl asking 4 this tag on similar posts so i thought id add it?

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fioletowa-krowa · 3 years

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So I’ve had to deal with the absolute worst customer in my entire working career ever this past week. (It’s Rose at the Notre Dame university bookstore in case anyone was wondering) apologies in advance, it’s going to be long

So for this school we have two “titles” that are basically just boxes of lab equipment. There’s a lock, goggles, a lab coat, a notebook, and an access card for the online book. These are shipped as individual boxes since there’s a good amount of materials. This is different from what we usually send to stores, which would be boxes of multiple notebooks. I mention this bc the store manager, Rose made such a damned big deal about it.

So the whole ordeal started at the beginning of the month when my boss CC-ed me on an email conversation with Rose letting her know that she was going to be out of town so to contact me with any questions or requests for her order of the two bundles we had for the school. She ended the email with “hopefully things go smoothly this year” so already I have a bad feeling that this is going to be difficult.

Rose emails me to let me know that this is a time when they receive a lot of deliveries at their store (she specifically mentioned receiving football equipment in addition to books and school supplies) so she wanted to make sure that their order of nearly 1000 bundles could be split into smaller orders with only one order arriving per day to make sure that they weren’t overwhelmed at the store. A bit of an annoying request, but not impossible for us to attempt to accommodate. The only thing being that once an order leaves our warehouse we have zero control over how long it takes to deliver or when it gets delivered so I told Rose that I was putting notes on her orders so that they would hopefully ship on different days and then be delivered on different days. And she again reminded me that they needed the orders to arrive just as she specified. Okay, fine, I’m doing what I can.

Now, unfortunately, we’ve been having delays it’s getting materials and books in stock on time this season bc our printers are all short staffed and they can only print and ship so much at a time. So the bundles are already going to be a little later than expected. We had a team of people putting the boxes together at our satellite warehouse last last week so we could get them shipped out last week.

So we finally get things together and get the first order shipped out Tuesday. This first order was for 85 boxes of one title (11181) and 150 copies of the other (11171) and the manager at the satellite warehouse gets it shipped out Tuesday last week. On Wednesday I send Rose an email with the tracking information (I had to wait for our regular warehouse manager to get me the info bc the satellite manager was out all of last week after Tuesday) and at 4:56 Wednesday evening I get the following email from Rose:

“Beth, do you realize we already got three skids today? You sent a skid of 11181 when we only wanted 85 and two skids of 11171. Please do not send any more of 11181 and I will write up everything tomorrow and you can arrange a call tag to pick up the others. This is a hot mess and the paperwork the driver had was wrong and we have damaged cases as well. Way to go..........................”

So I was about to lose my mind at this. Not only was it at the end of the day, but she was incredibly rude over something that was genuinely a mistake and moreso, not my fault! The editor in charge of the projects wanted to respond to her that evening, but I told her that, quite frankly, I was off for the day and Rose didn’t deserve any of my unpaid time. Plus i wanted to hear back from the warehouse to see their end in case something happened so they sent out more than they were supposed to or if Rose was just stupid and we did what we said we would and it just wasn’t exactly what she was expecting. So the editor sent Rose a message saying that I’d get back to her in the morning with more information and I went to dinner w my parents and papa so that I wouldn’t punch a hold thru a wall in anger

So Thursday morning I get in to an email from our main warehouse manager (since the satellite manager was out the rest of the week) letting me know that we had sent three skids for the order. Because each skid holds 96 boxes. So, since the order was for 235 boxes, it physically had to ship as three skids. I was fucking giddy as I typed my response to Rose, spelling out why she received three skids and letting her know that I would be holding her remaining four orders for 150 of 11171 each until I got the go-ahead from her that she was okay with the fact that the orders would be one and a half skids each.

Well, Rose emails back that we actually sent three full skids instead of one full and two partials. She included the phrase “believe it or not, I can count” and then after reiterating how she wanted her orders sent said, “My next suggestion would be to fulfill my orders as requested going forward.” And asked if they’d be getting another order that day. So I typed up a very off-color response to her informing her how obnoxious and cunty I thought she was being and how her attitude was helping exactly zero people and quite honestly making me feel less inclined to be helpful at all. And then I typed up a nicer response and asked my boss for read it over to make sure that it was professional and appropriate. In my email i let her know that we only had the paperwork to go off of as the warehouse manager who put the shipment out was out of the office, so we legitimately did not know that she received more than what was on her order and that, no I had held her other orders to make sure that she was okay with how they were going to be shipped, but I could put them in and hopefully get the next one shipped out that day or Friday.

At that point, she got the other manager at their store involved who emailed Friday morning to ask me to confirm they’d be getting the rest of their order that day as they had students arriving on campus who would need them. I informed her that no, we hadn’t shipped anything else yet and said that it was bc our satellite warehouse was short staffed (which is essentially true. There’s one person who works in that warehouse— the manager— and he’d been out all week) so Rose jumped back in to say “Just to make certain I understand correctly, there hasn't been another order shipped since the first delivery? We need to get on the ball with this order short staffed or not folks!!”

At that point i was beyond pissed. They were asking for something above and beyond what we do normally, and we were doing everything we could to keep them placated, including shipping the rest of their orders for free, but there’s literally only so much we can do with the staff that we have. So, after venting into an empty word doc, I responded with “That is correct. We wanted to make sure that we wouldn't overwhelm you with multiple orders in a day, like you asked, and since the first shipment went out incorrectly, we wanted to be sure that it didn't happen again. Unfortunately that means that we aren't able to schedule a pickup from the shipper until Monday as it took some time to confirm that the rest of the shipments were okay to go forward per your instructions. The remaining shipments will be going out all of next week, but if you need us to send more than one order at a time, please let me know and I can coordinate with our warehouse team to make sure that happens.” (Also I’m now realizing that rose never actually confirmed that we could/should ship the rest of the orders so that’s a fun thing) as this was going on, I was trying to coordinate with our warehouse manager to see if we could get the next order out and (as my dad who works in that warehouse told me) they were basically running around asking every shipper who came by that day if they could take the order bc the store’s preferred shipper wasn’t available to pick it up. But we finally managed to get it picked up and shipped around 1 Friday afternoon

So, Rose, in all of her Karen-ness responds “In what world would it be, as the buyer, my fault for making and having confirmation of shipping directions the reason why your company has failed??” Funnily enough, that email sent me passed pissed off to just calm and I’d started typing a response when a message from my boss (who had been CC-ed on the entire conversation) popped up saying “take a minute, step away from your computer, then respond” so I laughed to myself and explained to Rose that I wasn’t trying to blame her (yes I was) but that I was only trying to explain why I was being so cautious and why there would be a gap in their shipments. Of course, then I get an email from the other store manager saying that she wished we had communicated the delay in shipments ahead of time and that if that had happened they would have been able to tell us that it mattered more that they received the boxes on time, not that they were received separately as originally requested, ending with “I would have thought this would be a logical conclusion on your part, so the mistake was mine in thinking that.”

And that’s when I realized that this manager (Becky) hadn’t been informed of everything that actually had happened and most likely just got the bitching from Rose that we’d messed up and it was all our fault that they wouldn’t be getting the boxes on time. So I got to inform her that I had told Rose immediately that we were going to be holding the remainder of her orders until we got the ok from her to ship since she’d been so upset with how the first shipment had arrived.

So once I’d gotten that all explained and smoothed out, I got an email from the freaking Macmillan rep for the area who’s been “filled in” on the situation and wanted to make sure that we were going to be able to get the store what they needed and when 🙄 and she followed up this morning to make sure that we’d done what we said. So we got the order delivered today, another one that’s either been delivered since or is being delivered tomorrow, a third that’s either tomorrow or Wednesday, and the last order that’s shipping tomorrow being delivered Wednesday or Thursday depending on shipping times.

Behind the scenes, I wasn’t aware, but my boss’s boss and his (new) boss had also been filled in about the situation and my boss had explained our half of the story, so I got a message from my boss’s boss thanking me for handling the situation and that he thought it had handled the situation well and professionally and that it was “100% the fault of an extremely difficult customer”

I’m just so Done with this and I hope to God I don’t ever have to deal with this store in the future

#beth rambles about her life #Beth rambles about her job #I legit did a shot in the middle of the day Friday bc I was so fed up with everything #bc on top of dealings with this store #I’ve got like 50 other stores and schools placing orders and getting info all day long #on the other side of the coin #I have a different store that wanted to order a total of 1100 of our spiral bound notebooks over two orders #that they’d placed one two weeks ago one last week #but I’d been a little late in putting the first order in and by the time I got to it we were out of that notebook #which is another stupid story #so we were completely out of the notebook and won’t be getting more for at least a week probably more #but we do have another of the same binding and page count #just that the original copy is tear-out instead of the copy page #and she was so nice to me #saying that she’d be okay with the sub and that it’s not the end of the world that the shipments won’t go out until today #it’s like freaking night and day between her and how Rose handled things

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nebulaxie · 4 years

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I vant you~

Henlo everyone and I am back yet again to bite off more than I can chew. (Heh... bite). Anyway I’ve been obsessively watching and rewatching (and rewatching and rewatching... etc.) What We Do In The Shadows and then I found this vampire legacy challenge and decided I want to do it because I love occult sims? Especially ones people make with CC. And I realized that there’s only three vampires in game so if I wanna make my legacy game better I’ma have to either make more vampires or download them off the gallery.

Then I started seeing all these love island, bachelor and bachelorette challenges pop up and you might have noticed I entered a LOT of them. Which gave me the idea that I could do my own bachelorette challenge to find a spouse for my legacy vampire. Much more fun than just downloading lbr.

So I give you... (drum roll pls)

The BAT chelorette challenge.

Get it? hehe. We like puns here.

Rules//

So there will be some adjustments made to the original Bachelor/Bachelorette rules to fit occult sims and everything but for the most part its going to play out pretty much the same as of the moment unless I come up with something between now and when this all goes live. I’ve never done one before so I think the first time around will be easier to just have a set of rules in front of us.

Entering//

Must be a vampire. (if you use CC to make a different kind of occult that’s fine too! aka demon, etc.)

Use all the CC you want, however I am mostly a maxis match player? Clothes I’m okay with being maxis mix I just really don’t like like real textures if you get what I mean? It just seems so out of place. Which means I will not take alpha hairs either. You can enter with both of these things but be aware that I’ll just remove them and put on my own things if you do (and then they might not look the same and then we’re all sad)

I will probably use my own defaults however - eyes, skin tones, etc. Just because they’re default in my game and its just easier

I love all kinds of vampires - new, old, powerful, weak, cute, scary, bloodthirsty, etc.

Please give a background for your creation. I want to try and do them justice and also its all very interesting information

You MUST tell me HOW they became a vampire

Please be aware that I have a mod on that allows no sun debuffs in Forgotten Hollow

I also have a mod for aging on vampires they just age 4x slower than humans. (this probably won’t affect anything unless you get put into the legacy challenge)

Please tell me their aspirations and traits! Both in game and story kind!

I will only be choosing 7 sims as per usual but because we need more vampires in game anyway, you’ll probably see them all in my legacy as extras and potentially in the bachelorette challenge too (if you want)

Please make it clear if your vampire prefers biting humans or taking supplements so I can at least try and make them eat correctly x3;;;

Please NO ROMANCE TRAITS OR ASPIRATIONS and no higher than LVL 3 CHARISMA. (lvl 3 being what you would get through story mode - because i like randomizing and i know others might too)

Otherwise go crazy with whatever traits or skills you want.

This is N O T a first come first serve basis and I will use a third party to help me decide based on stories because I think that’s going to be the best part of this honestly.

My sim will be announced after this and her traits and everything will be revealed. She is, however, Pansexual. Please keep in mind that the winner will go on to be in my legacy challenge meaning they will need a vampire heir.

I own all the packs so no worries there.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions at all <3

Deadline is March 31st

Also if I don’t repost your entry within 24 hours pls message me because i might have just missed it???

#BATcherolette

Edit: Lizbeth Sterling

#ts4 challenge #sims 4 challenge #bachelorette challenge #ts4challengenet #open #deadline march 31st #vampire sims only #challenge #my challenge #oc #ts4 #sims #BATchelorette #lizbethsterling

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h-sleepingirl · 5 years

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NOTES NEEHU10: Brainwashing Discussion with sleepingirl and cckitten

After our very successful Brainwashing Discussion group at Charmed 2019 (for which the notes are also available!), we proposed this for @neehu and it was an incredible experience. A lively room, intelligent discussion, and a lot of amazing feedback (thank you)!

As before, these are the notes from the discussion, unedited except for spelling/grammar/readability, so they are not necessarily in line with my personal beliefs. They are conversation starters and thought-provokers. YMMV.

I will include our “class notes” once more and then move right on into the discussion notes.

CLASS DESCRIPTION:

What is brainwashing? How can we practically (and ethically) brainwash our partners, or be brainwashed? In this class / discussion, cckitten and sleepingirl will spend a small amount of time giving their polished perspective and expertise on a goal-oriented approach to brainwashing, and then quickly open up to a discussion format so we can brainstorm ideas and methods as a group.

LECTURE NOTES:

- Everything comes down to the question: What is brainwashing, practically? Which hopefully we get into for the discussion.

- Boiled down, brainwashing is a sexy form of play that allows us to set and achieve goals with our partner.

- Learning how to set goals effectively is a skill I recommend learning, and has a lot to do with being able to ask yourself the right questions

- I sometimes separate this into two ideas:

- General goals: I want a brainwashed slave. Question: What is a “brainwashed” partner? What is a “slave”? What is a “good submissive”?

- Consequently, what is “a Master/Mistress/Dominant/your role of choice”?

- Specific goals: I want you to call me by an honorific when we are in appropriate company. I want you to believe you’re brainwashed.

- Think about the specific goals leading to the general ones

- Sometimes it is easier to come up with your long term image of your partner by discussing short term goals. “A good submissive always… (makes my dinner, kisses my feet, etc)”

- Setting goals is not only important from an ethical standpoint, but also the tool of simply setting an intention can be very powerful and motivating.

- How you achieve these goals depends on the tools and knowledge that you have available to you

- The risks are highly dependent on your personal goals, and thus so are the ways to try to mitigate them.

- In general, dependency / “neediness/clinginess” is a risk and I’ve found this to be the biggest “problem” (only an issue when it’s an issue) (It’s hard for cc to be away from me)

- This includes things like it being challenging when one or both of you isn’t feeling great, or isn’t feeling “on”

- Falling in love

- Not being able to trust that your partner will always make objective decisions that are not influenced by you

- Most of these are NOT new territory, even with casual play partners. Lots of this should sound familiar.

DISCUSSION NOTES:

What does it mean to be brainwashed?

- To believe that someone else’s idea of reality is your idea

- To purposely and with intent instill a different way of thinking in someone

Repeated conditioning

- Changing someone’s patterns of behavior that suits the purpose of the brainwasher/ee

- Altering that individual in a way that will affect your everyday life

What’s your ideal version of your brainwashed partner?

- Wanting something directly because the brainwasher wants it

- Want them to be happy

- Change and transformation, wanting to see them change

- Uncertain what your own desires are before/after

- Someone is brainwashed enough that their role can be changed

- Seeing something that you clearly weren’t into before now into it

- Giving sense of self to someone else

- Feeling an automatic responsiveness

- Knowing that your partner wanted it as it’s happening, they have given consent

- Or not necessarily

- Brainwashing to help with fixing things

- Brainwashing people out of brats

- Being in a brainwashed state becomes a sense of normal

- Permanency

- Certainty of knowing that doing a certain thing is gonna get a certain response

- Giving someone the confidence that someone is responding correctly no matter what

- Consciously believing that this is always how it’s been

- Be aware of it every single second

- Building amnesia into it so the brainwashing is behind a wall

- Liking to see the discomfort

- Exploring limits

- Service oriented

- Wanting to make someone a better version of themselves

How do we achieve this?

- Hypnosis

- Incremental steps

- Repeated exposure to something

- Rewarding them for something they might not be into

- Repetition of whatever structure you’re trying to create

- Mantras, self-directed conditioning

- Parts therapy / roleplay

- Making it an active process

- Pleasure conditioning

- Organic?

- Exposing for a bit into what they want and letting it accumulate

- Fetishizing fictional ideas, like a brainwashing cult

- The physical act but also the mental component

- Assignments

- Tropes / fantasies are longterms that are already done, so taking advantage of that

- Ask them what they masturbate about, turn fantasy to reality

- Punishments

- Creating memories of having the pattern you’re already trying to create

- Clicker training

- Constant communication and info from the brainwashee

- All information is weapons

- Things that you feel are effective and the things that are written about

Is it easier to remove or add?

- It’s not about the “not” filter

- It’s about replacing the pattern because the pattern serves a purpose

- It depends

- Using what they already have

What are some fantasies?

- Struggle fantasy

- Ray gun / magic light

- Helmet

- Emotional manipulation

- Logical fallacy trope

- Being trapped watching, shameful experience of enjoying your doom

- Brainwashing someone who doesn’t know that they’re being brainwashed

- Being trapped in the dark room with spirals but they wake up and they never were

- You’re doing it to yourself

- Mass brainwashing

- Hidden / subliminal messaging

- Been made to forget that it’s happening so you think it’s a natural change until it’s pointed out to you

- CNC turning into consent

- Realizing that you’re being brainwashed and you’re fighting it and then you wake up and realize you’ve done this a hundred times before

- Identity death

What are some risks?

- Unclear communication resulting in unwanted changed

- Credibility of brainwashee

- Overdependence

- Identity crisis

- End of relationship

- Accidentally long term changing memories

- Reactions of family and friends

- Objective decisions

- Falling in love

- Loss of function

- Bleedover

- Bad intentions

- Is it really consensual?

- People not understanding what you’re doing

- Developing patterns or personality ideas that don’t mesh

- Uninformed

- D/s interfering with other relationships

Mitigating risks?

- Triggers between headspaces(?)

- Checkins, putting thought into what your values are

- Trying to keep a blank slate where you can think objectively

- Having a third party who can see changes

How do people navigate power neutral romance with D/s?

- Signaling what “mode” to be in (vanilla vs D/s)

- There’s a difference between a scene and dynamic

- Giving brainwasher space is a profound and sometimes difficult act of service

Navigating switching brainwashing

- Having alternate ways of expressing the brainwashing

- More scene type things as opposed to long term

- Switching triggers

- It doesn’t necessarily have to be a big thing, can be small things

- There can be a distinction between brainwashing and D/s, power neutral brainwashing can work

Are people comfortable with this?

- It’s taboo so only with the right people

- It’s important to have these discussions

- it’s affirming to talk about this

- it’s great to have these discussions especially about consent

- spreading the gospel of consent

- it’s hard in different communities

#my writing #neehu10 #neehu #hypnosis #hypnokink

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professional-anti · 6 years

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Chapter Ten: City of Bones

Things that have happened since the last update: I moved into my new school in a whole different country, became problematic, and read one (1) book. So I’m pretty cultured atm. Let’s do this.

Part Two: Easy is the Descent We have an unstranslated quote from the Aeneid, I guess so CC can show off how smart she is.

Chapter Ten: City of Bones Everybody freaks tf out about the fact that Jocie was Voldemort’s wife. We have an actual, real-life, total gem from Clary:

"That's impossible! My mother would never-she was only ever married to my father! She didn't have an ex-husband!”

Clary….blease…….I’m begging u……..she makes it so easy………

Hodge lists off the other death eaters. I’m not even going to pretend they’re not death eaters. There’s no reason to. Anyway, they all got in trouble after the Uprising™, except the Lightwoods got “clemency” bc they had a baby. Which is ridiculous and makes no sense. Ppl don’t just get lighter sentences bc they have babies. Hodge’s punishment is that he has to stay in this mansion in New York. I thought the Clave would be more into capital punishment, just going off how much they suck, but I guess that would just hinder the story.

Hodge reveals that Voldemort wants the cup bc it can give him an army of Shadowhunters. Isabelle comes in to say that she ordered Chinese, which raises interesting questions. Wouldn’t the ppl delivering just see a decrepit, condemned house? Did she have to order to next door and wait outside?

In the kitchen (where Simon is still staring awkwardly at Isabelle), Isabelle says that she thinks the fact that Voldie is looking for Jocie is “kind of romantic”. You know, that this vile supremacist is hunting down the woman who left him. Super romantic. Then she says the “evil thing” is “sort of hot.” No, really:

"Isabelle," said Hodge patiently, "this is the man who rained down destruction on Idris the like of which it had never seen, who set Shadowhunter against Downworlder and made the streets of the Glass City run with blood." "That's sort of hot," Isabelle argued, "that evil thing.”

At least in Harry Potter, no one thought that Voldemort was hot. In fact, everyone rightly despised him for killing innocents and preaching hatred. Bellatrix Lestrange was physically attractive, and nobody tried to argue that her actions were hot. Because they saw the terror she brought. No one would call her carving “Mudblood” into Hermione’s arm “hot”.

Oh, and even worse, after Isabelle reveals she likes murderous racists, “Simon trie[s] to look menacing”. The whole situation is just so awkward. Hodge tells them that Valentine would use the cup on children (it would kill adults) and discard the children who couldn’t handle it. Isabelle finally gets that Voldemort is bad and that water is wet. Jace is super mad that Voldemort wants to harm muggle children bc Shadowhunters are all about protecting the muggles. Never mind that Jace has shown nothing but disrespect for them the entire book.

Hodge pushed his plate away. "Valentine was insane," he said. "Brilliant, but insane. He cared about nothing but killing demons and Downworlders. Nothing but making the world pure. He would have sacrificed his own son for the cause and could not understand how anyone else would not." "He had a son?" said Alec. "I was speaking figuratively," said Hodge, reaching for his handkerchief. He used it to mop his forehead before returning it to his pocket. His hand, Clary saw, was trembling slightly.

Could Hodge be any more obvious. No, really, I’m asking. Please be more obvious Hodge. All the readers are dumb as goldfish and wouldn’t understand subtly. We need bricks in the face. This is compounded by Hodge telling them that they shouldn’t do anything to stop Voldmort, that the Ministry of Magic will handle it. Hodge is sooo not on Voldemort’s side, you guys. Never!

They decide to go to the Silent Brothers to retrieve Clary’s memories, which they think will help them save Jocie from Valentine. The Silent Brothers are Shadowhunters who destroyed their bodies with runes and now have crazy mental powers. Honestly sounds a little creepy. I’d read a book about their order, tbh. Are they all guys, though? Then I wouldn’t read it. Also, they sound like Dementors.

That night, Clary has a dream that she’s dancing with Simon in the Glass City, and then Simon turns into Jace. The Symbolism is so real. Then Jace wakes her up, holding her wrists. Apparently she tried to hit him in her sleep, but he shouldn’t have grabbed her wrists. I can think of few things more terrifying than waking up to a boy restraining my arms. Apparently, she fell asleep in a hallway the night before and Jace and Hodge let her to a bedroom. Honestly confused how she fell asleep in a hallway, but we have bigger problems to deal with.

Oh. My. God. A silent brother (I’m done with the dumb capitalization. We don’t say a Congresswoman or a Principal or a Citizen) has arrived. And his name is. His name is. BROTHER JEREMIAH.

Clary gets dressed and wishes she could look more like Isabelle. Bc girls have to judge themselves on their appearance even during everday tasks, like getting dressed. They meet BJ in the library, and he’s described like a death eater with a white color scheme, basically:

For a moment she thought he was alone in the room: that Jace had been playing a joke on her. Then she saw a figure move out of the dimness, and she realized that what she had thought was a patch of darker shadow was a man. A tall man in a heavy robe that fell from neck to foot, covering him completely. The hood of the robe was raised, hiding his face. The robe itself was the color of parchment, and the intricate runic designs along the hem and sleeves looked as if they had been inked there in drying blood. The hair rose along Clary's arms and on the back of her neck, prickling almost painfully. "This," said Hodge, "is Brother Jeremiah of the Silent City." The man came toward them, his heavy cloak swirling as he moved, and Clary realized what it was about him that was strange: He made no sound at all as he walked, not the slightest footstep. Even his cloak, which should have rustled, was silent. She would almost have wondered if he were a ghost-but no, she thought as he halted in front of them, there was a strange, sweet smell about him, like incense and blood, the smell of something living.

BJ says that he can’t get Clary’s memories bc there’s some sort of magical “block” in her head, and that she has to come to the Brotherhood HQ in order to have it removed. BJ leaves on his own, and Clary and Jace go and stand on the corner. Jace is incredibly cruel about Simon. Then a black carriage disguised as a limo pulls up, driven by BJ himself. It’s honestly cool how the carriage moves thru NY traffic and no one nottices. It’s the exact touch of “magic hidden in New York” that I like. Clary and Jace also have a conversation about poetry and music, which reveals the distance between their worlds, that I like, so maybe this carriage is magical.

Oh, here we are. Back on our bullshit. Clary looks at Jace’s ring and thinks that “there would have been something feminine about a boy wearing a ring, but there wasn’t.” Let’s deconstruct, shall we? First of all, men wear rings all the time. Secondly, we get it, Jace is super super masculine, feminity in men is Bad, Jace would never at all be feminine in any way at all bc that’s gross right? Like, I love how Clare has to specify that this ring in no way, shape, or form makes Jace at all feminine. No one would have thought it, and, also, there’s nothing wrong with femininity in anyone.

Jace says that he didn’t tell Hodge the identities of the guys Luke was talking to bc then Hodge would know that Jace wouldn’t take no for an answer re killing Valentine. He gives a pretty realistically traumatized description of his father’s death:

"I was ten," Jace said. She turned to look at him. He was without expression. It always seemed like some color drained out of him when he talked about his father. "We lived in a manor house, out in the country. My father always said it was safer away from people. I heard them coming up the drive and went to tell him. He told me to hide, so I hid. Under the stairs. I saw those men come in. They had others with them. Not men. Forsaken. They overpowered my father and cut his throat. The blood ran across the floor. It soaked my shoes. I didn't move.”

Bare bones, emotionless, disconnected. I approve. Honestly, I like the next part too. Clary shows emotion while attempting to comfort Jace, and Jace tells her that he’s not unhappy bc he has a purpose. It shows a bit about their respective upbringings.

Jace says that demons are worse than everything else (e.g. vampires and warlocks) bc the latter are part human while the former are “interdimensional parasites”. Doesn’t explain why Jace is such a dick to the other Downworlders, though. If I remember correctly, he’s going to be a total asshole to vampires at some party later on. I wouldn’t mind Jace’s disgust as much if it weren’t so confusing. The book contradicts itself so much. It’s demons he doesn’t like, no it’s all Downworlders, he’s all about protecting mundies, but actually, he hates them. It flip-flops back and forth, leaving me with little understanding of Jace’s psyche.

They end up at the Marble Cemetary and take a secret passageway under a statue into BJ and co’s lair.

You know why I think this seems so good to me? I read a little bit more of ACOMAFail last night, and this writing is so much better in comparison.

Anyway, the lair called the Silent City (so many cities), and it’s giant and underground has archways with shadowhunter ashes mixed in. Pretty cool. Clary also has a moment where she tells the brothers they have to wait for her to be ready for them to go inside her head. Showing agency, girl!

The brothers do their thing, and a bunch of memories come into Clary’s mind. Among others, there’s a box with the initials J.C. on it (Jesus Christ?) and a doorway with the name “MAGNUS BANE” over the door. When she comes to, she’s lying on the marble floor and has blood all over her arm. Not sure what she managed to cut herself on. The floor should have bruised her, not cut her. Anything for the Drama, I guess. Jace heals her with a stele. Anyway, the block can’t be removed, and they have to go find Magnus Bane. Clary and Jace leave. The end.

#anti cassandra clare #anti the mortal instruments #book snark #CoB: Chapter 10 #CoB snark

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darylelockhart · 5 years

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You make decisions quicker and based on less information than you think

by Nadav Klein

You’re probably wrong about how long it would take you to know they’re ‘the one.’ rawpixel/Unsplash, CC BY

We live in an age of information. In theory, we can learn everything about anyone or anything at the touch of a button. All this information should allow us to make super-informed, data-driven decisions all the time.

But the widespread availability of information does not mean that you actually use it even if you have it. In fact, decades of research in psychology and behavioral science find that people readily make data-poor snap judgments in a variety of instances. People form lasting impressions of others in the span of milliseconds, evaluators judge teachers in less than a minute and consumers make shopping decisions based on little deliberation. Even voting decisions can seemingly be predicted from preliminary impressions formed during incredibly brief time periods.

If these findings seem remarkable to you, recent research by my colleague and me suggests that you are not alone. The immediacy of human judgment generally surprises people. Individuals fail to anticipate how little information they and others use when making decisions.

And this disconnect can have implications in daily life: After all, recognizing how much – or little – information people actually use to make judgments and decisions could influence how much you try to share with others. A job candidate should have a sense of how much of her resume prospective employers will actually read so she can prioritize her efforts accordingly.

And it would help when you’re deciding how much information to acquire when making your own decisions. How long should you try out a subscription service before deciding whether you like it enough to pay? How much time should you date a love interest before deciding to tie the knot?

You probably believe you take a ton of research into account before you make a big choice… but you probably don’t. Akira Kaelyn/Shutterstock.com

Comparing predictions and reality

In our research, my co-author Ed O’Brien and I tested whether people can correctly anticipate how much information they and others use when making varied judgments. We consistently found that people were surprised by how quickly they make judgments and how little information they use doing so.

In one study, we asked participants to imagine having pleasant or unpleasant interactions with another person. In comparison, we asked another group of participants to predict how many of those interactions they would need to experience to determine someone’s character. We found that people believed they would need many interactions to make this judgment, when in fact the first group needed few.

In another study, we asked M.B.A. students to write applications for hypothetical management positions, and then asked actual HR people to read their materials. Our applicants wrote and shared much more material than the hiring professionals cared to read.

We also asked people who have never been married to predict how long, after meeting their future spouse, it would take them to decide that this person is “the one.” Fully 39 percent of these never-marrieds thought they would need to date this person more than year before they’d feel ready to spend the rest of their lives with him or her. In contrast, married people reported having made this judgment much more quickly, with only 18 percent stating that it took them more than a year to do so.

Similar mispredictions occur when evaluating subscription services based on trial periods, tasting novel beverages, and evaluating streaks of luck, athletic performances and academic grades. In all cases, people believed they would use more information than they actually did.

Misunderstanding this human tendency

There are several reasons why people might have the wrong impression about how quickly they and others make judgments.

One possibility is a belief that the human mind processes information incrementally. A naive perspective might imagine that new information stacks on top of old information until some mental threshold is reached for making a decision. In reality, however, preliminary research suggests that information aggregation is much closer to an exponential function; the first few pieces of information are weighted much more heavily than later information.

Another possibility is that people fail to realize how rich and engrossing each separate piece of information is. In psychology, this is called an empathy gap. Consider the question of how many interactions are necessary for you to decide whether you like and trust someone. It may be tempting to believe you’ll rationally evaluate each interaction as you would a dry statistic. But social encounters are vivid and engaging, and the first experience may simply be so absorbing as to tilt your judgment irrevocably, making future interactions unnecessary.

Recognizing the rush to judgment

In plenty of cases, a quick decision is just fine. Raquel Martínez/Unsplash, CC BY

It’s not clear that quick decisions are always bad. Sometimes snap judgments are remarkably accurate and they can save time. It would be crippling to comb through all the available information on a topic every time a decision must be made. However, misunderstanding how much information we actually use to make our judgments has important implications beyond making good or bad decisions.

Take the problem of self-fulfilling prophesies. Imagine a situation in which a manager forms a tentative opinion of an employee that then cascades into a series of decisions that affect that employee’s entire career trajectory. A manager who sees an underling make a small misstep in an insignificant project may avoid assigning challenging projects in the future, which in turn would hamstring this employee’s career prospects. If managers are unaware how willing they are to make quick and data-poor initial judgments, they’ll be less likely to nip these self-fulfilling destructive cycles in the bud.

Another example might be the human tendency to rely on stereotypes when judging other people. Although you may believe that you’ll consider all the information available about another person, people in fact are more likely to consider very little information and let stereotypes creep in. It may be a failure to understand how quickly judgments get made that make it so hard to exclude the influence of stereotyping.

Modern technology allows virtually any decision made today to be more informed than the same decision made a few decades ago. But the human reliance on quick judgments may forestall this promise. In the quest for more informed decision making, researchers will need to explore ways to encourage people to slow down the speed of judgment.

About The Author:

Nadav Klein is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Harris Public Policy, part of the University of Chicago.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

#data #psychology #decision making #science

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stillthewordgirl · 6 years

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LOT/CC fic: Chances Are (Ch. 4)

What if Leonard had been stuck in the 1950s with Sara, Ray, and Kendra in season 1? And how the hell did they survive, anyway?

Long chapter! And a warning that it gets a little more adult toward the end.

Many thanks to @larielromeniel for the beta. And to @pir8grl for following along as well!

Can be read here at AO3 and here at FF.net. Recommended because of length.

In the middle of the night, for the first time in many years, Sara Lance wakes up as the little spoon.

They'd fallen asleep close, but not like this. Len's warm breath—slow and steady; he's still out like a light-- is hitting her ear, and his left arm is thrown over her, the other one curled and pillowing his head. Their legs are tangled together, and it's the most...intimate...way they've slept yet, even though they're both still fully clothed.

Sara lies awake for a while, listening to him breathe, all that restless, fidgety Snart energy tamed, for once, in sleep. She's not entirely sure how they've gotten themselves into this position—literally and figuratively, she thinks with amusement—but she feels...

It's not safe, not precisely, or at least not because of him. She trusts Leonard; he's earned that, but she's the only one she truly relies on for her own safety. Content? Not quite that, either. Their situation is still precarious, and she vehemently doesn’t want to stay in this time, no matter how much they scrape out some measure of satisfaction and peace from time to time. And she's still worried about the others, Martin and Jax and Rip and even Gideon.

She doesn't know what she's feeling. In more ways than one.

She's attracted to Leonard. She can own that. He's a good-looking man, with just the right level of muscle without being brawny, and his eyes are amazing. Their personalities mesh well, too, even though they might, together, be a little too prone to snark. She enjoys his company, their card games and conversations. Even before this, she could say that she'd grown to consider him a friend. (And frankly, the competence and leadership he's shown since this debacle started is damned sexy.)

But is she starting to fall for him?

Lying there, warm and comfortable in the arms of a crook, knowing that they're going to get up tomorrow and keep working like the team they've become, trusting and relying on each other for backup and companionship and hope, she thinks...

Maybe.

The next morning isn't awkward—not quite. Still, there's a touch of...something...in Leonard's eyes when he returns with coffee for them both the next day (having vanished before she'd gotten out of bed again). Something a touch distant, and Sara can't help being a little disappointed by that.

She knows him well enough, though, that it doesn't take long to realize the distance is coming from distraction. He's pouring over something in the paper he'd gotten at the honor box last night, focused in a way she's come to recognize is Snart plotting mode.

She doesn't ask. He'll tell her when he has a plan. Instead, she takes a healthy swig of coffee, clears her throat, and raises her eyebrows in a different question when he glances at her. He reads it correctly.

"We need to hit the road as soon as possible today," he tells her, getting to his feet and stuffing the folded-up paper in his coat pocket. "Need to get to River City."

Sara snickers, grabbing her coat. "Going to go bang on Ray and Kendra's door?"

That gets a smirk. "What do you think?"

Leonard's not sure whether to be pleased or slightly disappointed that Raymond opens the door very nearly ready to go, just a little annoyed at the imperious hammering. Both he and Kendra do look rather tired, though, and Len resists the urge to make a crack at their expense.

So does Sara, who's being careful about such things around Kendra for some reason. She snags shotgun this time as he drives, and the lovebirds sit together in the backseat, where they're almost certainly likely to fall asleep with the hour.

He'd slept well. Extremely well, actually. Of course, he'd also woken up in a...situation...that now has him wondering why Sara hadn't slipped a knife between his ribs for his unconscious temerity.

But she hadn't. And he'd woken up like that...then spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to disentangle himself without waking her and making it clear where his mind had been...and how certain portions of anatomy had been all in for the idea.

On second thought, maybe his ribs weren't where she'd have put that knife.

For quite a while, the car is silent, a contrast to the actual camaraderie of last night. Raymond and Kendra do indeed fall asleep, and a soft snore now and again is the only sound from the backseat. Sara seems lost in thought and Leonard, frankly, has a lot on his mind, too, so he's content to watch the road and go over the checklist in his head as the miles pass.

Eventually, though, he feels Sara’s eyes on him and glances at her briefly, lifting an eyebrow to indicate he’s aware of her gaze.

“So,” she says after a moment, “why the urgency to get to River City?”

Of course she’d noticed that. Leonard considers denying it, but he’s pretty sure she wouldn’t buy it anyway.

So he prevaricates. “Sooner we get there, sooner we can figure something out, move on.”

“Hmm.” No, she’s not buying it, but he can more or less see her deciding whether to pursue the subject. To his relief, she chooses the latter. “How’s the car handling? Kendra said it should be fine, but she couldn’t guarantee how long.”

“Seems OK. Might have Raymond get it looked at in the city.” He darts her an apologetic look. “Not that I wouldn’t rather you or Kendra do that…”

She finishes the thought for him. “…but we’re women and we’d probably get laughed at or someone would attempt to scam us. And then we’d be obliged to kick his ass. Although that’d be its own reward.”

Leonard snorts in laughter despite himself. “True. Probably not effective, though.”

“Probably not.” Sara sighs. “As much as I hate to admit it, we sort of need to do something else unpleasant and necessary too. Laundry.”

“Ehhhh…” Leonard gives her an apologetic look. “Can you and Kendra handle that? This time, anyway.”

Her expression is resigned, but Sara nods. “Yeah, I figured. We’re getting an iron and you guys are ironing your own shirts, though.”

“Wouldn’t dare to dream otherwise.”

“And what are you going to be doing?”

So they’re back there again. Leonard keeps his eyes on the road. “Research.”

He’s not looking at her. And, OK, granted, he’s driving, but it’s a very pointed sort of not looking at her. And Sara knows Leonard Snart well enough by now to know that lack of eye contact is the most notable tell for discomfort he has.

There’s something he doesn’t want her to know. Or something he doesn’t want to tell her, or both.

Her earlier unease, that he’d have enough of this whole thing and just vanish one day, leaving them to struggle on, flickers back to life. She shoves it away viciously. If he hasn’t done it yet, why now? Especially since they’d just talked about looking out for each other, and the others.

But… “If you’re going to do something, just promise me you’ll tell me first.”

That gets a glance, an odd flicker in his eyes. “Pardon?”

“You heard me.”

He hesitates, long enough that the unease, paired with anger, starts to resurge. Then: “Promise.”

And she’ll have to be satisfied with that, for now.

They make pretty good time to River City, and Leonard (missing online maps more than ever), with the others helping keep an eye out, eventually manages to find a decent-looking mechanic’s shop just a few doors down from a coin-operated laundromat.

This leads to a group conference, as they pool their money and calculate expenses for the near future. Leonard, counting, shakes his head. They can manage…for now. This isn’t sustainable.

Well, part of the reason they’re here is so they can take steps to start changing that.

So he can.

Unfortunately, perhaps, the others haven’t forgotten that.

They’ve settled on a rough plan that involves Raymond taking the car to the mechanic for a once-over (“Do not agree to anything without consulting Kendra first, Raymond”) while Kendra and Sara do a few loads of laundry, something they’re not precisely thrilled by but agree is necessary.

Leonard merely says that he’ll back soon.

Three sets of eyes regard him with nearly identical expressions.

“So,” Raymond says after a moment “are you here to make a…score?”

How can the man make that sound so cheesy? But there’s no point in denying it. “Leave that to me.” After a moment, he qualifies it. “Not now. But I need to do some…reconnaissance.”

Sara makes a noise of irritation, then, and gets out of the car, grabbing a few of their bags and heading toward the laundromat. Leonard can’t help glancing regretfully after her. But he doesn’t want the rest of them in on this, damnit, and he has his reasons.

Raymond shakes his head. “OK,” he says with a sigh. “I get it. You don’t want us tagging along. But, Snart, we’re all in this together. We’re trusting you. You should trust us, too.”

And then he gets out of the car, grabbing the other bags to carry them in for Sara and Kendra.

Leonard waits, but Kendra, in the backseat, doesn’t move. Instead, she regards him steadily in the rear-view mirror, for so long that he eventually turns around to meet her gaze directly.

“I get it,” she says finally, echoing Raymond’s words, holding up a hand at his expression. “No, really. They might not, but I do. Ray is brilliant, but…well. He’s Ray.” Her lips curve. “I love him, but I’m not blind to his faults, Snart. And Sara…I think you know how stubborn she is.” He snorts at that, and her smiles grows. “And she hates being protected. She went through a lot so she could protect herself.”

“I know that.” He winces at the defensiveness in his voice. “Hell, she could kick my ass. With a hand tied behind her back. But this isn’t the sort a thing where Sara’s MO of being, well, a blunt instrument is going to help. And…”

“And what you’re trying to protect her from isn’t quite what she thinks you’re trying to protect her from.”

Leonard frowns, both at the knowing words and the undercurrent therein. Kendra’s eyes are direct, and a little sad.

“I wasn’t always a barista,” she says quietly. “And sometimes I remember. Running into Savage, back in Harmony Falls…it brought some things back that I’d really rather not have recalled. And while 1950s women’s prisons aren’t as bad as some punishments throughout time—and I’m thinking you and I both know that Sara’s been through worse—that doesn’t mean they don’t have the capacity to break people. Especially if a person’s lost all hope of going…home.”

The words cut to the quick, knowing what he’s done to Mick. And she needs to understand that it’s not that he usually plans on himself, or his people, being caught. “If I had more time…”

But Kendra holds her hand up against his explanation again, and he’s bemused enough at her authoritative attitude that he does quiet, listening to what she has to say.

“I get it,” she says again. “Just…I know we need the money, but don’t think we’d leave you behind either, OK? If something goes wrong? You’ve kept us alive this long; you’re part of this team.”

Leonard’s still digesting that, dealing with an odd and not-wholly-unpleasant feeling of…acceptance, he supposes …when Kendra sighs and leans forward, putting her hand on his shoulder.

“Snart…Leonard,” she says after a moment. “I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but…take care, would you? Please don’t make Ray try to organize a prison break, because you know he would.”

That gets an actual laugh out of him, for the mental image it creates. Leonard tilts his head in acknowledgment, smirking.

“And Sara?” he asks. But while he’d meant for a rather sardonic tone, the question comes out vaguely…plaintive, really.

“Sara?” Kendra smile grows, and suddenly, with a rush of insight, he knows exactly why Sara’s been so careful around her the past day or so.

Oh, crap.

But Kendra doesn’t give him even a fraction of the shit she could. Instead, her smile becomes almost fond.

“Sara…” she muses. “I think Sara would tear down this city, this time, until she got you back. Do you know that?”

Yeah, because I’d do the same for her. But he doesn’t answer, just looks at her steadily.

It’s enough. Kendra nods, once, pulling her hand back.

“Then do what you have to do,” she says. “And thank you. But remember. We need you. Sara needs you.”

Doing laundry while Leonard is off doing god only knowing what is, well, irritating. Sara scowls at the laundry spinning in a washer while Ray, back from the mechanic, is chattering away and Kendra is very patiently (in Sara’s opinion) asking him questions about what the man said.

She’s so lost in thought that she doesn’t notice, at first, that Kendra’s also talking to her.

“What?”

Kendra raises an eyebrow. “You OK?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

The other woman gives her one of those patented looks. “Because you’d rather be out there skulking around with Snart and you’re stuck here instead? Because you’re pissed at him for not talking to you about it?”

Sara refuses to dignify the questions with an answer. Kendra just rolls her eyes and goes back to talking to Ray.

The plan was to stay at the laundromat until a pre-agreed-upon time, then, if Leonard wasn’t back yet, to head down the road to a motel they’d checked out earlier. He’s not, and they do. Ray emerges from the office and hands Sara her own set of keys without comment.

She takes them without comment as well, even though she’d told him to go ahead and get one room. Well, she supposes that he and Kendra want their own space…and even though she’s pissed at Len, she’d still rather curl up with him…

After she tells him off, anyway.

They head next door to a little restaurant to get some food—Ray had scouted it out earlier and reported that it seemed to be safe. But even as they’re being seated, their missing crook strolls in the door, taking off his hat and joining their party without comment, just a charming smile for the young waitress. (Who seems, indeed, to be charmed, considering the way she bats her eyelashes at him.)

Sara gives him a level, unimpressed look. (Which he ignores. Aggressively.) After they’ve ordered and the flirting waitress has delivered their drinks and gone to check on other tables, Ray leans forward across the table and whispers, “So?”

Leonard leans back and takes a sip of his water. “So what, Raymond?”

“So…” Ray casts a slightly confused glance at Sara and Kendra and then looks back at the other man. “Your…reconn...um. What you were doing. How did it go?”

“Went fine.”

“Are you done?”

That just gets him an unimpressed look. (Which Kendra notices is the mirror of Sara’s earlier look, although she doesn’t point it out at the time.) “No. What was the verdict on the car?”

That successfully distracts Ray, mainly because he can extoll Kendra’s virtues in the field of auto repair. Kendra, correcting him and adding information, ignores the elephant in the restaurant too. Sara, who thinks she’s probably being childish but just can’t help it, continues to stare down into her drink and think annoyed thoughts.

After a while, the waitress—Mary, her nametag says--returns with their meals, sliding them across the table with smiles for them all, but especially Leonard.

“You seen all the fancy types in town for the gala?” she asks with barely concealed excitement. “I mean, we get all types here, for Slot Row. But my friend, who works down at the Goldeneye Hotel, she says they been pouring in the past few days, even though it’s not ‘til tonight. And, boy, do they like to tip!”

For a heartbeat, three of the people at the table try very hard not to look at the fourth person at the table.

“We’re just passing through,” Sara says, putting a sincere (she hopes) smile on her face and learning toward the woman, “on the way to Opal City. A gala? That sounds like fun!”

Mary grins back at her. “Doesn’t it? But it’s bigwigs only. Some political thing.”

Kendra, joining in, laughs. “Eww,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “Yeah, not our type of party. But, yeah, I bet the tips are great! I remember…”

She continues, spinning a story that Sara is pretty sure is a 1950s-appropriate adaption of a true incident from her CC Jitters days. Soon, they’re bonding over shared food-service experience, and Sara’s decided to…tone down and tweak…a few stories from Verdant and share those too. Ray and Len share glances, the former grinning and the latter inscrutable, and chime in a few observations here and there.

All in all, Sara thinks, she’s pretty sure they’ve successfully kept Mary from connecting the friendly strangers who’d left the nice tip with any…problems…that might occur at the fancy political event down on Slot Row.

She hopes.

"You're going to rob the gala.”

Sara’s voice is matter of fact and absolutely certain. She’s standing in their room, arms folded, watching him with an odd expression—something that’s somehow determined and uncertain at the same time.

There will be no equivocation here. Leonard pauses in studying the two double beds with some regret. (Raymond had told him there were no kings available, sotto voce, on the way back here, obviously looking for a reaction he didn’t get.) He studies Sara instead, at a loss for how to handle this, at a loss to explain why he cares.

“If all goes well,” he confirms eventually, dropping his coat onto a chair, “I'm going to...divert...the proceeds from the event, yes.”

Sara snorts at the euphemism, but he also thinks her shoulders relax, just a little, when he admits it.

“OK,” she says then, “what’s the plan?”

He draws in a breath, then goes for bluntness. And tries to channel the chill he doesn’t usually use, with her. “Nothing you need to know. Better you don’t.”

Sara’s eyes narrow, and there’s steel in them…and a little bit of hurt. “Bullshit,” she hisses. “You need backup. I’m not letting you do this alone.”

“You don’t get a say,” he snaps back, losing the chill, spurred to urgency with the need to keep her out of it. “This is my plan. I say what I need.”

Of course—and he should have expected this—his brusqueness just cements the anger and insistence in her eyes. “Seriously? After all…after all we’ve been through on the ship and here, you’re just going to…to freeze me out? I know you get the need for backup; you lit into Rip…”

“This is different.”

Sara takes a step toward him, eyes blazing. “Bullshit,” she repeats. “I’m going with you.”

She can’t. She can’t, and the panic that elicits in him startles him and pulls truth from him, makes him step forward and lower his voice, trying to show her his sincerity, his…fuck..feelings.

“No,” he says again, voice low and intense as Sara stares up at him with furious eyes. “No. I haven't had time, and I don't have the information, to plan this like I usually would. It’s too…sketchy, too sloppy to drag anyone else in, to risk anyone else.”

Sara looks a little startled by the sincerity he’s trying to convey, but she’s too very…Sara…to back down. “I’m not just anyone.”

“No, you’re not.” Too much, too much truth, but he can’t back down. “You’re…I am not leaving someone else behind.”

To Sara, at least, it’s undeniably clear who and what he’s talking about. She blinks up at him, and he can see her mouth the name, but she doesn’t say it, not out loud. For Leonard’s part, he’s startled to realize that he’s nearly shaking with the need to make her understand. Abandoning Mick, that last-ditch shot to save his partner…his friend’s…life had been the worst of plans, thrown together on the spur of the moment when it became clear a nuclear option was necessary.

He’d had no clear idea how he would manage to convince Hunter to go back for Mick after a cool-down period, whether he’d be able to steal the jump ship again, if the team would even tolerate having either one of them back after that. If Mick would ever forgive him.

And now it’s worse. So much worse.

This plan isn’t much better. Sure, he’d been planning as he went today. He has the framework, the bones, of a decent heist. But it’s hasty and so many things could go wrong--no, could go catastrophically wrong. And Leonard knows it. He’s planned too many heists—and suffered through too many poorly planned Lewis heists—not to.

Sara’s still quiet, watching him, and he’s not ready to say all that out loud, whether or not she knows it anyway. So he tries to throw more logic at it.

“Raymond is the most likely person to be able to figure out how to signal the Waverider,” he tells her, taking another step closer. “We can't risk him getting locked up. Kendra...no way in hell I'm going to risk what could happen to her if she was arrested. And the same with you.”

Sara’s chin goes up. “You do realize I've been through worse than prison,” she tells him in return, voice just as low and intense as his.

Leonard takes a breath. “Yes,” he says quietly—thinking about both quiet conversations over cards and the file on Sara he’d looked up on the ship's computer. “I do. I know about the Amazo, and I know it was hell.” He meets her eyes. “Not again.”

There’s surprise there, and her tone softens, a little. “I don't need you to protect me, Leonard.”

That draws a snort from him. “You think I don’t know that?

“I know you do.” She shakes her head. “Damnit, you stupid crook, I’m trying to protect you.”

The words rattle him, a little, more than he shows, more than he thought they would. He’s not used to this.

Lisa had tried, back when she became old enough to realize that he so often took the punishments and blows meant for her. He’d done his best to train her out of that impulse—and for years, wondered if he’d damaged her in a way he’d barely considered at the time. But it’d been necessary.

(And then Lewis had reappeared and tried to hurt her again, to hurt him--and goddamn Barry Allen and his silly team had stepped in. That’s a completely different set of mixed feelings.)

Mick had protected him, way back in juvie, of course. And he won’t think about Mick.

“And I appreciate that,” he tells her instead, trying to show it in his voice. “But you...you three...need me to keep doing my thing so we can survive this. Living out of hotels, ripping people off and moving on...it's not sustainable.” He shakes his head. “I plotted this heist out for one person. And I’m going to do it. You…if the worst happens, keep the other two moving. Give Raymond a chance to figure out how to signal the ship. Then…break me out.”

They both know that’s not the worst that could happen. Sara shakes her head too, as if in denial, but they know he’s right.

“When?” she asks simply.

Leonard glances at the clock. “Maybe…an hour. It’s early yet, but I still have some things to put into place. And I need to be sure that I don’t…can’t…lead them back here.”

Sara draws in a deep breath, holds it a moment, then lets it out. “Then…sit down.” She pulls the deck of cards out of her coat pocket. “Talk to me. Tell me if there’s anything I need to know.” She shakes her head again as he eyes her. “I promise I won’t interfere. But maybe I can help with logistics, anything you’re still working out.”

After a minute, Leonard nods.

“Well,” he says, taking a seat on the edge of one of the beds and watching as Sara shuffles the cards, “whenever someone’s transporting a great deal of money, there’s always a weak point…”

Sara never thought she'd miss the constant access to news so familiar to her native time, but this...this is torture.

She crosses the room again, restless, unable to sleep, although she knows she should on the chance they'll need to move quickly—whether it's all four of them or only three of them. If all goes well, though, they’ll just stay put until the next day; running, as Leonard had noted, is always bound to attract more attention than just looking confused and asking the nice police officer what all the excitement is about.

Sara, who had, after all, spent years as a thief of a sort herself—albeit a thief of lives—understood.

That didn’t mean she had to like it.

Leonard’s been gone for hours now. Which was to be expected, since he’d plotted a very circuitous route to and from Slot Row, along with multiple changes of clothing and personas. This is his business, and he’s very good at it, despite his unease at the lack of time and his usual meticulous level of planning.

She knows that.

But…damn it. Sara sits back down on one of the beds, putting her head in her hands and trying to breathe. To center herself.

She can’t do this without him.

It’s just past 3 a.m. when there’s finally a nearly imperceptible noise at the door. A glance through the peephole and she has it open before he can pop the lock, pulling him into the room and closing the door behind him.

“Are you OK?” she demands, taking in the weariness in his eyes, the empty hands, the same navy suit he’d left in. “Leonard. Are you all right? Do we need to leave?”

He holds up a hand, and she takes a breath, steps back, stops the flood of things she wants, needs, to ask. He seems to be in one piece, unharmed at any rate, but there’s a shadow there, something behind his eyes, and she’s not sure what it is.

"I got the entire take,” Leonard says quietly after a moment. “It’s stowed safely; we can get it tomorrow. Should be more than enough for what we need." He shrugs out of the suit coat. “And they got…someone else…for it. So I think we’re clean.”

Sara sighs, letting herself relax a little bit. But he’s standing there in the middle of the room staring down at his jacket like he’s not sure what to do with it, and something’s certainly gone wrong, in some way.

“Good,” she says finally, not entirely sure how to handle a Snart in this mood, but relieved that he’s back safe. “Then…want to help me here? We could push the beds together; I’m pretty sure a double alone wouldn’t be that comfortable for you…”

But there’s a flash in his eyes, then, something complicated and unhappy, and she sees the cold persona settle over his features like a mask, an uncanny transformation right before her eyes. He drops the jacket on to a chair and shrugs, chilly gaze meeting hers for only a moment before sliding away.

“I think I can live without...snuggling...for a night.” And there it is, the harsh, dismissive edge that's been missing from his voice since they've been stuck here, since he's been distracted by the task of keeping them all alive and moving.

It’s like a kick in the stomach, given how much they’ve…given how much she’d thought they’d grown together over the past few days, but Sara’s suddenly too tired herself, body and soul, to call him on it.

“Suit yourself,” she says simply, turning away, exhausted. “Suit yourself.”

She’s tired enough to sleep, although it’s a fitful sleep, a discontented one. Leonard’s changed and stretched out on the other bed, facing away from her without so much as a “goodnight.” Sara, staring at the ceiling during one of her periods of wakefulness, decides that maybe the Leonard she’d seen over the past few days had been the façade.

Now that there’s money, he’ll be gone as soon as possible, shedding the rest of them like an ill-fitting cover story, she thinks. He’ll slip away into the night, into the criminal underbelly of one of the bigger cities, and she’ll be left behind trying to hold them together, to hold on to hope, to…find somewhere she belongs.

There is somewhere, even in 1958. She’s been trying not to think about it. But Nanda Parbat is, at least, a place to go, somewhere she could fit in again.

“No…”

The mutter from the other bed breaks into her unhappy thoughts, and Sara blinks, rolling over to peer through the darkness at the tossing, turning shape across the room.

The next noise is inarticulate, but clearly pained, and she sits up. Maybe she’s still pissed at him, pissed and hurt, but for now, he’s still a member of her team.

“Leonard?” she whispers. “Are you OK?”

“Don’…don’t do it…”

A dream. Rather, a nightmare. Sara’s had too many of those herself to feel anything other than sympathy. She starts to climb to her feet, but before she can do more than that, he makes another one of those wordless noises of pain, louder this time, and starts to thrash around, lashing out at something he’s seeing only in dreams.

“No…!” His next panicked blow sends the lamp crashing from the table, and he flinches at the crash, but doesn’t seem to wake.

They’re not next to Ray and Kendra this time, and if someone calls the cops… Sara hurries over, jumping back as he lashes out again, then climbing onto the too-small bed next to him.

“Stupid, stupid, stubborn crook,” she chants under her breath as she tries to figure out how to help without getting an unintentional blow or freaking him out more. “You should have talked to me. Should’ve helped me push the beds together. We’re…better together, you idiot. Damn it, Leonard. Come back!”

At that point, she just catches his right hand in hers, blocking his blow at an unseen assailant, leaning forward to put her other hand on his shoulder, moving it up after a second to gently cup his jaw. Because whatever he’s seeing in dreams, it’s not gentle, not at all.

And that, against the odds, works. Blue eyes fly open, staring blindly at her, but he stops the thrashing instantly. Instead, he struggles to sit up a little more, shaking his head with agitation before trying to focus on her again.

“Sara,” he says, his voice rough and perplexed.

“Yes.”

“Sara.”

“Yes,” she repeats, keeping her voice as gentle as possible. “I think you were having a nightmare. You were getting really loud and…and a little violent, and I didn’t want anyone to call the cops. You OK?”

But her words draw an immediate recoil from him. “Violent?”

“Yes. No…not to me,” she adds, leaning forward again and catching his shoulder again. “You were just thrashing around and…I was worried.”

Leonard closes his eyes again and takes a deep breath, then another, some of that terrible tension running out of his shoulders. Sara, very gently, very tentatively, starts to knead the muscles on which her hand is resting, moving to sit next to him.

“Sorry,” he mutters again after a minute. “I…”

He's staring off into space again, but Sara isn't about to let it go this time.

“What happened out there?” she asks quietly. “Tell me.”

He doesn’t want to talk about it. But it’s eating at him, and he’s pretty sure that Sara, this time, isn’t going to let him pull his usual bullshit of retreating into the ice.

He glances at her. Yeah. Definitely not.

“It was going according to plan,” he says finally, closing his eyes. “I had my mask on; I was waiting at the point where there should have only been two guards, right before they got to the armored car and the others. But...

“There was this pair of dumb-ass kids. Eh, maybe about 20 years old. I heard them before I saw them, and they didn’t see me. Reminded me a bit of me and...me back in the day, but I was never that stupid.” He opens his eyes, staring into the dark, into memory. “You can tell a plan isn't a good one when two idiots like that come up with the same one. Well, a similar one.

“Except their plan wasn’t much more then ‘go in with guns blazing.’ ” Leonard shakes his head. “It would have been a bloodbath.”

Sara’s pulled both her legs up onto the bed, moving a little so she can work on both his shoulders. The touch feels really good, actually. “So what did you do?”

She’s simply assumed he wouldn’t let it stand. Well. She’s not wrong.

“The two guards carried the take out in a bag,” he said after a minute. “Right on schedule. The idiots moved in, guns drawn. So I… shot them.”

Sara’s hands still. “The...idiots?”

“Yes.” His right hand moves up to rub at his left bicep, but he barely realizes it. “Just winged them both, in the upper arm.” He glances back at her. “I know basic anatomy. I kept it as safe as I could, stayed away from arteries, or so I presume.

“Well, they went down, dropped their guns like the rookies they were. The guards pulled their weapons, and dropped the bag—they weren’t the brightest, either--focusing on them, there was a lot of yelling, it was dark…” He shakes his head. “In the chaos, I got the bag. Got out of there, stowed it, changed, and circled back around to see what the buzz was. The press was already out in force and I blended in with them. Even had a notebook in my pocket.”

He snorts. “The story is already that those two just had an accomplice who turned on them. That’s where the investigation is focusing: on another idiot kid. No one saw me clearly, and there were no cameras. So I guess I should be pleased."

Sara’s started rubbing his shoulders again, her fingers brushing the bare skin of his neck and he’s trying not to lean into the touch. “So,” she says quietly, “you probably actually saved lives tonight. Probably more than one guard, maybe even the would-be robbers.”

Leonard hasn’t really thought about it that way. “But…”

“But you know I’m right.” There’s a faint hint of amusement in her voice, and he can’t help smirking a little in return, especially since he thinks that, just maybe, his earlier reflexive coldness has been forgiven.

But she needs to understand.

He pulls away, just a little, then, swallowing, abruptly drags his shirt up and over his head, dropping it onto the bed next to them. Sara watches with a little surprise in her eyes, but doesn’t say anything, even he turns to better show her his bare left bicep…and the deep scar that still cuts across it.

“When I was about that same damned age,” he tells her, “my father shot me. Same spot, more or less, though I’m pretty sure his motives weren’t good. I was a distraction, so he could get away during a heist gone wrong.” He holds himself still, trying not to flinch as she cautiously reaches out to run a fingertip over it, a sensation that raises the hairs on the back of his neck. “The damned thing still gives me problems. Still hurts at night, or when the weather changes.”

He shakes his head. “And I did the same thing to those two stupid kids.”

Sara has mixed feelings, at this moment. She wants to go find the two boneheads that nearly ruined Leonard’s heist, make sure they’re OK (for his sake), and then yell at them until they rethink their life choices.

She wants to go back in time and find Lewis Snart so she can kill him again.

And she wants…

She wants.

She runs her fingers across the vicious scar again, surreptitiously (or not so surreptitiously, really) running her eyes over the half-clothed man sitting in front of her. But this probably isn’t a good time to act on the attraction, not when he’s caught up in guilt and memory, and the last thing she wants to do is scare him off.

“You said it yourself,” she says instead. “It could have been a bloodbath.”

Leonard doesn’t answer, although he does shrug. And he doesn’t argue, either, and she’ll take that, as long as he keeps thinking about what she’s said.

She should go back to her bed. She should…

"C'mere, Len," she sighs instead. "I...I sleep better with you here. And I don't think either one of us should be alone right now."

Leonard regards her steadily. Then he nods, moving to stretch out, catching her wrist to pull her gently down with him

The bed is small, much smaller than they’re used to now, but it doesn’t matter much, because they’re definitely well and truly in each other’s space. Leonard hasn’t bothered putting his shirt back on, and the warmth is radiating off him, striking in a man who usually gloried in such a chilly image, and Sara, lying next to him, only inches apart, glories in it.

Without even thinking about it, she reaches out with the arm that isn't curled up under her head and runs her hand down his back and then up again, palm smoothing over warm skin, callouses catching on the scars she’d just gotten her first look at.

He freezes, at first, and she does too, suddenly wide awake, cursing the drowsy impulse. But then…he slowly moves his own free hand around to rest on her hip, then up under her top, fingers drifting up her back, too, skin on skin, tracing her spine. The spark of electricity this causes makes her shudder, sensation prickling along every nerve, and she stifles a gasp of reaction, arching her back just a little.

Oh.

Oh, this could be dangerous. Or wonderful. Or dangerously wonderful. All three?

Is she ready to go there? Is he?

Well. He's no expert, but from the way Sara's reacting, his touch certainly doesn't seem to be unwelcome. Far from it. Her eyes are closed, and her lips are slightly parted, and she's breathing far more heavily than he'd think a simple caress could account for.

So is he. And his breath catches again as she moves her hand around, trailing her fingers lightly down his bare chest slowly and steadily, bringing her hand to rest right on the waistband of his pajama pants, hooking her fingertips just inside.

And, holy shit, if he hadn’t been hard before (and he’d definitely been on the way there), he sure as hell is now.

Sara follows up on that move by edging a little closer, and he follows suit, until they’re touching just about everywhere, more contact than he’s experienced in a good long time. Leonard, cognizant of his own ragged breathing, makes himself take a deep breath, then another, running his hand down her back again, sensitive fingertips tracing her spine, right down to the base, an area that seems to be particularly…sensitive.

She arches her back, gasping again, bringing her front into even closer contact with his chest and making a noise that seems to mix amusement, desire and frustration.

The first kiss isn't quite a real kiss. More...that their mouths sort of touch as they lie there, arms around each other, as she looks up at him and he tilts his head down to look to her. Her top lip brushes his bottom lip, lingering just a little, and they both hesitate, then move to readjust the angle.

The second kiss is still awkward in its own way, slow and unpracticed, as if they’re still trying to pretend this isn’t what it is. Lips brush, lingering and hesitant, but the angle is still off, and Sara hums to herself, then moves a little, adjusting it again, and darts her tongue between his lips.

Damn.

She tastes like something sweet, something he can’t name, and he just enjoys it for a moment before upping the aggression just a little on his part, snaking his other hand around to cradle the back of her head, pulling her closer. And all of a sudden, just that quickly, there’s nothing hesitant about it; they’re devouring each other, making out like they’re never going to have this moment again, an air of desperation about the whole thing.

Somehow, through a combination of his efforts and hers, Sara’s top has become completely unbuttoned, and she pulls back for just a moment to strip it off and fling it elsewhere before surging back to kiss him again, skin pressing to skin. They’re both half-naked now, and her still-silk-clad thigh is moving between his legs, and he’s moved his other hand to curve around her ass, and if those two layers of fabric weren’t there…

It would be the easiest thing in the world to let go and do this.

But. The corner of his mind that hasn’t yet ceded control to other portions of anatomy points out. But.

Leonard is an overthinker. Always has been, always will be. It makes him an excellent planner, an exceptional crook, one who anticipates almost all contingencies (except, one time, a damned speedster) and prepares for them.

It makes him lousy at relationships.

They’re stuck here. They might never get to go home. The realist in him knows it even as he’s been trying to soldier on preparing for the best possible chance of making it there. And beyond all the planning, the pragmatic slog toward Nickel City and a situation where they can safely go to ground for a while, there’s only one bright point in this whole damned mess.

Sara’s here too.

Sara, who gets him on a level he’s not sure anyone else ever has, not even Mick. Sara, who has her darkness too, but understands what it’s like to wonder if you can still reach the light. Sara, who’s every element of brilliant and bad-ass he’s ever been attracted to.

If this goes south, and they fall apart, he’ll be alone here.

Sure, this whole roll in the sheets could just be a friends-with-benefits thing. Maybe it is to her. But deep down, Leonard Snart acknowledges that he’s well and truly falling for Sara Lance, the way he’s only fallen for two other people in his life.

Neither of those times went well.

And the notion that he could ruin her presence in his life, drive her away, by pursuing this terrifies him.

Leonard breaks the kiss, pulling away with a gasp, putting a little space between them and trying to clear his head. Sara, whose fingers had been drifting south, stops her exploration immediately, reaching her right hand up to cup his jaw, eyes concerned.

“Are you OK?” she whispers after a moment. “Talk to me.”

“It’s OK. It’s OK. It’s just…need to slow down…I…” I’m a little more fucked up than I’ve ever told you. “It’s not you. All right? It’s not you.”

She studies him a moment, then nods, pulling back a little herself. But he reaches for her when she makes a move to get up and she subsides back down to his side, reaching out to grab both their discarded shirts and pressing his into his hand.

Leonard takes it but doesn’t move yet to put it on. Sara pillows her head on an arm and watches him steadily in return. There’s no judgement, no anger or even irritation in her eyes, and that make it easier to say what he does next.

“Just…don’t leave,” he says quietly. “Give me time?”

He’s never asked for such a thing in his life.

And on some level, he’s stunned when she whispers “Of course.”

#chances are #captain canary #sara lance #leonard snart #legends of tomorrow

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audiovizualna · 6 years

Photo

This particular illustration belongs somewhere between pt. 3 and 4 of CC Christmas fic, but It’s my favourite. You’ll find a lot of team dynamic in this chapter and some nice memories. As always massive ‘thank you’ for @flabbergabst for correcting my mistakes.

Cheers, lads. Enjoy :*

(I own nothing)

“You’re Not Him”

Part 1: “For Him”

Part 2: “About Him”

Part 3: ”From Him”

When the Captain finally came back to Waverider, Nate was in the middle of singing along ”God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman”—the very same Stein had been singing last Christmas. Considering how horrible this version was, she stormed off to her quaters faster than intended. Sara had to admit though, the atmosphere on the ship improved significantly. The plan was working.

Leo had no intention of following her. She was upset enough after he had her sussed a few moments ago; so instead, he also went straight inside and joined Amaya and Jax in the kitchen for dinner preparations.

Even with the lack of cooking possibilities on Earth-X, he managed not to burn the yam casserole with marshmallows. He also did a pretty good job with herbal mashed potatoes, but that was all he could achieve in this field. However, an attempt to make spiced mulled wine turned out to be disaster, so he imperceptibly retreated. Only God knows how Snart missed the laughter and learning simple things from his own mistakes. Eventually, another members of the Legends came to help too. Leo figured that he is not needed in the already too crowdy space.

Leo asked Gideon where the captain is. The AI reported that Sara was currently in the training room, punching hell out of leather board. Leonard wanted to approach her again but he had one more person to talk to before dinner.

So there he stood, in front of Mick’s door, waiting. The doors opened at the request and Leo walked into the messy room without invitation. Not like he needed any.

”Before you try to kick me out, let me clarify one thing,” Leo started. ”You, or more like your version from Earth-X, was my best friend. Him and I have a strong connection in every world we exist. So why don’t you just talk to me? It will cost you nothing. But then again, I know you’re afraid.”

”I’m afraid of nothing! You wanna know why?” Rory almost growled. ”Because I have nothing else to loose, Snart!”

Leo waited for the man to calm down. Mick picked up a bottle of beer lying around and said in a way less gruff than a few seconds ago. ”There was only one Leonard for me. My true partner who had to play the hero and die, leaving me with those bunch of idiots.”

”Then why did you stay?” Leo asked, turning his head towards the arsonist and patiently waiting for the answer.

Mick loudly sighed. ”Exactly because of the same man who blew himself up. I knew he would stay if I had been the one dead in that damnxplosion. Beside, someone has to take care of those kids now that grandpa professor is gone.”

That comment caused small laughter deep inside Snart’s stomach, but he managed to find some snarky answer.

”I assume you’re not exactly the most suitable role model for any of them. But I’m no different, Mick. I never wanted to be a role model, but at least I try. The awful things we went through made us the people that we are now and you, my friend, as terrible as it may sound, are becoming a better man every day. And those ‘idiots’ are one of the reasons behind that.”

Heatwave started to open his mouth in response, but Citizen Cold already stood up and began leaving the room with one last sentence.

”And yes, I know what you’re going to say. ‘Stop calling me your friend!’,” Leo drawled. ”Noted, Mick, once and for all. But that doesn’t mean you’re not my greatest companion.”

That’s how he left, asking Gideon to close the door to Mick’s room.

While everybody was busy preparing for dinner, Leo decided to roam around the ship, looking for places he hasn’t discovered yet. He could not understand though, why Sara felt emotional while having their previous conversation. The former assassin knew his presence in the ship is only temporary and sooner or later, he’s going to go back to Ray Terrill - love of his life.

On the other end of the ship was Sara, taking a cold shower after her training session. As the cold water flow through her body, one thing was bothering her. Why did Leo decide to stay in this Earth if everything he cared about was on another Earth?

As worried as she was, Sara Lance had to know the answer to that question and fast. Otherwise, her head might explode. She got dressed and despite her state, she entered the galley to see everybody patiently waiting for her.

”Ah! Finally our boss showed up! Now, let’s eat,” Mick proposed enthusiastically and grabbed closest dish - cranberry-stuffed duck.

”Shall I do the honours again?” Sara asked the group with one raised eyebrow, holding a large carving knife in her hand.

”Yup. As I remember correctly, last year Martin asked you to carve the poultry. Turkey is all yours, Captain,” Ray answered, already waiting with plates next to Sara.

The heroes almost forgot how good it was to sit together, laugh, and bring back some memories of their past days, both as the team and as individuals.

The original Legends answered every question Zari and Leo had about the photos displayed around the ship. Most of them were pretty funny stories like the one about kidnapping their younger selves, or meeting the Justice Society of America and the big misunderstanding between the two teams.

”Jax, do you remember when Marty rescued you from time pirates? He loved every minute of being… how had we called him?” Raymond asked.

Jax chuckled at the memory. ”A Space Ranger! Oh, yeah. Grey was a total badass those days.”

Both men laughed out loud, then looked at Mick carefully, remembering other events from that night.

”You’re right boys. That would have been cool if I had not almost froze to death in our engine room and Rory didn’t burn my arm,” Sara mentioned casually with a smirk.

”Oh, come on Birdie! Cut me some slack. That’s the part none of us want to remember,” Mick reminded the captain. ”Screwing things up is our speciality and it’ll never change. Less talking, more drinking.”

”What about the toast? Sara, that’s your call,” Jax suggested eloquently with a raised glass of wine on hand.

Sara was lost in her thoughts after Jefferson mentioned the time pirates. She was currently looking at the photo of her Leonard after he left Mick in the middle of nowhere. The said picture is both beautiful and sad. She realize that she’s never seen it before. Jax, however, knew when it was taken. Jax remembered perfectly this moment and that’s when he snapped the Canary out of her thoughts, gently putting hand on her shoulder and giving a her small smile.

She smiled back at the young man and stood up.

”Well, it seems like routine to me now, so I can’t retreat now,” Sara said, rolling her blue eyes and continued on with the toast.

”First of all, I want to thank Jax, Ray and… Leo, for the whole idea of bringing us together again. I had my doubts if this would be helpful at all after what happened last month, but I see now that the plan worked.”

She caught herself staring at Leo’s eyes, which were focused on her through the whole timethey’ve spent at the table. Even if she wanted to drown in steel blue irises, Sara carried on.

”We all had our precious time to think, to silently save the timeline, making it worse first obviously, but I’m glad we’re enjoying each other’s company once again. I assume that what happened made us stronger than ever, even if not all of us can fell it now.” She paused for a second, catching Jax’s stare.

”Everything is temporary, guys, and it’s up to us to show our own demons that we want to save ourselves. It’s up to us how much light we want to give to one another. So I make this toast for everyone who isn’t scared to share with us their best and their worst. To the people who made us better. Through darkness and light.”

”Through darkness and light!” All the voices answered in sync, emptying the glasses.

After dinner, the Legends moved to the main hall for another portion of exchanging stories saved on photo-chain. The whole team knew that this is a kind of bittersweet Christmas that will be the most memorable of them all.

Bottles of eggnog were opened and quickly consumed. Stories of King Arthur, evil demigods, brainwashed friends or World War I were shared and genuine laughter filled the air, mixed with the ginger scent of candles and the dim light of christmas lights.

One by one, the team members began to disappear in their private rooms, until only Sara, Leo, and Jax remained in the spacious hall.

”Thanks, both of you. I mean it. You did something I should have done many weeks ago, but I’ve never found courage to do so,” Sara softly said with a small smile, looking at the men in front of her.

”Hey Sara, like you said: ‘We all needed time,’” Jax replied. ”Besides, I bet Grey would be proud. The team took the opportunity to recover without fights and arguments. Aaaaaand he would also be pissed I’m still not in bed, so goodnight and…of course, you’re welcome, Captain,” Jax ended, looking at his watch and saluting both of them goodbye before he headed back to the quarters.

”I see that Stein is still the voice of reason here,” Sara exclaimed after her young friend turned back.

Jax smiled and looked back at the Captain.

”Yeah. I got it from him. Someone has to be the voice of reason in this crazy ship.”

If he got a glare from Sara, Jefferson never had a chance to see it.

#captain canary #citizen canary #sara lance #leo snart #jefferson jackson #martin stein #mick rory #amaya jiwe #nate heywood #ray palmer #zari tomaz #CC christmas fic #PANDArt

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