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indiaalphawhiskey · 7 months

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fake fic title! "crescent moons fix broken hearts"

would love it if it could be hl? 👀

Sorry this took so long! I really needed to write something today to flex the muscle, I hope you and @awesomefringey (who submitted the t-shirt pic) like it. 🥰 (I tried to post this twice with a moodboard but Tumblr wouldn’t let me. 😒)

🌙 Crescent Moons Fix Broken Hearts

Sitting in the en suite of the lavish hotel room, the soft lighting of the vanity illuminating the planes of his face, Harry let the radical irony of what he was about to do wash over him.

It was a weird thing, he realized, this feeling of waiting for a moment your entire life – preserving it, building it up – only to have it finally, finally come in a form so different it was almost laughable.

Not almost. Harry did laugh.

Half because he caught sight of his ridiculously nervous expression in the mirror, and half because apparently, one minute someone could be the perfect pure, virginal (if a little sexually frustrated) Omega groom-to-be fitting their bespoke wedding suit in at a highly exclusive designer shop, and three days later, be that very same Omega, revenge and wildly expensive tequila shooting through their veins as they booked their would-have-been honeymoon suite to have raunchy sex with an Alpha they’d hired specifically to finally deflower them, once and for all.

Turns out getting dumped in a Saville Row dressing room because one’s ex-fiancé thought they were quote, “an uppity, frigidly cold fish who he probably had no sexual chemistry with anyway”, unquote, really lit a fire under one’s arse.

Harry flared his nose in anger, his thoughts murderous as images of his beautiful, wasted wedding invitations danced back into his mind, haunting him. His cheeks began their now familiar pinkening with his remembered humiliation, and then…

A soft knock unfortunately interrupted Harry’s montage of fantastic daydreams of running over every single one of his ex-fiancé’s prized watches to the intro of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song.

“Come in,” he called out gently – or as gently as one could through gritted teeth.

As the door slid away, the unfamiliar, unassuming coolness of rosemary and sage rolled in slowly. Harry wasn’t used to it; accustomed to sharing spaces with the scent of warm whiskey and leather layered with that wretchedly expensive cologne Harry had always hated.

But back to the sage.

Sage, and rosemary, and cedar, and… he let the last note tickle his nose as he tried to name it.

“Are you okay?” Louis Tomlinson asked.

… and soap, Harry realized, oddly comforted even as he wondered whether the name was a pseudonym; wondered if it was standard procedure to print such a convincing alias on a discreet calling card that would eventually be passed across an elegant brunch table at the Dorchester.

(‘Niall, don’t be absurd,’ Harry had sniffed, trying his best to push the card back towards him without making a scene. ‘Jesus, just be normal and introduce me to one of your investment bankers, or something.’

Niall had given him a long, silent, and completely unimpressed look in response, glancing down at the engagement ring Harry was still wearing, if only to make a point. Ouch.

‘Harry, trust me. After this shitshow, you of all people deserve an orgasm on the first go. Treat yourself.’)

“I’m alright.” The polite platitude was out of his mouth accompanied by a reserved smile through the mirror before he could stop it.

It wasn’t like he could tell the truth anyway; not like he could say, ‘No, actually. I’m fucking livid, because a week ago I was about to be married, and today my financial manager called to ask if my credit card had been stolen because there was a suspicious charge from RoyaLT Enterprises for a ‘Platinum Package – All Inclusive’ on it when I was assured this service would be discreet, goddamnit!’

He bit his tongue, mostly because Harry didn’t tell Louis about the jilting; had decided against it the moment he had clicked ‘Platinum’, the description reading ‘two-week session with certified heat coach (Alpha) focused on scent familiarity, building sexual rapport, and discussing intimacy needs in addition to agreed heat cycle partnership.’

A virgin who had saved himself for marriage only to be jilted a week before his wedding because he was, in fact, a virgin, paying for sex and intimacy, trapped in a room with someone who really shouldn’t be as attractive as he had turned out to be… It had all just felt a little too humiliating.

Which, speaking of…

“Sorry,” Harry blurted out softly now, slowly coming to his senses. He turned to face Louis, his eyes widening. “We’re… we’re on the clock, aren’t we? Am I… I’m wasting your time?”

Louis chuckled softly – kindly, really – and casually leaned against the door frame, crossing his ankles. He was shirtless, Harry only now realized, as he watched him slip both hands into the pockets of his silk pajama bottoms, making them ride dangerously low against his happy trail.

Louis shook his head. “You’re supposed to take your time, get comfortable with me.” He raised his hand to gesture to himself – what he was wearing, and then the space between them. “This is all part of it.” He grinned wide, and Harry had noticed he was handsome when they’d met, but the genuine warmth of his smile is what made it. (Well, his smile, and his abs, and the still respectable but no less impressive hint of a bulge in his pajama bottoms…) “It’s called the boyfriend package for a reason.”

Funny, Harry thought then, feeling just a little bit… well, a little bit wet. He’d never had a boyfriend who looked quite like this.

Niall’s wise words began to reverberate in his mind: ‘Treat yourself.’

Harry bit back a cheeky smile. He intended to.

— Or, When Harry Styles did things, he did them right. Why should losing his virginity be any different?

#fake fic titles #fake fic #iaw drabbles #I just really needed to write something today #because I missed it

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aeori-o · 5 months

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Happy New Year! 2/3 (Tumblr Why)

So apparently tumblr won't let me do a lot of images in one post and instead of reducing the amount of images I'll be using like a sane person I am making multiple posts. Cheers!

Part 1 || Part 3

Back to video games!

I love the steam recaps, both mine and looking at all my friends’ but I’ll just post mine here.

I don’t even remember playing Dishonored this year. I still have the weird desire to 100% it even though I only have the challenge-mode stuff left and of those I only have four left. I’m so freaking close. But I also haven’t touched the game in close to a year. Argh.

That spider-graph underestimates my ability to turn any game into a stealth game. I’m not sure what the game from this year was that’s counting as 3% I think Plate Up! was released last year and I’m doubting Destiny 2 counts even if it is an ongoing game so I assume that must be for the Touchstarved Demo. I do kind of wonder if I’ll ever have a high percentage for new releases just because it takes me forever to get to anything. Releases from the last 1-7 years was 11%, and releases from longer ago was 86% but that will be because I played a lot of short games from the 90’s and 00’s.

Just like my reading my gaming dropped off during the summer. It’s so hard to make time for things how do people do it. I find a physical hobby to do and it just consumes all of my time and energy and brain power.

There’s all the games. I didn’t count anything I spent a very small amount of time on in my personal count. Things like the HE activity packs or mini-games where I played for 5, maybe 10, minutes and stopped. Shockingly mini-games meant to entertain six year olds in the 90’s are not very compelling to a 30 year old in 2023 (though some were very graphically/artistically impressive which was more fascinating and engaging than the mini-games themselves). The actual point-and-click games all hold up surprisingly well. There’s some things that are a little aggravating like Freddi fish’s friend, Luther, makes just the worst jokes. I think so far I’ve been liking Pajama Sam and Putt-Putt the best. We’re done Spy Fox now and I think we still have a few Putt-Putt games left and one or two Freddi Fish games and Pajama Sam games.

I had the farm Buzzy game growing up (which is so strange seeing as I lived on a farm, why did my parents get me that) but not any others and the airport one is wild, genuinely very educational and it’s impressive how much stuff they crammed in there. We haven’t played any recently, though. Also all of Steam’s tags are liars, I did not first play these games in 2023, I first played all these HE games in like, 1998 or something, on an old machine I can still picture in my mind but have no way to look up. I don’t even remember what make it was.

(I asked my dad, because he used to take pictures of everything growing up, but shockingly he appears to have primarily taken photos of me and my sister doing things and not just pictures of random objects around the house. Strange. He did say it was probably a custom computer that had been built for his company so we even went through old company photos but, again, no photos of just people at their desks or their desk set-ups. Through this process I realized the computer I’m currently using is my third desktop, ever. Maybe that’s not that wild but for a device I use almost every day of my life it feels weird for it to “only” be the third one. In my lifetime there’s, so far, been 5 generations of playstations so I feel like I’m doing pretty good on the turnover rate for desktop computers. Here’s a doodle of what I think my first desktop computer looked like:

I can remember the overall shape of it but the details are foggy now. Its name was PC 11, though, because that’s what it was called at his workplace. The real kicker is I probably used to have a photo of it, but I lost all my old photos when my back-up drive gave out on me and I, foolishly, only had my photos on my back-up drive because my computer didn’t have room for them. I’m going to see if my sister, who is younger than me, somehow, magically, has any photos of this thing. Anyway back to video games.)

Donut County was an absolute delight. I think that’s the only other game on there I haven’t talked about at all and it was just a really good time. Cute story and very satisfying gameplay, I had a great time playing it.

We also revisited a series Steph and I played in or just after Highschool which was really fun to revisit with friends.

The Chzo series stands up surprisingly well. I don’t think I’d recommend them for a newcomer but for something I played forever ago (I don’t think I ever beat the series but I know I played the first two) I’m surprised at how well it held up and it was fun to re-experience with friends. There’s some very questionable plot elements and some unfortunate word choices which is why I won’t recommend them but it’s super impressive that one guy just… made these. It’s genuinely very cool and impressive.

Sony is apparently also doing a year in review or “wrap up” this year for the first time ever, I was kind of hoping it would include PS3 data somehow. It didn’t. So this is all I get:

I do really like the graphics they have on everything, too bad my poor PS4 was basically neglected so those graphics are wasted on my dismal play-stats.

They just look really nice. I do think it’s interesting that Sony’s approach to this outright feels a little more cynical and like it rolled out of the marketing department than other wrap-ups. They throw in a little “look at all these cool games you could be playing with playstation plus” and then of course…

Did you know?? You can buy a PS5?? Did you know?? Come buy one. :)

Anyway.

That’s about all I played this year, so I can move on.

To my other hobbies, of which I have about seventeen billion. As I mentioned last year: I was really into reshelling stuff until I ran out of stuff to reshell. So I did reshell one controller this year. One of my Switch procontrollers I wasn’t super happy with, so I changed it to look like the joycons I did for my step-brother and I’m much happier with it:

I also got a bunch of cute thumbgrips for all my modern Nintendo controllers. I’ve never liked add-on thumb grips much but for whatever reason I don’t find the current generation of Nintendo controllers to have comfortable analogue sticks so having cute pads is elevating my Nintendo experience both aesthetically and physically.

And then I realized people sell shells for Gameboys so decided to do the GBAs from my childhood (I don’t know how I wound up with two, and one was my sister’s):

The hinges were so hard to get back in right, different guides said to do different things and they were all wrong. Luckily I had six hinges to get there on so by the time I got to the one with the nicest screen I had it figured out but the Pikachu one has squishy unsatisfying hinges now (and the hinges are so hard to get back out I’m not going to bother fixing it). And some of the batteries were getting puffy so I replaced them (which was maybe silly since these aren’t going to be played often but oh well).

I really love the aesthetics of a clear-case on a GBA. There is just SO much crammed in there it really tickles my brain. Any motherboard looks pretty dense but these are particularly dense in a way that looks visually distinct than even something like the 3DS (picture further down) because there’s so little real estate for them to get everything in there. I know people really like clear cases in general (and I am also a fan) but it hits extra good on something like this where there is just so much to see.

I have continued repairing people’s Nintendo Switches from fans to joycon drift. I still like fixing things whenever I can (I just fixed a kettle a few days ago which I fully did not expect to be able to fix) and one of the major things that needed fixing this year was CurseBreaker, the computer I built at the end of 2020.

My poor computer. Toward the end of 2022 I wanted to try a liquid cooler (which they call an AIO) instead of the stock fan, there was literally no reason to do this except for the thrill of it (AMD’s stock coolers are very good, or at least mine was) and CPUs were on major sale at the time so I figured if I’m messing around I might as well update my CPU, too. About a month later my computer started crashing randomly. Completely randomly, and it wouldn’t fully crash it would kind of “hang” in a really strange way. I could sometimes open programs but task manager would boot but not operate properly, internet connectivity vanished, random programs would freeze, trying to shut down or restart the computer would just have it pinwheel on the shutdown screen forever. Usually I could save whatever I was working on before restarting and sometimes whatever I saved would corrupt. (It also refused to load the windows colour profile on boot, but it still won’t do that, so that is unrelated but I thought it was something at the time.)

I eventually got to the point where I could usually make it crash by watching twitch (specifically twitch did it) while using photoshop. But it wouldn’t trigger right away, and sometimes it wouldn’t trigger at all, but it did it much more often with the twitch and photoshop combo than with anything else. I started writing every time it messed up on a notepad and everything I tried to do to troubleshoot. I was in Reliability History every day (a feature of Windows I did not previously know existed), I was in Event Viewer (a very stressful place to go looking in, Windows can and will consider everything an ‘error’: it considers firefox being my default browser an error and I am not kidding). My computer could Not tell me what the heck was up. The crashing started earlier but by the time I realized it was an ongoing problem and not a few weird crashes it was mid-January so I used Reliability History to see the previous two weeks and started writing my notes, I made a timeline, I even tracked the time between crashes in case it was some bizarre clock thing or ticking time bomb (it wasn’t).

My headphone ear pads broke during this and I had to sew them back together because my headphones are weird and suck and don’t have replacements available to buy. Obviously that wasn’t directly related to my computer’s problems but it didn’t help me feel any less cursed since I use those headphones exclusively with my computer. I also expanded my storage during this time which maybe wasn’t the best idea but someone wanted me to try Destiny 2 and I didn’t have space to spare (the storage installed fine, but almost immediately after I had a bunch of crashes/hangs). And then one of my computer case’s USB ports broke???

How??? How!! I am SO careful. I do not understand how or why this happened and I have been around computers my entire life—this is the only time I have EVER seen a USB port break like this. None of the computers in my highschool had broken USB ports! And people jammed USBs in and out of those! This USB port is still broken, I just have a dust plug in it but I might put a sticker over it. It’s technically usable if you bend that pin back out but it gets crammed back in very easily.

Finally, after four months of this, after partially re-installing Windows, and then fully re-installing Windows, after downloading and updating every driver I could find, after trying to unplug various devices to see if a USB device was causing issues, after fighting with Task Scheduler to get the Windows Color System to work, after uninstalling and reinstalling everything I could or straight up uninstalling things I didn’t need that Windows quietly downloads when you’re not looking (Skype just will not leave my machine Windows keeps dragging it back)… I decided to update the BIOS/UEFI on my machine. My CPU was supposed to be compatible with the BIOS version my motherboard was running but I guess it wasn’t actually.

The thing with updating your BIOS is that if your computer has been running for a while it’s generally recommended you don’t update it. Every page you go to, even the page with the motherboard update versions, will tell you to turn back, to not frivolously update your motherboard, you should only update it if you absolutely have to!

They are not clear on what “absolutely having to” means, though. I was having major computer issues, my CPU was supposed to be compatible, but that was the only other thing I could think of that would be causing the issue. I had tried everything else because all the BIOS stuff warns you away from it and there is no list of “if your computer is doing this it might be the motherboard” or at least I couldn’t find one that isn’t vague. So.

On April 24th I updated my BIOS. It was really easy. I have not had a problem since. There is probably a lesson to be learned here about doing the hard, risky-seeming thing earlier in the process—except that they really warn you off of updating the BIOS. I had four months of very stressful and insanity-making troubleshooting, five-and-a-bit months of a computer that would just randomly give up. It sucked. And all because my motherboard company lied, my CPU was definitely not as compatible as they said it was. Despite how much this process sucked I am very pleased that I fixed it. CurseBreaker got CurseBroken. I still put a sticker on her that says she’s cursed, though.

Anyway.

I also learned how to bind books this year! I haven’t done the big-book bindings where you need to sew pages together (and I would like to learn how to do that and how to make hard covers) but I’ve done this simple kind and I really like it. I have ideas for other things I’d like to make into little personal books. I guess I’ll see where it takes me but I made the little yellow book there as a companion piece to a book my sister had me read and it looked so official that when she opened the present she didn’t understand what she was looking at. Graphic design is my passion. Surprisingly easy to do and very fun! I need a better paper slicer, though. I borrowed one for this and it did more ripping than cutting. Most of the hobbies I take on are very satisfying in a tangible way but this is extra satisfying and I’d like to do more of it.

Through the power of friendship I made two booknooks this year (Vin and Steph helped me). The one on the right was more like a puzzle or ikea furniture where it was all clearly labelled and told you where to put what and when. It took the better part of an afternoon but got done in one day. The one on the left was more like building a diorama with little to no real instruction, just a lot of material.

It took several days to assemble and required busting out the hot glue gun. Somehow the makers of this kit expected you to be able to glue plastic pieces and mirrors with white glue. (It definitely worked better than expected on some things but was a mess and meant having to sit there holding pieces together while they cured because if you let go it’d fall apart. The hot glue was necessary to not go insane.) It even makes you put together the wiring yourself, and then has the audacity to not make it clear anywhere what kind of batteries it takes. Overall super happy with how this one came together, I think it looks super cute, but I was not prepared for how hard it would be after the first one.

But now I have two cute little booknooks! I’ve wanted one for years and now I have two and because we built them I also have good memories directly associated with them.

I also finally have a paper koi lantern! I’ve been following the artist, yuumei, since I was a kid—like I followed her when I still used deviantart which was forever ago. I signed up for the mailing list for these who-knows-when and at some point I assumed this project would never reach completion despite how cool it is. People get busy, it is how it is. But then she launched a kickstarter! I backed! And then a kit showed up in the mail!

There’s a really great tutorial video to go with it for assembly. It was really hard at first but once you kind of figure it out it gets a lot easier. The paper is the most gorgeous paper I’ve seen in my life and she looks beautiful when she’s all lit up.

This one feels so weird to finally have. I think I was following the project for at least a decade so it feels surreal for it to be a real thing now. This thing I wanted as a kid/teen that didn’t exist and now does and I still wanted it. It’s also really nice to see that this fully came together for the artist, as well. If you’re interested she has pricing and product photos on her website here (click): Yuumei Art: Koi Lanterns.

And Tumblr is cross with me with the amount of images I want to put in these so I will be making part 3 presently. I'll set up links when I'm done.

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#new year get better do better

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drifting-pieces-blog-blog · 2 years

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Moon Phase Series - First Quarter

Summary: Moments in the life of the Moon Knight system.

I don't know how many chapters this will be. Not really connected so if you pick one up randomly you should be fine. Mostly feel good, maybe a little sad, maybe a little comfort. I wanted to explore little moments of them just being.

Warning: None yet.

Word Count: 1313

Part 3: Routines are hard to let go of. Steven at last must face why his morning calls were so important to him and what his mother meant to him. Sometimes we must grieve what we never had.

Steven lived on routine. Nothing was more comforting than knowing what was going to happen.

When his routine had been utterly destroyed by a certain someone, he had been okay with it to a point. There was something exciting in finding a new rhythm.

But there was one routine that he was finding hard to let go of.

Steven prepared to get ready for his day. He went to feed the fish and immediately reached for his phone.

Pausing, he stared down at the blank screen.

“Hey Buddy, you alright?” Marc’s reflection looked at him from the fish tank.

Steven set the phone back down and instead tapped the fish flakes into the tank. “Yeah. Just old habits.”

Marc nodded but couldn’t help notice that every single morning Steven had picked up the phone then set it back down. It didn’t seem to be getting any easier.

He could remind Steven that she hadn’t been real. That he had been talking to nothing more than an idea of someone that didn’t exist… But Steven had lost that idea. Real or not, the idea had been taken from him.

He had let go so easily that Marc had failed to see what it actually meant to Steven in the first place. Now it was not just gone, but destroyed and tarnished.

“You wanna tell me about your day?” Marc tried.

“You were there.” Steven shrugged. “It’d be like re-capping, honestly. Seems kinda pointless.”

“You could tell Jake.” Marc shrugged back. “I’m sure he didn’t see it all. Maybe he’d like to be filled in.”

“I doubt very much Jake wants to hear about my day. He’s never there anyway. Just when he wants to go out.” Steven’s face pulled as he forced away the sad frown. “Nawh, I’ll be alright.”

They carried on and each morning, Steven paused at the phone before walking away. Some days the phone made it into his hand and others he simply glanced at it. It was a twinge of pain. A brief moment of grief that he didn’t understand.

“Oye, Steven.” Jake’s voice caught Steven off guard one morning. Jake so very seldomly addressed him straight on.

Steven glanced around and found Jake relaxed back in the window. “Morning, Jake.”

Jake waved a hand as if dismissing the very notion of ‘morning’. “You miss her, yeah?”

Steven glanced at the phone. “No.” He frowned. “Of course not. She wasn't real, was she? No. Just all in my head.”

“Hermano.” Jake shook his head. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?” Steven slumped down in a chair facing the window.

“You are allowed to miss the idea of someone.” Jake sat back in the chair too, his posture stiff and proper. “You can miss what you thought someone was. You can mourn for them.”

“Mourn for her?” Steven scoffed. “Mourn for how horrible she was? How she treated Marc? How she treated you? Mourn for her abuse and what she thought of me? Really thought of me…”

Jake sighed and sat forward, arms on his knees. “What do you remember about her? Forget everything you saw. Everything Marc told you. Forget the voice messages and post cards. Picture her face. What do you see?”

Steven frowned then closed his eyes. He blocked out the image of the angry woman screaming and pointing. Blocked out the image of her reaching for the belt. Then he blocked out the way he used to imagine her voice asking how he was doing. Talking to him about his day and asking about his love life.

He pushed it all back and came back to the smiling face tucking him in at night. Humming softly a gentle song that he realized he had heard Jake whistling more than a few times. He saw her hair draping down around him as she leaned in to kiss his cheek goodnight. Later’s gators. After a while crocodile.

Steven felt the tears splash off his chin before he realized he had even been crying. “She loved me once.”

Jake looked down and clenched his hands. Steven was in pain and there was the knee jerk reaction to spring forward. To let Steven sink down and forget. But Steven was not Marc. Steven could handle it. Steven needed to feel this pain to move on. Marc needed to forget the pain to try to heal. Jake… Jake understood the pain more than either of them ever could.

“Yeah.” Jake nodded and blocked out his own memories. Did he remember her any differently? Did he remember her from before? Did he want to? The pain that might come with it was not something he wanted to explore.

Steven wiped his tears away. “It’s just the one memory. Might not even be mine. I don’t think I was there for it. I think it’s Marc’s.” He sighed. “I didn’t even know we had a brother.”

“That’s before us.” Jake slowly unclenched his hands and stretched his fingers, forcing them to try and relax. “Marc had to hide it from you because her love was so conditional.”

“I feel guilty about it.” Steven looked up at Jake. “I guess… I guess he wasn’t really my brother. He was Marc’s.”

“We are different people.” Jake looked up, controlled and calm. “Our memories defined who we were made into. She wasn’t always like what we saw. Not all of your memories are fake. Sometimes she was sober. Sometimes she had to be good so the public didn’t see what she did. I think Marc gave you those moments so you would have something… Something to build on. Even if they were just for show.”

Steven nodded then felt the tears well up again. “I really did love the idea of her. The idea that someone was there. Someone to be proud of me and talk to me and not look down on me.”

“It’s a nice idea.” Jake smiled softly. It was the first time Steven had ever seen Jake actually smile at him. It was a very kind smile. One that was capable of love and understanding.

“I miss her so much.” Steven’s voice shuddered. “Even though I know I shouldn’t. I miss just talking to her. Even though she never spoke back… I guess it isn’t her I miss. It’s what I thought I had…”

Jake smiled. “It’s nice to be heard. When no one else listens to you, it’s nice to have someone to listen.”

Steven suddenly realized that was what he had found comfort in for so many years. Knowing that someone was listening. That he wasn’t alone because he had someone that cared about him.

Marc had always been there for him. Listening even when he didn’t know it. Watching over him and doing his best to make Steven happy.

But now that he and Marc were a team, there was someone else that sat back in silence going without notice.

“Hey Jake?” Steven wiped his eyes and felt the sadness slowly leave him, lifting away slowly. “Tell me about your day.”

“My day?” Jake blinked at him in confusion.

“Yeah. Tell me about your fairs or whatever you call ‘em.” Steven grinned. “Where did you go?”

Jake thought for a moment then shrugged. “Well I started my shift with this poor drunk idiota. He’d gotten his keys taken away by the bartender on 5th and getting him into my cab was a heck of a fight.”

“Wow…” Steven laughed. “Did he puke in your cab?”

“Escucha aquí.” Jake leaned forward sternly. “No one pukes in my cab.”

Steven relaxed back and felt a new feeling settle in as he listened to Jake talk about his drunk passenger. He would always miss the mother he never had. He would miss the phone calls that never connected and the memories that weren’t his.

But it was time to connect to someone real.

#Moon Knight #Moon Knight fic #Short fic #Steven Grant #Marc Spector #Jake Lockley #Dealing with Grief #Sometimes grief is complicated #Sometimes we miss the people we never had and that's okay #It's okay to miss someone we wish they had been

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nowhereletters · 1 year

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Hi, Substack! 久しぶりですね。

Something has been sitting in my mind for a while now that I fear I will forget the longer I keep it. So while it’s still not ready, and I’m still not too fond of my memories the last time I was here, here goes -

There’s something sad and unholy when morning breaks.

You know, that sliver of time when there’s light enough everywhere to see but not having been there long enough yet that the happenings when there was less of it still concealed things, or made them seem like some sort of a hazy image.

It might not always be the case in your part of the world, but I believe somewhere, to someone, or something, it is. These thoughts, simply spurred by two vivid instances I saw during my travels home from work a few months back:

The first - simply, a man diligently washing clothes.

Except that he was rinsing suds off the clothes.

And that he used very little water. Almost just a trickle. In what seemed like an effort to conserve what little he had then.

The water? It was stored in a used gallon container.

And it was also a bit murky.

It just rained that morning. The roads were still wet and there were still puddles around where he was.

Puddles with murky water.

This isn’t speculation, dear one. I saw his efforts with the container.

And the clothes?

They were tiny.

I’ll let you do with that image, what you will.

*****

I love dogs. Always have, always will. I used to have asthma as a kid and I was told I could never have pets to spare me from fits. I’m glad that didn’t become a reality.

Walk home from work, and I spotted a stray on the other side of the street lounging cozily almost behind a lamp post.

I thought, “Ah, that’s where it probably spent the night sleeping.”

I even thought what a lucky dog, that one, to just have been able to sleep that night away. I was exhausted, did a mountainload of work and had another mountainload waiting, it was starting to get hot, and the commute was adding up to everything. I was one tricycle ride away from home.

The roads cleared. I started to cross. Eyes still on the stray, I saw it seemed to be enjoying itself licking on a treat in front of it, then pausing to look around as if proud of the treat.

I got closer, curious and almost asked her what it was in front of her that was giving her much joy. I was close enough to recognize it didn’t have the body of a male dog.

The treat was pink. Ah, might be stolen meat from one of the early market sellers. But it was a weird pink, I belatedly realized, and the treat was elongated. Fuck, was it a filled (with something else) condom? No, seriously, I thought it was for a split second.

Then I saw the two dark nubs. And it hit me that it wasn’t a condom. It wasn’t a treat. Her licks were actually frantic, she wasn’t cozily lounging behind the lamp post, and the floor she was lying on was wet. It didn’t rain that day.

The thing in front of her was stolen, I think we could both agree. Although not from anyone or anything else, but from her.

She paused and looked around again. It still wasn’t breathing. And she continued licking.

*****

My apologies, this isn’t a letter. Just fish swimming in a tiny pond that I would like to set free.

#nowhereletters #letters #thoughts #blog post

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winterlovesong1 · 2 years

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Winter Rewatched Nancy Drew

Welcome to my first rewatch of my current favorite comfort show ❤️ Under the cut are my thoughts and a few insights I hope you enjoy - I’ll be going through each episode and posting these periodically with the tag winter rewatched Nancy Drew.

2x18 - The Echo of Lost Tears

So episode title - reference to the “lost tears” of Nancy’s past, her trauma she’s pushed down so she can try and outrun it, so she can attempt to live, but it’s caught up to her - the echo of it unescapable as the wraith feeds and has fed on her doubt and her insecurities this whole time. But also dare I say, the title also has Nace implications, the “lost tears” being those fragments throughout the season, those moments when they “couldn’t lose” the other now blaring their echo in this season finale - because those moments can’t be ignored and they will have to be examined in the coming season.

Overall MVP

Nancy is truly the MVP this episode - I mean she basically went through a mental supernatural therapy session and came out the other side with some tools and strategies to move forward and actually live I love that for her.

Most Heartfelt Moment

The Ryan/Carson/Nancy scene at the end of the episode wins for me - it’s the definition of heartfelt and just - the arc of it all from season one to now and how this unconventional family - with two people who didn’t talk because they were grieving, healing, avoiding in their own way, who now are working through their relationship and realizing they all have flaws and no one is perfect and Carson was just trying to do the best for his daughter, for his family, who now have this other person, Nancy’s other dad in the picture because he’s grown too, he’s learning and maturing and redeeming himself, and everyone is accepting of one another and I just - this family means so much to me.

Also shout out to the Fanson (first) proposal because they are literally the cutest and I miss them so much...

Best Overall Line

“All this time the wraith made you think there was no separating you from it - you just proved it wrong.”

Such important words to hear from anyone who cares about you, the implication that “you were always strong enough” - something Ace reiterates later to Nancy - let alone someone who is in line to be your future husband.

And tying with that is -

“You weren’t born broken. Your hurt maybe. But in the end, The only way to heal is to let that pain become love”

Gosh I LOVE that line still - again, it’s accepting her past, it’s letting that become a part of her and then in healing, in growing, in the accepting of it all, letting her past become something brighter - something less dark and brutal - something beautiful - something to be cherished - because the future shouldn’t be feared - it should be embraced - just like her.

Best Comedic Moment

“I want to have a talk about impulse control on the other side of this.”

I love concerned Carson taking a moment in the chaos to have a brief parenting lesson lol

Special mention to the “you drew a fish” and “show off” of it all at the kitchen table - I love them.

Scare Rating

The scare rating is really beyond a ten - I just am super squeamish when it comes to grotesque looking things like the Wraith or Baby Wraith and so all that is 200/10 for me lol

Nace Slow Burn Rating

First thing I noted was that Ace was the first character we saw on camera this episode and Nancy was the last character we saw. Now, I know that is probably coincidence and just editing or whatever, the first and last character seen in an episode. But it’s also a season finale and I’m just saying as I was taking notes “look, the episode opening with Ace being worried on the phone, texting with Hannah to save Nancy’s life and then ending with Nancy being saved...” I'm just saying, there’s signs and then there’s signs...

I also love how since the first image of the episode is Worried!Ace we are immediately caught up in the Save Nancy Agenda, into the crew, and both dads, working together to help their friend, their daughter, their arguably something more, and it’s just a beautiful imagery since for the most part throughout the season, we’ve seen Nancy isolate herself, except for those few episodes at the beginning when they were still wrapping up the Agleaca of it all, Nancy’s been on her own journey and so to see everyone come together for her is really heartwarming because it shows that Horseshoe Bay Friend’s mentality in action, in shows that these people are there for their “hero” no matter what.

Side Note: I’m going to need George to bring that “till we get it right” energy into season four please with another potential life threatening situation we have in our midst...

Then Gil enters the scene and it’s constant accusations, like the first thing he says is something to the effect of why haven’t you returned my texts...no how are you? no concern for Nancy’s well being? Just selfishly thinking of his needs and wants - and then it just compounds from there and Ace is at the ready the WHOLE time - I a) can’t believe we got to see it and that it was b) FOCUSED on - I mean our eagle eyes probably could have caught his ready to get in the middle of it stance but then the camera focuses in on him and there’s no doubt that it’s trying to tell us that a) still worried and b) even more worried now that Gil is here. And that’s not to say he doesn’t think Nancy can’t handle herself, I don’t think that’s the message here - it’s to say that he cares for her and her well being and clearly this guy just came whirling into the room to harass her - and he knows she’s tired, knows she’s dying, so he’s just trying to protect her in his own kind of way - again, not in a nobility sense, but in a “I will be there for you if you need it” way.

Which is why I think it’s SO IMPORTANT he enters the room post break up, post Gil leaving, and he does it in such a quiet way - like all his entering of the rooms throughout this season - from the “I’m going to skip the part where I was eavesdropping” scene in 2x15 and the “I didn’t mean to scare you” of 2x13 and this just continuing in that line of quiet, calm, and concern.

And the way the scene plays out with Nancy brushing back a strand of her hair, as if she’s trying to put up a front, but realizing quickly it won’t work, not that she was trying to do it to hide, but she just doesn’t want him to see her in such pain, broken as she later refers to herself in the episode. But the truth is, she’s the only one she trusts with those vulnerable pieces of herself and so she lets the tears well and his eyes gather tears in them as well as he annunciates every words in his speech <3 And then he basically illustrates that even though she’s strong enough (something he echoes later in the episode) to hold all her trauma, he continually physically holds her up this episode - he helps her hold her back in the woods, he helps her out the car, he assists in her walking, he holds her hand and her arm when they are starting the ritual int he living room - he’s at her side and being her support system until he can say in so many words, “yes, I know I’ve helped you up, but you can do that on your own - you always could - I was just showing you, I was helping you see that.”

And then the dreamscape of it all - how poetic that Ace is there at the beginning - that the scene he’s chosen to enter is at Nancy’s start - that even though he physically hasn’t been there for all of Nancy’s literal life, he’s been there from the beginning in this journey she’s been on - he’s been there the whole time.

And that tension when they hold the baby - when he holds her - and are inches, if that, away from each other, still takes my breath away.

And lastly the cookie metaphor of it all, the missing of each other at the end when Nancy is prepared to reveal, or at least unpack partially, what she saw in her dreamscape, and Ace leaving for his road trip with Amanda, only for Ace’s mom to come in and say take some cookies “you can freeze them, they keep forever” - I mean bravo writers - it’s they said “this looks sad and disappointing, but guess what, we have it all planned...”

Favorite Fashion Moment

This wasn’t one of those - look at the fashion in this episode - it was more go on this emotional rollercoaster with me - so nothing really stood out - especially since a lot of the clothing was utilized as callbacks to certain moments in Nancy’s life or in some cases other versions of Nancy. But I do appreciate how the show uses fashion to tell its story - it’s not just “let’s have them wear this” - clothing is used purposefully and I LOVE that.

Missing Drabble Moment

Ok slightly cheating again and rec’ing some of my fics in which I’ve already alluded to moments from this episode because why not -

Stay with Me (my first Nace fic <3 )

All This Time (my first Nace multi chapter fic <3 )

let me borrow this (wear your heart till it’s worn) (a clothes sharing fic that alludes to the drive in 2x18 )

between the midnights and the daylights (meet me there) (a nace fic about some 3 a.m conversations - this includes one on a certain drive in 2x18)

#winter rewatched Nancy Drew #nace #tv: nancy drew #DONE WITH SEASON TWO #my masterpost of this season will be coming soon

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mackayrivera23 · 1 year

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Minecraft Creator on Microsoft Deal: It's all about My Sanity'

Minecraft creator on Microsoft deal: 'It's about my mental health'

Shortly after Microsoft announced that it would acquire Minecraft Mojang, a developer of Minecraft, for $2.5bn, (PS1.5bn), Markus Persson, the Swedish developer behind Markus Persson - also known as Notch -- released his own personal statement regarding the acquisition. We've reproduced it in full below:

I'm leaving Mojang

I don't consider myself a game developer. I create games to have fun and because I love programming. But I don't want to create huge hits. I also don’t want to make a mark on the world.

Minecraft was certainly a huge hit and people are saying that it's changed games. I never meant for it to do either. It's certainly pleasing, and to gradually get placed in a public spotlight is interesting.

It was a long time ago that I decided to quit Minecraft development. Jens was the ideal person to take over leading the project, and I was eager to explore things that were completely new. While I tried to grow it again at first, I was unsuccessful. https://kd76.com/ But, since I chose to stick to small prototypes, intriguing challengeshave come up, and I've enjoyed so much doing my work,

I wasn't sure exactly what I was supposed to do in Mojang where people do actual work, but since people said I was essential to the culture, I decided to stay.

A couple of weeks ago, I was suffering from a terrible cold at home, and the internet went wild with hate about me because of an EULA situation in which I had nothing. I was confused. I didn't understand. I posted this frustration on Twitter.

Later I looked at the This is Phil Fish YouTube video and realized that I didn't feel the same connection I thought I did with my fans. I have become a symbol. I don't want to be an object of ridicule. I don't want be accountable for something I don’t understand. I don't want to do anything about. I'm not an entrepreneur. I'm not a chief executive officer. I'm a geeky computer programmer who loves to share opinions on Twitter.

After the deal is concluded and I'm done, I'll be leaving Mojang to go back to web experiments and Ludum Dares. I'll probably end any project I develop that gains momentum.

Given that the public image of me is already a bit skewed, I don't expect to be free of negative feedback by doing this, but at least now I don't have a need to read them.

This is in direct contradiction to a lot of my public statements. I don't have a good answer to that. I am also aware that many of you used me as a symbol for the perceived struggle. I'm not. I'm a person, and I'm right there struggling with you.

You are my best friend. You're all amazing. Thank you for turning Minecraft into what it is now however, there are too many of you, and I'm not able to be responsible for something this big. It is Microsoft's property now in one sense. In a more broad sense, it's been a part of everyone for a long time, and that's not going to change.

It's not about money. It's about my mental wellbeing.

#Kd76

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zoe-oneesama · 3 years

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I'm interested in the Lila exposed au about your akumasona. What's that?

For those who don’t know my OC (self insert) akumasona Zoe Rapporte (The Enchanted Florist), but her family owns a flower shop that is pretty successful - think “This florist does the arrangements at the Grand Paris and for High Profile Events” - so she’s mildly acquainted with Adrien from some of those events. Maybe not friends, but like when you frequent a coffee shop so much that you learn all the staff’s name and they all remember you.

So Lila is not above dropping lots of money to sell her lies (hello Gabriel Collection Fox Necklace) and one of her lies to her mother is that Adrien is her boyfriend. And what boyfriend doesn’t send his lovely girlfriend flowers, especially one as well off as Adrien Agreste? And really, as long as his name is on the card when her mother accepts them at the door, that’s all that matters, right?

So Zoe takes note that once a week this prissy girl with a bizarre hairstyle comes in to place a rather pricey bouquet order under Adrien’s name and has it delivered to the same address that’s on the credit card bill - doesn’t take a genius to figure out this delusional weirdo is pretending a celebrity is sending her flowers weekly. It’s a little strange because Zoe could’ve sworn she saw on TV that this chick had done photo shoots with Adrien before and based on his Instagram she was his classmate, so it’s kinda concerning that she’s going this far to burrow her way into his life. Still, she’s dropping quite a bit of coin and it’s really none of Zoe’s business, yeah?

But then imagine there’s a class event - maybe a dance, maybe a teacher’s appreciation week, maybe an alumni reunion - that needs our favorite class representative and her deputy to order a large amount of flowers. And Adrien, ever desperate to do his part, takes it upon himself to help with the budget. And maybe Nino decides to come for no particular reason lol.

So the four walk into the Rapporte Flower Shop and Adrien is so excited to introduce his friends to one of the familiar faces from his VIP world. And he’s just so exuberant as he brags about his friends and is so wholesome and different from the put together boy Zoe would briefly meet at those stuffy events that this surge of sisterly affection makes her completely forget her usual “none of my business” attitude. She’s got to let him know what it going on behind his back, especially if there’s a chance that he has no idea what kind of girl “Mlle. Rossi at the fifth story walk up” was.

And who knows? Maybe this was a misunderstanding, a weird arrangement Adrien had with his secret girlfriend to make sure she gets exactly the type of bouquet she wants? Zoe recons she’s had stranger requests. Welp, no better way to clear the air than to just ask.

“Hey Adrien, you know there’s this weird girl that comes in once a week and has flowers delivered to herself under your name?”

Adrien paused in his rant about Nino’s music mixing skills (having already left Alya puffing her chest in pride and Marinette a red puddle of embarrassed goo) to stare blankly at Zoe. “I beg your pardon?”

“Oh yeah.” Zoe leaned into her palm, looking way too relaxed considering what she’d just dropped on him. “For, like, the two months at least. Always has us address her card ‘Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder, Ma Belle, from Your Loving Boyfriend Adrien Agreste’.”

“What the heck?!” Alya exclaimed from beside Nino who’s jaw was dropped in disbelief. “That’s crazy messed up. Adrien doesn’t even have a girlfriend, what does this psycho think she’s doing?!”

“Right? I don’t know who she thinks she fooling. What kind of boyfriend needs to sign his full name?”

“It is pretty weird.” Adrien said, rubbing his neck in discomfort. “But it’s not the strangest thing a fan has done. It’s not that big a deal, right?”

“Dude.” Nino started, staring at his best friend in mild horror. “Just because you don’t know this girl doesn’t make it ‘no big deal’.”

“Oh no.” Zoe pipes up again. “He knows her.”

“What?!” All of Adrien’s friend’s exclaimed. Even Adrien looked a bit shook by her admission.

Alya zipped over to the counter, leaning dangerously close to Zoe’s remarkably unfazed face. “What do you mean ‘he knows her’?! How do you know that?! This sounds like a creepy fangirl but you’re telling me she’s actually in Adrien’s life?!”

“I should say so. I mean, it was even on TV that she was modeling with Adrien and she’s made a few appearances on his instagram.” Zoe brought out her phone, casually thumbing open Instagram. “I would’ve just ignored it, but if she’s going around pretending she’s dating Adrien then he has the right to know.”

“Modeling with....and you said on his instagram...?”

“Are...” Marinette piped up, voice dripping with trepidation. “Are you talking about Lila?”

“Marinette,” Alya gave her friend a withering look. “Just because you don’t like her doesn’t mean you can just accuse her of-”

Zoe cut her off, flashing her phone screen at the group to present a photo, having found the image she was looking for: a brunette with a straight fringe and her forelocks in twin tails leaning possessively over an uncomfortably smiling Adrien.

“Yes, Mlle. Rossi! I’d recognize that crazy hairstyle anywhere.” She turned the phone back to look at it herself. “Pft, Adrien, what’s with this caption? ‘Lila insisted I take post this picture?’ Yikes, man, learn to say no.”

Alya waved her hands in front of her, eyes scrunched closed in disbelief. “Hold up, hold up, hold up. You have GOT to be getting this twisted. Lila wouldn’t do something that like this, that’s just...wrong!”

“I mean, this is definitely the girl I was talking about.” Zoe said slowly, raising one eyebrow at Alya’s response. “And Rossi is the name on the bill. What exactly am I ‘getting twisted?’“

“Because!..Because Lila just wouldn’t!”

“Yeah!” Nino shouted from behind her, shaking himself out of the stupor this whole situation left him in. “She said she wasn’t into Adrien like that!”

Zoe snorted. “And you believed her?”

“W-well yeah, why would she lie about that...?”

“You guys are so cute. And definitely need to watch more True Crime shows.”

“What-?”

“Sorry Adrien.” Zoe lofted over Alya’s shoulder, cutting off another defensive quip. “I know she was your friend. I just wanted to make sure you knew.”

“Ah, no, she’s not really- I mean, I’m not that surprised to be honest.” Adrien offered weakly.

“It sounds right up her alley.” Marinette growled, fingers digging into her crossed arms.

“What...” Nino and Alya turned to their friends, confused and anxious. “What are you talking about? This..this is Lila we’re talking about!”

“The same Lila who got Marinette expelled?” Adrien stated, face grim and tired.

“That was rescinded, it wasn’t her fault-”

“The same Lila who sent everyone in Adrien’s contact list picture of her kissing Adrien?” Marinette ground out, aggravated.

“I mean, that was weird, but I’m sure she didn’t mean-”

“The same Lila who got my bodyguard and Natalie in trouble with my dad?”

“Or maybe the same Lila who stole Adrien’s dad’s book and threw it in the trash?”

“She did WHAT-?!”

“I-I fished it out for you!”

“Wait is that how you knew about Lila-”

“Wow.” Zoe whistled, again cutting the group off. “What a class act. Sounds like a great friend you got there, Adrien.”

“Oh trust me.” Adrien growled, eyes never leaving Marinette who steadfastedly refused to look at him. “After this we’re NOT friends.”

Alya held her head with one hand, staring at the ground. “Wait, wait, this...this can’t be right, Lila isn’t...she wouldn’t do this, she wouldn’t, she’s...cool! And nice! And-! She just can’t!”

Zoe cocked her head toward’s Alya, leveling her with a patient stare. “Well, then what is she doing?” Alya looked up blankly at her, prompting her further. “The truth of the matter is that Lila Rossi comes in once a week, and has been for at least two months, buying flowers to be delivered to her own address (which I know because it matches up to the address on the card with her last name on it), but dictates that the card say it was sent by Adrien. If she’s not faking that Adrien is sending her flowers, what is she doing?”

“I...I don’t...” Alya floundered. They were just supposed to order some flowers, how did the day turn like this?!

“You’re an investigative reporter, right? What’s that old Sherlock Holmes saying? ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth’?”

Alya leaned into Nino, staring out at the shop, searching for something to make some sense. She thought Lila was nice, was her friend, was everyone’s friend! But this stunt with Adrien...what does it even mean...?

Everyone looked towards the employee door as footsteps could be heard approaching. A moment later Tama, Zoe’s younger sister, stepped into the shop, pausing at the door when she realized five pairs of eyes were staring at her. She looked over the customers, taking in Marinette’s slight glower, Adrien’s tight jaw, and Nino and Alya’s devastated posture.

“Soooo, are you here to buy some bouquets?”

#lol I didn't know how to finish this off though #I always imagined it as a 'wake up call' fic rather than a 'and then everyone told lila how awful she is'#could use some refinement #lila salt #zoe rapporte #my oc #my fic #ml salt fic #akumasona #miracusona #a-bitchtm

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felassan · 4 years

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Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

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crazypaperwasteland · 3 years

Text

MASTERLIST

My writing is not to be taken or posted anywhere else without my express consent, regardless of if you have given me credit or not. Please don’t take credit for someone else’s work, honestly, it’s just discouraging to the original creator.

Things that I will not write for(I am in no way shaming anyone for what they like reading or what they are into, I just don’t feel comfortable writing the following subjects):

-Threesomes

-Explicit rape or anything of the sort

-Explicit domestic violence

-to be continued....if I find any more of them.

^= Angst *= Fluff $=Smut

Call of Duty MW2

Simon “Ghost” Riley

Oneshots

My Heart ^*

Summary: When Grave’s captures Simon’s wife, he spirals into sorrow while he tries to come up with a plan to get her back. When he does, he realizes he wasn’t the only one hurting from their abrupt separation.

Drabbles

The Squeeze of a Hand*

Summary: Simon “Ghost” Riley calms you with the touch of his hand.

Criminal Minds

Spencer Reid

When Two Geniuses Walk Into A Room ^*

Unsubs and Fish*

Twilight

Jasper Hale

Oneshots

Love Isn’t Dead, Well, Sort of.^*

Bloodlust^*

Old Acquaintances^*

A Promise I Will Always Keep^*

Love in the Memory^*

The Walking Dead

Daryl Dixon

Oneshots

I Didn’t Want to Die^*

Summary: Daryl blamed Y/N for weeks, for leaving his brother behind when she didn’t even know who he was. Y/N somehow wormed her way into his cold, redneck heart, but when the CDC is set to blow up and she decides to stay, Daryl just can’t take losing another person. Daryl makes a decision that she may never forgive him for, will he be able to fix what he broke?

Insanity Left Me Alone^*

Summary: (Y/N) Walsh, Shane’s sister, has struggled with self image ever since her brother’s death. When the people from Woodbury enter the prison, she figures out that she is more like her brother than she thought, so does everyone else. (Y/N) can barely handle the rumors that fly her way, speculation about who her brother was and what she might do to anyone that stands in her way. When she can no longer stands it, a situation presents itself and puts her humanity to the test. There’s only one person in the entire prison that has faith in her in that regard, Daryl fucking Dixon.

MINI SERIES

Not just a Redneck (6/6)COMPLETED!!!

Not just a Redneck is based mainly in season two of the Walking Dead and centers around Daryl Dixon and Y/n Grimes, Rick’s younger sister. Y/n is one of the only people in the group who has never treated Daryl like a misfit or redneck trash and absolutely refuses to leave his side, even when people look down on her for spending so much time with him. Daryl Dixon is feeling things that he has never experienced before, but being who he is, how will he deal with it?

1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6

The Originals

Klaus Mikaelson

Oneshots

Power Over Me^*

Summary: Klaus Mikaelson was the villain in everyone’s eyes, and he grew used to everyone thinking the worst of him. So much so that it is near impossible for him to imagine that (Y/N), the love of his life, could see anything but a beast when she looked at him. Even if that was what she saw, he loved her, and would do anything to prove to her that there were no limits to what he would do for her, what he could do.

The Human in Him*

Summary: Klaus was a cruel and manipulative vampire for centuries, even to his own family. But when he returns to New Orleans to take back the city from Marcel Gerard, he is met with an unexpected turn of events when he meets Y/N, a outspoken artist, the one person who sees him for who he is underneath his checkered past, who sees the human in him.

The Big Bad Puppy*

Summary: Y/N was one of Klaus’s hybrids, like any of them, she hated Klaus, for taking away the life she would have had, for killing so many of her friends for minor offenses. After she breaks the sire bond, Klaus finds out, but instead of simply killing her, he spared her life. She is left to wonder why exactly he didn’t kill her. Knowing how he was. One night, Y/N finds Klaus shaking and whining in his sleep, it is then that she finally understands why he showed her mercy, and then some.

I Will Never Hurt You^^*

Summary: Klaus took his formerly abused lover for granted, when he thinks she betrayed him, he snaps and makes her believe he doesn’t love her anymore, propelling her into a panic attack from past trauma. Will he ever be able to make it right? Will she ever forgive him?

The Only One^*

Summary: Y/n Gilbert, Elena’s sister, always seemed to catch Klaus’s attention, and eventually gained his affections. It floored Klaus to have someone who knew him in a way no one else did, but when he gets a phone call that concerns Y/n, it leaves the both of them devastated. Will they be able to work through it and grown from it, or will they just give up?

My Cold Dead Heart*^

Summary: Klaus spent nearly six centuries searching for one thing. His wife. But he never expected that someone would come along and hand her over to him. Him being Klaus, his next actions are driven only by instinct to wake his wife up from her deep slumber.

The Witcher

Geralt of Rivia

Oneshots

Will you always return to me? ****

Summary: Y/n promised to always return to Geralt during the winter months, she promised she would never let anything stop her, and for a century she kept that promise. Up until the day that she didn’t.

How Geralt Lost Her^^^^^^^

Part 1 Part 2

Summary: Geralt unknowingly hurt the person he loved most, leaving her feeling unwanted and forgotten by the people she cared for. Will he ever be able to make it up to her? Or will she leave him and never come back?

Six of Crows/Shadow and Bone

Kaz Brekker

Oneshots

Too Fluffy*

Summary: Y/n brings home a puppy, and Kaz is faced with the decision of keeping it or not.

ACOTAR

Azriel

Oneshots

The Metallic Scent of Blood

Summary: Azriel’s mate, a spy of the Night Court, comes back home, injured and dying. Azriel is faced with the fear of losing her and vows that if she survives, he will protect her for all of eternity. He is also confronted with the notion that Eris might be more than the asshole that Azriel thought he was.

You Deserve Happiness

Summary: Summary: Azriel is (Y/N)’s anchor, and she is his, they both have some healing to do, but it’s alright, because they have each other. Cassian finds out about their secret love affair and has some things to say about it, though.

Eris

Oneshots

Another Damned Meeting (2/2)

Summary: Beron, the High Lord of the Autumn Court, has a bone to pick with the Night Court, again. Only, will Eris finally show his true colors in order to stop Beron from taking away the thing that he loves most?

Part 1 Part 2

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lunerbean · 3 years

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Witch Tips 24

Holy shit it's been over a year since I posted one of these but it's because I kept setting myself up for failure by putting way too high of expectations on myself to crank out 10 new and unique and helpful tips everytime I got 100 new followers except first it was 10 and then it was 50 and holy shit I got so stressed about these so I've just been writing them down as I've thought of them instead and now here we are, please be gentle.

Hello here are tips

1. Use transfer paper and a hair dryer to decorate candles.

Maybe you're doing a spell for someone & you want to put a picture of that person on the candle. This can be a way to help you better visualize the effects of the spell on the person the spell is for. Or maybe you need a picture on the candle for some other reason. Maybe you want to put pictures of coins on it for a money spell. Or hearts for a love spell. Simply print out whatever you want on transfer paper, cut it out & place the image face-down on the candle. Then, you'll want to get your hairdryer and a piece of tissue paper (I highly suggest the tissue paper is the same color as the candle, otherwise you risk getting that color onto the candle. Which can also be fine, but if it's not what you want...) use the blow dryer on a low-warm setting to melt the photo onto the candle side. Remove the tissue paper and there you have it! A picture printed onto a candle.

2. You can incorporate witchcraft into ANYTHING... even brushing your teeth.

I recently got this fucking delicious toothpaste from Trader Joe's. I'm one of those people who sometimes struggles to brush my teeth twice a day because I hate the taste of toothpaste. So I got a super unconventional toothpaste flavor instead, "fennel, propolis, & Myrrh. And about a week after using it, it struck me -holy shit these ingredients have meaning behind them. Most obviously, myrrh is associated with wisdom and meditation. And fennel has been used in magic for centuries! Even if you use regular mint toothpaste, that ingredient has power behind it! Obviously this goes more so for natural toothpastes but I'm sure you can find a way to enchant other varieties as well! Use the ingredients already infused into your toothpaste for enchantments & glamours!

3. Actually study your grimoire.

If I sound at all harsh by saying this, it's only because I'm being harsh with myself too. Study your grimoire. Don't just write everything down & then expect to have it all perfectly memorized & be a master in everything you research. Reread it. Rework it. Learn.

4. Feel drawn to be a sea witch but you don't live by the ocean? Get a saltwater aquarium!

First off, I'm not saying that it's a flawless solution. Being a witch of the sea is more than just using salty fish water in your craft. HOWEVER, with that out of the way, there's no way that a salt water aquarium will harm your craft as a sea witch. Think of it like a houseplant for a green witch. Sure, living in the forest would be better but it's still something special to be able to bring a little piece of your craft into your home.

5. Personal taglocks make a spell more powerful, but exercise caution when using them.

Undoubtedly, using a taglock (such as a strand of hair) can better connect you to the spells you're performing, but they're not always wise to use. I only use them in extremely personal spells and crafts. Things that no one except for me can have access to. I would never suggest using a taglock on something that you wish to give another person (especially another witch) such as a spell bottle or sachet. Even if you're best friends. Even if you're siblings. Even if you're MARRIED. You never know when a relationship can turn south or what someone is capable of when they're extremely angry with you. Don't risk it.

6. Be respectful of the deities that you don't worship or work with

I don't work with deities. Shocker, I know. I have my own belief system when it comes to higher powers that I won't get into on Tumblr, probably ever. But I do believe in showing respect to all things, both living, dead, & otherwise specified. If a deity approaches you who you're not interested in working with, please remain kind & respectful with in declination. You're allowed to say no to anyone and everyone.

7. Just because someone is more experienced doesn't necessarily mean they're always right.

Without naming names or being too specific, there was a witch I followed on Tumblr for a long time. They were much older than me and had been a witch for like 20+ years. I followed everything they said as fact. But slowly, over time I started to learn more and realized I didn't always agree with them. They were SO negative. If they heard basically anything new that younger witches were coming up with, they'd have a whole 10 paragraph post about how "stupid and wrong and ridiculous and fake" these new witches were. There was not an ounce of open mindedness with this person. And because of that, I started to feel really bad about myself and my craft. Things they said would stick with me and I'd feel so shitty about it. Well fuck. That. More experience means absolutely nothing if the person is unwilling to learn or expand their minds beyond their previous knowledge. Anyone can learn and anyone can teach. Age means nothing. Surround yourself with open minded people.

8. Put full moon water into your humidifier to charge your space.

This is an idea that only just occurred to me while I was setting up my crystals & jar of water to charge under the full blue moon on Samhain. I always turn my glowing humidifier on at night while I sleep. As I watched the mist begin to arise out the top I thought to myself, 'if I'm charging that water (the glass jar on my altar) for the full moon, why not this water too?' So now, I just add a little splash of full moon water into my humidifier water whenever I'm performing rituals or doing spell work. This way, the full moon water can charge my entire bedroom with the power of the full moon as I work.

Speaking of...

9. You can charge water under more moon phases than just full.

I don't know if that wording was weird or not so I'm sorry if it doesn't make sense. My point is, I always see people talking about moon water as if it's only full moon water. The moon holds power in every phase she goes through. Adding to the above tip, you can put new moon water into your humidifier to cleanse your space. Waxing moon water to help you plan and focus. And waning moon water to assist during a banishment spell. Hell yeah dude, all phase of the moon are useful and powerful!

10. Incense matches are a great alternative to full incense sticks

I love burning incense, but sometimes it can really overwhelm the area, especially because my house is small & I dont want to expose my cat to it. Incense matches are literally matches that are covered in incense powder. They burn for just a few minutes & produce a steady stream of smoke for spells. They come in a bunch of different scents. I buy them locally for 30 matches for $1.05USD but you can probably find them cheaper online. Still be sure to keep them away from pets & those who are smoke-sensitive.

Thank you so much for reading, follow me for more #10tips, search my blog for the previous 230 tips, & have a magical day.

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yukidragon · 3 years

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Our Life Snippet - Lazy Morning Intimacy

So, who’s ready for an extra long serving of shameless fluff from the first draft of my fan novelization of Our Life: Beginnings & Always? My philosophy in writing this is if I can add some more fluffy cuddly moments, I absolutely will, and the Step 3 moment Reflection offers one such opportunity right at the very start before, well, those of you who have played this moment know what happens later.

Spoilers for those who have not played the Step 3 DLC! If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read any further! If you don’t mind spoilery stuff, well, don’t let me stop you, but I highly, highly encourage you to play through the game before reading any of this.

As always, thanks go to @gb-patch for their wonderful game and their lovely feedback for my work, as well as everyone who likes, reblogs, and comments on these clips I’m posting here. You are all awesome. 💖

...

It wasn’t often that Jamie had the chance to enjoy breakfast at the Holden house. Ever since their parents decreed that they were ‘too old’ for sleepovers, she and Cove didn’t have many opportunities to enjoy that particular meal together, which made today a rare treat. It wasn’t especially fancy fare, but it was lovely to be able to spend time with her boyfriend almost as soon as she woke up. She was glad she impulsively asked if he wanted to have breakfast with her when they exchanged their usual good morning texts.

After a pleasant meal filled with light conversation and tasty food, Cove invited Jamie to retreat to his room to relax and let the lazy morning linger before any big activities began. That was, if they didn’t just decide to take it easy for the rest of the day. Neither of them had any plans in particular, with no prior commitments with friends, family, or work to distract them from just spending the day together. It wasn’t officially a date day, per say, or at least neither of them called it that yet. So far, they just decided to do whatever came to mind while enjoying each other’s company.

Of course, the first thing that came to Jamie’s mind was to cuddle with her boyfriend. When Cove sat down onto the bed, she didn’t hesitate to take a seat beside him, leaning into him. He hummed happily in approval and looped an arm around her to pull her in even closer.

A mischievous smile tugged at her lips as a new thought came to mind, and Jamie leaned in even closer. Cove raised an eyebrow at expression, only to yelp when she unexpectedly pushed her weight into him and tipped him back onto the bed. She fell along with him, giggling as they tumbled onto the mattress

Cove let out a chuckle of his own once he recovered from his surprise. “When I said we could relax, I didn’t mean going back to bed,” he said with a wry smile. Even still, he allowed her to nudge him gently back to the headboard so that they could both lounge comfortably on the bed properly with their heads resting on the pillows side by side.

Jamie flashed Cove a satisfied grin before she snuggled up against his side, nuzzling her cheek against his as she basked in his gentle warmth. “You also said to make myself comfortable,” she teased, her eyes sparkling playfully as she rested her arm across his chest. “I’m very comfortable like this.”

Cove felt his heartbeat quicken, and he smiled back fondly at Jamie, nuzzling her cheek in return. “Me too,” he said softly.

Though maybe he was a little too comfortable.

Cove couldn’t help but be aware of the fact that they were both lying in his bed together. A prickling of nerves rose up that he quickly did his best to tamp down to not ruin the intimate moment they were sharing. It was fine, no big deal, he told himself. They were both fully dressed, on top of the sheets, and it was broad daylight. They cuddled plenty of times like this before on sofas and the ground. Heck, this was nothing compared to when they shared a bed when they were younger.

The flickering of nervousness didn’t escape Jamie’s notice. She softened her expression and reached up to gently run her fingers through her shy boyfriend’s hair. She had intended to steal a kiss or two and see where that would take them, but she decided that could wait until later. Just enjoying this moment with Cove was enough for her.

The touch was soothing, and Cove slowly started to relax as he leaned into Jamie. The anxious air that had threatened to pull him out of the moment gradually dissipated as her comforting warmth slowly settled in. Soon, he felt at ease enough to slip his arm back around her, which she happily used as her new pillow. He couldn’t help but smile at seeing the content expression on his partner’s face as she smiled softly back at him.

A comfortable silence washed over the pair as they simply enjoyed the quiet moment of intimacy. At some point, Jamie went from stroking Cove’s hair to toying with it. His ponytail limited her in how much she could card her fingers through his hair, but there were plenty of long locks to ripple between her fingers.

It wasn’t the first time Jamie got the impulse to play with her boyfriend’s hair. Even before he was officially - or even unofficially - her boyfriend, she couldn’t help but want to run her fingers through those pretty pale green strands. When they were younger, Cove would jokingly try to avoid her hands, but always ‘failed’ to escape in the end, allowing her to have her way. Sometimes she teased him back by pretending to give up, and he would always pout adorably, which she would immediately chase away with a satisfying ruffle of his hair.

Occasionally, Jamie would go beyond playing to actual styling. She was no professional, but it was fun to wind her boyfriend’s hair into a braid or two sometimes. Cove never minded, even if the braids rarely lasted that long after she was finished making them. It also didn’t escape her notice that he would sometimes shiver or let out an adorable pleasured little mumble when she raked her fingers along his scalp. It was an enjoyable experience for both of them, and sometimes she suspected that was one of the reasons why he let his hair grow as long as he did.

Jamie had no such grand designs now. Today she simply basked in the freedom to enjoy the feeling of his soft hair sliding between her fingers as she listened to the happy noises her partner occasionally let slip.

Although much more at ease, Cove couldn’t help the small traces of nervous energy that left him with the need to do something with his hands. He ran his thumb across her shoulder with the hand that was limited by Jamie resting on the upper part of his arm. With his freer hand, he decided to return the favor she paid to him and ran his fingers through her long deep blue hair, starting with stroking back her bangs before sliding his hand down along the entire length of her hair until he reached the ends at her hips. The feeling was soft and silky, and she sighed softly at the attention.

On impulse, Cove poked one of the small buns on top of his girlfriend’s head. Space buns were her preferred hairstyle of choice nowadays, and there was something satisfying about poking them that he couldn’t quite explain. Maybe it was the feel of them, or the way the bunched up hair bounced when poked that did it, but most likely it was because of the amused looks Jamie gave him whenever he did. She wore one such expression now, and he couldn’t help but chuckle a bit before giving her bun another playful poke.

Entertained, Jamie let Cove have her way with her buns, poking and prodding them as he pleased. The potential for innuendo wasn’t lost on her, but she let it go unsaid. As fun as it would be to make him flustered by suggesting that he might enjoy playing with a different set of buns she had even more, she didn’t want to interrupt the light, playful moment.

Jamie would just save that little bit of wordplay for later, preferably when the mood was good enough that Cove might take her up on the invitation.

Despite the steamy thoughts that skirted through her mind, Jamie did her best to focus on enjoying the lazy moment between them. It was lovely to just share such casual intimacy with Cove.

Jamie wasn’t alone in trying to ignore her more hormonal urges. As much as Cove enjoyed playing with her hair, focusing on touching her as he did made it impossible for him to stop thinking about the fact that they were both lying on his bed together. He was keenly aware of the gentle warmth of her body pressed against him, how soft and inviting her pink lips looked as she smiled at him.

Eventually, Cove realized he needed something else to occupy his hands if he didn’t want to risk disrupting the peaceful moment. Shifting about a bit, he fished his cell phone out of his pocket. Although Jamie raised an eyebrow at that and at being displaced from her cozy spot when he moved around, she held no objections as he turned his phone on and busied himself with it. Instead, she simply readjusted her position to get comfortable once he was settled again.

Sifting through missed texts and emails, Cove soon managed to distract himself from the urges that ruffled his nerves and relaxed back into the moment. He spotted a number of texts he missed from his dad, and for a moment he wondered if everything was okay until he realized Cliff just sent him a bunch of images last night.

A warm smile graced his face as Cove slowly scrolled his way through the photographs, nostalgia washing over him. Each photo brought him back to the moment it was taken, allowing him to lose himself in the priceless memories he shared with his friends, family, and especially the special person he held so comfortably close at that very moment.

Some photos brought back sweet memories, others a little more on the bitter side of sweet, and then there were the funnier ones. One such silly photo seized Cove’s attention, and he couldn’t help the burst of laughter that escaped him.

The sound immediately snapped Jamie out of her relaxed stupor and brought her back to the present. She raised an eyebrow at Cove, but he failed to notice her questioning look, too preoccupied by whatever was on his phone’s screen.

“What’s so funny?” Jamie asked as she propped herself up on her arm to get a better look at his face and catch a glimpse of the phone’s screen.

Cove finally turned to look at Jamie, his eyes crinkled with mirth and a smirk playing on his lips. “Dad scanned some old photos,” he chuckled. “You know…”

Now that Jamie was no longer using his arm as a pillow, Cove was free to use it to draw a rectangle in the air. “Printed out ones,” he explained, “back from when I was little.” He waved his phone a bit with his other hand. “He texted it all to me last night, I guess. I’ve been checking them out.”

Jamie sat up completely, her dark blue eyes flying open wide. “You were looking at your kiddie photos and didn’t tell me?!” she gasped, almost scandalized at missing out on something so priceless.

Cove barely resisted the urge to chuckle, offering Jamie a bent smile as his eyes narrowed playfully. “I was gonna show you.” His gaze then slid away to his phone as his expression turned a little more hesitant. “I just wanted to look at it first to make sure there was nothing super embarrassing. You never know with my dad.”

His mouth pulled into a grimace as Cove could easily imagine all sorts of horrors his dad might have captured on film to unintentionally humiliate him until the end of time. “I mean… what if there’s a photo of me getting potty trained or something?”

Although Jamie empathized with his worries, she couldn’t help but giggle at the fraught expression Cove wore. “Yeah, that sounds like something your dad would do.”

Cove could only respond by clearing his throat nervously, his eyes skirting away from Jamie as he sat up as well. While he hadn’t come across any particularly humiliating photo of himself, he couldn’t quite shake the fear of what his dad’s well-meaning actions might have left for him to deal with this time.

Jamie offered her boyfriend a sympathetic smile before adding a slight bent to it. “Hey, how about this - if you let me look at your embarrassing baby photos, I’ll show you just as many of mine. My moms have plenty of them.”

The offer was tempting. Cove couldn’t help but wonder what sort of photos Jamie had in mind, but the price was just too steep. He merely chuckled awkwardly and shook his head as he pointedly kept his phone tilted away from her. She huffed and puffed out her cheeks in a mock pout at him for holding out on her, which elicited a genuine bout of laughter from him.

Once Cove got his mirth under control, he smiled at Jamie. “Anyway, before we forget, I was laughing ‘cause I came across a Halloween one from when I was eight. The year I was a zombie, remember?”

Jamie dropped her faux pout and nodded, her eyes lighting up eagerly. Cove shook his head at her excitement, a wry grin gracing his face as he finally offered the phone to her.

As Cove watched Jamie eagerly turn to his phone, he couldn’t help but shake his head again, this time at his kid self. “I never even liked zombies!” he said, a little baffled that he ever was so enthusiastic for such a costume. “All I wanted was to show off my new scar. And I needed to be something scary. I couldn’t be a normal person who had a scar, according to my eight-year-old mind.”

The photo displayed on the screen showed Cove from ten years in the past, and a pleasant wave of nostalgia washed over Jamie as she saw him the way he looked when they first met, minus the pink cast and plus a fair amount of makeup and fake blood. Little Cove posed for the camera with his fingers hooked like claws, his mouth open as though letting out what was probably supposed to be a fierce roar. She could easily remember the noises he made that night as he pretended to be a zombie on the hunt for brains. His hair looked even more wild and disheveled than it did after the most energetic day of play, going well with the tattered and ‘blood’ stained button up shirt he wore. His face was painted in gray down to his neck, marred with an array of fake scars that couldn’t compare to the real one on his arm.

Cove looked from Jamie to the phone and chuckled softly at the face his younger self pulled for the camera. “I was a little dork.”

Jamie eyed Cove at such self-depreciation before poking him on the nose. “You were a little cutie,” she insisted. “And now you’re a big cutie.”

Cove blinked at the playful action before blushing at the compliment. He had no words to reply to it except for a quiet, flustered chuckle as he rubbed his nose.

Jamie grinned at that reaction before turning back to the photo. As much as she enjoyed how adorable Cove looked while pretending to be a fierce monster, it was impossible to ignore the scar displayed so predominantly on his arm at that time. Her smile softened at the edges at the sight of such a large, jagged line of fresh skin that was such a deep and angry shade of red. The scar was a pale memory in the present, but back then it looked so painful, and at the time she found it hard not to worry about him and his comfort after his cast came off.

Still, Jamie refused to let that put a damper on the story and focused instead on just how much fun little Cove was having posing for the camera and remembering the way they played around with their costumes that night. She could vividly recall how she pretended to run away from him when he playfully growled that he wanted to eat her brains, and the memory made her smile grow stronger.

“Dad really wanted to be useful, as usual,” Cove said, bringing Jamie’s attention back to him in the present. Though he noticed the flicker of sadness that crossed her face and realized the reason for it, he was glad to see her perk up again just as quickly. “He came up with the idea of being an undead person. It was pretty good, huh?”

Jamie chuckled softly and nodded. “You had the best Halloween costume that year, hands down,” she said playfully. “I remember you getting lots of extra candy when adults realized the scar was real.” Her smile widened as she remembered just how jealous Lizzie had been at how much candy Cove got that year, especially since he only offered to share some of that extra candy with Jamie. “It must have been your greatest Halloween haul ever.”

Cove couldn’t help but chuckle as well as he thought back to that legendary candy haul as well. It took him a month to finish it all even with Jamie’s help.

Still, the topic of his scar brought his gaze back to the picture. Cove couldn’t help but compare the way it looked in the photo to its current appearance on his left arm. “I can’t believe how much larger my scar used to be,” he said quietly.

Jamie watched as Cove turned his focus to his arm with a soft smile on his face. He traced his fingers along the jagged line of pale flesh that remained with him even ten years on. It was an action that she had seen him do countless times, but it felt more significant in that moment.

A soft sigh escaped Cove, but his eyes and tone were playful. “Look at how tiny it is now.” He gave Jamie a look with big, pathetic eyes. “How am I gonna pretend to be tough without a big scar?”

It was a struggle for Jamie not to laugh at the expression Cove wore. “You better not do anything stupid to get a new scar,” she joked with a faux disapproving frown as she wagged a finger at him. “No matter how much you like them!”

Cove grinned back at Jamie. “I won’t.”

“Good,” Jamie said with a satisfied nod. “You’ve already got the coolest scar, no matter how small it gets.”

Cove felt his cheeks grow warm and his smile turned bashful. “Thanks.” He ducked his head away from Jamie, pleased with their joking exchange. Once again, his eyes drifted down to his scar as he continued to trace it.

“I really do like having this,” he admitted in a soft, shy voice. “Even if it is kind of little these days.”

Jamie’s expression softened as well, feeling as though Cove was sharing a big secret with her. She couldn’t help but feel happy to hear that he liked his scar despite whatever pain it must have caused him to get it. It was always wonderful whenever he opened up to her like this.

Cove glanced up at Jamie, a gentle smile gracing his lips. “I like yours, too.”

The unexpected compliment caught Jamie off guard, and heat rose in her cheeks, turning them pink. She couldn’t help but smile as she felt her chest flutter with butterflies. He never failed to think of her as well, especially since he knew that she was self-conscious of her own scars.

Unthinkingly, Jamie brought her hand up to her upper arm and traced some of the countless jagged little white lines that marred her pale skin. There were matching scars in the same place on her other arm, as well as her thighs and her chest. Unlike Cove, these scars were not the result of an accident, but her skin not being able to keep up with her sudden growth during puberty.

Back during her early teenage years when the stretch marks were fresh and an angry purplish-red, Jamie always kept them hidden. Puberty had been rough on her, dealing a blow to her self-esteem as well as her body, and being covered in so many scars left her feeling ugly even though she never once thought of Cove’s scar like that.

It took time for Jamie to accept her scars, and she knew that Cove was a big part of why. Seeing the way he took such quiet pride in his scar always made her question how she thought of hers. More than that, he always made her feel beautiful, and he was always the first to remind her whenever she needed it. That was why she was no longer afraid to wear clothes that exposed her scars like she did now.

Jamie scooted in closer to Cove as she smiled adoringly at him, placing her hand on top of his. “Thank you, Cove.”

Cove turned back to face Jamie fully. He finally let go of his scar so that he could take her hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. He felt at peace with his scar and was happy to see the same reflected on her face as well. Their scars held such meaning to them despite coming from unhappy sources.

Jamie squeezed his hand back as she drifted even closer. “Could I touch your scar?”

Cove blinked, taken aback by the request. Usually, Jamie wasn’t shy about touching him without asking first, particularly someplace as innocent as his arm. Still, he quickly realized why she might hesitate to do that now and smiled gently at her as he nodded easily. “Yeah, that’s okay.”

Jamie gave Cove’s hand one more squeeze before letting go of it. Lightly, she pressed her fingertips against the edges of his scar. With great care, she slowly ran her thumb along the entire length of it, following the jagged angles the old wound took. The pale flesh was rough when compared to the rest of his skin, which was soft, but with goosebumps rising quickly along his arm as she stroked his scar.

The touch, so delicate and gentle, left Cove feeling a bit lightheaded. Jamie’s touch always felt wonderful and often left him feeling butterflies, but somehow the feel of her paying such careful attention to his scar was particularly powerful. A choked breath escaped him and a wobbly smile played across his face as he lost himself in the feeling.

The dizzied smile Cove wore along with the light pink of his cheeks drew Jamie in with the urge to do more. She locked eyes with him, staring deep into his aquamarine eyes as she took a hold of his arm and raised it up towards her.

A quiet gasp escaped Cove when she realized what Jamie had in mind. He couldn’t look away from her dark blue eyes as she stared so intently into him even as she placed a soft kiss on the old wound that marked him. The feeling of her lips, warm and soft, pressed so tenderly against that particular place sent shivers up his spine, and he let out a tiny squeak.

Jamie smiled against Cove’s skin as she appreciated his adorable reaction, as well as the way he looked at her with overwhelming adoration. She kissed him again and again, tracing the entire length of his scar with her lips like she did with her fingers before.

It was impossible for Cove to stay still when Jamie was showing him such affection. He reached up with his free hand to touch her arm. With his thumb, he brushed aside the edge of her open sleeve, giving him better access to the countless little white lines marking her pale skin. The texture was interesting, feeling so similar yet so different from his own scar. Because of their size and number, he found his fingers constantly alternating between soft skin and rougher tissue. It was difficult to trace any one scar from start to finish like she did for him, so instead he sought out to touch every single one.

The touch was electric, and Jamie could feel her heartbeat speed up as Cove caressed her so lovingly. “Cove…”

Cove shivered again as Jamie murmured his name against his skin, setting off sparks that made his body burn pleasantly. It urged him to lean forward, his eyes gleaming with the fire she set ablaze inside him.

Jamie raised her head and instinctively matched his movement, drawing nearer to Cove as her eyes drifted closed. She felt his lips gently meet hers, and she melted into the tender kiss. She held a little more firmly onto his arm as she fell deeper into him, feeling like she might drown in the depths of her feelings for him.

Cove all too quickly lost himself in the moment and in Jamie. It felt so wonderful, so right to be her like this, to touch and kiss her. He loved her so much that it was almost overwhelming, but knowing that she loved him as well kept him grounded.

Eventually they finally drifted apart, breathless and dazed from the kiss, their faces flushed with heat. When Jamie opened her eyes, she saw Cove gazing back at her with his mesmerizing ocean blue eyes. The look he gave her was spellbinding, filled with so much love and adoration that made her heart hammer hard against her ribcage. It told her without words that the feelings he had for her were just as immense as hers were for him.

Cove leaned in again, this time resting his forehead gently against Jamie’s. With heavy lidded eyes, he simply enjoyed gazing deeply into her blue eyes that always reminded him of the night sky. No matter how many times he saw them, they always captivated him. He could lose himself in those beautiful eyes of hers.

The feeling of his warm breath tickling her skin made Jamie shiver a little, especially the way it brushed against her lips like the ghost of a kiss. With their heads touching, his hand on her arm and hers on his, she felt entirely entwined with Cove. It felt so right.

Time ceased to have any meaning in that moment as they gazed deeply into their partner’s eyes and drank in the closeness and warmth they shared. Seconds or minutes might have passed, but neither of them cared as they lost themselves in each other.

#Our Life Beginnings & Always #Our Life #ourlifeba #Cove Holden #Jamie Last #Jamie Leimomi #My Writing

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ynscrazylife · 3 years

Note

I was thinking maybe a oneshot where B!D gets poisoned by Cadmus?

Sisterly Instincts

Summary: Y/N is Kryptonian who landed on Earth a few years after Kara. When CADMUS kidnaps her, they inject her with a poison made out of their version of Kryptonite, which is very harmful to her.

Authors Note: Thank you for requesting!

Request to be on a Taglist (or multiple) here! (Taglists are at the end of the fic)

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PSA: Do NOT copy, steal, translate, plagiarize, republish, etc any of my works on Tumblr or any other platform. Also, do NOT claim any of my works as your own. All of these works are either requests I’ve gotten that people have wanted me to write or original ideas I’ve had for works. If you happen to take inspiration from anything I’ve written and want to write something inspired by that, please a) ask me first and b) IF I say yes, credit me as inspo in your post by tagging me and link whatever work of mine that inspired you. Thanks.

header c @/mundodeseriess

Image ID: Alex and Kara sitting together. Alex has her eyes closed, head on Kara’s shoulder, arm wrapped around her, and is looking upset. Kara is wearing her glasses and is looking down, crying. End ID.

“Alex, have you heard from Y/N yet today?” Kara asked as she entered the DEO, a slight frown on her face still evident from the morning.

Alex shook her head no. “Not since last night, why?” She asked, coming down the stairs and joining her sister in her walk.

Kara shrugged it off. “She just didn’t send me her usual good morning text . . . She’s probably fine, right?” The blonde answered, now feeling silly as she voiced the worry that had been slowly eating at her.

Alex’s warm chuckle calmed her almost instantly. “Yeah, it’s nothing. We’ll see her soon as she’s coming into the DEO anyway,” she reasoned, assuming their younger sister had just overslept.

They reached the main room where J’onn and the other DEO agents sat at their desks and immediately the Danvers’ sisters got to work.

However, when it was ten minutes past the time Y/N was supposed to arrive, Alex decided to give her a call, biting her lip. She discreetly pressed her phone to her ear, turning away so she wouldn’t cause her sister unnecessary worry.

It ringed.

And ringed.

“Hey! You’ve reached Y/N Danvers. Sorry I couldn’t answer! Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you.” Alex cursed quietly when it rang so long it went to voicemail and huffed to clear her mind and steady herself.

“Hey, Y/N. It’s Alex. I’m sure you just overslept or are rushing to work,” she said, pausing to chuckle when the image of her younger sister running around the city popped into her mind, “Just give me a call when you get this. Love you, bye!”

Despite the small worry entering the pit of her stomach, Alex reminded herself that Y/N being late and missing a phone wasn’t too uncommon, and she resumed her work.

"Alex?” Kara said, and Alex looked up from her computer to see her sister gesturing at the clock with a nod. The brunette looked over, and felt that pit sink lower when she saw that 20 minutes had passed. Getting no message from Y/N, Alex and Kara shared a look, coming to a silent decision.

“We're gonna go by Y/N’s apartment and check on her,” Alex informed J’onn as she stood up from her chair and grabbed her coat. She couldn't keep herself from remembering that Y/N should be here right now, she didn't live far away.

Kara nodded, following her older sister, and the two women left the DEO, neither of them discussing their worries in fear of distressing the other one. Great minds do think alike, though, and that’s why they both internally came to the conclusion that if nothing was wrong and they found Y/N sleeping late, they were gonna be pissed (however they hoped that was what they found instead of the scary alternatives brewing and stirring in their minds).

When they reached Y/N’s apartment, Kara knocked on the door. They waited almost a minute and when the door didn't open and they didn’t hear anything, Alex fished the key Y/N had given to her out of her pocket and unlocked the door.

Stepping inside, the women were prepared to search the house like they were on a mission, when a paper on the floor, having been slipped under the door, caught their attention. Sharing a look, Kara grabbed the paper and unfolded it. It read:

“Hello, Supergirl,

I won’t lie. I don’t know your ‘secret identity’. However, I was able to find out Y/S/N’s, so it’s only a matter of time before I find yours, too. Come to these coordinates: [pretend there’s random coordinates] by 12:00 alone and allow us to experiment and test on you. If you fail to do that, I won’t give Y/N the cure to the Kryptonite poison that’s in her system and I’ll reveal her identity to the world.

-- CADMUS.”

For a couple moments, Kara and Alex stood, glued to the spot. Thoughts and emotions washed over their bodies: concern for their sister, anger at CADMUS, and an utter helplessness since they didn’t know what to do.

It was a little past 10:00 now and when the two got back to the DEO, they made a plan with J’onn. He’d disguise himself as Kara and would do as the letter said and they’d have DEO agents - including Alex and Kara - stationed around the building with cloaking devices, which would make them invisible to CADMUS and their tech. Winn would hack into CADMUS’ tech and after Y/N was given the cure, the DEO agents would act.

At 10:30, the DEO agents were stationed around the base, invisible, and J’onn had walked into the base itself, disguised as Kara. He noticed the Kryptonite around the room, there to weaken Kara, so he put on an act: pretending that it was hurting him. He barley refrained from rushing over to Y/N when he saw the woman who was like a daughter to him siting on a chair, weak and only half-conscious, sweat shining on her face with Lillian Luthor standing beside her.

“Good, you came,” Lillian said with a sadistic smile.

“Yes. Now give Y/S/N the cure,” J’onn said, putting on his best Supergirl face.

The corners of Lillian’s mouth turned into a smirk and she walked over to another chair a few feet away, which had Kryptonite restraints. “Sit,” she said calmly, although the way she stood, her hands delicately placed on the chair, brought power to the lonely word.

J’onn complied, frowning as he walked over to the chair and sat down, letting Lillian put the restraints on his wrists and ankles that she thought would weaken him. For extra effect, J’onn sucked in a breath and faked pain.

Lillian smugly turned around and walked back to Y/N, who didn’t seem to realize what was going on. The older woman gestured to one of her minions and they promptly injected a serum into Y/N’s neck, making the youngest Danvers’ gasp just the slightest before her eyes fluttered close.

“The antidote is taking its affect in her system,” Lillian informed J’onn before turning back to her minion. “Take the girl outside. She can find her way back.”

The man nodded and picked Y/N up, slinging her over his shoulder and walked out. The second J’onn heard a smash and knew that his team had acted, he gave Lillian no time to be on alert before he ripped off the restraints and knocked all of the CADMUS agents out.

. . . . . . . . .

Alex and Kara had been standing outside, listening to Lillian and J’onn’s interaction through their earpieces. The women were both racked with worry over their little sister and when they saw the man carrying her, it took everything in them both to wait until he carelessly dropped her on the floor. When he did, Kara revealed herself and knocking him unconscious into a wall. Alex then revealed herself as well, hearing J’onn fighting, and ran to Y/N while the rest of the DEO agents went inside to erase CADMUS’ memory of Y/N’s identity and to make arrests.

“Y/N, Y/N! Come on, wake up,” Alex said, slightly panicked as she gently rolled Y/N from where she was laying on her side to be on her back. Kara, after making sure the guy was unconscious, sped over.

Kara knitted her brown together and drew her lips into a line, silently gathering her sister into her arms. Alex glanced up at her, tears in her eyes, for she knew Kara was only silent when she was very worried.

“I’ll meet you back at the DEO,” Kara said quietly, her tone almost emotionless, before lifting off and flying into the air. Alex swallowed and took a breath, getting to her feet.

. . . . . . . . .

As she flew through the air, Kara battled to keep distracting thoughts about the clouds and the breeze away, as she knew she had to focus on her unconscious sister. Y/N was the priority. Once she landed at the DEO, she immediately headed to the med bay, where doctors took over and Kara informed him that Y/N had supposedly been given the antidote.

After almost ten minutes of Kara pacing just outside the door and Winn doing his best to comfort her, the doctors informed them that the antidote was indeed in Y/N’s system and it was fighting off the poison. They didn’t know when she would wake up but when she did, she would need to rest a lot as she’d be weak. They were also unsure if CADMUS had done anything else to her, so she’d need to stay at the DEO overnight if she didn’t wake up soon.

The doctors allowed Kara to see her so the blonde sat by her sister’s side, holding her hand until Alex burst in, looking out-of-breath.

“How is she?” Alex asked, sitting on Y/N’s other side and taking her free hand.

Kara told her what the doctors said and they collectively let out a breath, relieved that she was going to be alright. They stayed with Y/N for another hour, silent except for the occasional comment, when Y/N started blinking her eyes open.

The agent and the superhero both sat up, patiently waiting for Y/N to wake up and adjust herself.

“Alex? Kara?” Y/N croaked out, looking at her sisters in a haze of confusion.

Both women smiled and let out happy tears, helping her to sit up before wrapping their arms around her. Y/N smiled, leaning her head against Kara’s neck.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” Alex whispered.

“It’ll never happen again,” Kara promised.

Y/N nodded. She didn’t say anything in response, finding herself too tired after the day’s events. Kara and Alex stayed until she fell asleep and then they reluctantly left her under the watchful eye of Winn, since they needed to debrief with J’onn and prepare for when Y/N would come home.

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the-last-kenobi · 3 years

Note

I love your writing so much!! If you’re still taking requests, could you do 9 with Obi-Wan and Anakin?

Thank you!! <3 And of course! I hope you enjoy.

From this various prompts list.

Set after The Wrong Jedi arc. And it’s way... way longer than I meant it to be. Whoops. I told myself, make this one short. Actually a prompt fill. And then I laughed at myself and wrote a fic and I don’t know exactly how long it is because I was too scared to look at the word count.

I tagged it as long post so I hope those of you who aren’t in the mood for my rambling bs are as to skip it!

I will add a reading cut when I get my hands on a laptop.

When Skywalker stormed into the training bay, his fists clenched by his sides, troopers scattered out of his way like silver-fish before a Bloodfin.

Even without Force-sensitivity, it was impossible to miss the potent fury rolling off the young General in waves, almost visible on the air, scalding anyone who got too near. His eyes glided right over the Clones, however, and fixed on a single figure standing alone on a mat, performing a slow exercise.

Anakin strode over to the edge of the mat and stamped his foot on the edge, twisting it a few inches just as the other man’s foot came back down from a stretch. He slipped. At the last second he caught himself, turning on the spot to regain his balance.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan spoke calmly, as if nothing had just happened. As if his friend wasn’t glaring at him with rage and disdain.

“A duel,” said Anakin, in a tone that brokered no argument.

General Kenobi’s face tightened slightly. But he nodded graciously and summoned his lightsaber to his hands, drawing backwards towards the opposite wall and raising his blue blade in a low Soresu opening.

Skywalker waited only half a second before launching himself at the other man in a blur of blue light and red-hot anger.

Cody, watching from the wall, clasped his hands behind his back as he watched the two Jedi spar at bewildering speeds.

Dizzying swirls of colliding blue light. Last-moment maneuvers, a blade hot as a sun missing moving limbs by inches. Skywalker always on the offensive. Kenobi always giving ground.

Obi-Wan’s eyes widened slightly as his entire body trembled under the weight of a blow that could have removed his head from his shoulders had he not blocked it; his own serenity seemed to shrink in the face of Anakin’s fire and desperation.

There was a blur of motion, and Skywalker stood triumphant as Kenobi crashed to the floor with the younger man’s saber an inch from his chest.

Obi-Wan stared up at his friend. “Solah,” he whispered.

For a moment more, the scene hung suspended. The lightsaber burning close, too close, to Obi-Wan’s vulnerable body, Anakin looming over him with anger in his eyes.

Then Anakin turned and stalked out of the room, leaving his former Master on the floor with a faint scorch mark on his pale tunics.

“Sir.” Cody strode over to his General immediately and helped him to his feet, watching him wince, feeling a surge of helpless anger at the nagging realization that he had never anticipated a time when his General would be hurting because of Skywalker. “Sir.”

“Cody,” the Jedi said wearily. “I need to get up to the bridge.”

“You need to see Hoop,” said Cody, referring to the 212th’s medic.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “No. We’re still two days out through hyperspace and we need to find a way to make contact with the ground troops on Ryloth before we go barging in.”

Cody clenched his jaw but assented, knowing that there was no dissuading his General, not now. He had just one more thing to say.

“General.” He waited until Kenobi looked at him. “You threw that fight.”

Obi-Wan inhaled slowly, a look of what his Commander recognized as pain — grief — flickering behind his blue eyes. “Anakin needed the win,” he said quietly.

The second time Anakin Skywalker stormed into the training bay, everyone moved aside to watch even before Obi-Wan had turned around to greet his former apprentice.

Men from the 501st and the 212th, thrown together on this joint mission as if to both aggravate and soothe the hurt of Ahsoka’s departure, stood side by side and watched as their Generals flung themselves into the fight as if lives depended on it.

As Kenobi let Skywalker take the offensive. As he let Skywalker come to the edge of victory again and again and then held him off at the last second.

As Anakin’s rage grew, as he began to resent Obi-Wan for dragging the battle out and denying Anakin the victory he craved and deserved. Holding him back as always.

As for the second time Kenobi threw the fight in a way that Anakin didn’t notice.

Letting him walk off with his rage dispersed for awhile, the relieved and triumphant victor, while the bruised and shaken loser climbed to his feet and went back to work with an air of gravity around him. As if Obi-Wan had absorbed the weight of his friend’s anger and carried it like a shroud.

Maybe he did.

The third time Anakin confronted Obi-Wan, he won by punching Obi-Wan in the face.

The fourth time Anakin confronted Obi-Wan, he won by burning his leg from hip to ankle.

The sixth time Anakin confronted Obi-Wan, he won by pressing his foot down on the other man’s throat almost to the point of unconsciousness.

The eighth time, he won by knocking Obi-Wan’s lightsaber from his hands and driving him back against a wall with his own saber at Obi-Wan’s neck.

“You have to stop,” Hoop said.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “He... needs this.” A hiss escaped his lips as the medic dabbed bacta along the abrasion above his eye, the bacta he had tried to say he didn’t need.

“He needs a therapist and an ass kicking,” retorted Hoop, disregarding standard respect. He didn’t care about protocol in general, and certainly not when his General turned up every other day — usually dragged in by Cody — with bruises and cuts and strained muscles.

Obi-Wan only shook his head again.

Cody, Rex, Hoop, and many of the others had hoped that the battles on Ryloth would serve as a good outlet for General Skywalker.

They did.

But it wasn’t enough.

Fighting what felt like a futile war for the planet’s freedom, being back on Ryloth yet again, and the gaping hole in the 501st where Ahsoka had once stood only seemed to drive Skywalker’s pain upwards. And for Anakin, all emotions led to rage, eventually.

He could not stand the depths of his emotions, the dark days, the low times. If he was not happy, he chose rage over sorrow.

And there was so much sorrow.

There was a two-day reprieve after the campaign on Ryloth. Temporary victory had been purchased yet again with the blood of the natives and the GAR, and the 501st and 212th departed for another campaign halfway across the galaxy at once.

And for two days there was time to rest and think.

And then Anakin stalked into the training bay again. Not finding Obi-Wan, he waited for him, and as soon as the older Jedi entered the room, raised his lightsaber in an Ataru salute.

The thirteenth time Anakin challenged Obi-Wan, they dueled for over three hours, and both fell exhausted to the ground.

The nineteenth time, Anakin left Obi-Wan with a leg broken in two places. Cody had to physically restrain Hoop — and himself, frankly — from jumping General Skywalker and throttling him.

The twenty-eighth time, Obi-Wan’s guard slipped, and Anakin’s saber drove straight through Obi-Wan’s thigh. A mirror image of the wound Dooku had inflicted on his other leg, a lifetime ago it seemed, back when they had been on the same side.

Were they still?

Anakin’s face had dropped with shock at the injury, and before any of the men could react, he had picked Obi-Wan up in his arms and rushed him to the med bay.

And then the Council called to speak with Kenobi privately, and Anakin’s rage and hurt against them for their role in handing his Padawan over to the authorities rose up again like a serpent reading to strike.

The thirtieth time Anakin challenged Obi-Wan, he fought with his left hand, as if taunting his Master that he was still superior.

The thirty-sixth time Anakin challenged Obi-Wan, the older Jedi fought back, taking the offensive just long enough that it seemed he would be victorious — and then something in Anakin’s face broke. Grief and dismay were revealed in the cracks of his wrath, and Obi-Wan retreated again, and then fell.

The fortieth time Anakin challenged Obi-Wan, he was met with silence.

Anakin stared, his saber already lit in his hands, as Obi-Wan stood up slowly from where he had been meditating.

He dragged himself to his feet like a man on the verge of collapse, but he was as irritatingly graceful as ever, composed, serene. Anakin’s hands tightened on his weapon.

“Well?” he prompted.

Obi-Wan said nothing.

He looked down at the floor, and some of his burnished, ruddy hair fell over his eyes, concealing his face from view. Anakin waited impatiently. A strange feeling rose inside him, something nauseous and uncertain, and he did not want to know what it was.

“Well?” he demanded more aggressively.

Obi-Wan swallowed hard and looked up at him.

And Anakin was struck by how small his Master looked.

Shorter than him by a few inches, yes, but somehow that larger-than-life quality that hung about the man had fallen away. He looked tired. Beaten, humbled, hurt — like a child, like a man driven to the edge and then over it without anyone pausing to take notice of his fall.

His blue eyes were shattered by unshed tears.

Anakin recoiled.

“I can’t,” Obi-Wan croaked. His voice was tight as a wire, strained with the effort of holding back tears. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Anakin. I... I’m too tired to be your emotional punching bag today.”

“Obi-Wan—” said Anakin, not even knowing what he was going to say, and stopped there.

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan repeated. And he sounded it. Looked it. Was dripping remorse into the air like a sky about to storm. “Please. If this is what you need, I can keep doing it, but I just need today. I need a day to breathe. And — and if you’re —”

A tear trickled down over one cheek and into his beard. Then another.

Anakin was watching with his expression frozen between anger and shock.

Cody leaned forward as if about to spring. Rex’s hand settled on his shoulder.

“If you just need more time, I’ll give it to you,” Obi-Wan whispered. “But if you’re angry enough to strike me down unarmed... do it. I don’t — I don’t want — I can’t —”

Cody jolted under Rex’s grip.

And still, Anakin’s saber blazed in his hands, casting Obi-Wan in blue light, reflected in his shining eyes.

“I can’t,” Obi-Wan said helplessly.

Anakin hesitated.

Conflicting emotions ran across his face one after the other, grief chasing pain chasing anger chasing despair chasing rage, like shadows passing over deeper waters.

He raised his saber a little higher.

#and that there is an ambiguous ending #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #star wars #my writing #prompt fill #commander cody #captain rex #501st battalion #212th attack battalion #ahsoka tano #the wrong jedi #Anakin has issues #obi wan has issues #someone hug them #long post #very long post #very very long post

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lovesanmotion · 3 years

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mafia!ateez reacts: comforting s/o with ptsd

💌 This is: Requested

[!] To those who are curious, PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental health condition that is caused by a traumatic or terrifying event - either witnessing or experiencing it. A few examples of it are: childbirth experiences (losing a baby), serious accidents, war and conflict, torture, being kidnapped or held hostage and seeing other people get killed before you.

Taglist: @yunhobabygurl

Hongjoong:

You felt like a failure, not only to yourself, but to your in laws as well. Three years after your marriage, they were already expecting a heir. At first, Hongjoong would lie and say that he is too busy to go back home and sleeps in his warehouse, but the longer he lies, the more he lacks reasons. You, on the other hand, tried your best to do everything just to be blessed with a child. You went to various temples and recited prayers, lit up incense sticks and performed rituals. You consulted love doctors to know which positions is best to have a baby, ate organs of various animals and countless made love with Hongjoong during the full moon. But all those efforts became vain when you would still get your monthly period.

You would cry to yourself while looking at the baby gifts your friends and his closest friends gave you. You couldn't bare any insult thrown at you by his mother or his father. The sight of them alone already gives you anxiety. Amidst of your crying, a pair of arms would wrap around you from behind and engulf you into a hug.

"We'll get through this together" Hongjoong says, resting his chin on your shoulder while caressing your stomach.

Seonghwa:

Even though Seonghwa had given the enemy group the five hundred grand, they still had a little time to have fun with you. While Seonghwa and his men were on their way to claim you, the men and their boss made you watch them kill the lives of innocent adults and children. If you look away, they would stab you. And if you closed your eyes, they would stab you but ten times more.

Days after the incident, you found it hard to look at anything that is red and sharp objects immediately triggered you. Upon the sight of a cutlery knife once sent you to tears and a sobbing mess while Seonghwa catches you in his arms. Seonghwa had ordered all the maids to hide anything sharp and pointy and discard anything red that they have and replace it with any color. Whenever you cried, Seonghwa would take you in his arms and bury your face on his chest. Neverminding how your tears would soak his button down shirt.

Yunho:

When Yunho refused to give in to the enemy group, they held hostage someone very dear to him. You. They had locked you up in a room inside their warehouse, the room didn't have anything except a hanging light and a chair you're currently bounded in. While the enemy group was waiting for Yunho, a female members of their entertained your room. Fearing the worst, she started throwing punches at your stomach as if you were a punching bag. When she learned that Yunho and his men arrived, she gave one last punch and that is to your jaw and falling down on the ground.

The aftermath of the horrific event paid a price to you. Whenever someone tried to get close or lay a hand on you, you would immediately scream and run away from them, raising your arms around yourself in a defensive position. This was especially hard for Yunho since he wanted to comfort you by having you in his arms, but couldn't due to your new fear of being touched. With this, he signed you up for therapy and bought the prescribed medication your therapist had given. And as you undergo therapy, Yunho would be delighted to make you your breakfast, send you gifts and place them inside your room and leave you love letters on top of your bed table. Hoping that one day, you would be able to overcome it.

Yeosang:

When the enemy group learned about you, Yeosang did not hesitate to get you into hiding. Immediately ordering four of his men to get the helicopter and locate you to a secret island, but on the way, the skies became grey and foggy, Yeosang on the other end of the intercom monitored your safety, following you in a ship in the waters. However, the line started to disrupt until he heard your screams and multiple gunshots. He took off the headset and stared up in the skies where he could make out the figure of the helicopter about to crash down.

The helicopter carried five people, including you. And it so happens that it was only you who survived the accident. You weren't facing anything serious, just a few scratches here and there, but whenever you heard loud sounds such as banging and ringing, you would immediately jump in your spot and your hands would automatically hold onto him. Yeosang would comfort you by holding your hand and caressing it gently with his. While doing so, he would do breathing exercises with you, it was simple but effective.

San:

When San managed to hide you underneath his desk, you couldn't help but overhear their conversation. Though nothing what they were talking about made sense to you, what stood and stuck inside your head were the words "If possible, I would have killed you with my bare hands right now and watch as the color in your skin fade into purple and blue." left you hanging and pondering over it.

And ever since that day, you couldn't look at San in the eyes anymore. You once tried to, but your mind played tricks and you saw how his lips turned into purple. It came to a point where you find it hard to sleep at night because the image of him being dead would be the first thing to greet you as your eyes closed. San would everything in his power to get rid of your disorder, but most importantly, he would also pay attention to what you feel about his lifestyle because, without denying it, it was him who brought you into this.

Mingi:

The sound of gunshots and bombs rang all over your ears, you swear you could lose your sense of hearing already. Bodies lying down on the ground, unmoving and still. You wondered how could he face this kind of scenario everyday. You tried to get away when a bomb exploded near you, causing you to fall on the ground, losing consciousness.

A few days after the terrifying event, Mingi observed how you became startled and frightened at the sounds of loud ringing, how you would zone out of yourself and sometimes, feel detached. Mingi swears that you're physically with him, but mentally somewhere else. He knew that after witnessing something so terrifying would cause you this, and that is why Mingi had you signed up for cognitive therapy. Hoping that your mind would bury the past events and be able to help you overcome it.

Wooyoung:

It had not only happened once, but it happened twice already. You've lost two of your unborn babies while giving a heir that would soon inherit Wooyoung's business. The loss of your children brought you great stress to yourself emotionally and physically that your health started to decline and your hair slowly started to grow white in your middle twenties.

When Wooyoung learned all of this, he gave the maids an indefinite vacation. One wherein he told them to rest and eat good food while he took his time taking care of you. Before leaving, the maids wished the young madam (aka you) a goodluck and speedy recovery. And in the succeeding days, Wooyoung would get up early and prepare everything for you. After that, he would go on long walks with you in the garden and pick flowers and make flower crowns. He wanted to divert your mind and away from all the negative you were thinking of. And he also took a mental note to dye your white hairs.

Jongho:

Before Jongho came to your rescue, you were placed inside a large fish tank with chains around your ankles and arms. Not understanding what you were doing inside at first until you felt the cold water at your feet. Finally realizing what was going to happen to you, you kept banging your hands on the screen of the tank, yelling that someone would hopefully hear you. Fear would slowly start to get you as soon as the water rises to your knees, it was useless to climb out with both of your hands tied. Slowly, the waters dangerously increased until they reached your waist. You were already floating in the water and the coldness starting raising the hairs in your arms. You tried screaming for help, particularly screaming Jongho's name. But your pleas were answered by nothing. And as the waters reached to your neck, you tilted your head up to give you more oxygen. Until slowly, the waters fully engulfed you. You held your breath before you could be succumbed, but it wasn't enough as a few minutes later, your body started to jerk and your head moving front and back and slowly, your eyelids closing down on you and your eyes rolling back.

Jongho was quick to saving you. After closing your eyes, he was able to break the human sized tank and caught you in his arms. Laying you down on the nearest surface he could find and then performing CPR on you. But even though he saved you from near death, he noticed how you would avoid taking baths and not coming out of the house when it was raining. He knew that the past event caused you to like this. At first, he tried to convince you to watch the rain with him, but you disagreed. Whenever you would take a shower, Jongho would have to be inside with you. In every step, Jongho would be there for you to overcome your fear and be able to face the waters once more.

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lingerlikeastolenkiss · 3 years

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the archer theory about taylor swift coming out.

well, i've seen some people talking about this song and i had to listen to it again, since it's one of my favorite songs on lover and it also has to do with the theories and the meaning this song has to me.

i don't want to apply this to anyone so feel free to SKIP and NOT READ if you don't agree that this is a LGBTQIA+ song.

pure my own interpretation but you don't have to come to me if you don't like, she has a lot of songs and some of them are free for interpretations and they have different meanings to different people.

the first line it's:

“combat, i'm ready for combat / i say i don't want that but what if i do?”

this line to me has the deepest meaning and it comes along with the one in you are in love “and you will understand now why they lost their minds and fought the wars” and in ivy “this is the goddamn fight of my life and you started it” and both songs are before and after the archer which makes the archer in the middle.

the combat she's (maybe) referring to it's about coming out being (still) the american dream and the woman everyone looks up to when it comes to pop music, she says she don't want it but what if she does? what if she want to fight for it, fight for who she is and who she wants people to see that she really is? it's a combat because you can't come out if you're not ready to start a war against the world.

“cause cruelty wins in the movies / i've got a hundred thrown-out speeches i almost said to you”

cruelty here, to me, it's about how cruel it is to not have the story of your life in the big screen, like, we grow up seeing the bad stories about LGBTQIA+ couples and it's always about how they didn't end up together or how bad they are treated. the “speeches i almost said to you" looks like something she was ready to say to us, her fans, and she didn't had the chance or she wasn't really ready.

“easy they come, easy they go / i jump from the train, i ride off alone / i never grow up it's getting so old, help me hold on to you”

when i first saw the miss americana documentary, i highlighted that part where she is trying to convince her father and the rest of the team that it was a good idea/good move to speak up about the politics and the situation of the trump thing. and it was very hard for me to watch because it was clearly a bunch of old men that grew up and still have in mind their conservatory concepts that goes against what taylor wanted to tell her whole life, they were just trying to silence her and she decided to do it anyway because she is a grown woman and she never spoke up about those things before the reputation era.

the easy they come and easy they go line goes for the fans, they are always in and out and sometimes some of them never want to come back and stay because in the first bad thing that happens to her it pulls them away. she jumps from the train and ride off alone, the train maybe is about her life that never stops and she takes a break from it, the media, the relationships, the image she has in front of the whole world and she ride alone because there's no one in the world that could understand her more than herself. she never grow up when it comes to being more mature when it comes to some things and having the capacity to speak her truth, she's asking us to let her hold on to us when things go harder and when everyone else has left her.

“i've been the archer, i've been the prey / who could ever leave me darling, but who could stay?”

i fucking love this line so much because when you are a LGBTQIA+ kid growing up, you always has to fight against being the bad person and the good person, you grow up seeing in the news that you will die young and that there's people out there that will try to tell you that loving someone of the same sex is the wrong thing to do. being the archer and also the prey is like haunting yourself until you realize who you really are, you have that idea internalized in you, the homophobic jokes you grew up listening and you're also the target and it's like both sides of a coin. who could ever leave her for being a (bi, pan, lesbian) woman? who could ever stay if she's a (bi pan, lesbian) woman? it's like “who could stay in the darkest of the darkest times here with me because it looks like i am lost and i don't know where to go”

“dark side, i search for your dark side / but what if i'm alright, right, right, right here?”

the dark side is not the bad side like people point out, the dark side of someone is like when the moon is half shown and half hidden, and you can only see the part that's out for the light. here the dark side of taylor is the one she haven't showed to us, and to me this line is not about a potential lover but about herself. and this song feels like a mirror, so to me, she's talking to herself and trying to find her dark side in front of her own image. the sequence “alright, right” it's like the dark side saying “i am here and it's good”.

“and i cut off my nose just to spite my face / then i hate my reflection for years and years”

this fucking line is the deepest for me, because it's like, she cut a part of herself to looks like someone who she wasn't made to be, it reminds me of having to hide your true side in despite of being hurt or left aside. how many LGBTQIA+ kids and teenagers has to hide from their parents? we change our way to see the world, we lie to everyone about our love interestings, we hide in the closet and we don't face ourselves because this is not who we are and then we spent the rest of our life hating our reflection because we don't recognize this person but everybody loves this version we created, it's easy, it's very easy to love a straight person but it's the hardest thing to let a queer kid feel loved. it's very easy to not tell a straight person how to be but it's the hardest thing teach a queer kid how to love themselves.

“i wake in the night, i pace like a ghost / the room is on fire, invisible smoke / and all of my heroes die all alone / help me hold on to you”

she's s ghost to the people who live with her so she's not seen, everything is burning and there's an invisible smoke that's where she fades in, and all of her heroes, probably the queer ones that are dying everyday all alone and the ones who died were left alone in their final days. again she's asking if she can count on us to keep going if things go hard.

“i see right through me / they see right through me / can you see right through me?”

seeing through someone means that you see their true version, like if you're looking at their soul and they're so open that you can read anything. it's understanding someone and knowing someone inside and out. just like the lover mv where she's inside the fish tank, it's a metaphor for a thing that can be seen by everyone just like a mirror. and the delicate mv where she's not seen until she enters the bar and sees a person. she can see through herself and people are seeing through her but not in the way she wants to be seen and then she asks (for the fans?) if we can see right through her. could we fight the wars with her? be the shoulder for her to lean on? stay even when she's about to face the fight the biggest war of her life?

“all the king's horses, all the king's men / couldn't put me together again / cause all of my enemies started out friends”

king's horses and king's men also align with the chorus and the universe of being the prey in a world of men. also it can also be the world of a society that lives inside a bubble and cannot accept diversity. not even the men, (her father, team, men she dated?) could put her together again after all that she have been through, and it matches with the “i cut off my nose just to spite my face”. all of her enemies once were friends which implies that she can't trust anyone and as the song goes as (in my vision) a LGBTQIA+ letter to her fans, she's saying that there's no one that could handle this secret and she already tried to tell them but it ended wrong.

that's it. to me this song has a deep meaning and i couldn't put everything i wanted to in this post. also i just want taylor to know that there's a lot of sapphic connotations in her songs and i will always stay.

#taylor swift #gaylor #gaylor swift #the archer #gaylor theory #gaylor proof

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