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slocumjoe · 1 year

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Something I wish they did in fo4 is recognize when you’re cheating on a romanced character… I have a few ideas but I’m curious how you think this should play out in game

This is actually a pervasive...I don't want to call it an issue...roadblock, maybe? In games with romances. Seems like no one knows how to handle this.

Verilybitchie on YouTube has a great video called "bisexuality in video games" that goes into this, so if you don't want to read this, just go put that on in the background.

Also sorry this isn't a react, but I've always had Thoughts on this

So, since this is a Fallout blog, we're talking Fallout first.

In Fo4, you can romance every single companion in the game. Well, the romancable ones (sorry, Nick harem). The only requirement to romance someone is raise their affinity through actions or natural, slow-building of the stat (affinity will slowly raise itself over time), and then you select and succeed at the final romance dice roll. Sometimes there is a quest.

Already we have an issue, because there is no feasible way to logically date all these people. It isn't a numbers issue; it's the fact that most of them hate each other. If you're (you as the sole survivor) can romance and make Hancock swoon for you, its not likely you're the type that can reel Danse. You can't be the kind of person who Preston would fall for, while also pulling Gage. That kind of thing. It isn't that no one would be down to be poly, its that most of them have so few of the others that they'd be poly with. Again, Gage is not sharing with fucking Preston, and he sure as hell isn't falling for someone who Preston can love.

It's just so players can see all the romances, I think, but it's never...it's ludodissonance, I think. At most, a romanced character will hate it if you flirt with someone else in their presence, but I don't believe it'll amount to anything.

So, what would that amount to, IRL? Everyone would be pissed! Their partner has a secret harem that doesn't know its a harem! That's an awful thing to feel. But if Sole sat them all down and explained they wanted all of them at once...still wouldn't work. I don't think any of them would really be comfortable with poly, and all of them have at least one person would they wouldn't want to be poly with. For most of them, that person is Danse. Which is very funny to me.

The thing is, Fallout 4 is a huge game, and making a game is. Fucking Difficult. It is a nightmare. And you'd have to program in all of the different combinations of reactions. That's potentially 144 conversations, if you think about every companion reacting to you being with another companion. Then you have the potential of a companion reacting to you being with two other companions. Three. The number gets insane. And Fallout 4 is humoring us with the socializing/dialog as is, so that's obviously not happening.

In Dragon Age Inquisition, you can flirt with everyone, pretty sure, regardless of romance status. If I remember correctly. But if you romance someone, than try to pursue a romance with someone else, person 2 will waggle their finger at you like nuh-uh-uh, you very naughty boy! Even when it doesn't make much sense for them.

The Iron Bull, for example, i think would be down for a poly relationship. Sera, maybe, I could see that too. Josephine is a manager, so I can see her liking the idea of delegating her love life to an outside contractor when she doesn't have the time. There are romances, here, that could have multiple people. But DAI says no, you can't. But it gets real loosey goosey with what is and isn't cheating.

So, I played that game as a dude, and obviously I went straight for Cassandra, my buff book nerd warrior princess darling. I flirted with no one else. No one. I romanced her and her alone.

BUT.

For those not in the know, Dorian is a character in DAI. His thing is that he's gay from a homophobic country, and his dad tried to conversion therapy him via magic. You go take him to meet his dad, since he showed up looking for Dorian. Dorian spells it out for you that he's gay, since while its kind of obvious, he keeps it hush due to. Well. His experiences.

You have the option to tell Dorian you've been with the same gender yourself. It's marked as flirty if you're a guy, not sure if its the same as a woman. But for a male character, this is flirting with Dorian.

Later, when you talk to Dorian back at home base, you have some options to comfort him, because obviously he's kind of upset. One of these options, I knew to be saying you actually think better of him, and think he's been very brave. I picked this the first playthrough, because I felt it was more genuine and kind.

Second playthrough, I also picked the "I'm gay too" option from earlier.

When I picked the "I think better of you option" back at base...

I'd flirted only with Cassandra. I was dating her.

And my guy and Dorian started sucking face in the corner of a library.

NEVER FLIRTED WITH HIM BEFORE. All I did was say I was also gay, and then I said I thought he was strong for going through the shit he did. Thing is, you can romance Dorian immediately following the end of that quest. So, I tested something. We just made out for like, five minutes. Wanna date? "Aren't you with Cassandra?"

So, the issue here with DAI is that it doesn't always account for...oddities. For example, The Iron Bull will flirt with you hardcore if you flirt with him, but you try to pursue him while in a relationship, he won't. He'll tell you you have great tits and that he likes being pegged, all while making suggestive faces, but the moment those birds come to roost, he's out. What? Why not? Josephine would totally be down to clown with two beefy Qunari men, Bull would be down to clown with Josie! Why is this here???

Again. Games are really hard to program. And that's after you've written all the actual story.

For DAI, I can think of three romances that would be down for poly. So, you don't have much to do there. But there's still other things you need to account for. You can't acknowledge one thing, and ignore the others. If I threesome with Sera and Josie, what happens if I try throwing Bull into the mix? What happens if I break up with Sera? What happens if we ditch Josie, and add Bull, when Sera is a lesbian? Get the issue? Relationships are fucking complicated. Especially when you're the asshole having to puppeteer them in every possible direction, in the name of player freedom.

In the other direction, we have Stardew Valley. I compare it to a child's xylophone toy with utmost affection, its very plinky-plonky in nature.

SDV works on a heart system. 8 hearts with a bachelor or bachelorette, you can offer them a bouquet and start dating. At 10 hearts, you can propose and get married.

If you marry someone, you can date as many other people as you like. You might get a cutscene where your spouse is jealous that you're giving someone else presents, but they don't actually acknowledge that you have a side piece or two. And this jealous cutscene only plays with...a side piece of the same gender as the spouse. So, the character Shane doesn't care if you and Emily had sex in the woods, but God Forbid you give Elliot a duck feather.

HOWEVER. If you reach 10 hearts with all romance options of one gender (meaning you reach 10 with all of the boys, or 10 with all the girls), you get a cutscene where all of the boys or girls confront you with your cheating, and they're all pissed at you for, like, a week in game.

HOWEVER HOWEVER, you can skip this by carrying a lucky rabbit's foot in your inventory. If you have the foot, the cutscenes just play as you hanging out. So, the boys, rather than confronting you, just have a friendly game of pool, and the girls will just chat, I think. So, the only real acknowledgement that you have multiple partners can be skipped.

On the flip side, there's Skyrim. There is no flirting in skyrim, at all. You wear a necklace, and if the person is available, they'll comment on the necklace. You get married, and then you can never divorce your spouse, or get a new one. It's the game equivalent to church kids getting married right out of high school and sticking with it.

The only game I've ever seen handle this, and handle it well, is Hades.

Hades Supergiant my beloved.

In Hades, you play as Zagreus, the son of Hades trying to escape the underworld, because Hades got full custody in the divorce and Zag wants to see his mom on weekends. I kid but that's literally the plot.

Zagreus used to be dating the fury, Megaera, who also works for Hades as an enforcer and guard. She kills Zagreus in his escape attempts. Their relationship ended poorly, and its heavily implied to be because of Zagreus being a shithead to her. She's pissed at Zag, but with enough time and Zag making amends and apologizing, she is more than willing to be friends again.

Then we have Thanatos, the god of Death. He's always busy, and you never hear of him until a certain point in the game. It takes a long time for him to show himself. When he does, it's with a ringing bell, and the area turns green with his presence. He and Zag have a much more complicated relationship, as they've both carried a flame for each other, and never acted on it. Thanatos will appear to help Zag kill enemies before he starts showing at the hub world.

Finally, we have Dusa. Dusa is a floating gorgon head. You know Medusa? Cut off her head. That is Dusa, as her own entity. She's the shy, skittish, workaholic maid for the house of Hades (the hubworld) and has an obvious crush on Zagreus, day one. Whenever you talk to her, heart effects appear, and she quickly flees. She's attracted to Zag, but she's so skittish, building a relationship with her is more like trying to make a stray cat accept pets and treats. She's down, but she needs to get comfy around Zag, not feel so shy.

You can romance all three of these people! If you romance Thanatos and Meg, they'll show up in your bedroom, and you have a brief conversation about how this relationship will work, and if you're down, all three of you hook up. Then, for the rest of the game, you have a boyfriend and girlfriend! As for Dusa, they know about her, too, and she knows about them. Dusa just can't or doesn't want to have sex, so she's more of Zagreus's platonic partner. It's hard to explain. They don't have sex because Dusa isn't into it. It's very cute and sweet.

But the point is, Than, Meg, and Dusa will get together and figure out what they want, then approach Zagreus and see what he wants, and they all work it out from there. This is possible because there are so few romance options, and the writers accounted for people wanting all three. That's actually the intended path! But either way, Supergiant considered how romance would work and function in the setting they built, and how their characters would react and adapt.

Since they were working with a small number of characters, they could easily slot in different paths and choices. You can turn down Than, Meg, and Dusa. Turn down two of them. Accept all of them! And by having characters that like each other, you don't have to worry about Person B looking at Person C and gagging at the idea of sharing Person A.

The problem with romances in video games is that, if the game isn't, specifically, about the romances, you're not going to get a fully-realized experience. Hades has two gameplay modes; the escape attempts with the combat, and the visual novel side of the game with the developing relationships with all of the characters, romances or not. Hades very much puts both things in the spotlight—and it gets away with it, because Zagreus is a fully-realized character, who is not customizable and has no player input. Zagrues decides things on his own, not because a player pushed a button to accept a quest. You don't get to puppet him around. You get very few choices in dialogue with Zagreus.

Most games with romances, you play as a customizable character, who can be anyone, and do anything. The game devs have to account for that. To account for that, everything has to be squishy, and maliable, and that means that nothing really...matters. It can't! If you put too much importance on something, but the player has x amount of freedom, there's a chance they could miss it, or break it, or do something to render it moot. In Mass Effect 2, I believe, you have the choice to save the space government. If you let them gov die, in the next game, the new government is just...the old one in different suits. Letting the gov die is a big fucking deal, but because you made it a choice, you can't expend too much time and effort on realizing the consequences. Because you also need the timeline where the gov was saved. Why would you put so much time into an optional thing, when its possible most players will choose to do the intended path of saving the space gov?

Well, its the same for romances. Why put so much time into paths and consequences that some people won't see? Why would you write discussions of Sera wondering why you thought she'd have sex with Bull, a man, when most people aren't going to do that? Why would you write 144+ reactions to you cheating on all of the fallout 4 companions?

Writing is both very easy, and very hard. Getting ideas is easy. Working out the kinks in those ideas is hard as shit. Add a deadline, a budget, and lots of investors waiting expectantly, and lots of shit gets chucked on the cutting room floor.

#fallout 4 #fo4

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onewithnomightypowers · 3 years

Text

clandestine (chapter 6)

PAIRING: Tom Holland x fem!Reader

SUMMARY: Y/N is an up and coming actress, married to a once hotshot actor, Harrison (Haz). What happens when her co-star, Tom, makes her realise that she is stuck in a loveless marriage. A marriage starts crumbling and a new romance stars brewing.

chapter 6: beautiful songs always end

A/N: i do not encourage cheating. i hope you guys like this chapter!! we are so near to the end. only one chapter left!!! feedback is always appreciated. thanks for reading <3

warnings: drinking, cursing, mention of pregnancy and miscarriage

word count: 1.8k

important: bold and italic are character thoughts

series masterlist main masterlist chapter 5 chapter 7

It was the first Monday of September, the beginning of an eleven-day affair, that is, TIFF. The air was slightly chilly in Toronto but full of possibilities. It was Y/N’s first time at a major film festival. Her film was to screen on the second day. The main cast and the director were invited to MTV’s opening night party. Just an ordinary girl between Hollywood’s A-listers, saying she was intimidated, was the understatement of the year.

The party was at a downtown bar. All her friends had left her alone, well, the other two people who were attending the festivities with her. The only place she could find to calm her nerves was the bar.

Two old fashions will do the trick.

She ordered both of them together, saving her the time. She was about to finish her first drink when she picked up her second, with the first glass still on her lips. Her eyes were shut with the pleasure of a burn in her throat by the whiskey.

“Easy tiger”, a grinning Harrison said, standing by her side, resting his arm on the bar counter.

She laughed in her glass, Y/N opened her eyes to see who said it.

“Oh my god, you’re Harrison. I watched your movie today, it was so good”

His ocean blue eyes really pop in that navy shirt.

His grin turned into an unadulterated smile filling his face, his cheeks turning red from the compliment. “Thanks”

Y/N picked her drink number two again, “and you might be?” Haz asked.

“I’m Y/N, enchanté”, she raised her hand to meet his.

“Are you here with a movie too?” He seemed genuinely interested.

“Yeah, I’m the lead in a little indie movie called ‘Midnight Love’”, she pinched the air, a gesture to show how small the movie was.

“No way! When can I catch it?” his excitement was noted.

“It’s screening some time tomorrow morning I guess, I’m not sure”

“Can I give you my number so that you could text me with the time of the screening? I would love to see it”

“Yeah sure”, she handed him her phone.

---

Someone had clicked a photo of Haz and Y/N kissing at Washington Square Park, and had uploaded it on the internet. Nobody really knew who Y/N was, so they dubbed her as the ‘heart throb stealer’. Haz didn’t truly realize the gravity of the situation, the situation being a toy for the media, dating a seemingly normal girl from New York.

Haz had an early call time, so he left Y/N’s apartment before she even woke up, stopping at a deli near her flat in Sunnyside, Queens. When he came out with his breakfast, he noticed that the day started early for New Yorkers too, especially those who considered selling pictures of celebrities as honest work. They were hounding for his flesh.

Maybe I should go back to Y/N’s so that they would leave me alone. No. I can’t go there, they will get to know where she lives. I can’t let her live like me, locked in a golden cage.

Later that day, Haz came around Y/N’s place in the evening. He had planned on a quick ‘get in and go’. He even had a whole speech prepared. She opened up the door. Y/N was in her sleeping shorts and a bra, with a spoon in her mouth. She was clearly not expecting any visitors.

Man, why does she always look this perfect.

Before Y/N could say anything, Haz started his speech by clearing his throat.

“Y/N, I think we should break up and before you say anything, hear me out. I live in the public eye and the opinions of people have locked me in a bird cage. I am alone in here and that is fine with me, but you dating me will be your one way ticket inside this circus. You live a normal life, you are so grounded, and you get me back to earth whenever I’m on Saturn. I love you for that, but I can’t give you the peace you deserve to live a happy, healthy life. I don’t want you ever regretting us in the future so, it is for the best that we draw all our cards”, Haz said that all while still standing in her door frame.

“No”, she turned on her heel and walked towards her melting ice cream, leaving the door open for him.

“What do you mean ‘no’?” he finally entered the house and followed her.

“Are you insane? I’m not going to fucking leave you because of some stupid bird cage you live in. There’s nothing in this world that could stop me from loving you, ever”

---

It was late at night, Y/N and Haz were lying on their new bed, exhausted from a hard weekend of labour. Moving in was no joke. Only their bedside lights were on along with Y/N’s salt lamp which she had brought from her apartment. She was reading ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. Haz was making circles on Y/N’s stomach.

“You are distracting me”, Y/N spoke softly.

“Oh, am I now?” Haz started tickling her around her stomach.

“Harrison. Stop. Please”, she said between giggles.

“Never darling”, he travelled up to her neck.

She tried to catch his fingers with her chin, “what do you want from me?”

He stopped. Haz placed his hands on her shoulder to calm her down, locking his eye with her he said, “I want to wake up to you every morning and fall asleep to you every night”

“Well you can do that now”

“I want to do that every day for the rest of my life. Marry me, Y/N.”

---

Y/N was walking down 5th avenue, unaware of a photographer following her across the street. She rang her mother to tell her all the new developments in her life.

“Hello?” her mother answered the phone.

“Hi mum, how are you?”

“Oh hi Y/N! I’m doing fine, what about you?”

“I need to tell you something”

“What is it darling?” Y/N could hear her father in the background asking her mum whether it was Y/N she was talking to.

“Put the phone on speaker, I want to talk to you and papa both”

“Okay”, before heading underground for the subway, Y/N stopped at a small café to finish the conversation.

“Are you both here?” They hummed a yes.

Y/N took a deep breath, “I’m getting married to Harrison”

“What!?” both of them exclaimed.

“Honey you are too young to get married”, her mum said.

“If I’m old enough to do my own taxes, then I’m old enough to take this decision on my own”

“Kid, I just want to give you one piece of advice, I don’t think you should announce your engagement to the world just yet, you both haven’t been dating long enough and they already call you a gold digger”, her dad said.

“Where did you hear that?”

“On the internet”

“Dad, you shouldn’t be Google-ing your child. The internet only feeds you poison. And, lucky for you, we haven’t yet decided when to announce it”

---

Haz was stirring the sauce in the pan, next to the pot of boiling pasta. Y/N was sitting on the kitchen floor, with her back using the cabinets for support, reading a script.

“Babe, can you pass me the salt?”

Y/N carefully got up and opened the spice drawer. “There you go”

“Thanks” he took the glass jar of salt from her.

“We should watch ‘A Quiet Place’ tonight,” Haz suggested.

“No. we are going to watch ‘Letters to Juliette’.”

“Y/N, we have seen that movie a hundred times”

“Well make it hundred and one because we are watching it again, tonight”

“Why do you get to choose the movie?”

“Because I’m the pregnant wife here, Haz”, she got on her tippy toes to kiss his forehead.

---

“I want a divorce”, she whispered, loud enough to be heard.

“What?” he looked up at her with the most polarizing gaze.

He heard her. She knew that. She refused to repeat it, she thought if she did, he would win, in some weird way he would win the fiercest fight of their marriage.

“Is this what you do every night when you are not at home, with me? Stay out and drink your pettiness away?” Y/N said, pulling her hair down.

“Is this what you do every night when I’m not home, go to fancy shit with him?”

“Do not bring him into this”, she was stern.

“Come on, say it. Say his name. Say that you are in love with him”, he was poaching her.

“Fine. I love Tom, more than I ever loved you. But this is not about him. He has nothing to do with this sinking ship.” The claws were out.

“Oh honey, you punched the hole. You hurt me”, a mad man said. “You mean to say that you fucking him has nothing to do with us?”

“You should be more hurt that I had a good laugh with him”

She took the dagger out of his back and plunged it straight into his heart. He said nothing. Bleeding out on the floor, no whimpers were whispered.

“When you lost the kid, I was there for you. I took care of you” he said softly.

“Did you ever stop to ask me whether I wanted this kid or not?”

He looked at her confusingly.

“When I lost our child, I was honestly relieved”, she sat down on the floor opposite to him. “I was not ready for it but you were so joyous that I couldn’t say anything. I realized that I was so toxically in love with you, that I was ready to grow a piece of you in me, that I wanted to lose. Our love that seemed so healthy was just in shambles.”

Tears were streaming down both of their faces.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he moved forward and rubbed her knee.

“I just couldn’t” she said between sobs.

“And now you have to go. It’s okay. I get it.” He took her in his chest, letting Y/N cry her heart out.

“Hey, just like Passenger sang, ‘you’ll only know you love her if you let her go” he tried to be funny for her. And it worked. Y/N scuffed out air, a sad attempt to laugh.

“I will always care for you, Haz”, she looked him in the eyes, the stream of tears never stopping.

“I know”, a deep sigh heard. “I know, I know.” He said stroking her cheek.

@mysticapples17 @storybookholland @flqwsome @hollandstanevans

#tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland imagine #tom holland x actress!reader #tom holland smut #tom holland fluff #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #marvel #marvel fanfiction #harrison osterfeild x reader #harrison osterfield #spiderman x you #spiderman x reader #spiderman #spider man #spiderman x y/n #taylor swift

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the-acid-pear · 3 years

Text

I did my homework and i did my chores, time to tackle on the third book of this series, Son of Ogre

Chapter 1

Okay but the fuck is Baki planning to do if he stops fighting? That's literally all he has, he's not smart

WOOH THATS A BIT REALISTIC

PREHISTORIC ELEPHANT?!

King just went to have a snack. Also FUCK does that meat look tasty FUCKKK

This baby so cute 🥺

I'm so glad Yuji is doing stupid hilarious shit again it had been a while

Congrats on Baki for that mantis

Chapter 2

Who tf is this kid?

Poor kid lmao, i assume he will meet Baki

Look at my boyyy

HSTSRFAYDF DON'T CALL HIM A MANLET

Imagine Baki actually kills this kid HSJDYSSHCBT

Third comment with a ton of likes is "we do not condone child violence. We do, however, find it hilarious"

Chapter 3

AH SHUT UPPP KIDDO

But i like Baki memeing a round a lil

Chapter 4

🥺🥺 that's so sweet...

HELLOOOO STRYDUM MY GOD YOUR TITS GOT FATTER SIR 😳😳

Yujiro is such a fucking threat to society lmao

I love seeing Baki with his eyes open, he's looking more like his old self

Oh, shadow boxing incoming, alright

Chapter 5

Yuri? 🥺 /j

THE RETURN OF IRON MICHAEL?!

Chapter 6

I love how there's our silly little mains after every cover LUV em <33

Baki just dissociating his ass out and using it on his favor, the king

Why is Baki eating sour prunes aren't those meant to be sweet?

We all salivating

Chapter 7

Love to see there are even more swears there now

I can put my face next to my foot too tho

FAGDRJSEHARD YUJIRO CAN BEAT THE CANCER HOW ICONIC 😍

Also i would LOVE to see Yuji fight an Orca

WHAT?!

I love how everyone in the comments is calling out Rumina for not seeing issue going down to a dark hidden basement with a shirtless man older than him

Chapter 8

"piggy back me" USHSYFLFUDSY

This fight is going to be good

Chapter 9

Imagine Baki dies right here right know against an imaginary mantis lmao

Okay Baki getting damaged makes sense but the WALL?

Baki's dead (GOD IT HAS BEEN SO LONG SINCE I HAVE SAID THAT)

Ffs it's true Baki COULD create himself a stand 😰

Chapter 10

OH FUCK IT'S TRUE

Chapter 11

This fight is so boring i had to take a 6 hour break

Baki just can't win against nature eh

This reminds me of Garland pulling a suplex on that Anaconda

Chapter 12

I can't wait for the main cast to ACTUALLY appear, instead of just, you know, them in the covers

This fight is slow but cool but slow

To fight a mantis you must think like a mantis 😎

Though it's true in this manga you will most likely win if you steal your opponent techniques so

Chapter 13

I MISS IGARI FUCKKK

This is so dumb i luv it

That mantis be swearing lmao

Love it when Baki goes full Yujiro

Chapter 14

TOBA...

Holy fuck do mantis fly?

Secret Chapter?

Is this how Yujiro got born?

Idk girl i would have killed him if i was you

WHAT.

I KNOW THOSE FROGS THEY ARE FROM PUERTO RICO I THINK

I might just be sleepy but this is so confusing

AKSHSKGSKSGSJSG JUST KILL THE BABY IT AINT THAT HARD

Chapter 15

GAIA...

Why is he like this?

Is "he" with us right now?

...gotta admit that IS true...

I love Strydum sksgwhwg

Yujiro really went XD

I don't think my man Arun in the comments is aware how gay what he said is, though maybe I'm wrong

Chapter 16

GOD THESE FUCKING COVERS MAKING ME SO NOSTALGIC, LOOK AT SPEC!

ANIME KENNEDY?!

I can't believe Bush is dead

AN ASIAN BOY HAS JUST KIDNAPPED THE PRESIDENT...

8 of January? My god he's a Capricorn

I'm sorry, what?

LAHQIGWKQFWKSFWIWG 😭😭

I love Baki so much, THIS IS THE KID THAT I MISSED SO MUCH

This explains why Baki was in prison clothes in the anime teaser

Chapter 17

BIG NUMBER

That one mf like 😐

Glad Baki is 18 now at least 😌

Love to see Oliva back

Chapter 18

This page not even bothering to charge the pages anymore

I'm sure there were better ways to go to jail, well, actually, no, but still

Toba used to just chew that off

Baki did that mantis hit you in the head too hard?

I. I watched way too many prison movies and shows. I don't like seeing someone as young and pretty as Baki in such a place. I rlly don't.

Chapter 19

Yanagi baby i miss you...

IRON MICHAEL?!

Mfkhsjsys 😳🥴

Eh got my hopes too high

CHE BAKI PIBE... LA PUTA MADRE NI ACA ME ESCAPO DE MIS COMPATRIOTAS

I hope he swears too i want to see a boludo o pelotudo PLEASE

I mean para pelotudos lo veo a Yujiro todo el tiempo pero igual JSGWKEGWG me pone bien argento ver al Che carajo

Chapter 20

HE SAID BOLUDO SUAHWKWGAKSGSKSGSKGD

I can't take this omfg new fav I'm sorry Doppo but he just said boludo 😭

Pendejo is more used as pibe here but i will let it pass bc idk the lingo in Cuba and he spent some time there so

Why don't i speak like this too ffs? All i do is say eh and call it a day

He's cocky enough to call anybody any age pibe so I'll let that pass too

Por favor no lo hagas che sksgwj

Chapter 21

Che, pibe, it's a good day to die...

Chapter 22

GSHAGSTSG he should have said "no boludo"

I'm falling in love with this boludo myself

That's talented and brutal

OH RIGHT YOU LOSE YOUR BALANCE WHEN YOU DONT HAVE THAT

Chapter 23

Hm that's, cringe

YESSS HE SAID PELOTUDO

OAHWLGWKQFSKSGSJS SIII ROMPELO TODO CHE, ROMPELO TODO POR DECIRTE YANKEE KSGSSJGS

Honestly i too get pissed off when called American or European, though i won't throw shit to Baki, he's some random 18 yo japanese boy, no way he would recognize latinoamerican lingo lmao

King shit Baki boy

Chapter 24

Oh that's why he's called Jun Guevara, that's fair

I like how they are mixing a bit of truth and a bit of lie it's fun at least

Chapter 25

I like how they are drawing nipples now, occasionally

I can't wait for Viêt to complain about propaganda in the comments

OH SHIT

😳 :Y

He's sooo nice 😍

Chapter 26

Only three? You mean the third is... 👁️👁️

HAHA YEAH YUJI-CHAN <3

I can't believe he works for the USA I'm crying and shaking rn

What a progressive manga, the three strongest and most dangerous men and none of them are white 😍

GET HIS ASS BAKI

Chapter 27

Why is this guy sweating sm?

LDYDYSUGFUDT BAKI PLS

I like how the only time Baki was willing to kill a person was when he thought Sikorsky had hurt his girl

Chapter 28

I feel like Ian will die

Man i love how Baki is drawn in this book

Ffs i called it, i have watched way too many prison things to know how shit goes down

I have seen these three before in fanart but I'm curious to see what they can do

Chapter 29

Their faces remind me of Doyle

OH I CANT WAIT TO SEE EM IN THE ANIME

ASSHOLE DON'T CALL ME STUPID 😢💔

I'm gonna struggle to tell em apart but i think I'll manage

Okay I'm not the only one who thinks they look like Doyle, fair

Chapter 30

The mouth vs Yujiro when?

Someone mentioned the have the same vibe as the dudes that worked with Gaia and like 👁️👁️

Chapter 31

Lmao someone in the comments recommended the same thing

These three must be great at sex (sorry)

KSHALDHDKD NEW FAV COMMENT: "go to Japan and look for the word "defeat". That way you won't feel cocky anymore"

Chapter 32

Hehe hello Junnn~

KSHAKDHKWGS

La luna

Chapter 33

LOS TRES...

Okay that's funny, hocico instead of mouth (hocico is used for animal mouths)

I'm so glad i know Spanish

The two things that drive me insane and make me ramble are Doppo's beauty and this stupid argentinian

OSHSKWGSKSG

Chapter 34

Imagine he's doing that illusion thing Dorian did

With his own blood, that's so cool...

Hoho...!

I did that once when i had a terrible nose bleed, didn't go well

Chapter 35

This book is fucking boring NGL

"now that you got no more urine left in you"

AH.

GAHDYR LMAO

Chapter 36

HO THAT TITLE, PLEEEASE I NEED SOMETHING, ANYTHING, TO HAPPEN

HHH he kinda cute...

Oww :(

JDJSJFRGAJ

God piantao is an old word i had never heard it before

AND he took a piss.

LOCO NO SEAS HOMOFÓBICO NINGUNA MINA ACA ES MEJOR QUE ESTE PIBITO TE LO ASEGURO SKSGSKGSJAAGS

Se me cayó un ídolo y yo que le quería dar 😔

ÑSHWQLSGOSGDKW

Let's see if he lied to Baki about just liking eh /j

Chapter 37

I luv Oliva lol

AJSGSKSLAGHS BAKI SNAPPED

I too wonder where the fuck Kozue is

Chapter 38

LSHSLDGSLSGSIEG

He is jealous of what you two have, it's normal, el Che just rejected his love after all ;/

Oliva is a king

OH A HANKERCHIEF I THOUGHT THAT WAS UNDERWEAR SHSGS-

Oh shit Oliva is like 45?! He looked so young

Te fuiste a la mierda, Che, el chabón estaba siendo re bueno con vos

Baki is just dead

Chapter 39

I love how realistic Che's fear is, he's rather smart, though not this time

POOR GUY AJSGSWJW

I didn't realize Che said "what more, it may be a woman!" but to be fair they ARE in jail so

Chapter 40

I'm feeling kinda bad for him ngl

I feel happy for him tho 🥺

Bruh they added one page after the ending of some naked anime girl tf 😐

Chapter 41

These prisoners having fun is kinda sweet

YO INSANE

Bitches be complaining about Maria's looks are just jealous 🥰

Chapter 42

Damn she lorge

He loves fighting naked eh

Only valid person is the one saying Oliva deserves better treatment which tbh true

Chapter 43

Fun fact i wear my jacket like El Che too, unless it's too cold

El che with the hair lose is so cute bro,,,

Something something fingering joke

Sikorski could fold a coin too

I bet the bandana will break

Chapter 44

I would have just fallen on top of him, how is he gonna counter that, eh?

Oh that super fun to know!

Oh the good ol dirty technique, i have seen this one before!

Chapter 45

NOOO MARIA DON'T DO THIS TO HIM

This fight is super cool tho i love these two characters

Chapter 46

They just keep changing the rules i think Itagaki is just flexing at this point

LAAOSFKAGSKAGSKAF???

Baki wants his protagonism back

I'm getting pissed off they keep putting semi naked underaged girls at the end of every chapter 😐

Chapter 47

Bruh just realized, the mouth got so hyped as this new cool villain and they died in their first appearance 😭

His damn bandana...

#luly talks #i hit character limit already waaa :(#but I'm too into this to stop reading lol #btg #this saga is a bit boring but el che is funny :)#baki liveblog

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theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 4 years

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Yeah, so I read your HP headcanons/analysis and I found it really well put. I was wondering about your thoughts on Dumbledore and who he really was as a person. (It’s okay if you don’t really want to reply :> )

We’re just getting all up into The Carnivorous Muffin headcanon land, aren’t we?

Well, this one’s probably obvious to anyone who reads my work.

I fall on the manipulative Dumbledore side of things and then some. Dumbledore is not only a bastard man but is a raging misogynist and extremely classist (which is funny because I don’t see too many people calling him out for those last two when to me canon all but shouts it at you).

Basically, what it comes down to, is even taken in very good faith I simply cannot read Dumbledore’s actions as benign in pretty much every single goddamn decision he makes ever.

God, where do I even start here? I guess we can go chronologically.

Well, there was Dumbledore’s Wizard Nazi youth with an oddly Dorian Gray flare to it with Gellert. I think it’s fairly obvious why Dumbledore’s not exactly... good there so I’m going to skip past it. Suffice to say, it took his sister’s death (and maybe murdering his own invalid sister) for Dumbledore to stop planning world domination. Even then it wasn’t so much that world domination was wrong, but because his sister died and he was an asshole.

I’m going to go ahead and include CoG and Fantastic Beasts because I can (CoG, while a terrible movie, actually does entertain me in many ways). Anyways, before the films came out I always considered the younger Dumbledore far more stoic and brooding. He doesn’t get his eccentric persona until after the defeat of Grindelwald and was before then angsty mcangsts and an academic at heart.

Well, per CoG, apparently he was a budding spy master long before defeating Gellert/Voldemort popped up. We see him manipulating Newt, sending him to Paris as his own agent, WHEN NEWT DOESN’T WANT TO GO AND HAS ACKNOWLEDGED THAT DUMBLEDORE USED HIM INTHE LAST FILM. Dumbledore writes off having used Newt for his own agenda with a charming smile but none the less it paints a pretty grim picture that Albus has always been... Albus. There has always been a greater good out there somewhere and the man is always using someone as a pawn.

Cut to canon and his treatment of Tom Riddle. Frankly, Dumbledore’s treatment of the young Tom Riddle, and even Tom Riddle just before he came Voldemort, is insane. The thought experiment I like to run is “replace Tom in those scenes with Harry Potter”.

Harry was a poor orphan, whose guardians would more than match what Mrs. Cole said about Tom Riddle, who had spurts of accidental magic now and then and enjoyed when his bully cousin was discomfitted. Now, imagine Dumbledore giving Harry his letter, and then pretending to light all of Harry’s possessions on fire to “teach him a lesson”. What the fuck?

Now, am I saying Tom Riddle wasn’t creepy here and that killing a rabbit was terrible. No. But I am saying Dumbledore had a horrible reaction to it and is proud of it years later. (Also, the fact that he uses this memory to convince Harry of how evil Tom is, is hilarious to me. Dumbledore, you were the shit that lit people’s wardrobes on fire. If I was Tom, I’d be upset too).

Dumbledore is always like this with Tom Riddle. He thinks the worst of Tom even in points where Tom hasn’t done anything. I’m not talking about later when, yes, Tom did live up to Dumbledore’s fears but when Dumbledore treats him like garbage and actively sabotaged Tom’s career.

Anyways, cut to later when the Marauders are in school. One of the big things is that Dumbledore puts up a guerilla resistance gang OF SCHOOL CHILDREN. While most members are older, James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, and Peter are all only just out of Hogwarts. “Well,” you say, “It’s their choice and they did graduate. Surely Dumbledore wasn’t actually recruiting school children.” I point you towards canon, where Dumbledore convinces three actual school children that the fate of the nation rests on their shoulders and to go fight the good fight. So yes, Dumbledore canonically uses child soldiers and has no regret for doing so.

The other is letting James and Sirius off the hook for the Lupin incident. While Dumbledore talks the talk this showed that he was not willing to walk the walk. True, while getting them into major trouble would have involved outing Lupin (who was innocent in all of this) at the same time they were nearly responsible for the murder of another student. It’s very convenient that Dumbledore lets off the rich son of a lord, two individuals who later end up in the resistance movement (Potter likely funding part of it), and tells the impoverished half blood to sit down and shut up.

And in canon, yes, I believe that Dumbledore absolutely knew what Harry’s home condition was like. While the blood wards are an excuse they aren’t a particularly good one as for most of Harry’s childhood the Death Eaters were all accounted for. Harry was in no extreme danger from them. To not have had an inkling of Harry’s home life (when Harry even hints at it when wanting to stay over the summer, Harry runs away from home in third year, Fred and George see the bars on the window, and he even visits Harry’s home in sixth year) would be such laughable incompetence and stupidity it’s right out.

With that, I absolutely do believe what Snape showed us in the memory, the Dumbledore behind the scenes as it were. That Dumbledore knew fairly early that Harry Potter was a horcrux and began grooming Harry for suicide. Specifically, that’s what sixth year really is. All those memories of Tom Riddle, the pretext to get some memory from Slughorn, it’s an excuse for a smear campaign designed to convince Harry that Tom Riddle is inherently evil and must die at all costs, even Harry’s own life.

Dumbledore didn’t need that Slughorn memory. Sure, it was useful to know Tom intended to make seven but think about it. How did Dumbledore know there’d be anything remotely useful in there? He doesn’t know that Tom actually drops a number on Slughorn. Even then, he doesn’t know whether Tom actually goes and does it. All of it felt like, “Harry, I have a super secret important mission that only YOU can do. Can you handle it, Harry? Because without this the country is surely doomed” And in that I mean it was an effort to win back Harry’s favor after the previous year meltdown, keep him busy, and start in on the excuse to show Harry some pretty damn innocuous memories of Tom Riddle and go, “See, HE IS EVIL!”

Due to this, I frankly think that the train scene was a hallucination on Harry’s part. Wishful thinking for some gentle explanation of how Dumbledore had not cruelly used him for years and intended his death.

Well, that and it never made much sense that Dumbledore could predict Harry’s a) becoming the master of death b) miraculous second resurrection.

In the first case, Harry becomes master of death because of wand lore bullshit and happenstance where Harry happens to save Draco’s life. Dumbledore had no idea such a thing would happen. Dumbledore’s plan was for there to be no master of death, as the wand would default to having no owner when Snape defeated Dumbledore on Dumbledore’s orders. That Draco got the wand is a sort of Deus ex Machina. Sorry guys, Dumbledore intended Harry to die.

More, even then, while Dumbledore was very into the occult of these things we leave canon without any idea if these things are even responsible for his resurrection. They’re just relatively nifty objects with a legend behind them. There was nothing concrete to suggest that, should Harry happen to get all of them, he would be able to rise from the dead.

Otherwise onto the misogyny and classism parts.

In terms of misogyny this is from every time Dumbledore talks about Lily Evans or Merope Gaunt. In the case of Lily, she’s this weird Madonna figure whose love for Harry was so powerful it saved his life. That she also happened to make these blood wards Dumbledore cannot reproduce and extended her protection to Harry wherever he went is irrelevant. It’s her love that counts. That feminine, maternal, love purer than all others.

Basically, Dumbledore seems to be of the belief that women are flowers. The best of women are these demure, selfless, brave women who sacrifice themselves for their children. Yikes, Dumbledore.

Merope’s the really bad one though. Merope’s tale is how she drugged and raped a defenseless muggle for months and then he escaped. Dumbledore spins it into this Victorian tale of woe where Tom Riddle Sr. THE KIDNAPPED RAPE VICTIM is the asshole here who abandoned Merope to the merciless cold world. How dare he.

It’s very clear that Dumbledore doesn’t see Merope, or women in general, as people. Instead these weird Victorian ideals who can be tragic victims of circumstance.

As for the classism.

While Dumbledore’s very against the pureblood culture we see in the Malfoys a lot of his treatment of Tom Riddle feels very... classist. The big one, which is a little tangential but I say it counts, is Dumbledore’s theory that children of rape are incapable of love. Granted, he’s saying this while convincing Harry to kill himself for the good of the cause and there is a real world parallel in that alcohol/drugs while pregnant is a very bad idea that can lead to extreme mental and physical health disorders. That said, we’re talking love potions at conception, and it always read more as “rape babies” vs. specific drugs. And that is... just yikes on so many levels.

Now, do I agree with manipulative Dumbledore we see in many fics? No, because Dumbledore’s not that stupid.

He doesn’t need to borrow money from Harry’s vault, he doesn’t need to pay off Hermione and Ron to be Harry’s friends, he doesn’t need to choose Harry’s friends for him, he doesn’t need to manipulate Harry’s memories directly. He doesn’t need to do any of this because he got what he wanted just fine in canon.

Dumbledore is one of the smartest characters in canon, far smarter than Harry, and he doesn’t have to stoop to such outrageous schemes to get what he wants. Poorly concealed smear campaigns convincing Harry to commit suicide are more than enough.

#ask #anon #headcanons #albus dumbledore #manipulative dumbledore #dumbledore is pretty damn evil guys #as in there is pretty much not a single action you can point to where i'll say it was reasonable and not in some way underhanded #except maybe his choice in wardrobe #the man has some elton john style

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

Text

Anonymous asked: I always think of you as Kristin Scott Thomas’ character Fiona in Four Weddings and a Funeral as a beautiful woman who is scarily clever and classy. So with my upcoming wedding (next year!) and especially wedding music I thought of you. I really would appreciate your advice on Mendelssohn or Wagner as they seem to be the traditional choices of music to play at a traditional church wedding. My fiancé isn’t bothered what music we play but I can’t decide. Please do help as I value your unvarnished truth.

Thank you for the flattering words which while well intentioned are nevertheless entirely misplaced.

Swiftly moving on, a sincere congratulations on your forthcoming wedding. I can only imagine how stressful it must be running around like a headless chicken trying to desperately organise everything. And desperate you certainly must be - perhaps even certifiably insane - if you’re turning to me on Tumblr for advice!

I’m not married....yet ( oops! better get that caveat in before I am chastised by those who really know me) but I am a wedding veteran - some would even say, a jaded one (thank you, mummy).

Every season there is a string of wedding invitations that I can’t turn down and I feel obligated to attend. While great fun, one wedding starts to blur into another especially when the champagne starts to copiously flow. I have my own thoughts on the good, the bad, and the tacky about wedding etiquette but I don’t want to disappear down that rabbit hole. Instead let’s talk about Mendelssohn and Wagner.

Both music pieces have traditionally struck a chord (pardon the pun) and have become a staple of traditional weddings since time immemorial.

Mendelssohn's ‘Wedding March’ was originally composed in 1842. He got there first.

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Wagner's ‘Bridal Chorus’ came later in 1848. The ‘Bridal Chorus’ became a popularised piece to play at weddings around Europe after it was most memorably used as the processional at the wedding of Victoria, the Princess Royal to Prince Frederick William of Prussia in 1858. Nowadays - certainly in Britain and the US - it is generally known as "Here Comes the Bride”.

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I suppose the straight forward answer is that it doesn’t have to be Wagner vs. Mendelssohn. Why not both? Wagner’s ‘Bridal Chorus’ can be used for the entrance processional of the bride walking down the aisle and the Mendelssohn ‘Wedding March’ for the recessional walk out of the church.

But you did say you wanted my ‘unvarnished truth’ so allow me the small luxury of an arm chair rant from the Coronavirus self-isolation of my Paris apartment.

Of the two I would definitely ditch the Wagner piece. Please don’t misunderstood me. I am a huge fan of Wagner’s music - like any true Wagnerian I have taken more than one pilgrimage to Beyreuth - but in this case playing Wagner’s music would show a frightful ignorance of the meaning behind the ‘Bridal Chorus’ piece.

I don’t know why more people haven’t picked up on this but I’ve always found it a terribly odd piece to play at a wedding especially as it originates from Wagner’s masterful opera, Lohengrin.

Wagner came upon the opera's inspiration around 1845 when he took interest in the legend of the Holy Grail through the poems of Wolfram von Eschenbach and the anonymous epic of Lohengrin. Composed by 1848, Lohengrin features "Bridal Chorus" as the prelude to a very short-lived, doomed marriage between Elsa and Lohengrin.

The famous ‘Bridal Chorus’ is lustily sung by women of the bridal party serenading Elsa to the bridal suite after the wedding in Act III. Elsa is not allowed to know her true knight’s true name and identity. But this is a romantic German opera and so of course Lohengrin is found out with dire consequences for all. A sad Lohengrin ends up revealing that he is in fact a knight of the Grail and son of King Parsifal, sent to protect an unjustly accused woman. The laws of the Holy Grail say that Knights of the Grail must remain anonymous. If their identity is revealed, they must return home. Lohengrin is lead back to the castle of the Holy Grail. Elsa is grief stricken at being left behind. Poor Elsa (naturally) collapses and dies with a broken heart.

Charming.

To say it’s not the happiest of allusions of looking forward to a long life of wedded bliss would be an understatement.

However my objections against Wagner’s ‘Bridal Chorus’ goes beyond this. For one thing I find it rather too sombre - Oh dear God! Is marriage really like this?!

My main ire is that it overly used and therefore boring to listen to. And when one is bored the mind wanders.

In my case, without sounding malicious, my mind just drifts to whispering mischievous lyrics under my breath that go like, “here comes the bride, big fat and wide, here comes the groom, skinny as a broom.” Try as I might I can never get those words out of my silly mind whenever I hear the organ music playing “Here come’s the bride.” Not my finest hour.

Now Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding March’ is different beast entirely. Beast being the operative word as we are dealing with Pagan deities.

Typically used in church wedding recessionals, the ‘Wedding March’ piece has sparked controversy due to its literary origins. The Prussian monarch Friedrich Wilhelm IV commissioned Mendelssohn to compose incidental music for many pieces that were based upon Greek mythology and tragedy in order to revive the genre of literature and performance. Among his commissions, in 1843 Mendelssohn composed a setting for William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream; the setting comprises twelve musical numbers and a finale. The plot of Shakespeare's play focuses on a pagan god and goddess and is filled with fairies, magic, and fantasy. Due to the piece's pagan, fantastic inspirations, some puritanical leaders and musicians - particularly in Roman Catholic churches - have found the piece to be inappropriate for a Christian religious ceremony. In its defence at least Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream was a comedy with a happy ending.

If you’re feeling traditional rather than puritanical then the joyous Mendelssohn ‘Wedding March’ might still be a great option either as a processional or recessional.

If you’re looking for options outside of either Wagner and Mendelssohn then it’s really a matter of exercising good taste alongside what suits the personal tone of your wedding.

Off the top of my head I keep coming back to Johann Sebastian Bach.

Bach’s many cantatas and fugues seem to tick all the boxes. In particular there is Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (derived from the cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, "Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life”). There is also the Toccata and Fugue in D minor ‘Dorian’ BWV 538 and the Toccata and Fugue in F Major, BWV 540. Arioso in A flat for solo piano from Cantata No. 156 "Ich steh`mit einem Fuss im Grabe is softly elegant. A particular favourite piece of mine is Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten, BWV 202, the ‘Wedding Cantata’. Of course many would point out that Bach’s Ave Maria would be perfect for a processional but I would think twice about that. As beautiful as the piece is it is about the Virgin Mary after all and you may invite unwanted speculation from your guests if you are (cough) chaste.

Trumpet Tune in D by Jeremiah Clarke is a little more festive. Or consider his more famous Trumpet Voluntary ‘The Prince of Denmark's March’.

Charles-Marie Widor was a fine composer and his Toccata (from Symphony for Organ No. 5) is spiritually intense for traditional organ music.

Eugène Gigout's famous Grand Chœur Dialogué might appeal to you as well.

G.F. Handel’s Water Music Suite - Air has a graceful and calming tone. The Arrival of The Queen of Sheba (Solomon) HWV 67 is upbeat and was made for a processional.

Beethoven’s Für Elise is perfect to calm last minute panic attacks before you go up the aisle.

And how can one forget Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?

The Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major, K. 525 or more commonly known as Eine kleine Nachtmusik KV. 525 - II. Romanze: Andante is a beautiful melody familiar to many and sets a soothing tone. Ave verum corpus, K.618 is profoundly spiritual and lifts your hearts up to the angels. ‘Alleluia’ from ‘Exsultate, jubilate’ is wonderful if you can get your hands on a competent soprano. If you are feeling more adventurous then the Spanish Wedding March from The Marriage of Figaro which might be to your taste.

Elgar’s Salut d'Amour, Op. 12 is soft, inviting and makes one feel you’re in some 19th Century romance novel set at court.

Elgar finished the piece in July 1888, when he was romantically involved with Caroline Alice Roberts, and he called it Liebesgruss ('Love's Greeting') because of Miss Roberts' fluency in German. When he returned home to London on 22 September from a holiday at the house of his friend Dr. Charles Buck, in Settle, he presented it to her as an engagement present. The dedication was in French: à Carice. 'Carice' was a combination of his wife's names Caroline Alice, and was the name to be given to their daughter born two years later.

Edvard Grieg’s Wedding Day at Troldhauen, Op. 65, no. 6 is magnificently playful.

Jean-Joseph Mouret’s Rondeau from Sinfonie de Fanfares is a beautiful Baroque piece. What’s a wedding without trumpets that could be heard all the way into the heavens?

Gluck’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits from his Orfeo et Euridice can be an elegant choice to do a recessional. Perfect for sensitive souls.

Gabriel Fauré’s Pavane, Op. 50 is sublime. I can never get tired of listening to it. Would make a worthy piece as a processional.

I would also throw into the mix Gaetano Donizetti’s ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ (A furtive tear) is the romanza from Act II of his delightful opera L'elisir d'amore.

It is sung by Nemorino (a tenor) when it appears that the love potion he bought to win the heart of his dream lady, Adina, works. Nemorino is in love with Adina, but she is not interested in a relationship with an innocent, rustic man. To win her heart, Nemorino buys a love potion with all the money he has in his pocket. That love potion is actually a cheap red wine sold by a traveling quack doctor, but when he sees Adina weeping, he knows that she has fallen in love with him, and he is sure that the "elixir" has worked. It may not fit your idea of a processional but I would try and use it some where in your wedding - perhaps at the reception.

I feel guilty about trashing on Wagner and Mendelssohn so I will leave you with two final thoughts. Reconsider Wagner’s opera Lohengrin. Forget the Bridal Chorus but instead listen to the chorus ‘Gesegnet soll sie schreiten’ in Act II. The various horns give this chorus a dreamlike quality and you feel like you are floating on air. Mendelssohn’s On Wings of Song is a powerful and poignant piano piece and quite suitable to play as your guests away your arrival in church.

I am sure there are other great classical music pieces that I have neglected to mention but others reading this might give their thoughts in the comments below.

If knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, then wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. So give careful and considered thought to what music you throw together into the mix as your church wedding processional and recessional.

Congratulations again and I hope it’s a special day for both of you and your families and friends.

Thanks for your question.

#question #wedding #music #wedding music #classical #tradition #church wedding #processional #recessional #personal #bio

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mwritesink · 6 years

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The never ending shelf of WiPs

(Working titles are italicized. this is my attempt at organizing myself. Includes both Original and Fan Works. Post under a cut as this got long real quick...)

Original Works

“Rebel Songs”: November 1920. Dublin, Ireland. A chance meeting brings WW1 veterans Shannon Maxwell and Lawrence Barton together and into a whirlwind romance. Their first problem? Shannon is an IRA soldier and Lawrence works with the RIC Special Reserve. (currently writing random scenes, outlining, and researching)

“iceskating”: Modern day. Somewhere. Danny Reid is hired by Esmé Caldwell - renowned former Olympic Ice Skater and current coach - to help get her protege back into competitive shape. Jason O’Rinn - scarred, intense, and guarded - is just the sort of man Danny should stay away from, but he can’t turn away from fixing broken things, especially when Jason reaches back to heal Danny’s own scars. (I’ve maybe an eighth done of a first draft. fully outlined. need to do research)

“Red Headed Bastards”: [fictional year. fictional city name]. Lauren Lowfey, marked from birth as an outsider by her red hair, is just trying to make a life. One day she gets a package to deliver at the Aesir Castle that sends her life into far more adventure than she ever asked for or wanted. Outside the city, though, forces are moving to make the first moves of Ragnarok. (need to write scenes, need to outline, need to research)

“Chicago History Poetry Zine Series”: Poetry to inform about significant, and some not so significant, details about Chicago history. (have a set written about Camp Douglas, though several are in edit mode. Need to figure out the best way to arrange and publish. constantly in research)

“My Squire, My Knight”: visual novel idea. Arthurian based. the MC is related to a king allied to King Arthur - leaning towards being the youngest son of King Pellinore - and is assigned to be a squire to one of Arthur’s knights: Sir Kai, Sir Dinadan, Sir Palomides, Sir Galehaut, or Sir Mordred. The course of the final days of Camelot are changed depending on the path and choices of the MC. (have the ideas, outlining, researching)

“Mad Ladies Ghost Stories”: Visual novel idea. MC is a Paranormal Investigator trying to find and free the ghosts of a haunted mental hospital without joining their number herself. Each ghost is of a woman falsely deemed insane and fell victim to the cures of her time. (have ideas, need to outline, need to do more research than one book)

“Crow Merwin”: Fantasy inspired by the French Revolution, but with more figures who are not white, presumed straight men. (idea there. I had notes from a year ago, but lost them. need to recreate notes)

Fan Works

K. J. Charles series

“The Magpie Lord - Script Adaptation”: for Charm of Magpies series. Writing exercise. Is what it says on the tin, just me practicing script writing by adapting The Magpie Lord by K. J. Charles. (in progress)

“Damned Spot”: for Green Men Series/Secret Casebook of Simon Feximel. Simon and Robert resolve the story of a haunted theatre. At one point Robert gets stage blood thrown on him. I get to indulge in how much I love MacBeth. (in planning)

“Elaphromancer”: for Charm of Magpies series. A Jono/Doug AU, where Jonothon “Chamber” Starsmore and Doug “Cypher” Ramsey are remade for existing in the world of Charm of Magpies. Jono is a magician who works as a fire breather and sword swallower for the Hellfire Freak Show and Circus. His life gets infinitely more complicated than it already is when he encounters a runaway autonomous Automaton who insists on having Jono help protect a political fugitive. Then the Justiciary gets involved. (in planning, opening scenes written)

Jordan L. Hawk series

“Griffin’s Queer Chicago”: for Whyborne and Griffin Series. Collection of one-shots and other shorts speculating on Griffin’s time in Chicago. So far planning to include the following: bed-sharing w/ Elliot [finished!], almost getting caught having sex under a bridge, having outdoor sex in one of the parks, the Columbian Exhibition World’s Fair, hotel sex w/ Glenn, and the Chicago Athletic Club. (In planning, first short finished!!, may be a while until the next one, in research)

“Seduced by the Shark-Man”: for Whyborne and Griffin Series. Fishborne AU. Instead of an Umbre, Griffin and Glenn find a shark-man who says his name is “Fire In His Blood”. He got very lost, ended up in fresh water, and would like to go home. But not without first finding out everything he can about land-dwellers. (the idea is there)

“Jono, Doug, and the no good, very bad haunted adventure”: For Spirits Series. A Jono/Doug AU where Jonothon “Chamber” Starsmore and Doug “Cypher” Ramsey are remade for existing in the world of the Spirits books. Doug and Jono are both Mediums. Jono’s talents reside in Pyromancy, and Doug has a willing “Spirit Guide” named Warlock. Doug enlists the help of Henry, Vincent, and Lizzie to free Jono from a haunted asylum after one of Jono’s seances goes horrifically wrong and he is confined as mentally insane. (in planning, have beginning scenes written)

“SPECTR: Hunter of Demons - Script Adaptation”: Writing Exercise. Practicing writing comic book scripts by adapting the first book of the SPECTR Series.

Marvel Comics/Movies

“Hellions AU”: Jono/Doug AU. Jonothon is invited to join the Hellions by Emma Frost when he is 14. He and the Hellions get entangled with Doug Ramsey and the New Mutants, which leads to a radically different Jono, and a different Doug. (in outlining, some scenes written)

“Jono Frost AU”: Jono/Doug AU. Jonothon was adopted at a young age by the Frost Family, and followed Emma to the Hellfire Club. Along the way, Jono gets involved with Shinobi Shaw and other 90′s X-Men villains. (in planning)

“X-Force AU”: Jono AU. the NHS catches Jono’s mutation when he is 16 and sends him to Muir Island to be taken care of by Dr McTaggart. While there he becomes friends with Terry and Maddrox and follows Terry to X-Force. Various relationship entanglements ensue as well as morality questions regarding what X-Force does. (Idea is there)

“Excalibur AU”: Jono/Douglock AU. After exploding, Jono is sent to Muir Island, instead of getting an invite to join Generation X. While there, Douglock befriends him, and (along with Rahne) they begin a romantic relationship that goes rocky when Warlock comes back on the scene. (in planning)

“Savior”: personal/fan essay. tying “Savior” by Rise Against to the wreckage of Jono/Paige. (idea is there)

“Guthrie Family Dinners”: personal/fan essay. the implications of the New Mutants and Generation X staying together/breaking up and the number of times each team gets invited to Guthrie family dinners. Sam regularly takes the New Mutants to Guthrie Family dinners, and they mostly stay together. Paige only ever brings Jono over (once, and not to dinner), and Generation X is never really brought back together. (idea is there)

“Holistic Villains AU”: Jono/Doug AU. Jono is nabbed by Clan Akkaba right after his mutation explodes his body and he’s given the Apocalypse look. Taking on the codename Leviticus, he sets out to assemble his own horsemen and become a new Apocalypse for a new age. His Death is the newly revived Doug Ramsey. (in planning).

“Really a Villain AU”: Jono/Doug AU. Jono was brainwashed by Clan Akkaba from a young age, and has been their agent. After M-Day, he turns himself over to Utopia. Doug becomes interested in him and in his apparent reformation. theme song: Sedated by Hozier. (in planning)

“In the Flesh AUs versions 1 and 2″: Jono/Doug AUS. setting Jono and Doug within the world of “In the Flesh” tv series. Version 1 has both Jono and Doug as PDS and wrangling their lives post treatment. Version 2 has Jono and Leeland (oc child character belonging to @stem-cell who lets me and @nobiliorpomis use) are PDS, and Leeland gets his living father together with his PDS friend. (in planning)

“that one Burnside AU”: Captain America AU. Set in the MCU somewhere. Steve gets kidnapped by William Burnside, a historian of WW2 and the super soldier project who looks uncannily alike to Steve. back and forth pov of Steve’s captivity by Burnside and the other Avengers trying to find and rescue Steve. (the idea has been there for a long while)

Fire Emblem

“Ride Across the River”: Palette Swap AU where Arvis and Sigurd switch roles and families and what happens with the fallout from that. (first few chapters on AO3, in progress)

Dragon Age

“The Salt in the Ashes”: Inquisition AU with Samson as the Inquisitor. somehow I get him and Dorian together. (in hiatus/in progress)

Mo Dao Zu Shi

“Untitled”: mash up with Exalted. Detailing the rise and fall of First Age Twilight caste Solar Wei Wuxian, Zenith Solar Lan Wanji, and the Death Lord “The Yiling Patriarch”. (idea there)

“Untitled”: a Mo Xanyu lives fic, where he and WWX share his body, and freely go back and forth between who’s in control of the body.

Castlevania (Netflix)

“Untitled”: Get Alucard out of the house a bit and rescueing Hector from Carmilla’s clutches. Romance ensues. (idea is there, plus a paragraph or two)

#whyborne and griffin #spirits series #charm of magpies #green men series #jordan l hawk #kj charles #M's fics #M's fanfic #M's original fic #organization gone wrong #marvel #marvel comics #marvel mcu #Jonothon Starsmore #Doug ramsey #fire emblem #dragon age #organization gone really really wrong #I have too many things to work on

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ifuckinglovestvincent · 7 years

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St. Vincent Is Telling You Everything

“I told you more than I would tell my own mother.”

September 10, 2017, 10:34 a.m. By Laura Snapes | BuzzFeed Contributor Reporting From New York, New York Annie Clark was reconfiguring some older material for her upcoming tour when she realized how alien it felt to play it. She could adapt the arrangements to her harsher new sound — the sleazy, acid aesthetic of Masseduction, her upcoming fifth solo record as St. Vincent — but the writing’s proggy complexity was cockblocking the emotion. “In so many ways, I thought I was being completely transparent and brave in every record, only to realize that they are very oblique,” Clark told BuzzFeed News. She cackled and looked delighted. “Who knew! I had no idea.” Clark is much too self-aware for this to be completely true. But the difference between her polite, guarded Texan past and confrontational present is colossal. When I first interviewed Clark in 2009, she nervously pressed her pendant against her lips and face, leaving a red lipstick pox on her insane cheekbones. By 2014’s St. Vincent, Clark’s public persona would be imperious. But these days, she’s a playful freak who revels in showing the tightness of her grip, a disposition aided by long, straight eyebrows that dance like Memphis squiggles. In late July, she appeared in the lobby of New York City’s Marlton Hotel, her temporary home during the making of Masseduction. She had come from pilates — which she likes because it makes her sing better and “come a lot harder” — and disappeared to change out of her leopard-print gym shorts. When I mentioned a recent paparazzi photo of her looking like a sexy detective in another skintight leopard-patterned getup, she asked twice, with predatory delight, whether I’d looked at her camel toe. (No! Okay, maybe!) The only time her control slipped was when the hotel’s stereo started playing “Who,” a knotty song from the album she made with David Byrne, and she shriveled like a salted snail at hearing her own voice. Self-possession like hers is often interpreted as pretentious, or pathological. But over time, the confidence that the younger, anxious Clark had to fake has become bracingly real. You can hear it in Masseduction, a record of pop fluidity and queer possibility. It’s the best thing she’s ever done, and there are no bad St. Vincent records. It’s partly harsh, heady, erotic synth-pop visions steered by her diamond-sharp guitar, and while Clark has written plenty of ballads, there have never been any as brutal and gorgeous as these. Its lurch between apocalypse and ecstasy mirrors how it felt to be kicked in the head by the past couple years. In a way, Clark was right about the obscurity of her past work, filled with archetypes and distanced observations — emotions through a stained-glass window. If not a clear pane, then Masseduction is at least a peep show on heartache, fucking, addiction, destitution, and suicide. And her relatively new life as a very public figure, thanks to relationships with Cara Delevingne and Kristen Stewart, gives it an extra frisson. Tabloids will rush to find the former, the famed British supermodel, on an album littered with wasted bodies, especially on “Young Lover,” where Clark finds someone overdosed in the bathtub. She recounts the night with terror but also arrestingly ugly indignation. “Oh, so what / Your mother did a number / So I get gloves of rubber / To clean up the spill,” she sneers. “Scenario has to rhyme, babe,” is all Clark said about its veracity. She was bemused at being asked to explain the lyrics. To her, this record is butt-naked. “I told you everything,” she stressed. “I told you more than I would tell my own mother. It’s right there.”

Annie Clark Nedda Afsari Masseduction started out with three tenets: It would feature programmed beats and pedal steel guitar, and examine power and seduction. “What does power look like, who wields it, how do they wield it — emotionally, sexually, financially?” Clark ticked off her fingers. The album was properly born over a creative first-date dinner with Jack Antonoff, the Bleachers frontman who also recently produced and wrote with Lorde and Taylor Swift. Clark was looking for a teammate; they told each other everything that was going wrong in their lives and decided that total oblivion was the only way out of their heads. “It wasn’t, ‘Hey, let’s make a record together, that’ll be fun,’” Antonoff told me. “It was, ‘Let’s absolutely go all the way and find the absolute best thing that exists here,’ which is really the only way to work on things.” That grit is Clark’s MO. Until recently, she claimed to have taken approximately 36 hours off in between returning from touring 2011’s Strange Mercy and starting work on 2014’s St. Vincent. The concerts for the latter were bonkers, starting the run as avant-garde, meticulously choreographed deconstructions of a traditional rock show, and ending it with exorcisms that entailed Clark crumpling down a 10-foot pink plywood pyramid like a drunken horse. She often stole objects from the crowd: a pair of crutches, someone’s dinner. The spectacle of her murdering the thing she’d trained for was addictive.

St. Vincent during the 2015 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. Frazer Harrison / Getty Images “Touring became a blood sport for me. I mean, I was born with a whip anyway, and touring became this self-flagellating exercise,” she said, clenching her jaw and lashing each shoulder with an imaginary strap. “And I was seeking that kind of physical exhaustion; I was seeking the pain.” She doesn’t know why, and she’s okay not knowing why, though eventually she did accept that her relationship to touring was a form of delirium. On the new album’s “Sugarboy,” a dystopian, post-Moroder disco banger, she describes herself as a “casualty hanging on from the balcony.” (She literally climbed rafters in some theaters, kicking away security guards.) This hysteria is one of the reasons she considers Masseduction her saddest record. “I lost my mind, I lost people, I gained people, I stopped touring,” Clark said of that period between 2014 and 2017. “It was just a lot of a lot, you know.” After the St. Vincent tour dates ended, Clark had to learn to construct and value life away from the road — she had been on tour since age 16, when she worked as an assistant for her aunt and uncle’s jazz group. “And I still love that,” she said of touring, “but it’s more like a component of my life now rather than…my life.” Back home she indulged in a “period of bacchanalia,” and briefly got into self-medicating, an experience she turned into the lunatic track “Pills”: Imagine the Stepford Wives lost in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory (Kamasi Washington guests on saxophone; Delevingne sings on the chorus). She’s transfixed by the forces that can swallow us — “You know, drugs, sex, and rock ‘n’ roll,” she winked. “So corny. Kill me! Kill me dead!” Though sometimes she uses those themes to dress up more mundane relationship dynamics. “Savior” explores the unhealthiness of mutual projection through a funny S&M parable involving nurses and nuns and our tediously prosaic concepts of kink: “You put me in a teacher’s little denim skirt,” Clark moans on the song. “Ruler and desk so I can make it hurt / But I keep you on your best behavior / Honey, I can’t be your savior.” The album’s self-destructive dynamic comes out on the title track — “I can’t turn off what turns me on,” she wails over twisted guitar — and her protagonists never stop annihilating each other for their own benefit, whether for carnal kicks, or for the mothers who “milk their young” in the song “Los Ageless.”

The album cover for Masseduction. Loma Vista Recordings And then there’s the heartbreaking “Happy Birthday Johnny,” which sounds like a snowflake but crushes like an anvil. It calls back to the title track of her 2007 debut Marry Me, about “John” who’s “a rock with a heart like a socket I can plug into at will”; and to “Prince Johnny,” the decadent downtown royal from St. Vincent. She said she feels compassion and hopelessness for his self-destruction, but can’t judge because she’s just like him. Maybe he’s also a cipher for the way humans use each other — Clark flatly refused to talk about him. “One thing I have learned in six records and 10 years is that I’m not obliged to answer any questions — a lesson I more or less only recently learned.” She stared into the bar, fixing a grim expression through her orange aviators. “Next question.” At any rate, the song is a whole story. Once conspirators, her and Johnny’s literal fire-starting days are behind them, and now he lives on the street, calling up Clark at New Year’s for “dough to get something to eat.” She demurs, and he calls her a queenly miser who’s sold out for fame. “But if they only knew the real version of me / Only you know the secrets, the swamp, and the fear,” she pleads. It is deeply tragic, being shamed — perhaps rightly — by the person who once understood your shame. Antonoff theorized that she’s mourning a past on the record. On the forthcoming Fear the Future Tour (named after a new song, and to resemble a Jenny Holzer maxim), Clark said she probably won’t be flinging herself around stages as much because “I think I’m emotionally throwing myself around a lot more.”

A still from St. Vincent’s “New York” music video. Alex Da Carte In late July, Tiffany & Co. announced Clark as one of the faces of its fall advertising campaign. Diamonds and waspy Americana are a weirdly prim contrast to the freaky propaganda aesthetic that Clark is calling “manic panic” — the Masseduction album cover is a photo of a nice ass in a leopard-print thong bodysuit. But like any savvy propagandist, Clark’s image will be everywhere this year. Having directed a short film, The Birthday Party, as part of the horror anthology XX, she’s now due to direct a feature-length, female-led adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. (“The most rich text I have ever read: transgression, modernity, society, repressed queerness.”) There’s also a multimedia performance as part of October’s Red Bull Music Academy in Los Angeles, and an upcoming art exhibition in New York. A coffee table book. Essays. (She calls art “a fountain of youth” that’s given her everything and everyone in her life, hence her urge to make everything.) And that’s just the exposure she has control over. Celebrities like to pretend that their success is the result of some cosmic fluke, but Clark has said quite openly that the best part of becoming more famous thanks to her love life is “just getting the opportunity to do more work in different fields,” which nobody ever admits! (Though her 2015 Grammy for Best Alternative Album and overwhelming critical acclaim probably helped, too.)

St. Vincent, Zoe Kravitz, and Zosia Mamet at the Tiffany & Co.-presented Whitney Biennial VIP Opening in March 2017 in New York. Mike Coppola / Getty Images One of Clark’s best-known songs, 2014’s “Digital Witness,” is about social media voyeurism. “I wonder if, in the future, privacy will be something that only the 1 percent can afford,” she told Rolling Stone that year, which now seems beautifully naive. From the second she and Delevingne were spotted together at the 2015 BRIT Awards, the UK’s pervy yet ever-scandalized tabloid media went nuts that their hottest young model was dating a woman, and pursued them so staunchly that the couple once took revenge by firing water pistols at the paparazzi. “She really is so famous!” Clark said of Delevingne, feigning hammy disbelief at the attention they received. “That shouldn’t have been shocking to me, but it was shocking to me in the sense that she’s such a sweet, really, deeply kind, unspoiled person. She has more compassion in her little finger than—” She waved her hand around her torso with a grim laugh. (The pair reportedly split last fall, but Clark would only say they were “never not close.”) Clark’s self-assurance helped her to perceive the tabloid aggression and celebrity weirdness as baffling rather than distorting. She was too classy to run with my suggestion that attending that Taylor Swift 4th of July party must’ve been an interesting anthropological study. “That was, I think, in the midst of a game of Celebrity,” she said of a photo of her wearing the same stars ’n’ stripes onesie as Gigi Hadid, Karlie Kloss, and Ruby Rose. She took a long pause. “I was very bad at it!”

From left: Cara Delevingne and Annie Clark Schiller Graphics But she was disturbed by dangerous high-speed car chases from paparazzi in pursuit of photos of the couple; she thinks the gossip industrial complex relates to a wider societal disparity. “The biggest problem was that the value system of it is all based on aspiration,” she said with genuine concern. “It’s wealth aspiration, fame aspiration. But if the government, if the world was just generally a more compassionate, empathetic place, people wouldn’t be aspiring to…that. They would be more fulfilled with their own lives if the wealth gap in general wasn’t so insane.” Admittedly, it was hard not to want to look at them, in matching sharp suits and laser-cut Burberry, queering the archetype of the male rock star dating the young supermodel, watching the context around an established artist mutate in front of you. There is the kind of halfway-benign personal invasion where paparazzi follow you and your girlfriend around an airport. But then there is the kind where the never-not-creepy Daily Mail doorsteps your older sister at home in Texas and calls up your well-meaning uncle to sandbag him into revealing that your father went to prison in 2010 for participating in multimillion-dollar stock fraud. Although it is grotesque to treat the paper’s muckraking as a puzzle piece, it did illuminate part of the story behind Strange Mercy, which Clark had — understandably — only ever vaguely attributed to an overwhelming period of loss. “Suitcase of cash in the back of my stick shift,” she sang on “Year of the Tiger.” “I had to be the best of the bourgeoisie / Now my kingdom for a cup of coffee.” (She cowrote the song with her mother, Sharon, who split from Clark’s father when she was three.) “Everybody has their personal tragedies and their crosses to bear,” Clark said in a clipped tone. She calls her father’s 12-year prison sentence “a horrible tragedy. On so many different levels. So absolutely heartbreaking.” She — an adult — could handle it. But her younger half- and stepsiblings on her father’s side are still teenagers. “And I specifically would never talk about that or have ever mentioned that in a myriad of questions about Strange Mercy because it seems like an incredible betrayal of my family. But most specifically, my youngest siblings who are innocent children. They were kiddos.” She described the Daily Mail story as “faux concern,” and reiterated that the paper couldn’t find any dirt on her, no matter how outrageously they tried. “I’m not ashamed of my family,” she said. Then I asked her whether her father going to prison had spun her own moral compass, or made her reconsider any values of right and wrong that he may have instilled in her. She was momentarily confused, and then let rip a massive, absurd, demonstrative laugh. She kept going. “I love my father,” she said eventually, still tickled. “I love my father very much, as any child loves their parent. He’s very intelligent and erudite and a good writer and incredibly well read, and those are all things that I value and I’m glad that he instilled in me.” She paused, and kept on laughing. In the run-up to announcing Masseduction, Clark was Instagramming absurdist junket-styled videos, in which she wears a hot pink skirt and a transparent rubber top the color of ash, and takes questions from an off-screen interviewer. Her answers were scripted by the musician and comedian Carrie Brownstein, who is also her ex-girlfriend. One video poses the question of whether Annie Clark and St. Vincent are the same person. She pauses to consider. “Honestly, you’d have to ask her.” What’s it like being a woman in music? “Good question,” she muses, as the camera zooms to her black and yellow fingernails, which spell out “FUCK OFFF.” These films might factor into her upcoming tour, but the answers were also written for journalists. Earlier in July, in London, Clark found alternative ways to conduct interviews for hours at a time. She invited some female journalists to get massages with her (too weird with men, even though she was face-down on the table the whole time, avoiding eye contact). Other writers were invited into a 10-by-10-foot pink wooden box that was constructed in a North London studio especially for the occasion. Her interrogators had to duck through a low door to enter the blacklit space. “Not full-on crawl, because that’s a little heavy-handed,” she clarified. Inside, she looped a pedal steel recording and lit a Diptyque candle that struggled to mask the paint fumes.

St. Vincent / Via Instagram If anyone asked her an obvious question — like where the name St. Vincent came from — she planned to play prerecorded answers and “check my email, or stretch, or zone out for a second,” she said, sounding almost disappointed that she didn’t get a chance to enact her schemes. She insisted she wasn’t being antagonistic. But sitting opposite Annie Clark for two hours is often intimidating enough without the added fear that she’s about to make fun of you to your face: It is a gigantic power play! “Oh, deeply so,” she said, affecting a wryly elegant tone. “But then also not at all because I was the insane person stuck in a box for eight hours!” If critics and fans are bored of this sort of thing — see Arcade Fire’s recent album campaign — they are clearly not as tired as the artists who have to smile politely at writers who don’t know how to use Google. Plus, Arcade Fire’s hijinks felt cynical; Clark’s feels like a rejection of the idea that women artists are meant to be relatable, having endured a career’s worth of inane juxtapositions between her pretty face and gnarly shredding like it means anything. The point, she said, was that putting ourselves in a totally different, slightly strange context can produce interesting results. (She and I were meant to do Pilates together — before an oversold class spared me the indignity.) Why not make everything thoughtful and curated? If the stakes are already high, why not aim even higher and put yourself in extreme circumstances to see what happens? If Clark has done two things for the cerebral indie-rock world that she’s long outstripped, it’s teach about sex (thank god), and expose its low-risk complacency for a con.

Nedda Afsari Of course, in some people’s eyes, this makes her a phony, a manipulator. Earlier this year, legendary cultural critic Greil Marcus wrote an admirably dim-witted column for Pitchfork where he compared Clark to the slippery Father John Misty, aka Josh Tillman, claiming that they “perform as artists of such pretentiousness you couldn’t possibly figure out how to talk to them. … There’s no way to address a saint: To be a saint you have to be dead … Such characters allow themselves to appear as if touched by God, which is what they’re selling, and laugh at you if you’re so square not to know who they really are: to join their club.” If Marcus had read any of the million interviews that Clark is parodying in her high-concept clips, he would know the name is rooted in humiliation and squalor — the hospital where Dylan Thomas died — rather than divine aspiration. “And I have never, nor would I ever, put the kind of trapdoors and booby traps in my music to make the listener feel dumb,” Clark told me in response to Marcus’s theories. “I have enough hubris not to kill myself, but I actually have such a deep respect for the listener that I have never tried to pander. Songs and arrangements were complex and convoluted at times, but they were sincere attempts at connecting.” She hoped there will be no mistaking her intent with her new record, which “is so first-person and sad.” But if anyone does, she knows it’s not her job to correct them.

A still from the “New York” music video. Alex Da Carte A still from the “New York” music video. If you want to use Masseduction as a treasure map, then this is what it tells us about Annie Clark’s personal life. She experienced a complicated kind of heartbreak. Sometimes that makes her crazy and neurotic: “I won’t cry wolf in the kitchen,” she swears on woozy opener “Hang on Me,” but threatens to jump off her roof “just to punish you” on the vengeful, cracked opera of “Smoking Section,” the last song. Sometimes a mental safety net stretches out when she might otherwise get hurt. “Slip my hand from your hand / Leave you dancing with a ghost,” she sings on “Slow Disco,” the most tender song she’s ever written. “Don’t it beat a slow dance to death?” a forlorn and disembodied voice repeats as it fades out. Her world is changing, and that’s unsettling. “Too few of our old crew left on Astor,” she sings on “New York,” a song about lost heroes. On “Fear the Future,” she belts the title as the song reaches a pyrotechnic cataclysm that sounds like a truckload of fireworks being dumped inside a volcano. But if you respond in kind to Clark’s vulnerability, then these are the more meaningful revelations that we can take from Masseduction into our lives: Relatability is a crock, and sincerity doesn’t take a single form. “I refuse to seem less threatening, if that’s how I’m perceived,” said Clark. “Ultimate freedom is not caring whether you are liked, because you are making something you really love and believe in.” On Masseduction Clark tells us that all the good forms of desire — love, sex, art — are self-destructive. But at their best, they create just that little bit more than they consume, and can eventually alchemize anxiety into total power.

#I’ve gotta try that Pilates #st vincent #annie clark #Laura snapes #interviews

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roguelioness · 7 years

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Love Still Kept Open

She walked through the dark, ominous forest, the trees looming menacingly over her. The ground was covered in sharp thorns that tore and shredded her skin; but not once did she flinch, or show any sign of pain.

She’d done this so many times it had become familiar.

The woods gave way suddenly to a cold grey light, leading her to a cliff’s end. She sat at the edge, her feet swinging freely as she stared into the blackness of the void beneath her, deep and neverending.

And she waited.

A familiar rustle told her that he had found her.

Tonight, unlike all those nights in the past, she did not turn her head to look at him, nor did she try to call him to her.

She knew it was futile.

Instead, she began talking, almost to herself.

“I should hate you, you know,” she began conversationally. “You’ve turned me into this horrible shell of a person. I should be angry. You lied to me for years, even as you told me you loved me. You broke up with me just days before we faced Corypheus... I had half a mind to die with him, did you know that? You knew that the Anchor would kill me, but you waited two years before doing anything, and then you took my arm - to save me, you said, even as you battered me with the truth after the ordeal I had just faced - and you crippled me, both mind and body. And let’s not even get started on your insane plan to destroy this world. Yes,” she mused, “by all rights, I should hate you. If I were a sane person, I likely would. But,” her breath hitched on a sob, “I can’t. I’ve tried, believe me I have, but how can I hate someone who has been a part of me?”

The tears were running freely down her face now. “Do you remember how we used to argue in Haven, when we were getting to know each other? We’d outside your hut, on the wall outside, and you told me stories of the Fade. I was never cold, even though I should have been, because I didn’t realize you had were keeping me warm.” Her lips quirked into a half smile as she relived the memory. “When Haven fell, and I trudged through that blizzard, all I wanted was to see you. One last time, I thought to myself, if I just see your face one last time I can die happy. I should have known then that you were trouble.” she laughed mirthlessly.

“Do you remember all those times you would come up to my room in Skyhold and help me with all my reports? I hated them, I thought they were boring and useless but you patiently sat and guided me through them. And what about that time when I was practicing my magic, and I accidentally hit you with my stonefist? I thought you’d be angry, but you just smiled, and then froze my feet to the ground so you could pelt me with snowballs.” She sniffed. “I think I miss that the most. I miss touching you, I miss the feeling of your calloused fingertips on my face, I miss not having your warmth surrounding me when I sleep. It’s been years, vhenan, and still each morning when I wake up I reach out for you, and still each morning my heart breaks anew when I find you missing.. But more than that, ma sa’lath, I miss just being around you. Curling up to you on the sofa while we each read our books. Or all those times you would be sitting on your scaffold, painting, while I sat next to you and tried to distract you. Or when we would sneak out of Skyhold, to that cave nearby, and eat frilly cakes and drink the expensive Orlesian wine.”

“How can I hate you,” she whispered, “when I know how it feels to have your heart beating against mine? When I have seen you shed tears over a wound I received? How do I hate the man who has, a thousand times over, healed me even at the cost of remaining injured himself? Where will I find another who can kiss me the way you used to?”

She sighed, and rested her hands on the ground for support. “Sometimes I wonder if I should just take your advice, my love. To go back to my clan and live out the rest of my days. Maybe even find a partner I can tolerate, and have a family.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I wanted that. With you. I’ve pictured, a hundred thousand times, spending the rest of my life with you vhenan’ara. We’d have a place to ourselves, just you and I, tucked away in the forest. We would read, and you would paint, and we would hunt together. And we had children,” her voice was filled with pain and longing, “twin girls who had your eyes and my smile, and a baby boy who looked just like you. You doted on them all,” her heart was splintering, “and one night, when the girls accidentally set fire to their favorite toy as they were fighting over it, it was you who remained calm and soothed them. I was too busy trying to put the flames out and celebrating,” she chuckled. “You were so patient with them, always. And you argued, a lot, with Dorian about how to teach them. And the number of times you would sneak them sweets even after I’d punished them!” her tone was fond. “They had you - and I - wrapped around their little finger.”

Behind her, the wolf howled, long and mournful and yearning.

“I don’t know how much longer I can go on, Solas,” she confessed. “I’m trying. I am. But it’s getting harder for me to get out of bed each morning. I come here each night,” she stared into the void again, “and every part of me wants to jump in. To let myself go, and just... not feel. It would be a relief...” she looked down at it, mesmerized. “Such a relief...” she murmured, and leaned forwards, closing her eyes and waiting for the inevitable fall.

It never came. Instead, she was pulled backwards, a firm grip tugging at her clothes. She found herself flat on her back in the middle of the cave at Crestwood... where he had broken her heart - and she jumped up to her feet, backing away from the wolf who stared longingly at her. “This is cruel, Solas,” she sobbed. “Why would you bring me here? Why won’t you just let me fall? It would help you, wouldn’t it? You would have no one to stop you!”

The air shimmered, and the man she loved stood before her. Her eyes roved over his face hungrily, drinking in every detail; it had been so long, and she was so parched.

“Vhenan,” he pulled her into his arms, and she wept, relishing his warmth and the scent of him. “You promised me, did you not?” His lips brushed across her forehead reverentially, his thumbs brushing away her tears. “Var lath vir suledin,” he reminded her. “You swore to me. Would you break your promise?”

“And I will,” she said quietly. “Always. But I can’t go on, Solas. I am so tired...”

He kissed her, softly, gently, his need for her greater than even hers for him at that moment. “What can I do to help?” he asked.

“Come back to me,” she replied promptly, and he chuckled. “That I cannot do,” he said regretfully, “nor will I allow you to walk the path I have started.”

“Then come to me in the Fade, if you will not in the waking world,” she countered. “Let me be with you each night.”

He looked torn.

“Please,” she pleaded. “Ma lath, you give me strength to keep going. Would you deny me this?”

He sighed in resignation, the temptation too great for him to ignore. “Very well,” he promised. “I will meet you in the Fade every night, vhenan.”

“Promise?”

“I promise,” he kissed the tip of her nose. “Now, however... you need to wake up.”

When she opened her eyes, for the first time in three years her heart was not heavy.

#not da #da drabble #Roguelioness writes #solavellan #solavellan hell #neria x solas

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laprincesseecarlate · 7 years

Text

You’ve got mail (NSFW)

Rating: Explicit/NSFW Content!

Summary: Raven sent him a boob pic. And they are very nice breasts, but he’s not exactly sure what the protocol is for situations like that. He should reply in kind, right? It’s only fair. Some sort of quid pro quo : I show you mine, you show me yours?

AO3 link

Raven sent him a boob pic.

It’s a surprise. A rather pleasant surprise, her breasts look amazing, but still a surprise. And sure he’s thought about her chest before, and pretty much every inch of her; he always had a thing for the brunette. Her dedication to her work, her wit, her smile, her body: from the soft round shape of her shoulder to the gentle swell of her breasts… He’s in deep, no use in denying that. So it is a nice surprise and they are very, very nice boobs, with perfectly placed freckles and he’s going a little bit insane. But they don’t usually exchange message like that. It’s mostly about mission protocol, how to finally catch that serial killer the team’s been after, or who’s ordering Chinese for the stakeout… They work together. So this, this is new to him and he’s not really sure how to react.

And maybe she’s just drunk?

But it’s only 9.30 pm. On a Thursday night. And he knows for a fact she barely drinks. So he just stares at the picture that has established a direct connection between his eyes and his now very hard cock. He should reply in kind, right? It’s only fair. Some sort of quid pro quo : I show you mine, you show me yours?

So he sends Raven a dick pic. And it’s a tasteful dick pic, if he might say so himself. It’s not just a zoom in of his erected member, ‘cause that would be gross. It shows the lower half of his body, thighs spread apart, his hard cock resting against his abdomen, while his right hand massages his balls. He even paid attention to the lighting so that his length casts a shadow on his abs. So yes, as far as dick pics go, it’s a nice one. And really, all would have been great if he hadn’t sent his message right when Raven sent another one saying: ‘OMG. I’m so sorry Sera went through my phone. I’m so sorry. Please just pretend you didn’t see that. Please!’

So yeah. It’s around 10 pm on a Thursday night and he just sent a dick pic to the co-worker he’s been in love with for the past two years, because fucking Sera played a prank on him. AGAIN ! And he has receipts notifications turned on, so he knows she’s seen his dick. And clearly he meant to send it. He can hardly pretend it was a mistake and go ‘Oops my bad, wrong number’ when it’s pretty fucking clear he was replying to her text. Except it wasn’t her text.

That freaking elf.

Cullen starts pacing his living room like a caged lion, his left hand running through his untamed curls before settling on the nape of his neck. He’s going insane for the second time tonight, for a completely different reason, and needless to say his cock isn’t hard anymore. He has to think of something.

Worst case scenario: she shows the photo to Sera (or worse: Dorian) and they make fun of him for a few months, maybe a few years if Varric is in on it too. Shame colours his cheeks with heat at the simple thought of the dwarf’s sly, knowing smirk, but he can survive that. Now best case scenario: she doesn’t tell anyone. They exchange one or two embarrassed glances, maybe even a few smiles, and it stays a private joke. He’ll be even more awkward around Raven and will never have a chance with her, ever again (not that he ever had one), but he can survive that too. What he doesn’t know is what he should do now. Should he call her? Pretend like nothing happened? What is the protocol for sending dick pics to your partner?

He would probably have spent a few more hours thinking about the situation and maybe Googled the appropriate course of action if a soft knock hadn’t interrupted his inner monologue. He strides over to the door but before he can fully open it, Raven launches herself at him and captures his mouth in a passionate kiss that has them both stumbling around the room until Cullen manages to stabilize them. She doesn’t let go of him though, arms looped around his neck, her hands buried in his hair. And he doesn’t recoil either despite his surprise.

He’s not sure how long the kiss lasted. He’s too happy to care and too confused to fully realize what’s happening. She texted she didn’t send the pic, that Sera did. Yet she’s here, in his living room, her perfect body pressed against his, fingers playing with the blond curls at the back of his neck. And she’s kissing him and… Andraste’s flaming ass what is going on?

Just as she had started the kiss, Raven is also the one to end it. She disentangles herself from him, a bit disheveled and out of breath, and takes a step back, hands flat on his chest as to keep him afar. She draws a deep breath and bites her bottom lip like she always does when she’s deep in thought or, more likely, embarrassed about something. When she finally looks up at him, she has a wary smile on her face and the most adorable shade of embarrassed pink on her cheeks.

“You meant to send the picture, right? I didn’t misread that?”

“I did… but you said you didn’t?” He queries.

“No, I…” Raven takes another step back, hands falling to her side as she nibbles her lips once more. “I did mean to send it but then 30 minutes passed and you didn’t reply, so I… I started freaking out and I sent the text about Sera messing with my phone. But then I got your text and I didn’t know how to explain so I came here,” she babbles, avoiding his gaze.

Cullen clears his throat. He hadn’t realize how much time had passed before sending his photo. The thought of her being nervous hadn’t even occured to him. Raven was a force to be reckoned with when it came to work and he always assumed she had the same confidence in every other aspect of her life.

“ Sorry about that. I was trying to be… artistic?”

“It was a very nice picture.” She confesses, taking a step towards him to close the distance she had put between them.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He moves closer to her, faces inches away from each other and he can fee the heat emanating from her body. They stay like that for a few minutes, staring awkwardly at each other like two love struck teenagers rather than two 30-something FBI agents. But… It feels nice. It feels right.

“So… no Sera involved?” He finally asks.

“Nope. No Sera involved.”

“Good.”

Cullen’s hands roams under her round ass to pick her up and she instinctively wraps her legs around him with a giggle. He takes her to his room and he’s the one kissing her this time. A slow, deliberate kiss filled with hunger an desire. And above all an irrepressible need to be together. So there is nothing romantic or sensual about the way they undress, clumsy fingers unbuttoning their pants, clothes flying everywhere… but neither of them care. They are too engrossed in each other to notice the mess, their minds solely focused on getting their skin to touch. And as soon as the last garment hits the floor, their hands get back to work, curious fingers mapping the other’s body. But it’s not enough. He’s craving to taste her. He wants to trace every constellation of freckles with his tongue, kiss every inch of smooth skin. So he walks her back towards the bed, his hands still exploring her curves, and lowers her down. She looks beautiful, her dark locks spilling across his pillow, and his mouth dries at the expanse of bronze skin offered to his hungry gaze.

“So beautiful” he murmurs. And the reverence in his tone makes it sound like a confession, almost a secret. Heat rises to Raven’s cheeks and she tries to shy away from his stare but he distracts her with a slow, open-mouth, kiss that has them both light-headed and whimpering.

He abandons her lips only to bury his nose in the crook of her neck and breathe her in. He’d recognize her scent anywhere: the subtle mix of gun powder and cinnamon that is inherently her and it fuels his hunger even more. So he licks up the column of her neck, savoring the saltiness of her skin as he strokes the inside of her thigh, his calloused fingers sending shivers straight to her core. Every caress getting closer to her sex is rewarded by appreciative humming sounds, that transform into wanton moans when his nimble fingers part her wet folds to tease her clit. She calls him a tease and it makes him smirk against her neck.

“Not teasing,” he counters, his index pushing inside her heat, “just exploring.”

And exploring he does. His mouth descends from her throat to her cleavage and finally settles on her left breast. He gently nips at her hardened nipple, his finger still coming in and out of her and the sounds she makes feel like music to his ears. Obscene little whines that only spur him on. He would have been content to just stay like that: his mouth going from one breast to the other, alternating between tiny bites and soft caresses, when her voice comes out breathy:

“I want you inside me.”

“Already am” he taunts, adding a second finger to his ministrations.

“Stop playing Rutherford.”

Cullen chuckles at her commanding tone but he’s too happy to oblige. He moves up to kiss her again, deep and dirty, and aligns his hips with hers before entering her with a long groan. She feels so wet and tight and perfect around him. He quickly gets lost in the sensations. Everything disappears until he is left with only her: the smoothness of her skin, the needy tone of her voice, her nails scraping his shoulder… Everything is her.

Finding the right rhythm comes easily to them. After two years of being partners they have learned how to move together. He knows how she sucks in a breath before taking a shot, she knows he flexes his hands when he’s nervous. It’s like an well-practiced routine: familiar and safe but also exciting and new. They set a slow pace, almost torturous, that drives them both mad with pleasure. He moves inside her with long, hard, thrusts until he feels her get impossibly tighter around him. Her body grows tense and he can feel her walls clench around his cock. He keeps his eyes locked on her face: she looks magnificent, her back arched off the bed and her mouth open in a silent ‘O’ of ecstasy. He keeps fucking her as she rides out her orgasm, chasing after his own. His name falls from her lips like a broken prayer, and it’s almost enough to take him over the edge. The feeling of her wanting him, needing him… it’s intoxicating. And it takes only a few more thrusts, hard and fast, before he comes undone; spilling deep inside her with a deep growl.

They stay like that for a few seconds, tangled in each other, breaths heavy and gasping. Then he rolls to the side and they both stare at the ceiling in sated silence. It’s not weird or awkward between them. They’re comfortable just being next to each other : it feels right. Until she lets out a pouty sigh that has him a bit alarmed.

“Something’s wrong?”

“I’m thinking I’ll have to delete your picture.”

“Why?”

“Sera does go through my phone from time to time.”

“Oh. Yes, that’s probably best. But… you know you have full access to me and all of my body anytime you want right?”

“Mhmm. But it was a really nice photo,” she says, looking at him with a cheeky grin. “Maybe I should do some exploring of my own and take a few mental pictures.”

And just like that she is straddling him and kissing him again; a smirk tugging at her lips before she moves down to his already half hard cock.

#cullen rutherford #Cullen X Trevelyan #commander Cullen #DAI #lemon (cause I'm ancient)#Beni writes stuff #fanfiction #AU: modern settings #fanfic #DA:I #dragon age inquisition #humor #OC: Raven Trevelyan #one shot #problematic lover #benihime99

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quickspinner · 7 years

Text

Wingman, Ch 3

A Dragon Age Fanfic

It’s my birthday! Have a present. Many thanks to everyone reading, liking, and reblogging.

Never take your well-meaning but socially inept best friend to the café where your crush hangs out. It always ends in embarrassment…and maybe a date.

Chapter 2

Chapter 3 - First Date Jitters

“Are you sure about this?”

Ellana sighed. “Dorian, you’ll be right here, and don’t tell me you won’t be watching the entire time.”

“Oh I absolutely will,” Dorian grinned. “But still, doesn’t this all sound just a little suspect to you?”

“Well, yes,” Ellana said, straightening the stack of books next to her out of habit. “But he is a regular, I’ve seen him in here. He wasn’t creepy or weird or anything like that. He comes in, browses around for a while, gets what he needs and leaves. I don’t have any sense that he’s dangerous.”

Dorian snorted. “If that’s all you noticed about him he can’t be that remarkable.”

Ellana felt her face heat at that and knew Dorian could see it. “Well well,” he grinned, “Perhaps we’ve noticed him a bit more than we want to admit, hmm?”

“He’s a good looking man,” she said quietly. “I’m not dead. Of course I noticed him. I just didn’t think about it until now.”

“I bet he’s already out there waiting for you,” Dorian said, pushing her towards the window. “Come on, come show me which one he is.”

Ellana rolled her eyes but when she looked out she found Dorian was right. Cullen was already standing outside of the cafe, hands in his pockets, looking rather nervous, she thought.

“Is he there?” Dorian peeked over her shoulder, and Ellana, resigned, pointed him out. Dorian’s mouth dropped open. “I take it back,” he said, after he had recovered himself. “If he’s trying to kidnap you, let him. Maker knows I wouldn’t mind being tied up by him in some cabin in the woods.”

“Dorian, you and I both know you would only follow a serial killer who murdered in high-end hotels with feather pillows.”

“True,” Dorian shrugged. “Still.” He nudged Ellana. “Good luck.”

“Dorian…” Ellana shifted her feet, eyes still fixed on the man who was unaccountably standing out there waiting for her. “Does my hair look okay?” she finished lamely, looking at her reflection in the window. After more debate than she was willing to admit to Dorian, she had opted to wear a sundress rather than her usual slacks and button down work attire, and she had left her hair down, since it was easiest for her to manage that way. She wore a blue cardigan over the white dress, altered to button over the remnant of her left arm. She’d put on just a touch of eye makeup and a pink gloss. The henna-like lines of Ghilan’nain’s mark curved up her forehead from between her eyebrows, disappearing under her bangs. She hadn’t wanted to go overboard, but a date was a date after all and she wanted to look nice.

She felt Dorian squeeze her shoulders from behind her. “You’re lovely, he’s already captivated, all you have to do is smile and be your brilliant self, and if he’s not a complete buffoon, you’ll have him wrapped around your little finger in ten minutes.”

Ellana smiled. “Thanks, Dorian.”

“I’ll be right here if you need me. I’ve got the taser behind the counter, don’t forget.”

That made Ellana laugh, and shaking her head, she stepped out of the door of the shop. She could feel Cullen’s eyes on her even before she was all the way out, and sure enough when she turned in his direction he was looking at her. She felt her cheeks heat and despaired of getting through this date with any amount of decorum. Once she had had hope that she would outgrow the constant blushing that seemed to plague her, but it seemed she was fated to wear her discomfort on her face forever.

Cullen took one step forward and then waited for her to come to him, which she appreciated.

She had not been lying to Dorian; she had noticed him, but never really looked at him. She did so now, taking in the stubble and the scar, the mouth that quirked up at one side as she approached. His hazel eyes were warm and intense, framed with lashes that most women would kill for. Looking at him up close, though, she thought he didn’t look quite healthy. His complexion was a little sallow, and his eyes were rimmed with red. She wondered if he hadn’t slept well. He wore jeans and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up, not especially dressy but it looked good on him. He was a powerfully-built man and clearly made the most of it.. She resolutely kept her eyes on his face, cheeks heating slightly.

“You’re here. Of course you are,” he said as she reached him, rubbing the back of his neck. “Listen, before we go through with this, I just–I feel like I owe you an apology. I want you to know that I wasn’t watching you. I mean, I was, but not that way.” He sighed. “This sounded much better in my head.”

“It sounded fine,” she smiled. She didn’t understand what it was about her that could make a man like this one nervous, but she needed him to calm down before his jumpiness rubbed off on her.

“Good. Thank you. I…” He trailed off, letting his hand fall.

“Perhaps we should start over,” she suggested, reaching out her own hand. “I’m Ellana Lavellan. Nice to meet you.”

He looked surprised, taking her hand almost automatically, but recovered quickly. “Cullen Rutherford,” he said, shaking it firmly but not painfully. “It’s my pleasure. Will you join me for lunch?”

“I would like that very much.” She was relieved that he did seem to relax slightly.

The next few minutes were mercifully occupied with the acquisition of food, allowing them both a moment to regain their equilibrium. She didn’t object when he paid for her meal, though she fidgeted a bit when he put both their meals on one tray and carried them outside to a table. Old-fashioned, she added to the list of characteristics she was compiling in her mind. At least, she hoped it was that. The other options were less appealing. She felt a twinge in her missing left hand and took a slow breath.

He invited her to pick a table and she chose one close to her usual place, still in the sun and in sight from the bookshop window, but a bit more out of the way than she normally preferred. He put their plates on the table, took the tray back, and settled down across from her.

Awkward silence descended. Before Ellana could come up with something to break the ice, he set her book on the table with a quick smile that left her a little breathless. He had charisma, that was for sure. Ellana reached for the book on instinct, feeling the familiar worn cover beneath her fingers, and raised her eyebrows. “You finished it?”

“Yes,” he said, eyes on his food. “I…don’t sleep very well, so I read a lot. That’s why I’m in your shop so often.”

Ellana wasn’t sure why he suddenly seemed uncomfortable again, but she smiled. “That’s funny. I read a lot, so I don’t sleep very well.” He glanced up, and smiled back a little, so she forged on. “What did you think of it?”

Cullen’s face went from uncomfortable to embarrassed, and he rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “Well, to be honest–it was interesting, but I don’t think it was for me.”

Ellana’s respect rose a notch at his honesty. “That’s all right. I knew it was kind of a long shot based on what you usually read. You tried it, though, that’s good.”

“Tell me why you like it,” he said, and he sounded genuinely interested. Ellana gave him high points for that as well. The last time a man had cared what she thought about a book–

Her mind shied away from that memory. Focus on the moment, she told herself, and looked fondly at the worn cover sitting on the table. “Well, I kind of threw you in the deep end with this one, because it’s better if you understand the historical context at the time it was written…”

It turned out that, though she had the advantage in literature, Cullen was quite well versed in history, and she found that Alistair had been right. Once on comfortable ground, Cullen was a totally different person, confident and articulate, and she was impressed both at his knowledge and his ability to express it. With his encouragement, she warmed to the subject quickly, and one thought seemed to lead her to another and before long she was talking about three other books and comparing how differently they’d presented the same historical period. She blushed when she realized how far off course she’d gotten, and how long she’d been talking. Cullen’s plate was nearly clean, and she’d barely touched hers.

Cullen, on the other hand, was entirely charmed by her enthusiasm, and impressed in his turn with her critique and analysis. It was clear that she thought about books in an entirely different way than he did, and the animation that her passion brought to her face gave a different character to her beauty that he hadn’t seen before.

“I’m so sorry, I’ve been rambling on–” she started to apologize, and he hurriedly tried to reassure her.

“No, no, please don’t apologize, I–”

He cut off as a buzzing in his pocket made him jump slightly. “Ah, sorry,” he said. He pulled his phone out and started to decline the call when he saw the number. Cullen frowned. “I’m sorry, that’s my sister, let me just–” He answered the call. “Mia? Is everything all right?”

“NO, everything is not all right. Do you know what our insane little sister has been doing?” He winced and held the phone away from his ear.

“Is she all right?”

“She won’t be, when I get ahold of her, that irresponsible little–”

Maker’s breath, she was winding up for a good one, he had to head her off. “Mia, now’s not really a good time.”

Mia continued as if she hadn’t heard him. Cullen tried unsuccessfully to interrupt her several more times. He glanced at Ellana, who was finally applying herself to her food and politely pretending she couldn’t hear Mia’s irate recounting of their sister’s sins. He decided he had no choice.

He sighed, closing his eyes and knowing he was almost certainly going to regret this later. “Mia, I’m on a date.”

Mia’s rant cut off so abruptly that Cullen frowned. “Mia? Are you still there?”

“You will call me when you get home,” Mia told him, in a tone that suggested the consequences would be dire if he didn’t do so.

Cullen sighed. “Yes. All right. Try not to murder Rosie in the meantime, all right? I’ll call you later.”

“As soon as you get home, Cullen!”

“Goodbye, Mia,” he said firmly, and hung up. “I’m so sorry, I would have let it go but she never calls this early, I thought something might be wrong.”

“It’s all right. Are you sure everything is okay? She sounded like there was a problem.”

Cullen chuckled. “My youngest sister just moved out on her own and the freedom’s gone a bit to her head, I think. She’s not doing anything terrible, just the usual foolishness that comes with having your own income and the freedom to do what you want with it. Mia’s the oldest, she’s been running the family since our parents passed, and she’s having a little trouble letting go, so she tends to overreact a bit. I’m hoping once she adjusts she’ll start living her own life a bit more. She deserves it after all this time.”

Ellana grinned. “Two sisters and you stuck in the middle? Sounds challenging.”

“My brother Branson’s between Rosalie and me, so at least the numbers are even. What about you?”

“I have a brother,” Ellana said, “But he’s much older than me and he left home when I was very young. We’ve only recently reconnected, but it’s been good to have him back in my life.”

Cullen nodded. “I’ve been away from home for a long time myself, but Mia made sure I kept in touch.” His smile was lopsided. “Even when I didn’t want to.” He regretted it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. That thought wasn’t going anywhere but dark places.

Either she recognized a touchy subject or the comment slipped past her; either way, he was grateful when she didn’t press. “I can see you like history,” she said instead. “What else are you interested in? I think you said you play chess?”

“I do,” he said, “Since I was a child. Mostly I just wanted to beat Mia, wipe that smug look off her face, but I found I really enjoyed it. I play tournaments every once in a while, but mostly I just play in the park with the old men.” He hesitated. “Do you play?”

“Not very well,” she said, and smiled, but there was pain in it. “An old friend tried to teach me, but I couldn’t keep up with him. Several of my employees play, though, so I’ve kept my hand in.”

“Well, maybe we could have a match sometime,” he suggested.

“I’m sure I wouldn’t even be a challenge for you,” she said, blushing slightly, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. Now that was interesting.

“We’ll see,” he said, a smile tugging at his lips, and then quickly changed the subject, not wanting to make her any more uncomfortable, no matter how cute that little blush was. “So, obviously you love books, but how did you end up running the shop?”

Ellana hesitated and Cullen immediately felt he’d blundered into something sensitive, though he couldn’t imagine how. “It was something I always dreamed about, and I swore to myself that I would make it happen.”

“And you did. That’s admirable.”

“I had a lot of help.” She glanced back at the store with a fond expression. “A lot of people made this happen. I couldn’t possibly fail them.”

What impulse moved him to take her hand just then, he couldn’t say. He wasn’t aware of doing it until he felt how warm her hand was in his own. She looked up at him, and those big ice blue eyes framed by the tendrils of her white-blond hair momentarily robbed him of the words he had intended to say.

Just like they had the first time.

Except she hadn’t blushed then as she did now, color highlighting her porcelain cheeks. “Cullen?”

“Sorry,” he said quickly, remembering Neria’s advice. “I just–I like your eyes.”

The color deepened in her cheeks, but she gave him a slow smile that sent a thrill up his spine. “I like yours too.”

Her hand still rested in his. He scrambled to pull his thoughts together.

“Um, I think I meant to say that it takes a special person to inspire that kind of loyalty in friends. I don’t think anyone catches their dreams alone. I know I wouldn’t be where I am if it weren’t for my friends.” He chuckled. “Rather more literally than usual today. Alistair’s never going to let me live this down.”

“Well, if you’d rather tell him ‘I told you so,’ it’s not too late for me to toss a drink in your face and stomp out,” Ellana teased, and Cullen laughed.

“No, no, this is definitely worth it,” he said, and he must have been a little too intense about it because Ellana pulled her hand away and tucked a strand of hair behind her pointed ear, not quite looking at him again. “Ah, I know you have to get back soon,” Cullen said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Can I walk you back? Since I’m out of reading material anyway,” he tried to joke, and then cleared his throat, feeling foolish.

But Ellana lit up a bit, her gaze snapping back to his face. “I’m sure I can help with that. Do you trust me?”

“Absolutely,” Cullen said, hardly aware of what he was agreeing to as she beamed at him.

“Then let’s clean up and get going,” she said, getting to her feet, and the next thing Cullen knew he was being ushered through the door of the bookshop. The mustachioed man behind the counter raised an eyebrow at them as they came in, but Ellana ignored him, heading straight for the shelves.

“Let’s see,” she murmured to herself as Cullen trailed awkwardly behind her. “This one…and this one.” She put each book in his hands as she pulled it off the shelf, and then turned to him. “Now that we know each other a little better, I think I can make a better pick. If you’re really sure you trust me.” She winked one blue eye. “I do have an ulterior motive, since it’s my shop.”

“What have I got to lose but time?” He grinned, and she giggled.

“Shall I check him out?” her employee asked with a smirk as they approached the counter. Ellana shot him a dirty look and slipped through the door in the counter. “Ah, prefer to do the checking out yourself, I see,” the man drawled. Cullen’s face heated.

Ellana gave Cullen a look of longsuffering. “And now you get to meet my embarassing best friend. Dorian, this is Cullen. Cullen, this is the man who will be handling the next night shift restock if he doesn’t mind his own business.”

She glared at Dorian and Cullen coughed, trying to hide his smile. Dorian rolled his eyes. “I know, she’s adorable when she makes threats, isn’t she? And she thinks she’s so scary. Fine, fine, I know when I’m not wanted. I’ll be in the back, giving you some privacy and pretending to do something useful until you’re done making eyes at each other.”

Ellana sighed as Dorian sauntered through the door behind her. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Cullen chuckled. “Pretty sure I still win.”

“That’s only because he left, believe me,” Ellana said, busy at the register. When she was done, she put his books back on the counter and then hesitated. “You know what–there’s just one more I–” She came out from behind the counter, slipping past him. He picked up his books and followed her through the shelves. She hummed quietly to herself, dancing her fingers across the books until she found the one she wanted. She turned back and handed it to him. “Try this one.” Cullen took it and looked at the cover in surprise. “I know poetry’s a bit out of style these days, but give it a shot. Just read a couple a night, poetry needs space…” She trailed off, looking away. “Anyway, you might find something that speaks to you.” She shrugged, blushing thoroughly now. “No charge.”

“Thank you,” Cullen said, “I’ll try it.”

“Thank you for lunch,” she said, and those eyes were on him again, and trying to find somewhere else to look landed his gaze right on her petal pink lips and Maker, now he wanted to kiss her.

“My pleasure,” he said, voice a little deeper than he intended. He cleared his throat, and pulled a card out of his pocket. “Ah, here’s my number, in case you want to talk, or maybe…have that chess match?”

Ellana took the card, her eyes not moving from his face, and he felt he’d better get out of there now before he did something stupid. “I’ll, ah…see you again sometime then.”

Ellana nodded, and he beat a hasty retreat.

He hadn’t been gone two seconds before Dorian emerged from the back. “Well,” he said, lounging across the counter to look at her. “Someone’s looking like she had a very pleasant lunch. Less ravished than I was hoping though.”

Ellana huffed. “Where would we even have – never mind, don’t answer that.”

Dorian smirked.

“He’s nice,” Ellana said, as lightly as she could, walking back to the counter. “We had a nice talk.”

“Are you going out again?”

“He didn’t ask me,” she said, “He gave me his number though.” She set the card on the counter and pulled out her phone to program it in.

“Probably afraid of coming on too strong after that beginning,” Dorian said with a slight raise of his eyebrows. “Smoother than I’d expect from what he’s done so far. He may be a serial killer yet.

Ellana put her phone away and picked up the card again, turning it idly in her hand. Her eyes widened slightly.

“He’s not a serial killer,” she breathed, staring at the business card he’d written his number on. “He’s the head of the Divine’s personal security and peacekeeping force.”

“What?”

Ellana held the card out and Dorian plucked it out of her hand. “Vishante kaffas,” he muttered, reading it. “Ser Cullen Rutherford, Commander, Inquisition Peacekeepers.” He looked at Ellana. “It didn’t occur to you to ask what he did for a living?”

Ellana flushed. “It didn’t come up, no.”

Dorian looked sour. “Don’t tell me all you did that whole time was talk about books.” Ellana bit her lip.

“Not the whole time,” she hedged.

Dorian muttered something under his breath, and then looked down at the card and handed it back to her. “Well. He could still be a serial killer.”

Ellana laughed a little harder than the joke warranted, feeling oddly jumpy and fluttery. She began walking a circuit of the shop, making minute adjustments and brushing off imaginary dust.

“Are you going to call him?” Dorian asked, following her.

“I…” Ellana shuffled a little, straightening the already perfect book display. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She sighed. “You know it’s been a long time since…I haven’t dated anybody since before…” she tipped her head towards her missing arm, but Dorian had a feeling that wasn’t really what she meant.

“You should definitely call him, then! It’s about time you got–” She shot him a warning look. “–back out there,” he finished.

Ellana made a thoughtful noise and looked back at the card still in her hand. “I don’t understand why he’d be interested in me, though,” she said softly. “I mean he’s–” That cursed blush fired up again. “He’s really cute,” she admitted, more to the bookshelf in front of her than to Dorian. “He’s smart, educated, loves his family and,” she waved the card, “Apparently he’s got a career and influence…seems like he’d be a catch. What would he want with me?”

“And you’re a successful businesswoman, sweet, intelligent, passionate, ravishingly beautiful–”

“Dorian,” she laughed.

“Well, if you’re going to go fishing for compliments like that what do you expect?” Dorian sniffed.

“I wasn’t–” she sighed. “Never mind.” She turned thoughtful again, gazing out of the window. “He said he’d been a soldier for a long time, I didn’t expect…” She shook her head slightly, brow furrowing.

“Well, let’s run a search on him,” Dorian suggested, moving toward the shop’s computer. “A man in that position, he’s got to have had some publicity.”

“No,” Ellana said sharply, and Dorian turned back in surprise. “No,” she said more gently. “Dorian, what would I find if I did a search on you? Would that be fair? Would that be how you wanted me to know you?”

“I see your point,” he said grudgingly. “Too bad, it’s been so long since I was involved in a good scandal.”

Ellana put the card in her purse. “I’m sure we’ll talk about it next time.”

“Next time, hmm?” Dorian raised his eyebrows. Ellana pretended not to hear him and turned away to smile at a customer who mercifully came through the door at that moment.

Cullen didn’t quite keep his promise to Mia, but he was rather sure she was expecting that. Instead, he changed and took Captain on a long run, full of nervous energy that had nowhere else to go. Once he had returned, showered, and changed, he reluctantly picked up his phone and sat down on the couch. Captain heaved himself up on the couch and flopped across Cullen’s lap. Cullen stroked his head. “Might as well get this over with,” he muttered. He dialed and put the phone to his ear. Mia picked up almost instantly.

“Cullen Rutherford, you know better than to keep secrets from me!”

Cullen smiled, sinking back into his couch. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Mia.”

“Well? Go on, go on!”

“It was only our first date, Mia. I don’t even know if she’ll want to see me again.”

“So you want to see her again?”

Cullen let his head fall back and stared at the ceiling, still petting Captain absently. “Yes,” he said to Mia, “I do.”

“I hope she’s not just a pretty face, Cullen. You’ll be bored to tears in a week if you don’t find someone you can talk to.”

“She is a pretty face, but she’s also brilliant,” he told her, smiling at the blank ceiling.

“Does she have a job?”

“She owns a bookstore.”

“I like what I’m hearing. Tell me everything!”

He told Mia about the date in as much detail as he was willing to divulge, answered as many of Mia’s questions as he felt capable of putting up with, and then changed the subject to Rosalie’s supposed transgressions.

“Cullen,” Mia said, just when he thought they were ready to hang up. “You seem like you’re really into this girl.”

“I think I am,” he admitted quietly, knowing the truth was a bit stronger than he wanted to share.

“Well, just…be careful, Cullen. I don’t want to see you get hurt. Don’t rush into anything.”

Cullen chuckled. “I’ll try.” He paused. “Thanks for worrying about me, Mia.”

“Someone has to,” Mia sighed. “I love you, you know.”

“I love you too,” Cullen smiled. “Now quit worrying and go do something fun.”

“And you try to get some sleep.”

His smile faded. “Good night, Mia. I’ll talk to you again soon.”

He heard her resigned sigh. “Bye, Cullen.”

He brought the phone down to hang up, and saw a text notification from a number he didn’t know. Frowning slightly, he opened it.

Here’s my number so you have it. I had a good time today. Ellana

A grin spread over his face that he would have been embarrassed for anyone to see, and he would’ve high-fived Captain, if the dog wasn’t dead asleep across his lap and drooling on Cullen’s favorite jeans.

After mulling it over for a minute, he took a deep breath, and sent a message back.

So did I. I’d love to do it again. Dinner this time? He barely had time to regret his boldness before the reply came back.

It’s a date.

#commander cullen #cullavellan #fics #modern au #it's my birthday

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ponticle · 7 years

Text

8pm [12 Hours to Solve This Anderstair Challenge]

Alistair x Anders, Modern AU, Coffee Shop Universe

[challenge masterpost]

[Read it on Ao3]

Chapter Summary: Anders get curious. Alistair hesitantly tells the story of how he and Icis got together. Rated T: just some bittersweet things.

“So can you speak to Icis now?” I ask. “I mean… if you wanted to…”

“Not really,” he answers. “I pretty much ruined everything. Who calls off a wedding that close to the date?”

“Assholes,” I tease.

He snorts. “Yup… that's me—just a walking asshole… thank god you've found a use for those…”

“What is she doing now?” I ask.

“She took a job at Beth Israel, actually… you're practically neighbors,” he laughs, but it's humorless.

I shudder. “I really hope we don't run into her…”

He looks at me. “We?”

I blush. “Yeah… Please come home with me.”

He shrugs. He’s not ready to agree to my terms, yet, but I think he’s close. Since we’re in a sharing mood, I decide to let myself be curious.

“What happened with Icis?”

“You mean the break up?” he asks. “I told her I couldn’t marry her… it was horrible. She actually cried—I’d never seen her cry before that.”

We stare at each other for a long time. I’m trying to read his expression.

“I actually meant in the beginning…” I explain. “You guys got together so fast.”

“Oh,” he raises an eyebrow and smiles at a spot in the distance, “that’s a really good story, actually… are you sure you want to hear it?”

I know it will make me feel jealous, but I think I do. I nod.

Alistair is having a shitty morning. His scrubs came out of the dryer slightly damp, his upstairs neighbor used up all the hot water, and he spilled coffee on his jacket. All of this misfortune is made worse by the fact that he still doesn’t know what he’s doing at work. He’s been at it over two months, but the procedures at this hospital are significantly different than they were at Tufts. He’s still learning.

Inside the double doors of the hospital, he’s immediately greeted with a stack of paperwork. A records admin, who is a grouchy older man—hell-bent on ruining Alistair’s life, it seems—throws the papers into Alistair’s arms and harrumphs. Everyone acts like Alistair should already been proficient at everything. He isn’t sure why that’s an expectation.

He rounds the corner toward his office, just trying to keep his head down, when a short, blonde woman runs around the corner, directly into him. Predictably, all his papers flutter to the floor. Unfortunately, the woman was also carrying a thermos filled with tea. Now, the tea is mixing with the papers on the floor.

He immediately squats down to assess the damage. He tries to pick up as many of the papers as he can, but he can tell already that it’s a losing battle.

“I’m so sorry,” says the woman. She kneels down next to him and tries to sop up some of the tea with her coat—it’s white, but short. She must be a resident.

He looks up at her for the first time. “Oh my god, Icis?”

Her eyes widen, “Dr. Theirin!” she shrieks. “Oh my god—I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he lies. None of this is okay—that grouchy records guy is going to murder him.

“Can I help you in some way?” Icis asks.

“I doubt it,” he smirks. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m a radiology resident,” she explains. “Interventional.”

“Oh…” he cocks his head to the side, “Taking after Dr. Pavus, huh?”

She blushes, “He was always my favorite professor—next to you, of course.”

He laughs. He’s managed to pick up all the papers, although they’re not salvageable—he can tell already.

“I need to get a new set of scrubs,” she looks down at herself miserably.

“I’ll go with you.” His own shirt is totally stained.

They walk side by side to the laundry to get new clothes. When they arrive, they’re given two new sets—his are blue, hers are green.

“So, how long have you been here?” she asks.

“Just about two months,” he explains. He doesn’t want to get into why with a former student. It doesn’t seem appropriate, even though she met Anders on that fated camping trip.

“Nice—I just arrived two weeks ago,” she explains.

Right. He missed the last couple months of her internship. He thinks about his students a lot, actually. He’s been wondering how they all made out.

“Do you keep in touch with any of the other interns?” he asks.

“Krem and I text a lot,” she answers. “He sends me funny memes.”

“That’s nice,” smiles Alistair. “Where is he now?”

“He’s in Chicago,” she answers, “—cardiology.”

“Yikes—I had a feeling, though,” laughs Alistair.

Alistair has never wanted to do anything surgical or high-risk. He loves the idea of using the most conservative option first.

She looks down at her watch, “Ooh, I’m late—can we catch up later, though?”

“Sure, let me give you my cell number,” he writes on a scrap of coffee-stained paper and hands it over.

She laughs and nods before running down the hallway.

They hang out for the first time as friends a week later.

Alistair meets her outside her apartment. She lives with three roommates.

“They’re loud, but nice,” she explains. “I didn’t know anything about Brooklyn, so they’re helping me.”

“Well, let me show you some things you might not know about yet, then,” Alistair offers. “Do you know the Gold Star Beer Counter?”

She shakes her head.

“You’re going to love it,” he concludes.

As they walk there, he gets curious. “So… I take it you never worked it out with Sera?”

She bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. “We were becoming too different—she was perfect for me when I was in undergrad… but…”

He nods, “Yeah… I know how that feels. No one can understand what this life is like from the outside.”

“Exactly,” she smiles. “What about you? Have you met any handsome boys out here?”

He laughs. She's assuming. “No… and no girls either,” he coughs pointedly.

“Shit. I'm the worst,” she rolls her eyes. “I'm bi too… but it doesn't stop me from making assumptions, just like everyone else…”

“That sort of thing is very deeply ingrained,” agrees Alistair.

They walk silently for the next twenty steps. It occurs to him that this suddenly feels like a date—now that they know their genders aren't an impediment. He doesn't want that. She was his student. It's creepy and makes him feel like a predator.

He spends the rest of the night making it clear that they're friends—colleagues, even. Luckily, they don't hit any snags and he's walked her back to her apartment before he knows it. Everything is as it should be.

“Thanks for showing me around, Dr. Theirin,” she says happily.

“You can just call me Alistair now,” he offers. They’re both doctors now; that’s the usual convention.

“Sure thing, Al,” she jokes.

He shrugs. That will work.

“Let’s hang out again sometime soon, okay?” she says.

“Okay, Icis—just text me.”

They see each other several times over the next few weeks. Their schedules don’t line up often, though. As a resident, she has to work lots of 24 and 36 hour shifts, so she’s not very available. Alistair is lonely in the city. He calls Dorian a lot, but every time he’s not actively doing something—teaching or working out or reading—he starts to think about Anders. It’s starting to feel pathological—and he doesn’t know of any interventions for a broken heart.

One morning, there’s a knock on his door. It’s only 6am.

He staggers to open it. On the other side, Icis almost collapses.

“Icis?” he gasps, ushering her inside.

“I think I’m sick,” she mumbles.

He can tell she’s sick just looking at her—her face is pale, but sweaty; her eyes are threatening to close. Most alarmingly, she’s slurring her words.

“Icis, we need to take your temperature,” he says seriously.

She nods and lets her weight drop into his arms.

Her feet are almost dragging on the floor as he brings her into his bedroom. As he does it, he realizes that this is a stupid place to put her, but based on the layout of his apartment, it was closer than his living room. A lot of Brooklyn apartments are strangely constructed—his is no exception.

While he’s looking for his medical kit, he hears her mumble something that he can’t understand.

“What, Icis?” he calls.

She says something equally unintelligible.

He whirls around the corner and shoves the thermometer in her mouth before she can argue. It’s not the good one he uses at work—he keeps that one in his office—it’s an old one, filled with mercury. Transiently, he hopes she doesn’t bite down on it and die.

While they’re waiting, he sits next to her on the side of the bed and pushes the hair off of her face. Her bangs are stuck against her forehead—sweaty and tangled. He notices she’s wearing scrubs.

“How many hours were you at the hospital this time?” he asks.

She shrugs. She can’t answer because she still has the thermometer in her mouth. She holds up her hands—ten fingers, four times, and then three more.

“Forty-three hours?” he raises his eyebrows, “Dear god, woman…” he smiles.

She smiles around the thermometer, despite how terrible she probably feels.

Eventually, he pulls the thermometer out of her mouth and holds it up to the light.

“102.3,” he says.

She rolls her eyes and starts to sit up.

“Are you insane?” he laughs, pushing her back, “You’re not in any condition to get home right now. If I had a car, I’d drive you, but this is probably better anyway—you need someone to look after you… and I’ve met your roommates—they seem like idiots.”

She laughs, despite herself. “Can I at least get out of these scrubs? I feel so disgusting.”

Alistair stands to leave the room, but when Icis stands up, she starts to fall toward his dresser almost immediately. He has to grab her around the waist just to keep her upright.

“I think you need help,” he offers.

She nods. All her normal decorum is gone—she looks like she just went through a washing machine’s spin cycle.

Alistair realizes it could be weird to help her undress—in his room—but he straightens his spine and assumes his most clinical facade. He’s seen humans naked—it’s just anatomy.

When she’s down to her underwear, Alistair hands her one of his softest T-shirts and helps her pull it down over her head. She slips into his bed, beneath the covers, and almost instantly falls asleep. She’s shaking a little, so he puts an extra blanket over her and makes his way back out to the kitchen. He would have slept another hour, but he can hardly see the point now. He doesn’t have to work today, so he sets himself timers to go check on her every hour.

The next morning, her fever has finally broken. When he comes in to check on her at 8am, she’s sitting up in bed, sipping water.

“Hi,” she says sleepily. “I’m so sorry to barge in on you like this.”

He shakes his head and sits next to her legs on the side of the bed. “It’s okay—I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“Thanks,” she says. “I just didn’t know where else to go…” she mumbles.

He’s not sure what that means. “Why didn’t you go home?”

She laughs. “Well… I knew I needed help… and yours was the only face I could picture.”

He blushes. “I’m glad I was available.”

She smiles, “Me too…”

They’re silent for a minute. He isn’t sure what he should do now that she’s awake. He knows her really well, but not as a friend—especially not as a half-dressed friend in his bed.

“Alistair?” she whispers.

He refocuses on her eyes and leans in.

“Thank you.” She leans in as if she’s about to kiss him, but instead nuzzles her head into the crook of his neck.

It feels like she’s communing with some small forgotten fragment of his soul that no one has touched since… since Anders. In that one moment, everything changes. She’s suddenly not the sick person taking refuge in his apartment, but someone who sees him for who he really is.

“Icis?” he croaks. “Will you stay with me for a while?” He turns his head to make shaky eye contact.

“As long as you’ll let me.”

Presently

“And after that, we were pretty much together,” explains Alistair.

I’m trying not to let it show on my face, but I’m really jealous—more than I thought I would be.

“What?” he asks, looking at me.

“I just didn’t know how romantic that was going to be…” I grumble.

He laughs and kisses me. “The most romantic part is that she reminded me of you.”

#anderstair #anders x alistair #lavellan #alistair x lavellan #past relationships #alistair theirin #anders #dragon age modern au #dragon age fanfic #ongoing series #coffee shop universe

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thelastmorozova · 7 years

Text

The Collector

A Solavellan Valentine’s Day piece.

Dorian arranges a date for his favorite fatalistic elf on the tackiest day of the year: Valentine’s Day. Said elf is not amused.

-No warnings apply. Just some Solavellan fun and a little fluff in a modern Thedas.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all! Sorry for any mistakes. It is 3am, whoops. <3

This was to be an unmitigated disaster, he was quite sure of that. For one thing, he was already on his second cup of coffee, having drank the first one much too quickly and scalding his tongue in the process. The café was small, cramped in a way that made Solas feel claustrophobic. Paper hearts were stuck higgledy-piggledy upon the windows and shockingly pink walls while even more hearts hung across the ceiling like banners of war, projecting their tackiness. Even the tables had not escaped the invasion of pink, cups and saucers emblazoned with a heart shot through with an arrow; Solas turned the cup around so the affront would not face him, a nasty taste in his mouth that had nothing to do with the coffee. The coffee was actually quite nice. Black and bitter, just like his love life.

Valentine's Day. Obviously a human creation, seeing how obsessed with love and desire they were. And definitely Orlesian. How else could you justify so much paper bannering? And pink. So much pink.

The couple beside him, a young human pair in their teens, were holding hands, eyes glazed over and looks lingering. As he watched out of the corner of his eye, the boy seemed to sigh longingly. “Your eyes are so beautiful. It's like the stars have fallen into the pool of your eyes.” The girl laughed coyly and blushed a deep crimson.

Solas may vomit if he was forced to endure adolescent drivel for much longer. He checked his watch; she was ten-minutes late. This woman, whoever Dorian had set him up with.

“You'll like her,” the man winked just after Solas had finally digested the news that his friend had found him a date for the tackiest day of the year. Murder seemed a little excessive, but he'd be willing to make an exception just for him. “She's weird, just like you. You can both be weird together and found a club for weirdness with you both as presidents. And then, down the line, you will both produce weird children and be in my debt forever.”

Dorian refused to divulge anything about the mystery woman other than her name: Ellana. No last name, Solas had noted. Probably some shrewd method to prevent him from searching online for his date. With such a name, he'd come to term with the fact that this Ellana was most likely an elf. When he had confronted Dorian about that fact, frustrated, his friend had merely groaned and launched into a lengthy explanation. “Don't take this the wrong way, but you are getting older, not younger. And not ageing gracefully, I must add. The vagabond look? It adds years. The lack of style? Hair? My, you could be a walking corpse and no one would be any the wiser. And really; do you really, truly desire to live the brooding bachelor lifestyle until you die?”

No, he did not. If anything, he feared such a wretched and lonesome existence. It was the unavoidable truth in Dorian's words that finally swayed him to this insane plan that he had hatched without his knowledge.

The door of the café opened with a cheerful tinkle, letting in the freezing air outside, a flurry of snow accompanying. Solas turned around very slightly so that he could look in the large oval mirror set upon the wall opposite, perfectly situated for watching the comings and goings of the customers around him. There; a woman wrapped up in a dark green duffel coat and matching woolly hat and scarf stood there, shoulders flecked with snow. She wrenched her scarf down and revealed bright eyes – what color, he couldn't discern at such a distance – that peered around the room almost timidly, hands clasped before her. Solas blinked and their eyes met in the mirror; he raised a hand in some semblance of a greeting and she smiled, winding her way through the chairs and tables in his direction.

“Goodness me!” the woman exclaimed upon finding her seat opposite, brushing the dusting of snow from her shoulders. Not so timid after all, then. “I am perished. Just perished. Where did that snowstorm come from? I swear that the weatherman claimed light flurries, not a fuck ton of white.”

Crass already? “It came down from the north, or so they claim. The Free Marches have it especially bad according to the charts I saw this morning. Kirkwall is buried under at least three feet.”

The woman shuddered at his words, removing her coat to reveal a warm blue long-sleeved sweater below. “Gods above, I hope we are not next in line for that. I mean... I love snow and all, but not when I'm out in it. I have the grace of halla on ice. It's painful to watch.” She took the seat at last and finally looked at him.

Ellana was very beautiful, with thick black hair framing her small and rather red face; her cheeks glowed like embers from the cold. Her eyes reminded Solas of dewdrops upon forest leaves with how they were such an intense emerald. The pointed ears sticking out of her slightly disheveled and damp hair confirmed his theories that his date was an elf.

At least she bore no vallaslin. Dorian had gotten that right at least.

Ellana smiled warmly at him, easily meeting his curious gaze. “I'm sorry; I just launched into the weather, didn't I? You are, uh, Solas, right?”

“And you must be Ellana.”

“That I am. You do know Dorian... don't you? I've not been tossed together with a complete stranger? I mean... you could be an axe-wielding murderer for all I know.” She barked out an inelegant laugh.

She was definitely strange, Dorian had been right about that. But there was something strangely endearing about the way she prattled on without pause for thought. He couldn't place his finger upon it. “I do know Dorian Pavus. We have been acquaintances for a number of years.”

“Really? Well... same. He's never mentioned you?” Ellana frowned gently, shucking off her gloves. “I run a bookstore downtown. Lavellan Lit. So, are you a collector like Dorian?”

Dorian had definitely been hiding this one. A bookstore in the city that he'd never been to before? Preposterous. “I collect books of a certain antiquity, yes. Though unlike Dorian's fascination with the ancient histories of Tevinter and the Archon's of old, my tastes run another direction towards the Fade and histories of magical lore and Elvhen theory. And arts, if I can find them.”

At those words, Solas watched the woman's eyes positively light up with childish excitement. “Truly?” she pressed, “you collect books about Elvhen history? And magic?”

How refreshing it was to have someone look at his job, his hobby, with awe and not raised eyebrows and dismissive words. Solas felt himself relax the smallest of fractions in the woman's company. “The books and texts of the Elvhen are spread far and thin, hardly cheap at that, but yes. Tomes of magic are much easier to procure, but just as expensive. And enthusiasts scarce agree to part with them. It takes weeks of, ah, gentle persuading.”

Ellana seemed to blush beneath the windburn. “I have a few books myself. Just a few, given to me by a very generous and rich customer in her will. Lovely lady. Tales of the Dreamers and a number of scrolls and papers that date back to Arlathan, apparently. From the state of them, I believe them to be legit. I have tried to translate the words, but to no avail. No expert, no old Keeper of the Dales could fully translate the scripture. The words are very old indeed.”

Scripture... from the time of Arlathan? That was impossible. It was completely improbable. But if she was telling the truth and these mysterious scrolls were the genuine article...

“Forgive me, but-”

“Yes,” Ellana smiled mischievously, snagging his half empty cup of coffee and taking a generous gulp. “You can come back with me and look at them, if you desire. This place is much too pink for my liking. And the sounds...” she grimaced at the teenage couple next to her, who were kissing across the table now. Kissing? No, Ellana thought in lightly veiled disgust. They were practically eating each other's mouths. It made her feel faintly sick. “I think we'd be much comfortable at my shop, don't you think?”

Such a bright and cheerful spirit. Solas found himself smiling at her words. “I quite agree.”

“Come on then.” Ellana clambered to her feet with all the grace of a newborn halla on ice and yanked her hat back onto her head, stuffing her hair back inside of it. “Into the swirling Void we go. I hope you have a hat because like hell you're having mine. It's soaked. Your head would turn blue and then you'd get ill and die a very painful and cold death, leaving me feeling terribly guilty.”

As he shoved open the heart adorned door and allowed Ellana to walk out first, she flashed him a bright smile from within the woolly confines of her clothes. Solas felt the kindling of something that felt suspiciously like hope spring to life within him. He didn't curse it, but rather welcomed it instead. Maybe, at long last, his weary heart would know some semblance of peace.

#dragon age inquisition #dragon age #dragon age fanfiction #dragon age fanfic #solavellan #solavellan hell #Solavellan valentine's day #I just love these two #fanfiction #da:i #Drabble Age #Lmao

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