#I made this a while ago but figured I'd also post it here cause I haven't posted in like almost a year

[beezibug]

So... Arcane Odyssey is very fun :D

[elronds-meleth-nin]

A Brush With...Kindness?

This idea came up in a discussion with @bigblissandlove1, so credit to you, my dear friend!! Thank you for being okay with me writing it! ILYSM! Thank you for screaming over both versions of Adar with meeee 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖 Also holy shit, this was supposed to be like...2000 words and ended up as almost 12000. 💀

Cross-posted to AO3 here.

~*~

Adar (RoP) x Reader

[A/N: This has smut, so 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI!!!]

Warnings: Mentions of violence (not discussed in detail), blood, bloodplay, threats, knives, swords, Adar in the winter, both soft!Adar and stabby!Adar, interspecies sex, Uruk/Human sex, unprotected sex, oral sex (female receiving), angst, much yearning, nudity, I feel like I'm forgetting something but I have no idea what because holy fuck this is almost 12000 words.

~*~

I knew his face from the moment he and his Uruks flooded into our village. Pillaging and looting where they could, murdering those who fought, the Uruks caused havoc. He strode in with them, looking as serene as the Elf I'd mistaken him for when I was a child.

How lucky I'd been that he'd chosen peace all those years ago. My father was a trader who traveled between Lindon, Eregion, and several villages inhabited by Men. Between the last of those villages and the borders of Eregion, we'd stopped to make camp for the night.

While my father set up our tent and tended to the horse, he asked me to gather some small sticks for the fire. I set off to do so, but in my quest for kindling, I ended up farther away from him than I'd intended with an armload of sticks large enough to make me stagger. Just as I'd begun to turn back, there was a small rustling from behind a bush a few feet away. I turned just in time to see a figure rising to his feet.

Tall, intimidating, covered in dark, aging armor, with scars on his face stood an Ellon. I let out a small, childish sigh of relief. I'd been afraid it might be a bear or an Orc or something fearsome, but it occurred to me that the presence of an Elf must mean that we were close to Eregion.

"You should not wander alone, little one. There are Uruks lurking in this forest," he said, and I noted that he sounded strange. Most Elves had voices that flowed like silvery musical notes, but his was raspy and low, as if he'd screamed for so long that he'd hurt his throat. Maybe he was a soldier, I'd thought. After all, they shout orders all the time.

"I'm not alone," I said lifting my chin as proudly as only a child could. "My father is not far from here."

He did not look convinced, yet still he offered me a smile.

"Perhaps, then, my lady, I could help you with your load?" He asked, and as I'd never been called 'my lady' before, I was not eager to disabuse him of the notion. He relieved me of my bundle of sticks, and together we began to walk back toward the camp my father had set up. After a few moments of comfortable quiet, I posed a question.

"What is an Uruk? I've never heard of one before. The word sounds sort of like 'Orc' if you say it too quickly..." I mused, and a small smile tugged at his lips. Vaguely, I wondered if his scars hurt him, but I did not think it polite to ask. At ten years old, my father had taught me manners enough to know that if a person wanted to talk about something like that, they should be the ones to bring it up.

"An Uruk is the correct name for an Orc," the Ellon said. "The words became...confused long ago. Not many remember their real name."

Oh. Well, that made sense.

"There are two people who know, now," I said smiling up at him, and he looked at me with raised eyebrows.

"That is kind of you, my lady, but you must not use that name around the Elves. They do not take kindly to having their mistakes paraded before them," he said, and that confused me.

"But...you are–"

The crunching steps of heavy boots in the underbrush startled me, but instead of an Uruk appearing from the trees, it was just my father.

"There you are! I told you not to go too far," he said striding up to me and wrapping me in his arms. He placed a kiss atop my head and only then did he turn his gaze upon my companion. Straightening, he glared suspiciously at my new friend. "Who are you? I've never seen Elvish armor quite like that."

His tone was less than kind, and, remembering my manners, I spoke up on my friend's behalf.

"Be nice, papa! He was helping me," I said. My new friend shifted the bundle of sticks to one arm, and placed his hand over his heart, inclining his head in a respectful bow.

"I intended her no harm, sir. There are many perils in this part of the forest and I wished to ensure she would not encounter danger," he explained. "Besides, a bundle this large was certainly more than a lady of her status should have to bear."

He offered me an exaggerated, deferential bow that drew a giggle from my lips. After a mere moment's hesitation, my father invited him to our camp to keep warm, since the woods grew quite cold at night. Looking back, it was obvious that he was incredibly patient with my childish questions as the three of us settled in to pass the night. Our evening meal stretched easily between three mouths, even though our new friend said that he did not wish to diminish our supply of food. We could not simply let him starve.

I woke in the middle of the night to low, whispered voices at the treeline. Carefully, I peeked through the flaps of my tent and saw two shadowed figures around the flickers of a small lamp. One stood tall, and the other hunched over.

With my father still slumbering soundly in his bedroll, I made a decision of which he surely would have disapproved. As quietly as I could, I slipped out, sneaking through the shadows of the trees until I could just make out the face of the taller person in the lamplight.

Our Ellon friend? What was he doing out here? Shifting slightly, I caught sight of the second person and–

I nearly tripped over myself to get back to my tent. He'd been speaking in a strange rasping, mean-sounding language to an Orc - or, an Uruk, as he'd called them.

I wasn't frightened of him, despite what I'd seen. Curiosity still reigned in my mind, but I still did not relish the thought of being caught eavesdropping. The next morning, I rose quite early, only to find that our guest was already gone.

"Don't look so distressed, love," my father called from his seat beside the fire. "He left this for you along with his apologies for leaving before you woke. He said his children needed him."

He held out a small piece of dark metal. It had clearly come from his armor. Carved within it was a set of stars, inlaid with some other tarnished metal.

"He said it was the symbol of the Noldorin Kings. He thought you might appreciate it and that it might serve to remind you of the conversation the two of you had," my father explained, though he looked a bit puzzled. "What conversation did he mean, if I may ask?"

As I looked at the small metal piece, it occurred to me that if he had not told my father, then perhaps there was a reason. My father might react poorly to the word 'Uruk' like our friend said the Elves would, simply because he worked so closely with them.

"He said it was dangerous to walk alone," I said, and though it wasn't a lie, it was not the whole truth, either. I'd never had reason to lie to my father before, and I hoped I would never need to again.

That night after we rode into Eregion and settled into our chambers, by candlelight I found the second symbol. Carved onto the back of the item he'd given me, there was what looked like a three-pronged shape. A tool perhaps? A maker's mark?

I wouldn't see that shape again until many years later when Lord Adar took our village. The armor piece which I'd turned into a necklace years before hung around my neck, almost burning beneath the bodice of my dress even as I averted my eyes from our new lord's.

When the morning came, we were all herded into a line leading to the steps of the tavern from which Adar was currently ruling over us. Those who refused to swear loyalty to him were summarily killed by the Uruks guarding us. When my own turn came, I dropped to my knees as all those before me had done.

Strangely, though, even as I looked up at him, I still couldn't find it within me to be afraid of him. Of death? Naturally, I was frightened, but I could not muster the same feeling regarding the Uruk lord. His eyes met mine, and his lips parted as if he recognized me.

An old man grasped my hair roughly, forcing my head down into a more subservient position.

"Do you swear allegiance to Adar, Lord Father of the Uruks?" He asked, but before I could answer either way, his tight grasp on my hair was suddenly released. "M-My lord?"

"She has already sworn for me," Adar rasped above me, and I tried not to look confused as he urged me to my feet. He reached toward me, and to my astonishment, his fingertips brushed against the pendant that had come loose from beneath the top of my dress. The one he'd given me years ago. The back with the three-pronged carving was visible because the chain had twisted. "She already wears my mark. You will not brand her, is that understood?"

"Yes, my lord," the grumpy old man said, but I could look nowhere save into the same green eyes I'd seen all those years before. I couldn't help but think about how beautiful they were.

"I shall see to the rest tomorrow, Waldreg. See that they're fed and have a place to sleep," Adar ordered. Grasping my elbow, the Lord Father of the Uruks led me away from the crowd. Once we were safely inside one of the ruined buildings, he clasped my upper arms and looked into my eyes. "I thought I told you it was dangerous to wander alone, my lady."

His voice was infinitely gentler than it had been before.

"I'm not alone," I whispered, "not when I have you."

Looking at me with a mixture of disbelief and something far too soft to be on an Uruk Lord's face, he stepped closer and carefully rested his forehead against mine. The scent of smoke and metal, earth and wood oils surrounded me, and I recognized the scent, faint though it had been, from that day in the woods.

He muttered something in the low, guttural language that the Uruks used, and though I had no idea what he'd said, the sound of it sent my heart racing in my chest.

"I thought I'd never see you again," I admitted in a whisper, and he let out a slow, almost sad sigh.

"I had hoped that you would never have need to," Adar murmured in return. When he spoke again, he sounded almost resigned. "If you wish to leave, I can arrange safe passage for you."

I considered the possibility for a moment. My mother and father were living peacefully in Eregion, thanks to the kindness bestowed upon them by Lord Celebrimbor. I could certainly go there, but...was that what I wanted?

"And...if I wanted to stay?"

Pulling his head back just far enough to look into my eyes, Adar seemed as though he both was and was not surprised at my question.

"You would be allowed to do so, of course, but you must understand that this would be a hard life," he stated. "I cannot offer you any luxuries, not like those found in Elven territory. Mordor is new. We have very little. We have not even completed the construction of our own homes yet. Is that truly the life you want? Barely getting by on scraps of food, sleeping in the ruins of an old building?"

"I can bear it," I reassured him, and he seemed to consider my words as his fingertips once again traced the chain of my necklace.

"I will not make you swear your loyalty, my lady, but I would like your word that if at any point you feel as though this life is intolerable or overwhelming, you will tell me," he murmured as his eyes met mine again. "I would not see your light dimmed by such a place as this."

Gently, I laid my hands over his.

"You have my word, my lord," I murmured, and he nodded his head slowly.

"Then, welcome to Mordor, híril vuin."

--

She'd been different since the day they met. Oh, she was likely an average member of her species, but Adar had little personal experience with Humans beyond the occasional interaction. Her openness when she was a child had been endearing, especially since she hadn't thought him frightening or hideous. She'd accepted him as he was without question - even going so far as to protect him from her father's suspicion.

After she'd caught him speaking with Glûg in the middle of the night, ordering his children to leave her and her father be in Black Speech, however, Adar had thought that she'd have told her father what she'd seen...that he would be met with an arrow to the chest upon his return to their camp. Instead, she'd managed to sneak back unnoticed, and he'd taken his leave before she awakened.

Never did he think that one day as a grown woman - a lady - she would be forced to kneel at his feet. Not even with the threat of death looming over her was she afraid of him.

He'd never wanted her fear. When she was a child, he'd savored her curiosity, and now, as an adult, he found that he relished her gentleness and her acceptance. She'd been courteous to all of his children whom she'd encountered, even if such behavior earned scorn from the other Humans in their encampment. She never cowered. She never diminished herself to fit into the dull little boxes that the others of her species so consistently tried to force upon her. She was unique.

And Adar found himself growing ever more intrigued by her.

The winter wind whipped clothing, biting the skin and sinking bone-deep. Like most discomfort, Adar was used to it. He knew every survival method - one did not live for thousands of years without picking up a few helpful practices. His children had followed his example, but it was a bit harder for the Humans among them to find comfort.

Truly, though, the only one he cared about was his lady...his brave, determined lady. He remembered her looking up at him the better part of a year ago when she was forced to the ground before him. Curiosity and recognition was as obvious in her expression as the points on an Elf's ears.

Even after he'd taken their village, she hadn't hated him. She hadn't denied having sworn for him, even though that had been a lie he concocted to keep her safe and unblemished.

Seeing that remnant of his armor hanging from a chain around her neck had inspired more pride and awe in him than he'd felt in an Age. Adar had assumed that even if her father had given it to her, it was so small and insignificant that she wouldn't have bothered to keep track of it. But for her to have turned it into a necklace... The thought still sparked a wave of warmth in the Uruk's heart.

Had their encounter truly been that memorable to her?

As the bitter winter held the camp in its grip, residents and all, Adar walked amongst his children and sworn Human villagers alike, noting those things which were needed most. He turned a corner between rows of tents and half-built houses and paused at the sight of his lady and Glûg discussing the babe in the Uruk's arms. After a few moments, his lady let out a small laugh, and Glûg let out a rasping chuckle before departing with a small bow.

Before he could behave as if he'd been doing anything - anything at all - besides watching them, she turned and Adar's eyes met hers. Approaching without hesitation, she curtsied and greeted him with her customary 'good day, my lord.'

Dropping into his own low bow, Adar offered her his arm.

"Walk with me, if you would, my lady," he murmured, and she looped her arm with his. "How would you characterize the mood amongst your people here?"

They walked a few steps, she considering her answer, and he marveling at how easily they fit together. Having her at his side felt natural, as if that was where she was always meant to be.

"They are under strain, because of the winter temperatures. Perhaps they are a bit more frightened than usual, but nothing too serious," she replied. "They seem to have settled into their new routine along with your children quite well, considering the circumstances."

"And what of your own circumstances? What can I do to ease your burden?" He asked as they reached the door of her shelter.

"I can think of nothing, my lord." Adar did not believe that, but he did not contradict her, choosing instead to accept her invitation inside.

"Allow me, at least," he said as he stepped inside, "to check your supplies. Firewood and the like."

"Of course," she murmured, waving him inside. One of the other ladies who shared her living space had already lit a fire in grate, and as soon as they saw Lord Adar walk inside, they quickly found other places to be.

Pretending to take a cursory view around the room, Adar slyly watched his lady move around, tidying up, even though the messes had clearly been created by the others. That he did not like, but that was a problem for a later date.

"Are you certain there is nothing I can do to improve your situation?" He asked, and she flashed him a smile bright enough to make his heart skip a beat.

"Nothing, whatsoever. I'm quite comfortable here," she said walking to stand with him beside the fire. He took a long, selfish moment to indulge his desire to study her face. When his desire to reach out and touch her grew so strong that he felt he might snap, he drew and released a deep breath.

"Thank you for your indulgence, my lady. I shall leave you in peace."

Adar gave her a small bow before making his way toward the door.

"Oh, wait! Please, my lord," she called, and he turned to face her. She pulled a length of cloth from a bundle, hurrying over to him.

A familiar sense of dread curled in his abdomen. He'd been betrayed before in moments of weakness - seeing her this evening was certainly a weakness. The cloth would make a suitable garrote for a person of her size to use. Steeling himself as she approached, he realized that, though he wouldn't be surprised, her betrayal would hurt more than any other had.

He met her eyes with his as she stood on the tips of her toes to wrap the cloth around his neck...but the constriction he'd been expecting never came. Instead, she tied it carefully, tucking the ends into his armor so they wouldn't flap around in the wind.

Adar's gauntlet-covered fist relaxed as his defensiveness was replaced with confusion. He was certain that he must look as utterly befuddled as he felt, but the little smile that settled upon her lips as she examined her handiwork stole his breath.

"There. That should keep you a little warmer, at least. We cannot have the Lord of Mordor freezing, now can we?" She asked when her fingers finally fell away from the chestplate of his armor. Adar found speech difficult for a long moment. She cared for his comfort?

How was one supposed to tell someone that they'd expected death's shadow only to find kindness instead? How could he possibly explain to someone like her that at the sight of a simple makeshift scarf, he'd coiled himself as tightly as a warrior preparing to be struck without a shield or sword to defend himself? She was so considerate that she would blame herself for unsettling him, he had no doubt.

No, to say nothing would be better. Perhaps...perhaps later.

Lifting her hands gently in his own, he laid soft kisses upon her knuckles. He dared not look away. Not now. This moment was crucial - whether for just him or for them both, he knew not.

"Thank you, dear lady," he breathed, and as his eyes searched hers, he saw what he normally did in her: warmth. However, this time he saw more. There was warmth, yes, but there was also gentleness, protectiveness, and a sort of satisfaction about him not tearing the scarf from his throat - he would never do such a thing. Not when it was from her.

When he finally stepped outside once more, the wind was unable to sink its frozen teeth into his neck. The fabric, worn and discolored with age, was soft, caressing his scarred skin just as he imagined her fingers would if she ever deigned to lower herself and take him as her lover.

Her generosity made him only that much more determined to find some way to make life easier for her. For nearly a week, he was kept too busy to give the matter any serious consideration, but he did have an idea.

While she was occupied, Adar slipped into her shelter. He wished to find a way to repay her for her kindness, thus his goal was to find one of her unfulfilled needs and provide for her. He was already able to ensure that she received enough food and water, and she deserved more than he could ever give her, but he was willing to try.

After a few moments of searching, he noticed the blanket in her little sleeping area. It was thin, full of holes, and practically falling apart. It was the only one he could see.

His heart clenched in his chest. She must be nearly frozen during the night, yet she had still seen fit to give him her scarf? The growing dampness of tears blurred his vision, but he blinked them away. How had she made it through the winter?

At least he could fix this for her.

Picking up the tattered blanket, he strode across the camp to find a replacement. Laying it atop a pile with other bits of cloth that needed to be repurposed, he found a stack of extra blankets. He'd already ensured that all of his children had enough to keep them warm, so one extra would not be missed.

He hastened back to her shelter, closing the door nearly silently behind him, but he quickly realized that he was not alone.

"My lord?" She called from her place beside the cold hearth. She was trying to light a fire with trembling hands. Walking over to her, Adar tucked the blanket beneath his arm and gently coaxed the flint and steel from her cold fingers.

Kneeling briefly, he struck the flint and steel once, twice, and carefully encouraged the flame to grow until a warm glow illuminated the room. When he stood again, he grasped her hands and rubbed them between his palms. He would not be content to leave her until he was certain that she would not freeze in the night.

She looked up at him in wordless wonder, and he knew for certain that his own expression had to be similar.

"Thank you, my lord," she said in barely a whisper, and in reply, he unfolded the blanket he'd brought. Though it was not nearly as soft as someone like her deserved, he knew it would hold the heat much better than her old one. Adar draped it around her shoulders, and, sweet, trusting thing that she was, she made no protest about his proximity, nor did she flinch when the backs of his knuckles caressed her cheek.

She looked from him, to the blanket, and back again. Without warning, she sprang forward, wrapping her arms around his middle, but where he usually expected the bite of a dagger after such an impact, he found only comfort. He realized that she...was embracing him.

He looked down at her, only to find his nose buried in her hair. Her scent! He'd smelled it before, but to have her this close...it was intoxicating. Carefully bracing his hands on her waist, he leaned down a little farther. The tip of his nose brushed against her warm neck, and he could almost smell her pulse racing beneath her skin.

His nose must've been cold, for that small movement was enough to startle her into leaping back. His fëa, dark and fractured as it was, wept at the loss of her, even though she'd only been in contact with him for a moment.

It had been so long since he'd been held like that.

Alarm settled into her expression and she began stammering apologies. Her new blanket slipped from one shoulder, and without a word, Adar stepped toward her and pulled it back into place.

Her voice dropped away as she realized what he was doing. His hands laid lightly upon her shoulders, sliding slowly upward until he was able to cup her cheeks carefully between his scarred fingers. Her eyes, now wide with wonder rather than fear, looked up at him.

"You have done nothing which warrants an apology, my lady," Adar murmured giving her small smile. She was so beautiful, so fragile compared to him. He would risk no injury coming to her. Not even the discomfort of the abating cold; slowly, their breaths became less visible as the fire grew in the hearth. "Why did you not tell me about the state of your blanket?"

"I did not wish to trouble you, my lord," she answered sheepishly. "I had already requested a replacement from the head of the Men in our section, but I was told I'd have to speak with Waldreg. Given my previous encounters with him, I...decided that the cold was preferable."

Disquiet twisted within him. Waldreg was distasteful enough without having caused his lady trouble. He was quite certain he'd tear the little worm of a Man limb from limb with a grin on his lips if he dared harm his lady.

Adar would have to speak with him about that.

"Has he mistreated you?" He tried to keep his tone as steady as possible, but a slight edge still managed to creep in.

"He expressed a few less than polite sentiments, but no more. It is not a crime for him to dislike me, my lord," she said, but her attempt to calm his ire only made him angrier on her behalf. Would she not express her anger even at someone as wretched and cruel as Waldreg?

"In future, come directly to me. You need not be afraid. I would be pleased to assist you, my lady," he promised, and his heart stuttered as she nodded her head.

As soon as he left her shelter, he sought Waldreg. The miserable little rat had much to answer for.

--

As the winter winds began to wane, I found myself increasingly glad of Lord Adar's kindness. Not shivering through the night was a pleasant change. I'd thought that after our conversation he seemed rather tense, but thus far I had seen no results.

However, as I returned from harvesting a small bunch of mushrooms for the soup that night, a vicelike grip clamped around my arm, tugging me off balance and dragging me into the small, dark alleyway between two repurposed buildings.

A hand covered my mouth just as a knifepoint pressed cold and unyielding against my racing pulse.

"You vicious little bitch," a familiar voice snarled against my ear. "What lies did you tell him? How did you make him hate me?"

I whimpered but dared not move for fear of the sharp steel at my throat.

"'You will not treat my children or those pledged to me with disrespect,' he said. He's had me shoveling shit in the kennels for weeks, and word around camp is that he only came to me after speaking with you!" Waldreg sounded furious, and, indeed, I could detect the lingering scent of the wargs' leavings clinging to my attacker and his clothing. The more agitated he grew, the more his hands shook. Pain pricked my skin, and a hot red tear trickled down my throat staining the neckline of my dress. "What'd you do? Lift your skirt for him? Whisper in those ragged little ears of his? Give me one good reason I shouldn't gut you here and feed you to the wargs."

I began struggling in earnest, but his anger kept his grip tight. Still his hand covered my mouth, preventing any attempts at speech. A cruel laugh trickled across my ears, and he dragged his knife downwards until it rested directly above my heart.

"I thought not." I tried to cringe away, but that accomplished nothing save fueling the cruel old bastard's amusement as tears rolled down my cheeks. "Say goodnight!"

Instead of the bite of a blade, however, I was abruptly released. A gurgling sound came from behind me, and when I turned, I saw Lord Adar's gauntlet-covered hand lifting Waldreg off the ground by his throat. The cold glare on the Uruk's face revealed not a single mite of mercy for the Man thrashing in his grasp.

"My lady, go inside. I will join you in a moment," Adar called, and after a single shocked blink, I rushed off to do as he'd ordered. My basket lay in the mud, entirely forgotten amongst the chaos. A small crowd of Uruks had gathered around to witness Waldreg's demise and jeer at him, but I couldn't stay.

As terrible as he was, I didn't want to. Trembling, I closed the door after myself and stumbled toward my sleeping space. Quickly wrapping the blanket Adar had given me around my shoulders, I tried to steady my breathing instead of listening to the commotion outside.

I had no idea how long I'd been sitting there when the crowd fell silent and the door finally opened. Terrified that Waldreg had somehow survived and was coming to seek his revenge, I backed into the corner beside the hearth and tried to stay as small as possible.

I had no weapons with which to fight. Hiding would be my only chance to survive, especially if Adar had not been able to stop him.

--

"My lady?" Adar's voice called gently into the space, though he saw no sign of her. He spotted a small movement from the far side of the hearth. Why was she hiding? Her eyes were wide and fearful, even as he approached.

Suddenly, her assertion about Waldreg expressing 'a few less than polite sentiments, but no more' felt grossly incorrect. If she was this frightened, he must've threatened her.

Adar hoped that she heard him screaming his apologies before his death.

Or...could it be that he'd finally managed to frighten her with his cruelty? That thought sent a bolt of icy dread through him.

Dropping silently to his knees beside her, he unclipped his gauntlet and dropped it beside him. He wouldn't dare touch her while wearing it after it had touched that scum, not without cleaning it first. He offered her his hand, afterwards, and she accepted it without hesitation.

She needed no coaxing to come to him, shuffling over and resting before him on her knees with her blanket still around her shoulders.

"You need not fear, my lady. He will haunt your steps no more," he murmured, and the relieved little sniffle that escaped her had Adar moving closer and gently brushing her tears away with the pads of his thumbs.

His skin was rough, but he was careful. He didn't want to hurt her, or for her to fear him. She had every right to after she'd seen him lifting Waldreg off the ground in the midst of his rage. He certainly would not blame her, but he did not want that. If ever she shrank away from him as she'd tried to do from that contemptible worm earlier, he thought his heart may shatter irreparably.

So, with the most soothing tone he could muster - one he'd not used in over an Age - he placed a gentle kiss upon her brow and spoke.

"You are safe with me, híril vuin. None shall raise a hand to you again." Carefully, he pulled the edge of the blanket away just far enough to see the small trail of dried blood from where she'd been cut. Regret was as foul upon his tongue as bile.

He should have found them sooner. Moving away only long enough to fetch a pitcher of water and a cloth, Adar sat close to her upon his return. He began to wipe her skin clean in slow, careful strokes, murmuring quiet, earnest praise for how brave she'd been and for trusting him to help her.

She rested her cheek upon his shoulder as he set the cloth aside, prompting him instinctively to wrap his arms around her and brace his chin atop her head.

"Thank you, my lord," she breathed, and he was acutely aware of his own heart racing in his chest. Could she hear its rhythm even with the chestplate of his armor in the way?

As he began to tell her that he'd done no more than his duty, the door to her shelter opened, revealing the three other ladies who shared the small space with her. Adar grated at the interruption, despite their low curtsies as soon as they caught sight of him holding his lady in his arms.

"Sleep elsewhere tonight," he ordered them, and once they'd departed, he let out a tense breath. Speaking then to his lady, he softened his tone once more. "Tomorrow, I shall have you moved to chambers befitting one of your station."

She blinked beautifully up at him, dampness clinging to her lashes like dewdrops in the early morn.

"'My station,' my lord?"

A slow smile stretched his lips.

"Indeed. If you are to serve at the right hand of the Lord of Mordor, you cannot be seen huddling in the corner of a ruined shack."

Her eyes went wide, and her lips parted in a near-silent gasp.

"A-At your right hand?"

He nodded his head in confirmation.

"Assuming that such a thought appeals to you, of course," he said, but the smile that lit up her face told him all that he needed to know about her enthusiasm.

--

The next morning, I awoke wrapped in Lord Adar's arms and the blanket he'd given me. I should've felt embarrassment, but I could muster no more than a groggy sense that I was exactly where I was meant to be.

As soon as we managed to peel ourselves from the ground, we gathered my meager possessions, and Adar led me to the tavern. He had ruled from there since day one, but I hadn't been aware until that moment that he'd been living there as well. I supposed that his choice made sense. The upper level was where the owner used to live, having the benefit of a bedroom and a small bathing room complete with a claw-foot tub.

"Unless you object, we shall be sharing the bedroom," he explained as we climbed the creaky wooden staircase. "I'm afraid that there was little more than a musty mattress here to begin with, so I'll have a second bedroll brought up today. If there is anything you require once you have settled in, please do not hesitate to tell me."

"Thank you, my lord," I replied, and as I set myself up on one side of the room directly across from his own sleeping area, one of his children called him away to handle a conflict on the other side of the camp.

Late that night, I walked into the small communal area where Lord Adar sat by the fire, gazing into its depths as if it held the answers to all of his questions. Not wishing to disturb his thoughts, I began to move away, but a quiet call of my name in that deliciously raspy voice of his froze me in place.

"Is everything to your satisfaction, my lady?" He called, and I turned to find his gaze already fixed on me.

"Yes, my lord," I murmured, "thank you for allowing me to stay here."

"The pleasure is mine. Come, warm yourself by the fire," he offered, and I dropped to my knees on the furs beside him. We sat in companionable silence for a while with only the crackling of the fire in the grate reaching our ears. "Something troubles you, does it not?"

I nodded my head and he tilted his own beside me.

"Tell me." Despite his soft tone, the command made me bite my lip.

"I...My lord, given the new position with which you have honored me, I believe it..." I stumbled over the words, eventually taking a deep breath to compose myself. "Would it not be inappropriate for me to continue in this particular role without having sworn my loyalty to you?"

The question came out in a breathless rush, but Adar either did not notice over the hissing of the fire or he was too polite to comment upon it.

"So far as all the others are concerned, you did so before we ever took your village." His eyes skimmed the length of my face as he spoke. "As you will recall, I promised you that I would not force you to do so."

"And you have kept to your word," I began. "I have not felt coerced. I offer my loyalty to you freely."

Adar sat up straighter and drew in a sharp breath.

"You only need do so if you truly wish for us to be bound," he said placing his hand softly atop mine where it rested amongst the furs. His eyes searched mine as if trying to determine whether I was serious.

"I'm certain, my lord," I said, and he, apparently finding what he was looking for, gave a solemn nod of his head.

"Very well. As with your kin, Black Speech is not a language known to you, thus I will not require your vow in that tongue," he murmured, and I couldn't stop the question that fell from my lips.

"Would it be possible to learn at some point?"

Adar smiled, a mix of pride and surprise playing across his features in the glowing, flickering light of the fire.

"I shall teach you personally, híril vuin," he promised, and his expression became more serious. "Have you ever sworn loyalty to another?"

"No, my lord."

"Do you recall the words being spoken during the oaths of fealty given by your people?"

"Yes, my lord." I bowed my head, intending to show my respect in that manner, but warm, gentle fingers grasped my chin and lifted my head back up. Adar's gaze met my own, and unless the firelight was deceiving me, I saw a soft sort of affection swimming in his eyes as he looked at me.

"Before all else, I wish you to swear that you will never bow to me unless I explicitly give you the order to do so," he rasped as his thumb brushed over my lower lip.

"I swear it, my lord. I will not bow to you unless you give me the order to do so." Having extracted that promise, he seemed satisfied to allow me to continue as I had been. His fingers fell away from my chin only to grasp my own and lay them atop his chest where beneath his heart lay beating. "I hereby swear my allegiance to you, Adar, Lord-Father of the Uruks, founder of the land of Mordor...and protector of mortal children silly enough to wander the forest alone. This I pledge from now until the last breath leaves my body."

Adar listened with something akin to wonder in his eyes, and when I finished, his gaze strayed down to my lips. But...something seemed off.

"Is...something amiss, my lord? I could always use different words, if you prefer...?"

He shook his head quietly.

"There was no fault in your diction."

"Then...what troubles you?" I asked, unconsciously repeating his own words from earlier. He shifted before me, as if he was bothered by what he was about to say. Regretful, perhaps?

"An oath means little on its own," Adar murmured unsheathing a small knife that he'd apparently concealed upon his person. "Only blood can bind."

Whose blood did he mean? Did he want me to use it on myself? Did he wish to use it on me? Or did he want me to use it on us both?

An idea struck me, and I grasped my necklace in the palm of my left hand. Carefully, I set his knife aside, guiding his gauntlet-covered hand over mine. Looking into his eyes, I felt the unyielding metal dig into the soft skin of my hand. Without warning, I squeezed his hand, which in turn forced the sharp, ancient metal deep enough into my skin to draw blood. As comprehension dawned in his eyes, his pupils dilated, and something resembling hunger turned his gaze into a blazing flame boring into me.

His hand released mine long enough for the pendant to fall from my grasp, and when he turned my palm upwards, twin gashes welled with blood. Swallowing heavily, Adar lifted my hand, and as his lips met crimson, his eyes sought mine.

A gasp tumbled from my throat as his tongue lapped slowly at my skin, just barely grazing the inner edges of the two weeping cuts. It stung, of course, but the pain combined with such a ravenous stare from the Uruk lord sent a wave of heat rushing between my legs.

A breathy, wanton whimper escaped me, and in a blink, I found myself on my back atop the furs with my lord straddling my hips. He pressed my bleeding palm against his cheek, and, bracing his free hand on the floor beside my head, Adar placed a line of fiery kisses along the column of my throat from hollow to chin with his blood-drenched lips.

I'd wanted him to look at me like this, to touch me and desire me like this, from the moment we were reunited, and now that he was, it was as though my very soul had been lit aflame. I wanted everything he wished to give me, and then some.

Before his mouth had the chance to claim mine, however, there was a rough knock on the door. Adar pulled back a few inches, and we stared into each other's eyes, panting together as reality sank back in and a second knock sounded.

"I think you ought to retire for the night, my lady," he rasped laying a final kiss upon my palm before getting to his feet. My blood was a dark red streak upon his face, but he seemed not to care. He called for whoever was at the door to wait a moment, taking the time to help me to my feet and bidding me goodnight before seeing to our caller. His lips were still the deep red shade of the life flowing through my mortal veins.

I hurried up the stairs to our shared sleeping space before I could see who'd interrupted us. With a quick glance into the cracked fragment of a mirror stowed in the corner of the room, I saw a sloppy, red trail where Adar's lips had been.

I didn't bother to clean it off before I crawled into my bedroll, choosing instead to slip my fingers beneath my smallclothes as I recalled the feeling of him doing as he wished with me. With a broken, muffled whine of his name against my blanket, I found completion, but a part of me wondered how much more satisfying it would have been had his fingers been in place of mine.

--

The next fortnight felt as though it was a specialized form of torture. Adar seemed to be called away by a never-ending series of problems that required solutions. Often his day began earlier than I awoke and ended long after I'd retired to bed. Ensuring I'd completed every task he'd left for me was the least I could do considering how busy his own position kept him.

Occasionally, we did still manage to sneak a meal or a short conversation with one another, but we had yet to discuss what had happened the night I pledged myself to him. Almost every night, the memory of the hunger in his eyes drove me to desperation, haunting my dreams and forcing me to muffle my cries as I tended to my own burning desire.

One of the few times he returned before I fell asleep, I'd just whimpered his name into my pillow. As he ascended the staircase, I heard his footsteps, and I tried to muffle my shame as it was too late to stop entirely. The fear of discovery lanced through me as I heard him approach the door. I tried to steady my breathing, and hoped that in the low lighting, he would not notice how disheveled I looked.

Either I was successful, or he was in a sadistic mood, because he sidled over to his own bedroll and began stripping down. I'd seen him without the armor before, but when he shucked off his upper garments, the sight of his scarred, toned torso was enough to make me bite my tongue to stifle a gasp.

The outline of his masculinity in his trousers as he laid his clothing in a neat pile sent a fresh wave of wetness soaking my inner thighs. Oh, how was I meant to sleep after seeing...that?

Adar laid down, and just when I thought he'd fallen asleep, his voice broke through the silence.

"Sweet dreams, my lady." I could hear the teasing smile in his voice.

Oh. My cheeks burned at the realization that he'd likely heard me.

"...Good night, my lord," I murmured, hating how shaky I sounded.

--

Spring changed very few things in Mordor, save the temperatures, yet with each passing day, Adar's lady seemed to smile just a little wider.

He wanted to give her more reasons to do so, however. It was not enough that they had been living in close quarters since that night in her shelter. It was not enough that he'd made her smile and laugh before. Adar needed to do it again.

But more than that, he needed to hear those things which it was not at all civilized to consider. It was not enough that he had tasted her blood and her skin and her racing pulse. He'd heard her make beautiful, pleasure-filled sounds when she thought he was out of earshot or asleep. But it was never enough. He needed to hear her moan his name, to see her arch her back beneath him in the throes of ecstasy. He needed her.

Teasing her had been as much a torture for him as it likely was for her. Adar had become addicted to pain in one form or another over the millennia, and the mental strain of denying himself the pleasure of her touch was not unfamiliar, but it was forcing him to a breaking point, nonetheless. He knew that he would likely snap as he had when she'd sworn him her loyalty. That rush had been like a dam releasing an unstoppable flood, his hunger turning him into a ravenous beast.

She hadn't minded, as he thought she might. She'd enjoyed it. The sight of her lying beneath him panting as her blood practically dripped from his lips made him achingly hard each time he dwelled upon the memory for too long.

Still, she deserved better. Better than him, better than a moment of animalistic need. He found himself wondering about how best to give her all of himself.

Adar supposed that was how he'd ended up in the doorway of the small bathing room. The claw-footed tub was filled with steaming water as he'd ordered, and relaxing within it was his lady. She'd deserved a moment of peace after having completed every single task he'd given her with such dedication. It was a small reward, hardly as much as she deserved, but at the moment, it was all he could give.

He tried not to allow his gaze to drop beneath the water's surface, but his restraint was weak after the last two weeks of self-imposed denial. Truly, he intended merely to check that she was well, but the temptation of seeing her soft skin dripping with hot water was too great. The Lord of Mordor lingered in the doorway just long enough to feel his lower garments grow tight, and for her eyes to meet his as his lust clawed at his restraint.

As a moth drawn to a flame, he found himself walking slowly into the room, summoned by her curious gaze. The hot water reached her collarbones, and Adar felt the urge rising within him to claim her.

He knelt beside the tub, his face mere inches from her own, and removed his armor, gauntlet and all. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and dipped a washcloth into the hot water. The back of his hand brushed against the swell of her breast, and they both let out quiet gasps.

Still, Adar refused to look down into the depths of the sage blossom oil scented water. Wringing the washcloth out until it was just wet enough for him to clean his face, he began to do so, only for his lady to take it from his hands. With her breasts pressed up against the side of the tub, her soft, gentle fingers held his head in place as she carefully wiped away the grime.

Without a word, he turned his head and kissed her palm where twin scars were already forming. Adar would've preferred that she spill his own blood - that was what he'd originally intended - but since she'd chosen that pain, the least he could do was show the proper amount of reverence for her actions.

"Is there anything you need, Adar?" Her voice was shaky and breathless as it so often was when he caught her off-guard.

"No. This night is for you. Relax as long as you wish," he murmured, but as he stood to leave her in peace, he noted that she tried valiantly to hide her disappointment. Without turning back - if he did, he might do something impulsive - he called over his shoulder, "Patience, my lady, and you shall have all that you desire."

His hardness did not abate until long after they'd settled into their bedrolls and her breathing had evened out in the serenity of sleep.

Adar could not wait much longer. Her sweetness was as a siren's call to him.

Thus, his plan began to form. Once the spring was fully upon them, he approached her as he often did for conversation.

"My lady, I wonder if you might spare me a moment of your time?" He asked, and she smiled joyfully up at him - truly, that should not have made his heart stutter the way it did.

"Of course, my lord. You may have as much of my time as you desire," she replied, and oh, she had no idea what she was offering!

"Do you enjoy riding horses?"

She tilted her head curiously, but the way her smile widened had him mentally congratulating himself for selecting this particular tactic.

"I do, though, it has been quite some time since I've had the opportunity."

"Come," he urged offering her his hand. She didn't hesitate to take it. The feeling of her touch would be seared into his mind for as long as he lived. Drawing her close, he lowered his voice to a whisper. "I intend to steal you away."

Her lips parted in surprise, and just as he was about to apologize for his forthrightness, she squeezed his fingers in hers.

"I could not hope to be stolen by any more worthy." His breath hitched in his chest, and he tamped down the temptation to skip his plan entirely and take her atop his own sleeping furs. No. He'd been alive since before the waking of the world. He could wait a little longer.

"Then, maybe I should play the part...?" Adar suggested with a mischievous smirk. Before she could ask what he meant, he lifted her by the waist, tossed her over his shoulder - an action which tugged a surprised shriek from her lips - and carried her to his horse that way.

"My lord!"

"My lady!" He called back in answer as he felt her gentle, mortal hands lay across the back of his armor. Surely she knew he would never drop her?

Soon, he placed her atop his mount, and she giggled breathlessly at the situation. Her mussed hair and bright eyes lit a spark within his heart, and lower, not that he would admit it to any, save her. Swinging up easily, he settled in behind her, grasping the horse's reins in one hand and bracing the other over the softness of her diaphragm. As close as they were, he was in the perfect position to whisper in her ear.

"Fear not, my lady," he breathed, "you shan't fall."

One of her hands covered his, and he urged their horse forward. For nearly two hours they rode, crossing from ashen, desolate terrain into the gentle rolling grasses of the land beyond Mordor's fiery shadow.

The rhythmic roll of her hips against his became almost hypnotic. The Lord of Mordor he might be, but his restraint was still utterly devastated by her. They dismounted when they reached a meadow peppered with small saplings.

Tying their horse's reins to a sturdy one, Adar offered his lady his hand. The sun was just beginning to glow a gentle orange. It would set soon, and he greatly desired to see his lady bathed in starlight.

"It is no secret that I favor you, my lady," Adar began as they wandered leisurely amongst the blooming flowers, and that was the closest he'd ever come to an admission...to a confession of that nature. "Even the Uruks farthest from the center of our camp know that I...that you are under my protection."

"Indeed. I would say that is true," she agreed, clearly not certain at what point he was driving with his rambling. "I am honored beyond words to have your favor and protection, my lord–"

"Adar. Here - anywhere away from prying eyes and unwelcome ears - you may call me Adar," he corrected gently, and her fingers squeezed his in gratitude. "I brought you here today, because I wish to ask for your counsel."

"You shall always have it, Adar," she assured, "though, I am not certain what advice I could provide that would be wiser than your own. I have very little experience with war and strategy."

He stopped walking and turned to face her - a mistake, because she was almost ethereally encompassed by the warmth of the sunset. He swallowed heavily to recover his voice.

"It is not war about which I require your thoughts," he began, bringing her hand to his ruined lips. "I have lived in shadow for so long, yet recently I have found myself prey to a feeling which I have not experienced in many Ages."

She tilted her head curiously.

"What might that be?"

Adar reached gently toward her with his free hand, cupping her cheek.

"Love," he rasped, looking into her eyes, hoping she would catch the meaning within his words. Admitting that a horrid creature like him had fallen head over heels for a beautiful being like her was tantamount to sacrilege. Yet...in several instances, he believed that he'd seen his own affection reflected in her eyes. Indeed, the moans he'd heard from her would seem to indicate that she desired him.

But it was too much to hope that she could love him. He was certain she desired him, but...love? Could a Human woman truly love an Uruk when the rest of her kind looked down on them in scorn and disgust? Had he been a fool to bring her here?

She stepped closer to him, looking up into his eyes–

Her expression stole his breath. He had not hung the stars in the sky, nor had he wrought treasures like the Silmarils. He had not created even a single thing of beauty. All he'd done was try to give his children a home.

And yet...she looked at him as though he was more worthy of praise than the most virtuous of kings, the most honorable of knights, and the most devoted of husbands. Could it be possible?

Could she...?

"I am afraid that I have little experience with love, Adar, but I will help if I can." As afraid as he might be of losing her, he must speak now or lose her forever.

"In your opinion, who is worthy of love?" He asked, and she let out a small huff of laughter, as if the question was a foolish one. "Have I said something amusing?"

"A bit," she admitted, but she was quick to place her free hand over his heart, "but not in the way you might think. Everyone is worthy of love, even - and, perhaps, most especially - the Lord-Father of the Uruks."

Was he truly so transparent that she could see his fears so easily? Or had she managed to worm her way so far into his heart without his knowledge that it was already a bosom companion to her own?

"...And you have it." His eyes snapped back up to hers - when had he looked away? His hunger and adoration for her rose up in a great wave, consuming him from the inside as he wove his fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck and drew her into a passionate kiss.

He'd dreamed of having her pressed up against him, of drinking her pleasure from her lips.

She moaned into Adar's mouth, and he was struck by the realization that she was so much better than any phantom images that his imagination could conjure. He dragged his lips and teeth to the corner of her jaw, and spoke in a hoarse, rasping whisper.

"I need you as I need air, meleth-nin." He grasped her waist as her arms drew him ever closer. "You steal my breath, yet without you I cannot breathe. Have mercy...Have mercy upon your most devoted servant..."

As the orange sky bled pink, his lips trailed down her neck, savoring those places which had driven him to the edge of madness when he sampled her before the fire. His name escaped her lips on the back of a desperate whine.

"What do you need? Tell me," Adar breathed, and she tilted her head to offer him more of her neck.

"Take me, touch me, please! I'll be good, so good, only for you," she begged, and the sound went straight to the stiffening length between his legs. He would love nothing more than to have her beg for him all night, but this time she would have no need to. Tonight, the beginning of their time as one, he would fulfill her every desire with a minimum of teasing. He'd done too much of that of late.

Her fingers dove into his hair, and a moan poured from his throat, rumbling against her pretty skin.

"Is that what you want? Do you wish to be a good girl for me?" She released a varied stream of yeses and pleas for him to do as he wished with her, and he acceded to her request with a kiss, quelling any doubt she may have had that he would do this for her. He would do anything for her, even unto the destruction of Middle Earth. "Do you wish to be mine?"

"Yes!" Her answer was akin to a desperate sob, and he wasted no time, immediately indulging her.

Tugging his cloak from his armor, Adar spread it over the grass. He would not have her dress covered in stains, nor grass blades stuck to her skin. The cloth created a sharp contrast - an onyx patch amidst a sea of pinks, purples, reds, and yellows - the dark to the meadow's light, just as she was the light to his darkness. She completed him, enthralled him, drove him mad, and tonight he would show her just how much.

She went for the ties fastening her dress, but he caught her hands in his and took over. She was a gift more precious than anything which the Valar could bestow upon their servants, and he would unwrap her accordingly.

As the laces binding the back of her dress fell away one at a time, Adar explored his lover's mouth with all the tenderness and gentleness that his cruel, twisted body could muster. He hadn't even realized that her tricky little fingers had begun to fiddle with his armor until his breastplate fell away.

In a flurry of discarded garments, they were each revealed to the other in all their beauty and all their flaws. Their shared vulnerability stilled their hands for an anxious moment, but only for a moment.

Adar's breath hitched in his chest when the soft lips he'd tasted mere seconds before connected with the scarred flesh over his heart. He'd expected pity, fear, regret - not reverence. Instead, as she looked up at him, he saw nothing but sincerity in her expression.

"You are gorgeous," she said, as though she could not tell that he had but one part of his body which was untouched by scars.

...As though she meant it. He realized with a sharp intake of breath that she did. She grasped his hands and they sank onto his cloak together, she on her back and he kneeling between her legs. His interest jutted toward her, but he could not find it within himself to be ashamed, not when he was with her. Not when a piece of his armor hung on a chain around her neck, resting comfortably above her breast.

"There is no beauty finer in this world than yours."

Spread nude before him over his cloak, Adar's lady looked up at him with an adoration he had not believed possible. Not when directed at an Uruk such as he. His lips met hers once more, but this time, he forced himself to be much more controlled. He wanted her, yes, but he also wanted her to know that she had his love.

Kissing his way steadily down her body, the Lord-Father of the Uruks had no doubt that he must look as hungry for her as he felt. Practically feral with pent-up desire, he needed her writhing on his tongue. His hands trembled with the effort it took to slow his movements, to take his time.

Abruptly, as his eyes met hers from between her legs, he realized that she very much had the capacity to destroy him. With a single declaration of hatred or a look of disgust, she could easily take his stone heart and pulverize it into powder.

How easily could she shred beyond repair what little remained of his soul!

Not even Morgoth had been able to do that. This mortal woman, this sweet, brave lady had no idea of the power that she possessed. The smart thing to do - the strategically wise path - would have been to kill her then and there while she lay vulnerable and trusting before him, begging for one more touch, one more kiss, one more moan, one more scrap of his attention.

Instead, he picked up his discarded gauntlet and slid her much smaller hand inside it. The clasps were quick work, and though she looked confused at first, once he lifted her thighs over his shoulders and guided her hand to his hair, understanding dawned in her eyes. She understood. He wanted her to feel powerful. She was his equal and she deserved to know it.

Even with sharp, unyielding metal covering her fingertips, they scraped so gently over his scalp as he lost himself in the flood between her thighs. She moaned and whimpered, squirming in his hold, but through it all, she never once hurt him.

Adar knew that she wouldn't. Even as she cried out his name for all the world to hear, drenching his tongue and chin, her grip in his hair was careful. Her thighs tensed in his grasp, squeezing his head in an intoxicating vice. Groaning and snarling against her sensitive folds, he couldn't bring himself to pull away until she was shaking in the midst of over-sensitivity.

"Adar, please," she breathed as he moved up her body. Hunger raged and burned in his eyes - he could deny himself no longer. Grasping her wrists, he pinned them easily above her head as he claimed her lips. His tongue delved into the softness of her mouth, taking with it the lingering taste of her.

Her legs wrapped around his hips, drawing him close enough for his tip to catch on her entrance. With synchronized groans, he pressed inside of her, joining their bodies together as one.

Profane language not meant for the ears of such a creature as her spilled from his throat in a guttural stream of Black Speech. Dipping his head, Adar moaned against her breast and surged forward, drawing a sinful mewl from deep within her throat.

"You have me. You take me so well," he praised in a raspy whisper, nibbling at her earlobe as he thrust into her slowly. Gradually, she stripped him of his sense and control, tugging from within him a steady flow of praise and filth in Elvish and Black Speech - promises to treasure her for the rest of his days, to protect her, and to draw from her so many screams each night that all of Mordor would be unable to deny his claim over her.

When she managed to roll her hips beneath him to meet his thrusts, begging him to use her, to ruin her, what could he do but grant his lady's wish?

In a quick movement, he'd repositioned them both so that she was astride his hips. Pulling her arms behind her back and tugging slightly so that her chest was pushed toward him, Adar looked into her eyes.

"If you wish your lord to use you, then move those hips," he ordered. Leaning in, he brushed a few strands of her hair behind her ear and whispered a bit more gently to her. "Ride me, meleth. Show me that I have you."

She obeyed him instantly, finding a steady rhythm which, aided by his fingers toying with her clit, would have her tipping over the edge in mere moments. Indeed, her hips soon stuttered, and he gripped the back of her neck, forcing her eyes to meet his.

"Do not look away. Look at the pleasure I can give you," he commanded, and as she nodded frantically, beginning to fall apart, he felt his heart stutter in his chest. "Yes, look upon the Uruk who loves you."

At that, she sobbed and collided firmly with her orgasm. She fluttered around his length, calling his name in lovelorn whimpers and gasps.

Who needed Valinor when she was its very embodiment?

He released her wrists, and she threw her arms around his neck, claiming his lips with her own. His hands slid down her back, landing squarely on her hips. Holding her steady, Adar thrust up into her, making her yelp in surprise. He needed very little now; he was close.

"Where do you wish me?" Adar breathed against her lips, and he could feel the heat burning her cheeks.

"Inside," she answered hiding her face against his neck, and he moaned against her shoulder. Her name tore from him in an almost pained whine as he spilled within her. He clutched her to him so tightly that he'd undoubtedly left bruises in his wake, but he would kiss them all in apology when they'd caught their breath.

Neither seemed eager to release the other, so in their embrace they remained exploring one another with gentle fingers and loving lips until long after the moon had risen and stars had winked their way into the sky. When he dared to lean back far enough to look into her eyes, Adar was met with love bathed in glittering starlight.

He wondered if he'd hurt her, but the smile stretching her lips said otherwise. The armor piece that she'd made into a necklace still rested upon the smooth expanse of her chest - a perfect accompaniment to his gauntlet upon her arm.

The ride back to camp seemed too short by far, but their bedrolls - which would soon be joined into one - called out to them so sweetly. Adar was used to the bows and deference he received from his children, but he knew in his heart that his decision had been right when upon their return he heard the Uruks repeating a particular phrase as they passed.

His lover had heard part of it before, but now there were a few more words to it.

"What is that they keep saying?" She whispered the question to him, and he couldn't keep himself from smiling proudly. "It sounds familiar, but different."

"'Tis Black Speech. They are saying 'make way for the Lord and Lady of Mordor,'" he answered kissing her temple as they approached their home.

~*~*~

Taglist:

@bigblissandlove1 @horta-in-charge @gandalfthepimp

[mauesartetc]

A while back I got a comment that demonstrated a misconception as to what the character design process actually entails, and I thought it had real "teachable moment" potential. So let me make this perfectly clear:

Drawing a character is NOT the same as designing one.

Let's say I wanted to draw a guy. No backstory, no defined personality traits or preferences, no details about his current life, just doodling some random, generic guy who popped into my head.

That's just a drawing.

But what if I decided to flesh him out more? What if I wanted his appearance to reflect his lifestyle and inner life as well? Here's where the note-taking comes in.

And now for the visual research:

I thought the bodybuilding angle would provide a fun contrast with this guy's profession. The mental image of a huge, burly dude working on a clock or watch with tiny, precise movements just makes me smile. Perhaps I could give him small, nimble hands that would suit his line of work.

Now that I have a better idea of how Mikhail's face and body will look, it's time to establish a pose.

Of course, I never expected to employ all the personality traits I started out with inside this single pose; those were just a jumping-off point. No one drawing will ever be able to encapsulate every single facet of a character, unless they're extraordinarily flat and generic (see also: random guy I doodled at the start of this post). If I wanted to write a story with this guy, I'd have to figure out how all the traits play off each other and how they'd cause him to react to different situations. There would be a lot more note-taking and development involved, but for the sake of keeping this post (somewhat) brief, let's just focus on visuals for now.

On to color!

I decided to give Mikhail a carnation in his pocket (for its round shape), specifically a red one, which represents deep love and an aching heart. Thus, the flower needed to maintain its red color for the symbolism to come through.

For some reason I initially pictured this guy wearing a pink shirt (perhaps as an offshoot of the "romantic" angle), but I wanted to try some different colors inspired by the 70s catalog pages I found. I ended up really liking the contrast of the cool blue shirt with the warm red pants, and that option made it into my top three as a result. I lined them up next to each other to compare them, and in the end, blue won out over pink. I think it also reflects the "colder", more cerebral, less-emotional parts of his personality well (namely "systematic", "stern", and "callous"- one from each column!). Just goes to show that you shouldn't get too attached to your first draft, as better ideas are just around the corner.

I then lightened the blue of the shirt so it wouldn't compete so much with the rest of the outfit, and wouldn't be quite as loud and "in your face". Mikhail strikes me as a bit of an introvert, so the calmer, quieter blue is a better fit. I added a darker belt and watchband and de-saturated the flower just a bit to make the values feel more balanced, and I think we've got it!

Let's see the final result!

Y'all, I was not expecting this process to make me emotional, but there's something special about fully realizing a little guy you've spent hours working on. All of a sudden you look at him and go, "Oh my god, there he is. That's him." This man wasn't even a twinkle in my eye a couple weeks ago and now I'd protect him with my life.

And the thing is, the only reason I'm calling this design "done" for now is that I basically just brought it into existence to make a point. But if this dude were attached to a larger story, he'd be nowhere near finished. I'd have to make a ton more iterations and go a lot more in depth with my research than I did (especially with the Armenian cultural stuff). Overall, though, I hope this quick project properly highlighted the difference between a single drawing and a more fleshed-out character.

Later!

[autismprotocol]

TMAGP Theory Board ( EP 10)

Hi guys sorry for the late post I ended up drawing a lot for this update especially because it's the last one before the hiatus so wanted to give it a little more pizazz :D

What Happened in Episode 10: Saturday Night

Interview with Nigel Dickerson. The inccident report this week was all about Mr Bonzo. If you remember from last episode Nigel is the famous tv personality who created the character of Mr Bonzo. During this interview he recounts the rise and fall of Bonzo while being ominous and on edge the whole time. what I gathered from the interveiw is that Bonzo is either trapping Nigel or Bonzo and Nigel are linked somehow. (when he say "he won't let me leave" and refers to himself as "us") we also learn about the murders that are connected to the Bonzo suit, first by the serial killer Terrance Menki and very recently 3 unsolved murders. Nigel also mentioned that the actors who wore the Bonzo suit would be prone to injuries on set which is also really stange. Could be they were used as Bonzo's victims near his begining

Gwen meets Mr Bonzo. The other section of the episode dealing with Bonzo is when Gwen goes to Nigel's house on her first assignment as the Externals Liason. So turns out Bonzo is maybe a hitman for the OIAR! Also, big thing Mr Bonzo is atually alive and is introduced with some kind of practice almost resembling a ritual. I heard somone mention they think Bonzo is an avatar of the Stranger and I can definitely see this. I'd love to hear if anyone else has a theory for what entity Bonzo may be connected to.

The Return of Colin. Colin isn't dead!! Shocking absolutley everyone Colin is still kicking. a few episodes ago he was sent on mental health leave by Lena after his parnoia caused him to mentally snap. Celia sees him while on break and they have a short convorsation. Colin tells Celia that he need to figure out the computers. also big thing Colin is back without the permission of Lena. It will be interesting to see what hes looking for and if he'll continue to sneak behind Lena's back.

Sam and Alice's Adventures into the Institute. Probaly the biggest development lore-wise was Sams and Alice investigating the ruins of the Magnus Institute. They don't find much (but I'm still am gonna talk about it for awhile) Alice mentions that there were weird carvings in the floor which she later equates to the worms on the ground. If you are a Archives listener hearing about worms in the archives starts seting off all kinds of alarms. This means in this universe the Jane Prentiss attack still happens, which is especcially iteresting because If I'm not mistaken in TMA the worm attack happened spesiffically to mark Jon with the corruption. Was Jon ever part of the institute? or if not Jon there must have been an archivist role in this Magnus Institute that would require Jane to attack it.

ERROR and the Tape Recorders so far in protocol we have been listening to the characters through either the computers or though their phones. But during the last few minutes we here the click of a tape recorder. and TMA fans around the world rejoiced. The magnus archives is entirley told through tape recordings and are a tool used by the web (spesifically the avatar Annabelle Cane) does this mean Annabelle made it to this universe? or it could also signal the presense of Jon (since the tape recorders are linked to him) Alice and Sam investigate the archivist office looking for a place for the key when the floor collapes and Sam drops the key. After some Sam and Alice banter, they leave but the recorder stays running we then hear the scraping sound and some shutterd breathing. This is when I highly suggest going through the transcript after listening to an episode becuase they specifically what were hearing and who is breathing.

I included the snippet from the transcript that pinpoints every not verbal sound we hear

water from the pit under the archives is disturbed

thud on wood then a rattle of a padlock

Key being dragged across the wood then fumbled into a lock that clicks open

trapdoor opens and ERROR imerges

ERROR takes 3 breaths

ERROR has been used before for redacting the roles played by Johnny, Alex and Tim (aka the voices of FR3-d1) during the cast anouncements for protocol. This makes me think that ERROR must be someone from the Archives universe my running theory is that it is a entity that houses Jon, Martin and Jonah's souls or consiounous. but It could literally be anyone. I'm also thinking ERROR has been locked in the tunnels under the archives (Mentioned in TMA)

And thats about Everything! plese let me know your thoughts or if you wanna correct me on any mistakes :)

Also I would love to know if you guys would prefer this style of post where I illustrate moments and scenes from each episode? it would probably delay when I'm able to post the breakdowns but I'd love to know if you guys perfer that format over the less illustrated one.

[readychilledwine]

Crawl Home To Her

Summary - While Ruhn is being tortured by Lydia, his brain starts to force him to escape by replaying memories of the girl he left. Only in each memory, a giant golden thread starts to appear glowing brighter each time.

Warnings - torture, angst, smutish

A/N - I had to get this posted before baby daddy changes this song for me completely. He sings it to our daughter when he's trying to get her to settle in for a nap, he dances to it with her in the kitchen when he's trying to calm her down. It's their song ❤️

Ruhn could barely feel the strikes from the female he had given everything up for. The one he had left her for. His head whipped as pain exploded through his jaw but was quickly numbed as his brain took him somewhere else.

Music blared through the speakers at the house party Bryce's friend was throwing. Ruhn, Dec, and Ithan had agreed to go at the mention of her friend's ability to manipulate plants and how she had managed to grow and harvest a mirthroot strain that made Bryce feel like she was flying. Hunt had rolled his eyes at the mention of her friend. As if there was something they weren't telling the rest of them.

Ruhn smiled as his younger sister ran, squealing to a gorgeous female. Hunt chuckled softly at the look on Ruhn's face. The prince was trailing his eyes over the female's long thick muscled legs, her ass his hands were twitching to squeeze, the small curve of her stomach, her trim waist, her pushed up breasts threatening to spill from the black lacy shirt she was wearing. "I get you like what you're seeing, Ruhn, but I'd appreciate you not drooling over my little sister."

"That's your sister?" Hunt nodded as the female began to wave at him, bright white teeth on display as she smiled. "She got a husband?" Hunt immediately shot Ruhn a tight glare.

"No."

"Does she want one?"

Ruhn groaned as he was thrown back into his cell and curled up on the ground. He knew at least one rib was broken, his jaw burned, he tried to squeeze his hands in silent confirmation of the damage there as well. It was also definitely broken. He willed his mind back to the night he met her.

Ruhn had continued to stare at Bryce's friend as the two girls smoked and talked. He, Declan, and Hunt had only gone over there long enough to steal some mirthroot from the long-haired beauty and then made their way to the couch. Bryce was beginning to fade softly into her friend's chest before fully giving in and leaning into her solely for support.

"Hunt," Ruhn's ears twitched at her voice, it sounded like soft spring rain, "are you and Bryce staying the night?" Hunt barely moved his eyes to acknowledge her or Bryce. Ruhn had rarely seen the Umbra Mortis this fucked up. "Yeah, you're all crashing here." Ruhn watched as she moved Bryce gently up the stairs. A faint silver thread was attached to her. Right at her heart.

Ruhn came back to reality as someone gently touched him. He looked up at the face he'd been drifting off to. A gold thread was attached to her. He reached up to touch her face and felt a sob hit him when his hand went through her like mist. "I'm not physically here, honey. I'm just here Astrally trying to figure out where you are. We're coming, we have some.. interesting help. Hold on okay?" She stroked his bruised face causing another memory to flash into his mind.

Ruhn had grown increasingly close to the female he had met at the house party 6 months ago. She was currently in his lap, their lips attached as his hands roamed the curve of her ass. She pulled away from him and leaned their foreheads together. The two of them were nothing more than friends. At least, that's what he told himself. Friends who almost weekly had very intense make-out sessions to help Ruhn release tension. He stroked her face lightly before pulling her back into him.

The reality of how desperately he wanted her set in once he fisted her hair and pulled it hard enough to make her moan softly. He picked her up and groaned as her muscled thighs wrapped around his waist. He walked her up the stairs of his house and kicked his door shut after they entered the room. He pulled away from her before tossing her gently on the bed.

She watched as he ripped his shirt off and climbed on top of her. "Ruhn," he growled at the sound of his name on her lips, "I've never done anything like this before."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Something about your brother literally being the angel of death kind of scares most people off.." Her face was glowing red with embarrassment.

"He doesn't scare me, kitten. Let me take care of you."

A faint silver thread had become to turn golden as he dove back in to kiss her.

He opened his eyes again and she was gone. He smiled the best he could at the memory of her moans and cries as he pulled her apart piece by piece, igniting his soul, his heart, his mind on fire. But what was that thread? The thread he had noticed twice now.

They came back a few hours later, pulling him by his arms back to the room they had been beating him in for 3 days now. He stared at Lydia. His love for her was gone. It had left him like dust floating off into the wind, unseen and as quickly as it came. The thread connecting them, the one who made him believe they were mates was gone.

She leaned down to look at him and her eyes widened when she realized he held no more love for her. He watched her reach up to touch the ear piece she was wearing before pressing on it lightly to communicate, "The witch broke the spell. We need to move them before she tracks us-" a loud explosion broke through the air. Sparks of black and red magic, her magic, flooding the empty space. Ruhn felt himself slumping over as his vision filled with black spots and lightheadedness set it.

"Did I do something?" Her voice was breaking as he held her at arms length.

"No, just. This just isn't working." His voice was soft as his own heart was breaking.

"There's someone else." He froze as she silently told him what he feared. That she knew. "You promised to never lie to me." She moved away from him. She opened the door to her home and motioned for him to leave. "I'll light a candle for you tonight, Ruhn. I hope your soul finds the peace it needs.."

"Y/n."

"Please go."

Ruhn watched the golden thread appear and flicker, it connected them briefly before smoke and darkness covered it hiding it from his view.

Ruhn came to on a familiar couch, Hunt was laid on the opposite conch with Bryce holding his hand. Ruhn watched him waiting for any sign of life in the other male and released a silent breath as he saw his chest move.

"She's not breathing-" Ithan's voice was distant and panicked as Ruhn fully came to. Ithan and Declan had a figure laid out on the table in the kitchen.

"No fucking shit? I couldn't tell. Bryce! We need help!" He watched in slow motion as Bryce and her red hair ran into the kitchen, three winged males Ruhn didn't know watched the whole scene. One of them turned and looked at him and it was like staring into a mirror. Or at his mom. This male REALLY looked like his mom. They stared at each other as he felt a clawed hand reach into his mind. He immediately grabbed onto it in his mind while glaring at the male.

"Rhys! Help!" The male broke eye contact with him before walking over to the table Bryce was at. Ithan moved over to Ruhn and sat down next to him.

"How ya doing, Rue?" At the sound of the nick name, the name only she called him, he was instantly pulled into another memory.

"Please, Rue," she begged softly below him, "Please don't stop." Ruhn groaned as he wrapped his hand around her throat. He had broken up with Feyra a month ago in favor of Agent Day but constantly found his soul begging for the dark-haired female. The warmth of her cunt welcoming him with each thrust. Her breathy moan and pants were growing louder as her walls began to flutter around him. He reached his arm around her back as she arched off the bed, nails digging into his back.

"You feel so fucking good baby." He kissed the point on her neck that always drove her wild before licking the column. "Need you to cum baby. I need it. Can you let go for me?" She whimpered in response, nodding eagerly. He released his hold on her before pulling her hips to follow him as he sat straight up, he then moved to put one of her legs over his shoulder. Her cock drunk eyes met his, begging for release, begging to be made his fully. "Such a good girl." He whispered before beginning a punishing pace on her already over stimulated body.

Her cries became loud and consistent as the heavy drag of his cock filled her, slamming into her over and over. Ruhn's name began to fall from her swollen lips like a prayer, like he was her God. A faint golden glow started happening between them. It sparkled, breaking through the mist and darkness trying to hide it. "I'm right fucking there pretty girl," he leaned into her pressing his forehead against hers, "come with me. Walk over the ledge with me." She came for him the second he pressed a heated kiss to her lips. He groaned following her over as he leaned his forehead back against hers watching her eyes.

The golden glow had filled the room. It connected them at the heart. It pulsed with excitement and joy.

Ruhn snapped back to reality to yelling voices. Hunt was up at the table now as well. "What the fuck happened?"

"She was using so much magic and she had several of the guards and Lydia showed up . Lydia cast something on her and now it's like her mind is just gone," Bryce's voice fell.

"Y/n, sis come on." Ruhn heard Hunt gently zap his sister, "Are we sure she's there anymore? How long has it been since she responded last?"

"She's there. I can feel her running through something. I can't tell what yet though" a smooth deep voice responded. Ruhn went to move only to get held back by the two winged males. He began to fight against them, scared of who was lying on that table as everything came back to him. "Azriel, Cassian, keep Ruhn away from here." The two nodded as he began to fight against them. Long dark Brunette hair fell over the side of the table as Hunt electrocuted the body.

"Should I colour it?" He watched her in the full-length mirror. "It's just boring." He scoffed before moving to stand behind her and trapping her facing the mirror.

"There is not a single inch of you that's boring. I happen to fucking love your dark hair." He leaned into her kissing her temple, "especially when it's tangled in my fist as I'm fucking you from behind."

"Ruhn!"

He heard the door open, pulling him from the memory, and went into shock as his mom entered the room. "Ruhn!" She froze at the sight of the two males holding him back before covering her mouth with her hand.

"Momma," he sobbed before turning back to the table. Her eyes followed his and she ran over to the table. Her and the unknown male stared at each other as she began to heal the female laying down. Her arm hand had fallen over the ledge and twitched as a deep broken breath filled the air.

"Y/n! Honey, look at me, you need to keep your eyes open, okay? I need you to stay awake, sis. Let me see those eyes, baby," Hunt began pleading. The two winged males had let go of him, the one with scarred hands backing away slowly while looking at his mom. "No. No. No. No. Do not close your fucking eyes. You have to fight, y/n. Think of fucking Ruhn. Of Bryce. Of me. Fight, sis. Fight."

"We're losing her, Rhys." He heard the male chuckle at his mom's soft voice.

"It's funny how you think this is going to get you out of a LONG conversation, Velaris." Who the fuck was Velaris? Why was this Rhys dude calling his mom Velaris.

"I don't think I owe you an explanation. We did what we had to do to keep mom and I alive. That's the end of the story. Heal my son's mate. Or, take your hounds and leave."

Mate. Mate. Mate. The word began to pound into Ruhn's mind as Ithan sat him back down. "Breathe man, you gotta breathe."

He swayed you in your kitchen as the two of them danced to a song that fell far from the normal music Ruhn listened to.

"I love you," he whispered into her hair and froze. He had just dumped her. Why was he doing this? Why couldn't he leave her alone?

"Y/n, fight!" Hunt was screaming at his sister.

She pulled away from him and looked up at him with a tight knit brow. "Then why did you dump me?" Ruhn froze at the question. He looked away from the scene, playing in front of him long enough to see a blooded version of the female he had just confessed his love to.

"NO. NO. NO. YOU FUCKING BITCH. YOU ARE STRONGER THAN HER! FIGHT!" Bryce's cries echoed as she yelled at her best friend. They ripped him from the memory as his head snapped back to the table.

"She's trapped in a void, we can't pull her out. I can't even fully tell if it's a memory void or just darkness with glimpses. Something painful is holding her there." The deep smooth voice caused Ruhn to pause. She's trapped in a void.

"Ruhn, help." Her voice came into his mind. His eyes immediately went over to her, then the radio. "Help me."

He ran over to the radio and speaker system, ripping his phone off the table as he went. The song. He had to find the song. Their song.

"Ithan, you two like the same music. Name that tune. It's a love song, it's soft, it's a male singer. It almost sounds like a hymn in nature?"

"Do you know any of the words?" Frustration hit Ruhn. He had just heard it in his mind. In the memory. Why couldn't he think of a line?

"Something about crawling out of a grave to get back to lover?" The male with scarred hands snorted and laughed darkly from the opposite couch while staring at Ruhn's mother whose face instantly fell in guilt.

"Oh I know what song you're talking about. Like one of the lines is like My baby never fret none bout what my hands and my body done? It's a really good song!" Ruhn's eyes narrowed at Ithan as the young male racked his brain.

"Do you know what it's called?" Hunt yelled from the kitchen as he electrocuted you again, "if I have to fucking shock her system one more she's not going to make it. I swear if you fucking die I will bring you back to kill you myself."

Ithan began humming the song to himself while staring at the bloodied body of the female who had begun helping him heal. "WORK SONG! IT'S CALLED WORK SONG!" Ruhn instantly typed the name into his phone and clicked the first result. Deep humming and clapping filled the air. Her hand twitched again. Ruhn moved to be by her, to hold her hand. Her nose was bleeding, the corners of her mouth were bleeding. She was covered in deep bruising. The tips of her fingers and her nails were still an inky black from letting her raw magic loose. Ruhn took the seat closest to her head and grabbed her hand that had fallen. He slipped back into the memory he knew she was trapped in.

"I don't know why I did. I just. I need to see what happens between Agent Day and I." Ruhn had pulled away from Feyra. She leaned against the kitchen counter while he stood on the opposite side of the room, arms crossed against his chest. He watched himself play with his lip ring as she nodded.

"You mean the female you've never met who SOMEHOW got past your iron clad mental shields?" Ruhn flinched. "The one who showed up after you had been drinking at a party with people you hadn't met before? After Danika suddenly wasn't around to keep an eye on Bryce anymore?"

"You know, you're a fucking ugly person when you aren't getting what you want. You turn into a real spoiled cunt." Ruhn froze as the words left his mouth. He didn't mean them. He'd never mean that. He felt a deep pain radiate in his chest at her free falling tears.

"Get out." The blooded you watched the scene with the same look you had on your face as it was happening. A look of absolute devastation. Ruhn watched himself, His past self's eyes widened as he moved to try to touch you.

"I didn't mean that. I swear I did not mean that. I do not know where that came from."

"Get. Out."

He walked behind his younger self and whispered in his ear, "Stay." He took over the mind of the version of him in the memory.

"No. I'm not leaving." He moved to grab her by her arms and backed her against the counter again. "I didn't mean it, y/n. I have no clue where that came from. I love you. You just heard me say I love you. I did not mean that." The you in the memory was replaced with the bloodied one he knew was dying on the table in reality. "I won't let this be the memory of us you die thinking about. I don't want the last time we saw each other to be the memory of me that wins over everything else."

She didn't respond as tears began to flow. He cupped her face and stroked her cheek. He pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. "I want to worship you," he whispered. "I want to worship your body, your mind, your soul. I want you. I never truly wanted her. It was you. It was always you. It always will be you." He tugged the glittering golden thread. "You're my mate. My first true love. The first girl I brought home to my mom. I love you."

A shattering noise caused the walls of her house to fall apart breaking into little edged pieces around the two high fae. Water took the place of her wooden floors, and the open sky replaced the ceiling.

"Thank you."

A loud sobbing breath broke through the air as y/n shot up clutching her chest in pain. Bryce and Hunt immediately held her while the male Ruhn had just met and his mother picked him up to move him. He was breathing heavily and exhausted from tapping into his magic so soon.

Her inconsistent breathing was slowing down as her lungs began to sing with joy at the increase of oxygen. Tears streamed down her blooded face as Bryce pulled her into her chest. The last few rhythmic claps of the song played in the background.

"Do you need water, sis?" Hunt's voice was soft and gentle. Bryce had already grabbed a water bottle and Hunt began to hold it to her lips.

"Ruhn-"

"Is fine. His wounds were all easy to heal. Drink the water." Ruhn watched as Hunt pulled his little sister into his arms. His cheek rested on the top of her head. "You almost died." She nodded. Her eyes shutting softly.

"The bitch shot me. She fucking shot me."

"I know."

"Ruhn."

"My love."

"I want to stay with you." Ruhn forced himself out of his mom's arms. Hunt moved to allow Ruhn to pull you to his chest. Ruhn slipped his arm under her knees before lifting her. He left the room wordlessly and went up the stairs.

He entered his room and shut the door behind the two of them before sitting on the bed with her in his lap.

"I'm never leaving you again. Do you hear me?" He kissed her temple sealing the promise.

"So tired." Her voice was soft.

"Go to sleep, baby. I'll be here when you wake up."

"I love you." His heart squeezed at how softly she said it. He felt a deep tug in his chest. The mating bond. She tugged the mating bond.

"I love you too." He laid her down before beginning to softly sing in her ear. "When my time comes around, lay me gently in the cold, dark earth. No grave can hold my body down, I'll crawl home to her."

[tntblr-community-official]

[disclaimer, this post is regarding the tntblr tumblr community which you 're more than welcome to join through this link if you haven't already]

[also important pole vote!]

Well, high time to figure out my shit and sort out the community stuff

Alright so first of all, the avatar and header images.

The idea I like the most is switching between pictures each week or month or something like that. On this blog you guys could send in your submissions, and I'd make polls and we can vote. I'll reblog all the posts from here in general so that they're in community, of course. The winner would be credited through an edit to info about the community

Question is, do we do that for both avatar and header? Just avatar? Just header?

If just the header, to adjust for sizing I'd add the psycho-competitive flag in the background, so visible on the sides. The psycho-competitive flag (and thus the current header and avatar) was made by me a while ago - this is the post

I know what one of the more common comments will be, so let me address it already: I don't think it's a good idea to use the iconic tnt duo kissing image. It is my understanding that the original artist has gotten harassed over it in the past, and you can't find it anymore on their Instagram (last time I checked at least). Furthermore, it is someone else's art, so to be able to use it in an official tntblr community I would need the artist's permission, and I just think that it could reinforce that that's something which keeps following them. I don't wanna bring up some shitty memories, so I'm personally against using it in such a public, "official" setting.

Second of all, I will be compiling a proper list of "rules" of the community, and once this poll is done I'll put it up as the official pinned post.

(Btw here's the previous pinned post if you want it)

Also the psycho-competitive flag:

Also I'm not gonna be spamming on here (won't be posting the ask submissions, it's just easier to do it through asks and have it in one place) (might end up doing it through like google forms or something if too many people submit their art anyway) so I'd say it's a good idea to follow this blog and turn on notifications for it if you're in the tntblr community, cause then you won't have to dig through all the other community posts to find updates about the community

[jupitervega]

fleein the south part II

hi, i'm ri & i'm an autistic nonbinary trans guy-lite-ish person. 4 years ago i moved out to denver from mississippi (where i was born & raised) & immediately had a massive improvement in my quality of life. i was able to access medical & psychiatric care, my career stabilized, people were addressin me with correct terms for the most part, & i was startin to feel like life had finally begun

unfortunately when the lease ran out on our house end of summer last year my roommates decided not to renew, & then the people who were gonna be my new roommates backed out last minute. in a panic i looked for other options but with time runnin short & top surgery approachin i decided to recover at a friend's house & move back to mississippi once my surgeon cleared me to travel cross country so i could regroup somewhere i figured would be less expensive & at least somewhat familiar

that, friends, was a very costly & painful mistake! every single problem that made me wanna move away in the first place has only exacerbated!

i'm comin up on 8 months post top surgery, i have a beard, & i'm still gettin called ma'am/she/her. trump flags & signs still adorn many yards/porches here. hatred & bigotry run rampant in local politics. the other day i didn't even enter one of the convenience stores in the town where i live when i stopped by because they had posted a very thinly veiled racist sign on the door

when i arrived back here i was not even a full month outta surgery & i had a minor complication, so i went to the emergency room cause what else was i sposed to do? applied for charity as i had around $100 to my name at that point, which i THINK? got approved? also applied for mississippi medicaid the same day, which got denied almost outright as i have no children. so i've been uninsured since november & rationin the 3 month supply of my psych/migraine meds i received before leavin colorado for goin on 7 months. never mind bein able to access hrt!

job prospects here are Not Great! i've had to collect unemployment for a while as i cannot for the life of me find a full time job with a livin wage. otherwise i literally cannot make ends meet as the jobs i've held so far down here are payin average 50% or less of what i was makin in denver. even with the part time gigs i've had i have yet to crack 30hr/wk on any kind of regular basis

housin is an absolute shitshow. my lease is up 1 july (got a month extension) & i've been searchin everywhere for an affordable place of my own or at least a good roommate. the more affordable studio/1bd apartments go for around $700 & up, but most have income requirements of 2.5-3x the monthly rent which, considerin previous point abt wages, is near impossible. roommate listins are available but the majority are questionable at best & seekin a live-in bangmaid at worst

with all these considerations i spent the past few weeks feelin worse & worse lookin for somewhere close to the job i currently have. the leases are like 6mo-1y so i was picturin another year down here & how i was gonna survive, let alone thrive. my thoughts got darker & darker. i'd wake up in the mornin & be sad/disappointed i'd survived the night

this is no way to live

i snapped a few days ago. said to myself "if i'm destined to struggle wherever i go, i'd rather do it somewhere i actually Wanted to be in the first place" & started applyin for housin in denver. waitin to hear back from my first option & have secured a backup with a friend with a spare room for 6mo in case that falls through

right now i need help gettin the hell out! i've got first month's rent already put back, i can continue to collect unemployment until i land a good job in denver, & i'm already reachin out to find somewhere to work. i just don't have anywhere to go for another month or two to save the money i'll need to travel almost 1200mi (~1900km) back to colorado. i'll need at least $500 to make gas/food happen durin the time it will take me to get there, & i need it by the first of july (38 days from day of postin)

please help me escape!!!

ca: $jupitervega

vmo: jupitervega

ppal

please please please donate whatever you're able! pls boost!

thank u so much for readin, pls have an item from my emergency happy photo folder for yr enjoyment

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

I'd love for you to tell me why Station Eleven wasn't an overhyped waste of my reading time, please?

Ha! I put it on my "best" list because the second time I read it was one of my best reading experiences of the year, largely because it was so pleasant and peaceful compared to my first read when I was lowkey having a panic attack the whole time.* I also charted out some themes and tracked them through the book and, while I don't think I understand it completely, I did reach some conclusions about what it's trying to Say.

The big theme I pieced together is about attending to and finding meaning in good, truth, beauty, and in art, rather than in suffering and death. Health, for the characters, seems to be about forgetting evil you've done and that's been done to you, and learning to dwell on all the good you can find; and unhealth, specifically in Tyler/the Prophet, is in obsessing over your own suffering and the suffering of others, trying to turn that into a rule of life. You can't avoid suffering, but letting it happen to you and still moving forward to build a life of joy is the only way to keep its damage from perpetuating. (Batman resonances? Denial of Batman? Dick Grayson mindset?)

The obsession with light was fun and part of a major point about technology as miracle. I tend to be so aware of the negatives of technology on all sides, so it was nice to be in a space that just appreciated the gifts of air travel, cell phones, electric lights, modern medicine, etc. rather than only seeing the evil consequences. There was also so much going on with home, transit, travel, that resonated with me; after the collapse it's harder to escape embodied reality, and most of the characters find a home in a transit space (either an airport, or the travelling symphony). I like putting myself in that headspace of how would I turn this strange travel setting into a home? What would I do if I could only have the stuff I could carry, in a society where that's true for everyone? (There's a great post I saw a while ago about post-apocalyptic narrative as a reckoning with the underlying fear of homelessness that pervades our society, I think about that a lot.)

I didn't find the whole thing about art/music/celebrity particularly interesting, but it did all feel cozy. I spend so much time mentally in the medieval world, where things worked a lot more like they do in Year Twenty of Station Eleven than like they do now. I guess I really liked seeing characters from our world thrown into that kind of a one, and how they figured it out! Humanity is still humanity, and humans make art. And how much the book wasn't dramatic, life-or-death, adrenaline-high situations, but just the everyday reality of making a life in unfamiliar circumstances (maybe why the creeping dread of it all got me so hard on my first read, cause it feels so much more how ''danger'' does in real life). I guess I often feel kind of alone in reckoning with how different our lives now are from most of our forebears', and while I don't think we can or should go back in most ways, I felt like the characters, and hence other readers, were being made to join me in that! Not being alone in a thought, how lovely.

And there was a lot about the connection between vocation and death, which again felt like a thought I often have that no one else will admit to. Death is so present in the post-collapse world, in a healthier way than ours! And vocation then seems harder but also realer.

*panic attack was not about fear of getting sick or of societal collapse, I think I could have a wonderful post-apocalyptic commune in this town if I survived, but I can't get over the hurdle of my family being just over one tank of gas away from me and how would I communicate with them or reach them in an apocalypse scenario

@dimsilver I also told you I'd convey my thoughts on this, so here, have at it!

[polyamorousmood]

hey! I hope this isn't too non-traditional of a poly situation to be sending in, but this is the only place I think I'll be able to get good advice. As a pre-ask thing, to be clear, my best friend is the love of my life, I am aroace, we're very happily in love.

So, a while ago, we were dating, and it ended pretty quickly bc he came out as aroace. I asked him a lot whether or not that was the full reason he broke up with me and he insisted that it was and if it was going to be anyone it would have been me. I figured out that I was also aroace a couple months later. Recently (about a year after we first met and started dating) he got a boyfriend. I already set a firm boundary of no talking to me about his boyfriend bc it made me have a paranoid breakdown once and I don't want to do that to him, but even just the knowledge of him existing is pissing me off so much. I can't ask him to break up with him because I would never do thst to him and I love him more than anything even if this situation is hurting me like this, but I did recently ask him how the relationship was going with him being aroace, and he said that he isn't really aroace and he just wasn't ready for a relationship with me and thinking about that makes me want to cry. I don't want something romantic with him, I'm very much aroace and very sex and sensuality repulsed, I just hate that this random guy who I don't even know and never will (I don't want to bc I know I'd end up being a dick to him if I did meet him) is somehow more important to him than me, even if he insists thst isn't how it is. Since the situation isn't changing, I really need help with dealing with the jealousy. I've tried a ton of stuff and every single time I think about him I still want to kill him. I really don't know what to do, and my therapist isn't being particularly helpful (she isn't poly tho so she doesn't have experience with weird situations)

Hi. I'm sorry you're having such a hard time with this.

I'm curious how "he got a boyfriend" went down, and why you didn't bring up your concerns about his honestly to him when he was initially talking to you about it. Or if you did, why it still... doesn't seem resolved😬.

Not to put emotions in your mouth, but it sounds like a large proportion (though certainly not all) of your issue here stems from you feeling lied to about the breakup. This would damage anyone's trust and faith in the relationship, and I think having a formal talk about why he handled it the way he did and if that will continue in your refigured relationship will really help you. Maybe he didn't lie, maybe he was genuinely confused (for example, "if I can't make a relationship work with this person I feel a deep connection with, I must be aroace!" [one year later] "yo wtf I wanna fuck this other person?")! I think you should acknowledge -- with him, if possible -- that hurt. You feel like you want to cry? So cry. Giving the feeling full expression makes it easier to work through (and the only way out is through, darling).

Be prepared to explain why it hurts so much. The betrayal, your assumption that since he was aroace y'all were on the same page and he'd functionally be your life partner, or whatever the fuck.

Aside from the advice in this post (please read it in full📖, it is all applicable here), you have a LOT of legwork🦵 to do in unpacking and deconstructing your feelings. I think this worksheet outlines how to do that well (though, you know, tweak the wording in your head, because its aimed at a more traditional romance). If done right, it will be difficult and time consuming⌛. I recommend working through the worksheet slowly, in at least two separate sessions an hour or longer each. 'Cause shit takes time to sink in. In fact, you will have to remind yourself of the things you learn doing it for weeks to come, if not longer, so don't be afraid to revisit it! There is no shortcut, but I hope you and your best friend can be on the same page and you can have support while you navigate it.

Remember, the boyfriend didn't do anything wrong. He cares about this guy you care about. Try to see him as an extra support for him, rather than competition.

Good luck out there, space cowboy. There is hope 💛 <- its a yellow heart for friendship, get it?

[squarebracketsmileyface]

I literally am obsessed with everything about them. Do not worry about getting distracted and such and ranting about these beautiful characters.

Also it would not be polyhornets because Alex is not involved, it would be Bram!

I LOVE THIS LITTLE FAMILY!! I LOVE THE ADDITION OF JESSE!!!! I LOVE THEMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!! Those are wonderful names btw!!!! I'm tempted to give you the names of what my (Previously mentioned friend now partner lmao) named the Jam twins we made cause there is a similar naming scheme there. But also, the twins are on the internet somewhere and if you found out who I am I think I would have to hide away forever.... But still... It tempts me......... Maybe one day!

~💜

Ah thank you, Bram. I'm really bad at figuring out the ship names for these guys lol. I expect them to get longer the more people are included, and then its four letters and I'm like... huh.

Anyway, I am also obsessed. I fucking love these characters so much, thinking about the kinda post MH story for them is so special to me. I'm SO glad you like the names. I love them. I think they're so cute. And now I'm really curious what names you guys game the twins, like how similar are the names, if the naming convention itself is similar?

You don't have to tell me, obviously, but I do wonder.

I remembered more about the post MH storyline that me and my boyfriend talked about AGES ago (before I'd decided that Tim and Brian would have another kid, and before that kid was named Jesse after Jessica), which was specifically about the 'canon' way that this story goes (not the 'everyone lives' AU). Because it ended up being that like, Tim did end up getting back in touch with Jessica because she and Taylor had a kid who ended up in the same school as Birdie did I think? (small fucking world huh 💀 everyone's turning up at this damn school).

Anyway Jessica was like, picking her kid up from school and she saw Tim while he was waiting in the playground, and just kinda sidled up to him to see if it actually was, and like, sure the conversation was a bit awkward, but it was still nice. (I know Jessica doesn't remember MH in the comics but she does here, just like she has a kid here, and isn't being actively fucked with by the operator and skully lol)

Anyway, then Birdie came out of class and over to Tim, and Jessica had this little moment looking at her where she was like "god this kid looks just like Jay" and she doesn't get a chance to ask Tim about it, because then her own kid is coming out of class and they have to rush off to get to his after school club or whatever, but the next day when she sees Tim again, Jessica just quietly asks if Birdie is both Tim's and Jay's, and Tim gets like, really quiet and just gives her a tight little nod and that's the end of the conversation.

But like, over the next term or two, they slowly talk more and eventually Tim admits that Jay died at the end of MH and that he lied about it to Jessica back then because he thought it was the right thing to do. They become good friends though, and they take their kids to the part together and stuff, so Birdie has a "cousin" in Jessica's kid who she becomes fast friends with, and their little family grows. Because like, yeah they have Brian's family, but they don't get to see them super often.

Side note, Brian having a very big, very lovely family is a huge HC for my boyfriend and I. We have a whole cowboy/wild west au that ended up accidentally revolving around Brian having a huge family who are just, really really accepting of queerness. Like, Jay was a trans guy, Alex was a trans girl, Tim and Brian were gay/bi etc, and the four of them were poly, and brians mum was just like, cool, can one of you PLEASE go wrangle the younger kids for dinner??? It's great. She also makes Alex her first dress, and teaches her 'how to be a woman', like, sewing, cooking, all the stuff a lady in the 1800's wild west would need to know.

I love that woman. She's the best character in that whole AU. She treated Tim like one of her own sons because he and Brian had been friends since they were kids, except Tim was CLEARLY her favourite and she was an absolute menace (affectionately) to Brian, who was the oldest or one of the oldest out of, like, 7 or 8 kids I think.

Best au ever lol.

SPEAKING OF BRIAN ACTUALLY, you wanna know one of the ideas I went through before settling on Brian showing up as a teacher at Birdies school? I'm gonna tell you anyway so please nod.

At first, I was gonna have it so that Tim and Brian only met each other again when they were both in, like, their late fifties to early sixties. Like, Birdie would be all grown up and living with her wife (oh yeah Birdie's a lesbian and ends up with a wife) and one day Tim and Brian just, run into each other, and it takes them both a moment to place where the hell they recognised each other from, but eventually they do, and just like in 'canon' S,IL they both have a big crying reunion about it. And then it was just them being old men falling in love with each other all over again, y'know?

It was SUCH a cute idea. It was so fucking cute. I still love it.

[sims3fiend]

Sims 3 performance tweaks

OLD OLD OLD OLD OLD OLD OLD OLD

GO HERE INSTEAD THANKS BYE

Updated 24/11/23 - RIP DXVK 😭for now

Updated 12/10/23 :) - added some more details, including important info about ObjectSizeCullFactor, which could be the holy grail for potato PCs. Also updated the linked files.

I figured I'd make a proper blog post instead of just random scattered discord posts. Here are some of the things I've done to improve my sims 3 performance, and (mostly) remove stuttering, as well as some stuff to increase the graphics quality. I don't know how accurate any of this is, but it's helped my game a lot  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Please note that I have a 2070, and I would recommend having >2gb for your GPU if using these tweaks (and just in general). While these settings and tweaks might help you if you're on an older card, I have no way of really checking that.

This guide is mostly focused on reducing stutter, with a few tips thrown in for reducing memory usage for the girlies with the large luxurious games and Error 12 problems.

Stutter?

Stutter (or frame drops) are sadly a part of the sims 3, th-e-y're th-e frequ-ent hitches where the game "freezes" for a second, often when moving the camera.

The main tweaks will help reduce stuttering while the game is paused, sadly while playing the game, you're still gunna chug along. Object and sim loading/unloading/displaying/hiding causes a large amount of the stutter, so unless you have an older computer, most of the graphics settings aren't going to help you, but will (in a few cases) help with reducing memory usage.

If you'd like to try this out, there's the (top secret super hidden) config value prop $ConfigGroup ForceHighLODObjects 1, which forces everything to high LOD, which should make the game overall a whole lot smoother both paused and unpaused (high detail lots will still lag it when loading tho) compared to the default settings. Just add a new line under one of the settings fields with it in. Do not use this in your normal gameplay unless playing in a small map, as it greatly increases memory usage. Looks real pretty though.

!!THESE CHANGES SHOULD BE MADE ON TOP OF A GraphicsRules.SRG FILE THAT SUPPORTS YOUR GRAPHICS CARD!!

Either download one that has been updated, update it yourself, or use the tool. No longer providing my own but might in the future.

Main Performance Tweak - LODs

The main setting that helped alleviate most stuttering for me was RenderSimLODDistances in the GraphicsRules.srg file (\The Sims 3\Game\Bin). Essentially we change it to load the low quality LOD models from muuuch further.

prop $ConfigGroup RenderSimLODDistances "70, 70, 9999999, 9999999"

The values for this are highres lot distance, highres world distance, low lot, low world. In an ideal world we would be able to max out high res, but due to how the culling works, that just increases stuttering. I would also recommend turning off ForceActiveLotObjectsToHighLOD if you're using high detail lots > 1, and MinSimLOD to 0

I recommend tweaking the highres values if you get lag when zooming in.

For more memory

I would HIGHLY recommend dropping ActiveLODLimit and ObjectSizeCullFactor, as they are a much better way of reducing loaded in assets. You can be fairly ruthless with them, I recommend dropping ObjectSizeCullFactor down to <75~, and ActiveLODLimit (dunno if this actually does anything) the same (too low and the game will never load). Raise it up if you're noticing pop-in. IIRC your household lot loads everything regardless(?)

If you're frequently running into Error 12, or playing large households, I, sadly, recommend keeping "Max Detail Lots" at 1. I would also recommend DropTexMipsOnLoad = 0 (shouldn't help but it does), and maybe tweaking some of the texture sizes to lower res, depending on your preferences (a lot get crushed anyway). Other options like culling and LOD distances have basically no impact on overall memory use and are safe to increase. Make sure you're also using my memory notifier/freer thing too ;^)

Graphics

Things that didn't have any/much of a performance impact but make the game look better (in my opinion)

Clip planes

Bane of my existence

prop $ConfigGroup ClipPlaneMapViewDistances "1.0, 12000.0" This is basically how far you can see, I recommend raising this, as I noticed 0 performance hit at all, and I like to be able to see the pretty maps (You'd be surprised at how good some look!). Some maps look a little scuffed with it maxed out, or have seams, however this can be reduced with…

Fog

FogDistances I have mine set to FogDistances "300, 600, 3000, 8000" and FogCurveModifier "9, 1" This is personal preference, and I'd recommend playing around with it to find something that works for your world and clip distance. Neither options have any noticeable performance impact for me (objects still load regardless of clip/fog distance).

AllowImpostorUnload no clue what this does, I set it to false

Trees

Max em out

setting $VeryHigh prop $ConfigGroup RenderTreeLargeLODDistances "-100, 999999, 10, 3300" prop $ConfigGroup RenderTreeSmallLODDistances "-100, 999999, 10, 3300" prop $ConfigGroup RenderTreeShrubLODDistances "-100, 999999, 10, 3300" prop $ConfigGroup RenderTreeGroundLODDistances "-100, 999999, 10, 3300"

There's no real reason not to. You could change the values so it loads the low(er) res ones further away and then higher ones in after, but the performance hit was nothing for me. Having all the trees there looks reaaaallllyy nice on some towns.

Random other tweaks

Things I changed from default ShadowMapSize 4096 - I think this does something??? 🤷

prop $ConfigGroup TextureSizeThreshold 4096 prop $ConfigGroup RttSizeSmall 1024 prop $ConfigGroup RttSizeLarge 2048

these don't really have any impact, but in my mind it makes sense to increase them

DXVK and dxwrapper

!!!! THIS MIGHT NOT WORK FOR EA LAUNCHER IDK !!!

UPDATE: I no longer recommend DXVK due to it increasing overall memory usage, having said that, dxwrapper is still very nice, I'd recommend using it over LazyDuchess's ASI loader. Keeping this here down the bottom just in case.

If you are using dxvk, I use(d) dxvk-async but you should be fine to use the main repo. On top of this I use dxwrapper for the exception handling features.

One thing you'll have to keep in mind is Your Options.ini file will need to be remade if using dxvk since it looks like you've installed a new GPU.

To install, just shove the right dll's into your \The Sims 3\Game\Bin folder - d3d9.dll for dxvk, everything from dxwrapper and the ddraw.dll from its Stubs folder. If you're using Smooth Patch, which you should be, it's okay to delete the ddraw provided with it, as dxwrapper can do .asi plugin loading itself (LoadPlugins = 1 in ini). You should see a few new files pop up when you launch the game if installed correctly, dxwrapper.log and TS3W.dxvk-cache

If you're using reshade, rename the reshade dll to dxgi.dll

depth buffer might not work, I'm not 100% sure, so keep that in mind

[tiikerikani]

Enough is enough

I've been in an insomnia death spiral for a while, and it is REALLY BAD right now. I sometimes say that I wish days were 28 hours long so I can fit everything in, but at the moment I'm thinking I need 32-hour days, if not longer. My brain is flat-out nope-ing out of work and it is even more exhausting trying to goad myself into doing it.

It was Senpai's birthday a couple of weekends ago, and while I'd already delivered my greeting (and a small pencil sketch) to him at the book launch, I also wanted to do something meaningful for the occasion, and I think that he would have been 100% behind me doing this:

I dug out the post-it note on which the one psychiatrist at the beginning of the panini, who had actually listened to me (see footnote 4), gave me the name of a place that does neuropsychological testing in English, and I emailed them. So I'll be having a consultation with one of their clinicians next week to get that process started.

Back then I'd balked at the price (and it was quite out of my budget at the time, almost a months' rent), and it still is a LOT of money (with the various followups and formal diagnosis from a psychiatrist and so on it will definitely be more than that especially when I don't have the health insurance that Old Job had provided), but I am in a bit better situation financially now.

I wrote "actually listened to me" in paragraph 3 because every other psychiatrist I talked to since then had been incredibly dismissive of my experiences. It's especially frustrating when you pour yourself out to them, about how so many of your eccentricities and the traumas of your childhood suddenly make sense when considered in light of what we now know about (inattentive) ADHD, and they tell you to your face that no, you don't have it, go take a nap. One doctor at least gave me an official referral to psychotherapy but I didn't use it because 1) you're on your own to find a therapist (good luck, lol), 2) you have to pay for most of it anyway, and 3) it's not going to be effective if it doesn't address the root cause(s) behind that trauma.

On further reflection, I now realize that these "death spirals" were not ordinary burnouts (if that can even be a thing) but specifically ADHD burnouts, so it's even more imperative that I get to the truth at the bottom of this. It can very well be that I'm too damn tired for tests to properly show my baseline, but structured cognitive/behavioral/whatever tests will have some kind of rubric and maybe even quantitative measurements so it will be less about how they feel about what I tell them about myself but what the scores say about it.

But what's more, I now have copies of the figurative receipts. When I was visiting my parents last year I made scans of all my old report cards and other school records (that Mom meticulously organized and kept). Not every single page but those with grades or teacher/parent comments on. I don't really have any interest in reading through them myself. Some of the criticisms areas for improvement my teachers had for me are still etched in my mind 30 years later, because I couldn't "fix" them then (and not for lack of trying) nor really understand why I should (be like normal people), and still can't and don't. I will not enumerate them here.

_________

TL;DR:

I don't care what it costs (a lot) but I am (finally) getting my damn brain tested for ADHD because I can't manage it on my own anymore while pretending to the world (and the world trying to tell me) that my problems have nothing to do with it.

[elf-simp]

With the advent of the benchmark and the information that's given us in way of textures, models, and materials: This is going to be the final experiment with this specific body texture before Dawntrail. If I can help it I'm going to be directing my efforts to making a new texture entirely, hopefully one that's completely custom made.

Fullbody + Kinda shitty closeup under cut lol (also very scattered and chaotic exposition)

So why this design? Well the short answer is that Seiei is a monster/demon. Even in early drafts of her lore she fell to corruption and had her entire being changed irrevocably.

The long answer is given both the nature of her being, her past, and the area she lived in I wanted to try and draw upon specific themes she has when designing this more beastial form to get a more truly finalized picture of this character.

The biggest themes being Corvids, Emotions (namely rage), Tengu, and the final player that spurred the decision to add scales: Alatreon (yes, from monster hunter). Going in reverse order to explain starting with Alatreon; it was the final piece of the puzzle as every aspect of it fits Seiei nearly to a T with a short blurb of it stating: "Known as a symbol of destruction, people fear even uttering its name. It’s rumored to control all of the elements, but most, if not all, records of its existence have been burned." Going hand in hand with much of what is stated in this writing I posted a while ago. This on top of the fact that when fighting, Alatreon is inherently chaotic and easily enraged, much like Seiei.//

Given the area that Seiei is from—that being Doma—Tengu seemed to fit the bill as well. The decision to include this only reinforced by Swallows Compass.

There is significantly more to unpack here than with Alatreon as well as some still loose ends but the main reasons Tengu play into her design are because they are often depicted as yokai, sometimes even 'evil spirits.' In art and media they are portrayed very commonly with avian characteristics which ties into the whole Corvid thing. I could very well argue that the evolution from Corvids to Tengu is due to her corruption twisting that aspect of her into something monstrous. Oh and the big nose...

But more than that there, are a few stories that portray Tengu as legendary martialists that can employ extremely powerful and dangerous magics, which Seiei has in the form of her prior kenjutsu training and "black smoke". And yes, keeping with typical depictions, she does also have a feather fan, but I'm not sure I've really ever posted her with it.//

Emotions, specifically rage, was the baseline theming for her when I was drafting up her original lore (that needs heavy refinement now but I'll worry about that later). As one might guess this also hooks into 'Dynamis'. You see; Seiei was created shortly after I'd finished Endwalkers MSQ and the idea of "Dynamis" was still fresh in my head. Specifically it's observed ability to spiral out of control (much like real emotion) and create horrid abominations that the people of etheirys do not understand (Much like how rage causes people to do things they otherwise wouldn't with no sound logic behind it).

I'd never been invested in FF's magic system until this point either as it seemed very straight forward and bland to me even with astral and umbral alignments. But with the introduction of Dynamis as the sort of 'antithesis' to Aether I was locked in. My mind had interpreted it as a sort of matter vs anti-matter type of deal given that where one is abundant the other is near absent and they do not generally play well together, so naturally I wanted to try and explore that avenue more.

It was difficult trying to figure out how to get a character to reasonably function with Dynamis at first, especially with her lore being from pre-arr. However, if you know about "The Burn" and it's alleged lack of Aether, one needn't stretch very far to see how Dynamis could have affected Seiei. Or really any character from Othard. I'd love to do a real deep-dive into this at some point but for now you get my very scattered and very raw exposition.

As a sorta related aside, this was all thought up during a very difficult time in my life. So in a way this character started out as 'vent art' to release pent up emotion.//

Anyone who's been around a while knows Seiei's original last name was 'Warcrow'. When I'd made the character at first this had literally zero meaning outside of "I like bird :) " but as time went on I started to see where it could fit.

Without going into an insane amount of detail though because I'm sleepy: The crow motif is more closely tied to her adoptive father (The bunny man) who was exceptionally clever and tricky much like crows are. However, when he had passed our Seiei inherited much of what made him who he was and subsequently twisted it (cannot emphasis enough how much I love corruption). As a result for our Seiei, the meaning of crows is no longer relates to their intelligence or trickery but their more superstitious interpretations of approaching disaster and death. Also because I like the bird and it goes hand in hand with the Tengu thing lol.//

Also:

[vile-wizard]

Kay!!!! Dashes into here!!!! Does Kay have any original characters that he loves dearly I would LOVE to hear about them ✨💫💫 Or any current blorbos!! That would also be lovely hehe <33

This is a very difficult ask to answer because there's years of information to tell. I used to play a lot of TTRPGs and on top of making my player character I'd make their friends and enemies and parents and coworkers etc etc etc. I've got some old art of my old OCs floating around in my drawing posting tag. I've also mentioned Jethro here. I also have Tumblr blogs for a lot of them just sitting around gathering dust...

It's a little hard for me to think about Jethro now bc the campaign he was in fell apart but he's still my special little guy. Here are some drawings I did of him from HS, College and current (He's 27 but he acts like a grandpa. It doesn't help that he starts greying VERY early.) As you can see he liked horror films and theatre. Also he is Transgender. Just thought I should mention that.

His whole deal was that he's a Private Investigator looking for his Dad who went missing several years ago. His dad was a PI who did a bunch of dangerous magical cases (did I mention this is a magical world) and Jethro is trying desperately to follow in his footsteps. Jethro has questionable social skills but he watched a ton of movies growing up so he's molded himself after those old timey noire detectives.

At the start of the campaign Jethro is living in his dad's old office (don't worry there's a bathroom attachment). He's making some money taking financial and insurance fraud cases on a freelance basis and..... Well....here are my notes actually:

(His dad and mom were tragically separated before his birth and then his mom got sick but 12 year old Jethro used his burgeoning detective skills and the power of library internet access to find his dad and take a Greyhound bus him)

Anyway. In the campaign the town of Portage (and most of the world) is overrun by Magical Mutated Monsters called Slashers. No one knows how they form or what causes the mutations. There's a science research team looking into it but they keep going missing. Jethro's first task was to find out what happened to one of the missing researchers.

The game was kind of separated into arcs where Jethro and his ragtag team of misfit friends would fight a slasher all while trying to figure out the Truth behind what's going on. Jethro's character build (this game is Urban Shadows btw) is called The Sworn and it basically means he's a fighter for a kind of God. Because this is a horror game the God type thing that Jethro is affiliated with is called The Chorus the Angel of War, Justice, Revenge and Protection. It talks to him sparingly through other things. Fortunately I wrote a disco elysium style thing about Jethro's first interaction with it after his first fight with a Slasher:

Anyway, he starts hearing Voices and despite his Catholic upbringing he's still more than a little freaked by it especially since they're telling him to avenge the dead and stuff. There are more gods in the same and I made a Pinterest for them here. Jethro questions his sanity, humanity and has general existential dread about the whole thing. It's kinda an issue for him because he ALSO experiences hallucinations due to his poor life choices. He self medicates with a variety of sleeping pills throughout the game, something that his friends can't really do anything about because they've all got their own traumas (horror game).

Sorry there's a lot of stuff here and I'm getting ahead of myself. Uhhh personality wise Jethro is very altruistic and sometimes stupidly kind but he also has a deep rooted hero complex. He keeps things to himself and wants to handle matters on his own, which causes a lot of issues.

TLDR; I have so so so so many original characters and there's too much to say. I'm also running out of time to write this because I have a stupid timer on to limit my Tumblr usage lmao BUT YEAH. There's so much thanks for asking

[coockie8]

Wait what? Girl what happened? Do you mind talking about it? We could go to dms if you'd like cause I've never seen Anything on that

It's pretty public, like at least two posts about it will come up if you search my username (unless you already have these people blocked, or vice versa), so we don't have to go to DMs, but this will be long, so I'm gonna put it under a Keep Reading.

About 3-4 years ago on the original variation of my Dark Ace ask blog @red-eyed-raven, a user whose username I can't remember (who will from here on out be referred to as A), and won't share anyway because despite what they did, I don't think they deserve to be harassed, started interacting with Dark Ace, and chatting with me a bit.

We moved over to discord to engage a bit of a more personal relationship (a decision I will rapidly come to regret), they realised that I was coockie8, and briefly gushed about how they'd been a fan of my art for a while. I joined their discord server, I had a (deeply uncomfortable due to my anxiety) voice call with them, and I'd even given them the (real life) name I'd been going by at the time.

On the ask blog, there was also another user (who we'll refer to as B) I'd been kinda low key roleplaying with (who I also moved over to discord with at a point), and the roleplay did get sorta spicy in spots (by "spicy" I mean Dark Ace suggested showering with this person's character at one point). Now, I will admit B had "high school student" written in their bio, but as someone who was in high school until their literal 20's, that didn't actually give me any indication of their age. Given the usually spicy content on the blog, I figured they were 18+. I am fully willing to admit I made a mistake here; I should not have made assumptions.

Anyway, at some point I noticed that I'd been removed from the discord, and when I asked A, who was the server owner, about it, I was told they didn't approve of the dark content I was writing with a friend who was running a Lightning Strike blog at the time, and they'd rather I not be in the server, and I took that in stride, blocked A so they wouldn't be forced to interact with me in any way, and moved on. Prior to this, the Lightning Strike blog in question had received a nasty anon accusing them of romanticizing abuse because of the "stockholm-ish" nature of the way we were portraying Dark Ace and Lightning Strike's relationship.

After a few days of Dark Ace not getting interactions from A, someone asked if something had happened, and I explained A wasn't comfortable with the kind of dark topics I cover (understandable), and that, in retrospect, they might have even been who'd sent that nasty anon to my friend.

This was the catalyst. A wasn't blocked from @red-eyed-raven, so they saw the ask andhad a full blown meltdown over me just suggesting that they might have sent that anon hate.

It was at this point A started hunting me down on other accounts, taking screenshots of any art they found objectionable (including a picture I'd drawn at 14 of Aerrow getting raped by Mr. Moss) and poured all of it into a callout post accusing me of being a pedophile and a groomer, and called me a "backstabber" for hiding this from them (if you've been following me for any amount of time, you know I don't hide this). They posted (poorly censored) art they fully considered to be "child porn" Gods I hate that term publicly for all of their followers to see. But I was, somehow, the only one committing a crime in their mind. I don't know.

I don't need to explain where the "pedophile" part comes from; these people believe a cartoon character assigned the narrative trait of a number below 18 is the exact same thing as a real, living, breathing 14-year-old. As a CSA survivor, this grinds my gears for obvious reasons.

The "groomer" part was over the barely spicy RP with B, as well as the fact I'd admitted to them that the police had seen my "objectionable art" in the past and did nothing (this part is crucial, at least to me, 'cause there's at least 1 user who's been trying to claim I've been convicted. I have not. I have no record. They're lying.), because drawings are not the same thing as hurting a real person, and there's literally nothing wrong with creating dark and taboo art. The act of stating this objective fact (that art is not real life) is, apparently, "grooming", I guess.

A couple more "callout" posts were made, rife with all the same misinformation, and I left the fandom for a year. Upon tentatively returning about a year later, I immediately got attacked by these people, and promptly shut down for a while until I'd established myself in the proship community, and didn't feel so isolated anymore. This is when I fully returned, and it's taken at least 2 years for me to stop drowning in anxiety every time I hyperfixate on this show.

So yeah, that's the gist. I know it's long, sorry.

[xxwritemeastoryxx]

Updates and Announcements

Wow I haven't done one of these in a while so I think it might be best to do one, right?

First and foremost, welcome to the new followers! I haven't had a chance to welcome you guys in some time. But I appreciate you being here! I hope that whatever it was that helped you to decide that I was worth following continues to happen!

Lets talk about a few things. Remember when I said I was going to move all of my 18+ work over to an after dark page? Well that happened forever ago and I NEVER posted on it again. I made pretty banners and everything for my masterlist and nothing came from it. SO after thinking long and hard about it, I will be deleting that blog altogether and moving everything back over here.

But Dom, what about the Minors that follow you? You see, I thought about it. I thought about just deleting the few fics I have and just moving on, but that feels like a lot like book burning and I'd rather not. So while I can put up several warnings and tag the living crap out of that fic, I can't stop them from ignoring all that.

But to ease my conscious a bit, here are some tags that I'll be using for all things of age. #babies not included #18+ #Dom's trash If you are currently under age, I'd greatly appreciate you adding these to your filters! Thanks!

With that being said, fics like Business or Pleasure and What the Future Holds will be added to the Masterlist here. BoP was simply linked to the afterdark page and thankfully I don't have to repost that. Cause I would absolutely hate to lose all those notes. What the Future Holds will need to be reposted since I'll be deleting the blog it's currently attached to.

I'll be adding a legend to my masterlists. That way it's a little easier to figure out what's what before clicking on them. I used to do this in the very beginning but somehow managed to stop. So that will be starting back up again.

Let's talk fics, next! In case you haven't noticed, some fics have a '-discontinued-' notice right next to it. For the time being, I will NOT be completing those fics. Its not that I don't want to finish them-especially with some close to the end-its just i have no motivation to finish them. Maybe one day I will come back to them. ALSO! SEQUELS! Many requests and comments have been about sequels. Second parts don't always get the same attention as the first. I've been so grateful that Phantom has been getting as much interaction as it has been. But that's because of all of the interactions it had been getting. So what I'm getting at is that I won't be continuing a fic if the interaction is low on it. I'm always happy to make a second part of something, so long as its getting notes. So be sure to interact with your favorites if you want to see it get a second part to it.

Interest Posts will be happening at some point again. I of course want you guys to be enjoying the things I post. I know there has been some notice that I've fully been focusing on Phantom a lot more than anything else. It honestly goes back to the interaction it is getting that is fueling my writing muse for it. So again, be sure to interact with the fics you like.

Remember These Violent Delights? As much as I loved Adriana, she didn't seem to be accepted here on tumblr like I hoped she would and I had eventually taken down that series. So now I wanna give that series another shot as a reader insert. I've been working on it a bit behind the scenes and I hope that this fic will have a better comeback as a reader insert than an OC. Posting dates for that will come soon!

Requests are OPEN! So send in those requests! Incase you need a reminder on who and what I write for, here is a quick list!

Fandoms: The Vampire Diaries Universe Marvel Cinematic Universe

Characters I write for: Elijah Mikaelson * Klaus Mikaelson Kol Mikaelson Damon Salvatore Jackson Kenner Tony Stark Loki Steve Rogers Bucky Barnes* I can write for others if the inspiration is there as well! *Indicates most read/requested fics, along with a larger quantity of fics available to read

I believe that is all I have for now. If you stuck around this long, Thank you so much for doing so and I look forward to interacting more with you guys!