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fawnandshadows · 3 years

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You Painted Me Golden Chapter 10

Summary: Elain enters her reputation era. This chapter contains: Skinny dipping, late night rambling, and a return to Velaris. This story is also available on AO3.

Chapter 9 —— Chapter 11

Word Count: 9.1K

Rating: 18+*

Warnings: Language, Smut, and a traumatic past.

Chapter 10 — Delicate... Part 2

Is It Too Soon To Do This Yet?

“Would anyone like to go to the market with me?” Enid asked after breakfast.

Elain went to gather the dirty plates, but Azriel had beaten her to it. At least she had been able to make everyone eggs and potatoes for breakfast, but it felt wrong to be waited on by Enid and Azriel. Everything inside of her told her that she should be helping, but all of her attempts were brushed off, and the only way that she had managed to help with breakfast was because she was the first one awake.

Azriel snuck out of his room when he heard her pattering around in the kitchen. He fried up the bacon and made the coffee while Elain was chopping onions for their breakfast. The entire time they were cooking Elain had a blush on her face from their antics the night before, and while she was focused on slicing the onion she felt Azriel sidle up behind her and place a steaming mug of coffee on the counter in front of her.

“I figured you might need it after last night.” He whispered into her ear while his hand came up to lay on her waist. Azriel waited a beat, as if contemplating his next actions, and wrapped both of his arms around her waist to pull her back into him. His arms settled along the soft roundness of her belly and his chin rested her golden hair. Elain felt the butterflies start to wake up in her stomach at the affection — She knew it didn’t come easy to him, casual touching, but the fact that he took everything opportunity to touch her, to savor the feel of her skin or the press of her lips, made her heart jump into her throat.

Elain set down the knife, leaned into his weight, and picked up her coffee.

She felt ten pounds lighter falling into him, releasing all of her worries and anxieties and just enjoying this quiet moment with him. Her eyelids fell shut as she sipped at her drink. The warmth of his body seeped through the oversized cotton shirt that she was wearing, and Elain wished that every morning could be spent like this — in the arms of the male she loved.

“I should have known that the legendary spymaster would find a way into my room,” Elain muttered around the lip of her mug, and a dark chuckled rumbled deep through Azriel's chest. A chuckle that resonated throughout her body and caused heat to start churning deep within her. His fingers tugged her closer, digging a little deeper into her softness, and Elain knew that it would only flatter his male ego, but, well, he deserved it. “Maybe — maybe tonight we could just share a room?”

Azriel blinked at her.

“You’ve changed your mind?” Azriel asked and Elain nervously bit her lip.

“Not really,” She admitted, offering Azriel a sip of her coffee. “But that didn’t stop me from… indulging last night, and while I was comfortable I still missed you,” She watched as he brought the mug to his mouth and missed the weight and warmth of his hand on her. “I figured that if sleeping in separate rooms didn’t stop us from making love, then we might as well just share a bed. That way I’ll be able to cuddle with you, too.”

Hazel eyes stared at her face, and Elain could see him trying to puzzle something out in his head.

Her eyes fell to where his teeth bit his lip. A lip that Elain had only recently become acquainted with. A lip that Elain wanted to take between her own teeth and work until it was red and plump, just so she could soothe it with her tongue.

“I’m sorry.” Azriel said, which caused Elain to jerk in surprise.

“Whatever for?” Elain asked and settled back into his chest.

“I should have respected your wishes last night. I knew it made you uncomfortable to sleep in the same room, and I should have honored your request instead of looking for a loophole. And while I will never apologize for making love to you,” Elain blushed at his words, remembering just how wantonly she had responded to his shadows. “I am sorry for putting you in a position you weren’t totally comfortable with.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Elain said gently, but for some reason her heart was pounding in her chest. “I liked it and I wanted it and it’s something that I will never forget. I realize that it's rather old fashioned of me, but,” She shrugged, her shirt slipping off of her shoulder. “It’s just who I am, even if some people think I’m boring,” A dark smile played at Azriel’s lips. “What?”

He grinned at her— a slow grin that curved and indented his cheeks. It was way too early in the morning for that grin, the grin that made her knees wobble and stomach flop.

“You take three of my shadows effortlessly, enthusiastically,” Azriel said and Elain felt her blush spread over her entire body. “The word boring should never be used to describe you, Elain Archeron,” He kissed her forehead. “Just so you know, I never thought you were boring. You intrigued me from the first moment we met; I thought you were the most beautiful woman in the world, and even then I knew you had thorns when you were ready to stab Cassian with a fork.”

They grinned at each other like two idiots at the mention of the fork.

They only looked away when they heard Enid walking down the steps, her feet unnecessarily loud.

She hollered and unnecessarily loud, “Good morning!” before the three of them settled into polite conversation, ignoring the linger scent of arousal in the air.

—

“I’m going to show Elain the pool today.” Azriel said, his hip leaning against the wooden counter as he watched his shadows clean up the mess in the kitchen.

“You mean the pool you showed her yesterday?” Enid asked, laughing as she grabbed her cloak from the stand by the door. The crows feet by her eyes deepened at her smile.

“We’re going swimming, I think,” Elain said brightly, still sitting at the table, sipping her second — or was it her third? — cup of coffee. There was just something so luxurious about savoring her coffee in the morning, and even though she only started drinking it recently it became one of her favorite things to indulge in. Azriel had gotten her into it, and while she didn’t quite have the same distinguished taste buds that he had, she was slowly figuring out what she liked. “I haven’t been since I was a child.”

“Swimming,” Enid said and tied her fur lined cloak around her neck, and Elain silently wondered how far away the market was if she needed a heavy cloak and durable boots. “Is that what they are calling it these days?”

Elain felt as the blush spread from the roots of her nail to the nails of her toe. She wiggled in her seat, silently praying that Enid’s laughter captured Azriel’s attention enough for him not to notice how uncomfortable she was. She lowered her eyes to the coffee and took a sip, hiding her face with a curtain of golden brown hair.

“Mother.” Azriel said, his voice serious enough for Enid to stop her giggling.

Enid’s green eyes widened, and Elain was sure hers did too. In the short time that she had observed Azriel and his mother he had never taken such a commanding tone with her, and there was a small part of her that felt awkward about causing some type of unpleasantness between them, but that was dwarfed by a rush of giddiness. He had stood up for her. He had listened to what she said and taken it to heart, and now he was showing her — showing her that her wants and needs and feelings were important.

Elain blinked at the sharp tears that appeared in the corners of her eyes.

He listened to her.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Enid said with an awkward smile, wringing her slender hands. “I’ve overstepped my bounds.”

“It’s nothing—” Elain said and stood up, her chair almost toppling over, but Enid waved her off.

“No, I really need to think before running my mouth,” Enid sighed and walked closer to the door. “You’re a guest in the house and I made you uncomfortable, but I’ll make it up to you and get us Carnita’s sweet cakes from the market. No one makes them better than her, and then I’ll stop in and see the butcher and get us a special cut for dinner tonight. Oh,” The smile that graced her face was one of weary, fleeting happiness. “I do love to entertain, and I’ve missed it,” She grabbed her satchel from the coat rack, and looked over her shoulder at them, her green eyes bright and brilliant. “Azriel, you better bring her back often.”

Enid hurried out the door, slamming it behind her.

Cause I Know That It’s Delicate

“I didn’t mean to make it uncomfortable.” Elain said, bringing the lingering cups from the table over to the sink where Azriel took them from her hands. He quickly set the dishes aside and pulled her into an embrace.

“I know,” Azriel whispered against her hair. “But she made you uncomfortable, and I want you to feel comfortable here. All the time,” Azriel took a deep breath, as if preparing himself for something. “I was thinking it might be nice to visit more often, you and I. I visit around the Solstice every year and I think it might be nice to visit for birthdays, and maybe even just for some weekends. I know she would like it, and I…I would like it very much.”

His skin paled a bit, and Elain knew it wasn't easy for him to say those words. Those words they implied, they hoped, for a future. One where they could be together freely and were able to come and go as they pleased. No mating bond, no Illyrian warlord nonsense, just them living their life.

The life that they were building together.

“I would love that,” Elain whispered, raising onto her tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips. “Very much. I love that I’m here with you now,” She whispered against his lips. Her arms tightened around his solid torso. “Thank you for sharing it with me.”

Azriel kissed her slowly, deeply. His warm tongue stroked against her.

And just as warmth started unfurling in her belly, Azriel pulled away.

“I want to share everything with you, Elain.” Azriel said breathlessly, and she noted the faint tremble that echoed through his body.

Long Nights With Your Hands Up In My Hair

“Are you sure about this?” Elain asked, clutching the white towel to her naked body and slowly testing the crisp water with her toes. She could feel Azriel’s loving gaze on her, amused at her trepidation.

Her heavy hair fell free around her shoulders and her clothes sat in a neatly folded pile at the base of a massive oak tree, right next to Azriels. Her brown eyes quickly glanced his way and heat washed through her cheeks at his naked form. She had seen him naked plenty of times before, but never in broad daylight with his hands on his hips and his hard cock bobbing in front of him.

Unabashed, unashamed, and shockingly sensual.

Elain bit her lip as she devoured the sight of him.

His brown skin was beautiful in the light of day, and the way the sun gleamed off of his hair showed the blue undertones in the raven strands…and his eyes. His gorgeous, gorgeous eyes were a whirlpool of everything green, gold, and brown. The toned muscles on his chest looked absurdly perfect, and Elain thought she could see a bead or two of sweat dripping between them, and the dark dusting of hair at the bottom of his navel, tucked between his hip bones, beckoned to her.

Her fingers twitched with want as she looked at his fully erect length, not trying to hide her gaze.

“Is that a permanent state for you?” Elain asked, her voice not nearly as clear and steady as she wanted it to be.

Azriel grinned wickedly at her and said, “Only when you’re around, mo chroí.”

Elain smiled at the endearment and dropped the towel.

A rush of satisfaction rode through her at his sharp intake of breath.

“You’ve swam in here before?” Elain asked innocently, crouching ever so slightly to allow her hand to brush against the water and she curved her back in a way that she hoped was alluring. From the way his eyes trained on her rounded backside she would say that it had the desired effect.

“Yes,” Azriel said, slowly walking up to her. He gave Elain the impression of a predator with his unwavering attention and his deliberate movements. She jumped a little at the hot press of his hand on her fleshy cheek. “Though it’s never been this…arousing before.” Elain pressed back into his hand that was gently kneading her before quickly straightening up and stepping into the shallow pool.

She walked backwards, the warm water rising with every step, maintaining eye contact with Azriel and not stopping until the water settled around her waist. Elain was acutely aware of her pebbled pink nipples pointing towards him.

“Would you like to join me?”

His leathery wings stretched out freely behind him, the sun catching on the delicate blue and green veins. They looked almost iridescent from the way the light was hitting them, and Elain felt the sudden instinct to protect those beautiful wings.

With slow, confident steps Azriel followed her into the water, and Elain couldn’t stop her arms from reaching for him as he drew near. His hands settled on her hips before slowly dragging up and over her curves to cup her heavy breasts, his thumbs rubbing over her nipples. She held back a shiver at the coolness that spread across her as the water droplets dried on her skin.

Elain watched as his hazel eyes took in the small goosebumps that appeared on her breasts. His thumb rubbed over her nipple, teasing it until Elain was biting her lip and arching into his touch.

With a small gasp, Elain stepped back and smiled teasingly at him.

She stopped just out of reach so that the water was lapping at her breasts.

“There is something I wanted to tell you,” Elain said, dropping further into the warm water. “Something I thought you should know.”

Her eyes locked on his, and she could feel her heartbeat ricocheting throughout her body. It was amazing, really, that she had already shared so much with him, yet this last piece of information felt too personal, too vulnerable.

“And what’s that?” Azriel said, stepping closer to her, his gaze unwavering.

She felt like the center of the entire world.

“I,” She nervously chewed her lip until Azriel brought his hand up and ran his thumb across her abused skin. His eyes softened and encouraged her to go on. “I wanted to tell you about the moment I fell in love with you.”

Elain felt his body freeze and tense as the words sunk in, but his eyes shuttered and Elain recognized it as the breaking of walls.

They both swallowed.

She filled her air with lungs and slowly exhaled as she tried to calm her skipping heart.

“The first time I thought,” She wet her lips, her nakedness the least of her vulnerability. “That we might be something more was the solstice when you sat up all night listening to my garden plans. It was — you were — It was the first time I felt truly content and comfortable and safe after being turned, and I never got to properly thank you for that. So, thank you, Azriel.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Elain,” Azriel said in a hushed voice. “It was really quite selfish of me because I didn’t want to leave your side. All night I had this terrible urge to touch your hair, it looked so soft in the fae lights, like liquid gold.”

A faraway look appeared in his eyes and Elain knew that he was recalling that experience, and Elain felt incredibly precious as his hand left her lips to gently run through her hair.

Treasured. That’s how she felt when Ariel touched her.

“That night you walked me to my bedroom room and kissed me on the cheek,” Her hand came up to press against her cheek, “And wished me goodnight with the most beautiful smile and it was the first time I ever saw your dimple and I noticed the little freckle by the corner of your eye, and I knew that it was the start of something. That night I fell asleep with the feel of your lips on my cheek and the sound of your footsteps in my ear, and then I was struck because I could actually hear your footsteps. You go out of your way to make sure that no one ever sees you or hears you, but that night you let me do both. And I just knew. My heart felt all fizzy and light and I knew, in here.” Her fingers gently tapped against his heart, and small beads of water dripped down the planes of his chest.

His scarred hand came up and flattened her hand against his chest, the furious beat of his heart pounding against her palm.

“I felt it too.” Azriel said in a full voice, and Elain felt a warmth spread through her skin as he dipped his head towards her.

Echoes Of Your Footsteps On The Stairs

Azriel had always thought that he and Elain would make love in a field or a meadow, or even under the sun and surrounded by flowers. The hot rays of the sunlight warming their bodies and the sweet perfume of flowers in the air. He thought that he would lay Elain on her back and shower her with his love and kisses — his tongue teasing her nipples and lips caressing all of her exposed skin.

He thought he would be having his wicked way with her, bringing her body to the brink of pleasure again and again until she was lost to it.

Azriel did not think that Elain would be having her wicked way with him, yet here he was — completely sprawled beneath her as she explored his body lazily, teasingly.

The little smirk on her face set fire to his blood in the most delightful way.

He was completely under her control. His wings spread out on the soft blanket of grass, and his naked skin fully exposed to the sun and the elements and Elains eyes — her beautiful, heady brown eyes devouring the sight of him.

Elain’s fingers gently crept down the muscles on his torsos, tracing every line and divot, and gently toyed with the dark of hair at the base of his stomach.

“Is there something you’d like, shadowsinger?” Elain taunted, her hips swaying as she moved her wet heat over his straining cock. “Anything I can do for you?” Her smirk was wicked as she teased him, her hands coming up to play with her nipples and heavy breasts. Her golden curls were messy as they fell around her soft frame — messy and deliciously tousled, and her eyelids were half shut and glazed over with lust, and it was the most erotic thing Azriel had ever seen.

Elain happy, carefree, and confident.

He missed the golden tattoo that graced her leg, but he brought his hands up to lay on her plush thigh, tracing where it once was. He silently hoped it would appear again. Azriel thought he was a better male than that, but knowing Elain bore a mark of their deal satisfied him on a primal level.

“Vixen.” Azriel muttered and grasped her thighs more firmly, his fingers making small indentations on her skin. He lifted his hips, trying to get his aching cock where it longed to be, but Elain stopped him.

“Not yet,” She gave a smoky giggle, and Azriel felt something deep within him tighten at the sound. Elain had pressed a small, warm hand onto his chest as she leaned over him, her hips still moving on top of him, her wetness completely soaking his cock. His love loved this. She loved teasing him. And he loved exploring with her, and discovering everything she loved. He loved showing his love for her, even if he couldn’t say it. “Soon,” She promised, her lips brushing his, and as soon as he tried to deepen the kiss she pulled away. “But not yet.”

Azriel growled and his hands moved up to her hips and pressed her harder against his cock, her eyes closed and mouth opened as he ground his hardness against her hot center. He lifted himself up, forcing his cock closer to her cunt, and sliding against her. Her head fell forward and landed against his shoulders, her hot and humid breath skittering along his sweaty chest.

“You think you can tease me, mo chroí?” Azriel said gruffly, his hand coming up to tangle in her hair, and he used her hair to tilt her head up as he kissed her. Hot and wet and slow. His tongue plundered her mouth, grazing against her teeth, and it was his sensual chuckle that brought Elain back to reality.

She ripped her head away from his, and pressed a hand against his chest to push him back onto the ground. He fell with a soft thunk, causing the grass to flutter around him.

The dark tattoos on his chest seemed to absorb the sunlight, and Elain ran her nails over those lines. Catching his nipple, and the breath that caught in his throat made her feel powerful.

Elain bit her lip, gazing down at him, and asked, “Do you like that I’m in control?” She swiveled her hips one more time, the curved head of his cock pushing against her aching clit. “Do you like knowing how wet I am for you, that all I have to do is look at you and I get wet?” She leaned over him, letting her hair fall and curtain them with threads of gold as she said, “Did I ever tell you that I touched myself? I would lay in bed at night and think about how you would touch me. I wondered if you would be gentle or rough,” Her lips brushed against his, and she smiled as she felt his hips squirm against hers. She made him squirm. “I wondered what your tongue would taste like, and how it would feel against my skin, between my thighs.”

“Fuck.” Azriel grunted as his hands dug into her backside.

“And I came, pushing my fingers into me and imagining it was your cock,” She kissed him again and lined herself with him. “Are you aching for me? Are you ready?”

“Please Elain.” Azriel begged, his hips frantically moving against hers. While Azriel was all frantic energy, Elain was nothing but slow control as she slid down on his cock. Her eyes almost rolling back into her head at how full she felt.

With her hands propped against his chest, Elain pushed herself up, so that he could see every moment of her breasts as she rode him.

“Az,” She whimpered, her control slowly slipping as she moved over him. Her pace turned increasingly erratic. “You were made for me.”

His hips thrust up, slapping into hers.

Wild. He was wild underneath her. Trying to go deeper, to thrust harder.

“Yes,” Azriel growled, causing Elain to shiver with pleasure. “No one else can take me so well, no one else feels so hot and tight around my cock. So fucking perfect.”

“Yes,” Elain said, throwing her head back as she adjusted her hips so that he hit the spot that caused her to come apart. “I love you.”

The words were a whisper, but they pushed Azriel over the edge and he pumped his hips against hers, trying to get as deep as possible before coming inside of her. His thumb worked her clit furiously until her walls started quivering over him, and liquid started pooling where they were joined.

Elain fell on top of him, their sweaty bodies pressed together and blanketed by the afternoon sun.

Their pounding hearts beat as one, their limbs tangled with each other, and their breaths came together in short bursts.

Calloused fingers lightly spun on her back, dragging over the knobs of her spine, curling into the locks of hair.

“Mo chroí,” Azriel said, and Elain lifted her head to see his startlingly clear eyes. She willed away the lusty haze clouding her head. “One day I’ll say it.”

Stay Here, Honey, I Don’t Want To Share

They lazily dressed each other. A task that took an inordinate amount of time because Azriel kept stopping to kiss her into a dizzy mess, and Elain responded by dragging her fingers over the rippled muscles of his stomach. After her dress was in place Azriel noticed it sticking to the lush curves of her body and somehow they ended up with Elain on her back, dress pushed up to her waist, and Azriel slowly thrusting in and out of her, leisurely, making sure she felt just how much she meant to him.

He couldn’t quite bring himself to say the words, but this was the closest he could get to showing her how much he loved her — by completely devoting himself to her body, to her pleasure.

Afterwards they meandered back to the cottage, stopping so Elain could admire every flower they passed. The perfume of Illyrian roses hung in the air, and Elain found herself wanting to bottle it so that she could take it with her and smell it at will.

“Is it hard to grow Illyrian roses?” She asked as they cleared the hill, the pathway to Rosehall in front of them. Tendrils of smoke coming out of the chimney told her that Enid was home, and Elain sent a quick prayer to the Mother in hopes that Enid was unaware of their love making. However, even if she managed not to hear them, their flushed faces, mused hair, and dopey grins would tell on them. As would their scent.

“An excellent question for my mother.” Azriel deflected and tightened his grip on her shoulders.

Elain nodded and said, “I think I would like to plant some in Velaris,” A deep sigh escaped her as she thought of the perpetually humid climate of Rosehall. “But I think a greenhouse would be better for them.”

“Would you like a greenhouse?” Azriel asked thoughtfully.

Elain peered up at him and noticed his face was carefully blank.

“I would love one,” She started as they paused just shy of Rosehall, a particularly large rosebush shielding them from a rounded window. “But there is no room at the townhouse, and I’m afraid one wouldn’t work at the river house either. I would hate to obstruct Feyre’s view of the river.”

Hazel eyes looked at her intently, and a dreamy sort of look overtook his face. A hesitant, hopeful smile formed on his lips and Elain knew that she would do anything in her power to protect that smile.

Azriel changed when he smiled. His face softened and became unbearably beautiful.

“Our home will have one,” Azriel said, his voice just above a whisper. “Or two. And you can fill it with all sorts of flowers and maybe,” His voice trailed off and Elain had the distinct impression that he was debating whether or not to continue. “Maybe teach our children how to garden.”

His thumb glided over the skin by the collar of her shirt, gently, almost reverently.

“I would love that very much,” Elain said breathlessly, her hands coming up to lay flat against his chest. “And when we stomp through the house all dirty and muddy you’ll have a stew on the stove for us? You know Illyrian stew has become one of my comfort foods.”

“Of course, mo chroí,” Azriel smiled down at her, his smile gaining confidence with every word that painted their future. A small inky lock curled over his forehead. “As long as you make me your sweet buns in the morning.”

“It’s a deal.” Elain said, savoring the feel of Azriel’s lips on hers before they started walking again, the afternoon sun low on the horizon and casting Rosehall in a golden glow.

When they walked through the door Enid was dusting the window on the opposite side of the rosebush, a brilliant smile on her face.

“Have a nice swim?” She asked in a too-high voice and awkwardly climbed back from her perch on the leather couch. What was left of her wings twitched as if she was holding back a laugh. Her ebony curls wild around her face.

“Lovely.” Elain said, pressing closer into Azriels hard body.

Enid clasped her hands together, the white rag dangling between them and said, “Perfect. Just in time for dinner, and I had the most marvelous idea when I was in the market. Actually, it was the seamstress who gave me the idea because I stopped there to get this,” Enid talked while walking to the opposite side of the room to retrieve a large box fastened with a large red bow, a cat-like grin on her face as she handed it to Elain. She handed the box to Elain and gestured for the young female to open it. “Open it.” She urged.

Enid was practically clapping with excitement, and Azriel looked down at her with a brow raised in curiosity and a soft smile.

Gently, Elain pulled at the ribbon, the silky fabric falling apart easily and she placed it in Azriel’s outstretched hand. She nudged off the top half and moved the tissue paper to reveal a beautiful lilac day dress, with a white lace ribbon running the length of the waist. It was simple and sturdy and incredibly beautiful.

“It’s lovely,” Elain said with a smile, touched by the gift. A small gesture of acceptance. “Thank you so much.”

She went to embrace the older fae and was surprised with the strength that Enid hugged her with. After a while Enid finally loosened her hold and pulled away with shining eyes.

“I figured you’d need a new dress while you’re here. Go try it on, dear,” Enid suggested, taking the box from Elain which was soon swallowed by Azriel’s shadows. “And I’ll make any alterations, oh it’s been so long since I’ve sewn for anyone but myself. Mr. Broody here,” She pointed her thumb as Azriel affectionately. “Doesn’t like it when I sew for him.”

Elain looked at Azriel sternly.

“I love it when you sew for me,” Azriel said in an amused voice. “But I’m afraid a bright pink sheath isn’t best suited for my line of work.”

Enid rolled her emerald eyes at that.

Elain slowly crept up the stairs, the dress lovingly draped in her arms as the two bickered in the living room.

As it turned out, the dress needed little alterations. Enid had to take it out a bit in the bust which caused Elain to blush, and she could still hear her mothers voice echoing in her head about how unfashionable it is to have a large bosom, but Azriel seemed to sense where her thoughts were going and sent her a heated look that had her warm all over.

Kindly, Enid ignored the sudden tension in the room.

After Enid brought the hem up an inch she went to finish the dinner preparations, brushing off every attempt of Elain’s help. Their dinner was filled with easy conversation, with Azriel being more talkative than ever, and after the shadows cleared away their dishes Enid brought out a deck of cards and proceeded to introduce Elain to an Illyrian card game with ever changing rules. Halfway through the game Azriel didn’t even try to keep up with Enid’s rules and just amused his mother by going along with it, letting his mother win each hand and shooting Elain an apologetic grin.

“That’s enough for tonight, I should think,” Enid said through her yawn, her arms stretching wide behind her. One of the largest grins Elain had ever seen was spread on her lips, and she couldn’t help but indulge in the older fae’s happiness, Elain was inclined to think that Enid didn’t come by it very often. Her dark hand patted the large mountain of chips they had been playing for. “Beauty sleep is important when you get to my age,” She winked at Elain before getting up from the table and heading towards the stairs. “I’ll see you in the morning, and Az, dear,” Enid stopped halfway up the steps, looking over her shoulder. “Let the girl get some rest tonight.”

Azriel chuckled, and Elain waited for the mortification to sink in…but it didn’t. A small hint of embarrassment from the discussion of her sex life, but it was gone as soon as Enid disappeared from sight.

“Are you ready for bed?” Elain asked, placing her hand over Azriel’s, delighting in the way he naturally intertwined their fingers.

“That depends,” Azriel said in a lush voice, “Are you going to have your wicked way with me tonight, or have I finally tired you out?” Elain leaned forward conspiratorially, not even trying to fight the smile that was overtaking her face, the smile that was so wide it obstructed her vision. “You should know by now that I’ll never tire of you,” She placed her forehead against his. “But I think you can take the night off, I know you need your rest.” She teased, kissing him before pulling away.

His decadent laugh filled the room, followed closely by the scraping of his chair as he followed Elain up the stairs. Their hands never let go of each other as he followed her into her room in the dim glow of the fae lights.

Sometimes I Wonder When You Sleep

There was something about the dead of night that always gave Elain courage.

Laying there, wrapped in Azriel’s arms, everything else seemed so insignificant. The fire was dwindling in the hearth, and somehow they had managed to control themselves for one night, simply enjoying each other's conversation and playful touches and the occasional deep kiss that melted all of Elain’s bones.

Somehow Elain found the strength to ask about Enid’s history. She felt Azriel’s chest tighten under her cheek, and she was about to take the question back when he started talking.

“My parents loved each other,” Azriel said, his eyes fixed on the flickering fire. One arm held Elain to his chest while the other was propped under his head, his wings sprawled out beside them.“The only problem was that he was married,” His fingers gently brushed through her hair. Elain sucked in a breath at the sharpness of his voice. “He already had a wife and two sons, and then he saw my mother one day and thought that he’d have her too. My mother’s the daughter of a…well known… Illyrian, and even though my father was highly ranked in the Illyrian army she was still above his station. So, he started courting her in secret. Courting her while his wife stayed at home,” Vague disgust laced his voice. “She knew, of course, that he was married with children, but she still fell in love with him anyway. He started ignoring his wife and Avram and Azaria and he turned all of his attention to my mother, and it wasn’t long until I was conceived,” Elain watched as his jaw muscle worked, bulging from his face. She couldn’t help but place a small kiss on it. “My grandparents, if you want to call them that, ignored her when she got pregnant. There’s a tonic they offered her that would have ended her pregnancy, and they gave her two options: either take the tonic and stay with them, in the comfort of the only life she’s ever known, or leave,” His voice choked on the words. “She chose me,” Elain could see the tears shining in his eyes, slowly falling down his face. “And then she went to my father. She knocked on the backdoor of his house and told him everything, in the dead of night so that no one would see her. The only other person that knew she was there was the housekeeper. I still don’t know all the specifics, but somehow my father convinced his wife to go along with their plan, which was to leave for the next year and come back with a baby,” Azriel laughed harshly. “And that’s what they did. My mother and father’s wife hauled up in some country house together, waiting until I was born to come back, and then they tried to pass me off as legitimate. It most likely would have worked if the housekeeper never talked, but she did. She let it slip who I was and who my mother is, and a week later my mother had her wings shredded — it was a public event, where everyone, including her parents, watched and then she was forced to spend the next fifty years in a sort of home. A place where,” Azriel paused, searching for the right words. “Illyrians send females that have seduced,” The words sounded like acid to Elain’s ears. “Married or mated males. They are just shoved off to the side, ignored by society. My mother never quite rejoined the Illyrians. She never felt entirely peaceful in large crowds again, so once I could afford it, I bought her Rosehall. There is a nice, small town just a couple miles down the road that has accepted her. She has her own little community that she can join if she chooses.”

The expanse of skin under her cheek had turned wet from her tears.

She opened her mouth to speak, not even sure of what to say, but Azriel kept going.

“My father was distraught at the treatment of my mother, the female he loved. And when she went away he just kind of…shut down. He died of his own neglect. Avram and Azaria obviously didn’t love having a bastard brought into the house, and you can see their handiwork,” His hand flexed over her shoulder, and Elain felt her hatred from his brother burning hot in her chest. “And their mother, she didn’t care. She turned a blind eye and let it happen.”

“I hate them,” Elain said, her voice sharp. Her hatred burned hot inside her heart.“And I wish you wouldn’t call yourself that.” She snuggled closer to him, sniffing her tears away.

“And what should I call myself instead?”

“Well, I like to call you my love,” Elain whispered and pressed a tender kiss to his chest. “You can always try that.”

Elain could hear the breath catching in his throat.

“Your love, huh? Elain’s love,” Azriel said, his voice thick like sticky dough. Her hand settled against his hot neck and she could feel the thrumming of his pulse against her palm. “Sometimes it doesn’t seem real, and I think that it’s all going to fall apart.” He whispered, his voice soft and flighty like one of his shadows.

“I think that too, I’m afraid that after this week everyone will try to tear us apart,” Elain started and took a deep, shuddering breath. “And I’m afraid that you’ll think that I’m not worth it.”

She felt the exact moment he registered her words — His entire body turned rigid against hers, tension pouring off of him..

“Elain,” Azriel said in a broken voice as he tilted her chin so that she was meeting his eyes, and she knew that he saw the tears that were welling in hers. “Elain, you’re worth everything.”

He kissed her desperately, as if trying to reassure them both that it was real. That they were together. That they had chosen each other.

Are You Ever Dreaming Of Me?

“This week went by too quickly,” Enid said as they were all gathered by the door, prolonging the inevitable. Enid suddenly looked a hundred years older. She was no longer happy and carefree, but rather carried a pall with her. Her emerald eyes seemed haunted, no longer the bright twinkling gems that welcomed Elain and Azriel. And her hands nervously wrung in front of her. “You’ll come back, of course, both of you?”

Elain felt her breath catch in her throat from the vulnerability she found in Enid’s eyes. It was a look that Elain had known all too well, the horrible fear of rejection, of not being good enough.

She wrapped her arms around Enid tightly, the older fae was caught off guard by the hug and took a second before wrapping her arms just as tightly around Elain.

“Of course I will,” Elain said, her voice a mere whisper. “Nothing could stop me.”

Enid eventually pulled back with a watery smile and red rimmed eyes.

“Make sure to keep my son out of trouble.” She joked, but the words left Elain feeling slightly hollow.

She was the source of all of Azriel’s trouble.

Azriel pressed a comforting hand to the small of her back, temporarily easing all of her anxieties, and then he took a step closer to his mother.

“Oh,” Enid cried and launched herself at her son. “I always forget how much I miss you when you’re here, and then you leave and I remember it all over again.”

Elain averted her eyes, wanting to give them a little bit of privacy. She busied herself with fasting her heavy cloak, securing the pearl bracelet on her wrist, and summoning Shadow at will. The little shadow wound itself around her arm just as mother and son broke apart.

Enid walked them to the edge of the wards, and waved at them until shadows came and carried them off to Velaris.

As soon as the shadows cleared away Elain was greeted with the ornate door of the townhouse.

Elain remember the last time her and Azriel entered the townhouse like this, together and using each other as a source of strength. It was the first time they had been together, when Elain snuck over to his secret apartment and actively sought something she wanted — him. It had completely terrified her, but Elain wanted Azriel in every possible way she could want another person, and she would have never forgiven herself if she’d let him slip away from her. If she didn’t even try to fight for him. For one horrific second she thought about what would have happened if she hadn’t gone to him that night, if she didn’t grab onto that one smidgen of courage and put her heart on the line, and she saw the loneliest version of herself.

“Are you ready?” Azriel asked in a concerned voice, his hand heavy on her hip and a small furrow between his dark brows.

Elain nodded gently and said, “Yes, I’m just glad you’re here with me.”

Then she did something that had only ever dreamed about.

She stood on her tiptoes and planted her lips on his, in the middle of Velaris, in broad daylight.

Azriel looked a little dazed as she pulled away, his cheeks slightly flushed at the public display of affection.

“Ready?” Elain asked, smiling with a new found sense of gratitude.

He kissed her forehead once before opening the door, his hand resting on her lower back as he guided her through the threshold. The sweet smell of bread and roses greeted her, the smell of home, and a small part of her exalted in knowing that she had put her stamp on the house — that she was responsible for making the townhouse feel like a home.

Elain watched as a few shadows shot out in different directions, most likely figuring out where everyone was. Azriel closed the door behind them before stepping closer to her side. It wasn’t long until the shadows came back, followed closely by Cassian who looked a little worn with large purple hollows under his eyes.

“Cass,” Elain said, walking towards him and engulfing him in a quick hug. “You look tired.” Her voice was muffled by his shoulder.

“And you smell like Az,” Cassian said with a scrunched nose. “Damn, it's pungent,” His hazel eyes flickered to his brother over her shoulder. “Did you not let her get any sleep?”

Elain felt Azriel walk towards them and smiled as she felt his comforting hands pulled her away from Cassian, her back rested against his front. A silly little display that warmed her heart.

“I guess I should get used to this,” Cassian said with a fond smile, little crow's feet appearing by his eyes. His voice dropped to a whisper as he comically looked around the room. “FYI, I was always rooting for you two.” He winked and clapped Azriel on the shoulder.

She peeked up at Azriel in time to see a wide grin flash across his lips.

“It nice to know we,” Azriel’s hands tightened on her hips. “Have your support.”

Cassian’s face suddenly lost all amusement: his smile faded and his eyes shuttered.

“What happened?” Elain asked, dread creeping up her spine like the first frost in winter.

“We’re all by the fireplace,” Cassian said, his voice full of false cheer. “Nuala and Cerridwen might still have some hot food if you’re hungry.”

Elain shook her head, and she could see Cassian deflate at her response.

“I think we are ready to see everyone.”

Cassian gave a solemn nod and led them to their family.

——

“Elain!” Feyre said as soon as her sister stepped into the room, her blue eyes were bright as she immediately went to her side and pulled her into a sisterly hug. “Oh,” Feyre pulled back with wide eyes. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”

Elain felt a furrow appear between her brows as she asked, “Does it smell bad?” she glanced over her shoulder at Azriel in worry.

“No, no,” Feyre rushed out, grasping her sister's hands. Elain’s pearl bracelet caught the light of the fireplace. “It’s just strong. And different,” Nyx came waddling over to Elain and Azriel, his hands outstretched and wings flapping behind him. Feyre bent to grasp her son and lifted him up. “Someone has missed his aunt and uncle, he was in a bit of Auntie Elain withdrawal.”

Her dread melted away as she gazed at Nyx’s pudgy, smiling face. Elain quickly scooped up her nephew and brought him into her chest, his sticky hands planted themselves on both of her cheeks. His shrill giggle filled the room at her fishlips.

She could feel the heat of Azriel behind her as he reached around and grabbed Nyx's little sock-clad foot, shaking it slightly. Elain savored this little moment of domesticity because she had the sinking feeling it wouldn’t happen again for quite some time.

“Are you alright?” Nesta’s sharp voice cut through the room, jarring Elain from her state of bliss. She stood by herself, far away from the rest of the group, off by a window.

“Of course I am,” Elain responded, feeling slightly defensive. “I was with Azriel.”

“Yes, you were.” Nesta’s cool gaze cut to Azriel.

Elain felt her jaw clench in response.

“If there is something you would like to say, just say it.” The harsh edge in her voice surprised even her, and it seemed as if the rest of the room froze. Even Rhys, who stood by the fireplace holding a glass of what Elain presumed to be whiskey, tensed up.

She clutched Nyx closer to her chest, his little face turning to see what his Aunt Nesta was so excited about. His grabby hands fell to his chest, no longer pressing into her cheeks.

“You lied to us, Elain,” Nesta said in a strained voice, and Elain saw Cassian approach her with his hands raised, but she swatted them away. “And then you basically start a war and leave all of us to pick up the pieces? You ruined the entire competition, everything the Valkyries and I worked for, all because you wanted to get fucked —”

The entire room darkened, and after a beat Elain realized it was Azriel’s shadows closing in around them.

“Be careful with how you speak to her and what you say,” Azriel’s voice was pure ice as his hands landed protectively on her shoulders. “I don’t give a single fuck about Illyria, or the games, and the only reason we are standing here right now is because Elain wants to be here. So, I would advise everyone to choose their words carefully, and respectfully.”

Nyx shifted in Elain’s arms, wrapping both of his around her neck and hiding his face in her shoulder.

“Did you win?” Elain asked quietly, after a brief pause.

Nesta’s cold eyes met hers as she said, “No. The Illyrians were,” Her eyes flicked to Azriel. “Excited.”

“There is something you should know,” Rhysand said from his perch by the fireplace. One arm was propped on the mantle while the other rested on his hip, and Feyre smoothly made her way to them, and Elain was slightly amazed to see them transform from her siblings into the High Lord and Lady of the Night Court. “Devlon has called in the Bhaile Rite.”

Sometimes When I Look Into Your Eyes

Elain was helpless to stop her blood from chilling in her veins.

“But I — I never accepted. Why would he —” She sputtered, trying desperately to kickstart her brain.

“He’s embarrassed,” Azriel said in a deathly voice. “I’m sure the fact that you embarrassed him in front of his males, and the fact that you slapped him probably set him off,” His fingers dug into her shoulders. “And he probably can’t comprehend why you would let a bastard put his hands —”

“Don’t,” Elain whispered, gently brushing Nyx’s downy hair. “Don’t call yourself that.”

“All that,” Rhysand said with a nod of his head. “And then he wasn't particularly happy when I wouldn’t bring Elain back right away,” His lips curled around his teeth in a sneer. “Thought I was impinging on his right.”

“Why does everyone think they can claim me?” Elain asked, her voice cracking and breaking in a way that caused Nyx to tighten his hold on her. Her heart warmed a bit at the thought of her nephew offering her comfort.

“We will fight him,” Feyre said, her fingers clasping her mates. “Cassian has been there all week keeping them in line, and the Valkyries too. Rhysand has made it clear that you are under his protection, and Amren and I have been going through the books, but —”

“But?” Elain prompted.

“Devlon is intent on twisting the rite, and he is willing to ignore Elain’s consent.” Cassian growled. “The son of a bitch even threatened to take Elain.”

“I should have killed him.” Azriel said, fury radiating off of him.

“There is,” Rhysand said, his strained voice breaking through the silence. Elain looked at him long enough to see his throat bob. “There is a bond that they might recognize that trumps Devlon's perceived claim,” His violet eyes met hers and she could see the self-loathing shining in them. “A mating bond.”

“No,” Elain said immediately, not letting his words sink in. She took a step back, bumping into Azriel’s hard frame and welcoming his muscled arm that wrapped protectively around her waist. “No,” She started shaking. Not violently, but enough that Azriel noticed and started to rub calming circles into her belly with his thumb. “I won’t accept it.”

While she couldn’t see it, Elain knew that Azriel’s face was pure death as he glared at his brother. She could feel his stiffness even though she was safely snuggled into him.

“You won’t have to,” Rhysand assured her, his inky hair falling limp over forehead. He looked so… un-High Lordly. As if he couldn’t stomach the thought of his family thinking he would force her to accept the bond. “You just have to make them think that you are.”

A hush fell over the room. Soft.

Everyone thought about the words, turning them over in their minds, contemplating them.

Feyre’s blue eyes looked at her kindly, and Cassian stood with his large arms crossed over his chest. Nesta seethed at Rhysand, her jaw popping.

“We’ll be traveling to the human lands.” Azriel said, his voice dark and low, and Elain could feel it rumbling and tumbling through her body.

Elain watched as Rhysand gave a grim nod, and she saw how Feyre tensed up from her position next to him. She could have sworn that Nesta growled.

“I don’t want our scent hidden,” Elain whispered, one hand on top of Azriel’s on her stomach, the other hand supporting Nyx. Her nails gently digging into his scars. Everyone had the good grace to look away. “I don’t want it hidden anymore,” She turned and looked up at him with wide eyes, nothing hidden in them. Elain didn’t want anything hidden between them. His face softened as she gazed up at him. “I’m tired of hiding.”

He lifted one large, warm hand and cupped her face. The skin was smooth in his roughened palm, but Elain felt her body relax at his voice as he said, “So am I,” He tilted her face tenderly and dropped his lips to hers in a heart-stopping, bone-meltingly soft kiss. Elain savored the feel, the pressure of his lips. Azriel rested his forehead against hers.“I don’t want us to hide either, but…” Elain bit her lip to stop it from wobbling. “Just a little while longer,” His thumb ran along the length of her cheek. “Do you trust me?”

Elain blinked, surprised at the question, before giving him a breathless, “Yes.”

“Then there’s nothing to worry about,” Azriel said, his eyes bright, burning, and clear. The steadiness and strength in his voice helped build up her nerves. “And we’ll be together.”

Elain nodded gently before pressing her cheek into the cotton of his shirt, the thumping of his heart lulled her. She clung onto Nyx’s warmth and he snuggled closer into her.

A small paused before Rhysand cleared his throat and said, “I’ll send word to Lucien. You two should start your travels in the morning.”

I Pretend Your Mine, All The Damn Time

——

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!! I realized it has been a while since I’ve uploaded, but if I’m not mistaken this is my longest chapter to date, so I hope that makes up for it! I loved writing Enid’s character, and I hope you all enjoyed that reprieve from the angst because It’s about to come back in full force. I would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter! Please like, comment, reblog and tell me what you think <3

Tagging: @thefangirlofhp @offtorivendell @the-laughing-bubble @justheretoreadsposts @swankii-art-teacher @achelois-daughter @caracalwithchips

——

Chapter Eleven

#elain x azriel #elriel fanfiction #elriel #pro elriel #azriel #elain archeron #elriel fanfic #you painted me golden #you painted me golden chapter 10 #My writing #fawnandshadows writing

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harryskalechips · 3 years

Text

one and done Part 3

A/N Hey guys so sorry for a late update but here we are!!!! The last part of the series! I really enjoyed writing this one and I hope you guys enjoyed as well! Let me know what you guys think please and also also also thank you for reading!🥰🥰🥰

Side note: I’ll come back and edit my brain hurts

Harry is engaged and having a baby but Y/N is just his best friend’s little sister.

Today’s warning: We are anticipating some heavy smut in this last part. Please prepare for a spitting, spanking, choking, and hair pulling kink, Male receives oral, unprotected sex and just shit like that y’know? I think there is begging in here too LOL OMG they almost had sex outside again but that’s just so inappropriate but yeah... I think that’s all. Oh yes, Y/N rides and just loves being a horny mess hehehe

Word Count: 11k // Masterlist // one and done PLAYLIST / Part 1 / Part 2

If there was one thing Y/N was excited about… it was her last summer of high school. As she reflected on her junior year, she was happy Harry and her were finally in a place where she could just reach out to him and be comfortable. Although they didn’t have labels, it was the last thing on their minds as they spent most of their free time together away from Ryan and any other nosy classmate of theirs. Harry also spoke about long roadtrips. Despite him staying home for college, he was excited to drive his girl to different campuses and check out new destination sites around the many different cities.

They were optimistic they would stay together in the summer yet here they are spending it apart.

Y/N was in her bedroom sitting on the floor wearing Harry’s sweater as she was staring at the pile of scattered clothes on the floor. It was July 6th and even after a month of grieving for her broken heart, she managed to still wear her ex’s sweater… only because it was the sole object that made her feel like what they had was real.

They were so on and off throughout the year and the one time they managed to stick together, it was all washed away. Too many signs telling them they were not meant to be.

But that’s the truth. Y/N thinks to herself as she wipes away a new coming tear falling down her face. Harry and her are not the cliché plot of dating your brother’s best friend. Their relationship was based on lust and ended with unrequited feelings. They are not soulmates. Y/N rests her head against the back of her bed. No matter how much you try to fight it, if you are not meant to be… that’s it.

“Are you okay?” Ryan stops by her doorway with a plate of late dinner. He was also blatantly oblivious to the fact his little sister was wearing a sweater of his best friend’s.

“Yeah, why do you ask?” She stares at him with an unamused expression on her face. Her room was a mess, her head was in places where it shouldn’t be and her heart just felt broken.

“You’ve been in a pissed off mood since last month.” he genuinely states as he walks into his little sister’s room. Maybe before he wouldn’t bother to ask Y/N how she was but the truth is, he is leaving soon and he’s a bit worried with the way Y/N has been taking care of herself.

“Is it that obvious?” Y/N sarcastically laughs as she throws some clothes away for Ryan to sit on her bed. He places his plate on her desk and takes her offer as he looks around the floor.

“You haven’t left the house nor have I seen Ness around.”

“I haven’t really been speaking to her.”

“Oh so you guys fought?”

“No, we didn’t. I just haven’t really been feeling social.”

“Y/N, you know you can talk to me right?”

“I know.” Y/N bites the inside of her cheek knowing full well that she’s lying.

“Will you be coming to the party tomorrow night?” Oh, that’s right. It’s Harry and Carla’s engagement party.

“That’s why I’m cleaning out my closet.” Ryan laughs a bit as he stands up and pats her head.

“You don’t have to impress anyone. You’re not the one getting married.” Y/N feels her throat tighten a bit as she watches him leave her room with his plate. She lets out a sigh before rubbing her face in frustration. If she had the choice, she wouldn’t go but that would also show Harry that she cares more than he thinks. It’s been a month and she had to prove that she was over him and over the deal.

After a couple hours of sulking on her bedroom floor, she finally stands up and takes off his sweater. In the corner of her room is a cardboard box of clothes that were to be packed away and stored in the attic. Without hesitation, she throws the piece of clothing and carries on with her night.

“Y/N, you look beautiful sweetheart.” Her mom waits for her at the bottom of the stairs. The sun was just about to set and it was also time for their family to drive to Carla’s home for the party everyone has been anticipating.

“Thank you.” Y/N musters a smile as she glances at herself in the mirror one more time before heading out to the car. Her mom was honestly surprised her daughter was all dressed up for the party tonight, there was something off about her but today, it felt like she had a piece of her daughter back again. Saying nothing out loud, she locks the front door and walks with the young girl towards the vehicle.

Truth be told last night before Y/N fell asleep, she knew today would be her biggest performance. All she knew is that she couldn’t wait for this day to end so she can go back and hide in her room.

“Hey mate.” Harry smirks as he offers a hug to Ryan. The party had just begun and Harry waited outside the house to wait for his best man to arrive. He was shitting his pants at the moment and the only thing that would make him feel a bit more comfortable at his own party is if Ryan was by his side -like the usual.

“I can’t believe you’re getting married, Haz.” Ryan tries to hide his disappointment in front of his family. Y/N and her parents stood behind him waiting for the duo to greet each other first. “I thought we would enjoy our bachelor era a bit you know… longer.” Harry tries to laugh as he makes eye contact with the pretty girl. Once the two pull away, he awkwardly laughs and greets Ryan’s parents.

“Carla is it for me man.” Harry tucks his hands inside the pockets of his trousers. “We’ve been together since grade school, I guess it’s time I tie her down to me forever.” Y/N’s mom laughs and pats his shoulder. The five began to walk to the backyard as she spoke up.

“Forget Ryan, I think you two make a lovely couple and are honest soulmates.” Harry glances at her and flashes a small smile. He thought having Ryan here would make him feel more comfortable but there was only one thought that was processing in his head as they walked the stoned pathway.

This engagement made him feel ten thousand times much worse knowing his in-law family wouldn’t be Ryan’s because the truth is there wouldn’t be anything much better than to have Y/N and Ryan’s parents as his too.

“Hi.” Carla approaches them with a warm smile on her face. The nude slim dress was impressive on her, especially as it made the diamond on her finger stand out more. She casually wraps her arm around Harry's waist as she takes a sip of the mango smoothie in her other hand. Although the smile on her face seemed genuine, Y/N wanted nothing more than to punch the girl’s face. If Harry was a jealous asshole, Y/N was much worse. Keep it together Y/N, please you don’t care. You don’t care.

That was the whole idea for the night anyway. Y/N has barely spoken a word since her father parked the car on the side of the road. She was even the last one to exit the vehicle because in all honesty, she didn’t want to unbuckle her seatbelt. Now, She stands beside her dad once again, shying away from the hosts of the party. Although her mom made her feel beautiful today, there was nothing more than to stand in front of the prettiest girl who has constantly been chosen over her.

“Thank you guys for coming. I’m so happy to meet you all.” Carla smiles as she turns her attention on Harry. She was happy and excited about their future. This whole night felt like a fever dream. Once more she looks at Ryan’s family and speaks up. “There’s a table for your family and dinner will be served out soon. I hope you guys enjoy” She rests her head on her fiancé but notices Y/N staring at her heels. “Are you okay Y/N? You seem a bit off.” And that statement was coming from a concerned person who was genuinely curious if the acquainted junior she got to know this year was alright. Y/N gulps as she makes eye contact with Carla. She was also very careful not to look at Harry.

“Ignore her. She’s been like that for a couple of weeks.” Ryan laughs as he turns around and glances at his sister. “This is your night but I still am wondering why you guys are getting married next month.”

Carla awkwardly smiles and waits for Harry to respond first yet she notices his eyes stay focused on his best friend’s little sister. “We just thought we should get the wedding out of the way before university starts.” Carla squeezes his palm for him to reply to.

“Don’t worry Ryan. I’m sure we’ll do everything we planned to do.” Harry smirks as he turns his back around to the music that just started to play. “Let’s walk you guys to your table, I believe the party is just about to actually begin.”

Throughout the night, Y/N did nothing more than fake a smile and applaud as speakers came to the mic and talked about Carla and Harry’s relationship. Blah blah blah. It was the same old thing really, and if she had the choice deep inside, she would wish she was the one sitting beside Harry talking about other things.

Dessert was finally available and due to the lack of activities and entertainment this party has brought to her, she waited until the line died down before she could carry her plate towards the table. She internally sighed as some of the choices were gone, leaving her to pick up a red velvet cupcake and two french macaroons on the side. Once she arrived back to her seat, her family that stayed back continued to talk about the two lovebirds. Her father and Ryan seemed to be having an amusing conversation as her mother made a new friend from the table beside them. Compliments after compliments was the only topic tonight, she really needed to take a walk around the unfamiliar neighbourhood after this.

“Guys, I’m just going inside to use the bathroom.” Her mom nods and acknowledges Y/N’s statement before turning her back once more to talk to another attendee of the party. Grabbing her purse, she excuses herself from the table and shyly walks around the party and towards the sliding door. Once she’s inside the home however, she ignores all the signs that gesture her towards the bathroom and instead makes her way to the front door. Carla’s home was pretty but not enough for her to stay.

“That’s not the washroom.” Harry speaks out as he walks down the staircase re-adjusting the sleeves of his polo. She realized the navy blue blazer he was wearing earlier today was now resting on the ottoman by the end of the railing.

“I was actually going to go on a walk.” She fixes her gaze on the painting in front of her instead of the boy casually making his way down.

“It’s a bit late, d-don’t you think.” He scratches his nose and picks up the article of clothing on the chair. He couldn’t help but stutter as his eyes followed the pink dress on the pretty girl.

“The neighbourhood seems really nice and I’m sure none of the rich families here are going to kidnap me and lock me in their basement.”

“Here.” She notices him walk towards her offering his blazer. “I would invite myself to walk with you but uh I think people would notice.” He rubs his palm against his neck and looks back at the door where the party is.

“It’s okay.” She shakes her head as she rejects his considerate offer. She continues to unlock the door before looking back at him. “I’ll be back soon. Ryan and my parents think I’m in the washroom. So if they ask, just say you don’t know. Congratulations, by the way.” She gives him a sad smile and walks out the door. He’s left speechless as he finally realizes this might be the last time things will be normal between them. “Fuck it.” He murmurs to himself as he rests the blazer behind his back and walks out the front door as well.

“Why are you following me?’ Y/N turns around carefully as she crosses her arms over her chest to keep herself warm. She was also trying very hard not to fall. Harry’s been distracting her all night, she didn’t realize she was wearing heels despite her goal to go on a night walk.

“Because I can’t let you walk around this neighbourhood by yourself!” Harry raises his voice as he tries to catch up with her. “God, I told you, you would need this.” He thoughtlessly puts the blazers over her shoulders as they walk down the slope.

“I promise you, I am not your responsibility anymore. You don’t have to be concerned about my whereabouts.” Y/N murmurs as she accepts the fabric and hugs it around her frame. Harry couldn’t help but look away from her as he heard that statement. Before everything went crumbling down, he used to pick her up and know every update from her. He used to watch out for her and just be there for her but even now, it was no longer okay.

“Who’s going to watch over you when I’m gone.” His voice is a bit more quieter now as they exit Carla’s neighbourhood.

“I don’t know. I always expected you were going to stay.” She glances at him before walking ahead of him.

“I know you’re mad and I’m sorry I had to put you through a lot.” He pulls her wrist to make her stop walking.

“How can I not be mad, Harry?” She closes her eyes, trying to not let the new formed tears in her eyes show. “You constantly choose Carla and the moment you finally break up with her. I get you and then you what… ghost me, break up with me? I don’t hear from you for 2 months only to find out you’re engaged! Fuck you.” She quickly wipes away a tear from her face. “God, I- You cheated on me! Didn’t you?”

“Y/N.” His heart beat drops as her voice raises. Never in his life has he seen Y/N this upset.

“No. It makes sense. Carla is barely even showing yet. It’s been three months and you…” She steps away from him and looks around. “I don’t know -you didn’t even have the audacity to tell me you don’t like me anymore.”

“I didn’t know how to react when you told me that.”

“Well you did.. You ignored my calls and continued to see Ryan.” She shrugs her shoulders and sarcastically laughs. “It’s fine. Now that I think about it, maybe I said it in the heat of the moment.”

“I know I messed up.” He bites his lip and runs his hand through his hair. “I don’t know why I reacted like that. Carla has always been so familiar to me… and with you, I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this before.”

“Like what?” The monotone question rolls off the tip of her tongue.

“The fear I guess. I’m scared of losing Ryan, your family and um, you.” He clears his throat. “It’s just there’s so much on the line when it comes to you and me. Maybe if I tried harder, we wouldn’t be here right now but we are.”

“Well if it makes you feel better,” She takes a pause and stares directly at him. “I didn’t really mean what I said that day. You freaked out on something that was a typical post orgasm statement.” She lies.

“Why are you lying?” He shakes his head in disappointment. “Why are you trying to hurt me? You think this hasn’t been difficult enough.”

“No, I’m not lying. It’s true.” She attempts to walk again but his hand grabs her immediately letting her know, their conversation is not over.

“So you’re saying you don’t love me.”

“No, I don’t love you.”

“Bullshit!”

“Harry, I don’t even owe you an explanation!” and sometimes when you force yourself to lie too much, you begin to cry. “Fuck.” He immediately hugs her as she cries on his shoulder. “I don’t think we should do this.”

“I could never leave you alone, you know that right?” He whispers in her ear as he wraps his arms tighter around her frame.

“You have to. We can’t do this.” Y/N repeats herself as she tries to pull away. His scent is just so fucking intoxicating. It was his scent that made her drastically attached to him and now she knew like from the start, it was time to go.

“If my wishes came true, it would’ve been you.” He tries to keep her in his embrace. He was rambling at this point but he had no idea what his goal was. Is he trying to persuade her to stay or to let her go?

“You made your choices, Harry. All you have to do is lie in it.” She pulls away and wipes away her tears. “We’re just these high schoolers that found a loophole in our deal. Carla though, she has always been the one for you.”

“You’re right though. I- I guess I always choose her in the end.”

“Make her happy H.” She gives a sad smile and shrugs her shoulders. Despite wanting to punch her face, Y/N knew the look in her eyes as she watched Harry. Carla was always madly in love with him and forever will be.

Harry and Y/N were just a glitch in the system.

“I hope I see you again. Maybe Christmas huh?” He looks down at his shoes as the girl gives him back his blazer.

“Maybe Christmas.” And without a word, Y/N walks back to the house leaving Harry to walk around the neighbourhood himself.

Harry and Carla had just gotten married and on the night of their reception, they announced their pregnancy. Y/N was there. She witnessed the smile on Ryan’s face, on her parents’ face and on Harry’s. Everyone was happy except for her.

The night left her to play with the food on her plate as it was her only source of entertainment. Broccoli grouped with the carrots suddenly being grouped with the steak. How about we make a snowman? To be honest, moping a bit too much at the event left her clueless to the fact the groom has been watching her all night.

It wasn’t a choice for him. Of course, he looked at other guests and spoke to Carla throughout the night but for some reason as he mindlessly ate his food and restated his vows to his wife, Y/N was the only thing his eyes could focus on. He’s been looking for her face in every room for a year and to be exact, nothing about his feelings has changed -Except tonight was the last day, he would ever feel like this again.

There were only three rules Harry gave himself tonight.

Rule 1: Don’t try and make conversation with Y/N.

Rule 2: Don’t beat the guy who offers her a dance.

Last but not least, Rule 3: Don’t tell her you love her.

And it was a success because he watched her walk out with an unfamiliar guy and come back with a flushed neck and red cheeks. He knew she totally got fucked in the washroom and all he did was take a sip of his glass as the fist on his lap began to form once again.

It’s been a week since and her whole house is a mess. She has been currently helping her brother move his things to the moving truck they rented. Her little grieving process was cut short due to the fact, things around her started to change so quickly. Ryan was on his way out of here. Harry and Carla were probably on an island, trying to make another sub baby and Ness started to come by more often.

The thing about her best friend is that Nessa understands space but she won’t let Y/N peacefully sulk for more than a month. To successfully distract her, the duo have been taking road trips around the cities and visiting different campuses together. Although it was an old plan of her and Harry’s, Y/N couldn’t help but feel delighted to have Ness back once again.

She cleaned out her room and removed all her old soccer trophies because for some odd reason, they reminded her of Harry. She even went to the measures of blocking his number and deleting pictures from their past dates off her phone.

She knew she wasn’t ready to let him go but he was now married, living in a new city with his own family. There was no other choice but to forget this shit happened.

Senior year was just about to begin for Y/N and if there was one thing she needed, it was a fresh start. No love interests, no heartbreaks. Just fun experiences before she leaves this hell hole.

After all, if you never bleed, you’re never going to grow.

3 years later…

“You’re going to be fucking late.” Ness throws a pillow at her best friend as she enters the room. “You have that plane to catch.”

“Fuck, what time is it.” Y/N murmurs as she could feel some drool on her pillow case.

“10:30.”

“Fuck!” She sits up immediately and grabs her phone. Her flight is leaving in an hour and God knows the traffic in Seattle. “Why didn’t you wake me up sooner!”

“Because your lazy ass wouldn’t wake up.” Ness walks out of the room and drinks her coffee. She was totally unfazed about her best friend panicking. “Relax.” Y/N gives her a death glare in return as she brushes her teeth in the kitchen. The two were very used to each other since they’ve not only been best friends for a long time but also roommates after moving to a new city.

“My brother’s wedding is in two days and I’m not even there yet.”

“Tell Ryan to choke for not inviting me, by the way.” Ness scrolls though the news feed on her phone as she casually bites into her bagel.

“Okay, I think I have everything.” Y/N walks out of her room in tights and an oversized sweater. “I really have to go.”

“You’re going to see him again, you know that right?” Ness really didn’t want to be the one to bring him up again but shit, Y/N looked like a dead zombie.

“It’s fine.” Y/N shrugs her shoulders. She couldn’t care less if she sees Harry again. “The last time I saw him, Carla and him were acting like total love birds at my mom and dad’s thanksgiving party.”

“That was like two years ago.” Ness tries to contain her laugh as she remembers their new pet names. Honey bunny and sweet treat. Oh to be in the honeymoon phase once again.

“Don’t think I forgot what you used to call Tom.” Y/N laughs as she rolls her luggage to the door.

“Shut up.” Nessa’s eyes widen as she throws a crumb at her. “That’s why I broke up with him.”

“Yeah, yeah. You better answer my call okay?”

“Yes babe, I know. I love you, take care!”

“Bye!”

And after the long haul of successfully boarding the plane, Y/N had five hours before she could finally see Ryan and his soon to be bride in Boston.

She was definitely nervous. The last wedding she attended was Harry’s and she knew full well how she badly coped with that. Not to mention how she calculated her schedule so she could “accidently” miss Ryan’s engagement party. Truth is, she doesn’t care about Harry but if there was any way she could try and dodge another awkward encounter...that’s what living in another city is for.

He also wasn’t really an ex but just a person in her life who managed to make her happy and sad at the same time. James had no idea who he was since she believed it was best to make that portion of her adolescence a secret. Just buried along with the other dreams she used to have.

After watching two movies and playing a random phone game, the plane finally landed. Y/N managed to brush her teeth and make herself look a bit more presentable after a heated run out of her apartment. Once she was at the pick up centre to grab her luggage, her heart beat began to increase signaling that she failed to neutralize her anxiety. Beads of sweat began to form on her forehead as she walked past the crowd of people. There was a constant voice in her head screaming at her to tell Ryan her flight just got cancelled. Unfortunately, Ryan was on time as she could picture his figure right outside the window of the airport.

“Hey.” Ryan smiles as he gives his little sister a hug. He saw her a couple months ago but time still makes everything different. He’s happy his sister is finally here.

“Hi.” Y/N tucks a piece of hair behind her ear as the wind blows by them. “I see you got a nice haircut.”

“I did.” Ryan laughs as he carries his sister’s suitcase into his trunk.

“I can’t believe you’re getting married Ry! I swear to god, it was only yesterday you were complaining to Harry about his wedding.” Y/N squints her eyes due to the sun shining directly at her. She uses her hand to cover the side of her face as she lets out a joke,“Are you sure about her?”

“Meghan? Absolutely.” Ryan shuts the door as they stand there. “ I didn’t know what Haz was talking about when he told me he wanted to marry Carla but shit, when I met Meghan… I-”

“You’re whipped more than ever.” She smiles as she notices her brother’s cheeks flush. She tried to change the topic immediately after her brother said his name. “I knew Cassidy wasn’t the one.”

“Sure you did.” Ryan rolls his eyes as they sit in his car. “How about you? Any new updates?”

“No not really.” Y/N shrugs her shoulders as she puts on her seatbelt. “James and I have been together for a year now which is crazy-”

“I wish the guy could have come to the wedding, didn’t know how serious you guys were.”

“Honestly, if he didn’t have that internship at the hospital, I would’ve tried and persuaded him some more.”

“It’s okay.” Ryan laughs as he shakes his head. “Meghan found you a date already and I’m sure you’re going to be okay with it.” Y/N eyes widen.

“I was going to go stag.” She looks out the window in disbelief. It wasn’t her fault, her boyfriend was trying to get into medical school.

“Don’t worry sis. It’s a platonic date -that’s all it is going to be.” Ryan reassures her as he drives out of the parking lot.

“Let me tell James. Just in case, he might get jealous.” She pulls out her phone. “Who is this guy anyway?”

“I’m not telling you but who knows, James might fly over here just so you don’t go with a random guy.” Ryan smirks as he exits the highway.

“Who is he?”

“It’s a surprise.” Ryan tries to hide his laugh.

“Does he know you’re setting me up with him.”

“Please.” Her brother scoffs. “The guy is always too nice, he offered first.”

“Well, shit then.”

“You’ll get to know him before the wedding I promise. At least, you have company other than mom and dad.”

“So you’re going to let a random guy just sit at our table?”

“You have no idea.” And truth be told, Y/N wasn’t worried about the date Ryan and Meghan set up for her. Maybe it was one of Meghan’s family members who thought she was still single. It didn’t matter though because this event was for her brother and that’s all that was important.

“Oh my god!” Ryan and Y/N’s mother stood outside the house waiting at the driveway for them to arrive.

“Hi mom!” Y/N gives her a warm hug. “I missed you, where’s dad?”

“He’s inside with-”

“Y/N.” Y/N’s dad steps through the doorframe and meets Y/N at the steps for a hug as well. She knew her father couldn’t walk that much due to his recent hip surgery. What she didn't expect however, was for Harry to be following right behind him. “I missed you darling.”

“Hi dad I missed you more, I didn’t know Harry was here.” Y/N backs away and turns her back to look at Ryan. He didn’t seem surprised at all as he carried her luggage towards them.

“Hey.” Harry offers a small wave, seeming too quiet. He kept his hands behind his back as he observed the girl in front of him. It’s been two years and a lot has changed. Y/N thought he would still have his long hair yet it is very evident, he had a haircut as well. He also seemed much more muscular as well as the new addition of tattoos on his arm. While she stared at him, she didn’t realize Harry was noticing all the different features she had too. Her hair was longer and darker and she carried a different aura than before. She didn't look like the girl whose bedroom he used to sneak into.

“Hi Harry.” Y/N didn’t know how to start a conversation with him.

“I guess you met your date.” Ryan walks ahead of them and laughs as he continues to bring in the bags.

“Harry's my date?” Y/N asks in shock as she follows him behind. Her mom slaps her arm as Harry and their dad follow.

“Don’t act offended, You’ve known Harry since you were a kid.”

“Aren’t you married though.” Y/N turns her back and looks at Harry before facing the front again as she suddenly became distracted by the house’s decorations.

“I actually got divorced.” Harry bites his tongue right after.

“See, now look what you did. You embarrassed the young boy.” Y/N’s mom rubs his back as she murmurs to him. “I’m sorry, Haz.”

“Oh, it’s okay.” He shakes his head, trying to act as if the topic didn’t make him feel uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry too.” Y/N finally looks at him once more. “I had no idea.”

“It’s been a year. That’s what happens when you marry too young.” He laughed it off but everyone ignored that statement as they all knew there was a deeper cut in his heart.

When Carla was around 5 months, she had a miscarriage and although, they claimed they would try again… there was no new announcement after that.

“Y/N, this is your room.” Ryan tries to change the topic as he scratches his head.

“Thank you.” She steps inside for a bit of privacy after a long flight. Ryan and Harry along with her parents went back to the living room to go and continue their movie.

Today is Ryan’s wedding and the house was giving her many little flashbacks of Harry’s. The family was in this foreign home and was still running around getting ready. Her mother was screaming at her dad as he decided last minute to steam his suit. Ryan and Meghan were gone which left Harry and Y/N the only victims to her mother’s loudness. The two kept quiet as her mother ran around the house doing her hair and calling relatives for updates. Y/N managed to be ready on time so it let her sit on the couch looking at the photos in which mehgan has framed around the room.

“Your dad said I should drive you to the venue now. I think they’re definitely running late.” Harry speaks up after two days of ignoring her. The truth is last night when he went to the kitchen he saw Y/N sitting down on one of the counters and maybe if it was three years ago, he would’ve spoken to her but something about now told him to go back to his bedroom. He used to feel comfortable around her but now he’s walking around her as if he was on eggshells. He was so fucking nervous.

“Okay.” She agrees with him. Harry was the best man and she didn’t want him to be late because of her parents. Y/N puts her phone in the purse resting on her shoulder as she follows him out of the house. She would’ve been a bit more calm if she didn’t end her call with James midway through their fight.

“Um A-Are you okay?” He opens the door for her as he tries not to check her out. It was definitely difficult however as the way her long hair was styled and the pretty dress she wore. Luckily for Y/N, while Harry was doing some errands at home, she managed to “observe” him in his suit.

“Yeah, I’m good.” She lets out a small smile as she realizes Harry was still driving his car back from high school. You know the vehicle they had sex i-

“Alright.” The man breaks her out of the thought as he starts the car. “I promise tonight isn’t going to be weird around us.”

“Who said it was?”

“I don’t know I guess I just assumed.” He bites his cheek as he glances at her. That’s when the déjà vu hits and he feels like he’s eighteen years old again. She keeps her eyes on the road yet she had no idea that Harry was picturing her seventeen year old self sitting in the seat beside him. One of his favourite memories to be exact.

Flashback*

“So you’re kidnapping me to go camping in the woods.” Y/N smiles as she watches the unfamiliar road in front of them. Harry takes his shades off and passes it to the girl as he notices the sun is shining much more brighter than before.

“Hey, you got permission from your parents.” He smirks at her as he keeps his hand on the gear stick.

“They think I’m sleeping over at Nessa’s.” Y/N laughs as she puts on the shades and looks at him. His cheeks turn red as he catches the sight of the pretty girl wearing everything of his.

“Is little Y/N scared of the dark?” His hand smoothly travels to her thigh.

“I am not.” Y/N chokes on her breath. It was bad enough Harry looked so hot whilst he was driving.

“I think you are.” He notices her breathing becoming a bit more short. “You and me in a tent alone in the dark.” His hand goes a bit more south, gipping her inner thigh.

“I have a surprise for you.” She blurts out. She was also seconds close to making Harry pull over to the side of the road.

“And what is that?”

“I’ve been wearing a plug and I’m ready.” The speed of the car increases a bit as he mindlessly presses his foot to the sound of her voice. He looks at her one more time before taking over the car in front of them.

“Fuck then. My baby once again proves that she isn’t as innocent as I thought.”

End of flashback*

The venue was beautiful. Ryan and Meghan chose this beautiful garden that had tulips growing everywhere. The white gazebo was obviously where the wedding would take place as the reception was only a stoned pathway ahead. Since Harry was the best man and Y/N was his date, she managed to follow him around the place as he spoke to the event planner and the maid of honour. She had a whole tour of the location as Harry spoke about the party’s process to her. Not only that, but he was an amazing date -he kept his hand on her back and introduced her to people she didn’t know.

Currently, she was sitting on the bench watching Harry talk to some familiar faces. They seemed like a few boys Ryan and he would hang out with back in high school. She was mindlessly watching him laugh and smile throughout the conversation until she didn’t realize he was already staring at her. After excusing himself, he walked back towards her.

“I’m sorry, If I’m boring yeh.” Harry rubs his neck as he sits down beside her. The wedding was about to start in a couple of hours.

“No, you’re not.” Y/N laughs as she keeps her eyes on the lake behind him. She suddenly remembers their camping trip. She shakes her head at the thought and shrugs her shoulders. “How are you feeling?”

“About the wedding?” He pulls down the sleeves of his dark grey suit. She nods her head and waits for him to continue. “I’m happy Ryan is marrying Meghan. It’s funny how he thought he would stay single for long.”

“I remember him telling you that when you were engaged.” She bites the inside of her cheek. She definitely just put her foot in her mouth again. She was definitely known for that but Harry didn’t seem fazed at all about her statement.

“I mean don’t get me wrong, Weddings are a bit difficult to attend at the moment just because I know mine didn’t end well but um…” He clears his throat and faces himself more towards her. “I also got married knowing I wasn’t really in love with the girl.” Y/N finally looks at him as she watches the familiar green eyes say the truth.

“I know.” She nods her head again. “Things are different now and I hope you do find the girl that you are 100% about.”

“Yeah.” He looks at the patch of flowers in front of them. He would tell her what he thinks but he knows she’s dating someone.

“Let’s go check out your brother.” Harry stands up and offers his hand out. “I’m sure he’s wondering where we are.”

And so the event continued. Y/N’s parents arrived and so did the other guests. The beautiful girl in her wedding dress walked down the aisle and Harry couldn’t keep his eyes off the girl sitting in the crowd.

It was simple for him, he knows he’s not over her but he wouldn’t tell her that.

Would he tell her that he started coming home more after Carla’s miscarriage in hope of seeing her? No.

He definitely can’t tell her that he was hurt. He would come over to their house only to find out she wasn’t home or when he found out she was moving to Seattle for college.

After the past two years, Ryan briefly mentions her and James and he felt like he no longer had a chance. At least with her.

So standing beside Ryan as his best man felt like a total shot in the heart because Harry knew he wasted his time and lost the girl as well.

Y/N catches his eyes watching her and just for a moment, she wished things were different too.

When the reception started, Harry and Y/N along with her parents sat at one of the tables close to the bride and groom

The hosts were right however, as Harry fit perfectly with the family. Throughout dinner, he made jokes and started conversing with her parents more than she thought. Although he gave her some attention, he didn’t fail to compliment her mother as well.

The two sat together eating dessert as he leaned over to whisper something in her ear. “I’ll let you have a bite out of my brownie if I can steal a bite from your cake.” Harry smirks as he takes a sip of his glass of tequila. He wasn’t trying to get drunk but a little strong (strong) alcohol should cause no harm. Y/N casually steals the glass from his hand and takes a sip as well.

The two were finally much more comfortable with each other after spending the day side by side. Harry laughs as he takes his fork and steals a bite of her cake. The red velvet flavour melting in his mouth as he watches the girl swallow the rest of his drink.

“Sorry, I’m a bit quenched.” Y/N laughs as she puts the glass down and stabs her fork back into her cake. His fork immediately swats hers away.

“I’m not done with my bite.” He teases her as he pulls the small plate towards him. Y/N mouth drops.

“You guys fight like children.” Her dad speaks up and smiles at the scene in front of them.

“He asked to steal a bite but he stole the whole plate.” She laughs as she watches him shove numerous tiny bites in his mouth. Y/N mom laughs as she smiles at the cheeky boy.

“I said you can have some of my brownie but you proceed to finish my drink.”

“You seem a little drunk anyway.” She lies as she leans forward to take the brownie from his plate.

“Want some shots.” Harry blurts out as he finishes the dessert. “You finished my drink so I’m heading back to the bar… you still might be a bit quenched.”

“Okay.” She laughs as the two excuse themselves from the table.

“Do you remember the scrunchie on my wrist and you called me out on it.” Harry slowly dances with Y/N as the night continues on. The event was almost over but all the attendees were on the dance floor dancing to Kiss Me by Ed Sheeran. As a proper stellar date, Harry didn’t hesitate to ask the girl for a dance as he knew last time he missed out.

“I know you stole it.” Y/N laughs as she unconsciously rests her head on his shoulder. The truth is when in doubt, Y/N always drinks a bit more than usual. It seems whenever Harry is around, she can’t help but be drunk.

“Oh really?” He pulls away and laughs. “I was going to tell you an old story but you already know.” Y/N rolls her eyes as she looks at the people surrounding them. Nobody was shocked to see how close they were dancing. Everyone was in their own little bubble and maybe if Y/N and Harry didn’t break the ice or drink a bit, they would definitely not be as bold as they are right now.

“No! You have to tell me now.” Her eyes widen as she readjusts her hands on her shoulders. Harry smirked at her anticipation as he willingly rests his hands back on her waist.

“It was the first night we made the deal.” He whispers quietly hoping no one would hear them. “It was on your vanity and I took it after you sleepily threw my clothes at me.” They both laugh at the old memory.

“I saw you wearing it during the game.”

“So did you always watch me back then? Probably just wanted to get into my pants.” Y/N cheeks flush as she hides her face away from him.

“You’re acting as if I never caught you staring right back at me.”

“True.” he twirls her around. “Couldn’t keep my eyes off you after that deal you offered.” Y/N immediately pulls away after he hears the statement roll of his tongue.

“Harry, I know tonight has probably been the most normal conversation we had with each other but… We can’t go back there.” She walks off the dance floor, making him follow her without hesitation. Instead of going back to their table however, she makes a b line to the unlighted pathway of the garden.

“Hey, don’t go. I’m sorry I ruined the moment.” He unbuttons the top of his vest seeing his blazer was still on his chair. “I spoke about fight club-”

“You remember that?” Y/N slows down her speed and turns around. “It’s been three years and you still remember it?”

“Why don’t you?” Harry turns his back around to notice the bushes covering them from the rest of the party.

“Of course I do but you got married and moved away. I just thought that would slip your mind.”

“Well it didn’t.” He musters up a small smile and shrugs his shoulders. “Look, can we go back to the party and pretend I didn’t mess this up.”

“It’s not about you messing up H. It’s the fact that I still get flashbacks of you and I -and seeing you here again is making me feel like the past three years didn’t happen.”

“I didn’t see you during Christmas.” He blurts out as he watches her sigh. “Any holiday except thanksgiving to be exact.”

“Well, I moved to Seattle and couldn’t book a flight home every time of the year.”

“Carla is dating someone new.” Y/N nods her head. “And I’m still not able to get you out of my head.”

“You might just ghost me next time around.” She lets out a sarcastic laugh as she tries her best not to trip over herself as she walks a bit further into the pathway.

“I told you I regret doing that.” He continues to follow her. “It’s been three years and you’re still mad about it.”

“I’m not mad. I’m just saying whenever it’s you and I, you tend to ghost me and run back to Carla.”

“If it makes you feel better, I could give a fuck less what Ryan thinks of us. It’s why I asked him if I could be your date.”

“I have a boyfriend Harry! An actual boyfriend who waits for me after work everyday. A boyfriend who actually replies to my calls-”

“He hasn’t even met Ryan or your parents!”

“And-”

“Look Y/N, all I’m saying is I don’t care about this fucking guy!” Harry sternly walks towards her until he backs her up to a wall of vines.

“Then why are you trying to talk about our old memories and shit like that.”

“Because,” He pauses as he thoughtlessly rests his hands on either side of her head. “I fucking care about you. The moment Carla had a miscarriage and she needed me the most, I needed you! I didn’t realize I let you go the moment I went back to her.”

“Harry…”

“So it’s true, you didn’t love me.” He pulls away but Y/N brings her hands up to his face to keep his eyes on her.

“Of course, I did.” Y/N cries as she shakes her head in disbelief. “Why would you think that would be true? You called me out on it before.”

“I came back every couple of months hoping to see you at home with your parents. You were always gone.”

“Did you actually?”

“Fuck.” He pulls away and runs his hand through his short hair. He swore he would never tell her this. Is this how desperate he is now. “Yeah, of course I did. I knew you would leave for college but I wish I knew from you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not even your fault.” He laughs as he hugs her. “I want you back.” His arms wrap around her much more tightly than before. “Please.”

“James-”

“Do you love him?”

“Harry, don’t ask that?”

“No, I want to know.”

“Well I don’t know because after what you did-”

“Then you still love me.” He looks up at her in hope she would say yes. Just admit it, please.

“Okay and if I do -what do I do now? I like James and although it hasn’t been long I’m sure something will change.”

“Can’t you see?” He directs her back to the wall of vines. “You were always mine the same way, I was always yours.”

“The loophole of our deal.” She mumbles out loud as her hands mindlessly hold onto his forearms.

“The deal has always meant more to me than it should’ve.” He whispers as the sound of music and distant chatter is the only thing they can hear.

And I want to tell you everything

The words I never got to say the first time around

And I remember everything

From when we were the children playing in this fairground

Wish I was there with you now

If the whole world was watching I'd still dance with you

Drive highways and byways to be there with you

Over and over the only truth

Everything comes back to you

“Just kiss me already.” Y/N watches him as she lets out one more breath. Without hesitation he kisses her as the grip on her waist tightens. Y/N’s hands immediately play with the curls that reach the nape of his neck.

“Fuck, I missed you.” His soft lips rub on her left cheeks as he rubs himself on her. His hands begin to wonder in disbelief that she’s in his arms again. Her scent clouding his thoughts that they haven’t even noticed they’re still at a party.

“I want you.” Her hips raise itself on him as she rests her back on the cement behind her. “Harry, please.”

“We’re going home.” He bites his lip as his eyes darken. Without even thinking of what others would say, he mindlessly holds her hand as they walk out of the secluded space. The two didn’t bother telling anyone they were leaving the party as he basically dragged the poor girl to his car.

“Do you even know how to get inside Ryan’s house.” She giggles as she keeps herself close to his arm. He takes his blazer and rests it on her shoulders back like a few years ago.

“I have my ways.” He smirks as he helps her inside the vehicle.

This whole event felt like déjà vu. The wedding, the car ride, the quick secret escape from a party just to have sex. If there was one thing Y/N and Harry were good at, it’s probably how good they were at keeping themselves as a secret.

“I’ve missed you more than I thought.” Y/N bites her lip as she rests her head on the seat, watching Harry drive.

Him in his suit too focused on driving them home made her want to fuck his brains out. Truly.

Harry’s cheeks flush as he takes her hand into his. “I’m no longer that frat boy you used to know. I’m much nicer.”

“Oh really, in what ways?” she smirks as she eyes the growing bulge in his pants.

“I promise you won’t be able to leave my room tonight that’s for sure.”

“Then I’m happy.”

Moist air, dark night, and bodies clinging to each other as Harry struggled to open the front door. As the groom’s best friend, of course he had keys to his house. Y/N couldn’t help but keep her hands on his slim torso as there was something about just holding them that was driving her crazy.

“Fuck, your parents are going to wonder where we are.”

“I don’t fucking care.” Y/N licks the side of his neck before running inside. She’s trying to laugh quietly as she attempts to take off her heels. Harry being the responsible one, he texts Y/N’s dad they went home. Afterwards, he stops by Y/N’s room to lock it before he follows the girl into his room.

Once he locks the door, he realizes Y/N managed to take all her clothes off as she laid on his bed. “For fuck’s sake.” He mumbles to himself as he forgot how horny and crazy Y/N can be. He rubs the slight stubble on his chin as he watches the girl bite her lip and roll in his sheets. “You’re such a little devil aren’t you?”

“Like I said I missed you.” She fakes her confidence as Harry crawls up to meet her on the mattress. His finger takes the lip out between her teeth as his lips move forward to kiss her once again. His goal was to lay her down and kiss her naked body but it seemed like Y/N had other plans in mind. Her arms push him away as she kneels on the mattress. Keeping her eyes on him, she unbuttons the rest of his vest before spreading her palms over where his heart beat. Harry is speechless but the moment she began to unbuckle his belt he had to say something.

“Oh I see.” He smiles as his hand holds Y/N’s chin to his face. “I thought my girl really did miss me but it seems like she missed my dick a bit more huh? You want it?” He grips her face a bit harder as her hands maintain on his waistline. She nods shyly as she tries to continue her action.

“Fine, do what you want but I’m not done with you yet.” His voice softens as his hand immediately brushes the soft hair away from her face. His green eyes watch her drool over him as she unzips his pants. His hands on the flip side continued to remove the white long sleeve off his body. “Take it in your mouth. I know you’re dying too baby.” Y/N cheeks turn red as her tongue peaks out to kiss his hard cock. The funny thing is, she couldn’t keep her eyes off him despite being a horny mess. Sex was never the same if it wasn’t with harry and that was a fact because the moment she put him in her mouth, he pushed himself harder until he could feel the back of her throat.

The constant humming and gagging sounds wasn’t enough for him because the moment he pulled himself out of her little wet hole. He pulls her hair harder to keep her eyes on him. Without even hesitating, he spits in her mouth and puts his dick back in. From the way Y/N’s eyes rolled back, he knew full well that this was his girl and some things don’t change...especially the way she reacts to him.

“Are you going to let me fuck your mouth baby?” He moans quietly as he softly strokes her scalp. “How many times are you going to make me cum huh?” Y/N chokes a bit as he thrusts himself at a faster rate. “Always so pretty aren’t you dove?” He pulls himself out and slaps her tit. “What do you want me to do?” He whispers as kisses her lips once more. His mouth thoughtlessly kisses down the side of her neck as his hands press and grope on her tits.

“I want you everywhere.” His eyes watch her dilated ones as he slowly pushes her down the mattress.

“Hm, I don’t think you want to as much I thought?” He teases her as one of his fingers pops into his mouth and later into hers.

“You want me to beg?” Her tongue swirls around his digit as she lays helplessly on his pillows. “Never.”

“Never?” Harry laughs as his wet fingers pretended to walk down her body to her heated centre. “When did my baby become such a brat?” The devious smirk plays on his face as his tongue licks the side of his mouth.

“I’ve always been a brat.”

“Oh, so you don’t want me to fuck you is that what you’re saying?” His hands immediately stop teasing her as he begins to jerk himself off -slowly but surely.

“I do.” She tries to sit up but his hand pushes her back down immediately. “Harry, please?”

“Is that you begging me?” He laughs as his thumb wipes a bead of precum on his dick. “I would rate that three out of ten, Extra point because good girls say please.”

“Baby...” Y/N moans out as she tries to reach for him but Harry’s hands immediately grabs them and places them above her head.

“Just beg a bit better and maybe you wouldn’t have to work so hard, love. You said it before so show me you want me.”

“Daddy please fuck me.”

“Like music to my ears.” He spreads her legs open and pushes himself inside her. “Fuck.” It’s always the condom that gets to him.

“No, stay.” She whines as she holds onto his wait. “Please, I’m on birth control and James and I don’t really-”

“What?” His eyes widen as he bites the inside of his cheek. “What did you say?”

“He’s an intern at this hospital so he’s just always been busy.” She whispers in embarrassment. Don’t get her wrong, she has sex just not as much as she thought she should.

“Fucking hell.” He mumbles as he thrusts himself a bit harder into her. “No one has taken care of you in a while huh?” He bends down and kisses her again. The soft wet licks stay longer as he hears the beat of her heart. It was beating fast just like his.

“Mhm. Please Harry just fuck me.” She cries out as she takes his fingers back into her mouth. His thrusts become harder and harder as he watches her face cry in pleasure. “Oh daddy, fuck.”

“So fucking good. You’re such an angel oh shit.” His palm immediately chokes her. He couldn’t help but watch how her tits move up and down due to the force he’s putting into her.

“Let me ride you.” Her hips thrust up and meet him. Her mouth opens wide at the feeling.

“You sure about? Sure you can still take me?” His hand gives her a little slap to the cheek.

“Of course I can.” Y/N smirks. Harry immediately pulls himself off her as he lays down on the mattress himself. “You think I’m going to let you fuck me all night long. I’ve been wanting to fuck your brains out.”

“Y/N,” He smirks as he watches her straddle him. “You think you can fuck my brains out? You seem pretty fucking confident, baby.” He flicks her nipple which makes her press herself deeper onto his dick.

“I can.” She closes her eyes as Harry watches the moonlight shine on her face.

“Yeah, then show me.” He slaps the side of her thigh more harder than before. “Fuck me. Just use me then.”

“Just promise I’ll be a good girl, daddy.” her hands slide down to his waist.

“Promise.” He bites his lip and watches their wet desperate centres meet.

And in that moment, there was nothing but lust in their eyes as they fucked back and forth. Y/N moaning as Harry continued slapping her ass. He couldn’t help but thrust his hips as well due the fact there was nothing better than feeling Y/N’s desperate pussy clenching for more.

“Go on all fours.” He cries out after a few more rounds. Y/N wasn’t lying since she definitely fucked his brain out. There was nothing on their minds other than jumping each other’s bones over and over again.

Once she’s in position, he slaps her ass once again before putting himself back in.

“Oh god, shit baby.” Y/N bites the end of his pillowcase as she keeps her hands on the headboard. “You’re so big, I can’t anymore fuck.”

“I know you have one more in you, come on baby.” He pulls her hair and slaps her ass once more.

“Fuck!” She moans out as she feels his wet spit travel down her pussy. Harry immediately thrusts harder as the sweat on his neck begins to bother him. His thrusts were becoming sloppy but he needed Y/N to cum one more time.

“God, fuck me.” Harry moans out as Y/N finally cums one more time around him. Without even thinking, he releases himself inside of her and pulls her hair harder one more time. She immediately falls down as she can’t feel a thing. Harry felt her clench around him despite his need to pull himself off her.

“Baby, you have to let go.” He kisses the back of her shoulder and grips the side of her waist.

“Please don’t go.” She cries out and wipes her tears on the pillowcase. Harry slowly pulls himself off and lays on the bed beside her. He puts himself back in and wipes her tears away. His arm pulls her closer to him as he whispers one more thing into her ear.

“I love you.”

“Glad to see you two are awake.” Y/N’s mom waits in the kitchen as she makes pancakes on the stove. “Ryan and Meghan left last night right after the reception.” She suspiciously keeps her eyes on the two as they walk together to the breakfast table. “Harry, thank you for leaving the door unlocked. We came home around one last night.” Oh shit did they hear us? Y/N looks at Harry who seems bothered as he takes a sip of the coffee in his mug.

“I didn’t hear you two.” She brings the plate to the table. “If you’re wondering Y/N.”

“Mom, it’s not what-” Her cheeks flush in an embarrassment.

“Oh please, don’t bother lying. I already lied, Harry was the one who opened the door for us.” She laughs and rolls her eyes. “And Harry, don’t bother giving me an excuse. It makes sense.” She sits down with the two of them. “You always kept visiting us back home and the way your eyes watched her when she came here after her flight gave it all away.”

“Not to mention, you answering the door shirtless and Y/N not responding when we knocked on her door last night.” Y/N’s dad appears with a newspaper in hand.

“Does Ryan know?” Harry looks at Y/N and puts a pancake on her plate. Does her parents even know she’s wearing his clothes?

“Ryan saw you two leave together.” Y/N’s mom laughs. “Don’t worry, it was him and Meghan’s idea to also try and pair you guys together.”

“Wait so he’s okay with it.” Y/N speaks up after murmuring a thank you to Harry.

“Of course he is, Y/N. You guys are no longer teenagers right? So make your own choices for Christ’s sake.” Her mom states in disbelief.

“Did you know I’ve been seeing her back in high school?”

“Harry.” Y/N’s dad’s tone changed. Sounded a bit like disappointment.

“Oh god, there is more to the story?” Y/N’s mom rolls her eyes. “Alright, eat up everyone, you two have to tell us everything.”

“So this is it.” Y/N smiles as she sits in his car. The two were currently at the airport. “I had no idea, you relocated to Boston. It makes sense why you had so many things in your room back at Ryan’s house.”

“Yeah, I transferred last year. I’m hoping to finish here, graduate and then see what else I can do.”

“What do you think this means for us?” She puts her shades on as she pulls on the sleeves of her light sweater that she was wearing over her collared shirt.

“It means that this is when I ask you if you would please be my girlfriend.” Y/N’s cheeks flush and she hides her face in her hands.

“Are you for real?” She laughs.

“Yes.” He smirks as he keeps his hands on the steering wheel.

“I will be your girlfriend, Harry.”

“Good. You’re breaking up with James right.” Y/N rolls her eyes and nods.

“I’m ending it with him, the moment I land back in the city.”

“Make some space, I might move there.” He lightly jokes but there was some truth in it. Meghan and Ryan were married, there was no need for him to take up some space in their house.

“Sure, you’ll love Seattle and Ness is there too.”

“I like that. Will you introduce me to your ex?” Y/N laughs as she opens her door.

“No.” but right before she can get out, his hand pulls her back in for a kiss. Once their lips touch, he looks at her once again.

“I love you.” He genuinely states as he watches her eyes melt in happiness.

“I love you too.” She smiles and kisses him once more. “Bye, Harry.” She hugs him across the platform and kisses his cheek too. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you more. Call me later tonight when you land yeh?”

“Okay.” She pouts. She had to catch a flight and be away from him for at least one more year.

“I love you okay, baby.” He kisses her forehead. “Bye.”

“Bye.” And with that, Y/N steps out of the car and watches him drive away. She has a plane to catch and he has some sheets to clean but that doesn't change the fact, they are finally together.

And everyone knows it.

Fini!

---------

Taglist: @f-flourishing , @nataliedahlia , @florenceskies , @much-love-tay , @goldenxstyles7 , @sixwyrxstuff , @y0uresogolden , @gucciantidote , @kikisparadise18 , @muffpuff23 , @stylessugarhigh , @f-vasquezp , @alwaysclassyeagle

#harry styles angst #jealous!Harry #Harry Styles #harry styles smut #harry styles one direction #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles stories #harry styles x reader #harry styles blurbs #harry styles one shots #one direction fanfic #one direction one shots #one direction imagines #harry styles imagines #Harry styles fluff #frat boy!harry #solo harry

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witchofthemidlands · 3 years

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Notes on Primeval (Book One): A Rip In Time (Covers Episodes 1-2)

for @simplyshelbs16xoxo (if they're not available in america i am more than happy to seek out the important parts of these books that answered some questions about the canon)

these descriptions of the characters had me howling with laughter.

there’s a little bit more info from stephen about how sad nick was when helen disappeared.

it was basically love at first sight for nick when he first saw claudia. he thinks about how beautiful she is for at least a full page & he is just constantly describing what he admires about her throughout the book.

was absolutely not offended that she kissed him.

connor thinking stephen ‘mighty hunter’ hart can stop a dinosaur from walking away from them.

i’ve said it before & I’ll say it again, I think because nick & stephen never went to their lectures but people knew about them & their adventures a lot of stories got exaggerated, or even made up so half the uni thought that stephen was some sort of super human animal whisperer.

lester was 100% done the second he first saw nick & abby.

abby had decided that she was keeping rex herself when she took him from the kid. she refers to him as her beloved rex.

this book has some amazing meme worthy photos in it.

rex went back to the modern day because he saw nick & captain ryan arguing & was so invested in the drama that he flew after them.

nick was really upset that they had to kill the gorgonopsid. he wanted it to make it back home.

he spends some time looking at pictures of himself & helen remembering when they were happy (she did not deserve this man)

nick is annoyed that a lot of his students write papers with research based on jurassic park.

he potentially sleeps in his office.

there’s a scene in the books that definitely wasn’t in the show where it explains why abby was able to keep her job at the zoo.

stephen comes to tell her that he & nick are using helen’s money to fund the reptile house.

stephen hart apparently smells like lemons.

abby tries to hug stephen for getting her the money but she is covered in elephant dung so he escapes her.

stephen tries to comfort her about rex & she thinks about how she snuck rex home.

abby started messaging stephen as soon as they reached the woods but her phone died. she also thought that connor was a madman.

connor actually thought they’d find an anomaly & he & abby would go through it together & fall in love in the prehistoric era.

i don’t remember if this was in the show but stephen phoned connor & he ignored him.

abby was really upset about what connor said about stephen to the point she thought he kinda deserved to be fired.

stephen flirts with abby all the way down to the underground & tells her to protect him. he doesn’t even have the bite as an excuse for forgetting his actual girlfriend at this point.

it was 100% stephen’s idea to bring connor back to the job he had total faith in him that he’d be able to figure out what the centipede was.

stephen being frantic to get nick back for two pages straight.

abby tries to stop him by hugging him but nothing is stopping this man from getting nick back. i love the nickstephen moments in these books.

continuous excruciating pain is apparently what being bitten by the prehistoric centipede feels like.

nick basically going feral to save stephen for several pages straight & practically hugs the container of venom.

nick was planning to leave the team & go through the anomaly in the underground at the end of the book to find helen

#nick cutter #claudia brown #stephen hart #connor temple #abby maitland #james lester #primeval

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mostlymovieswithmax · 3 years

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Movies I watched in July

Once again I’m doing my monthly round-up of movies I’ve watched. This was a good month for the cinema getting back on track and seeing new releases including the new M. Night movie, Old and James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. Pretty sure Marvel put out a new movie also. I’m hoping that this list can help in guiding a decision about what to watch (or what to avoid) and introduce people to movies they may otherwise not have heard of or bothered to see. These short reviews are my own subjective opinions on each individual movie and maybe a more informal approach to movie criticism can help include others who are just passing through. Here is every film I watched from the 1st to the 31st of July.

Bridesmaids (2011) - 4/10

Off to a good start. I won’t say Bridesmaids is a terrible movie but I don’t think I’m exactly the target audience. As far as I know, this is a beloved comedy but I just can’t get on board with all the boring, juvenile humour; with Maya Rudolph shitting in the street, with Rose Byrne and Kristen Wiig trying to one-up each other at a toast that went on forever, with Melissa McCarthy shitting in a sink… the conflict is so done to death and makes the movie feel unspecial. I do understand the appeal of the film, especially for women in that before this movie the likelihood of seeing something like this, where women play up the more crass and gross side of comedy, was probably few and far between. But the story is very tired and while I did appreciate some moments, namely a couple of decent jokes and some of the more intimate scenes, for the most part it felt like they wanted to corner a more quiet type of line delivery in a way that was supposed to be understated but very funny so as to not rely on over the top body language or musical cues, and it ended up being super dull.

Spectre (2015) - 7/10

As far as I can tell, a lot of people don’t like this instalment of the James Bond franchise… but I really enjoyed it! I’ve really taken a shine to these Daniel Craig-era Bond movies and while I can’t say any of them are the most amazing thing, I have a lot of fun with them. The biggest problem I have with Spectre is the villain being utterly pointless and uninteresting in basically every way. The idea of every villain Bond has fought before being tied to this one organisation controlled by this one guy is ridiculous, and what makes it worse is that the villain is barely in it! There’s so much that doesn’t come together in this but as it goes, I still had a really good time. Daniel Craig holds the whole thing together; he is excellent as 007 and the main reason I’m up for each of these movies is because of him. Sam Mendes directs again after the previous instalment and for what it’s worth I do think he does a good job with some of the action set pieces and the locations. I’m so ready for No Time To Die.

Shazam (2019) - 7/10

Shazam is a genuinely fun superhero movie that doesn’t take itself seriously at all. I was having a great time throughout and while it could conform to some of the same tropes we’re used to with these kinds of movies, it still remained playful and used the character of Shazam to his fullest potential in a way that showed an understanding of just how silly the idea of a kid who can turn into an adult and shoot lightning out of his hands is.

High School Musical (2006) - 6/10

So as you may or may not know, I co-host a podcast: The Sunday Movie Marathon. It’s a film podcast and every week I get together with my other co-hosts and watch movies. For episode 38, we watched the High School Musical trilogy. This first movie blew me away. I was really surprised with just how much fun I had, and if you want to hear more of my thoughts on the film, please listen to episode 38 of the podcast.

High School Musical 2 (2007) - 4/10

We then jumped into the second and while it’s certainly not as good as its predecessor, there are still some brilliant songs that manage to top the last movie. Again, more of what I have to say can be heard on episode 38 of the podcast.

High School Musical 3: Senior Year (2008) - 3/10

Senior Year was pretty hard to get through. I don’t remember it being as bad as it was, but then I didn’t really remember it anyway. It did however have one redeeming quality, which you can discover on episode 38 of the podcast.

The Piano Teacher (2001) - 9/10

What the fuuuckkkk. The Piano Teacher is horrendously affecting and I was so upset when it ended, maybe not because it’s not what I wanted but because it’s just so fucking dour and unrelenting. This is the second Haneke movie I’ve seen (after the original Funny Games) and I’m so impressed with how well executed it is. Following a woman who teaches piano, we get a glimpse into the life she lives, how sheltered she is from living with her mother at an age where you’d reasonably expect a person to be living alone or with a partner or friends (even going so far as to be sleeping in the same bed as her), and how repressed she is sexually. It’s clear she’s never experienced any kind of sexual interaction or romantic love with another person, so she goes out of her way to take control and make that happen. The upsetting nature of it comes from just what she does in pursuit of it or as a result of her repression, and what is done to her. It is by no means a movie to recommend to your parents but The Piano Teacher offers so much in terms of the ideas it presents (and I’ll admit there seems to be a lot more going on than I think I picked up on a first go round) about women in modern society, and about the portrayal of sex and expectations of people when it comes to how that is represented in a person’s character depending on their gender. I really enjoyed this movie but it is not for the faint of heart.

Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure (2011) - 1/10

My podcast co-hosts decided it’d be a right laugh to add Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure to this episode and that might have been a fun idea for them because they got to watch it together, but I was just watching it alone. Just a 24-year-old man watching Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure alone and having a miserable time, I might add. But for a short and sweet ramble on what we all thought, please listen to episode 38 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

Dr. No (1962) - 6/10

A lot of very iffy parts of this movie. A lot of discomfort arising from how black people are portrayed that really didn’t sit right with me. As far as a Bond movie goes, this first instalment in the series is one I’ve seen before and it’s not wholly engaging but it plants the seeds for the rest, with Sean Connery breathing life into the role and making an otherwise lacklustre plot bearable.

Black Widow (2021) - 6/10

I think probably the best part about Black Widow is the experience I had while watching it. It was great being back in the cinema with a couple of friends in a packed theatre. The energy was high and I’m sure for a lot of people, this is the first time they’d been to the cinema since Endgame. For what it’s worth, I did have a lot of fun with Black Widow and I’ve explained more of what I thought about the movie in episode 39 of the podcast.

The Climb (2020) - 10/10

The Climb was added to Now TV recently and I already knew I loved it, having seen it in an empty cinema theatre last year, which I had an absolute blast with. The Climb details the years of a rocky friendship told over scenes filmed as one-shots. Not only is the presentation something to gawk at, but the performances by the two leads playing these friends with a terrifically dysfunctional dynamic is truly captivating. They’re both trying to figure out their own lives and where one can come across as being rather selfish, the opposite is true in his counterpart, whom everyone loves. This is a truly funny and heartwarming movie with a lot to say about how we choose to live our lives and who we choose to be with. It’s a shame the distributors of The Climb didn’t do a very good job because if not for it being available on Now TV, it would be near impossible to watch without forking out more money than is necessary to purchase a film.

From Russia With Love (1963) - 5/10

The second Bond movie. I thought perhaps I’d change my mind on it with another watch, having seen it for the first time maybe a year ago. But no, it’s still largely boring and it treats women like absolute garbage. From Russia With Love is one of those movies I forget as I watch it, and I was trying very hard (in the middle of the day!) not to fall asleep.

The Good, The Bart, and The Loki (2021) - 1/10

I don't usually talk about the short films I watch but for this I'll make an exception. As we all should know, Disney owns The Simpsons now, through their acquisition of Fox, so, coupled with another of their properties, that being Marvel, they decided to make a six-minute animated film wherein Marvel’s Loki is stranded in Springfield. This felt as though it was a minute long due to the horrendously jarring pacing; it is a movie that feels adamant that it needs to exist, while trying as hard as it can to be over as soon as possible. It serves only to stare the audience directly in the face and say “look, characters from The Simpsons are dressed as Avengers”, shit out three credit scenes, then end before you’ve even processed the atrocity you just bore witness to.

Russian Ark (2002) - 8/10

For this next episode of the podcast, we watched a few Russian movies, starting with Russian Ark, a film shot completely in one take as the camera moves about a luxurious museum in a first-person perspective as this main character watches what is happening around him, seeing people moving about the place but unable to interact with them, guided only by another man who seems to be just slightly out of his own perception of reality. This is a tremendous feat in filmmaking and more can be heard about what I have to say in episode 39 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

Ivan’s Childhood (1962) - 7/10

For my own pick of Russian movies to discuss on the podcast, I chose the debut feature from one of my favourite directors, Andrei Tarkovsky. It’s amazing that while this is not his best film by far, Ivan’s Childhood is still such a stellar debut, jumping around in its timeline as it details a child’s experience in the second world war. Again, I do go into more depth in episode 39 of the podcast, so be sure to check that out.

Outlaw (2019) - 1/10

The third movie chosen for this marathon is apparently the fourth Russian LGBTQ+ movie ever made. I’m unsure of the ultimate goal of this movie but what seems to be clear is that it hates the LGBTQ+ community. This is perhaps the worst film we’ve discussed on the podcast to date, so listen to episode 39 to understand exactly why it’s such trash.

Almost Famous (2000) - 7/10

I too love heavy music and also studied journalism so it stands to reason that a movie about a teenager who makes his way onto a band tour, following them through America and interviewing them as they hang out and play shows is going to be a premise that resonates with me. This certainly did. I enjoyed Almost Famous a lot; this kid is living the dream and I was so along for the ride, seeing a lot of myself in what was being portrayed. That said, the story itself is at times a bit by the numbers and I really would’ve been more on board if the visual component was more interesting. For what it is, technically it’s fine enough but nothing in that department ever jumped out at me.

Minari (2021) - 8/10

It’s crazy that this didn’t get a theatrical run where I live in the UK. It feels as though I complain about film distribution all the time but I really don’t understand the process by which a movie gets no cinematic release and yet, months later will pop up on the front shelf of hmv, taking pride of place. But of course I got the blu-ray straight away. Minari has a lot to say about the immigrant experience, specifically in America as a family comes over from Korea and tries to start a business and make something of themselves. You get to see a lot of what you might not think twice about when you think about immigration: the hardship of coming from a place where you know everyone to somewhere rural and sparsely populated, having to make friends with locals and integrate within the community; the strain it can put on a family and on a marriage where this idea is presented about the importance of making it on your own in order to live and not just survive, while also taking into account why you’re doing it in the first place and the value you place on being part of a family that you decided to make because that was more important than money, than economy, than proving you were good enough to make it in a place that gave you very little advantage from the offset. This concept of the promised land, of the American dream is a construct. There are times when it’s not pretty, when you have no running water, or you’re in debt, or a family member is dying and it just feels like you’ve been dealt as bad a hand as you can get. But it is better to know you’re not facing all that alone.

Roma (2018) - 10/10

This was my recommendation for the podcast episode on Alfonso Cuarón movies. Roma is as beautiful as it is heart-wrenching and I would recommend listening to episode 40 of the podcast to find out more about my thoughts.

An American Werewolf In London (1981) - 8/10

In all fairness, London is enough to make anyone a little crazy at the best of times. An American Werewolf in London showcases some fantastically grotesque effects, akin to something like Carpenter’s The Thing, in showing the dead brought back to life and a horrifically gory transformation scene. Although the film is from the perspective of an American protagonist, directed also by an American, the depiction of British culture and climate is something I’ve not seen many films pull off quite so well, and I was pleasantly surprised at the more comedic tone the film has overall, which is something that works more in its favour than straight horror would.

The Party’s Just Beginning (2018) - 6/10

Karen Gillan’s directorial debut is… pretty good! There are a lot of ideas I like in this movie: a woman living life and through convenient circumstances, is confronted with death in many ways. Gillan obviously knows her homeland as well as she can, imbuing the whole thing with an intensely Scottish vibe (though maybe not in the same vein as something like Trainspotting) that makes it a bit more unique than a more run of the mill movie of this ilk, backed up in no small part by her own main performance. The plot itself is no great diversion from the kind of story I’m used to with these smaller movies and for something that’s trying to include messaging about transgender issues and suicide, it probably could have been handled better or done in a different way.

Solaris (1972) - 9/10

Another Tarkovsky joint, one I thought I’d revisit to see if there was indeed more to get out of it a second time. Well, it’s no surprise that yes, there was certainly more to get out of it. Solaris is a crazy trip of a movie and I would liken it to Kubrick’s 2001 in terms of how grand the scale of it feels. Yet this is a film that comes across as deeply personal, choosing to focus on a specific character as he goes to a space station to help those on board who are experiencing some kind of emotional crises, only to feel the effects of the planet, Solaris invading his own mind as it has the crew. To many, I can see this lengthy Russian sci-fi being a tad slow but my personal experience is one of deep engagement. Solaris pulls its viewer in a lot of different directions and it is always doing something unexpected in terms of where its narrative goes. There’s a lot to think about with the movie and thankfully it’s no chore to watch again.

Y Tu Mamá También (2001) - 9/10

Another recommendation for the podcast episode on Alfonso Cuarón movies. This is a very relaxed experience, following three young people as they go on a road trip, visit different places and have sex. Listen to episode 40 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast for more of my thoughts.

Children of Men (2006) - 10/10

My favourite Cuarón movie, one that never stops being tense as its characters are constantly moving towards the end goal. Set in a future where humans are infertile, the oldest living person is 18, and London is the last city in the world that’s still keeping it together, somewhat. This is masterclass filmmaking. Listen to episode 40 of the podcast for more insights.

Minority Report (2002) - 5/10

I’m really not the biggest fan of Spielberg… Minority Report is an interesting movie in terms of its concept of stopping crimes before they happen by way of prediction, but I just didn’t connect with the heart of it. The colouring is way too overexposed in a way that’s supposed to be eliciting a futuristic vibe but instead feels so early-2000’s in the worst way. My biggest problem with Minority Report is just how long it is, clocking in at two hours and twenty-five minutes which allows for a lot of meandering, all while never quite developing characters enough for you to care about.

Caché (2005) - 9/10

Oh god! Another Michael Haneke movie! Here we see a couple periodically sent video tapes featuring hours of footage of the outside of their house. The anxiety ratchets up and the mystery gets deeper with every minute. There’s always at least one moment in any of his films that have so far made me realise just how out of my depth I am. Caché is no exception, and I won’t spoil anything here because I think it’s better just to watch the movie and see for yourself. He is a director that wants the audience to know something and that something is never what is explicitly shown at face value; it is pressed into the fabric of the film - plainly evident, yet hidden. Caché is so stupidly clever in displaying its themes and messaging - making reference to the Siene Massacre of 1961 as well as a deeper study of colonialism - and there’s no way to change a single detail of it without risking the Jenga tower crumbling to the ground. It all works in tandem. It is passion and fury and haunting.

Coco (2017) - 7/10

Pixar had a string of around seven forgettable movies before this point so thankfully Coco emerged to show the company still had something good in them. Coco deals a lot with themes of death and legacy, remembering those who are gone in order to preserve them and while its plotting is quite basic and there are certainly moments that either drag or cannot escape the same Pixar formula, most of what the movie has to offer is a lot of fun, with creative, colourful animation and emotional beats that resonate the way they’re supposed to.

Incredibles 2 (2018) - 5/10

Oh, they almost had it! There's a lot here that could have been explored in far more interesting ways. Setting Incredibles 2 directly after the events of the first movie was not a good idea. If it had taken place five or ten years after, the characters could have been in different places in life and it would feel as though they'd actually changed and developed. But instead of trying to be a film that actually cares about its characters and the journeys they go on, a lot of the film is wrestling with the idea that Bob isn't supportive of his wife and Jack-Jack has to fight a raccoon… They have to shoehorn in a villain that in no way compares to the genius of the original. The ending of the original introduces another antagonist that gets wrapped up within this film's first ten minutes, except they don't catch him and he's never mentioned again. It's a real shame because the animation is fantastic and the acting is superb and there are great ideas sprinkled throughout. It just doesn't come together.

Toy Story 4 (2019) - 6/10

I was rather reluctant to watch Toy Story 4 because from the get-go I’m not really here for sequels being made just for the sake of it. Everyone loves Toy Story and making another one is a sure fire way to make money. This is the first time I’ve seen Toy Story 4 and for what it’s worth, I did enjoy it. The animation is immaculate and that alone feels like a huge flex from Pixar who tend to step up the game when it comes to animation in film, despite not having the best track record for films generally at this point. While it was nice to see these characters again, I found a lot of them to be side-lined (namely Buzz) in favour of a story that focuses mainly or entirely on Woody, who I just don’t like as much as in the previous movies. Generally the movie is good and decent enough but there’s no real antagonist and the plot is quite loose… it doesn’t feel as though it needed to be made from a story point of view.

Onward (2020) - 6/10

And with that I have seen every Pixar movie. And Onward is a fine one to go out on. While I don’t think it compares to the likes of earlier Pixar it’s still pretty fun. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for a medieval setting filled with bright colours and magic! Speaking of which, the animation was super and the medieval quest element is something that hooked me with the film. Again, plot-wise it does feel very familiar and I don’t know, maybe I’m past the point now of expecting Pixar to mix it up where their formula for story-telling is concerned but the movie is quite predictable. Nonetheless, while I’m not rushing back to see Onward I would hardly turn it off or refuse if someone wanted to watch it.

Old (2021) - 3/10

Oh boy! New M. Night movie dropped and my word, was it fun! For more of my thoughts on this… masterpiece (?) of a movie, please direct your attention to episode 41 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

T2 Trainspotting (2017) - 5/10

Trainspotting is perhaps one of my favourite movies and I had never bothered with the sequel, 20 years on, because the ending of that first movie is so conclusive. T2 felt more an excuse for these guys to get together again and in that, I probably would have preferred a couple of pictures on Twitter of the main cast and director, Danny Boyle having dinner or something. This is a fine movie - very arty in its presentation but meandering and dull in its story that doesn’t offer much in the way of proof that it had to exist.

Taste of Cherry (1997) - 9/10

What makes life worth living? This is a central question and theme of Taste of Cherry, and one that leaves such interpretation not only up to its central character but to the viewer as well. This film got me thinking about times in my life when I truly have had no answer to hard questions. Because it’s hard to convince people of things they are so adamantly against and harder still to rationalise what you believe if you’re not even entirely sure why you believe it in the first place. We are all of us alive and in recognising that, does that make it precious? And if indeed living is not a happy thing, why then should we fight so hard to preserve it? I felt upset as I watched this movie because I’ve been asked these kinds of questions before and it makes me feel stupid when I’m unable to answer. But the only real answer I can give is, everything. And if you can’t see the point then you’re not looking hard enough. Taste of Cherry is beautiful in its exploration of these topics and in its overall presentation, offering some of the best visuals in any movie I’ve seen - fitting for a feature with so much to say about the beauty of life - and an ending that as much pulls the rug out from under you as it does pull you out of the dark and make you realise just how lonely you’ve felt.

Bones (2001) - 2/10

Snoop Dogg is Jimmy Bones! This film is super funny but I’m not sure it’s trying to be and I really didn’t love it overall. But I do talk more in depth about it in episode 41 of the podcast.

The Duchess (2008) - 5/10

Another recommendation for the podcast. The Duchess was pretty much exactly what I thought it was going to be and there’s a lot to like about it but generally it’s a bit sparse. For more chat on the movie, listen to episode 41 of the podcast.

The Man With One Red Shoe (1985) - 1/10

This was another one for the podcast and man, was it awful. We had to watch it at 1.5x speed towards the end because it just wasn’t getting finished otherwise. To find out more, make sure to listen to episode 41 of the podcast.

The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) - 7/10

Pull the lever, Kronk! Haha! Slays me. I do quite miss this era of Disney, where the animation was hand-drawn and the stories were actually compelling and funny. The Emperor’s New Groove is vibrant, it’s got great characters and memorable moments that will forever be ingrained in the memory of culture. All in all, it’s just a solid flick that doesn’t waste time, developing the standard fall from glory type of arc but smoothly and in an entertaining way.

The Suicide Squad (2021) - 8/10

Oh, bloody hell! They actually made a good one! The Suicide Squad is not only better than the ‘Suicide Squad’ of 2016 in every way, it’s a genuinely great film! This time, James Gunn (director of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies) is at the helm and it seems clear that Warner Bros. basically let him do what he wanted with the movie, as it doesn’t seem to bog itself down with the restrictions of a more family-friendly rating. The result of this is a far cleaner, colourful film with a clearer vision that takes from early Vietnam movies and uses that style to craft a superhero/villain movie that differentiates itself among the copious amount of existing films of the genre. The Suicide Squad wastes very little time, introducing fun, crazy characters we’ve not seen on the big screen before and isn’t worried about killing a whole bunch of them, with standouts being Elba’s Bloodsport, Melchior’s Ratcatcher 2, Stallone’s King Shark (expertly rendered with fantastic visual effects), and Robbie’s returning interpretation of Harley Quinn. A lot of Gunn’s trademark sense of humour is laced throughout and more often than not, it hits. The audience at the cinema were truly loving this movie and I’ll admit, I was right there with them. This mix of the gritty, gory and absurd is not something that should work as well as it does but the basic premise of the film is already so silly (and boy, do they know it) that it just works! Certainly one of the best DC movies since The Dark Knight and one I’d be more than happy to watch again. This is what the modern comic book movie should be: just balls to the wall fun!

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nikadoesanart · 3 years

Text

My predictions on BSD getting animated going forward

I’ll be taking a look at the novel page counts (Japanese and English) and comparing them to the screen time they’ve gotten so far and then using this to predict how long the remaining light novel adaptations will be (approximately). At the end will also be my rough prediction/hopes for the order of some of these being adapted. I say some because I have yet to read what there is so far of the gaiden novel translations, the main story manga has essentially still been on the DOA arc almost since where the anime left off, and I personally think that it’s currently too soon for Storm Bringer (aside from money purposes).

Note, most of this was written well before the anime 5th anniversary livestream but the announcements wound up not affecting it. I then of course made adjustments as needed account for the novel content we do have so far, both in Japanese and in English (officially).

Page to Episode Count

Not counting the afterward, ads, etc for the English/US copy, Japanese is including it

Also all eng page counts are using the Yen Press release and jp page counts are taken from the fandom wiki

*148 is purely counting the Untold Origins portion of the novel. If we also count the A Day at the Agency short story that’s included before it (56 pages), then we get the full 203

Also the English page count for BEAST was noted before the English release date but after page counts have been posted by affiliated retailers, so subtract a couple pages from the written count of 176 for the time being to account for the afterward and possible character sheets being included

Now that we have our page to episode counts (as of April 5th, 2021), let’s find the actual content run time of what we do have animated so far.

Seasons 1-3 and the OVA all have the same episode length/duration. Each episode is 23 minutes, and we can subtract 3 minutes on average from that to account for the OP and ED being played. This leaves us with an average of 20 minutes of BSD story content per episode. So on average, each of the first 3 seasons contain 240 minutes, or 4 hours, worth of story content.

Dead Apple’s total run time is 91 minutes, with the OP and ED making up 9 of those minutes. However, we do have a bit of the story content being played while the ED is playing (as sometimes happens in the anime as well). To keep the math simple, I’ll be approximating story content time at 82 minutes.

Apply these numbers to the novels that have been animated so far and this is (approximately) what we get:

Now let’s use these numbers to predict the screen time needed for the other novels

Note that we can’t really use Entrance Exam as a fair measure because of how much got cut out (just compare the run time of it to Dark Era and it speaks for itself). However, the numbers for Dark Era and Dead Apple are the best ones to use, as they both have minimal changes between anime and novel and both have official English translations currently available. Take out the approximate time taken up by OP/ED and and the numbers pretty much match up.

So with that being said, we can estimate Untold Origins (only) at approximately 3 eps/60 min and 55 Minutes at 1h 40-55min/100-115 min or 5-6 eps if it doesn’t get a movie. We can also estimate the A Day at the Detective Agency short story at the beginning of Untold Origins to take up about 1 ep, probably even a bit less.

1+ 3 + 5-6 = 9-10 episodes which isn’t enough for a full single cour season unless they all get put into one big OVA season, but also 10-11 eps (or less) seasons are a thing (ie. Fugou Keiji: Balance Unlimited, Blood Lad, Black Butler: Book of Circus, The Seven Deadly Sins: Signs of a Holy War, FLCL)

My personal predictions/hopes for the anime adaptation timeline going forward

This is considering the manga content, current “pausing/stopping points” what wouldn’t be too awkward, each of the novels relevancy/necessity to the main story manga, and assuming we continue with single cour (12-13 ep) seasons

Hopefully/ideally a 55 Minutes movie

S4: ch 54-70

Early S5 (preferably) or end of S4: Untold Origins or A Day at the Agency

S5: ch 71-88/around where we are now?

A Day at the Agency can, in my opinion at least, be chucked in at any point either as a single episode OVA or as the light novel content for s4 (maybe not even taking a full episode and then starting ch 54 in the last few minutes for example). Keep in mind that the current DOA arc is a long one and has plenty to it, so personally I think it may even be better to not include a novel adaptation in a future S4, as it would likely already be a right squeeze content wise. Remember, we also have a few XX.5 chapters that are continuations of the chapter directly before them.

I still need to read what’s currently available of the gaiden novel fan translations but it can probably be adapted at any point as well. I’m estimating approximately 5-6 eps as an OVA series. I don’t really think it would get a movie, partially because you can make it only so long, especially since it’s an anime movie and unlike Storm Bringer, it doesn’t have Chuuya to practically guarantee the profit.

BEAST also doesn’t directly impact the main story and can be adapted at virtually any point. However, seeing as we do have a live action confirmed for it and it’s page count lines up very closely with Dark Era, it can be either 4 eps or (more likely in my opinion) a movie, as it can be considered almost stand alone content.

Personally, I believe it is currently way too soon to animate Storm Bringer as it came out only a little over a month ago (as of writing this) and has minimal plot necessity as of ch 91, but I do believe it should be either split into 2 movies (a part 1 and part 2) or it would need 8 episodes, likely as an OVA season. If it were to get animated sooner than 55 Minutes or Untold Origins, which I believe to be very unlikely, I feel that it would almost certainly be driven by the financial gains of Chuuya being included, and his popularity alone. Reminder, SB is about Chuuya and not SKK. Dazai’s appearance in SB is proportionally a very small percentage and he’s not even mentioned in the official plot summary.

However, you can argue that SB is starting to have some relevance now, with the recent mention of the Order of the Clock Tower in ch 90 and the increased relevance of sealed ability weapons in ch 91. However, I really do believe that you can’t adapt Storm Bringer before 55 Minutes because of Standard Island and its treaty, it also talks about sealed ability weapons, knowing who Wells is, and 55 Minutes canonically takes place during the “downtime” portion of S3. In fact, here’s Asagiri’s words directly from the Afterward (translation by Yen Press):

“this volume didn’t take place in the past, but rather sometime after the tenth volume of the manga. In other words, it’s a tale about the ‘usual’ detective agency in novel format.” (55 minutes, p 237)

Untold Origins also should be adapted sooner rather than later (at least compared to SB in my opinion) because it’s about Ranpo and Fukuzawa’s shared past, which becomes increasingly relevant ch 70 onwards, as well as the need for the ADA being founded (which ties in with Yosano’s backstory in ch 65-66).

In regards to whether I think each of these would be better suited to a movie adaptation or as multiple regular length anime episodes, it’s mainly due to page count and partly due to the budget difference between the two, as well as how difficult I think it would be to animate each of these based on what needs to be drawn. The anime industry isn’t the fastest to switch to newer technology, hence why we see issues with 3D blending sometimes. I really do think that at the very least, 55 Minutes deserves the movie budget because of how detailed and complex the architecture of Standard Island is described as, as well all the mechanical parts needed for the final battle of the novel. Hate the lizard mouths introduced in Dead Apple all you want, but you can’t deny that the 3D cgi was blended very smoothly. For any of the other novels to be movies, it’s more so because gaiden and BEAST can be considered their own stand alone stories that don’t rely too heavily on the main story in terms of when they take place and get adapted. I feel that SB is more likely to get its own season or an OVA season more so due to its length, but multiple part anime movies have also been done before (ie. the Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel movies), so it’s not entirely impossible. Especially considering that merely having any Chuuya screen time means that you can expect the profit and popularity to really go up, especially with SKK being on screen together (regardless of whether you love or hate how the fandom tends to push a shipping POV on them).

These are all of course just my hopes and predictions and estimates based on information currently available, so take them with some salt. I’d love to hear opinions on how, when, and why each of the currently non animated novels should be adapted going forward. Also please stop begging the relevant BSD official Twitter pages for SB to be animated next and go read the other light novels you Chuuya simp

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd analysis #bsd theories #bsd dead apple #bungo stray dogs #bsd manga #bsd storm bringer #bsd light novel #bsd anime #bsd 55 minutes #bsd beast #bsd gaiden #bsd untold origins

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asunshinepuff · 4 years

Text

Treasure Trove

Other Nicknames: Oli/Ollie/Rain/Liv/Livi/Olive

Literally call me any of these names (or a nickname you come up with) and I will respond

*expect a lot of random reblog spams in a row. tis my way*

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

Ao3: asunshinepuff

(all of my fics will soon also be available on Ao3!)

Good Reads: Olivia Raine

Bookstagram: fantasybooked.with.oli

Multi-Chapter Fics:

Secrets of the Darkened Seas

Original Stories:

Red Rose, Blood Moon

Ink Bloom

Wizarding World Story (aka I reject a certain author’s canon and made my own with my best friend):

Ashes of the Moon [Ao3 link]

(All of these stories are written with my best friend @ladynightmare913)

Marauders Era:

It Started with a Piano

Love to the Moon and Back

Azkaban Can’t Keep Us Apart

Christmas Spirit

(written Round Robin style with my friends @whataboutmyfries , @ninak803 and @wonder-womans-ex)

SW Universe:

That’s Our Coach!

Warm Cuddles and Fall Puddles

Listen to the Music

Light Up My Life

Clandestine:

You Know I’ll Wait for You

(excerpt of post chapter 14. The full story is written by @heyitssmiller, check out the story here)

SW Cosplay:

1 2 3 4 5

(Starring @onlydreamofmysoul as Logan Tremblay, @heyitssmiller as Finn O’Hara and I’m Leo Knut)

Moodboards:

SOTDS

Merman Remus

Captain Sirius

Quinn Sandoval

Opal Teresi

The Sorceress

The Pirate Captain

Collages:

Felis Marín

Cassandra Azure

#my works #my moodboards #my collages #my ocs #masterlist #fic or moodboard requests are welcome #or just come by and chat!

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magistralucis · 4 years

Note

I plan to read Desiderata but I don't know a thing about Rammstein. What should I know before diving in?

That depends very heavily on what about Rammstein would interest you.

I’ll be honest, anon, Desiderata is not the best story to start with if you’re completely new to R+. The story assumes a familiarity with the band’s history, as well as 1980s East German politics, and depicts both with terms and viewpoints familiar at the time. It’s not very accessible if you want to read a story about Rammstein, I’m afraid, it is very much a period piece.

That said, I can talk a little about what made me write Desiderata; if you’re interested in any of those topics, you’re probably good to go. I will also add some pointers as to how to begin a journey into Rammstein in general. This will be a very long post beneath the cut.

-------------

1) I’m interested in life during the GDR. I’m especially interested in how ordinary East Germans lived, down to what they ate, the kinds of people they’d meet, where they could travel to for the holidays. What people take for everyday occurrences are anything but outside of their homes. Most of Desiderata takes place in the pre- and early-Rammstein era (1985-1995), when the band members didn’t know they were going to get so big, nor what would happen after the reunification of Germany. I wanted to depict their era realistically. Desiderata is a written painting of that time.

2) I wanted to write on the anti-authoritarian character. To distill a long and complex history down, Rammstein has their origins in Ostpunk, and many of its band members spent their early life resisting the government in one way or another. They didn’t all do this in the same way, nor always with the conscious desire to stick it to the government. Sometimes they paid for it anyway. In Richard’s case, with terrible consequences, as his arrest and detainment by the Stasi finally made him flee the country. Desiderata is written in Richard’s POV and includes a sequence on what might have occurred during this time, as well as an analysis of his general psyche on the years leading up to that arrest. Desiderata’s account relies heavily on actual interviews Richard has done, as well as published Rammstein material, so if you’re interested in a character study of this sort you might like it.

3) I did not want to depict the above through the patronizing lens commonly found in Western media. It’s easy to fall into the trap of binary opposites when you’re writing about stuff like this: Richard was oppressed by the GDR so he must hate everything about the GDR, and/or furthermore, the GDR must have been evil. It’s the other way around if you’re approaching this from an anti-capitalist lens: if the East Germans had known the ‘freedom’ which lay beyond the wall was actually mid-stage capitalism, and if they’d known how badly that shit would break down in a couple of decades, they wouldn’t have wanted it.

Now I do not know what the objectively correct political position is here. But when you’re writing a character study of Richard, it shouldn’t be either of those. It’s definitely not how Rammstein looks at their past, judging by the interviews they’ve given and the books they’ve published; not even Richard has such a black-and-white approach to the life he led. It’s easy to forget that when you’re writing a fic, or even an article which tries to lean on the ‘facts’; one’s subconscious biases inform how they process facts, and I want to do better than that. I’ve fallen into that morality trap before because I didn’t know any better, and as a result I wrote some really bad stories, and I am ashamed of that. Rammstein have led a rich and complicated life with ups and downs. Many of them sincerely loved the GDR, the ones who didn’t still saw plenty of self-admitted good in it. If you would like to bask in my efforts at honesty, as fragmented as it is (for in the end, I am not from the GDR), Desiderata is the best I’ve done to this date.

4) Some good old Tillchard. Yes, I admit it, Desiderata is also a pairing exercise. ‘Tillchard’ is the shorthand for the pairing between Till (vocal) and Richard (lead guitarist); they are longtime friends in real life, and they share a trust between them seldom paralleled by anyone else in the band, imo. They’ve lived together for a time, they raised their daughters together, they began their foray into music in general while being aware of each other. They have duets together for God’s sake. I’ve been digging Tillchard for ten years so I need to stop before this becomes a longer essay than it should be, but long story short, if this becomes the first pairing you’re interested in I’d recommend adding Desiderata to the fanfic pile.

Ultimately, all the above points would still work out for the best if you knew more about Rammstein. Now for the practical recommendations. See if you like their music first: currently they have seven albums out, the most recent of which is Rammstein (2019). I don’t know how hard you like your music, but in order of most hardness to least my rank goes:

Liebe ist für alle da / Reise, Reise

Rammstein (2019)

Sehnsucht

Mutter

Herzeleid

Rosenrot

My personal ranking is:

Mutter

Liebe ist für alle da / Rammstein (2019)

Sehnsucht

Reise, Reise

Herzeleid

Rosenrot

Their best tracks usually have music videos attached to them. Check them out too. R+ take serious care with their music video narratives, they’re often their own little story in themselves. Their live performances are worth watching, even in video. If you can read German, I would also recommend checking out Rammstein literature, of which there are plenty. Till has three volumes of poetry out (Messer, In Stillen Nachten, 100 Gedichte); Flake has two autobiographies (Der Tastenficker and Heute hat die Welt Geburtstag, the latter of which is available in English); Mix Mir Einen Drink is the biography of Feeling B, which many members of Rammstein played in before Rammstein, and is an invaluable source for GDR life.

Out of everything I’ve listed, as of Feb 2021, Flake’s autobiography is hands-down the best place to begin your Rammstein journey. There will be a more extensive book about Rammstein by Olaf Heine soon, but it won’t be released until later this year.

There is no end goal to how much you should be interested in Rammstein, or what about the band you ought to like. At any point in this journey, try out a fic or two, see what you like. The fandom has written about basically every music video, every notable event that happened to the band (some may include sources!), and just about every combination of pairings possible among the six. You are in very well-covered territory, I promise :D

Feel free to ask more questions if need be. There is so much you can write about this band, I’ve definitely not covered everything. If at any point in this process you read Desiderata, and you end up enjoying it, that’s all I could ask for.

#Anonymous #tillchard #long post under cut #rammstein fanfiction #desiderata

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dirt-cup-draco · 4 years

Text

Edmund x Reader- New Start (2/2)

Can you please do a part two of the “It’s our mutual friend’s wedding and they keep shoving us into each other because we’re the only ones at the ceremony who are single” AU. from the au post with edmund pevensie please? I love where the story is going also you have lovely writing it really feels like a book to get lost in.

Part 1 Here! ---> Ta Da

Previously:

“Lady Y/N,” Edmund smiled, extending his hand. “May I have this dance?”

Lady. He called you Lady! Your mind screamed as you took his hand. It was oddly comforting to have your hand encased in his.

“It’d be foolish of me to say no, your highness,” You added, and he nearly scolded you yet stopped when he saw the teasing smile on your lips. His heart pounded uncomfortably at the sight. You were quite pretty, weren’t you?

You could leave your status behind for at least one dance.

Peter and Rose were truly a match made in heaven. Peter was Rose’s rock and Rose was Peter’s peace. They had found love within royal status. A young king and a gorgeous princess, they had the universe wrapped around their finger. You envied them.

“Any reason for this silence that has been plaguing you for weeks now, my friend?” Rose asked as you tightened her corset, her voice getting caught off as her breath was stolen from the restricting article of clothing.

“I don’t know what you’re referring to, your highness,”

“Now I know something is wrong,” She scolded as you used a formal title. Rose was very intent on breaking you of the habit, feeling as if servants should still be treated as friends, if not equals. You were lucky, others were lucky enough to get even a shred of respect.

“You know I don’t want to talk about it,” You sighed, growing more glum as she pressed for information. It was no secret to Rose you were suffering from a broken heart.

“You could-” Rose started but you had the gall to interrupt her.

“I can’t!” You cried out, pulling particularly hard on the laces as her spine straightened. Your Queen let out an impertinent huff as you tried to make the corset more comfortable, to no avail. “I’m sorry, lets just drop it,”

“If he knew how you suffered he wouldn’t be marrying someone else...” Rose chattered on.

“Rose.” You said, voice hard but eyes misty from the tears that you refused to let fall. You would not cry over Edmund Pevensie. “Leave it.”

“I just want you happy,” She said earnestly, spinning in your grip to rest her hands on your shoulders. “He loves you as you love him,”

“Being anything more than a temporary companion to Edmund is nothing more than a dream, my sweet Rose,” You said with a watery smile. “You’ve always had quite the imagination, seeing change where change cannot be,” You let your hand travel the length of her silky hair before pulling away from her as you went to fetch her evening gown. It was nearly dinner.

“You’ve always denied the obvious,smothering any sign of hope there might be,” She mumbled but said no more as she followed your lead, letting you dress her before you escorted her to the dining room.

You knew Rose was right. The night you and Edmund had danced as equals a seed of hope had been planted in your chest, growing strong with every meeting after. Even months after you were yearning for Edmund to be your equal, to be yours, permanently.

You were a maid with many duties but Rose gave you the freedom to wander as you pleased, to familiarize yourself with Cair Paravel and the peninsula you resided on. By chance you had decided to explore the library, despite only having the most basic education in reading and writing. Edmund was reclining in a window sill, eyes raking over the page but going straight to you as his happy place was intruded upon.

“Y/N, odd seeing you here,” He commented as he went back to his book.

“Apologies for interrupting you, your highness. I will come back later,” You announced but Edmund’s voice glued you to the spot.

“You know I hate it when you call me that. Now don’t be stubborn, come sit down,”

You nodded and your legs carried you towards him. You prayed he couldn’t see how they shook. “Yes, your high- Sorry. Edmund,” You tried again.

“Pretend I’ve known you as long as Rose has, we are friends,” He instructed.

“But you know not a single thing about me,” You let your lips twitch up into a smug grin as you took your spot across from him, his legs shifting to make room for you. You looked to him and found the sun spilling in through the window lit up his eyes marvelously.

“Then teach me,” Edmund shrugged, but he mimicked your smile, a corner of is blush pink lips tugged up in amusement.

“What is it you wish to know?”

With a wicked grin Edmund simply said, “Everything.”

Those had been simpler times. Yet, you could only keep your head in the clouds for so long before a cold north wind blew the fantasy away, bringing you back to your stark reality. Unfortunately, you were clear minded. Rose, however, had a vice-like grip on her fantasies. Fantasies you still shared but couldn’t indulge.

You stood behind her in silence as the royalty ate their meal, discussing airy, unimportant things. It was an era of peace, after all. Yet it seemed that peace needed maintenance and Edmund was the pawn in this tricky game. Peter had gotten so lucky, loving the woman he had been convinced to marry. He was blinded by that love, not realizing that it was far from likely his brother would have the same experience.

Edmund’s eyes were glued to yours as his fiancee, Cassiopeia, chattered on about nonsense, batting her eyelashes even as it went unnoticed. He raised an eyebrow. Are you alright? He seemed to ask.

You rolled your eyes. Doing as well as you are. You tried to express back to him. Edmund smiled a little at your sassy non-reply and you smiled simply because he looked beautiful.

“I seem to be feeling under the weather, if you’d excuse me,” He suddenly said, sparing a short glance to Cassiopeia, who looked as if she had been told he was had a week to live, and then to Peter who had a far more severe expression. The older king turned his gaze on you. You were ruining this evening.

Silently Rose gripped her husband’s hand, fixing him with her own withering gaze as they had a silent conversation. Susan distracted the visiting princess as Lucy looked to you, mischief twinkling in her eyes.

“Would you go check on him?” She asked sweetly, as if she wasn’t playing at something. No wonder and her and Rose got along so swimmingly. Menaces those Pevensies were. You wouldn’t have them any other way. With a barely concealed smile you excused yourself.

The second you were out of the dining room, two strong arms were encircling you as a familiar scent took over your senses. “You could have tried to look less miserable,” You teased softly as you tangled your fingers in the Just King’s hair.

“I could say the same for you,” He whispered against the junction of your neck and shoulder. “If looks could kill, she’d be long dead,”

You tensed up. You knew she was a kind girl, or she meant well at least, but you couldn’t bring yourself to like her. She was the thing that stood between you and Edmund. “I-I’m sorry,”

Edmund sighed, pulling away so he could grip your chin lightly in between his thumb and index finger. “You don’t need to apologize, especially not to me, okay?” You relented, grabbing his wrist so you could press your lips against his fingertips.

“It’s not fair,” Edmund growled, frustration clear on his face as you held his fingers against your lips. “And don’t say we could have avoided this,” He seethed as you opened your mouth.

Edmund was holding your hand, face set in a grim expression as he tried to find the words but nothing sounded right. None of this was right!

“We can’t be together anymore, can we? That’s what you're here to say... That we are over,” You had tried to sound unbothered but your voice caught as your stomach churned.

“You have the uncanny ability of reading my mind,” Edmund mused, sighing deeply as he squeezed your hand. “I wish I could say you were wrong,” Even now, with the truth dangling in the air between you, he couldn’t look you in the eyes.

“A-are you- I mean to say-” You stumbled over your words, not being sure you wanted an answer to the question that was racing around in your mind.

Edmund nodded. “Princess Cassiopeia, from Anvard,” His voice was thick with emotion as he finally turned to you. “I don’t want her Y/N, you must know that,”

You bit your lip, focusing on the way that hurt instead of the way it hurt as Edmund chewed your heart up and spit it out. “It’s okay,” You reassured even if nothing about this felt okay. “I always knew this would happen, we both had our head in the clouds. It’s time we come back down to earth,”

“Y/N-” Edmund began as your voice turned chilled. You were freezing out any feelings you might be having to save face but Edmund wanted you to be vulnerable with him, hurt with him. He wanted to know you were having just a hard time letting go as he was.

You stood abruptly, brushing a chaste kiss to his cheek. “I’ll see you around, your highness,”

“I’d be lying to you then,” You laughed humorlessly as Edmund took hold of your hand, pulling you with him as the servants started to leave the dining room. Soon his siblings and fiancee would be leaving and they couldn’t find you like this. Only Rose knew you two had decided to stay together, despite Edmund’s impending marriage. The both of you had hardly lasted a full seven days before crawling back to one another.

“You can’t avoid love, Y/N,” Edmund commented icily as he opened his bedchambers, tugging you with him as he secured the door behind him.

“I-I know,” You sighed, rubbing at your temples. “And I don’t want to. I would rather love you and lose you than still be pining away never having known what it was like to be cared for in such an overwhelming way by such a perfect man,”

“You aren’t losing me,” Edmund promised as you both sat heavily on his bed, your head falling to his shoulder. The playfulness from earlier had vanished, the weight of your future crushing the both of you.

“Don’t pretend that you could ever betray your future wife.” You spat out, the words leaving a bitter taste in your mouth. “You’re a man of your word Edmund, and once those vows are spoken, there is no power in the universe, even love, that could cause you to be disloyal,”

“I’d do it, for you,” He declared.

“I would only ever be known as the shame of the kingdom, the Just King’s mistress,” You whimpered as tears prickled at your eyes. “I can’t tarnish our names in such a way,”

“Then what are we going to do?” Edmund cried out, desperate for everything to be simple as it was before with stolen kisses in the library and flirting subtly as Rose asked you to take a meal to him while he worked alongside his sisters and brother.

“Make a new start, a new future” You said, trying to force anything that resembled conviction into your voice, “without each other,”

“I don’t want that,” Edmund argued. “I love you,”

“I’m just a maid,”

“You’re far more than that, always have been since the day you knocked me off my feet,” Edmund pressed his lips to yours desperately as the steel walls started to erect themselves around your heart, casting a shadow over your normally expressive eyes. You were frozen for only a second before you melted into his familiar touch. With a shaky breath, Edmund parted from you, his forehead pressed to yours tenderly.

“If you can look me in the eye and say you don’t love me, I will let you go,”

You immediately shook your head, the ultimatum weighing heavily on your heart. “Please, Edmund-”

“No, Y/N.” Edmund said, pleading with you to understand. “The day you don’t love me anymore is the only day I am willing to let you go,”

“You’re to be married!” You said, as if this had never occurred to him before.

“One day, yes, but not to Cassiopeia.” Edmund had you frozen to the spot, his warm eyes hiding a storm. “You will be my wife, the only future that I will have,”

“You can’t promise me that,” You croaked, eyes burning as your defenses crumbled, tears spilling over the dam of your eyelids and streaming down your cheeks.

“I can, marry me,” Edmund not so much asked as he demanded and you would have laughed at the absurdity of it all if it didnt hurt so much.

“You are-”

“Just say yes,” Edmund begged, pulling you onto his lap as his hands found your cheeks, cupping them so he could direct your gaze to his.

“I can’t,”

“You can,” Edmund insisted. “We’ll leave tonight, find a chapel in one of the towns nearby. I can’t marry Cassiopeia if I am promised to another,”

“Peter will be furious,” Your arguments were weakening.

“He doesn’t know what it’s like to be told you can’t be with the person he loves most. Imagine the lengths he’d go to to be with Rose if someone told him it wasn’t possible to have her,” Edmund made a point. “Peter will get over it. Rose is our number one fan, Susan and Lucy adore you,”

“You are an absolute mad man Edmund Pevensie,”

“Then be my mad woman, be my Y/N Pevensie,”

Your defenses had been completely demolished, reduced to nothing but ash as the swelling of your heart blasted the last of your fears away. You surged forward, kissing Edmund with a bruising force.

“How could I ever say no to you?” You gushed.

“You do it quite a lot actuall-”

“Edmund,” You scolded lightly.

His gorgeous laughter resonated through the air. “You are going to make a perfect wife,”

“And you a perfect husband, now get me to that chapel,” You encouraged, wanting to make the right decision before your fear won out.

“You won’t regret this,” Edmund grinned, his sunshine breaking through your gray clouds.

“I could never,” You reassured as you intertwined your fingers with his.

No matter what the future brought, you would have Edmund beside you from now until the end of your days, as your husband and as your equal.

#edmund pevensie #edmund pevensie x reader #edmund x reader #au #au prompt #anon #anon ask #request #ask #this took AGES I am so sorry anon

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green-blooded-computer · 4 years

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A Guide to RPing on Tumblr

I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately, so here’s my complete walkthrough on how to create a Tumblr RP blog.

If you’d rather view on a Google Doc, here’s a link.

Enjoy.

Create Blog

Howdy, so the first thing you’ll have to do is click ‘register’ and make yourself a blog. You also have the choice of making a sideblog instead. I’m a person who likes to have this separated, so if you are only thinking of playing a couple characters, this might be the way to go for you. Here’s the difference between main/side blogs (taken from Tumblr’s help center):

Choose any url for now (we’ll talk about that later), and go to the next section.

Please note: When you make a new blog, it won’t show up in the search/people’s notifications for a bit of time (a day or so). Make sure you validate your email address asap.

Get xKit

If you haven’t installed xKit, I highly suggest it. Go to their blog here, and get it for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Opera.

What is it? A little toolkit to make Tumblr easier to use.

When you install it, it’ll pop up on your top bar thing next to the lightning bolt like this:

It’s that thing with the x’s on it.

When you click the x’s this pops up:

Brill.

You can click ‘Get Extensions’ at the bottom and basically choose whatever you want, but may I recommend the following:

1) Editable Reblogs allows you to edit reblogs. Right. This is good because when you are replying to RP threads they tend to get rather long. Some advice that was given to me when I started: when you add your reply, delete everything before your partner’s last reply. So you should have your partner’s post and your post and that’s all. You just click ‘reblog’ and it pops up like normal, except now there’s this little guy:

If you click that, it will make everything in your reblog box editable.

2) One-Click Postage gives you a little box if you hover over the reblog button. It lets you reblog, queue, draft, tag, and add replies right from that page. You can even choose which blog (main/side) you want it to go to. It looks like this:

The rest I will just say play around with! They are easy to add and take away.

Decide what kind of blog you want.

Multimuse Vs. Single muse:

Do you want to play one character or a bunch of them? If you choose one character, your blog icon and theme will presumably feature that character or something to do with them. If you choose to focus on one, you should have info about your character available on your blog somewhere. If you choose to have more than one muse, you’ll need a list of the characters you offer and some info about them.

When choosing a url for a multimuse, choose something that encompasses the spirit of you and your characters.

When choosing a url for a single muse, I go for quotes, nicknames, something about where they are from, what they like, their name, etc. Note: if you have dashes in your url (like mine @strings-have-been-cut) these won’t work with tags. People will have to turn them into separate words or one big word.

I do not have a multimuse, but I have seen them done all sorts of ways. Some people offer characters from all different fandoms, some are just one fandom, one genre, OCs, canons, a mixture...you can do what you like.

If your blog is not affiliated with any sort of organized game, this is referred to as ‘independent’ often shortened to ‘idie’.

Your blog description should mention which kind it is. For example: a sci-fi multimuse blog; a Star Trek OC blog; an indie Bill S. Preston Esq. from Bill and Ted RP blog. Details help sometimes.

Canon Character Vs. Original Character

If you decide to make a canon character, make sure you have it clear somewhere where they are from! Canon characters can be canon divergent (your own version), they can crossover into other fandoms, they can be exactly as they are in your favourite book/show/movie/podcast...each version of a canon is unique and lovely.

If you decide to make an original character, make sure you give plenty of info about them! You want to tell people what fandom they fit into or if they are fandomless. ‘About’ pages are really important for OCs because there is no fanbase for them (yet!).

What should be in your description?

When someone clicks your blog, they will first see a dash preview sort of thing. It shows a description and a small header, along with the posts you’ve made. This description also shows up somewhere on your actual blog and on the top of the page on mobile view. It’s a great spot to give all the info about your blog real quick. I always include the following:

What is it? (Independent Data from Star Trek RP blog)

Age restrictions (21+)

Who you will RP with (mutuals only is called ‘private’ and choosing who you follow back is called ‘selective’.)

Mun’s name (played by [insert your name])

Possibly a link to your about/rules for easy access on desktop and mobile. I’ll talk about this more below. I call this ‘navigation’, but it varies. Note: if you edit your icon/dash header, any html links seem to go away. I’ve needed to go back into the theme customizer and add them back in. To add a link to your description, go into your customizer, go to the description section, and add the html as follows:

So mine is: <a href=”https://data-all-in-one.carrd.co”>Indie Data from Star Trek blog.</a>

The description for my Data blog reads: ‘Indie Data from Star Trek RP blog. Click here for navigation. 21+. Private/selective. Played by Fool.

What should be on this blog?

In my experience, you need a couple of pages on your blog to get you started:

About the character - basically a biography

Rules - so people know what you are about

About the mun - so people can know about the person they are writing with

Possibly a link to your ‘ask memes’ tag - see below.

These can be organized however you like, but people tend to look for a few specific things.

About the Character

This should read like a biography. Back in the day, we used to call them ‘character apps’ and they had all your basic info about the character. Sometimes this section contains a subsection called ‘verses’ in which the mun spells out what universes they exist in. Say I had an AU where Data owns an arcade in San Francisco in the 80’s. I’d list that as one of his ‘verses’. This is extremely important for OCs, but very helpful for canons too.

Data has four: TNG era, TNG movie era, AU where he lives after Nemesis, AU where he’s around during Star Trek: Picard. I gave a little info about both.

Rules

Rules are usually organized into the things people are looking for before they start playing with you. Some good info to include:

Mun age

Your policy on adult content

How you deal with tagging triggers

Your policy on following back

Your policy on writing with mutuals vs. anyone

Do you allow personal blogs (non RP blogs) to follow you?

How fast do you reply?

How does your tagging system work?

How do you deal with shipping?

Here is a link to my usual Rules page for reference. Remember, it’s not wrong if it’s different than mine!

Note: People will look for how old you are. Many people in the RPC are adults, and they want to write with people their own age. If your age is not posted somewhere clearly, they may not follow you back.

About the Mun

This is really just a little blurb about you. Some people include their age here. Some people include links to their other blogs. Some people include their Discord info, as that’s really popular right now. It’s just nice to know who you are writing with.

It’s important to note that there are different ways to present all of these blogs. Some people have them as pages on their Tumblr blog itself, some people put all of this (Bio, About, Rules, etc) in a Google Doc and link it, some people use Carrd.co - there are a ton of ways. A friend of mine did this amazing post about some options out there. I personally go for Carrd.co, seeing as I am on mobile a lot and I find it very helpful, but it’s up to you.

Now I have a blog with all the info. How do I get started?

Well there are a few things you can do to get yourself out there.

Make yourself a promo. It’s basically an advertisement for your blog. If you aren’t good at graphics, you can head to an RP Resource blog and see if they have any you can use with their permission. You can also just post a picture with some info. For me, the info on this promo matches that of my blog description - I want people to know what I’m all about as soon as they look at it. Then you can tag for your appropriate fandom RP. Your mutuals will likely reblog to help spread the word. Yay.

Find a directory for your RPC by searching in the search. This will allow you to a) reblog your info and be listen in a place where people can find you and b) allow you to find others in your RPC in an organized way. Then you can go through, find people you think you’d like to follow, and follow them.

Make a starter or plotter call. This is, again, just a picture or graphic and some information about it. Here is one I made for Data specifically asking for Picard threads:

I asked for a specific universe and a specific character here. I also put all relative tags in case someone is just searching Tumblr (although I think it’s more for the people who follow me). Here’s a simpler one I made for B-4 that’s a lot more open.

They don’t have to be super fancy.

When people see a starter call, they can like your post. This is a quick an easy way to let you know they are interested in a thread.

4. Ask Memes. Asks are invaluable. There are whole blogs dedicated to ask memes that you can post to your blog, and these can be really easy ways for people to come up with plot ideas or just to read some of your writing. I always keep a link on my blog to everything tagged ‘ask meme’ so if people want to find a meme they have choices!

It seems like there’s a certain aesthetic on these new fangled RP blogs. Do I have to do that?

No! But you can, if you want. If you aren’t good at coding and graphics, there are a lot of RP resource sites that can help you. (Can I recommend this one?) It is nice to have things like a face claim, a nice looking promo, a cool theme, etc. but at the end of the day, we all just want to write and have fun.

Advice?

Look, I’ve only been RPing on Tumblr for a couple of months and I am by NO MEANS an expert. I have gotten all of this knowledge through the help of friends and nice strangers willing to answer questions for me. Here are a few things I have picked up:

Respect people’s rules - We are all shy and all have our own thing going on. If someone says they’re uncomfortable doing one thing, just like...don’t do it.

Talk to other people - Don’t ignore the mun! Unless they really want you to. It’s better to ask questions, compliment writing, talk about your plots and stuff...it’s so much harder than trying to figure out what the other person feels/wants.

Ask questions - I’m a 6th grade teacher, and I get a million and fuckton questions every minute usually. It’s been eye-opening, because now I’m all about asking questions about everything all the time. I think knowledge is amazing. People know all different things, and the most logical way to be a productive society is to share knowledge (that’s one of the main teachings of Surak) so ask some questions! Hell, ask me some questions! Reach out to someone who seems nice!

Okay, that’s all. Good luck!

#RPG #RPC #RP Resource #RP Guide

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paulisweeabootrash · 4 years

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2020 mini-review pack

Di Gi Charat (1999)

Episodes watched: 7

Platform: VRV (Hidive)

Di Gi Charat (pronounced like “carrot”) is a series of fast-paced 4-ish-minute shorts nominally about Dejiko and Rabi-en-Rose, rivals trying to be Earth’s greatest idol. Who are, respectively, a catgirl and a bunnygirl. Oh, and also they’re aliens? That’s... uh... certainly a premise, I guess. The actual show consists of self-contained gag-filled episodes with no ongoing story, in almost a sitcom kind of way, throwing the characters into situations without context, but with a stable “baseline” situation (unlike, say, Pop Team Epic, where the characters serve more as stock personalities playing different roles in different sketches). Dejiko is a snarky schemer. Rabi-en-Rose is a snarky schemer whose main activity seems to be bothering Dejiko at work. Puchiko is a small and quiet child and behaves accordingly. And Gema is... something? I have no clue, honestly, and neither does the fan wiki. Other recurring characters fill stock roles such as “manager” and “otaku”. A lot of the humor centers around poking fun at fandom. It’s a show by, for, and about otaku from an era before our current internet culture, and since I’m a millennial and not from Japan, that makes it unusually hard to evaluate.

W/A/S: 8/2?/5?

Weeb: Chibis. Catgirls. Idols. Kappas. Kawaii verbal tics. Akihabara. Low-detail background characters who look like blobs or thumbs with faces. Kanji left on-screen but untranslated. Particular sorts of highly-exaggerated facial expressions we may have become familiar with through emoji, but which still haven’t made their way into American media generally. This is ludicrously Japanese.

Ass: This really isn't that kind of show. Although it is certainly designed for adults, as evidenced by the presence of phrases like “naughty doujinshi”.

Shit: The art is fun. It has style shifts from comic strip to watercolor painting to mainstream 90s anime, and looks better than some of its contemporaries that were, uh, “real” shows. The opening takes up about a quarter of the total runtime and gets annoying quickly (but that's because it’s clearly designed for being part of a broadcast block, not binge-watching). Still, unless I’m missing hidden cleverness on account of not having the background knowledge, there’s not much to it. It’s just okay.

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First Astronomical Velocity (band, active 2011-present)

Platform: Spotify, surprisingly

Okay, this one is a bit different, and I’m jettisoning the whole format for it. Remember how I said the music-centered episodes of SoniAni were actually pretty good, even though the modeling-centered episodes were so offputting I never finished the show? Well it turns out that First Astronomical Velocity, Sonico’s band, has released several IRL albums. Physical copies may be a little hard to come by, but official uploads of a lot of their music can be found on Youtube and Spotify. Do your musical interests include at least two of: string arrangements that would be at home in a particularly sappy movie soundtrack, 90s-00s alternative rock, synthesizer beep-boops, and that constricted cutesy Japanese women’s vocal style (you know the one I mean)? Then this is for you. They’re a pretty good... uh... alt-pop-rock band, I guess is what I’d call them.

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Interspecies Reviewers (2020)

Episodes watched: the entire 12-episode season

Platform: I plead the 5th. But it’s getting a video release soon, so it will finally be legitimately available in English!

I started this year with a plot-light fanservicey animal-people show, and now I’m ending the year with... a plot-light fanservicey animal-people show. But unlike Nekopara, this show had me cracking up, eagerly clicking “next episode”, and not complaining about the premise. I’m sure a lot of people do have a problem with this show’s premise -- which centers almost entirely on various forms of sex work -- and I understand and respect that they will want to skip this show.

But for the rest of you: Interspecies Reviewers is a wildly-NSFW comedy about a group of fantasy world adventurers who gain fame and fortune reviewing brothels of different species. I expected excessive nudity and fantasy tropes, but I didn’t expect to also get serious thoughts. Like showing, in the golem and Magic Metropolis episodes, some of the unsettling problems that are looming IRL as deepfakes and sex robots are in development -- note especially the contrast between consensually and non-consensually basing automata on real people in those episodes. Or the discussion in the last episode of how much riskier sex would be in a world without magic (i.e., ours). This is a much smarter and more interesting show than you’d expect, considering that it has so much sexual content that it got dropped by two of the networks airing it and even its US distributor.

W/A/S: 5/10/4

Weeb: Although heavily influenced by the Western fantasy media canon of European mythology and Tolkien and tabletop RPGs, familiarity with the tropes of fantasy anime will help you “get” this too, as will familiarity with the -sigh- character dynamics and censorship practices of hentai. Especially because it’s a comedy, there are probably also instances where I have completely missed topical references or wordplay that a Japanese person would get, but I can’t think of any specific instances right now of “there was clearly supposed to be a joke but I missed it”.

Ass: Look, this could not possibly have more sexual content without unambiguously becoming porn. Genitals are (almost) always carefully hidden by viewing angle or conveniently-placed glowing (something lampshaded in one episode as an actual feature of one of the species they review), but otherwise, expect lots of nudity and almost nonstop crude humor. Do not watch this with children. Do not watch this with your parents. Do not watch this with friends you don’t know well enough to know how they’ll react to something like this.

Shit: This show is better-made than it deserves to be. It’s pretty dumb at points, but it’s fun enough to make up for it. The art is consistent and pleasant, and the opening and ending themes are extremely fun, but it’s not a serious standout in any of those departments. Also, I swear the background music is stock music, but I don’t remember what other show(s) I’ve heard it in before.

Stray thought: Crim is a precious and relatable cinnamon roll and I love them.

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OreSuki OVA (2020)

Platform: Crunchyroll

So, I know I didn’t cover the whole season in my initial review, but I still want to mention the hour-ish-long finale of this show, which was released straight to streaming. Short version of the rest of the season: Joro starts to actually fall for Pansy, but a new challenger, Hose, appears. He is irritatingly attractive and effortless at maintaining the right persona for the situation, leading Joro to describe him as “the main character”. Hose is the sociopathic manipulator Joro wishes he could be, and Pansy, who has a bad past with him, clearly wants nothing more than for Joro to stand up to him. But, since this is OreSuki, it’s not going to be handled simply. No, instead, strap in for a grand finale of Joro and Hose competing in, and trying to manipulate through rules-lawyering, an absolutely ludicrous competition to win the right to date Pansy. And, on top of it, we also get to finally see how Sun-chan got to be the way he is and what happened at that pivotal baseball game that set off the whole plot. What has Joro learned from the experiences of the past season? You’ll see! And you’ll facepalm about it!

Really, you must watch this if you watched the regular season.

W/A/S: 6/5(!)/4ish

Weeb: Basically the same as I said before. Gags referencing other Japanese media, anime and otherwise, and it's better if you’re familiar with the high school romcoms and harem comedies Joro thinks in terms of.

Ass (and slight content note): -sigh- Why does the camera need to be there? Also, Joro, you just committed a little bit of sexual assault for the sake of this contest. Stop.

Shit: I want to rate this overall better than I did the regular season because I think it’s an excellent finale overall because, even though it ends in a very “let’s leave everything unresolved” way that’s common in media that rely on absurd relationships to propel the plot, it does so in a way that makes sense in character. I personally think it would’ve been stronger if it had, well, confirmed its title, and at least some of the other “challengers” had lost interest in Joro, but I guess they probably want a Season 2, since they have so much more source material to work from. There are... oh god 14 light novels?! That is too many.

-----

Your Name. (2016)

Platform: DVD

Two high schoolers -- small-town girl Mitsuha, from Itomori, and big-city boy Taki, from Tokyo -- find themselves in each other’s bodies for a day. They both think at first it must be a very vivid dream, but when it happens again, and they start finding clues like notes they don’t remember writing and comments by friends and relatives about their out-of-character behavior, they realize the body swap is real. This begins a relationship of mutual understanding that nobody else can really understand -- or would even believe (except Mitsuha’s grandmother, who is... familiar with this phenomenon) -- and the plot then pivots to a tense adventure where they use their connection, some crucial information Taki has, the skills of Mitsuha’s friends, and the intervention of Itomori’s patron deity, to save the town from an impending disaster.

And that’s all I’ll say about that, because I really do think this is something you should go into blind. My only remaining comments are that (1) the red string of fate is critically important imagery, and is particularly interesting to me here because, if I took a particular scene correctly, Mitsuha made her own red string of fate from sheer necessity, which is a very different twist on that trope, and (2) I am now curious about the history of the body-swapping phenomenon in-universe.

W/A/S: 4?/2/2

Weeb: As mentioned above, symbolism of the Red String of Fate shows up throughout the movie, as do the occasional distinctly Japanese quirk like a wildly out-of-place vending machine or a café with dogs, and but for the most part it’s a cross-cultural story of understanding and dealing with someone else’s life, and of forming a connection other people don’t -- can’t -- truly understand, and to some extent of divides between urban and rural and modern and traditional that I think could play out in any country with just the local symbolism tweaked. The significance and content of Shinto beliefs and practices depicted, particularly kuchikamizake, are made pretty explicit, so although foreign to the vast majority of the non-Japanese audience, I feel like this movie also has nearly no barrier to entry for people not familiar with the cultural context, so I don’t want to rate it very high on this scale.

Ass: Look. It involves teenagers switching bodies. What do you think they do? Especially Taki? But it’s played for laughs, not titillation.

Shit: This movie is beautiful and punched me in the feels and was very satisfying. The closest I have to a complaint about any aspect of it is that the musical breaks that I guess are supposed to mark acts of the movie almost make it feel like binge-watching a short series instead of watching a single self-contained movie.

#weeaboo trash #anime review #mini-reviews #happy new year #di gi charat #first astronomical velocity #super sonico #interspecies reviewers #oresuki #Are You Really the Only One Who Likes Me?#your name

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automatic-external-defibrillator · 5 years

Text

My Best Friend, the Demon 1/4

Based off of this post. Also I'm really sorry if you didn't want this. (It's finished! Part 2, part 3, and Part 4 are out) THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE SHYAN.

“But sir!” a small man cried, exasperated.

“No buts! Convince the dead to come back, or be banished!” the larger of the two commanded. The smaller man sighed dejectedly.

“Yes, Satan.” He bowed, leaving soon after. Once he left the castle gates, he was immediately met by another man.

“How’d it go, Ryan?” the man asked. “What was the summons about?”

The other, Ryan, turned to him, sighing. “I have to go to the surface, convince some wayward spirits to come to hell. Same shit Brent went to do,” Ryan explained. “Not having horns or a tail is going to throw me off, dude.” Upon mentioning these, he anxiously ran a clawed hand over his smoothed-back-looking horns while his spade-shaped tail curled loosely to the front.

His friend scoffed. “Better than me. Other demons see my tail shape and refuse to even look at me. I can’t even get a job around here!”

Ryan gave him a sympathetic look. “You know there are crescent communities. You’ve no reason to stay here while I’m gone.”

“Yeah, I guess it’ll be better for me. Stay safe, Ryan.” His friend left and Ryan headed to the surface to begin.

~~~

It’d been a month since Ryan came to the surface. In that time, he managed to land a job at a place called Buzzfeed, as per his friend Brent’s idea. About two weeks into said new job, he’d had the idea for a thing he called “Unsolved”.

Brent had agreed to do it with him, as long as they did a segment on crimes. Brent was always fascinated with the cimes humans committed. They pitched the idea and they’d filmed about 8 episodes of the crime segment, “True Crime”. Today they were filming the first episode of the “Supernatural” segment, the topic being “the Men in Black”.

It was also Brent’s last day on the surface, meaning if Ryan didn’t find someone to film with, Unsolved would be over before it even began. Ryan sighed as he compiled his notes, still not entirely used to not having claws. Brent pulled him aside.

“I found someone to take my place,” Brent started. “His name is Shane Madej. He said he’d do it because he wants to, and I quote, ‘fuck with the human embodiment of sunshine’.”

Ryan smiled, a look of disbelief gracing his features before he burst into a fit of laughter, Brent joining in soon after. “You didn’t tell him, though, did you?” Ryan asked through chortles.

“No, no. I’d never risk that secret getting out. Satan’d have our heads,” Brent chuckled. “I just laughed and said okay.”

Calming down, the two went to film the episode, Ryan feeling more relieved than before.

~~~

The next morning, Shane was pulled from his thoughts by the incessant beeping of his alarm clock. Unfurling one of his long arms, he smacked it, shutting it off. “How the hell do humans do this every single day, and why am I subjecting myself to it?” he grumbled to no one.

He all but rolled out of bed, stretched, and got dressed in his signature button-up shirt and pair of jeans. He was taking over for a demon co-worker of his who had returned to hell today. He’d asked him about a week before he was to leave, and Shane said he’d think about it. To help him make his decision, he watched what was available of this “Unsolved” show, and decided he’d fuck with this overly positive son of a bitch.

He’d heard from Brent that Unsolved was planning to start a whole “are ghosts real” bit and also that Ryan, his co host, was an avid believer in the paranormal. Thusly, Shane decided to play the unrelenting skeptic.

Shane went to work, and when he got there, he headed up to where his new desk would be, and to meet the poor, unfortunate soul he’d be working with. Ryan was already there when he arrived, too chipper for Shane. Especially at 8 AM. He wanted to ground pound the guy, and it wasn’t like he couldn’t. This guy was human and no match for Shane’s demonic strength.

“Ah, you must be Shane! I’m Ryan Bergara,” Ryan introduced, standing to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Shane managed, sitting down with a coffee. The room fell into an awkwardly tense silence, as they were the only two there.

“So, uh,” Ryan started, trying to start a conversation, “what caused you to agree to doing Unsolved?” Shane could hear him tapping his knees, anxiously awaiting a response.

“Brent asked me to about a week ago. Poor guy, what happened to him,” Shane answered, faking a sigh when he said the last part.

“You make it sound like he died. He just moved to help with his family,” Ryan chuckled. Shane sipped his coffee. Is that what his cover story is? he wondered.

“You heard what happened to his mom though, right?” Shane asked, deciding to start the fuckery now, and judging by Ryan’s confused look, it was working.

“No?” Ryan questioned, drawing it out as if to say “go on”.

“Yeah, she has a brain tumor. That’s we he moved,” Shane “explained”. Ryan, still looking confused, just slowly nodded and turned to do something on his phone. Shane took this opportunity to text Brent.

Shane: Man, this guy is fun to mess with.

Brent: Don’t mess him up too bad though

Brent: He’s still a good friend of mine

Shane: Is he always this chipper at 8 am?

Shane: Because if he is, we’re gonna have some problems.

Brent: No, it’s only when he’s excited or anxious about something

Shane let out a small laugh at that. “Poor little anxious baby,” he mumbled to himself with a small smile.

“What was that?” Ryan inquired. Shit. Shane forgot where he was for a moment.

“Nothing of concern to you, Bergara,” he snarked. Ryan looked slightly taken aback. His brown eyes seemed to turn black for a second, but when Shane did a double-take, his eyes were still brown. Did someone accidentally inject him with heroin? He figured it wasn’t that, as a lot more would be wrong than just his new co-worker’s eyes, so he chalked it up to paranoia and continued on with life. “So, what exactly do you do on this show?”

“Oh, uh, basically I research topics and you just kinda react to them. Although, I did get approval to go on location for the episode after today’s filming session,” Ryan explained, perking up slightly.

“What’s today’s topic, then?” Shane asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, if I told you, how would you give a genuine reaction on camera?” Ryan bantered back. “Fake surprise?”

Shane gave him a look that said “fair enough” and shrugged. “You got me there, Mr. Tanned Man.”

Ryan looked at Shane for a moment before bursting into laughter. “Mr.一 Mr. Tanned Man!” He wheezed. “That’s good. That was一that was good.” Ryan wiped a fake tear from his eye.

Shane sat there smirking at the man. He had to protect this bright ray of sunshine. He could see why Brent took a liking to him. He was a genuine person with a great laugh. Damn, he liked that laugh. It reminded him of a warm summer’s evening. He vowed to be the funniest bastard alive so he could hear that laugh more often.

A voice pulled him from his thoughts. “-ane? Shane?” Ryan was waving his hand in front of his face. “Are you listening?” Shit, he was staring.

“Yeah, sorry. Lost in thought there for a bit,” Shane blinked. “What were you saying?”

“I was saying that Mark is here. The cameraman?” Ryan said that like he was trying to jog his memory. “We can start filming now. You can help edit while I research the next topic.”

Shane nodded. “Right, yeah.” As they got up to go film, Shane realized he got himself in some deep shit.

~~~

Hiding being a demon just got a lot harder.

Ryan and Shane were at a church about to meet with a certified exorcist to talk about ghosts and other spirits that might be roaming around. Ryan had done the introduction outside and now they were headed into the chapel to talk with a man named Father Thomas.

Ryan was panicking, as he’d never been in a church before. He’d been on the surface for a month, give or take a week. Shane eyed him quizzically, and Ryan knew he had to calm down as to not raise suspicions.

“What’s wrong there, buddy? Never been to a church before?” Shane asked jokingly.

“Yeah,” Ryan answered.

“Yeah you have or yeah you haven’t?” Shane questioned, raising an eyebrow at the shorter man.

“Yeah I haven’t,” Ryan clarified. Shane stopped while Ryan continued walking.

“Never?” he asked, wide-eyed. Ryan hesitated a moment before nodding.

“I don’t think一” Ryan cut himself off before he finished his sentence, almost revealing his true nature. “I don’t think my family was all that religious.”

“Do you not remember them or something?” Shane asked, catching up to Ryan in two strides thanks to his long legs.

“Or something,” Ryan muttered. Shane, catching on that Ryan didn’t want to talk about it, dropped the subject.

The two walked into the sanctuary silently, and sat in a pew to talk with Father Thomas.

After that mess was over, the two headed down to the Winchester House. Once at the maze of hallways, stairs to the ceiling, and doors to death, the two got to ghost hunting. Ryan gave a synopsis of the place and they soon made their way to the basement, the alleged most haunted place of the house.

Ryan was quick to search for any lost spirits of the house to convince, hoping to fill his quota quickly and return home, much like Brent had. Fortunately, Shane had the idea to split up first.

“Alone, how about? I’ll go first,” Shane suggested. Ryan nodded, gladly letting him go first, as he was absolutely terrified of the place. Ghosts had nothing to lose, so they didn’t care if they hurt someone. Soon, Shane’s time alone ended, and Ryan was next.

Ryan set off to find some spirits. For the first five minutes, Ryan didn’t find anyone, but he managed to find a woman in Victorian era clothes at around minute seven. She seemed scared of him, turning to leave before Ryan called softly to her.

“I just want to talk,” Ryan stated, eyes turning black. “I’m here to request that you go to hell. I have my orders, and I will not leave until you do.”

The woman, still looking frightened, nodded, warily looking around before fading from sight. That was easier than I expected. Ryan thought to himself. The interaction lasted for about a minute, so Ryan still had two minutes to see if there were others.

Unfortunately, Ryan didn’t find anyone other than the woman, so he went back to the group consisting of Shane and Mark.

“How’d it go, Bergara?” Shane asked, bemused at the smaller man’s terror before heading down. “See any ghosts?” Shane used a weird version of Goofy’s voice when he said ghosts.

“Nope, but we still have two more places after this,” Ryan countered, cockier than he’d been the rest of their time here. Shane looked at him, the ghost of a smile on his lips as he raised his eyebrows.

“Where to next then, buckaroo?” Shane asked as they exited.

“Oh jeez, next we’re headed to Mexico to view the Island of the Dolls,” Ryan stated.

“Spooky,” Shane commented, “but neither of us speak Spanish.”

“We’re meeting up with someone from Buzzfeed Mexico,” Ryan told him. They’d reached the car and packed everything, their next location being a hotel until their flight to Mexico the next day.

#tw swearing #bfu fic #bfu supernatural #bfu true crime #buzzfeed ryan #buzzfeed supernatural #buzzfeed shane #buzzfeed unsolved #buzzfeed true crime #demon!shane #demon shane #demon ryan #demon!ryan #long post #like a very long post

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theonyxpath · 4 years

Link

The M20 Technocracy Reloaded Kickstarter starts at 2pm Eastern US time tomorrow, Tuesday, April 28th!

We’re looking to create a Deluxe-style book to match the M20 Deluxe on the shelf, so the Kickstarter is to add all the Deluxe bells and whistles. The inside will, of course, feature the full-color design and beautiful art our Deluxe books are known for, and includes these features:

An Operative’s Handbook that provides a detailed overview of life in the Technocratic Union, describing the organization of the Union, the Conventions, and the roles that sympathizers, extraordinary citizens, and Enlightened Operatives play in the overall structure of the Technocracy.

An examination of Technocratic initiatives on a global scale.

Devices, procedures, and hypertech used by the Technocratic Union that explores the Enlightened Science, allowing operatives to apply similar effects in the field, if they have sufficient understanding of the principles that allow these gadgets to function.

A comprehensive list of citizens, cyborgs, operatives, progenitor creations, and allies to use as NPCs.

Storyteller support that explores story seeds and metaplot to shape a chronicle for their needs.

More than a year ago, I polled our original M20 KS backers to see if they even wanted a KS for this project, as well as Victorian M20, and WOOO! did they! Original backers know that we never reached the final Stretch Goal that would have been used to finish and create this book – it was a big one – so I think they’ve been revved up for it for quite some time!

So, we’ve planned the project in order to bring this forward and we hope both those M20 backers and the many folks who discovered M20 since the original KS get a chance to check this out tomorrow!

What Else Are We Doing During Our Shut-In Time?

Titanomachy art by Shen Fei

We’re adding some sales and project options to our current schedule in order to make it easier to buy and play our games during this time when our community has both shut-in and with financial challenges:

The IPR Bundle sale featuring our extra KSed books and Screens bundled together is still ongoing, and you can find the info below in the Blurbs! section featuring our sales partners!

Then, starting Wednesday, all of our Jumpstart PDFs will be free on DTRPG with a new sale we’re doing to give folks a chance to try out our many game lines! If you’ve ever wondered about a line, wanted to try it out, then this is a great chance to get a starting adventure and some pre-generated characters to give it a try with!

Dark Eras 2 art by Alex Sheikman

We’ve also been looking at ways we can provide lower price-point projects beyond the sales, and we have started a few initiatives with that in mind.

For example, in addition to their larger, planned, PDFs, we’ll be offering some of our current projects broken into separate, smaller, PDFs. We’ll be starting with Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras 2, and when the single-volume PDF and PoD goes on sale in a couple of weeks, we’ll also offer individual chapter PDFs.

We’re hoping that will allow folks to pick up the chapters relevant to their current gaming for a much reduced cost. We’re also looking at other projects we can offer in the same way, that I’ll announce as we move on them.

For our community that has discovered the wonders of gaming with their friends virtually, through streaming or through Virtual Table Top venues like Roll20 or Astral, we’re building token and adventure/map packs to make that experience easier. I’ve already seen and OK’d packs for Scion, Scarred Lands, and the Trinity Continuum which we’ll have up and available very soon.

(Maybe even this Wednesday?)

Vigil Watch art by Alex Honore

As always, we also continue to look to ways to help the many creators who we rely on for all their phenomenal work on our projects. Especially during this time of uncertainty. So we’re doing another Developer Town Hall Day next week where our Onyx Path crew will be available for our developers to check in with in a couple of designated time blocks since our devs live around the world and some are still doing their full-time jobs.

Our Dev Town Hall last month went great, so we’re hoping this one will be helpful for all our devs as well. This time though, I’m opening up the discussions just a bit to all of you folks.

Please pass on to me any questions you want us to discuss with the devs, and I’ll make sure we bring them up during the chat.

We hope you are all doing as well as can be hoped, and we’re hoping that this time is made a little bit better for you because you have access to our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

Blurbs!

Kickstarter!

The M20 Technocracy Reloaded Kickstarter will start at 2pm Eastern US time on Tuesday, April the 28!

Highlights of M20 Technocracy Reloaded include:

An examination of Technocratic initiatives on a global scale.

A comprehensive list of citizens, cyborgs, operatives, progenitor creations, and allies to use as NPCs.

Storyteller support that explores story seeds and metaplot to shape a chronicle for their needs.

Onyx Path Media!

This week features part four of the Trio’s Scion Actual Play sessions!

As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

In advance of the Kickstarter launch this week, the popular and high quality Mage: The Podcast spoke with Danielle Lauzon and Travis Legge about M20 Technocracy Reloaded:http://magethepodcast.com/index.php/2020/04/25/technocracy-reloaded-kickstarter-preview-with-danielle-lauzon-and-travis-legge/

Technocracy Reloaded Kickstarter Preview with Danielle Lauzon and Travis Legge

Back to our regularly scheduled broadcasts, on as ever, we’ve got a lot on Twitch. Matthew was in the audience for the fantastic Scarred Lands: Purge of the Serpentholds last week, and really recommends you check them out!

If Scarred Lands isn’t your thing, that’s okay! We’ve got lots more, including two sessions of V5, Behind the Screen – Chronicles of Darkness, Pugmire – Paws & Claws, Changeling: The Lost – Littlebrook Reunion, Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale, Mage: The Awakening – Occultists Anonymous, Dark ErasWerewolf: The Forsaken, and Chronicles of Darkness – Tooth and Claw!

You can subscribe to our channel over on twitch.tv/theonyxpath to catch up with any episodes you missed!

Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find a whole load of videos of actual plays, dissections of our games, and more, including:

Trinity Continuum – Aberrant: Community Service: https://youtu.be/oY9gGocsTtU

Changeling: The Lost – Littlebrook Reunion: https://youtu.be/rrGUattOO_o1OiLEtvunkM

Vampire: The Masquerade: Blood City – Chicago by Night: https://youtu.be/FEYdTKI-NgI

And MORE Trinity Continuum – Aberrant: Community Service: https://youtu.be/o_mcjV0uEAs

Do subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon if you want to be notified whenever new news videos and uploads come online!

Occultists Anonymous are here with a new special Mage: The Awakening series:

Richmond Mini-Series 01: Hubris in Richmond Meet the new Mages for this special short story arc. Drifter the manipulative Mastigos, Amanita the assassin Thyrsus, and Vicar the haunted Obrimos. Something is going on in Richmond, Virginia, and these Mages are barreling right towards it. https://youtu.be/0x_0K-SqIaQ

Richmond Mini-Series 02: Tele-Commute Vicar duels with an Angel sent to kill him in a church. Drifter speaks with the Arrow Sentinel, Guan Yu, about working together. Amanita begins to research the Seer agent’s plans. https://youtu.be/SyrLzMRY-rI

Here’s the Story Told Podcast first episode in their new actual play series of Demon: The Descent: The Aggregate Choir Welcome to Berlin, 1971. The Unchained hide themselves in the surveillance state of the GDR in a city under greater scrutiny by mortal eyes than almost any other city in the world. When Demons hear a radio station from the West, long thought silenced by the God-Machine, they gather and begin to investigate… http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/the-aggregate-choir-file-1

Additionally, Monica Speca joined the Story Told Podcast to dive deep on the Great Houses of the Realm for Exalted 3rd Edition: http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/exalted-great-houses-of-the-realm-part-2-with-monica-speca

One of Matthew’s personal favourites, Devil’s Luck Gaming, continues their Werewolf: The Forsaken chronicle over here: https://www.twitch.tv/DevilsLuckGaming

Please do give them a follow!

Please check these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games! We’d love to feature you!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

Update: the devs are working on the updates for the roller in both Android and iOS; here is the rundown from them:

1) Redo the UI for system for Android. It will look the same as the current design. My goal is to have something ready by Saturday to send out to the Facebook users, asking them if this fixes the issues. This will be a beta type thing. This will break several of the fancy dice.

2) If the above worked out and the android users give all the clear, we’ll redo the graphics system to fix the fancy dice that got broken. We’ll do another Android beta through Facebook. This might take up to two weeks, as my schedule allows.

3) If everything worked well, we’ll release to Android for real at that point.

4) Port all of the existing stuff to iOS and release on that.

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost Second Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And now Scion Origin and Scion Hero and Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order!

Deluxe Exalted 3rd Edition continues its fantastic sale at IPR, soon to be joined by Game-Line Bundles! Check them out!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This week we present the Vigil Watch 2: The Yorling of Mansk PDF for Scarred Lands available in PDF versions on DriveThruRPG on Wednesday!

This Wednesday, we’re also adding two new Art Packs to our Community Content sites! A new Scion Art Pack on the Storypath Nexus, and a new Scarred Lands Art Pack on the Slarecian Vault!

Plus, we might have a few extra surprises for our online gaming friends we’ll announce on Weds!

Conventions!

Though dates are subject to change due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, here’s our current list of upcoming conventions:

UKGames Expo: https://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/

GenCon: https://www.gencon.com/

Tabletop Scotland: https://tabletopscotland.co.uk/

Gamehole Con: https://www.gameholecon.com/

PAX Unplugged: https://unplugged.paxsite.com/

And now, the new project status updates!

Development Status from Eddy Webb! (Projects in bold have changed status since last week.):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep.)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Under Alien Suns (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)

M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Wild Hunt (Scion 2nd Edition)

Dead Man’s Rust (Scarred Lands)

V5 The Faithful Undead (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

V5 Trails of Ash and Bone (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

V5 Forbidden Religions (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Redlines

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Dearly Bleak – Novella (Deviant: The Renegades)

Second Draft

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Development

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Book of Endless Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)

Manuscript Approval

Post-Approval Development

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Editing

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Buried Bones: Creating in the Realms of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

LARP Rules (Scion 2nd Edition)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Post-Editing Development

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Indexing

Art Direction from Mike Chaney!

In Art Direction

Scion Titanomachy

Tales of Aquatic Terror

TC Aeon Terra Firma – Getting ready for Josh.

V5 Let the Streets Run Red

WoD Ghost Hunters – KS art being worked on.

Aberrant – Contacting and contracting. On the homestretch.

Pugmire Adventure

Hunter: The Vigil 2e – Backer TShirt going out.

Mummy 2

Deviant – Rolling along.

Legendlore – Kickstarter on hiatus.

Technocracy Reloaded (KS) – Tuesday.

Cults of the Blood God – Rolling along.

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad

Vigil Watch – Part 2 out Wednesday!

Duke Rollo Book – Yep… laying that one out.

Proofing

Trinity Aeon Jumpstart

Pirates of Pugmire – Backer PDF out to backers this week, I think.

TCFBTS Heroic Land Dwellers – 2nd Proof.

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate – At WW/Paradox for approval.

Scion Companion – Just waiting for two tweaked pieces.

Contagion Chronicle

Cavaliers of Mars: City of the Towered Tombs

At Press

Night Horrors : Nameless and Accursed – PoD proof ordered.

Dark Eras 2 – PoD proof shipping.

VtR Spilled Blood – PoD proof shipping.

TCFBTS Screen and Booklet

They Came from Beneath the Sea!

Geist 2e Anthology – PoD proof shipping.

C:tL 2e Oak, Ash, & Thorn – PoD proof ordered.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

On this date in 1948 was born Frank Abagnale Jr., CEO of Abagnale & Associates and criminal. Check out the film “Catch Me If You Can” for the quick version of his life. Definitely took roleplaying way too far.

#Onyx Path Publishing

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