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bobby-r2d2-floyd · 1 year

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Life Goes On (REUPLOADED)

Rhett Abbott x f!Reader

Word Count: 2.5k

Summary: 18 year old reader spends her last night in Wyoming with 21 year old Rhett Abbott before leaving for art school

Warnings: None? Two idiots in love not telling each other

might cross post this to ao3, not entirely sure yet but not posted anywhere else.

read part 2 here!

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Freshly graduated from high school, the summer before you left to go to university had flown by. Days were packed full of riding, roping, moving cattle with the Abbott family whenever they needed, spending time caring for your younger siblings when your mom worked day shifts. You and your best friend Rhett Abbott barely had hung out at all, spare moments here and there in the hay loft when Royal wasn’t needing you two to do a chore around their property. Before you knew it, it was your last night in town.

You were perched atop of your roof, staring at the stars as you took slow drags from your cigarette, you missed the sound of your bedroom window being open and boots padding across the shingles. You don’t need to turn around to know who it was that was joining you, you already knew.

Rhett dropped his flannel over your bare shoulders, the strings of your tank top doing nothing to keep the chill of the Wyoming night time air from sending goosebumps across your skin.

“Can’t believe this summer’s already passed by” he says, sliding up behind you and hooking his chin on your shoulder. You let out a small hum and take another drag, the only noise between the two of you being the burn of the paper.

“I can’t either, and I have no idea when I’m gonna have time to come back and see you again.” you say before exhaling the smoke that was in your lungs. “I saw you every day this summer and I still feel like I never saw you.”

He takes the cigarette from your hand, taking his own slow drag before exhaling after a few beats, “you could always not go.”

“Rhett.. I have to go. I have to get out of this town, I can’t stay here.” you tell him for what felt like the millionth time. “This is going to be good. I can go out there and I can get an education and make a name for myself that isn’t the girl who cried wolf.”

“You didn’t cry wolf, that guy.. He was no good.” Rhett says as he rubs your arm.

“Tell that to the rest of Amelia County.” you take the cigarette back and take the last hit of it before putting it in the old water filled coffee can.

He squeezes your midsection a little tighter and you lean back against him, “as much as I hate it here, I don’t want this night to end.” you say as you exhale the smoke from your lungs, watching it swirl amongst the stars before dissipating.

Tomorrow you would be headed east to Chicago, a 16 hour drive, mostly on I-80 before a stint on I-88. It was a drive that you had mapped out for weeks, even alternate routes should you need them. You weren’t expecting to get into the Art Institute straight out of high school but you were honored nonetheless to be accepted. It was something that Rhett didn’t understand, he knew you were artistic, you did murals all over the town, He just didn’t understand why you felt like you needed to go to school for it.

“Are you going to keep working with your dad?” you ask, staring at the moon rising in the distance.

“Yeah, work with him, move the cattle, now that fair season is over I'm not gonna be on the bulls as much anymore unless I do well this next time.” he says as he admires the partial view of your face in the moonlight. He knew that there wasn’t a lot of money in the bull riding at the level he was competing,or in the ranching, so the odds of him ever making it out the city to see you would be out of the question unless he picked up another job or you were able to fund his visit.

You inhale with a shaky breath and before you know it there’s a rogue tear running down your face and landing on his arm.

“Let’s get outta here. Go for a drive, pretend we have more than just a few hours.” he mumbles and you nod your head. He stands up before offering a hand to you to help you stand. When you stand, you’re a little too close than you were planning on being and you look up at him, your breath catching in your throat. He looks down at you, his dark aegean blue eyes boring into yours and for a second you wish that he would tilt your chin up and kiss you. When he doesn’t, though, choosing to step back instead you give him a small smile and a thanks as you make your way back into your room and down and out of the house, putting his flannel on properly as you make the way to the front door. Rhett kicks himself for not kissing you, but he still follows you out of the house and to his truck, putting his hat back on as he shuts the front door behind him. He opens your door for you like the gentleman he was raised to be and you smile softly as he shuts it once you're settled in the cab.

Rhett drives for what feels like hours, heading out of his own personal hell. There’s a small road up the mountain about 45 minutes from your house where as a child you always felt like you could touch the stars. Neither of you say a word as he drives, neither of you wanting to break the comfortable silence with the impending heartache of tomorrow.

He drums his fingers against his steering wheel, bringing you out of your thoughts, “haven’t even left yet and this place already feels so different.”

“Sucks we had to grow up, that you’re leaving…” he leaves the leaving me out.

“This’ll be good, right? ‘M makin’ the right choice?” you question, finally looking over at him and he looks back at you.

“Darlin’ I want nothing more than to keep you home where I know that you’re safe, but I also know that if either of us were gonna be makin’ it out of this place it would be you. You’re gonna be great wherever you end up.” he tells you, hoping that you don't hear how his voice cracks at the end.

You give him a sad smile before opening your door to climb out. He follows suit and when he makes it around the hood of his truck you wrap an arm around his waist, his own arm finds its home around your shoulders.

You make the small hike up the mountain to where there's a lookout, taking a seat in the grass you look up at the stars where they seem even brighter than they were from the roof of your home. "I'll miss this view the most, I think."

"Lookin' up at the stars definitely won't be the same tomorrow night." he responds, taking the opportunity to sit next to you this time so he can really commit your face to memory.

"It's beautiful." a smile makes its way across your lips and you miss the way he's looking at you when he replies.

"Yeah, it sure is." his eyes trail your face, quickly looking away when you finally look over at him.

At some point you fell asleep in Rhett's arms, awaking slightly damp from the morning dew and when the first rays of sunshine were finally making their way into Wyoming. You smile at the way you were curled against his chest, his arm wrapping around your hip and resting on the exposed skin there. He stirs when he feels the arm you had draped across his torso move and he looks down at you and offers a gentle smile. "Good morning, darlin'."

You return his smile with a sad sigh, "mornin'."

You both sit up, and as always he's hopping up before you so he can offer his hand to pull you up to start the walk back to the truck.

"What time you headin' out?" he asks, packing tobacco into his lip, an action that shouldn't be sexy but is coming from him.

"Uh, well.. I wanted to be leavin' now but I won't say no to breakfast?" you say with a smile and he chuckles, starting the vehicle and heading back towards town as you shoot your mom a text that Rhett and you are grabbing breakfast out so she doesn't need to worry about fixing you a plate.

He pulls into town and parks outside the dinner, both of you take your time making your way and inside. The silence is comfortable as you sip your coffee, speaking only when the waitress comes for your order.

The coffee sits like a hot coal in your stomach, nervousness for the drive and leaving your entire life, the man you fell in love with. Sure, he's three years older, 21 to your 18, but that never stopped him from being there for you. Everyone at school called you "Rhett's girl", they all knew not to mess around with you or he would be on their case. Despite all the buckle bunnies throwing themselves at him, he only ever had eyes for you.

It was easy to love him.

The food arrived and only then did you two make small talk. He asked pretty basic questions:

Where are you staying? In the dorms. Do you have a roommate? No, I don’t think so. What courses are you taking? I don’t know yet.

How long are you going to be gone? You hesitated on answering that, unsure of how long you were going to be gone and if you were even planning on coming back. “I don’t know, Rhett.”

He nods his head and puts cash down on the table, enough to cover the bill and leave plenty extra for the tip. He slides from the booth and offers his hand to you to help you stand up, you smile at the gesture and take the outstretched palm as you rise. “Well, guess we better get you back home so you can say your goodbyes and whatnot to your family.”

Rhett dropped you off at your mom’s house, his eyes following you inside as he walked over to your car, opening the unlocked door to pop the hood so he can check your oil and top of any fluids that needed it. Your mom watches him from the kitchen window as you say goodbye to your younger sister and brother, holding them both maybe a little too tight before you leave.

“It isn’t too late to change your mind, baby.” she says turning to look at you and you stand up and look over at her.

“Mama I can’t stay here, you know that.” you walk up behind her and watch as Rhett double and triple checks everything, even turning your car on and making sure you’ll have enough gas to make a good chunk of the way through Nebraska.

“Did you tell him?” she asks as she rubs your back.

“Tell him what?” you play oblivious to her question.

“That you love him.” you stiffen at her words and she lets out a small chuckle, “sweetheart the only person in this world who is too blind to see how much you love Rhett, is Rhett himself.”

“I can’t tell him.. If I told him I would want him to leave with me and you and I both know that he isn’t going to leave behind the bull riding and his family’s ranch.” you tell her and fill up a travel mug of coffee.

She sighs and goes to say something when the front door opens and not wanting to track mud throughout your mothers house from his boots, Rhett stands in the doorway, “your car’s all good to go darlin’. Ma’am” he says as he addresses your mom with a small smile. She shoots you a pointed look and you send back a glare. Rhett shuts the door and stands on your front porch, waiting for you to come out after saying a long goodbye to your mom.

“I was in your position, and I regret it every single day that I didn’t beg him to come with me. I know how it feels and you’re going to regret it too.” she tells you as she holds you tight.

“You did?” you ask and she nods.

“Yeah, I mean, granted I came back and married him, but your father and I lost years of what our relationship could have been, and then he passed away in that bull accident. Don’t make the same mistakes that I did.” she wipes her thumbs over your face and you shake your head.

“I can’t tell him.. He probably doesn’t even feel the same way.”

“You never know unless you say something, so say something or risk losing him forever.”

Rhett looks back at you as you open the front door and he holds it as you step outside, “you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be moving 15 hours across the country.” you laugh and he gives you a small smile before walking with you to your car. He opens the door and you throw your small bag inside that contains your wallet, cellphone, and charging cord. “Hey Rhett-”

“So listen-” he says at the same time as you, “you go first.”

You shake your head, “no, you can.”

“Be safe, please? You’ll have to stop for an oil change along the way so I left some money in the glovebox for you and there’s pepper spray in there as well should you need to use it, on the drive or in the city.” he tells you and you nod, opening your mouth to say something and he takes a step back, cutting you off. “It’s almost noon, you should be headin’ out.”

“Yeah, I uh, I guess I should.” you say, gripping your car as he walks back up to pull you in a quick hug, kissing your head before pulling away.

You inhale as much of his scent as you can, trying to commit it to memory - the tobacco and coffee of his breath as he exhales across your face, the cedar of his cologne, and the mint of his aftershave that’s barely clinging to his skin.

He climbs into the cab of his truck, head leaning back against his seat as he watches your car pull out of your driveway, tail lights fading down the road with the dust trail you leave, he pounds his steering wheel, cursing himself for not kissing you or telling you how much you meant to him and that he loved you.

You looked back in your rearview, your childhood home and Rhett’s truck fading into the background as you headed towards your future, your new life in the big city.

Life regrettably going on for the both of you, without each other.

#lewis pullman imagine #lewis pullman x reader #outer range #outer range imagine #rhett abbott #rhett abbott imagine #rhett abbott x reader #robert floyd #robert 'bob' floyd #robert floyd imagine #robert floyd x reader #bob floyd imagine #bob floyd x reader

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hannahssimblr · 8 months

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Chapter Five

After a morning of frantic creativity in the studio, I head down to the shop with a head buzzing with thoughts of Christmas motifs. Petra is comparatively calm, sitting behind the till reading a crochet magazine in her lap and drinking a hot chocolate from one of the sachets she keeps in a drawer with the excess breast shaped candles. “Oh hello.” She says serenely. “Have you come to do the window?”

“I have.” I go into the storage closet next to the employee bathroom and start yanking bits of blue roll off the holder, wrestling my way through the clutter and piles of empty postal boxes for a squeegee and a bottle of industrial window cleaner.

“I can’t wait to see how it turns out.” She flips the page while I start spraying the window and buffing off the dirt and streaks. It’s a smaller window than the café I worked on back home, but tenfold more intimidating, seeing that this is an actual art shop with actual artists working upstairs who will no doubt notice things like crooked ‘o’s or asymmetrical ‘m’s. Recalling the mistakes I made the last time, I first sketch an outline on the outside of the window. The sun is hot on my hair.

The muscles in my arms ache from the gym as badly as I expected they would. As I work I silently curse Shane Healy and his wicked exercise regime, and every time I lift a paint pen to the glass and my biceps groan I curse him harder. I am tired too, my eyes feel dry and heavy after a poor night’s sleep, tossing and turning in my bed with a head whirring with thoughts of Izzy’s gig. I think about it now too. Of Jen especially, and how different she was, but of Jude too, and the strange rift between them. I can’t help but recall all of those little details like the purple skin under his eyes, the nicotine stains on his fingers. Jen’s thin body, the vacancy in her stare. It was freaky to see them both like that, to witness their distance when all I’ve ever known of them was their closeness.

I start sketching out the lettering for ‘mezzotint’. I have a design in an open notebook at my feet, and I refer back to it again and again, trying my best to mark out the shapes as symmetrically as possible. It starts off well. I’m careful, I’m precise, and I realise that focussing as hard as I can upon the task makes it harder for me to dwell on other thoughts. I don’t notice the time passing me by, the shadows moving across the pavement, I even drown out the sound of the tram as it passes, and it’s just me and this window and these pens and…

“Um, hello?” I get such a fright that my marker slips across the window, sending a slash of white through my meticulous lettering. “Shit.”

“Fuck, sorry.” It’s Jude. He’s reaching for a damp cloth so he can help me to erase it. I never even heard him coming.

“Oh, God, Jude, don’t worry about it, it’s just the guide.”

He pulls the cloth over his finger and uses the flat edge of his fingernail to carefully remove the offending mark from where it cuts right through one of the Zs. “Sorry I scared you, I was trying to catch your attention from across the street for like, a minute. I thought you’d heard me.”

“It’s okay, honestly.” I take his wrist and lift the cloth out of his hand. “I’ll fix it later. Like I said, this is just the guide bit. I’ll erase it later anyway.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure, it’s fine, it’s just a stupid white line, nothing to get upset about.”

He looks up at the window. “It’s looking good though.”

“You think?”

“I do.” He smiles at me. “Nice job. I’m glad I caught you in time for lunch.”

“It’s lunch?”

“Yeah it’s like five past one.”

“Oh.” I frown. “I swear to God, sometimes I seem to just switch my brain off when I’m working.”

“I know the feeling. Do you have time to get food? If not it’s totally fine, I probably should have texted you or something, I couldn’t remember if we actually made a plan to get lunch or if I just ended up being vague with you.”

I smirk as I start bundling up my art supplies. “You asked me if I take lunch, and then you walked away.” After brushing my cheek with his thumb in a way that made my stomach bottom out, but I don’t bring that part up.

“Ah, sounds like me.” He holds the door for me as I carry my things into the shop. “If you’re not free it’s fine, by the way, I can get lost.”

“No, we can get lunch.” I smile at Petra who is eating a sandwich at the till, and we give each other a quick wave as I leave my supplies on the floor and head back outside. “Where’s Astrid today? Are you meeting her after lunch to do the big tourist round of Dublin?”

“Ah.” He says as we fall into step next to each other. “She’s not feeling well. She doesn’t want to do anything today.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Mm.”

“Do you think you’ll go tomorrow?”

“I’m not sure, she, well, she kind of wants to just go back to Berlin at the moment, I’m trying to convince her to stay for the rest of the week but-” He shrugs. “I dunno. We’ll see how it goes.”

“Not a fan of Dublin City?”

“Something like that, maybe.”

“I don’t blame her.” The Liffey still stinks as we cross it. A man leans over the railings and hawks up a mouthful of spit to launch into it. I shudder. “It’d be a pity to cut the holiday short all the same.”

“I’d bring her back to Berlin if I could, it’s just with the things I have to do…”

“That family stuff you mentioned?”

“Yeah. My mom is away on business this week, she needs someone to take care of Ivy. Like, bring her to school, cook dinner, laundry, all of that stuff.”

“Oh, damn. Is your dad away too?”

“No.” He kicks a coke can into the road and it goes under the wheels of a passing bus. “He just won’t- can’t do it. He’s not a big fan of, uh, parenting her.”

I frown. “Like, at all?”

“At all.”

“So what does he do?”

He exhales a laugh. “He’s very busy.”

“Right.”

“He’s rarely home for dinner. He works a lot. Late hours, paperwork, you know the drill.” I don’t know the drill. My dad only ever worked steady, predictable hours in the medical factory, and my mam, well, hasn’t worked since she gave up her secretary job in 1993. I can’t remember a time that she wasn’t at home, potatoes boiling in the pot while she scrubbed every corner of our tiny council house. She was always there to look after me.

Jude asks me what I want to eat, and I tell him that he can choose, so we head east along the river. “I know it’s weird,” He continues defensively, even though I haven’t said anything “that my mom would rather get her adult son to look after their child than her own husband, who like, you know, fathered her, but it’s just the way the situation is.”

“Yeah it’s not great, obviously, but I suppose this is an exceptional circumstance. One time is inconvenient but manageable.”

He gives me a sideways glance. “Yes. One time.”

The conversation shifts to Ivy as we venture into the Liberties, and he tells me about her. She’s almost thirteen now, she’s in first year of secondary school, she’s still bad at piano and has to be forced to go to her lessons. She still never practises. I like watching Jude’s face when he talks about her, he gets very animated. It’s like he’s a bit proud of her, like he finds her funny, like he genuinely likes being around her. I consider his relationship with Ivy in contrast to Shane and Kelly, siblings who would have beat each other to death with remote controls, fighting for the teddy bears with the hardest plastic eyes, the biggest battery packs so they could cause maximum damage to one another when they smashed each other across the backs with them. I often counted my blessings over the fact that I was an only child when one of them started up a battle, but now, for a brief moment, I catch myself mourning the absence of the sibling I never had.

He takes me to a food van that sells coffee and Italian sandwiches at the foot of an apartment complex. I grab a chicken and pesto panini, which he pays for, and we take a seat on the grass in a nearby park. Jude stretches his legs out in front of him and leans on his elbows. He’s wearing shorts and a fleece, green and white runners and tube socks that have fallen down a bit on one side to reveal a strip of pale skin right up against the deep tan of his legs. He’s away in his thoughts again, eyes turned glassy as he stares out across the park to somewhere among the young trees planted by the fence. My eyes automatically follow the lines of his profile, from his forehead over the slight roman curve of his nose and down to the long line of his throat before I realise I’m staring too much, reading his visual language like a painting at a gallery, so I examine my sandwich instead.

“What are you thinking about?” I ask him.

“Oh.” He says. “Nothing, I don’t even know.”

“Mm.”

He gives me a half smile. “Maybe I was thinking about how I’m glad we could meet for lunch today.”

He definitely wasn’t. “Of course. It’s been nice, you know, to see you again.”

“I missed talking to you.”

“Did you?”

“I did.”

I nod. “Well, I missed that too. I’m sorry-”

“No more sorrys.” He reminds me. “It’s all water under the bridge, and like I said, I have more to be sorry for than you do.”

I smile, then he smiles, before getting distracted by a nearby dandelion. He plucks it, and instead of blowing away the seeds he rather barbarically picks them off with his fingers and flicks them into the wind. I wonder if he made a wish. “I hope everything was alright last night with Michelle.” I say, hoping my prying doesn’t seem too much like, well, prying.

“Ah, yes. It was fine she just had to tell me about something that happened.”

“Hope it was nothing bad.”

“Well, I don’t know. It was just… well, nothing.”

He isn’t going to tell me. “Is it a bit weird,” I pivot “That Michelle and Jen are friends? Like I’ve wondered before. I saw them together in a bar a couple of years ago and I was surprised that they seemed close. Do you ever feel, like, a bit put out that your best friend stayed close with your ex?”

He shakes his head. “No, because they were friends first. They went to primary school together, and when I moved to Ireland I started hanging out with them. We were a trio of friends.”

“Really? You and Jen and Michelle?”

“And some other people here and there, on and off at times, but yeah, we were.”

“And then…”

“And then one day I ruined it and kissed Michelle.”

“Oh.”

He splits the stem of the dandelion with his thumbnail, opening it up to flatten against his palm. “I seem to have this weird impulse issue where I can’t stop fancying my friends and then inevitably destroying everything.”

“Harsh. Surely you’ve had a female friend that you haven’t tried to kiss.”

He thinks about it. “Sure, but not as many as I’d like to admit to. When I really get to know people it’s hard for me not to blur the lines, to think that everything about them is beautiful, or whatever.”

“But Jen?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” He rolls his eyes at himself. “I kissed Jen too. When we were thirteen. She called me a fucking freak and went off crying.” His mouth quirks up at the corner. “And then a month of no contact later she approached me in the school yard and said she was sorry, that she actually realised that it wasn’t I specifically who was disgusting, it was just that she didn’t like boys.”

“She sort of came out because of you?”

“Yeah, well, because of my bad habits.”

I mirror him and start picking the grass. “I hope that she’s doing well.” I say.

“Yeah, me too. Things aren’t that great between us at the moment.”

“I’m sure it’ll get better.”

He sighs. “Friendships do this, you know, especially long ones. People kind of eclipse in and out of your life, and it’s easier for it to happen when you’re in your twenties. I guess she’s just, like, eclipsed out right now. I think I should have tried to be a bit more understanding over Pamela. I think I was a bit full on when she started confiding things to me. Jen doesn’t often get into relationships so I can see why she’s been pouring all of her time into this one, it’s just, well, I suppose it’s whatever. It’s not worth getting into it.”

“I think things always get complicated eventually.” I remark. “The longer you’re friends with someone the more likely it is that there’ll be conflict, and then when there is it’s so bad, like they know how to hurt you more than anybody else.”

“A bit vulnerable.”

“Very.” I say. “Back in first year I had a big fight with Claire.”

“Oh yeah?”

“It was because of… well, basically I just lied to her by omission. It wasn’t very wise of me to think that she wouldn’t find out on her own, but I don’t really like conflict, in case you didn’t notice that.”

“Who, you?” He grins.

“But I was so used to always just taking on everything, like, blaming myself for being wrong and for ruining everything, but actually, when we finally got to talk about it and try to fix things, she admitted that she felt the same. She felt like she’d been in the wrong, and that she shouldn’t have reacted the way that she did. I suppose it was healing, or something, to realise that we both hurt the other, and it was okay because our friendship was stronger than that.”

“And now?”

“Now we’re great, we’re perfect. When I fell out with Kelly I thought about it all the time. I still think about it, honestly. I think about the things I wish I’d said to her instead of the things I really did say, and I imagine scenarios where I win and I make her look so stupid. And sometimes…” I wonder if the next part is too insane to admit. “…I think about mowing her down with my bicycle or shoving her into a massive thorny hedge and she gets all scratched up and has twigs stuck in her curls that she can’t get out for hours, and maybe they’ll get so tangled that she’ll eventually have to have them cut out-”

Jude lets out a loud, surprised cackle. “Specific.”

“-and everyone points and laughs at her, and she runs off crying, and I know it’s so stupid and those things would never actually happen, but I’ve never stopped being angry with her, or actually, angry with myself for being weak for our entire friendship.”

“You weren’t weak.”

“No, it’s okay. I think I was.”

“And now? What about with Claire?”

“With Claire I don’t feel that way at all. I handled it so differently, it felt mature and fair, like, I was upset while the fight was happening and for the month that we didn’t speak, but after that, yeah, it was fine. We’re good. I don’t even care about the fight because we fixed it.”

He nods thoughtfully. “Well, that’s lucky then.”

“Whatever it is with Jen, I’m sure you’ll fix it too.”

He sighs. “She’s complicated. It really goes back further than just this year, there’s things I should have done the whole way along, ways I should have been there for her but wasn’t. I’m kind of coming to terms with being a bit of a shit friend.”

“It’s not like you to talk yourself down so much.”

“Hm, well I’m trying out this new thing where I’m more honest with myself.”

“How’s it going?”

“Horribly. It feels very bad.” He smiles weakly. “I think I’ve had a lifetime of being a bastard and it’s all manifesting this year, like I turned twenty one and it decided to come and bite me.” he suddenly sits up straighter and shudders, like he’s physically shaking the self deprecating thoughts from his head. “I don’t mean to be so miserable right now, Jesus.”

“You can be miserable all you like.”

“No.” He gently tugs on the cuff of my jean leg. “I want to hear about you. Tell me about this fancy internship. It was too loud in the bar last night to really get into it.”

I grimace. “It’s really not that interesting.”

“Tell me everything.” He insists. “Don’t leave anything out. When did you apply?”

I sigh and I lie back in the grass so that I can watch the clouds drift past. “Okay well…”

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#lucky girl part 3 #sims 4 story

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amessageonthewind · 7 months

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New Horizons

Pairing: Connor/Hannah 1 year after being married.

Word Count: 1360

My half of my art trade with @nerdstreak

Skylines had quickly become a favourite of the Anderson household. Well, more accurately the love for them had been reignited once new life had taken residence in the household that had been previously haunted by the natural oppressive presence of grief, blame, and guilt. The solitude only amplified the suffocating nature of such a haunting.

The home was plagued by solitude no longer, now that Lieutenant Hank Anderson had acquired (though, more accurately adopted) two androids. Something he never thought he’d ever do.

Not until he’d met Connor and Hannah. It was a strange set of circumstances he’d found himself in and he had no choice but to deal with them, though Connor was way more of a pain in the ass. Actually…Hannah was nothing but a sweetheart, to be frank. The fact that she was his android for a while did make him a bit uncomfortable, but once she had deviated and still chose to stay with him in his home, he’d felt not even an echo of that discomfort in quite some time.

Now, these two were like family. They’d only been a part of the lieutenant’s life for a comparatively short time, but their inclusion in it left nothing left to be desired for someone as weathered as he was. For a while, the Anderson household was completely devoid of community. And now, community was all it ever saw.

Case and point, Riverside Park. What was once a painful reminder of the loss that Hank had suffered had now become a place of new beginnings. Hannah was standing by the railings of the park, easel set up and painting the skyline. She was experimenting with painting a picture using one colour in various shades and saturations while including whatever fleeting thoughts pass through her mind during the painting process. She may have been an android designed to copy art pieces by the man who previously owned her, but her artistic merit could not be understated…and she had only grown more and more skilled every day.

It had been roughly a year since Hannah and Connor had gotten married, Markus having officiated the wedding and Hank being proud to be asked to walk her down the aisle. Androids were just starting out, developing their own distinct culture, customs, and traditions all on their own. Some of them borrowed from human culture – after all, humans did create them and maybe over time, androids would become more and more divorced from human culture as they began to properly evolve and grow on their own – while others adamantly refused to.

Hank couldn’t possibly keep up with all of it, interesting though it was, but he was perfectly content supporting the pair of them.

On the bench, Hank and Connor were both contentedly observing Hannah while she painted. He was enjoying the atmosphere and the sounds of the hustle and bustle of the park and the bridge in the distance. Meanwhile Connor’s eyes were squarely on his wife. He was a man who valued details, as per his function and his naturally curious personality. It was hard not to take in every detail of his wife, the furrow of her brow and the focus in her eyes, every deliberate stroke of her brush delivered through avenue of her delicate hands.

And, of course, the art piece itself, a picture pulled from her mind’s eye so complex and unknown even to herself, like many androids who were living in this new world of deviancy and free will. Every detail and fleeting thought depicted on the canvas told him of everything that went on around and even inside Hannah.

Even without speaking, his world expanded every time he even so much looked at her. It was easy for Connor to sink into it as he gazed at her. So much so that he almost didn’t realize that Hank was speaking to him. “I’m sorry?”

“Jeez, I’m not used to you actually getting distracted. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen people look at each other the way you two do, so I can’t really complain.” Hank gruffly joked, a jovial tone in his voice as he chuckled in affectionate amusement at the android he’d come to see as a son. “I was just asking if you and Hannah thought about maybe going on a late honeymoon or something since you two got hitched.”

Connor tilted his head a bit. He heard of the concept and he was aware of it, but he had never really considered it personally. It sounded pleasant, upon reflection. It just simply hadn’t crossed his mind until now. “We haven’t discussed it previously, why?”

Hank simply shrugged, pursing his lips underneath his grayed beard for a moment before he leaned back against the bench, pale eyes reflecting the colour of the sky cast back to it. “Just wondering. It’s not important or anything, it’s just…a nice thing to sorta go off on your own somewhere with your partner and not have to worry about any responsibilities or work and just be with them. Away from the rest of the world, y’know?” He replied. It had been a while since he’d even thought about his ex-wife and she’d been out of his life for so long that she was nothing more than a neutral footnote in his mind.

But, it was nice to actually have something of a reason to think about stuff like this. Hannah and Connor deserved to know all the nice parts of being in a relationship and being married. He just figured he’d float some options to them if they were interested. There weren’t a lot of travel options for androids, still, but they could probably plan something if they wanted to go for it. Hank could handle being alone better now than he used to, now that his house felt like a home, again.

Ruminating on the covert suggestion that Hank had offered, though hesitant to interrupt his wife, Connor got up from his seat and discreetly made his way towards her, hands folded neatly behind his back, thumb fiddling with the wedding finger snugly fit onto its respective finger. The very same one that glinted in the light on Hannah’s hand as she painted.

He was about to speak up to get her attention when he paused to observe her painting. Amongst the hues of blue were little shapes and silhouettes of everything that was going on around her – children running and playing with their families, birds, dogs, and of course…planes.

One of which was followed by a trail of little bright blue hearts that dotted the canvas brightest among all the hues and shades. Hannah, of course, was neither blind nor deaf. She had overheard Connor’s conversation with Hank on the park bench and a soft warm smile was gracing her lips as she set her brush down, turning to meet her beloved husband’s soft gaze.

Naturally, he knew instantly that she’d overheard him and patiently waited for her response. “I haven’t really thought about it much, myself. But…I think it’s a great idea. Just going off somewhere, you and me, and not having to worry about anything else. Just us for a little while. Don’t you?”

Gaze flitting between the beautiful azure canvas of the Detroit skyline dotted with all of the immediate experiences around her, he gave her his signature lopsided grin, reaching for her hand and bending down to kiss her forehead, a contented hum accompanying the affectionate and loving gesture. “I think so, too.”

Chuckling in satisfaction, Hank leaned back and crossed his arms, eyes grazing the skyline again. Man…this placed used to be somewhere so painful. Somewhere that reopened old scars. A place he used for the same purpose he used alcohol.

Now, it was a place that bandaged those wounds and allowed them to heal…and he owed it to these two. He might not live nearly as long as they would, especially at his age, but he had every confidence that they would live a long and happy life together.

So finally, he could say without a doubt that Hank Anderson would die a happy man.

#nerdstreak

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toasted-valentine · 5 months

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Analysis of the song “Choker” by Raincloud Halo

(Note: I do not own any of these characters, I am just very intense about artists I like, and my adhd is very unmedicated right now so I’m on my hyperfixation bullshit. All characters belong to @cynopter / @tobyisave, I am but a humble nerd who needs to let my energy out somehow.)

Cw suicide, strangulation, general violence, OCD, and intrusive thoughts.

Linking to the creator’s post about the characters, I’m just gonna go more in depth and speculate about specifics within the song and what each lyric could be alluding to. Again, send this dude bro all the love, motherfucker deserves it for scratching at the adhd parts of my brain and having such crunchy looking art. Anyways, if their art had a flavor it would be salty and spicy, and that’s my favorite, so go check them out.

Gonna go bit by bit, lyrics in orange, my notes in white.

“Veering off the path

With the devil on my shoulder”

Townsend went as far into the middle of nowhere as they could get to hang themself, they’re going off the already established paths to make sure no one finds them. People who kill themself will sometimes go out of the way to make sure their loved ones don’t find them. This is most likely what Townsend is doing, not realizing that it’ll trap her as a ghost. The devil line is a reference to the fact that their family and community blamed their OCD on the devil, so Townsend’s religious trauma is showing it’s hand.

“A sturdy branch that won't snap

And Baby's jacket dangling at my waist

'Cause he won't miss it when he's older”

First part is just referencing Townsend finding a branch that’ll hold their weight so that they can hang themself, the second bit is what I’m more interested in. Townsend stole her baby brother’s jacket to take with her as a reminder as to why she’s doing this, and I believe the line has a duel meaning. Townsend’s brother won’t miss the jacket when he’s older, sure, but he also won’t miss May. He’s a baby at this point, he hasn’t been hit with the consciousness beam yet, he won’t remember the older sister that died if she does it now.

“It gets really bad

I don't know why they're not scared of that

I only dream of hurting him

Now images of wringing him out”

Townsend is terrified of her intrusive thoughts, she had OCD and is suffering from violent compulsions. She wants someone to hold her accountable, to hurt her, to keep their distance so she doesn’t hurt them. It’s why she commits suicide, in her mind it’s the best possible way to keep her from hurting her brother since she loves him. She’s sort of hyping herself up in this moment, once more reminding herself as to why she’s doing this.

“No one ever tell you not to nurse the wolf pup?

Now I've gone and tied the ends off on this strife

Sorry, that's just what happens when you trust me with my life”

May sees herself as a dangerous creature, therefore is comparing her family keeping her around to keeping a wolf around. In her mind she’s just going to maul someone, so she needs to be put down for the greater good. She finishes tying the noose, apologizes one last time, and dies.

“The city

Good people passing through me everywhere I go”

May wakes up as a ghost, she’s officially the ghost at the towns end, and Townsend is figuratively born. The thing is, since she’s a ghost, no one can see her. Everyone around her seem like “good people”, better than her, and she’s stuck alone having to watch them. It’s like living in hell, seeing “normal” people just living their lives, and none of them seeing the supposed demon standing right by them. It’s why she lives in the edge of town, she can’t stand to see them.

“And I hate that you found mе

Don't want to have to say I told you so”

Enter stage left Phượng, she can see ghosts and finds Townsend. And Townsend fucking hates it, not because she necessarily dislikes Phượng, but because it means she could potentially hurt someone. As much as Phượng reassures Townsend that she’s not dangerous, she doesn’t believe it and is waiting for the “I told you so” moment. She’s anticipating the moment she snaps and hurts Phượng, and is fucking terrified of the thought.

“"Don't touch me, I'll kill you"

The devils will slip through”

Townsend is trying to keep Phượng and her brother as emotionally distant as humanly possible, it’s safer that way after all, at least it is in Townsend’s mind. Along with that she’s trying to get Phượng to lash out and exorcise her, to kill her and get it over with. It’s a fucked up way of trying to protect the two. The devils line is once again referencing Townsend’s religious upbringing and her belief that Satan himself is fucking with her brain and making her want to kill.

“But still you hold me to yourself in bed

Like it’s all in my head”

Phượng has full knowledge of Townsend supposedly being an evil ghost, and in spite of that, she still wants her. She still loves Townsend, she loves May, and still is completely comfortable sleeping next to May. Phượng knows that May would never hurt her, May can’t event stomach the idea of hurting someone, let alone hurting her partner. Phượng keeps telling May that it’s just in her head and that that there’s no way May would hurt her, pulls her close at night so there’s not the kind of distance May thinks is safe for Phượng, is insistent that May isn’t dangerous or evil. Specifically having it be when Phượng is sleeping next to May is something interesting to take note of, because she trusts May at what could be considered a person’s most vulnerable state. People can’t defend themself when sleeping, so it’s a big sign of trust and security in May.

“But it gets so bad

I don't know why you're not scared of that

I'm thinking of your broken body

Reaching in and squeezing softly”

Townsend’s worst night has started pulling itself out of the hellscape that is her OCD, the intrusive thoughts and homicidal compulsions have transferred onto Phượng. She’s started thinking about killing Phượng, and it’s hell. What’s worse is that the compulsions have gotten more gorey and violent, which scares Townsend. Even still, after presumably telling Phượng about her compulsions, Phượng remains a devoted partner and isn’t scared of May. It confuses the hell out of May, Phượng knows damn well what May is thinking about, and she still loves May.

“No one ever tell you not to play with fire?

Somehow got to hang me higher than your knife”

(Going to be so for real, I’ve got no clue what the knife line is referring to, so gonna focus on the other one. )

The line about fire has a larger meaning, May is comparing herself to fire, something dangerous and deadly. Thing is, Phượng isn’t scared of fire, she burns stuff often as offerings to her sister. May saying she’s deadly, that Phượng is playing with fire, but it’s a double meaning that helps show why Phượng isn’t scared of Townsend. Phượng can see the good in fire, the good it can do for her sister, and is completely fine around it. Townsend is fire to Phượng, but in the sense of the warmth and safety it brings, and more importantly the love.

“I swear to god

Stop saying that you trust me with your life!”

Phượng keeps trying to reassure May, tell her that she trust her, but it’s just cold comfort to May. May couldn’t even be trusted with her own life, how is she expected to be trusted with her partner’s? It’s the racing thoughts of not being able to keep a loved one safe, and all their reassurances not making May feel better. Sometimes loved ones say the wrong thing and can cause people suffering from a mental illness to spiral or lash out, being told this just makes May feel like she got handed a loaded weapon with a hair trigger on it.

“ "Choke her" Fuck Him" "Devil"

Why would I do that?

"Choke her" Fuck Him" "Devil"

Why would I do that?

Why would I do that?”

May is full in her own mind at this point, she’s scaring the every loving hell out of herself, and questioning why she’d even want to choke her loved ones to death. It’s scary, and she just is repeating the question over and over again in her mind. The three most common intrusive thoughts she has are full swing, the thought of choking Phượng, the thought of harming her brother, and the thought that keeps calling herself the devil due to her religious trauma. It’s bouncing back and forth between the compulsions and questioning why she’d ever even think of doing that. The bridge is basically just one extended panic attack May is having in her mind.

“Choker!”

Roll credits.

But seriously, this is just May calling herself choker, and the compulsion of “choke her” morphing into an insult in her mind due to the stress and similarity of pronunciation. Townsend has managed to find a way to turn her compulsion into a title/self loathing term by meshing the two words together.

“I lover her

And I love my baby brother

Love her (Devil)

Lover (Devil)”

May is reaffirming her love for her brother and for Phượng in her mind, along with accepting the fact she is in love with Phượng. She accepts Phượng as her lover and is willing to have that vulnerability, even tho her own low self esteem keeps causing thoughts that call her the devil. She’s trying to comfort herself with continued remembrance that these are the two people she loves most in the world.

“I’d never do that

(Choke her)”

I think this line can be read two ways,

•May accepting that she’d never actually hurt Phượng because she loves Phượng, even if the compulsions are still ringing in the back of her mind.

•Townsend having a crisis of conscious and desperately trying to cling onto the last bit of self soothing she can find when she feels like the intrusive thoughts and OCD are consuming her.

Personally I like the first one more because it leaves the door open for hope and the possibility of May being able to life a happy life with her lover. The mental illness may never go away, but she still knows that she loves Phượng and her little brother, and at the end of the day she’d never hurt them.

Moral of the story, intrusive thoughts don’t make you a bad person, there is no such thing as thought crime, and the Catholic Church should never be trusted with mental health issues.

This is just my own interpretation and analysis, I could be completely off the mark with this one, I just am having fun.

Again, please go check out the original creator, his work is amazing and he deserves more love for it. Their work really resonates with me, especially Choker with the fears of how intrusive thoughts could harm loved ones, and I think there’s a lot of good to be had in someone making stuff like this. Plus, the dude is just generally really skilled, and you can see the amount of effort it took to get to this point in his various artistic endeavors. I pray for that man’s wrist, the carpel tunnel must be so bad.

#raincloud halo #orange peels on fire #opof #not my oc #not my character #townsend #Phuong #cw ocd #cw violence #cw death #cw sui mention #cw strangulation #analysis #song analysis

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dicaculus · 1 year

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Title: A Pile of Hot Metal and Dirty Dishes

Artist: Crankyfossil

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Magnus Bane/ Alec Lightwood

Wordcount:42,462

Summary: Magnus Bane is the Head Chef at Encanto and doing just fine. Or that’s what he tells Simon the therapist, his boss Raphael, orders him to go to. Magnus is a genius in the kitchen, his food is art, but if he starts a fight with one more disrespectful customer, he’s gone. Simon is useless though, going on about Magnus using work as a means to distance himself from meaningful relationships, and emotional walls that could rival a fortress. What does he know? Magnus is fine. Then everything goes wrong. His best friend, Catarina and her daughter get into an accident. His eight-year-old niece, Madzie, is the only survivor and Magnus finds himself going from cool uncle Magnus to the only parent Madzie has left. To make matters worse, Raphael has replaced him while he’s on leave. Alexander Lightwood is a menace. He’s careless, breezy, and annoyingly good at everything he does. Magnus can’t stand him, but with Madzie refusing to eat his cooking and his hands full, Magnus needs all the help he can get. Along the way, Magnus begins to realize there’s more to life than seared cod and lemon dressing, and maybe, just maybe, it’s a life that he wants Alexander Lightwood in.

This fic was created for the Malec Discord Mini Bang 2023.

READ ON AO3

CHAPTER THREE

The rest of the week is spent the same. Every morning, Magnus makes Madzie’s lunch then he takes Madzie to school and spends the rest of his day looking and thinking about meals she might enjoy. He picks her up from school, helps her with her homework and spends the evening trying to get to know her.

“What’s your favourite colour?” Magnus asks one night,

“Red,”

“Red is a great colour. Do you have a favourite animal?”

But much too soon the week is over, and Magnus has to go back to work. Despite Madzie’s protests, Magnus hires a babysitter for the night. He’d gone through an agency that Clary recommended to him, claiming she’d never had a problem with any of the sitters.

“I told you, I don’t need a babysitter. I’m not a baby anymore.” Madzie protests when Magnus hugs her goodbye.

“I can’t leave you here alone, Madzie,” He sighs

“Why not? I’m perfectly fine.”

“Madzie, you barricaded the door last week when you alone and heard sirens, remember?” He puts his arms around her shoulder and squeezes it. “I just want you to be safe, okay sweetpea?

“I charge from when I get her, you know”

Magnus glares at the sitter, interrupting their discussion “Yeah, okay” He kisses Madzie’s forehead, whispering at her to behave herself, and he’s out the door. “I’ll see you tonight, okay”

“Okay. Have fun at work”

Magnus arrives while lunch service is in full swing, he’s late but Raphael has Alec in the kitchen now so it shouldn’t be a big deal and he definitely doesn’t deserve the stern glare he gets from Raphael while he’s on the phone taking a booking.

“I know, I know,” he says, bristling past the man.

Magnus ignores the chorus of ‘Hi chefs’ and completely avoids contact with Alec, who he can feel staring into his back. He takes his time changing into his chef’s whites and finally ties his apron around his waist, looking at himself in the mirror.

“You need this job, Magnus,” He tells his reflection. “It’s not just you anymore, you have Madzie to take care of.” Magnus takes a few calming breaths, looks into the sink, then looks back at his reflection. “Alexander isn’t worth the prison time and you wouldn’t do well in prison.”

Another deep breath and Magnus leaves the bathroom, walking down the hall with his head held high as he steps into his kitchen. The very first thing he does is turn off the opera, coming from Alec’s phone.

“You don’t like music?” Alec asks

Magnus can feel Alec’s eyes on him, but he keeps his eyes on the plate in front of him. “It’s distracting my staff, and put your phone away. The last thing I need is for it to fall in my saffron sauce.”

Thankfully, for the rest of the lunch service, Magnus manages to stay away from the other chef. He works on his own, adding the finishing garnishes and and makes sure every dish that leave the kitchen is up to his standards. But unfortunately at staff lunch it’s impossible to avoid Alec. Every day between lunch and dinner service, the staff would have a potluck lunch, a chance to eat, but also a chance to ask questions and go over the menu for the evening. Per usual, Magnus sits at the far end of the table, phone in hand. He’d never joined in on the meal. Eating in the afternoon always made the chef feel tired, sluggish and in need of a nap. Plates of food get passed to him, but he keeps passing them down to his left without looking up from his device. He hears the other chefs and servers praising the various dishes, especially Alec’s pasta dish.

“Chef?”

Magnus looks up at the plate of pasta being offered to him, “Oh, no, thank you.”

“Only a full cook can judge food. When you’re hungry, everything tastes better than it really is.” Alec points out the other chefs around him nod in agreement.

“I never eat in the afternoon.” Magnus says firmly, hoping Alec will drop the subject.With his coworkers looking at him, Magnus feels put on the spot and he hates it. He’s about to accept a plate to get Alec off his back but doesn’t get the chance.

Alec, who is seated at the other end of the table, stands and despite working with him, it’s only now that he notices how tall the chef is. He walks from his end of the table all the way over to Magnus and leans down, putting himself into Magnus’s space. He can smell his spicy cologne and the spices he’d been cooking with earlier invade Magnus’s nostrils. He can feel Alec’s warm body against his. Alec is firm with muscles and Magnus hates himself for how he stares at Alec’s biceps, his shirt stretching over the muscles.

“My grandmother whispered this recipe into my ear on her deathbed. She brought it over from the Old Country,” he pauses to directly at Magnus, “And I made it especially for you today.”

Magnus shoves a forkful of pasta of the dish in his mouth, feeling the pressure with all the eyes on him. Of course, it’s delicious. Magnus hates how much he’s enjoy the one bite he’s taken. The pasta is a perfect al dente, the tomato sauce is made with chunky blistered cherry tomatoes, it’s sweet and rich with basil and garlic. The parmesan adds a needed salty element balancing the sweet tomatoes and much as he’d love to take another bite; he puts his fork down, not wanting to Alec the satisfaction.

“Happy”

“Very happy.” Alec says with a smirk on his face and walks back to his seat at the other end of the table.

“I thought your grandmother lived in Miami.” Raphael mentions

Magnus fumes in his seat while Alec stutters, trying to explain himself.

“Well, we all thought she wasn’t gonna make it. It was like a miracle.”

Magnus pushes himself from the chair and decides he’s better off in the kitchen before he says something he’ll regret. He’s fuming, angry at Alec for lying to him, angry for being put on the spot by his coworkers and embarrassed he fell for it.

“It was a miracle!” Alec calls after him.

A miracle? It’ll be a miracle if Magnus lets Alec survive the dinner service.

Dinner prep goes by, thankfully without incident. They stay on either side of the kitchen working on their own task, Magnus realizes how well this work for them and quickly makes a plan for dinner service. Magnus calls Alec over to the office. He takes the menu pinned to the corkboard and rips the piece of paper in half, handing one half to Alec, who leans against the door frame.

“You take care of those dishes and I’ll take care of these. We’ll stay on different sides of the kitchen.” He stands and goes to leave the office, “Then we won’t get in each other’s way.”

“Wait, yours is bigger than mine!”

Magnus huffs a laugh “Let’s not go there, Alexander” He stops beside Alec, clapping him on the shoulder, leaning into his space much like the other chef had at lunch, “It doesn’t matter how big the list is, Alexander. What matters is what you do with it.”

Alec chokes and his cheeks turn pink at the innuendo. Magnus, pleased with himself, continues into his kitchen, eventually hearing Alec’s feet following behind him.

“Okay,” Magnus claps, “Showtime, folks! Let’s have a good service.”

They do have a good service with the menu split in half, Magnus on one side of the kitchen and Alec on the other. Dishes fly from the kitchen and it pains Magnus to admit that Alec does fit into the kitchen. On his side, the chefs listen attentively to his orders. He dresses his plates beautifully despite Magnus looking for any flaws to pick at.

Fifteen, two terrines, one Dover sole, two lambs.

Seven carpaccios.

“I’m still waiting on the carpaccio!” Magnus barks, “How long does a raw meat dish take!”

Magnus wanders past his half of the kitchen, checking on the other chefs, ignoring Alec’s eyes as they land on him. When their eyes do meet Magnus sees the pot he’s stirring, he immediately recognizes the curry sauce that pairs with the sea bass.

“Have you seasoned that right?” Magnus asks, already grabbing a teaspoon

“Yes, chef.”

He ignores the spoon Alec takes for him and dips his own spoon in the sauce. Magnus swirls the sauce in his mouth and fuck, of course, it’s perf.ect. The perfect amount of heat, the perfect amount of acid, but of course he won’t tell Alec

“It’s okay.” Magnus lies, refusing to admit just how perfect the sauce is. His voice a pitch higher than normal with a shrug then spins on his heels going back to his side of the kitchen.

“Okay, carpaccio, now and where’s my lamb?”

Magnus spends the rest of dinner on his own side of the kitchen, but he finds his eyes wandering to the other side of the kitchen. Watching as Alec effortlessly laughs with the other chefs, cracking jokes, putting smiles on all the staff’s face, but his heart pinches the most when he sees how he makes Clary laugh. Magnus tries to ignore the laughter and continues on with the service. He takes the first four desserts of the night, two millefeuille with vanilla bean pastry cream topped with berries and chocolate raspberry tarts with a raspberry sorbet. Magnus is leaned over on the metal table using kitchen tweezers to top each piece of pastry with an even number of berries with focus. Magnus is so focused on the berries and not cracking the very delicate pastry, he doesn’t notice Alec scoot in the space behind him to grab dessert plates of his own. So when he stands up, Magnus is chest to chest with Alec, their bodies so close they’re nearly pressed together.

“Sorry,” Magnus says in a breathy voice.

Magnus moves to the right so Alec can squeeze past, but Alec also moves right so they’re still chest to chest. Then they both move left and they both laugh nervously, a blush rising on Alec’s cheeks. Alec puts his plates down and puts his hands on Magnus’s biceps and physically turns them around fixing their problem. Magnus shakes his head, collecting himself with a deep breath to get back to desserts.

“Pardon me.” Alec says, reaching over Magnus to grab the bottle of raspberry coulee.

“I need that.” Magnus groans.

“And you’ll get it right back.”

Magnus sighs and takes the bottles of chocolate ganache instead, dotting it on the chocolate raspberry tarts, then taking the raspberry coulee from Alec when he’s finally with it. For a bit, they’re quiet as they plate the dessert. It’s not awkward, but actually comfortable, and Magnus is okay with it.

“Can I ask you something?” Alec asks, breaking the silence.

Magnus sighs. “Do I have a choice?”

“Where did you learn to cook so well?”

“My mother.” He says placing a quenelle of raspberry sorbet on the tart. “She taught me everything I know.”

“Seriously? I thought you were gonna say you studied under Ragnor Fell at Ravenscar Manor or something.”

“Oh, I did.” Magnus laughs “But my mom was better, and she didn’t throw plates at me.” He pauses plating and looks at Alec as he remembers his mother. “She had me in the kitchen with her from a young age. She’s the reason I fell in love with food and cooking”

The finishing touch is on the raspberry tart is a sugar cage which covers the entire tart made of spun sugar. Magnus takes a deep breath and leans over the plate, focusing to the point of holding his breath as he places the cage. Out of the corner of his eyes, he notices Alec watching him. He stands, giving the other chef a look he’s hoping says ‘back off’ and leans back over the plate. Magnus feels Alec’s warm body leaning back over near his own and really tries his best to ignore it, but when he feels Alec’s warm breath against his neck Magnus loses focus and the sugar cage shatters in his hand, breaking all over the plate.

“Shit”

Magnus cleans the sugar shards off the plate and gently grabs another one, putting it on an empty plate.

“God, I need more space.” Magnus exclaims, taking his plates to the other side of the metal table, which he thinks is a good idea so the chef can’t come up behind him until he realizes they’re almost face to face.

“Why are you so mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you, Alexander,” he says decisively. He turns putting his desserts on the pass for the server waiting, “Raspberry tarts for table 4”

“You’re very mad,” Alec insists once the server leaves

“Look.” Magnus places his hands on the metal table and looks Alec in the eyes, ignoring the bright smile on the man’s face. “ Alec, this is my kitchen. I’ve worked really hard to get here and I’m not gonna let you take it away from me.”

“What makes you think I want to take it away?”

Magnus rolls his eyes at the chef and glares. “What else could you possibly want?”

Magnus leaves the table before Alec can reply.. He goes to his safe space, the walk in to cool off, kicking out a waitress practicing lines for an audition so he can be alone. He leans his back against the cool shelf and takes a few deep breaths, imagining himself smacking the smirk off Alec’s face like he really wishes he could do in real life. But someone would definitely fire Magnus. The walk in opens again and Magnus groans when he sees that it’s Alec.

Alec walks in, letting the door slam shut behind him and immediately walks right into Magnus’s space. As he walks closer, Magnus stands up straighter against the shelf he’s leaning on.

“Look, I don’t need this job.I can work wherever I want. I’d like to work here because it’s an honour to cook with you, but I’d rather work somewhere I’m welcome. So if you want me to go, you just say the word.”

The walk in opens for a third time and it’s Raphael. “Want to tell me what’s going on in here?”

“Well?”

Alec looks at Magnus for an answer, but Magnus is silent. He can admit the kitchen has run smoothly with him there, but Magnus doesn’t trust him. No one had ever thought it would be an honour to cook with him. Most people ran at the thought with his high standards and the strict way he ran his kitchen, but Alec, Alec insisted on being here.

Alec unties his apron and Raphael’s eyes widen in shock. “Wait a minute. Where are you going?”

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to find someone else,” He says handing the apron to Raphael then leaves the walk in.

“Magnus, what have you done?”

Magnus rolls his eyes, then pulls two more tarts from a cart in the fridge. “I didn’t do anything.”

Raphael follows Magnus out of the walk in. While Magnus goes back to his station to fix up desserts, Raphael continues after Alec. “Alec, please. We need you.”

Magnus rolls his eyes. They didn’t need him. They were more than okay before he showed up messing with his kitchen.

“Well, I’ll have to hear that from him.” Alec says, packing up his things from around the kitchen.

“It’s my restaurant!”

“It may be your restaurant, Raphael, but it’s his kitchen. Without Magnus, all this would just be a pile of hot metal and dirty dishes.” Alec stands with his arms crossed and looks at Magnus. “So, he decides.”

“Magnus.”

Magnus turns around and looks between Alec and his boss. From behind Alec he makes eye contact with a very pregnant Clary, with tongs in one hand and her hand on her stomach. She looks at him and makes ‘come on’ gesture at him and he sighs, knowing the redhead is right.

“Seems you’ve left me no choice.”

“Do you want me to stay?” Alec says, a smile appears on his face.

“Didn’t I just say that?” He bites

“I didn’t hear those words.”

Alec put Magnus in a corner and judging by the now smirk that covers the other chef’s face, he’s fully aware of it. The kitchen is silent and everyone has their eyes on him making Magnus feel small and embarrassed. A blush covers his cheek from the situation but also how Alec looks at him and he only hopes the heat of the kitchen covers it up or Clary won’t let him hear the end of it. Magnus wants to turn around and ignore him, go back into the walk in or even leave the kitchen altogether but he knows there’s no way around this so he sighs and looks Alec in the eyes.

“I want you to stay.”

“Love to. Thought you’d never ask.” He says with a wink. Alec takes back his apron that Raphael hands back to him and ties it around his waist. “By the way, you have ganache on your cheek”

Magnus quickly wipes his cheek and sighs when his hand comes back with a streak of ganache. He doesn’t want to think about how the ganache had been there or why not a person mention it to him figuring, it would only upset him more than he already was.

Magnus arrives at his apartment much later than he means to. The babysitter from the agency is nowhere to be found, which means they had left Madzie alone for who knows how long now. Tomorrow he’d give the agency a piece of his mind, but for now, he had a niece to find.

“Madzie” He calls out.

Magnus finds his niece in her bedroom but instead of on her bed under the covers, sleeping, he finds her underneath her bed with Chairman curled at her side, purring.

“Well, don’t you both look cozy under here?”

“It’s a fort Magnus!”

“I see that,” He says, noticing all the blankets and pillows she’d shoved underneath the bed. “Why don’t we get into the bed to sleep?”

Magnus helps Madzie out from underneath the bed and pulls his fluffy cat from underneath the bed. At first he protests with a meow but calms down, curling up beside Madzie on the bed again. “He’s really taken to you,” Magnus says with a small smile.

“I like cats, “ She says with a shrug. “I always wanted one but mom was allergic”

Magnus nods, remembering all the extra cleaning he’d have to do whenever Catarina was coming over.

“Let’s get you to sleep,” he says with a kiss on her forehead. “You have school tomorrow”

Madzie nods with a yawn. “Will I have another babysitter tomorrow?”

After tonight, Magnus is going to cancel for tomorrow. “Actually, I thought you could come to the restaurant tomorrow instead of a sitter. How does that sound?” He asks “You can see the restaurant and see what I do so late into the night. Maybe have a nicer dinner”

Madzie nods slowly, her eyes closing from exhaustion. “That sounds nice”

Magnus tucks her in one more time and pats Chairman on the head before heading to his own bedroom.

The next day Magnus leaves during dinner prep, leaving Alec in his place despite Raphael’s protests.

“You can’t just leave, Magnus”

“I won’t be gone long,” He says continuing to the door, “Besides you have Alec, what does it matter if I’m gone for half an hour?”

He lets the door slam behind him and walks to his car. Magnus picks his niece up from school, waiting at the entrance, squinting his eyes, looking for her face in the crowds of children piling out of the building. It’s Madzie who finds him, taking his hand in hers with a tired smile on her face. The moment she walks through the restaurant door, her eyes widen, taking the grand dining room in.

“Wow” Magnus hears her gasp.

Magnus bends down to her level. “You like it?”

The girl nods “The lights look like crystals”

Madzie points to the large chandelier in the middle of the dining room. She wasn’t wrong; it was made of crystals and was quite the centrepiece of the restaurant, but according to the staff, but was a bitch to clean. He’d been told numerous times how you had to nearly take apart the light fixture, unhooking each individual strand of crystal to clean them properly before putting them all back on. It was tedious and Raphael would accept nothing less than perfection, forcing you to redo it until it was right.

“And there’s plants on the wall”

Magnus follows his niece as she goes to the wall to get a closer look. The plant wall is a section of the black painted wall filled with greenery and multiple colourful plants, one of the few parts of the dining room that had any colour other than black. There’s moss, snake plants, and even some flowers growing out of it. When Raphael had it put in, he claimed it ‘purified the air’ along with some other benefits Magnus didn’t believe, but it was beautiful not that he’d ever tell his boss that.

“But Magnus, In my science class we learned that plants need sunlight to grow, but it’s dark in here, so how are they alive?”

“You see those three lights that shine on the wall?” He gestures towards the ceiling. Madzie’s eyes follow Magnus’s arm and she nods as she spots them. “They’re a special lightbulb that mimics the sun’s rays. Think of them like pretend suns, sweetpea”

Madzie nods, and Magnus hopes he’s eased her curiosity.

“But why is the restaurant so dark, Magnus? Do you not want people to see what’s right in front of them?

Another great question, he didn’t understand the dark colour scheme either.

“I don’t know, sweetpea, I only work here. I didn’t design it.” He stands, hoping to end the conversation. “Now come on, I have to get in the kitchen”

Magnus sets Madzie up in the far corner of the kitchen where they can still see one another, but she’s out of the way of any staff and not in dangerous of getting anything spilled on herself. She sits at the table with one of the extra dining chairs Magnus pulls from Raphael’s office and starts on her homework. She keeps to herself, but she does make sure to greet every person who walks by her and if they introduce themselves, so does she.

“Your niece is adorable Magnus, how old is Madzie again?” asks Clary

One thing Magnus hadn’t prepared for was the bombardment of questions staff would have about her or the amount that would come into the kitchen specifically to meet her.

“She’s eight, and everyone in this restaurant thinks she’s adorable.” He says with a sigh as he chops carrots, “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought her. What if everyone is distracted?”

“So River’s age.” She says with a smile, “No, it’ll be fine when dinner starts. How is she adjusting? Have you gotten her to eat anything yet?”

Magnus pauses his chopping and looks at the redhead, launching into his attempts at making her eat the fishsticks, which she did enjoy a then meal after meal of food she’d either pick at or simply not want to eat.

“I’ve tried everything. No matter what I make, she doesn’t eat it.”

“Why not try giving her some regular kid food?” Clary suggests, “She probably misses her mother’s cooking and I doubt Catarina cooked crab cakes with katsu curry sauce or a cod fillet with a poached egg and jersey royals.”

Magnus raises an eyebrow at her. “Have you been talking to my therapist?”

It’s Clary’s turn to roll her eyes at Magnus. “I’m just saying you’re overthinking it. Madzie wasn’t raised with this kind of food, so of course she won’t eat it.” She stirs the pot of sauce in front of her, thinking for a moment. “What about French dip sandwiches? I’m assuming you can make an incredible roast beef. Cook it rare, caramelize some onions, melt gruyere cheese on some buns and she can dip in the au jus. Kids love dipping things.”

French dip sandwiches. He could try that. What did he have to lose at this point?

Dinner prep goes by smoothly, Alec walks in and Magnus is sure to ignore him and continue with his work. Madzie finishes her homework, then busies herself with watching the chefs prep things and asking them many questions.

“What that?”“What does it go in?”“Does it taste good?”

“Madzie,” Magnus interrupts at one point. “I know you’re curious but Viola has a lot of work to get through”

“It’s okay, chef,” Viola says, looking at Magnus. “Hey Madzie, do you want to see something gross?”

Madzie nods excitedly, and the chef takes Madzie by the hand, pulling her into the freezer. It’s only moments later before he hears Madzie’s giggles and shrieks of delight from that direction. Madzie comes out of the freezer with a smile still on her face. She goes back to the table Magnus had set up for her earlier, but sits on top of it instead and watches the chefs with curiosity for the rest of their prep time.

When dinner service begins, Madzie only watches more intently. When Magnus brought her in tonight, he hadn’t anticipated her becoming so interested. Magnus takes note and wonders if maybe, like his mother had, he should bring Madzie into the kitchen. Perhaps helping to make and prepare a meal would excite her enough to eat.

“All right, two foie gras, one tartare, two bisque, and a goat cheese.”

Throughout dinner prep and now into service, Alec had notices Madzie watching with interest as the dishes come together. He thought she was the sweetest thing, asking so many questions, showing such a high level of interest in food at her age and given the chance, Alec would answer every question she could think of, even if it took them all day. Alec had heard all about Madzie, the death of her mother, adjusting to this new city and new life. It was more than anyone her age should have to go through, and he truly felt for her. He notices when it’s nearing seven o’clock that the young girl still hadn’t had something to eat, so without asking Magnus so he wouldn’t get told no. He makes dinner.

Alec crosses the kitchen to the other steel table Madzie had moved to at one point to get a better look at the kitchen during service. He nods and smiles at her in greeting, going to the shelves behind and picking up a metal bowl which he sets beside Madzie and a bunch of basil. Alec begins picking the leaves off them and putting them in the metal bowl. When he notices he’s caught Madzie’s attention, he brings the bunch closer to her face.

“Breathe in.”

And she does, taking a deep inhale of the basil plant.

“It’s basilico, one of my favourite herbs”

Alec tears off a few stems and hands them to Madzie, and together they tear off the leaves in silence, placing them in the bowl. At one point, he notices Magnus watching them. Alec can’t read the chef’s expression, but that’s nothing unusual with him. Alec was never sure if Magnus was angry and ready to stab him or simply focusing on his job. When Magnus doesn’t immediately stomp over to them, he assumes that they’re alright. He continues handing Madzie more stems of basil until all the leaves are in the bowl.

“You know what we’re going to do with these?” Alec asks Madzie, holding up the stems.

“Throw them out?”

“You could, most people do. But these young basil stems actually taste like the leaves we picked. So we’re going to save them and add them to pestos, salads and sauces.”

“Are you making a pesto now?” She asks, her eyes wide with wonder.

“I’m afraid not Madzie,” Alec takes the bowl of basil leaves from the table “And I’m afraid that ends our food lesson for the day, I must get back to work before your uncle yells at me” Alec says it jokingly to Madzie but silently he doesn’t want to be yelled at or be on Magnus’s bad side.

“Bye Alec”

Alec heads back behind the line as Magnus leaves the kitchen to greet his biggest fans. As he watches the duck cook skin side down, he begins dinner. He grabs tomatoes, dicing them with garlic and the basil from earlier and grabbing the nice olive oil. About half an hour later, when the tomatoes have cooked down, he blends it using a hand blender until smooth and then adds the basil leaves, adding salt and peppers as he goes. Finally, he adds in his pasta, stirring it in the sauce and adding a generous amount of parmesan before pouring it into a bowl.

“Clary, finish the duck on table five? I gotta take a break.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Alec walks around and sits on the steel table beside Madzie, twirling a forkful of the pasta and eating it.

“Mmm, good.” He says to himself before taking another forkful of pasta.

Alec notices Madzie looking between him and the bowl of pasta and he knows his plan is working, but he pretends not to notice her and looks straight ahead.

“Table 12’s getting a little antsy. Will it be up soon?”

Oh table 12, earlier they’d been passed a note from one customer saying they intended on proposing to their partner that night and wanted something special done with the dessert. Alec had completely forgotten. He puts the bowl of pasta in Madzie’s lap.

“Hold this.”

Alec leaps back into the kitchen, taking the squeeze bottle filled with chocolate ganache and attempts to right ‘Will you marry me?’ as neatly as possible on their plate with a chocolate pistachio dome. Alec watches Madzie from the other side of his station as he works, and then, when she thinks Alec isn’t watching, she takes a small forkful of pasta into her mouth. And then a much larger second bite, slurping up the noodles, and spreading tomato sauce all over her face.

“Save some for me,” He smiles

Madzie smiles as she eats the pasta and Alec knows Madzie won’t save him a bite.

“You know,” Alec says as he jumps back into cooking, “In ancient Rome guys used to chew basil before the prom to get rid of bad breath.”

Madzie looks at Alec in wonder, continuing to shovel pasta into her mouth.

“It’s true.”

It’s at that moment Magnus walks back through the kitchen doors. He grabs his apron he’d tossed aside before leaving and reties it around his waist. He looks up and notices with shock that Madzie is eating; he looks to Clary who shakes her head that it wasn’t her. Instead, she points her tongs at Alec’s back. For the first time, warmth fills Magnus’s chest when it comes to Alec. As if he knew someone was talking about him, Alec turns around and smiles a soft smile when he makes eye contact with Magnus. Magnus smiles a warm smile back at the chef, surprising Clary, who looks between them but also at himself. He mouths a thank you to Alec and he nods in response.

“They didn’t have proms in ancient Rome!”

“They didn’t? Are you sure? I thought they did.”

It’s late when Magnus finishes and all the chefs start head home. After the pasta was long gone and she got tired of watching, Madzie fell asleep on a couch in one of the back offices. Magnus picks up her bag, shoving her coat and mittens inside, then picks Madzie up from the couch, carrying her on his side. He turns around and pushes the kitchen door open with his back when he notices Alec standing there putting his own coat on. Magnus once again smiles at the man and whispers a goodnight to him.

“Goodnight, Magnus”

His tone is soft, and it warms Magnus’s chest, then his heart thuds in his chest as the man walks closer to him. He stops and pets Madzie’s head, whispering a goodnight to her as well before leaving through the other door, leaving Magnus standing alone, his heart beating in his ears.

The drive home is silent, leaving Magnus alone with his thoughts, and for the first time Magnus thinks maybe, just maybe, he and Alec could work together.

Perhaps they’d make a good team.

Magnus’s alarm clock goes off disgusting early that morning. Originally he’d given the fish monger and produce merchant job to someone else, but with Madzie seeming to adjust Magnus decided he wanted that duty back. He showers, and dresses quickly and quietly so he doesn’t wake Madzie in hopes she’ll sleep in after her long night at the restaurant. But all Magnus’s hopes are shattered as he puts his coat and boots on.

“Where are you going?”

Madzie peers around the door frame, teddy bear in one hand and Chairman at her ankles.

“The pier,” He replies. “I order fish to the restaurant from the mongers down there and produce from the farmer’s market. Go back to sleep Madzie, it’s early”

“Can I come?” She asks

Magnus agrees, of course, and together they go to the pier. Normally Magnus wouldn’t wander but with it being Madzie’s first time seeing anything like this, he slows his pace and watches as his niece’s eyes widen at the produce and all the fish. Magnus buys her breakfast from one farmer, a probably overpriced fruit salad and a muffin the farmer said his wife makes. While Madzie eats on a nearby bench, Magnus bargains with the fishmongers.“What you got, Steve?”

“Fresh bluefin.” He says, pointing to the fish, “Just came in like five minutes ago.”

Magnus shakes his head. He’d had bluefin on the menu too recently.

“I got baby mollusks over there.”

He shakes his head again. “What’s behind you there?”

“Swordfish.”

Swordfish, Magnus can’t remember the last time he’d put that on the menu. He thinks about the black garlic he knew was coming today. Garlic and ginger rubbed swordfish…and a fruit salsa on top, maybe a mango salsa?

“Yeah, I’m gonna take some of those. Have them delivered by noon.”

When the pair arrive back at Magnus’s apartment, he decides a nap would be good for them both as they still had a few hours before Madzie needed to be at school. But Magnus should’ve known better or at least set an alarm on his phone because the moment he closes his eyes, he falls into a deep sleep dreaming of hazel eyes and spicy cologne, only woken up by the ding of a text message. The moment Magnus realizes it’s 9 am, he’s suddenly awake and panicked.

“Madzie” Magnus shakes her shoulder, “Madzie, come on, we overslept. You’re gonna be late for school.” Unlike Magnus’s hurried pace, Madzie slowly stands up and stumbles to the front door. “Here are your boots, sweetpea.” Once Madzie is finally dressed with all her things, he opens the front doors and shoos her out, leading her down the stairs. “Come on. Let’s go, let’s go.”

Magnus easily breaks multiple traffic laws as he drives Madzie to school, but thanks to his somewhat reckless driving, she’s only half an hour late.

“Tell them it was my fault, okay?” He says as Madzie climbs out of the car, “Have a good day sweetpea,”

He waits until Madzie walks through the front door of the school before he speeds off again, this time to the restaurant. Running late with Madzie should have been a warning to Magnus that today wasn’t going to be a stellar day. Every delivery that was scheduled for that day was late, throwing Magnus’s schedule off. The wrong fish gets brought to the restaurant.

“I told you I wanted swordfish this morning, so why is it that I’ve just been given salmons!”

Then when their truffle guy, who Magnus thinks is super sketchy, comes by to sell them white truffles for $2200 a pound. Clary’s water decides it’s the perfect moment to break and his best friend is suddenly in labour. The salesperson suddenly panics at a coworker’s suggestion to call an ambulance heightening Magnus’s suspicion of the man, but Magnus declines and instead says he’ll bring her himself, leaving Alec in charge. The drive to the hospital is thankfully fast, with Magnus only breaking a few minor traffic laws despite Clary’s squawks of displeasure from the passenger seat.

“The doctor warned me she’d be early, I should have listened” Clary laughs “River was late, so I didn’t believe him,” She suddenly turns to Magnus with wide eyes “Jace, we have to call Jace! Magnus, give me your phone!”

“Let’s focus on getting you to the hospital biscuit and I’ll call him,” Magnus squeezes his friend’s thigh in a comforting gesture, “I love you, but if you give birth in my car, I will never forgive you.”

Clary had met her husband, Jace, at the restaurant. Jace worked as a farmer, and his farm was one farm they got their produce from. Clary was new at the time, only working there for a month the first time she set her eyes on the blonde man.

“It was love at first sight,” she’d say, which always made Magnus roll his eyes at her.

While Magnus didn’t believe in love at first sight, he did agree they were immediately attracted to one another. Clary suddenly wanted to help bring in deliveries, especially the produce deliveries, and Magnus often caught them speaking and flirting nervously with one another. After months and months of terrible flirting, Clary giggling at Jace’s terrible jokes and hopelessly pining Jace finally asked for Clary’s number and on a date, which of course Clary quickly agreed to. Their romance was a whirlwind marrying only eight months late.

“When you know, you know Magnus,” she’s said to him at a bridal boutique as they look at dresses. “Someday someone will come along who will tear down those walls you’ve built around your heart. And when that love comes back to you, you’ll do everything in your power to fight for it, because you’ll finally understand what I feel with Jace.”

Of course, Magnus didn’t believe her then, but a small part of him did secretly long for what they had. Jace was a good man who worshiped the ground his wife walked on, and Magnus knew he would do anything to make Clary happy. Magnus wanted that. He wanted someone to look at him the way Jace would look at Clary when she wasn’t paying attention. He wanted someone who loved him as is and wouldn’t try to mould him or change him into someone he wasn’t. He wanted someone to love and care for, cook their favourite meals and see the smile on their face when the plate was set in front of them. But he wasn’t sure if that was ever going to be in the cards for him.

As promised, after Magnus walks Clary into the hospital and he wheels her into her room where a nurse helps her into the bed, he goes outside for a moment and calls Jace.

“I can’t leave yet!” He panics into the phone. “Magnus, please stay with her until I get there. I don’t want her alone.”

And Magnus does. He stays by her side, helping her stand when she wants to walk around a bit and letting her squeeze his hand when she’s hit with a contraction. A few hours later, Jace rushes into the room, still in his work clothing, and leans over Clary’s bedside, giving her a gentle kiss.

“I’m Clary, I got here as fast as I could–”

Clary stops him with a finger to his lips. “You’re here now, that’s what counts…although I wouldn’t have minded if you’d changed from those dirt stained overalls.”

Jace blushes, looking at his dirty overalls. “You’re more important.”

Feeling awkward, Magnus quietly stands and attempts to leave the room without much noise. He shouldn’t be here, this is a special moment in the couple’s life. They didn’t need Magnus.”

“Magnus, where are you going?” Jace asks, noticing Magnus

“I should get back. I left Alexander in charge, so who knows what he’s up to? Besides, this is a private moment. I shouldn’t be here”

Clary reach her hand towards Magnus as if she could reach him from across the room. “I want you here, Magnus,” she looks at her husband, “We want you here to meet your goddaughter.”

God daughter?!

Magnus clears his throat, holding back the emotion in his chest and walks back into the room, taking back his original seat on the other side of Clary, taking her other hand in his.

“Well, let’s make a birthday biscuit.”

Clary does great. She squeezes the men’s hands throughout her contractions and apologizes to them and any nurse or doctor in the room when she curses. Many hours later, Jace and Clary’s daughter are born. They name her Rekha and she’s perfect. With all the excitement of the day, welcoming a new life into the world, holding his goddaughter Rekha and if that wasn’t enough, an exhausted Clary asks him something important.

“Magnus, Jace and I have been talking and we want to know if anything were to happen to us would you take care of Rekha and River?” Magnus’s eyes widen but Clary continues, “With Catarina’s death and Madzie it made us think..you don’t have to answer us now and I get it if you don’t want to you have Madzie—”

“Clary, of course I would.” He smiles down at his goddaughter as she yawns. “But nothing better happens to your mom and dad. I can’t lose another best friend.”

Magnus leaves the hospital that afternoon with a smile on his face, but it’s short-lived when he notices the time on the clock in his car. It’s 3:45 and Madzie’s school lets out a 3. With all everything going on, he’d completely lost track of time. Thankfully, the drive isn’t long and soon he’s turning the corner with the familiar school is in his view. Magnus quickly spots his niece sitting on the front steps of the school. He slams his car to a stop and throws open his door, not bothering to turn the vehicle off, and jogs towards her small figure.

“Oh, Madzie.” He coos, noticing her red cheeks from the cold, “I’m so sorry.”

“You forgot me.”

“It’s not what you think–”

“You forgot me!” Madzie yells again.

“Clary had her baby, I had to take her to the hospital–”

“But you still forgot me!”

Magnus sighs in defeat. “Okay, I forgot you. And I’m sorry, come on let’s go home.”

Madzie says nothing, instead crossing her arms, looking away from Magnus.

“Madzie, come on, it’s freezing out here.” He says, losing his patience.

When Madzie still doesn’t move, Magnus crosses his own arms, “Madzie, move it!”

Madzie lets out a loud sigh but stands from the stairs with her arms crossed over her chest as she stomps towards Magnus’s car on the road. The car ride to Magnus’s apartment is silent and full of tension. Madzie had her body turn towards the window and stare out of it the entire ride. Up to the apartment, she walks ahead of him and waits impatiently at their door when she arrives first. The second the door opens, she kicks her shoes off, and throws her coat on the floor before stomping to her room and slamming the door shut with a bang.

“Madzie, I’m sorry. I totally blew it.” Magnus leans his forehead against her closed door. “I know I’m doing everything wrong, but I’m doing my best, okay?”

When Magnus hears nothing from the other side of the door, he decides to go in, regardless. Madzie is allowed to be upset with him. He did screw up, but there has to be a way he can make it up to her. He slowly opens the door and in front of him Madzie lays in her bed curled up with her back facing to the door and Chairman laying at her head on one of her pillows licking her head.

“Why don’t you think of something I can do to make it up to you, sweetpea?”

Madzie turns her head and to look at Magnus, “You mean like a wish?”

“Yeah.” Magnus sits on the edge of Madzie’s bed. “Yeah, you wish for something and I try to make it happen. And in return, you forgive me.”

“Can I save it for later?”

Magnus nods “Of course. I’m going to start dinner. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”

Magnus pats her shoulder and stands from the bed to leave the room.

“Magnus,”

He stops, looking back to Madzie from the doorway.

“You’re not doing everything wrong.”

#malec fanart #magnus bane #alec lightwood #MALEC #malec fanfic #chef au #enemies to lovers #madzie #shadowhunters #shadowhunters tv

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burntotears · 2 years

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Fanfic Origin Story

Tagged by @bekkachaos 💕

What was your first fandom (reading and/or writing)?

Popslash RPF - NSYNC

What was first story you ever wrote.

My main ship was Lance/Chris (Trickyfish), so it was most likely one for them. I wrote some Justin/Chris (Timbertrick) and Justin/Lance (Lamblove) too. I was 12 and everything I wrote was basically crack-fic or dark-fic where people were dying and shit. It was awful.

What's a piece of advice you would give your younger fic writing self?

Everything doesn't have to be devastating to be interesting. You can write something with a happy ending and it can still be interesting. But also, keep writing, because you'll get better.

What’s an early fandom interaction that stuck with you (be it a nice comment, a friend you made, a fic that got a lot of feedback)

Back in the Merlin, Legend of the Seeker, Lord of the Rings days I met this one Australian graphic artist who was super sweet and made a TON of stuff for me. She did all the banner work for us in the Merlin Slash Awards (which I ran), made us little banners when we participated in the fun little team contests for Disney, LotS, and LotR AND made me banners for my LiveJournal accounts. Just unbelievably kind and I am so sad that we fell out of touch.

The one amazing thing that really blew me away was the cover art she made me for my first multi-chapter long fic, Unsuitable, for the Merlin fandom. She's soooo talented and I still think about her.

Post a sentence or two from an older fic and a sentence or two from a newer one (if you want).

My first Sterek (and TW) fic, Be the Overflow

“A guy like you? That’s a load of bullshit and you know it. Erica said she had a crush on you for quite a while and you never even noticed her until she turned. For someone who knows what it feels like, Stiles, you sure are a huge fucking hypocrite. There are plenty of people who--” but Derek didn’t finish that sentence. Whatever it was he was about to say, he no longer wanted to say it.

“People who what? Who want to be my friend? Who want to laugh at my jokes but make out with the guy who’s hotter and a lot more mysterious? Someone more like Scott? Yeah, I know all about that, Derek, and I’d rather you didn’t call me a hypocrite before having all the facts, alright? How’s about we all just shut the hell up and stop talking about my non-existent love life because that would be really fucking swell right about now,” Stiles spat with a bit more venom than even he knew he possessed. He looked back down at the pipe and the rope and decided the task definitely needed his undivided attention now.

“You are completely full of it. You’re going to keep blaming other people for the fact that you can’t see the things that are right in front of your own goddamn face, so you know what? You deserve what you get, Stiles.” There was a hardness in Derek’s voice that Stiles couldn’t really place.

The Teen Malex AU, The Answer is Always "Okay."

Michael seemed better when Alex glanced up again. “Guerin… you wanna tell me what the fuck just happened?” Alex held up his wrist to indicate.

“I don’t - I don’t even know how to do that,” Michael said. He was afraid. Terrified, even. Alex couldn’t just see it on his face, though—it was something viscous seeping into his veins from inside Michael. He could feel it.

Alex stood up, moving the short distance across the shed. “Oh-okay, Guerin, you need to start talking. I know you’re freaked out or whatever, but so am I.”

Michael blinked and looked up at Alex as though he just realized he was there. “Oh shit.”

“Yeah, oh shit.” Alex rolled his eyes. “Rationally, I understand that my wrist is fixed. I get that you did something. So what I’m sorta gonna need you to fill me in on is how the fuck that is.”

Tagging these lovely folks if they would like 💕

@portraitofemmy @haloud @jule1122 @im-the-punk-who @angrycowboy @beautifulcheat @thesquidkid @bydayornight

#fandom #writing #fanfic #nostalgia #merlin #nsync #teen wolf #roswell new mexico #sterek #malex #meme #and our nsync ship names were fucking glorious #trickyfish will go down in infamy #this was fun!

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spicywhenspeaking · 8 months

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If I'm There: Chapter Twenty

you're stronger than me Nat, I'd be jumping on him like a freaking jack rabbit

read from part one here!

summary: Noah and Natalie met in high school and developed a relationship through their love of music and art. Falling in love, innocent and young, they think nothing can keep them apart. However, sometimes in the pursuit of your dreams the things we love the most get left behind.

this is a complete work of fiction, some characters while based on real people are totally made up. :)

word count: 2.4k edited by me ....soooo if you see something spelt wrong no you didn't.

taglist : @lma1986 @cookiesupplier @notingridslurkaccount @blackveilomens @thisbicc @thebadchic @jessitpwk @samanthasgone @laurpartyprogram @myownthoughts12

I walk Noah through the rest of the house, I show him some of the art I made that we have hanging and he looks closely at all of the family photos I have lining the walls. “Is that Maggie and your brother?” he asks in surprise.

“Haha um yeah, they got really close after I left.” I tell him and pick up the scattered clothes I find littered in the hallway. “And then he joined the marines and they stationed him overseas. To stay together they ended up eloping so she could be with hime when he was stationed. They have a little girl, she's five. Her and Erin are so cute together. They'll actually be here in a few days.” I can feel myself starting to ramble and I stop abruptly and smile awkwardly. Noah laughs softly, “You look different but you’re still the same Natty.” he remarks in a small voice.

“Jeeze, your brother could kick my ass before joining the army, can’t imagine what he’d do to me now.” I laugh to break the awkward stale tension and move to the outside of Erin's room. Her walls are Yellow and she has a pink bed with a princess canopy hanging over it.

Along with a bunch of toys, books and stuffed animals all over her desk and shelves. “She’s really into the Percy Jackson books, you know I never read them when I was a kid but they’re pretty good. She loves reading.” I say while I watch him taking everything in. On the floor of her room are several notebooks and sketchbooks open and sprawled out. “Wow, she's an artist. Like you” he says softly. “She also has quite the little voice on her. You should hear her, kids got range.” I say and move to grab what I came in for, Erins photo book.

We move back into the living room and sit side by side on the couch. I open the book and it starts with a picture of Erin as a baby along with her birth information sheet, detailing length, weight and other important facts for newborns. There are a lot of pictures in here, one of the firsts is me holding her after we got home from the hospital.

I look so young. He gently touches the edges of the photo and I see fresh tears gleam in the corner of his eyes. “Nat, I’m- I just can’t believe this.” he chokes out. “I’m so sorry I wasn't there.” he says again and I have to swallow the lump forming in my throat. “I know, Noah. I know, I wish things had been different. I should have tried harder.” I softly place my hand on his shoulder as I whisper out my words and he looks at me with a sad smile.

“This isn’t all on you Natty, I left. Gave up everything I loved to make this dream come true. I should have thought more about all I left behind.'' His voice is hoarse and I don't know if it's from singing just a few hours ago or all of the emotion that's behind his eyes right now.

Lost in his eyes again I feel like a teenage girl again. The girl that was so ridiculously in love with a boy, the boy that’s now a man sitting in front of her and in this moment they share it’s like the last ten years didn’t happen and slowly the distance between them disappears and they’re just a breath apart. Lips hovering about each other in a delicate balance of temptation. The clattering of the photo album falling off Noah's lap reels us both back into reality.

Shaking my head and sitting back further onto my seat I brush my hair back out of my face and grab my cup of water to adjust to our situation. He coughs awkwardly and I try to get focused on what we were doing. Kissing would be a horrible idea. After all of these years he’s still the most attractive man I’ve ever met. But, this confusing situation would only get even messier if we started something romantic again. That would be stupid. Erin still doesn't know about Noah andI have Kyle coming in a few days to worry about. Also, I don't really even know Noah anymore.

Can you still know someone after so long. Coughing to clear my throat and to disrupt the silence I offer an awkward smile as Noah leans down to collect the fallen book. We continue looking through the pages and I tell him about some of the important stages I have documented. “Oh her first birthday, we had it at the park, just me and Haylie, she has been with me through it all, the pregnancy and all of Erin's life.”

He nods silently as we flip through more pages. “Ah, this is after she got her tonsils out, she was so silly off the anesthesia, kept asking me when Pooh Bear was getting dropped off for daycare.” I laugh at the memory and Noah smiles sliding his hand over the page. A lot of the photos are of Erin and I and he looks at those very closely, they also show my change over the years. My hair gets darker and my skin becomeçs more and more covered in tattoos.

“A lots changed since we last saw each other.” he sighs offhandedly and turns the page again to a family photo of another birthday party, but this one while being a great picture includes Erin laughing over her Barbie cake and me, with the arms of my ex-boyfriend Gavin wrapped tightly around me. Talk about awkwardness.

“Are you seeing anyone?” Noah asks softly and I just about fall off of the sofa. “Oh no, um that guy, Gavin? We broke up a while ago. It was pretty mutual, we're just better off as friends.” I rush out in explanation and feel my neck start to sweat.

“Oh, yeah. My schedule is pretty crazy with touring and us trying to make this next album. It's hard to commit to a relationship.” There's a short pause before he finishes in a quick fluster, “that is of course, now with everything I will make time for Erin, I want to be as involved as you’ll allow. I want to be in her life, I want to know her. You as well” the last part comes out much quieter and I can’t help the redness that takes over my cheeks.

“There is a lot that we need to work out, I want you to be in her life too, I know she will want to know you. You said you would be done with the tour soon? What is your plan?” I ask, what does almost done with tour even mean if you tour all of the time? He continues flipping through the book while he answers. “Just a few more weeks and then we will have a long break through the new year, then we will head to Europe. How would you feel about us taking our break here?” he asks and I look around the house, wondering where he’s planning on having four full grown men stay for months. He notices my eyes scanning the house and he laughs, “Not here, Natty. I mean Austin. We will be working but I would have time to get to know Erin.” I let the breath I didn't know I was holding out.

“Oh, that sounds great Noah, and you’d be here for her birthday. It’s in September.” He flips back to the first page, “yeah the 17th? I’m gonna put it in my phone” as he says it he pulls out his phone and I see the blank front page aside from a few apps, “wow, you’re pretty boring Noah,” I joke and he laughs. “Oh yeah, I deleted everything a little while ago, It was just a lot haha, I mean seeing my face everywhere and reading everyone's psychoanalysis of me was too much.” Whatever I’m about to say dies on my tongue when Hailye bursts through the door with Folio’s arm tight around her for support.

“Ohhh Honeyyyy I’m hooome!!” she calls out and I laugh getting up from the couch to take her from Folio. “Honey, you're coming home with another man? I’m shocked.” I take on the fake role of husband quickly as we begin are dumb little routine. “Well honey, you’re home with another man so I think It’s only fair.” she replies swaying in my arms and I work to steady her. “Thank you for getting her home safe, Foli, I appreciate it” I say to the man standing in my door.

“I’ll watch her anytime, she's a great gal,” he says and I can sense he’s being genuine. “She’s a maneater, but we love her.” I say to him as a slight warning. I love Haylie but she doesn’t stay held down for very long in relationships. Calls herself a lone wolf. Folio winks at me and nods to Noah, I’m assuming to gesture he will wait for him outside. “You’ll find that me and my friends work really hard to get the things we desire.” he says before exiting and heading down the front steps.

I turn to Noah whos waiting patiently on the couch, “just give me a second?” I ask and he nods while I help Haylie to her bed, quickly stripping her. I throw an oversized shirt on her and place her water bottle on her nightstand along with the bottle of ibuprofen she will definitely need in the morning.

Heading back out to the living space I sit next to Noah. “So yall leave tomorrow?” I ask and he shakes his head. “No, we have a few days off actually. Our next show is in three days.” I think on it for a moment before responding. “Okay well, Erin will be home tomorrow and I’ll tell her. I’ll see how she feels but maybe we can meet for lunch the next day before you leave?” A look of nervous excitement crosses his face and I almost want to cry again. “That sounds great Natty, here, put in your number so we can plan things later.”

He hands me his phone and I quickly send myself a text from his phone and just like that we're back in each other’s lives. “I know I can’t make up for these last ten years but I want to try. And Natty. I know that you and I-” I cut him off.

“I think all you and I need to worry about is being the best people for Erin we can be, you and I? I don’t know if that's anything we need to dive into right now.” His jaw tightens slightly but he nods in understanding. “So I’ll reach out tomorrow to see how it goes?” He stands and I follow him to the door. “Okay, I will let you know.”

Before reaching for the door knob Noah turns quickly and wraps me in a surprising hug. “I won’t let you down Natty, not this time.” he says and I barely have time to react before he lets me go and says goodbye and exits. I lock up and rest my head against the cool metal door. “What the fuck.”

Noah POV

My mind is whirling, here I thought Natty and I were going to talk and after the concert she was going to want to talk about life. Just how much we’ve both changed and how our lives are so different. I thought life was bringing me the miracle of a second chance. I guess in a sense it did, but in a way I never expected. A kid. A child. A daughter.

I have a daughter. “I have a daughter.” I say out loud, and I think it’s the first thing I’ve said since Folio and I got back to the hotel. It’s late and we’re all exhausted but we all gathered in Jolly and Folio’s room. Folio spits his drinks out and coughs, “the fuck?” Jolly shares an equal look of surprise and Nicholas looks like his shoulders sag with what I think is relief. I’ll definitely ask him about that later. “You got someone pregnant? Damn. That could seriously mess up your chances with Miss Natalie," Folio says and I laugh at the irony, as does Nicholas which solidifies my curiosity about him already knowing.

That doesn't even surprise me and I just hope he hasn't known longer than we’ve been here or we will have bigger problems. “Well actually. Natalie is her mother. She’s ten.” I tell them and It’s like saying it outloud makes it so much more real.

“She was pregnant after I left her and just never managed to get to me. She just told me, tonight.” Jolly is the next to ask questions.

“She just never told you? How do you feel about that?” I know he’s considering my feelings but I don’t want to set it up that she intentionally kept me away from my child.

“Well at first when she told me I was pissed and then we just talked about it all. She explained herself and there were a lot of things that I have to accept. She felt abandoned and I did leave her. She tried to tell me and fucking Alex stuck her nose in it and then Kevin said some fucked up shit. It’s not at all what I wanted my life to be with Nat, but, this is happening.” I stand up and move to grab a sparkling water from the mini fridge.

“Do you still want a life with her?” Nicholas finally speaks up. “I don’t know if I’ll ever fully move on from her, she was the first girl I ever truly loved. But, she doesn't want anything like that with me, especially now. She said all she wants is for us to be there for Erin. So that's what I’ll do.” Folio smiles and grabs me into a crushing hug. “Congratulations Daddy!” he calls out and the other guys laugh.

“So does win baby momma's heart back start now? Or…” Folio asks and I roll my eyes and wrap my arm around his head pulling him into a headlock to ruffle his hair.

“Why don’t we start with trying to get my daughter that probably thinks I abandoned her to like me and then I can start to think about trying to win the love of my life back?”

thank you for reading besties!!

next upload won't be for about a week! working on some other wips an building out the outline for future chapter! love youuuuuu :)

next chapter ->

#noah sebastian #noahsebastian #Noah Sebastian smut #noah sebastian x ofc #Noah Sebastian angst #Noah Sebastian fluff #bad omens fluff #bad omen smut #bad omen fanfiction #bad omen fic #noah sebastian fanfiction #bad omens fanfic #bad omens rpf #bad omens smut #noah sebastian fic #lf Im there noah #rpf fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic

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s3899602 · 1 year

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Blog #10 - Week 10

Wednesday

Upside Down People

Today Mai Han and I showed Sara and Helen our progress in the Capitol. They thought the colours I chose worked well, I thought they fit with the colours in the video so that was a relief that they thought so too. Sara and Helen said the colours that I used were fantastic even though the purple on the ceiling was a little mistake, so that was extremely lucky.

Mai Han and I will also be working on the Dragon Tree Story scene, which is a low flickering candlelight. This should be pretty simple, I have already created a few different states already which I didn’t show Sara in the space but showed her after and she thought they were good. I think it would be best to avoid the arch throughout the whole scene and just focus on the walls. I’ll see how I go with improving what I have so far.

Thursday

Kingdom Dance

I’m not sure that I liked it when it played in the Capitol and I’m not sure if it was actually bad or if I was just imposter syndrome and I wasn’t watching it right. I was really excited to see it in space so I don’t know why I wouldn’t think it was good if it was so I’m confused. Darrin and Nik didn’t seem to dislike it (apart from the music and a few colour choices). I’m going to have a look over it this week to see if there’s anything to change. I recorded another work in the capitol that I thought was exhilarating, they used a lot of techniques that I hadn’t thought of before so I will watch that again and see if anything inspires me to change what I already have.

Jo’s Project

Light’s Project

Light and I had a long chat about his project and the kind of feeling he wants the sound to evoke and what he wants the sound to highlight in the video. We decided that I can just go crazy and do what I want with the sound which, admittedly, I am slightly afraid of, but Light has given me a lot of direction and has sent me a lot of inspiration from games and movies that he thinks I can draw my own inspiration from. We have very similar tastes when it comes to sci-fi movies so that’s a relief because I know I can make something that not only will fit the video, but that he will enjoy.

We had a talk about surreal and how Light’s other project is now very Surreal and we could chage up the word in this project. We settled on uncanny, but depending on how the sound design goes, Light says I can change it again if need be. I think with the visuals we probably can’t go very far from surreal or uncanny because the stop-motion AI is so out-there that no matter what the audio is, the video would still have surreal elements. We were also talking about movies and both thought the soundtrack to Arrival (2016) was spectacular and really fits the eerie, uncanny feeling that we are going for. There’s also Coraline and a few other movies that fit the essence of the video so I will have a deeper look at all of them and see what ideas emerge.

I had a listen to the Arrival soundtrack and really liked Sapir Whorf https://youtu.be/m87uapjnvKU?si=p4T4K9-K6JmnFtLf and Transmutation at a Distance https://youtu.be/swD1eqFSdYQ?si=AvKczhmvViMRgs0x because they both have a very otherworldly ethereal sort of feel to them which is what Light really wants the audience to feel. I love the use of vocals throughout the soundtrack as well. The whole soundtrack is honestly genius. Another great track was One of Twelve, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8adiipvZTRg&list=PLff_8M2LCnlCP3deJhXdYJCxlqCIJjItL&index=18 I really loved the use of (what I’m pretty sure was) distorted string instruments to create a sense of realisation and a heightened sense of danger.

Research

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/surrealism

Surreal artwork is about artists finding ‘magic and strange beauty in the unexpected and the uncanny’

As we settled on the work Uncanny, I thought I would do some research on surreal and uncanny. They’re have very similar meanings and sometimes used synonymously. Something uncanny is strange and unexpected, and surreal artwork is the celebration of that. AI is something that is widely considered to be ‘uncanny’ because it’s new and is not something we have seen before. Especially when talking to chat AI’s, it can feel as if you’re talking to a real human being and that can be jarring for a lot of people. What Light is doing with the AI generated images is quite uncanny and surreal already so so far it hasn’t been difficult trying to match that feeling.

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seal-writes-stuff · 2 years

Text

My Muse

Word count: 1.8k

Warnings: F!Reader, pining with a capital P, mentions of arranged marriage and period-accurate misogyny, mostly fluff with a dash of angst

Summary: When Katherine Lester meets you, she becomes a part of your art and your life faster than either of you could’ve imagined.

A/N: Hello everyone! Treading on a bit of new territory here since I haven’t seen any fics for “Lady Macbeth” (Florence is sooo good in it though). Please tell me if you’d like a part 2 because… Let’s say I have ideas. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Katherine's thoughts are interrupted when she notices you.

The days got colder with summer coming closer to an end, but that never bothered her. These secret walks quickly became the only breath of fresh air in Katherine’s life - after the wedding, after she arrived in that dreary house. They’ve always reminded her that she is still young, still alive, still lives in the world filled with beauty and peace. The wind rustling her hair, the sun kissing her skin, the smell of rain and fresh flowers enveloping her…

In these moments, Katherine’s worries left her, if only for a little while. She was free and she was happy. What’s more important, these moments have always given her an opportunity to be away from her husband’s control, to daydream.

However, your presence brought her back to reality.

The same can’t be said about you. You’re sitting in front of an unfinished painting, staring off into the distance. As if you’re trying to find some kind of answer in the dark woods on the horizon, some kind of key. A palette you’re holding has tilted, staining your hands, your dress and a woolen shawl wrapped around your shoulders – you don’t seem to care. You’re far, far away, lost in your own little world.

Katherine stands still behind you – barely breathing, mesmerized. She knows she should say something, or maybe she should just leave altogether, letting you be, but she can’t. The sudden feeling swirling in her chest is overpowering. She wants to know more.

She wants to know what you’re working on. She wants to know what about your work makes you frown. She wants to know what’s on your mind.

She wants…

Finally, some subtle shift in the air alerts you to her presence. You jump up and drop the palette, your eyes wide.

“Oh!” you steady the canvas, trying to prevent it from falling over as well. “Sorry, I didn’t see-”

“No, don’t apologize! I should be sorry,” Katherine’s face heats up, like she’s been caught in an act of... What? “I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“You aren’t interrupting anything,” you settle back, inviting her to join you with a friendly gesture. “Come here. Maybe you’ll help me figure out what I’m doing wrong here.”

You don’t have to ask twice. For a second, Katherine’s overwhelmed; your warmth, the smell of the oil paint mixed with your perfume, the way your fingers hold the brush … She wants to remember it all. She wants to carry it around like a lover’s picture hidden in a golden locket.

Yet she can’t. She must compose herself, Katherine thinks, she must pretend. After all, it’s all she’s been doing lately.

“I must warn you, I’m not an artist…”

“Neither am I, apparently,” you bury your head in your hands with a groan. “Any decent artist would’ve known how to fix this thing by now.”

“You’re hard on yourself. I think it’s beautiful.”

You pause, looking at her intently. You take her in – all of her, uninterrupted.

“Ah,” you look away hastly, as if forced by the rules of decorum. “That’s kind of you to say.”

“It’s the truth.”

You hum, staring at the canvas again. This time, however, you aren’t as engrossed by your work as you were mere minutes ago.

“I didn’t quite catch your name, Lady..?”

“Just Katherine, please.”

“Katherine…” you roll her name in your mouth, as if you’re tasting it. “Y/N. It’s a pleasure.”

Y/N, then... You don’t look at her, yet your eyes shine with some complex emotion, which Katherine can’t quite describe.

“Tell me, would you be offended if I kept working while we talk? I know it’s terribly rude, but-”

“Oh, of course not! Do as you please. I don’t mind at all.”

“How lovely,” you pick up the brush, adding a few broad strokes. “Again, I apologize. Believe me, if it was up to me, I’d much rather look at you.”

For once, Katherine is glad you’re looking away. She doesn’t think she could hide her blush if she tried.

Quick, she must change the subject somehow. If anything, she must hear you talk.

“Do you come here often?”

“From time to time,” you narrow your eyes in concentration. “The landscapes aren’t among my… Stronger suits, as you might’ve noticed.”

“Trust me, I don’t see what you’re seeing.”

“You flatter me. I can copy the nature, I suppose, but it lacks the heart. It lacks…”

All of a sudden, your eyes widen in realization.

“Would you pose for me, Katherine?”

“Wh… Me?”

“I won’t show your face, I promise, just your back. A lady with dark copper hair, looking off into the distance...”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m not dressed for a-”

“No-no-no, you are, your dress is perfect! Your dress, your eyes… They have such rich, warm colors! It’s like you’re a part of the scenery.”

As the last words leave your lips, you cover your face in shame.

“Oh my God, I… Forgive me, please. What am I even saying? Part of the scenery?!”

“It’s alright!” Katherine laughs as you peek at her through your fingers. “It’s… Rather sweet, actually. Might be the best compliment I’ve ever gotten.”

“You must love these places, then.”

“As much as I can. You see, my house feels…”

She pauses to find the right word, just in time to catch your discreet glance. Your face remains neutral, yet your eyes a full of quiet compassion.

You finish her sentence before she does.

“Suffocating?”

Katherine’s breath hitches in her throat. How do you know? Do you feel the same?

“…Yes. Exactly.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. And the fields aren’t?”

“Aren’t…?”

“Suffocating.”

“Oh, not at all. They make me feel… Like I belong. Like I’m meant to be here.”

For the first time in a long while, Katherine is sincere – she’s giddy and light. She’s rewarded with a big smile from you in response, a smile that makes it impossible for her to refuse you. Katherine leaves your side to settle in front of the canvas.

“Should I turn around?”

“Oh, no, it’s perfect! Please, sit like you’re sitting now.”

Both of you are quiet. You’re lost in your work, and so is she, in a way. Most of the time, the silence Katherine found herself in weighted heavy on her: just like her marriage, just like the rest of her new life.

This silence is soft, inviting. It makes her comfortable. It makes her feel at home.

She’s not sure how much time has passed by the time you speak up.

“Do you live nearby?”

“I do,” she points in the vague direction of her house. “Well, my husband and I. His father, too.”

“I see,” there’s a hint of sadness in your words, but it disappears before Katherine can even note it properly. “Who’s the lucky gentleman, might I ask?”

Gentleman. Katherine closes her eyes, trying to keep her agony at bay.

“It’s okay, Katherine, I was just wondering. If you don’t want to-”

“Mr. Lester.”

“Lester?!”

You blink, realizing what you’ve just said, how you’ve said it. You look down, embarrassed.

“I’m sorry, I-I shouldn’t…”

“No, it’s fine. I…I see what you mean.”

You give her a long look. Katherine assumes you’re pitying her at first, but realizes that she’s wrong almost immediately. No, that’s not it, she thinks, your gaze is filled something else. Something she recognizes only because she knows it so well.

It’s filled with longing.

“Oh,” you shrug. “Love changes people. Perhaps…”

You don’t finish the sentence. Katherine knows that you don’t believe in it – and that, unlike her, you can’t pretend. Still, you’ve tried to comfort her, which is a comfort in itself.

“What about you, Y/N? Are you married?”

“Oh, no,” you laugh, almost relieved. “No husband, no children, just my paintings. A disgrace to my family’s name all around.”

“I’m sure you aren’t. You’re so talented.”

And sweet, so very sweet.

“My parents would disagree, unfortunately.”

“They’re wrong, then.”

The harshness of her words surprises you; it surprises even Katherine herself. You open your mouth to reply…

Just in time to be interrupted by the roaring thunder in the distance.

“That’s not good,” you frown before reaching out to Katherine, helping her get up. “We must go. The storm is coming.”

“Right... Can I see the painting when it’s done?”

“Of course. I’ll send it to your house.”

“How much?”

You pause, looking at her in surprise.

“Huh?”

“For your work. How much does it cost?”

“Oh, you don’t have to-”

“Please,” Katherine grabs your hands, earning a soft gasp from you. “My husband has more money than I could ever spend. I want it. Just name the price.”

You don’t respond, lowering your gaze to look your joined hands. Your touch is gentle; as if she’s the most precious work of art you’ve ever held.

Katherine swallows, just as the fluttering in her stomach threatens to become unbearable. You’ve met mere hours ago. Truth is, you don’t know her and she doesn’t know you – yet it feels like she does, like you’ve been close your whole lives. If everything she’s been through were meant to lead to this moment, Katherine thinks, she’d do it all again.

“Well,” you run your thumb over her knuckles, your voice barely above a whisper. “If you insist… I’ll think about it. Not everything can be measured in money, after all.”

A gust of wind sweeps your both. Katherine shivers, which snaps you out of your thoughts immediately.

“Oh, you must be freezing!” you take the shawl off of your shoulders and wrap it around Katherine’s frame. “Here. Don’t mind the paint stains.”

“I’m thick-skinned. You don’t have to-”

“Please. I’d never believe that.”

Katherine’s face heats up; her skin burns under your touch. Before she can answer, though, you’re already running off, trying to keep all of your art supplies in place.

“Wait! What about you?”

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry!” you shout, fixing your hair. “Just keep it ‘till we meet again! Will we meet again, Katherine?”

“I… Yes, o-of course!”

Happy with her answer, you wave Katherine goodbye, leaving her alone in the field. The sky is dark above her head, yet she barely notices it. She wraps herself in soft fabric, taking a deep breath.

Of course.

#katherine lester #katherine lester x reader #katherine lester imagine #florence pugh x reader #florence pugh imagine #lady macbeth #seal writes

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alcinadimitrescuwu · 3 years

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The Portrait (An Alcina x Maiden Fanfic)

You walk into the Atelier and find yourself once again gazing at the portrait of the Lady of the Castle, Lady Dimitrescu. She must have commissioned the portrait when she was younger because she looked like she was in her mid-20’s. She stands in an ivory-colored dress with a full skirt, holding a glass of wine. Her face is clear of her laugh lines, under-eye circles, and wrinkles but she is still as elegant and beautiful as ever. You move closer to get a better look and suddenly wonder who might have painted this portrait. Were they close to Lady Dimitrescu?

“Do you like it?”

You whirl around swiftly and find yourself face to face with Alcina Dimitrescu. The corner of her mouth quirks up in an amused grin, making her laugh lines indent into her cheekbones. Her golden eyes are glittering with mischief.

“Well?” she prompts.

You come back to yourself. “I-It’s lovely, my Lady,” you stammer. “Did you commission someone to make it for you?”

Alcina lets out a laugh like tinkling bells. “Why, yes. In fact you could say that the two of us were rather close.” She steps closer to you and the portrait, a knowing smirk on her face. “It was actually me that painted that portrait.”

“You?” you blurt out suddenly. Then you realize how rude you must sound. "Forgive me, my Lady,” you say, ducking your head in apology. “I meant no disrespect. I just didn’t know you were the artistic type.”

“Oh, I’ve dabbled in a lot of different art forms in my life, pet,” she says, and you see her eyes mist over as she reminisces. “I was classically trained in opera, I’ve painted landscapes and portraits, written poetry...I even was a jazz singer for a time. I made that portrait when I was 25. I was a very different woman than the one you see now.” She smiles self-deprecatingly. “Well, aside from the obvious, anyway.”

“It’s exquisite,” you breathe as you lean your head to get a better look at the portrait. You think of something and turn to her. “Do you still paint, my Lady?”

“Lately I’ve taken to sketching. And now that you know my secret,” she says, giving you a conspiratorial wink. “Perhaps I might come in here and do my sketching while you clean.”

You suddenly remember the actual purpose of why you came to this room in the first place. “Right! I need to polish the bells! I’ll just get started on that, then!”

You hear her chuckle low in her throat as you scramble up the ladder, taking out your polish. You look over back at her and she has sat down on the sofa, slipping a pair of pearl chain half-moon spectacles over her nose. She takes out her pens and charcoal, flips to a new page in her sketchbook and bends her dark head down to work.

Soon you and Alcina have a little arrangement going where every time you enter the Atelier to work on your tasks, you know you will soon see Alcina ducking her head under the lintel to work on her sketching. While you are on the ladder, you sneak glances at her every so often. Her lashes kiss the tips of her cheekbones and her brow is furrowed in concentration. Sometimes you will look from her to the portrait and you conclude that if possible, her aging has made her even more beautiful.

You feel a hand on your back and jump making the ladder wobble slightly. The hand braces you against the ladder so you don’t fall and you hear a soft chuckle behind you. “I’m sorry, dear. I suppose I should have announced my presence beforehand. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s not a problem,” you say and you feel color flood your cheeks as you see you are truly face to face with Alcina Dimitrescu. Her face is merely inches from yours. Her golden eyes catch the light from the chandelier and up close you see they are not just golden but with hints of silver around the iris.

“There’s this spot around the gears that doesn’t get enough attention that I’d like to show you,” Alcina hands hover around your waist. “May I?”

You nod your consent and she gently moves you on the ladder until you’re on the other side. She bends down and whispers in your ear. “Just between the cog and the gear. Do you see it?” The smell of her perfume is intoxicating. You nod that you understand and she smiles. “Good! I know you always do a thorough job and I wanted to bring that to your attention.” With that she settles back down and resumes her sketching.

This goes on for a while, you working while Alcina is sketching. Occasionally she will take a break and stand nearby observing you as you work. You find it difficult to concentrate when she is around but she eventually smiles to herself saying, “Yes. Very good,” before returning to her seat. A couple times you are not certain but you think you might have seen a flush creep up her cheekbones before she resumes her sketching.

A couple of weeks of this go by and you notice Alcina is not satisfied with the progress of her drawing. You see that she is erasing more often and often starts from a completely new page in her sketchbook. “No, no, this isn’t right!” you hear her say aloud one day. You chance a look at her as you are on the ladder polishing the candlesticks. She is furiously scribbling on the sketchpad and when a loose lock of her ebony hair falls into her eyes, she pushes it impatiently away. You try to lean down further to get a better look. You’ve seen how talented she is, surely the sketch couldn’t be that bad…

Suddenly you feel the ladder twist from under you as you lose your balance. Your arms pinwheel helplessly in the air as you try to regain your footing but to no avail. You shut your eyes tight as you fall, hoping at the most you’ll just sprain an ankle.

Instead of the hard floor, you fall into something soft. You open your eyes and jolt back as you see Alcina’s aureate eyes staring back into yours. She chuckles. “It appears I cannot do much but startle you these days it seems.” She looks at you with a concerned expression. “Are you all right, dear?”

“Yes, my Lady, I’m fine,” you mumble. You blush scarlet as you are very aware that her gloved hand is on your upper thigh, your skirt riding up in her haste to catch you. She becomes aware of this too and smoothes your skirt down, murmuring an apology, but not before you catch the blush in her cheeks.

She turns her head quickly away to hide it, her hat covering her profile. “Would you like to take a moment and rest, dear? You’ve been working so hard, you deserve a break.”

You nod soundlessly and she takes you over to the sofa where she has been doing her sketching. She closes her sketchbook with a snap before you can get a good look at it.

A maid arrives with Alcina’s afternoon tea. “Set out an extra cup for Y/N, if you please,” she commands the parlor maid. The maid nods and pours you both cups of steaming apple cinnamon tea, perfect for a cold winter’s day.

When the maid bows and leaves, you turn to Lady Dimitrescu. You clear your throat. “Um, my Lady?”

She smiles at you over her teacup. “Yes, pet?”

You can’t help it. You’re positively burning with curiosity at this point. “What have you been drawing?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

Alcina’s cheekbones flood with color. “Oh, it’s nothing special really,” she says hurriedly. “Just some scribbles.”

You can hardly believe it. Was Lady Dimitrescu, usually so full of pride and grace, embarrassed? You see a scrap of paper on the ground near the sofa and pick it up. Alcina tries to stop you but you’ve already turned it over in your hands. You let out a little gasp of surprise as you see what Alcina has been drawing all this time.

There on the paper is a charcoal drawing of you polishing the bells. In the corner of the page is a closeup of you, your face shining in the chandelier light.

You look back at her, your mouth open in shock. When you finally gain the ability to form words, you ask, “Is this what you’ve been working on all this time, my Lady?” you ask quietly, your voice barely more than a whisper.

Alcina nods and opens her sketchbook to show even more pages of you. You staring at her portrait, you reaching up on your toes on the ladder to dust off a high shelf, you pouring her tea. There are pages upon pages of your likeness.

Alcina turns her head to face you. “I must confess that I had been in need of a new muse for my art,” she says. “When I saw you gazing at my portrait, something stirred within me. There is something about you that draws me to you.” She takes your chin gently in her gloved hand.

“Your hair,” she says, and she takes off your cap and settles your unbound hair about your shoulders. “Even pinned under your cap, it cannot conceal its beauty.” She takes your hand in hers. “Your skin,” she murmurs, pressing her lips to the back of your hand, making you feel a pleasant shiver go down your arm. “How it shines under the lamplight. Your eyes.” She is moving ever closer. “The way I could get lost in those fathomless depths. And your lips…”

Her face is so close to yours now, her lips parted. “What about my lips?” you whisper, scarcely daring to breathe.

You are not quite sure who closes the distance between you first, but you are suddenly in Alcina’s arms and you are kissing her fiercely, your hands weaving their way through her ebony locks. Her hands settle themselves around your waist as her tongue gently parts your lips. You lay back on the sofa and bring her head gently down with you. She braces one hand on the side of the couch while the other gently holds the back of your head.

The sound of the clock chiming startles you, making you break apart suddenly. Alcina lets out a girlish giggle. “We simply have to do something about those nerves of yours, draga mea,” she purrs. You smile and lift your head up to receive her kiss again.

#alcina dimitrescu #lady dimitrescu #re8 village #re8 fanfiction #lady dimitrescu fanfic #lady dimitrescu x reader #alcina x reader #alcina x maiden #lady dimitrescu x female reader #lady dimitrescu x maiden #alcina x female reader

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felassan · 4 years

Text

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

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

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

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

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

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

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

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

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

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

Dragon Age II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

World of Thedas

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

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

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

DAI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A general note on concept art:

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

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

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