#I'm totally willing to redo this for you

[lovetei]

could you write obey me boys with an idol mc? like they just somehow became famous on devildom 🕺 like these kpop/jpop idols! i was thinkin abt a newjeans like concept (attention, hype boy and cookie specifically)!

Hmm, that's so cute. I wanna see the boys watching your private life through your videos!

Damn... This made me want to redo my ROYAL Universe, I put such a small effort in that I feel sorry :')

Never mind, I'll redo it later.

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Obey me universe where MC is an Idol

IDOL Universe: Introduction

Warnings: MC uses gender neutral pronouns, manipulation, slightly dark themes

Links: Masterlist

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Frilly skirts and sexy tuxedo's

The one and only idol that threatened every other groups in the Devildom by simply playing their songs intro,

MC

Dancing at the largest stage of the Devildom is basically your normal by now.

Getting invited at parties where the wealthy and the influential can only enter

Your influence spread like wild fire all across the eighth rings of hell until no one in the Devildom don't know you.

But that isn't enough,

After you conquered the lower class of demons you climbed your way up to meet the socialites

And now here you are, on one of your highly earning concerts but this one is different

There's a different face among the crowds

There's Leviathan

Sitting in front with no one beside him

That's weird, your manager told you that every ticket are sold out and the VVIP tickets are sold at the same day...

No way...

Did Leviathan bought all the VVIP tickets?!

Yes, yes he did.

He even bought a special fan meet ticket.

"Hi! Good evening!" You cheerfully greeted to your only fan that managed to afford your over the top VVIP fan meet ticket.

"Have a seat." How weird, the rumors said he's all shy and stuttery but the person you're seeing right now is no weeb, it's the grand admiral.

"Ah, yes... Thank you!" Even though nervousness is starting to cloud your senses you need to keep your idol persona or else some nasty news will dug themselves up from the graves.

"I must say your pricing is totally over the top but I expected it from an idol whose at the top of the current food chain." Wow, how blunt.

"Yup! This ticket allows my fans have more indept conversation with me!" You smiled with your usual bright grin.

"Yeah, I almost thought it's a bait for those in the noble class. You know, for them to brag about how they managed to get their hands on such ticket." He replied as he took a sip of the coffee in front of the two of you.

"I'll go straight to the catch." He voiced out as soon as the mug landed on the glass of the coffee table.

"I want you to perform for my birthday." You almost choked up on your own spit after what he said sinked in.

"Aw... I'm deeply sorry but my manager won't allow me-" Is what I'm about to say but my manager barged into the room, sweating adn excused herself saying she has something to say to me.

She went closer and whispered something to me "He's willing to pay hundred of billions Darling! Hundreds of millions!"

What? Is he some type of freak? Why would he pay hundreds of millions just to have some idol like me to dance and sing around for his birthday?

MC, Devildoms brightest star who's hiding something

MC who secretly despised all the creepy people in the fan meets

MC who washed her hand throughly until it scratches every fan meet because of the amount of disgusting people that touched them.

MC who thinks everyone, everything is there to help them get on top of everything

MC who practiced the 'genuine' smile the crowd loves so much.

MC who can cry on command that faked their cry on live stage a they accept their most recent award.

MC Devildoms brightest star

MC who's willing to be in a dating scandal with the avatar of envy if it means it'll raise their popularity and their net worth.

[tossawary]

I mentioned before that I think DA2 is perhaps the most appealing to me for a Time Travel AU. This is in part because Hawke as a protagonist doesn't have to worry about an impending apocalypse in the same way that the Warden and the Inquisitor do, so there's arguably more space for slow-moving character work, and I think it would be fun to explore Hawke's relationship to Kirkwall.

You can take Inquisition-era Hawke, sacrifice them in the Fade, and then handwavy magic happens there that sends Hawke back for a Time Travel Redo. (If it's irrelevant to the rest of the story, let's skip going into depth on the time travel method! It does not matter!) If you want to avoid time paradox concerns, given that time magic actually exists in this series, this can actually be a Dimension Travel AU as well, sending a Garrett Hawke back in time to another dimension where there's a Marian Hawke instead or something. Two Hawkes!

I prefer sending a mage Garrett Hawke "back" into this alternate dimension because he is absolutely going to look like his own father, Malcolm, to the young Hawke family trying to escape Lothering. And that's some delicious angst.

Another reason that I think Hawke in particular would be interesting is that I think it would be interesting to have a time-traveler (dimension-traveler) be upfront about what had happened to them. A tired Garrett Hawke reveals at least the basics of the "future" to his friends and family (all of whom are strangers to him and it hurts) because he wants to keep them safe, and then the butterfly effects of canon divergence ripple out from there.

There are so many time travel fics where the protagonist confides in no one or only does so very late in the story. There are often reasons for this. 1) They will not be believed. 2) They are surrounded by enemies. 3) They are focused on changing a very specific event and do not want things to change before that. 3.5) They are unwilling to share their knowledge and give up some measure of control over the future. (These control issues are often in-character!)

Sometimes, I am persuaded by these reasons and find them compelling and sympathetic. Sometimes, I find the protagonist's insistence on doing everything alone frustrating and even cruel.

I think that if Hawke had the chance to do a Time Travel Redo, it would be incredibly cruel if they did not at least TRY to share some of their knowledge with their companions. I don't think Hawke's companions would believe them immediately, of course, but they live in a world with strange magic. If Hawke was willing to be calm and vulnerable, they could at least give their future friends some potential leads in their individual quests (being open about the fact that this world may be different to their own).

Like, let's look at Fenris. Fenris would not trust some strange mage talking about fucking time magic, of course. But after knowing each other for a month or so, Hawke might be able to approach Fenris and say, "Hey, I have a really weird story to tell you." And then Hawke could share what they know about Fenris' past according to their own world, so that Fenris can maybe look into that and prepare himself. Because keeping that information away from Fenris is a dick move! Fenris deserves to be able to decide what to believe, what to investigate, and what to do for himself.

I also don't think I could suspend my disbelief if Hawke let Anders and Justice just... play out again over the course of years. I think most Hawkes wouldn't be able to resist confronting Anders in some way! Even Hawkes who end up saying, "I'm going to personally murder Meredith this time." Is a mage-friendly Hawke just going to let characters like Karl Thekla be made Tranquil and be killed again?

Do Merrill and Isabella and Varric and Aveline not deserve to try and avert some of the tragedies in their own lives?

Like, it is totally reasonable for Hawke to be focused purely on their own family or the companions they like, rather than try to save every person in the city. I think it's more than fine if there are tragedies a protagonist just doesn't care about averting. Hawke is not even going to remember everything.

And it is VERY normal for people not to want to give up some measure of control over their lives, especially someone as traumatized as Hawke. I do often find it realistic that a lot of time traveling characters in fanfiction are kind of "control freaks" who don't want to be vulnerable, even if it's "safe" to be. I'm imagining that this future-sharing from Hawke would stem in large part from 1) exhaustion, 2) loneliness, and 3) Hawke being used to celebrity, due to the "Tale of the Champion", and somewhat blasé by this point about all the fucking shit they've been through.

And I think that spilling everything (or even just the basics) would not necessarily go well for a Hawke. I think Varric would take even limited information about Bartrand's future very badly. As strangers to Hawke, I think all of the companions would be upset and disbelieving. (I'm currently imagining a mage Garrett Hawke who previously romanced Merrill, so that he and Past!Fenris were barely friends, because Fenris didn't like this mage Hawke hanging out with a blood mage and Hawke kind of thought Fenris might turn him in to the Templars someday. Past!Fenris was more Isabella's and Varric's friend.) I think these new companions might go on to make some BIG mistakes trying to avoid the future that Hawke has described, as much as they might avert tragedy.

I also imagine that Hawke's relationship with this new Hawke family might be very strange and awkward, even if both Carver and Bethany live. Garrett looks like Malcolm and everyone thinks it's weird; Leandra is probably the happiest and most practical about it, but Garrett can't forget how his own mother died horribly and also blamed him for his own Bethany's death. Neither Garrett nor Marian know what to do about each other; Marian doesn't like some new person waltzing in and taking control of situations. Garrett unconsciously treats this Carver as older and Carver loves it, but Marian doesn't like it. Bethany likes having a mage sibling, but Garrett is awkward because he's used to Bethany being the Hawke family's perfect dead sister. And Leandra's shitty brother is not fucking helping any of this!!! And what's that about Leandra maybe getting murdered by a serial killer in the future???

By saying all of this, I mean to make clear that I really don't think "communicating" would immediately fix every problem for a perfect "Time Travel Fix-It". I do think it would fix SOME problems. Emotional conversations and immediate canon divergence also appeals to me because I like reading those things.

What I mean to make clear is that I think it would be fun to write something that explores autonomy, authority, agency, and control. There are many issues in the world that stem from people unwilling to give up control of a situation for a variety of reasons, and other issues that stem from people believing they have the authority to dictate other people's lives.

What right would a new Garrett Hawke have to withhold information and try to manipulate all of their strangers' lives? Especially from people like Anders and Fenris, whose stories are so deeply concerned with freedom of choice? To conceal backstory information from someone with amnesia, like Fenris, is a choice, and I think it's a cruel one, even if Fenris might not like what he hears and might react badly. Can Garrett Hawke really claim that he "knows best"? What if he doesn't know what's going on with this version of the world? What do you do when freedom means standing back and allowing some of the people you like and love to make "bad" choices?

Some time travel fics seem to me to be incredibly lonely. The protagonist trusts in no one. The other characters can be written as predictably following a timeline to the point of being shallow caricatures of people. It's just not to my taste.

It could be nice to explore Hawke finding new sides of companions that they missed in their previous "run" (which was very much not perfect and full of strife). It could be nice to explore an exhausted Champion learning to trust in other people and have them step up to help solve these shifting problems. DA games are so much about making choices for everyone around you: on behalf of your companions, on behalf of entire kingdoms, on behalf of the entire world. It might be fun to explore an exhausted older Hawke giving up some control and being pleasantly surprised on some fronts as paths diverge.

[chaifootsteps]

I'm honestly so curious about who made the call to rewrite ghostfuckers

given how long animation takes and that they were already at the board stage and how similar the antagonist and setting is to the episode proper, I'm not entirely sure I believe Viv's 'it was a different episode that we shelved' thing.

they can barely seem to do second drafts given all the continuity errors but for this one episode they basically started over??

It feels like it can only be in response to the leaks - or rather the backlash to the leaks

and that's curious to me because whenever there's been backlash before Viv's response is usually to double down and just start liking tweets of people defending her writing, regardless of how bad their points or or how unprofessional it makes her look

she must have seen all the convos around Stol1tz in the lead up to full moon dropping but that didn't get a rewrite. it got delayed to basically the last second but I still don't know why - there's nothing noticeably higher quality about that ep and they didn't do the bare minimum of rewriting or recording that sad little 'I didn't know you think so low of me' to be nails on a chalkboard awful

she's basically committed the entire back half of the season to blaming Blitzo for daring to stand up for himself and not immediately be at Stolas' beck and call and large chunks of the fandom - even those who still believe Stolas will realize that he's in the wrong (or equally in the wrong, I guess is what some are going with). if the audience isn't into that the show is dead in the water

and yet backlash over driving Millie to suicide was enough to make her trash a whole episode? given Brandon eventually rewrote by himself the real version it makes me wonder if other people in the studio pressured her into redoing it and she made Brandon do it solo as a 'fine if we have to do a rewrite you do it' sort of attitude. even then she has script supervising credits, probably because she didn't trust him not to have someone point out the Stolas thing is completely wild

it's kinda sad because it felt like Brandon was trying to right the ship by giving Millie a backstory and something resembling a character dynamic with Blitzo. it's not a great episode but it's leagues better than the unpleasant shitshow of the last two Viv written outings with Stolas in them and the group is once again in the forefront (funny how that happens whenever Viv isn't the one writing the script)

bu even that wasn't enough, because the views are showing HB is increasingly dead in the water. if they even make it to s4 we might be looking at something totally outsourced getting only 5M views tops, if not lower

"I'm not entirely sure I believe Viv's 'it was a different episode that we shelved' thing."

Nor should you. Viv's a notorious liar, and not a particularly good one, and I'd be willing to stake real money on the episode being rewritten solely because of the leaks. It couldn't have been easy on the animators, going back to the drawing board, but when has Viv ever cared about her animators before?

[edenfenixblogs]

Your work in audiovisual description is invaluable to us BVI people, thank you 🤗🤗🤗

I'm actually pretty interested in what a typical day of work looks like in the profession, so would you be willing to share? Do you have existing guidelines or are you mostly left alone to figure out what information gets described and what doesn't?

No pressure of course, only answer if you're comfortable!

Hello!!!!! I’m so glad that you value my work.

There are so many guidelines and I help write and maintain and evolve them.

There’s a reason that newer stuff is less awkward than older stuff and it’s because we try to evolve what we do over time. Occasionally we will get a chance to redo 20-year old description, which is so nice. Because we end up changing almost everything.

There’s not too much I can say about it all, because I’m bound by a million Non Disclosure Agreements, but I have worked in captioning and now [vague job title redacted] in Audio/Video Description and it always breaks my heart when people think we leave things out on purpose or don’t care. Usually, discrepancies have to do with making sure the material we put out is equally accessible to all BVI or Deaf folk (depending on department) and a lot of that is based in studies of how many words a human can take in per second, on average.

We try so hard and aren’t usually allowed to put our names on our work and all we want is to tell you how seriously we take it and how much we care.

Beyond that, I can’t say anything. Not even the company I work for or my actual job title.

Also, I really appreciate you not pressuring me to continue description work on my blog. I really do apologize, because I know it can make my posts inconvenient, but I just can’t feel like I’m still at work when I blog. I do really apologize with total sincerity. And I’m so grateful to you for being kind. I try to always reblog the versions of my posts that people add description to. I want you to have access to everything. I just can’t be in charge of all of it all the time. Does that make sense? Aside from that, I don’t want my style to somehow get deciphered by someone who identifies me and then I get sued for breaking my NDA.

I’m so so so grateful you appreciate the work we do. 🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵😭🩵🩵

[communistkenobi]

would you be at all willing to talk about your experience of undergrad vs grad school? personally i struggled quite a bit in undergrad but am still always tempted to go back, and i think maybe the narrowed focus of grad school would be a little easier to handle, but i'm not sure if that would actually be the case... & perhaps your experience was something else completely and maybe this is too vague also lol, but i'm very curious about how you felt they were different!

yeah totally! My experience is doing graduate degrees (writing a thesis) in the faculty of social science in Canadian universities, so everything I’m about to say comes from that specific context. Definitely not universal lol

in my experience grad school is a lot more customised than undergrad. You still have required courses, non-course degree milestones (usually you’re required to present your work at conferences, which can get expensive and isn’t always covered by your department, as well as produce summaries of work you’ve done, research proposals, scholarship applications, etc), and standardised expectations, but you have a lot more choice in the courses you take and what topics you focus on. One university I was at was very relaxed about deadlines in grad school (I easily got extensions from profs without needing doctors notes or official accommodations, i was given the ability to redo assignments, etc), and the other was the ecact opposite (treated me like a idiot for needing extra time with work). If you’re doing a thesis project, a lot of your degree is independent work that you do in your own time - this was a huge struggle for me at the end of my masters, and I had to do “martial law” with my graduate friends at the very end, which basically meant us instituting a highly regimented schedule together made up of work sessions and breaks where we would each meet up and work on finishing our thesis (1 hour of work then 15 min break, rince and repeat, do this for four or five sessions a day every day). You are on a time crunch as you only receive funding for so many years, if you get offered funding at all.

your supervisor has a lot of control and influence over you - they are meant to guide you through the research process, develop your project, give you feedback, provide you with appropriate literature, double check your work, and help you get grants / funding. If you get a bad one it can legitimately ruin your life. I have had hilariously bad luck with supervisors (I’ve had to switch supervisors twice due to discrimination and breaches of provincial human rights law - which is not the norm to my understanding lol).

it depends on why you want to go to grad school and what you plan to do after. I want to stay in academia so that’s where most of my advice comes from. Tenure-track positions are incredibly difficult to secure and if you’re serious about staying in the academy you should be publishing your research while you’re still in graduate school, and treat every term paper as a draft of something you’re going to publish. I also have backup jobs I know I can apply for outside of academia if I don’t get any academic offers.

it’s relatively common for students to join a two or four year grad program but take way more time than that to finish. Usually if you get any funding packages, they only cover the official allotted years (in my experience, two for a master’s, four for PhD), meaning that if you need extra time, you could be finishing your degree with no funding and no guaranteed employment. If your supervisor is cool/connected they might have money they can swing your way, but it’s a tenuous and scary way to live if you have no other source of income.

funding usually comes from 1) grants your department gives you (they will tell you if they’re giving you money on your acceptance letter), 2) teaching assistant positions (I was/am required to be a TA, which usually involves grading undergraduate work, running labs, or leading teaching sessions/“tutorials”) and 3) federal scholarships that you are required to apply for. You need to write applications for these scholarships, usually including a research proposal, a CV/resume, a transcript of your grades, and recently, they’ve added a requirement for a diversity statement explaining any minority statuses you have and how that affects your education. TA work has an uneven workload from week to week, and usually most of the work is towards the end of the term when you’re grading final essays/exams, which creates crunch periods where you’re both working on your own coursework and grading undergrad work.

again a lot of this might not apply to your particular discipline or university or country. Usually universities list a lot of this info on their website, which can help you figure out what’s required of you. Grad school is structured like a full time job and it doesn’t pay very well even if you are funded. I lived with my parents for most of my master’s which gave me the financial stability to complete it. It’s not easy and it takes up most of your waking time, and it can leave you in a financially precarious position with a lot of debt. It’s definitely not something I would recommend for fun unless you have a lot of money and time to burn

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Rereading The Fellowship of the Ring for the First Time in Fifteen Years

The previous chapter was all grouchy wizards and atmospheric walking...and this one opens with the return of Professor Tolkien medieval literature scholaring all over the page. So let's just jump in and talk "The Bridge of Khazad-Dum."

So finding the tomb of a comrade always sucks, but context is EXTREMELY required in such cases. Unfortunately, this is the moment where Professor Tolkien rears his ugly head once again. I'm a Shakespeare scholar, and moreover I was a Shakespeare scholar at a reasonably broke school in Alaska, so I designed my thesis to not require me to go look at extant original texts. When I got to my PhD, some fuckery at an administrative level meant that when my first supervisor retired, I was dumped into the lap of a film scholar, so my dissertation because EXTREMELY about film adaptations. So I don't have firsthand experience with extant historical documents and texts, but I am aware of the process. As an undergrad, I once questioned why my text said "safety" while another text said "sanity" (and was very scoffed at before the professor actually understood the question, because I phrased it poorly). The good answer though?

Extant texts from Shakespeare's day and older are PLAGUED with slipperiness that makes them difficult to read and reproduce. They come from a time before standardized spelling, and printers often weren't that careful setting type. If they come from before the printing press, you have issues with handwriting legibility and misspellings. Then there are issues with extant documents being damaged or torn or missing pages or faded by the time we get to them, especially if they've been in private hands without the experience to properly preserve them. So the difference between "safety" and "sanity" was some editor or academic's educated guess because they had a word that started with "s," ended in "y," and was probably about six letters.

Tolkien, as a scholar with an interest in medieval texts, would have understood these issues because I'd be willing to bet hard cash that his academic work required using primary sources and original extant texts. And I'm willing to bet that because we get EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN ONE OF THESE ISSUES with the Book of Mazarbul. In no particular order, here are the issues Gandalf calls out while trying to read this thing:

multiple pages are missing from the beginning

blurred words

burned words

staining (probably blood)

edged blade damage

deteriorated pages that break off

shitty handwriting

partially visible words and guesswork that goes with it

a total lack of context for any of the words you CAN make out

This book is every book scholar's worst goddamn nightmare, because you'll never recreate the whole thing, your guesses are likelier to be wrong than right, and if you don't have plot armor preserving the important stuff, you might literally end up with a description of someone's breakfast but nothing else.

I will say though, there's one thing in here that Tolkien SHOULD have been familiar with in extant texts that isn't represented here. Marginalia. Humans were humans even in the 11-1400s, and scribes and apprentices got bored while copying out books by hand. They doodled. They wrote snarkastic comments in the margins. They had to scratch things out and redo. They had cats around and sometimes little paw prints are found in old manuscripts. Like...ancient books had personality. I get where the dwarves might not have done this in their log book, especially towards the end, but I would have loved some marginalia too.

Because the first few pages of this chapter feel less like Gandalf reading the final account of the attempted Moria colony to me and more like Professor Tolkien having a moment because WHY IS THIS GODDAMN PAGE MISSING I JUST NEED THIS ONE PAGE BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, ITS FUCKING MISSING...

Academia some days, I swear.

But we get knocked out of the academic and into the adventurous pretty fast when the drums in the deep start tolling "doom, doom." And everyone loses their goddamn minds, as any reasonable person would, because we just finished hearing about the dwarves being trapped while the drums in the deep boomed.

Aragorn isn't going down without a fight though. He and Boromir get their asses on securing the door from which the immediate danger will come, with a bit of an assist from Frodo and Sting when some ballsy Uruk puts a foot through the door.

We also get badass good guy Samwise Gamgee:

When thirteen had fallen the rest fled shrieking, leaving the defenders unharmed, except for Sam who had a scratch along the scalp. A quick duck had saved him; and he had felled his orc: a sturdy thrust with his Barrow-blade. A fire was smouldering in his brown eyes that would have made Ted Sandyman step backwards, if he had seen it.

Our boy took out an ORC all on his own!!! Sam is more than capable of taking care of business and apparently he gets scary when you back him in a corner. I entirely approve, and I cannot believe we didn't get this in the movie. GIVE ME SAM SINGLE-HANDEDLY TAKING OUT AN ORC, PETER JACKSON!!!

We also get an Orc chieftain stabbing the hell out of Frodo, which was an honor given to the cave troll in the movies. This goes by pretty fast though, even for a Tolkien battle. It's kind of a one-two stab and grab before everyone makes a run for it. We do get Sam freeing Frodo by chopping the spear haft in half, but if you're reading quickly, it's easy to miss that this should ABSOLUTELY have killed Frodo. The language is pretty clear that it doesn't, and Tolkien only kind of tokenly tries a fake-out death here, since we literally just got the mithril reminder at the end of the last chapter. But I guess technically we get a fake-out death here.

It is very quickly confirmed that Frodo is alive though, with everyone being like, "Wait, you're NOT dead?" and Aragorn and Gandalf both going, "jesus christ, hobbits are tough as nail."

As we keep running from the hordes of Orcs, Uruks, and cave trolls, things start to get hot and there is firelight in places firelight SHOULD EXTREMELY NOT BE. But it does cue Gandalf about where they are, and he points everyone toward the titular Bridge of Khazad-Dum, and the exit. Now it's just a matter of hauling ass and getting out.

Unfortunately, when Legolas turns around to shoot some bitches and buy time, this happens:

Something was coming up behind them. What it was could not be seen: it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which a dark form, of man-shape, maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to be in and to go before it. It came to the edge of the fire and the light faded as if a cloud had bent over it. Then with a rush it leaped across the fissure. The flames roared up to greet it, and wreathed about it; and a black smoked swirled in the air. It's streaming mane kindled, and blazed behind it. In its right hand was a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire; in its left it held a whip of many thongs. "Ai! ai [sic]!" wailed Legolas. "A Balrog!"

And I just need to take a second here, because like I've said, I was more familiar with the movies than the book. And I just need Tolkien to EXPLAIN HIS DAMN SELF with this description. It's maybe man-shaped, but it has a mane? Like that does give adapters a lot of room to get creative, but WHERE THE HELL DID THEY GET HORNED SHEEP LAVA THING from??? Because that ain't in the text. I do love the drama of this description though. Like, the Balrog knows it's freaking magnificent and is going to play to all the drama that being wreathed in fire and smoke gives it. Which...ngl, I love for it. This thing is damn cool.

And I appreciate that we have FINALLY met a foe that makes Gandalf just kind of stop and go "...fuck me." Because he was starting to feel a bit OP and bored, and now he's taking it seriously, which means I as a reader should be FUCKING TERRIFIED right now, and I appreciate that.

From there, this goes down basically as the movie does, with the sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight deviation that Aragorn and Boromir get BACK on the bridge to have Gandalf's back, so they're like, within arm's reach of him as the Balrog falls and drags Gandalf down with it. But even the dialogue was lifted almost exactly from the page, so I don't feel like I need to go over this bit in much detail. It's badass, it's tragic, and it happens FAST.

And then, of course, everyone else has to haul ass out of there because the Balrog just took out your OP wizard with a flick of its wrist.

So they run, and they run a LOT for a LONG time. They run until they're out of bow-shot of the walls. And as readers, we are left with this final image:

They looked back. Dark yawned the archway of the Gates under the mountain-shadow. Faint and far beneath the earth rolled the slow drum-beats: doom. A thin black smoke trailed out. Nothing else was to be seen; the dale all around was empty. Doom. Grief at last wholly overcame them, and they wept long: some stand and silent, some cast upon the ground. Doom, doom. The drum-beats faded.

So my little headcanon here? Those drumbeats stop being harbingers of doom in that final paragraph and transform to metaphorical heartbeats for Gandalf. We know--because Pippin established it--that falls in Moria can be LONG. They take a while. The Fellowship got out of immediate danger range, and Gandalf could still have been falling. But all they have to go on is those faint, distant, slow drum-beats. The heartbeat/drumbeat comparison is so easy it's not a reach, and when they finally fade and stop, the sense is that there is nothing else for the army of evil to attack. That is--as far as anyone knows or can reasonably assume--the end of Gandalf. It's the literary equivalent of a jump cut and sudden stop of the drumroll in film execution scenes. It cues everyone that something has ended.

Well, this chapter was ABSOLUTELY not more atmospheric walking, and even though it cost us our wizard, I appreciated the tension, the fear, and the pacing in the chapter at large. The mix of breakneck action and still or slow moments to let everyone react or comment was really well done, and finally having something that actually managed to shake Legolas and Gandalf was genuinely scary.

We're going to leave it there for now, and next time we'll pick up with the aftermath of almost getting eaten by a Balrog and losing the mentor wizard of the party. We've only got four more chapters to go, so let's see what the pacing and party dynamics do as we head for Lothlorien sans wizard.

[taintedsoul-if]

Y'know since now you updated/redo the first chapter and I got to replay my female mc it got me thinking. So far I went for revenge seeking mc and with whole ruining everyone else's lives thing got me to wonder...

How would Cadmus and Atticus deal with mc who's like revenge little too much like got sick thrill out of it, not say they look to ruin innocent lives but if you gone against them they make it their entire life mission to rot with evil smile on their face.

I'm talking similar to yandere vibes but only when provoked type like an absolute menace. I only thought it up because really mc just died traumatically before entering a new world where their host body was treated like utter crap.

I can definitely see an mc shrugged and be like why not they technically got nothing to lose other than dying again so why not take everyone that wronged the original host's life. (Pss I totally didn't find it funny when dearest step mommy got slap in the face that along mc is alive she couldn't inherit anything. 🤣)

(pps, also forgot along song recommendations got 'In The Dark of the Night' from the animated movie Anastasia the version from annapantsu. Second, 'Smoke and Mirrors' cover by Lollia bot songs are kinda revenge songs about mc that just utterly snap and they aren't holding back anymore.)

Cadmus is willing to destroy the world to keep the MC safe. Years ago, before the unlawful ministers took the MC's life, Cadmus believed in upholding the law and resolving conflicts peacefully. But that fateful day changed everything. Cadmus's good side was torn away, leaving only darkness in its place. Now, he doesn't care who dies, as long as the MC is safe. He'll even use his own blade to avenge the MC. Cadmus's sole focus is his beloved "mi sol".

Unlike Cadmus, who openly declares his intentions, Atticus strikes without warning. Once pure and innocent, Atticus has been tainted by the world's malevolence over the decades. After reading about the MC's past lives, Atticus realized he may have misjudged Cadmus and feels guilty and awkward about it. As a result, he always prioritizes the MC's safety and will not complain as long as they don't put themselves in danger.

Whether they choose to be with someone else, the MC will always have two loyal men, Cadmus and Atticus, who will serve them without question.

I just listened to a song that fit this scenario perfectly! I imagine the MC sharpening knives and dancing to this song with Trysten and Yesenia tied up in their underground prison, using their powerful vocals to soothe the pain and agony they inflicted on them.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

It's good to have you back. Thanks for the ask. ☺

[bridgeportbritt]

Jennifer's Apartment | Del Sol Valley, Simerica

Helicopter Blades Whirring

Jennifer: Uh, what is going? Why is there a crowd forming in front of our apartment?

Miki: Uh... is that a helicopter landing on the roof?

Jennifer: What??

Gianni: Hey, Jennifer?! What up, girl? Your ride is here!

Jennifer alarmed: Gianni?! What are you doing up there?!

Gianni: I'm here to take you to some of the best hiking trails in the world. We're going to Mt. Komorebi, baby!

Jennifer: What??? Gianni, are you serious?

Gianni: As a heartache! We need a first date redo.

Jennifer: Gianni, what are you talking about?

Gianni: I know you said you liked our last date, but it made me realize that I need to do better. Especially if I'm going to date a girl as awesome as you. So you said you like nature and walks? I'm taking you to the best place to do that.

Jennifer: Gianni, this is... a lot.

Gianni: I know. And someone really cool once told me to be myself and well... this is me, Jennifer. I'm kind of a lot.

Miki: Aw, I think he's talking about me. You totally have to go, girl!!

Jennifer: You... you really are doing this, huh? Just going all out?

Gianni: Yes, I'm going all out. Besides some other really cool person told me I needed some hobbies. So, let's go see if I like hiking?

Jennifer: Just for the record, are you saying that all of our dates are going to be crazy like this?

Gianni: I'm saying I'm willing to go all out for you if you're willing to give me a chance.

Crowd chants: Give him a chance! Give him a chance! Give him a Chance!

Girl in crowd: Girl, say yes before I do!

Jennifer: Oh my. Well I do really like you, too, Gianni. Even after our last date. You seriously did not have to go to all this trouble for me. You literally could've came over with a box of cold pizza and wine and I'd want to hang.

Gianni: Well, I'm glad to hear that. But, I did spend a lot of money on this helicopter...

Jennifer: Oh, don't worry! I still very much want to go to Komorebi... with you.

Crowd applauses

Gianni: Well, get dressed and get up here, girl. Let's go!

Miki: Oh, my Watcher! Have so much fun you guys!

Jennifer shocked: This is insane... but I kinda like it.

[omeletcat]

OKAY i'm going to redo the tilemap in my skateboarding platformer!!!

A tilemap is basically a bunch of puzzle pieces you can add onto each other to create levels, reusing tiles to minimize the work you have to do!

My idea is that instead of having the tilemap be fully front view and totally flat, i'm gonna make it have depth on the left side of the screen, that way the player can see what they are riding on!! giving off depth and just a generally more unique art direction. it will make drawing it a bit harder.. but thats a risk i am willing to take.

[daisyishedwig]

I'm supposed to be cleaning but these boys won't shut up, AKA a snippet from my untitled Hevans fic

“You know the worst part of it?” Kurt said with a watery laugh. “That was my first kiss. Well… with a boy anyway. He took that from me, and I’m never going to get it back.”

Sam looked at Kurt, sitting proudly even as his chin wobbled, blinking back the tears in his eyes. He just looked so devastated, so resigned, so… hopeless.

“Would you like a redo?” Sam blurted out without thinking. 

Kurt’s eyes went wide. “What?” he said sharply.

Sam immediately backtracked. “I-I mean, sorry, no, that was a terrible idea. I just thought… maybe if you had another first kiss you could forget about it? Replace that memory with something nicer.”

Kurt blinked at him. “Were you,” he took a deep breath, “were you offering?”

Sam’s heart lurched. “I– yeah, yeah. I mean, only if you wanted to, of course. I just think you deserve… I think you deserve an actual first kiss. One that you had a choice in. With literally anyone but Karofsky.”

“But you’re straight,” Kurt said.

Sam felt an urge to deny that. But he didn’t know what that meant. He’d always thought he was straight. Hadn’t really realized there was another option until he met Kurt. And he certainly had no reason to suspect he wasn’t straight. Except, well… Kurt. He really liked spending time with him. He liked the way getting Kurt’s attention made him feel, the thrill of Kurt touching him for any reason. There was something about the way he thought about Kurt that was decidedly not straight. But he didn’t know what that meant yet. 

“Yeah,” he said after he pulled himself from his spiraling thoughts. “I mean, yeah, I am. But like you said, I am very comfortable in my own sexuality–” whatever the fuck it is, “--and so I’d totally be down to, be your redo. But only if you want.”

Kurt’s mouth was hanging open as he stared in fond shock at Sam. He looked down and tapped his thumb against each of his fingers in turn and then did it again and again until he finally nodded and looked back up.

“Okay,” he said, a little breathily, “okay. I-I think I’d like that.” 

He looked at Sam expectantly and he realized that he was going to have to initiate. Kurt was inexperienced. Sam was not. It just made sense. Sam’s pulse raced as he shifted closer to Kurt and raised a hand to cup his jaw gently. Kurt’s mouth fell open in a small gasp as Sam lowered his head. Kurt’s eyes slipped shut first before Sam touched their mouths together. 

Kurt’s hand came up to lace into the hair at the back of Sam’s head and Sam shivered at the feeling of it. He softly guided Kurt into moving his mouth, just a gentle push and pull. They both shifted closer, knees touching and their free hands slotting together in the grass. 

Sam didn’t know how to process what he was feeling while kissing Kurt. 

All he knew was that he definitely wasn’t straight.

And he was okay with that.

They pulled apart with a soft smack and sat breathing heavily, faces close together. Kurt was the first to pull away with a shocked little laugh. He moved a few inches from Sam and rubbed the back of his neck, staring down at the ground. 

Sam fell down on his back and closed his eyes. He had so much to process, but he didn’t think he could talk to Kurt about it. It felt weird to discuss your sexuality crisis with the person who was causing it. Especially after what Kurt had just gone through with Karofsky. 

“Thank you,” Kurt said softly. Sam rolled to the side so he could look at him. “Really… that was. That was nice.” His eyes were filled with tears again but he was smiling. “It means a lot to me that you were willing to do that for me.”

Sam grinned in spite of the confusion spinning in his brain. “Of course, Kurt. I’m glad I could help.”

[uva-academy-vio]

redoing my pinned AGAIN! anyways,

Hello, Rotomblr! My name is Vio Alberich, though you can just call me Vio, and my close friends can call me Vii. I'm 15, my pronouns are he/him, & I'm gay, trans, and demisexual. I'm a student at Uva Academy in Paldea (don't ask me how I got in, I've no clue), but I'm currently at Unova's Blueberry Academy for the student exhange programme. I'm known as the Uva Academy's Ghost Whisperer, due to my ability of communicating with ghost-type pokemon! (However, it's not always a good thing.)

My older cousin is @furiousjasper, she's Galar's one & only electric-type gym leader in the minor division, and he's practically a big girlbrother to me :] My absolute best buddy is @sour-herba-sandwiches, he's the best guy man person ever >:)))

Please, do NOT talk to me about Area Zero. I've never been there. I know nothing about it. TOTALLY!!

my battling team consists of:

Ray the Quaquaval [he/him] !! my first partner pokemon !!! he's mighty strong and confident too! he helps me with my self-esteem AND my acting skills :] aqua step and liquidation are his specialties !!

Ian the Kilowattrel [he/him]! my other bird buddy! he's silly but really tough, acting as a big brother to my team [and to me] !! hurricane and volt switch are what he does best!! :D

Sympthesis the Tsareena [she/they] !! being my only grass-type pokemon, she may have several type disadvantages, but she's very capable of striking your team down with a trop kick!! >:D

Riri the Azumarill [he/it]!!! he may be small, but he packs a punch !! his dragon tera type makes him all spiky and stuff!! he's tired a lot, but he's still happy inside!! hydro pump and play rough'll rattle you to the very core !!

Rick Blades the Ceruledge! [he/him]!!! my ace pokemon AND my good friend !! i'm able to talk to him since i'm able to talk to ghost-types! he's somewhat serious, but just likes making friends ^_^ bitter blade's his special talent, slashing through opponents and stealing their hp !!!!

i also have my ride pokemon, Maurice the Miraidon Cyclizar! [he/they/it] he's this purple colour due to being attacked by a grafaiai a few months back when i first joined uva. a seperate incident left him unable to battle but he's still a ride mon AND one of my best friends :DDD

MY OTHER POKEMON !!!

Cotton Candy the [shiny!!] Sylveon [he/they]!! a good buddy of mine that i found in a tera-ice raid den!!! his tera type makes his ribbons look like a glaceon's, and his pixilate ability makes moves like hyper voice and tera blast pack an extra punch !! >:]]

Wysteria the [shiny!!!] Alcremie [she/he]!! she was a gift from my cousin's partner for delibird day, and her and i have been friends ever since! her ribbon sweet and achromatic creme colours match my own colour scheme quite perfectly!!! moves like dazzling gleam and alluring voice are what she does best!! ^_^

//ooc info under the cut

//this is an unreality/pokemon irl blog where i pretend that pokemon are real. if you're triggered by any of that, i suggest not interacting.

hi! my name's hugh! i use he/him and i'm the only mod for this blog, and my main is @shingetsu-online ! vio and i are both minors, so please so nsfw asks or interactions. no pro/comshippers either.

all of the art in the pinned is by ME!! i used juxtaposition (miiverse revival) for those specific drawings, but I use ibispaintx and aggieio regularly.

I DO POKEMON IRL BLOG PROMOS!! If you run a smaller blog, feel free to let me know, I'm very willing to help you out!!

homophobes/racists/terfs/transphobes/sexists/mysoginists/other basic dni criteria, please do NOT interact.

also HUGE spoilers for pokemon s/v (but mostly violet) as well as sw/sh (but mostly shield) as well as other pokemon games.

content/trigger warning for self harm/eating disorders/abuse/gender dysphoria and mentions of the like.

thank you for reading!! vio's one of my few characters that i've actually spent a long time [about 2 years as of the 29th of May, 2024. holy shit] developing/writing so i'm glad that i get to post him online and stuff!! again, thanks ^_^

[cyle]

Hey cyle, I am ALWAYS struggling to remember where in the settings my muted tags and keywords are when I go to put in a new one. Do you think y'all could make this just a bit easier to find? For me renaming "content you see" to "filtered tags" or "muted tags" or something like that would already help so much. I also always look for it in the dashboard settings and then have to go back into account settings, which isn't an intuitive place for filtered tags for me but presumably they also apply to searches? (Something I never use, ha)

I know y'all have spoken before about how reducing the settings to something more easily usable is an ongoing struggle, but I'm hoping this kind of change might be small enough that it's easily implementable? (OTOH, it seems so obvious to me that I can only assume y'all have already had this thought and have a good reason for calling it "content you see")

Thank you for so often being willing to answer random user's tumblr questions! It's given me a great insight into the inner workings of tumblr, which is something I always love to know about!

on web at least, the filtered tags settings section is still called "filtered tags"... if you're on the mobile app and it's not the same, please file a Support ticket and we can probably fix that up.

as for reducing the settings, and those filter options being in Account, we do want to not only consolidate a lot of settings, but move them around to make more sense and be easier to find. i run through the same confusion you do, to be honest, when i try to find certain settings.

we actually did a very fun exercise internally where we each mapped out how we'd totally redo the settings organization from scratch, and it was very revealing. i hope we can talk publicly about that work someday as an example of how we work through solving problems like this.

[lambilegs]

thank you for being so nice and waiting on me 🥹 im sorry for disappearing like that, i've been meaning to chat w you again but i shied away and suddenly got busy. also your new layout is giving seggc vintagecore (kinda reminds me of lee's red suit?) oh thanks i had a fun and slightly hectic holiday but all's good.

yeah let's def yap! i also need to catch up on your prev posts (just saw your lee edits?? the cursed audio one??? LMFAO cracked up so loudd it's hilarious) and im glad to hear you're on break, hopefully getting enough rest and taking care of yourself. hey no rush, take your time in writing. we're willing to wait and im sure your works' going to be great, i always enjoy reading them.

ahhh sheriff lee harker my beloved ❤️ my brainrot atm is how she's so tall and handsome as hell (iykyk) she can literally tower over me ana oOP + i love your edits so much, wish ppl made more edits of her.

ps. you can call me anything, it's up to you pardner 🤠

omg no no you're all good, I totally understand!! I hope things have eased up in terms of being busy, and you get time to rest <33 OMG STOP YOU'RE SO SWEET AND FUNNY HAHA for a second, I thought "seggc vintagecore" was some sort of slang or terminology I didn't know about, but when I said it out loud, I realized what it meant LOL (not my brightest moment HAHA ����). AND YES YOU GENIUS!! I'm literally gonna redo lee's masterlist soon to match the account's current aesthetic, and I plan to add the picture of her in the red suit :o I feel like it'd fit so well. and oooh, I'm glad!! I hope you get to rest now, though, since I def understand how chaotic and draining it can get around this time of year.

AHHHH THANK YOU 👉🏽👈🏽 would love to make some more edits of her, and maybe delve into trying out after effects (but, it intimidates me a lot tbh KDSKDJ). lee deserves to be paired up with lots of out-of-pocket and sexy audios 😌 and ahhh thank you so so much :") that means a lot to me, especially with all these ebbs and flows my motivation has been taking on lately. so, truly, thank you so so much <33

I've been thinking a lot about vampire!lee lately hehe, and how her desperation to drink would contrast so much with her usual self-restraint and reservations. I think it's so much fun to write her as a kind of creature in that way (like, as a werewolf or vampire) because it's so interesting to see how someone as logical and structured as her would cope with the more fantastical impulses of her other side. idk, what do you think? :o

YESSSSS ugh she's just so dashing in her suits and button-ups, I would literally turn bright red just from being face to face with her and having to look up EEEEKKK. and you're so right, "handsome" is truly the perfect word for her

[blessedbe-writing]

i am nervous abt this haha, but i'm offering batfam fic writing commissions now!!!

im out of a job atm and ive been needing to stretch my muscles w/ ideas that aren't my own, so i figured it'd be the perfect time to finally open these up! ive been wanting to for a while.

i am offering these commissions through ko-fi, under a listing titled "The Batfam Special". all info on this will be under the read more!

PRICING.

If you'd like a 1k+ word fic, order The Batfam Special as is, for $18.

For 2k+ words, order with the extra 1k add-on, for a total of $33.

For 3k+ words, order with the extra 2k add-on, for a total of $43.

For 4k+ words, order with both add-ons, for a total of $58.

Any higher word count will have to be discussed before ordering!

GUIDELINES.

I will be communicating with you throughout the process in order to ensure that i can give you good quality work.

You will be asked permission for me to post it on my ao3. If you agree, i will gift the work to you on ao3 (however, i will not write on there that it is a commission). If you don't agree, please understand that this fic is going to be entirely for your personal use and that you agree not to claim it as your own work.

Revisions and redos are absolutely allowed! I want to deliver a fic you can be satisfied with :)

I do have the right to refuse service if I am uncomfortable in any way with what you are requesting. I will not bash on anyone for anything, but I do have some limits as to what I'm willing and comfortable with writing.

If you're interested in a commission, please message me on here before purchase so that we can discuss your idea!!!

please note in advance that i do not write Duke Thomas - it is nothing against him, i simply know very little about him and would not be confident in my writing of him.

anyways. Yeah im very nervous but seriously, hit me up if you'd like a fic! I promise I don't bite.

any boosts are appreciated!

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

Optimal vs Generated Play

So one of the things that cut two ways with City of Heroes and its enormous engine for character customization -

At character creation you can pick from 11 archetypes. Within each archetype you pick from about 15 primary and another 15 secondary power sets. For instance my colorful mutant Chroma Burst is a Blaster with Force (inflicts knockback) primary and Radiation (inflicts defense-down) secondary. That's already 2,475 builds.

After your first couple levels you get introduced to Power Pools, which are sets of 4-5 powers everyone's allowed to dip into (things like Flight, Stealth, Medicine, and so on) to flesh out the character. Because you're allowed to take individual powers from up to 4 Power Pools the build diversity at this point gets kind of silly. By level 50 I'm pretty sure it's literally in the billions if not higher.

As if that weren't enough you also get to set enhancement slots on your powers as you level. You can slot enhancements into these, making the power stronger. For instance on my Snipe power I could improve the range, damage, knockback, accuracy, recharge, and endurance cost. Every power starts with 1 enhancement slot and can go as high as 6, and you get slots to add to powers as you level. In short: YOU get to pick which of your powers are the strongest!

- is that you have a lot of characters that can be optimized for certain tasks.

The most obvious example is the Empathy Defender. Defenders in general have fairly low damage output but strong support abilities, but Empathy's power set has several powers that literally do nothing if you're alone. Healers being less powerful solo isn't exactly new or unique to CoH, of course, but with players able to choose which of their powers are most effective AND which powers they have in the first place you can get characters that are hyper-focused on one style of play, from crowd-control to explosive AoE damage to solo execution and even a few builds designed specifically to farm certain optional maps for ludicrous power-leveling.

To some extent this is fine, but it's not the model most MMOs have gone with in the last ten years. Most of them want every class, to some degree, to be able to take on most or all of their content. This is possible only in the vaguest of terms in CoH. Chroma Burst hits all kinds of walls in play where there's a boss and she just can't win the fight because while her damage is exceptional she lacks the endurance to take hits in return and bosses in CoH are designed to be almost impossible to lock down with regular power effects like her Knockback. For some - some - of these challenges you can push through the story by lowering the difficulty, but you can only drop it by a few levels and if that isn't enough you're out of luck (and even then you'd have to be willing to redo the content in a form offering almost no xp/rewards, just to complete the story).

At the same time, I have to respect the devs' willingness to honor diversity over homogeneity. They accepted the consequences - that players would just not always be able to do all the content alone - and tried (not always successfully) to enable matchmaking to let players find each other when they needed a hand. And what they were able to make by accepting that consequence was the system that, eleven years after the game "died," is still the pinnacle of build variety in all of gaming. A decade later and I've never seen anything else come close in an MMO space. To find a game with comparable build variety and player expression you have to go into a totally different genre: TCGs. It's absolutely bonkers.

[mandakatt]

FFXV Drabble - Ignis Scientia - First Kiss

A/N: Ignis is the type that, to me, would not like someone else pining after you. Despite his nature of wanting to keep PDA to a minimum, I think in this case, for your first kiss, he would make an exception. Especially when he wishes for others to know that you are his. ♥

Hope you like it Doll! @atarostarling

Request: 800 Follower Milestone Kiss: First Kiss Place: At a Party Characters: Ignis Scientia/Fem!Reader Warnings: None Word Count: 668

Anonymity. 

That is a feeling that Ignis thought he would never experience. Yet here, at a small nightclub with you attached to his arm, it seemed not a soul cared who he was the moment he passed the threshold. It struck him much like a cold splash of water to the face, and you couldn’t help but giggle a little at his bewildered expression.

“Are you sure about this, Darling?”

With a smile you gently nodded. “Yes, Ignis, I’m sure. My friends know of you, but they do not know who you are.”

Ignis’ brows pinched gently before he drew you in just a bit closer. “Know that I am never one that doubts you, but—”

Smiling at him as you placed your finger to his lips, you gently tilted your head. “Then just trust me… ”  

Music filled the air while the two of you weaved through what felt like to him, a sea of people till someone recognized you. Releasing his arm you moved forward a few steps to take your friend into a tight embrace, wishing them a loud ‘Happy Birthday!’ over the music. When you stepped back, and turned to face him to introduce him, his stomach twisted in a knot.

He was positive they knew who he was the moment they looked at him. 

“This is Ignis.” 

“Oh ho, so we finally meet the fabled boyfriend huh?”

“Hey, come on, he’s been busy! But he made time to come with me to meet you.”

“I—yes, it is a pleasure to meet your acquaintance.” Ignis spoke loud enough for them to hear him, grasping their hand gently.

“Oh my… with an accent and a voice like that it's no wonder she keeps you well hidden.”

Ignis was positive that you could see the blush on his face as you playfully slapped your friends shoulder. Yet when your friend smiled and laughed then thanked him for coming, he felt that knot in his stomach slowly untangle. You gently took his hand, lacing your fingers together as you lead him to the bar. 

The two of you hadn’t been dating long, at least not officially; he would be the first to admit he admired you for quite sometime before gaining the nerve to ask you on a date, but he was simply surprised that your friend knew him as your boyfriend. Not as Ignis Scientia, Right Hand of the King. 

“Surprised?” your voice pulled him from his thoughts as you pushed a glass gently into his hand.

Glancing down at it he smiled softly. Scotch. He could tell just by the amber color, even in the strange glow of the lights above. “Yes.” he stated simply as he brought his glass up to take a small sip. “I expected a it’s him not, this is your boyfriend.”

It was your turn to blush. “Well, I’ll admit that the day you asked me on a date was the day I let them know I was no longer single.”

Ignis’ brows lifted high. “Does this mean that your friend was my competition?”

“Maybe… “ you said with a smirk as you brought your own glass to your lips, only to be surprised as Ignis’ hand snapped up and gently grasped your wrist. 

You turned your head to look at him, only to feel entirely rooted to the spot as he leaned in and just barely brushed his lips over your own. It was featherlight, and he seemed to hesitate for a moment, eyes glancing to your own as if asking for permission to go further. Your lips parted slightly as you spoke his name before he captured your lips then in a proper, yet gentle kiss.

When he finally pulled back from it, he kept himself close, his thumb gently petting the pulse point on your wrist as he spoke just loud enough for you to hear. 

“If I must battle for your affections, then I do hope you know that I am not one to take such a challenge lightly…”