#I've gotten a few asks about performing I feel like I should

[violet-eng]

f!reader reacts to Zhongli (Morax)! "apoptosis" during Rite of Descension | angst + 🔞 NSFW

So... I've always wondered how Zhongli's close friends (let's pretend he has close friends) would react to his death during the Rite of Descension...

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Summary: Zhongli and you are a couple, and you know he's Rex Lapis. How would you react if your beloved dragon boyfriend dies in front of your eyes during the Rite of Descension? Or worse yet, how would you react if you found out that he is actually alive?

Tw: Angst (a lot), smut, 🔞, MDNI, p i v, nipple sucking, words of hate during sex (i hate you), mentionsof death.

🎨 by: Nid417 2k words.

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The soft caress of Zhongli's fingers on your forehead woke you up in the morning, bringing you back to the earthly realm and wrenching you from the comfortable sleep you had taken as a reward for your performance the night before. Like every night, Zhongli had abused you in bed, using you until he left his empty balls in your belly. 

The light streaming through the window, the rays of sunshine heralding a new day, brighten your face as you realize that Zhongli has gotten out of bed. You watch him get dressed, the shirt covering his arms, golden marks on his dark skin, the marks of your nails on his back, crimson traces open to the passage of your passion.

"Today is going to be a long day," your ardent lover says as he adjusts his tie, "I'm sorry to have to wake you, it's never my intention to cause you any discomfort, but I'm afraid on this occasion it was absolutely necessary."

"The Rite of Descension is today, I had forgotten," you mention, leaning back on your elbows and rubbing your eyes, the locks of hair falling over the valley of your breasts, the sheet covering you sliding down to your waist, giving Zhongli a magnificent view as he adjusts his pants.

"When it's all over, we should have dinner... and then maybe try our luck at starting a family," he says, though it's hard to make out his words because of the volume of his voice. Zhongli speaks with a tinge of nostalgia, a back and forth of dark feelings and a melancholy aura, he has been in this state for several weeks now.

"I guess there's no point in me asking you again what's wrong with you today," you say, embellishing the sentence with a subtle laugh, sometimes your dear Morax is very secretive about his feelings and manages to become hermetic and unshakable as a rock, today is one of those days.

"I promise you that once the Rite culminates, all your questions will be answered," he says, sitting next to you, caressing the curve of your back and tucking a lock of your hair behind your ear. One of Zhongli's favorite images is your face when you wake up...especially the morning after a good fuck. There's something about your puffy eyes that drives him crazy, or the scarlet color on your skin from his teeth the night before that makes him lose his mind, whatever it is, he finds you to be the most charming creature he's ever met in his millennia of existence.

"I only ask you," Zhongli says, continuing the conversation, keeping the cryptic tone he had a few moments ago, "I only ask you not to be afraid, no matter what you see, do not be afraid. I will come back to you no matter what happens”

"You always do," you say as you turn around, your face lit up with a smile and your breasts in full view as you reach out a hand that manages to caress his cheek, "that's our contract, darling, you always come back to me."

Zhongli fiercely fights the desire to fuck you at this moment, these words and this image you have given him.... He takes a deep breath before getting up from the bed, ignoring his instincts. There will be time to indulge your carnal desires.

You know the Rite of Descent in detail, you have witnessed it and heard it performed firsthand. This time there is nothing out of the usual, perhaps a new face or two, but nothing out of the ordinary. You find yourself looking forward to what will happen next, and perhaps during the night you will comment to Zhongli how strange it is to see him in his draconic form, and how sweet you find his empathic act of introducing himself to the....

The rumble of the lifeless body of the Lord of Liyue falling echoes through the place. The offerings table is a mess, and the ensuing uproar even more so. There is talk of murder, the Millelith rushes in pursuit of the suspects, and as the rest of the crowd disperses, you lie in place, frozen, stunned by what you have witnessed. You bring your hands to your chest in a reflex to stop the heartbeat that seems to pierce your skin, the sound of the Millelith's footsteps confused with the thumping rhythm of your heart, your lip trembling and your hands sweating, your trembling fingers clutching the fabric of your clothes, trying to bring you back to reality as you watch the body of your beloved Morax lying lifeless before your eyes.

"Tell Wangsheng Funeral Parlor what happened," Keqing orders you... or is it Ningguang's voice? " Y/n! There's no time to waste, go!"

Much to your chagrin, you find yourself running to the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, your eyes on the verge of bitter tears and deep weeping, but you cannot afford to do so, not when you cannot explain your reaction to others. You walk down the stairs, wondering: Did Zhongli's recent attitude mean that he suspected that someone wanted to kill him, and if so, why didn't he trust you? The questions cloud your mind, you stumble over some people while debating with yourself, Zhongli knew it, in short, that's why he had such a mysterious attitude lately, he knew he would abandon you? No, you're cursing yourself, you can't think about him like that, especially now that he's... You can't even think of the word, Morax, Rex Lapis, your beloved Zhongli, is an immortal being who has traveled miles of life, he is a powerful being, the strongest of the gods... or he was... ....

You resign yourself to the facts, to the image of the dragon lying on the rubble, his chest motionless, his eyes lifeless... you had not even been able to say goodbye to him that morning. With regret gnawing at your heart, you burst into Wangsheng's funeral parlor and called out to Hu Tao.

"Rex Lapis," you say with a lump in your throat, as she grabs your arms and asks you to calm down, "Rex Lapis is..." you pause over your words as the figure of your lover emerges from one of the offices.

"Y/n" Hu Tao agitates you, but you are absorbed in the image coming towards you, the way Zhongli hurries to give you a drink.

"He's dead," you manage to finish the sentence without taking your eyes off Zhongli. Hu Tao is shocked by this and laments over such an unfortunate event, delving into theories that could have led to something like this happening.

"There is no reason to jump to conclusions at a time like this," Zhongli suggests, "Ninnguang must need help.

It is Hu Tao who leaves the place at his subordinate's suggestion, leaving him in charge of your welfare, your poor condition being too obvious to the average eye. It is just the two of you in the room, the sound of commotion outside is beyond reproach, but at this moment, you are oblivious to what is going on outside.

Zhongli holds out his coat to you, draping it over your shoulders and adjusting the collar over your chest, you holding the drink he offered you a few moments ago. You analyze him closely, your eyes scanning him in detail, taking in every inch of his image. 

"Y/n," he whispers as he caresses your shoulders, his hands coddling your arms, looking at you like an infant about to cry.

"Zhongli," saying his name feels like breathing out your last breath of life. You bring your hesitant hand to his face, a reflection of your desire to check if what you are observing is real. You press his skin against your palm, and he leans into the familiar touch of your caress.

"My beautiful y/n, I beg your forgiveness" he muses as he moves the cup away from your hands, to take your small limbs between his, kissing your knuckles gingerly.

The gesture causes you to burst into tears, to throw yourself into his arms and release the sea of bitterness and pain that had built up in your chest. Zhongli pulls you close to him, wrapping you in an embrace that he hopes will never break, that he hopes will prove how sorry he is for the hurt he has caused you. You ask him for explanations between sobs, you reproach him for not being clear with you, for letting you believe he was dead, you beat his chest in agony and resentment, and he allows you to do so, if it were up to him, you could actually kill him at that very moment, he deserves no less, not when he has made you shed tears for him so bitterly.

"You should have told me" you whimper, and your legs start to shake. The burning in your chest grows and you feel like you will faint at any moment. Zhongli senses it, senses every change in your organism, so he hurries to ask you to return home.

The road passes in silence, Zhongli has put his arm around your shoulder, and along the way he has showered you with pleas to redeem himself, but you ignore him, you don't even look at him, and that hurts him deeply.

You cross the door and go into the room to lie down on the bed, finally you can no longer use your legs, you have never felt so weak, so useless... You let out the rest of your cry on the pillows, leaning on your hands, your chest heaving for air, the shock hasn't completely left you...

Zhongli approaches you and puts a hand on your back, but you clearly warn him not to come near you, not to touch you, and maybe you are being too hard on him, but it is what you think he deserves. 

"Go away," you order sharply, "you're supposed to be dead... you..." you speak nonsense, it's the pain of shock that overwhelms you.

"What are you saying?" Zhongli exclaims in anguish, searching for your face, though you hide it well for him. He struggles with you, trying to bring you to your senses, "I'm here, my love, it's me... I'm alive," he says, taking your hands and pressing them to his chest, where his desperate heart beats in desperation. You look at him pitifully, your eyes drenched with tears, your lip trembling.

"This is the heart of a living man," he says, "and this is the warmth of a living man's skin," he says, bringing your hands to his neck and chest, unbuttoning his shirt in a desperate act, and as the shock of his desperation strikes your complexion, you seem to snap out of your trance.

"Zhongli..." you finally whisper.

"Here I am, beautiful, I came back for you..." he muses, pressing his forehead against yours.

"You always..." you falter, "you always come back to me," your breath mingles with his, as hot as yours. You rush to his lips, so eager to taste his breath of life, the divinity escaping his mouth like groans as you bite his lip, pressing it harder against your mouth.

"This is our contract," Zhongli says between kisses, a trickle of saliva between the two of you as he removes his shirt and your clothes.

He fucks you with anger, with desire and a burning he didn't know he was holding back. And you scream, your moans high and boisterous, not caring what is happening outside or how sacrilegious it is that you are fucking while everyone outside is suffering the death of Rex Lapis... the same Rex Lapis who is pounding on your cervix with fervor and enormous force, the same one who is massaging your clitoris while sucking on one of your nipples.

"I hate you," you spit angrily, drowning out your moans as you cling to his arms.

"It's what I deserve," he says, just as vulgar as you, sonorous and quite vocal, resting one of your legs on his shoulders, "hate me all you want, y/n, but then scream my name when you cum and when you give birth to our children."

"You bastard," you moan as your fingernails leave scarlet marks on his sculpted shoulders, "don't stop.... Zhongli, don't stop," the way he pounds you is delicious and your guts know it as they twist in a hot knot as his cock makes its way into your pussy.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," he repeats, not stopping his assault, settling on top of you to look at the bulge rising in your belly where his cock is abusing you. He puts one of his hands on yours, the other massaging your thigh and the flesh on his shoulder, looking at you with a devotion that you do not recognize, as if you were a treasure, a goddess....

His hips crash mercilessly against yours, and you, as spiteful as you are horny, can't help but make the most vulgar sounds you can. You feel Zhongli's balls slapping against your skin, the frantic movement in and out of your pussy, the way something inside you seems to snap from the force of his penetration. He has you wide open for him, fully exposed, and he gives himself to you like the devotee he is when he fucks you, seeking only your pleasure.

"Zhongli..." you moan as one of your fingers gently caresses the line that divides his scarred abdomen, your digit running down the valley of his rock hard muscles....

"Let me take care of you, darling," he says, taking your hand and planting a kiss on the back of it, leaning down to capture your lips with his mouth. His tongue penetrates the roof of your mouth and you feel your throat receive the visit of such a welcome guest.

Zhongli turns you over, your body snug against the sheets, your face deep in the mattress, and he on top of you. He continues to stir your loins as he lets his chest fall on your back, his face sinking into your shoulder, and you feel that this way, so close to him, he has better access to you. His cock twists in your favorite spot, the one that makes you let out a yelp and reach out a hand for support, grasping the silk between your fingers. Zhongli intertwines his hand with yours, and there, trapped beneath his body, at the mercy of his relentless assault, he whispers a "I love you" with deep regret.

"Zhongli," you moan, completely trapped between the bed and how well he is fucking you, your hands trapped in his, "I love you...damn it...I love you," you cry out as you convulse beneath him, your orgasm erupting as he bathes your velvety walls with his white seed.

You turn your face to breathe. Zhongli doesn't let go or leave you. You stay like this for a moment, enjoying the heat the other gives off. Zhongli kisses your shoulder blade and you feel the remains of his cum leave you as he pulls his cock out of your abused hole. The empty feeling makes you moan. He doesn't let go of you at any point, clinging to you as he lies down and sets you beside him, wrapping you in his arms, securing you in an embrace as he leaves deep kisses on the back of your neck and shoulder. Your chest heaves for air, the ecstasy you feel is unlike anything you have experienced before, no previous encounter has ever been like this.

"I didn't mean it," you say, your voice hoarse, your throat scratchy from shouting, "I don't hate you...I couldn't," you turn to him, meeting amber eyes that look at you with calm and deep regret.

"Do you forgive me?" he asks in a sweet, syrupy, insistent tone. 

"My dear Morax," you whisper, taking refuge in his chest, "I forgave you the moment I felt your aching heart beat with concern for me."

These words are enough for Zhongli to ease the weight he was carrying so that he can rest his chin on your head and breathe in the scent of your hair, mixed with the smell of sex in the room.

He strokes your back, running his fingers over your small human form, downplaying the commotion outside, focusing only on you and your well-being....

[goerhoejtbiddernaeppelillehund]

Okay. I'm going to weigh in on some Dead Boy Detectives shipping discourse. (Oh gods I'll probably regret this)

First of all, love the show so so much, please go watch it if you haven't already. Good supernatural mysteries, excellent queer rep, what more could you ask for?

Now. I've stumbled across several DBD posts where peoples reaction to Charles and Crystal flirting have been somewhat unpleasant. A lot of "Ugh, ewww, noooo don't, that's wrong, you're not supposed to do that!"

And look, I'm a Payneland shipper as much as the next person, but it doesn't sit right with me. Now there's a whole can of worms about how Crystal as a character has been received by parts of the fandom and how that's part of a much larger pattern and someone more qualified than me should definitely go into that.

I personally found the romance between Charles and Crystal rather sweet. Sure it's awkward and imperfect, but that, to me, just makes it feel more real. One of the few things in the show that reminds you that these characters are actually supposed to be teenagers. And while it does create tension between Charles and Edwin, I don't feel like it, in any way, overshadows or prevents their very real and intimate relationship.

But it seems to me like some people feel that way, like Crystal is an obstacle to Charles and Edwin getting together. Which, aside from giving me supernatural flashbacks, seems rather narrow minded to a bi and polyam person like myself.

I think it especially bothers me because the fandom has almost unanimously agreed on Charles being bisexual and praised him for it, which is apparently all well and good in the abstract, but as soon as he actually starts performing bisexuality it's "ewww, get away from the girl and back to the Edwardian twink." Particularly jarring since none of the men/cats/birds making advances on Edwin have gotten as much backlash ('ve seen some, but not nearly as much).

Any other bi people feel like they recognise something there?

TLDR: Watch and Rewatch DBD, and next time you're annoyed at Charles and Crystal flirting, maybe try examining exactly why that bothers you.

[runnning-outof-time]

Worth Breaking Plans For | Tommy Shelby x Reader

Request: yes by anonymous

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x reader

Summary: Tommy Shelby never thought he'd willingly go to see a ballet…that was until he found out that (Y/N) was performing in one. (Y/N) (Y/L/N) never thought she was someone worth breaking plans for…that was until Tommy came into her life.

Warnings: drinking and one bad word

Word Count: 4238

A/N: I’ve got another long one for ya here…the words just wouldn’t stop haha. This one was super fun to write. I hope I added enough ballerina elements for you, anon. If you haven’t got your fill by the end of it though, @padfootdaredmetoo has an amazing ballerina!reader series that you should check out! Enjoy! :)

PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

Comment/Message me if you’d like to be tagged in future stories similar to this one!

(Y/N) just barely had the time to take in her surroundings before she was having a flute of champagne thrust in her direction. "Here," the drink was accompanied by the words of her friend, Lou, "have a few of these and you'll be settled in in no time."

"Thank you," (Y/N) gingerly replied, accepting the glass and bringing it up to her lips so that she could take a sip of the bubbly liquid. She then smiled at her friends, who were intently watching for any microexpression she would share with them. "It's good," she told them, feeling a little silly for even saying that in the first place.

"Good," Julia affirmed, a smile present on her face as she watched her friend take another sip, "let's get into this party now!" she cheered, taking hold of (Y/N)'s hand so that she, and Lou, could lead her deeper into the establishment.

(Y/N) took that time to look around in awe. She hadn't attended many of these parties - as if that hadn't been obvious enough - and was eager to soak in every aspect of it that she could. Spending time with a few friends from her company at either her flat or a smaller venue was more her speed, but that didn't mean she wasn't excited to see the other half of the spectrum.

"Did you hear what Lou said, (Y/N)?" the sound of Julia's voice broke into her thoughts, making her focus on her friends again.

"I'm sorry, I didn't," she admitted, a sheepish smile present on her face. They'd been here for a handful of minutes now and yet there were details of the venue and revelry that she still hadn't caught onto. She didn't feel too bad for being lost in the atmosphere of it all.

"I was saying that I've gotten word about there being some rather prominent figures at this party," Lou repeated herself, a grin forming on her face.

"Prominent in what sense?" (Y/N) couldn't help but ask. She had a right to, considering that she and her two friends were members of one of the most prestigious ballet companies that ran in London and its surrounding areas. Technically they could be considered part of the 'prominent figures' being talked about.

"I've heard everything from entertainers, to politicians, and even..." Julia trailed off, glancing around before she leaned closer to the other two women, her grin growing as she went to finish off her statement, "gangsters."

"Why did you say it in that way?" (Y/N) couldn't help but giggle at her friend's delivery of the word.

"Because the thought of it is so utterly...interesting," Julia responded.

“And exhilarating,” Lou added.

"Wouldn’t it be fun to meet a gangster?" Julia finished off with a question, making Lou nod, a giddy grin present on her face as she added a few more words of agreement.

"Hmm...I suppose," (Y/N) aired more on the coy side of things, looking out at the sea of people that were attending the party. She found it slightly hard to believe that there were actual gangsters scattered amongst these innocent looking party-goers. Maybe it'd only be those fake kinds...like the ones you'd see in the pictures.

"Come on ladies, let's find ourselves a gangster!" Julia cheered, obviously not letting the distinction bog her mind down. She clapped her hands together before leading the other two even further into the venue.

(Y/N) took that time to do some more looking around, her eyes dancing from the band, to the extravagant decorations, to the many people who seemed to be having the time of their lives. Amidst the looking, her eyes stopped on a man...one who immediately stood out from the rest of the people she'd been watching so far. She couldn't help but let her eyes linger on him for a longer amount of time. He just looked so...interesting, for lack of better words, and she found herself entranced by him.

She let her eyes linger on him until Lou broke into her thoughts - yet again - this time going on about seeing a familiar face that she wanted to go speak to. So with slight dismay, she broke her stare and followed her friends.

"Ada Thorne! It really is you!" Lou exclaimed as the three women approached another one, who had brown hair and a well-dressed figure.

"Lou! It's so good to see you!" the woman replied in a similar fashion to the initial greeting, a wide smile forming on her face. "Goodness, you've brought friends as well," she added, her eyes focusing on the other two ladies.

"Yes, I have," Lou answered with a smile, "this is Julia and (Y/N), they're both in the same company as me," she then went about the introductions.

"It's nice to meet you ladies. Lou always goes on and on about the women she performs with...it's so nice to finally put some faces to the stories," Ada said, smiling as she spoke.

"So how have things been with you?" Lou then moved to the small talk portion of the conversation, her eyebrows raised as she awaited a response.

(Y/N) figured that she didn't really need to be a part of the conversation anymore, so she happily went back to people watching. Much to her upset, she couldn't find the man she'd been fixated on earlier, no matter how hard she looked for him. That didn't mean that she didn't still enjoy taking in her surroundings once more.

She stayed locked into her own world until the feeling of Julia jabbing her side brought her out of it. "Goodness, what's that for?" she asked her friend, her eyes snapping to the other woman as she sent her a glare.

"You've been in your own world while we're being introduced to someone here," she hissed, nodding her head to the left to indicate that someone else had joined the group in the meantime.

(Y/N) was a bit nervous to look, feeling bashful all of a sudden for not having proper party manners. But she had to look, because it quickly became apparent that the conversation wasn't going on without it. So she did, and the sight that was awaiting her made her mouth go dry in seconds. Standing before her was the man...the one that she'd been transfixed on earlier. She suddenly hoped that her jaw hadn't gone slack at the realization as she scrambled to think of something to say.

"You'll have to forgive me...I like to take in my surroundings whenever I'm able to," she said to the man, a sheepish smile forming on her face.

"All is forgiven," the man brushed her apology off without second thought. The gruffness in his voice moved her in ways that she truly hadn't been moved before. That, coupled with the intensity of his ocean blue eyes that were currently focused on her, made her feel like her knees could give out at any moment.

"My name's (Y/N). (Y/N) (Y/L/N)," (Y/N) then decided to introduce herself, figuring that the group had already gotten past that step and was waiting for her to catch up.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, (Y/N)," the man said with a slight, greeting-typed nod before continuing, "my name's Tommy. Tommy Shelby," he then offered up his name, along with his hand for her to shake.

"Pleasure to meet you as well, Tommy," she responded to him, accepting the handshake with a kind smile.

"Tommy's my brother," Ada then entered the conversation, making (Y/N) remember that there were others around her, and that she wasn't just standing by herself with this man. "He says he's in town on business, but I think he's come to keep tabs on me," she added, a grin forming on her face as she took a playful jab at her sibling.

"It's nice to meet you, Tommy," Julia offered a greeting similar to (Y/N)'s, which made her wonder if maybe introductions hadn't been completed yet.

"These ladies all belong to one of the finest ballet companies this city has to offer," Ada then gave her brother some more information on the women he'd just been introduced to, her words making Lou playfully chide her.

Small talk re-commenced then, and (Y/N) tried to stay with it for the sake of not making another awkward mistake. She found it hard to be completely focused though, because no matter what she did, she couldn't quite keep her eyes off of Tommy.

——

"Well this is a surprise," Ada remarked when she opened the door to find her brother on the other side of it.

"Do you have plans for this evening?" Tommy asked, deciding to skip the greetings and get to the reason he was standing outside her door.

"I don't," Ada, thankfully, answered without much thought, "is there something you need me for?"

"I need you to come with me," Tommy continued, fishing his watch out of its pocket so that he could make sure he was still on time.

"Where?" now she was answering like the Ada he knew.

"There's a show going on at the theatre...I wanted to go to it and figured you'd might want to come," he gave her some vague details.

"And what is this show exactly?" she asked, tilting her head to the side in a questioning manner.

"Just come with me, Ada," he answered in a dismissive tone, not exactly wanting to play twenty questions at this moment.

Ada pursed her lips, not happy that her brother was being abrupt with her. She took a few moments to think his proposal over, secretly loving how the wait was driving him crazy. "I'll come," she finally agreed to his plan, "just let me make sure that Karl can be watched first," she added, turning and going back into the house to find that live-in nanny and tell her that she was going out.

—

"I never thought there'd come a day where Tommy Shelby would willingly go to a ballet," Ada commented with a smirk as she and Tommy found their seats in the front row of the upper balcony. She'd been sending these little jabs his way since she got the program and realized what show he was bringing them to.

"Ada," Tommy spoke in a warning tone, having heard enough of her teasing.

"Fine, I'll stop," she conceded, although she was trying her best to withhold her giggles.

Tommy just shook his head and turned his attention to the stage's curtains. He could see from the corner of his eye that Ada had opened the program and started flipping through it. He was thankful that she'd now found something else to do. But he wasn't out of the woods just yet.

"Which of the ladies is it?" she asked after a few minutes had passed, her words making him turn to look at her with furrowed brows. "Of the women we met at the party...which one is it?" she added more clarification.

Tommy went to speak, but the house lights dimming stopped - saved - him from having to answer. A round of applause coursed through the theatre as the curtains were pulled aside and the performance began. Tommy spent the next hour or so keeping his eyes fixed on the woman he hadn't been able to rid his mind of since he last saw her at the party.

—

"Oh my, this is so lovely," (Y/N) cooed as she accepted the single flower and hand-drawn picture from one of the girls that had come backstage to meet her, "thank you so much!"

"I drew the picture myself," the girl boasted, her words making (Y/N) look at the picture to see that there were two ballerinas drawn on it: one bigger and one smaller. "I want to be a ballerina one day when I grow up," the girl added, a toothy smile forming on her face.

"You keep practicing and you may just be on stage with us one day," (Y/N) told her, an encouraging smile present on her face.

The group of girls said their goodbyes then, their mothers calling them back over so that they could leave. That was when (Y/N) looked up to see a familiar figure leaning against the wall not too far away. The breath got stuck in her throat as she became focused on him; feeling the exact same feelings she'd experienced at the party. Goodness, he just had this aura to him.

"Tommy," she hated that she said his name a little too eagerly, "I...I would have never expected to see you here," she couldn't help but voice her surprise.

"I was in town and figured I'd come to see a show," he brushed her statement off with a slight shrug of his shoulders after he pushed himself off of the wall to move closer to her.

"Did you come alone?" she just had to ask.

"No, Ada came as well. She went off to find your friend...Lou, I believe it was," he answered, glancing down at the items she was holding then. "Had I known you were accepting gifts, I would have brought one," he said, motioning to the flowers and bears she had in her arms.

"Oh no...that's not necessary," she brushed him off, trying to ignore the giddy feeling she was now getting in her stomach.

"You did well," he complimented her performance, tucking his hands into his pockets as he spoke.

"Thank you," (Y/N) accepted the compliment with a smile. She looked down at the things she was holding then, feeling the heat rise within her more with each second that they held eye contact.

"You know..." Tommy started, clearing his throat before continuing, "you should at least let me take you for a drink; since I came here empty-handed."

His words brought (Y/N)'s eyes back up to his in a flash, and he most certainly caught the look of surprise she was wearing before she tried hard to hide it. "Oh you don't have to do that," she tried to brush his offer off.

"No, I insist," he held steady, "it'd be a way to celebrate a successful show...my first ballet," he added, the final words of his sentence making her let out a stifled laugh.

"You're truly offering?" she checked with him before giving her final answer.

"I am," he nodded, a smile playing on his lips.

She had to bite back the smile that was threatening to form as she took a moment's pause. If she answered too soon, it would have looked like she was overly excited for this opportunity. "I'd like that then," she told him, hoping that her giddiness wasn't plastered clear across her face. "I need to quickly put these in the dressing room," she added, raising her arms slightly to call attention to the gifts she'd been holding.

"I'll be waiting here," he told her, nodding as she turned and walked towards the dressing rooms.

She was unable to get to them without being stopped by Julia first. "Is that the man from the party, (Y/N)?" her friend asked, her eyes swapping between (Y/N) and Tommy.

"It is," (Y/N) answered, again hoping that her giddiness wasn't too apparent.

"What's he doing here?"

"He's offered to take me for drinks," (Y/N) couldn't help but feel proud as she spoke.

A grin spread across Julia's face as she heard her friend's response, "oh so it's like that?" she questioned, wiggling her eyebrows.

"Not exactly like that," (Y/N) was quick to brush her off, "he's just being kind."

"You'll have to tell me all about it at rehearsals tomorrow...we'll see how kind he ended up being," Julia stated, winking as she put emphasis on the word 'kind'.

"It's not like that, Julia!" (Y/N) insisted, her eyebrows raised as she stressed her point in a harsh whisper.

"Don't keep your man waiting." (Y/N)'s statement was ignored, and Julia's grin only grew as she spoke, ending off with giving the other woman a friendly push towards the dressing room.

(Y/N) let out a huff as she went to quickly put the gifts she'd received down. She then hurried to get changed out of her costume before grabbing her things and heading out of the dressing room. Tommy was standing right where she left him, and she sent him a smile as she approached him. He asked her if she was ready, and she nodded, allowing the two to leave the theatre and go wherever they'd be having drinks.

—

Conversation came easily between the two as they settled in at the bar of one of the more prestigious clubs in the city. (Y/N) would have loved to look around and get lost in her surroundings but, well...she had more interesting things to look at.

They learned a good bit about each other as they sat and talked. (Y/N) told Tommy all about her rise to the company that she was dancing for now, and Tommy in turn told (Y/N) of how he made his way out of Birmingham, coming from nothing to now dealing with some of the heads of the business sphere. He also made hints at some other avenues that he's simultaneously working in, but didn't really elaborate on them. (Y/N) truly didn't need details though...she'd become so enthralled by this man that she was sure it'd take something dire to make her want to leave him.

So enthralled, in fact, that she did something that would be considered rather bold by her standards and invited him back to her flat for a nightcap. Tommy, who was also enjoying himself, accepted the invitation with no hesitation, then going to pay off their tab so that they could leave the club for the building she lived in.

Things transitioned more than smoothly to her flat. The shift in the energy between them became increasingly more noticeable the closer they got to the building, and neither said a word as they rode the elevator up to her floor, instead choosing to let their eyes do the talking as they held each other's gazes.

If she was being honest, (Y/N) couldn't wait much longer to get him behind the privacy of her door. The second she did, her hands found the lapels of his suit jacket so that she could bring him to her and press their lips together in a haste kiss. Tommy accepted it with a matched eagerness, holding her tight to his body as he deepened it.

"I'm sorry...that was a bit forward of me," (Y/N) panted once they'd pulled away. She couldn't mask the bashfulness that was coming on once her mind caught up to her actions.

"Don't apologize," Tommy told her, taking a chance to take in her features at this new closeness, "I quite liked it." A slight laugh left her lips as he finished speaking, one that sounded like music to his ears.

"Would you like something to drink?" she asked him then.

"Sure."

(Y/N) nodded before she glanced down to where she was still gripping his lapels. She exhaled a breath of a laugh before releasing them and smoothing them back to their previous state. Tommy let go of her waist then, and she quickly turned to head to the kitchen so that he wouldn't see her frown at the loss of contact. He followed her to the kitchen, not really wanting to leave her side either.

"Did you enjoy the performance today?" she asked him as she grabbed a bottle and two glasses.

"I did," he answered after having to recall how the night started. It felt like it happened so long ago at this point. "You didn't have much of a part in it though," he pointed out then.

"Yeah," she answered, a bit of a lopsided smile present as she went about pouring the drinks. "I did audition for the lead in our next show though..." she paused, sliding one glass towards him before she looked up with a smile, "and I got the part!" she couldn't help but voice her happiness to this man she'd only met a week ago.

"Yeah? When is the show?" he asked, genuine curiosity present in his voice.

"It's in two weeks. On the twentieth," a fire started to burn in her stomach at the thought of him coming to see her perform again.

"Fuck," he breathed as he looked down at the glass.

This was a response she was not expecting, and it confused her. "What? Is something wrong?" she asked, all of the excitement now gone.

"I'll be out of town that day, on business," he told her, his simple sentence effectively breaking her heart. Why had she gotten her hopes up?

"Oh," she couldn't help but voice her upset, glancing up at him before she took a drink.

She looked at him again as she set the glass down on the counter, trying not to let this turn of events spoil what had been an otherwise amazing evening. Hell, she had this insanely handsome man in her flat...who was she to stand around and mope over something she couldn't control? Tommy was taking that time to look her over too, and she couldn't help but love the feeling of his eyes on her.

"We still have tonight though..." she spoke again after a few moments had passed, keeping her eyes steady on him, watching his every move.

He let his eyes trail over her face again, taking in every inch of it. He licked his lips as he thought about the magnitude of her statement. "We do have tonight," he answered then, letting her lead the interaction.

She couldn't stop from biting on her bottom lip as she thought of how to word her next question. The energy coursing between them was almost palpable at this point, and she wondered how she was able to shift so quickly from disappointment to desire just by standing in his presence. It felt like ages before she spoke again, a hint of curiosity now sparkling in her eyes: "would you like to come to bed with me?"

Tommy didn't wait ages to give his response. He broke the distance between them in seconds, his hands finding the sides of her face so that he could pull her into a deep kiss.

The kiss alone buried the upset of him not being able to attend her performance, and if it was a precursor of what would come, (Y/N) knew that this would be a night she'd hold in her mind for years to come.

——

(Y/N) hadn't had a moment to herself since she exited the stage after final bows. She was being swarmed by the fellow ballerinas in her company, who were congratulating her on a wonderful show and already celebrating their collective performance. She didn't mind it though...she was buzzing from the high herself.

"You have a few fans waiting out in the hall to see you, Miss (Y/L/N)," one of the stagehands told her once she'd finished the conversation she was having.

(Y/N) nodded and allowed the man to lead her to the door that separated the backstage area from the rest of the theatre. He opened the door for her and she thanked him before seeing the same group of little girls that had been at her last show waiting for her. She greeted them with a wide smile, happily accepting their flowers and other gifts that they came back to bring her. After many hugs and a short conversation, she said goodbye and some words of encouragement.

Standing tall again, she looked ahead of her and found the last person she expected to. Tommy Shelby was there, leaning against the wall much like he had last time, but now he had a bouquet of beautiful red roses with him. (Y/N) went over to him without a second thought.

"I brought you flowers this time," he was the first to speak, raising the bouquet slightly to accentuate his statement.

"You...you did," she stuttered out, still not quite believing her eyes, "were...were you...?" She couldn’t get a complete sentence out. Not once in the times they’d met up over the last two weeks did he mention he was able to make it to her show - they hadn’t spoken about it after that night.

"I was," he answered with a slight chuckle, a smile forming on his lips at her shock.

"Please tell me you didn't cancel your plans for me."

"I did," he confirmed what she already knew, "you're worth breaking plans for, love."

The widest smile formed on her face at his statement, and she couldn't help but close the distance to wrap her arms around his neck in a tight hug. He chuckled at her reaction, holding onto her as tightly as she was holding him. "You did amazing," he mumbled into her neck before pressing a kiss to it.

"I'm happy you came," she said, holding back her emotions with a smile as she pulled away, "so happy," she added, her hands moving to his face so that she could kiss him.

Even though she’d just given what was surely the best performance of her career, (Y/N) couldn’t deny that she’d never felt happier than she did at this moment.

Tagged: @mystcldydrms @the-anxious-youth @cloudofdisney @look-at-the-soul @elenavampire21 @mrsalwayswrite @julkaamazing @evita-shelby @lilyrachelcassidy @notyour-valentine @shelbydelrey @onlydeadcells @peakyswritings @just-a-blackhole @watercolorskyy @strayrockette @peakyduchesss @alexxavicry @captivatedbycillianmurphy @yummycastiel @dark-academia-slut @tommystargirl @stevie75 @lyarr24 @signorellisantichrist @zablife @anotherblinder @midnightmagpiemama @cillmequick @rangerelik @dandelionprints @letal-y-poetica @itscheybaby @gypsy-girl-08 @insanitybyanothername @depxiety @raincoffeeandfandoms @dragons-are-my-favorite @acewritesfics @forgottenpeakywriter @cljordan-imperium @areyenotfondofmelobster @little-diable @thomashelbyswife @iambored24601 @shaddixlife

MASTERLIST

[where-is-vivian]

Starchaser band au

Any trope or type

Maybe like them being rival bands but they are in a secret relationship and write and sing songs about eachother at their shows

Also maybe the media could find out about it because of the songs or something idk

gotcha.

JEGULUS. 623 words. RIVAL BANDS. AWARD SHOW.

"And the winner is... Regulus Black!"

Everyone was clapping. The entire room was suddenly plunged in the loud maelstrom of noise caused by the announcement. People stood up. James stood up too. He had been nominated in the best songwriter of the year category too, but he stood up.

The camera zoomed on his face; he knew cameras were on him, but he ignored them. He played it nonchalantly, standing up slowly, clapping like a fair loser, a little polite smirk at the corner of his lips. Truth was, he wanted to grin fully, to meet Regulus' eyes. Unfortunately, the latter had been sitting in the back, and James' assigned seat was front row.

Regulus walked up to the stage. Shook a few hands. Adjusted the microphone.

"Thank you. Thank you everyone. I am beyond grateful to be able to stand here in front of you today. If it wasn't for Evan telling me, four years ago, that I could write our bands songs, for trusting me with such an important part of our albums, I would never have gotten this opportunity."

He let out a chuckle, and waved somewhere in the crowd. James guessed he was waving at Evan, and at the rest of the Green Roses, Barty and Dorcas.

Sirius, next to James, elbowed him.

"He's being a bit arrogant, isn't he?"

James smiled downwardly, shrugging at his friend.

"You're not too upset he won instead of you? I know you two had this rivalry. I mean, our band won best performance, but..."

"No, I'm good," James soberly answered, eyes still fixed attentively on Regulus. His stylist had done his aura justice, tonight. James, at this point was not really listening anymore. He was instead drooling, in his seat front row, eyeing the man up and down in his lace top and his pretty pants showing off his ass. He only wanted one thing. Regulus for look at him. His prayers must have been heard somewhere because Regulus then looked down at him from the stage. Directly gazing at him without looking away. James didn't either.

"I've been pushed to always write the best songs. And I believe... there's a difference: between the songs that are meant to be sung, and the ones that are meant to be heard."

James grinned. So did Regulus. Both of their band's songs were meant to be heard... by each other. James knew the Green Roses' songs were about him. And he was more or less sure Regulus knew the Marauders' were about him too.

"I wrote songs meant to be heard. I wrote songs that were meant to be embodied. I think I am, today, lucky enough to say that the person meant to hear them has been able to see them performed several times."

James chuckled to himself, laughing with his nose.

"That's why I'd like to thank The Marauders. For always dragging James Fleamont Potter to our concerts. Thank you everyone," He concluded with the biggest and smugiest smirk ever, knowing look in James' direction, pushing the mic away and holding his trophy up one last time, under the scandalised and supportive cheers and whistles of the crowd.

James now couldn't stop the smirk blooming on his face. He knew the cameras were still pointed on him, and that he probably should keep a straight face. But he couldn't help it. Regulus looked so smug. Tongue poking his cheek, he ended up sliding his eyes back to his band mates. Remus, Lily and Marlene were looking at him with wide eyes from their seats. But the one that said something first was the one sitting at his right, Sirius, singer and guitarist. Accessoringly James' best friend. Accessoringly Regulus' brother.

"James?!" Sirius let out, jaw dropped but hint of a smile on his face, visibly shocked, as James struggled to keep his lips sealed into a neutral expression.

the end ;)

feel free to send more asks...

[poisonf0rest]

𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐌𝐨𝐨𝐧

Plip, plop, plip, plop.

“The walls are crumbling.”

Plip, plop, plip, plop. 

“Can you feel it? The ocean is rumbling.” 

Today marks the beginning of a new era. 

After years of disproven theories and failed experiments, the Byrgenwerth Council has finally granted you approval to perform the surgery you’ve been perfecting since your days as a student: a procedure that will grant eyes to the inside of the brain.

A method to elevate the mind to the plane of the gods.

A way to see beyond.

You’ve been tinkering away in the laboratory for hours already, prepping for your opening surgery as you disinfect drills, scalpels, and needles all from muscle memory. Shoulders stiff from hunching over the tub, you set out the last set of equipment to sterilize and dry, lacing up your white coat before stepping into the main corridor. 

Strange, you don’t remember it being flooded before. 

Wading through the murky liquid, you feel it slosh at your ankles with every step, the once pristine tiled floors of the Research Hall’s grand entrance were now cracked and eroded under the layer of water stretched as far as the eye could see. 

No matter. Your surgery is scheduled for a quarter past, you have no time to waste on such trivial matters. You’ll simply ask one of those orphans to begin mopping up this mess. 

Continuing forward, the building seems to deteriorate with every step: grand columns and statues of Church scholars from decades past erode before your eyes, the mist eating away at the very soul of the Hall, leaving it deserted and ugly and starving. It beckons you further. Closer. 

You pause at the base of the stairs. The railings have all but rotted, and at your feet is a patient- which you do not know- scrambling for something in the water as she mutters incoherently. 

“Where is your caregiver?” You ask, beginning towards her until she lurches forward, tripping over her bound ankles as she slips down the last few steps, falling headfirst into the murky water with a dull crack.  

Rushing to her side, you help her up,  “Are you alright? Tell me how I–”  Dark liquid clings and oozes down her hair and skin. Like a rotten egg cracked open. 

Her face is gone. 

You feel her body twist and contort against your palms, elongating as the patient garbs rip and tear along all the new angles that should never exist on a human form. And over her head is a leather bag, strapped onto her shoulders and fastened around her neck with layers upon layers of buckles fastened so tight that dried blood sticks them to the bag itself. There is no face left. Under the leather there is nothing but a bloated, tumorous mass that bubbles with fluid, and when the patient tries to speak again it sounds like the roar of the ocean. 

You do not scream. 

You have seen this before. 

After all, you are the one doing this to them. 

“Oh,” The patient pulls away from your hold, gasping as she goes back to groping around in the water. “Has someone, anyone, seen my eyes? I'm afraid I've dropped them in a puddle.” 

Plip, plop, plip, plop. 

What is the suffering of one when it could mean the salvation of a thousand? 

What is justice in the face of true madness? 

You do not know. You simply listen to the science, to the teachings of the Great Ones, and pray that They are right. Pray that this was all worth it. 

Plip, plop, plip, plop. 

The further up you climb the more patients you run into, all in a state of transformation and decay due to the surgeries you and your fellow researchers conducted on them. Most simply stagger about, blind under their leather bags and bloated heads, others wriggle like worms in the puddles forming from the cracks on the floor, and some are nothing but heads, praying to gods who will not listen. 

You try and listen. Anything to ease their suffering. 

Suppose that’s a little hypocritical though, isn't it?

Or perhaps that makes you their god?

Some patients have undergone trephination three or four times. None have gotten better. But the true chances are noticeable. Sure, there is a base loss in appearance and more human-like qualities. However, that is in exchange for insight into something even greater, something beyond the average human’s comprehension. It is the key you’ve been searching for.

They are lucky, you reason, to be the chosen ones for this grand endeavor. After all, each and every patient here enlisted themselves for research, wholeheartedly believing in the holy crusade the Healing Church has undertaken to cleanse Yharnam. It is your honor, truly, to be working alongside such devotion.

After all, in a city without hope, there is only so much one as an individual can accomplish. Either you're a scholar, a killer, or fodder for the prior. Fodder to feed the stars, fodder to raise hell. It gets harder to tell which way is up with every passing day. 

Are we rising? 

Or sinking?

Plip, plop, plip, plop.

Finally, the staircase ends, falling apart behind you, and you pull on your surgery gloves. You smile to yourself as you prepare for the operation, remembering just how close you are to finding the knowledge of transcendence. The Council has entrusted you- Micolash himself has entrusted you- and this could very well be the next stage in humanity’s correspondence with the realms beyond. 

Up until now, all of your patients have stagnated. Despite their altered forms, they were still undoubtedly stuck on this plane of existence, only sometimes slipping to the higher planes of the Great Ones once you drilled more gray matter into their brains, recalling the dripping pattern of rain and the roar of the ocean. 

Water, you hypothesize, is the key. 

Bodies of water act as liminal spaces- gateways, if you will- from our own world to one of the Great Ones. Like looking down at one’s own reflection, that relationship mirrors the relationship between the world of the gods and that of our own: our realm is merely a moment’s imitation of true existence, one that is warped and fragile, disrupted with but a ripple. 

To be able to reach beyond the water’s surface, to break free from the role of a mere reflection and sit atop the true world alongside the Great Ones. That is your purpose. That is the goal of the Research Hall. 

And so this is all but a necessary sacrifice. 

Walking into the vast operating room, you feel the burn of the spotlights as you set the tray of tools down aside the patient, the rough click of metal on metal reverberating through the room. The rest of the researchers watch you, like spectators at the coliseum as they surround you from the observatory decks. You hope Micolash is among them. You hope Lady Maria is there too. 

Strapped to the table is a patient you’ve come to know well, a woman who was as dedicated to finding the key to ascension as you were. Your first success. 

“Saint Adeline,” you greet, bowing even though she cannot see you through the leather bag buckled around her head. 

Adeline giggles. “Ma’at, Themis, my beautiful Yama. Has the day of judgment arrived?”

She tries to reach for you, but the buckles strapping her to the operating table chain her in place. As if knowing she’s being watched, her voice drops into a drowsy whisper, “Is the ocean falling? Rumbling?” 

You hum in response, filling up a syringe with brain fluid- not your discovery, not your choice in name, you’re aware it’s rather silly- the grayish amoeba crawling and bouncing along the vial. However, you were the one to recognize its use, for once extracted from a patient whose transformation was complete, you hypothesized that re-injection into a brain could stimulate the formation of internal eyes.

And today, your hypothesis will be proven correct. 

It has to. 

“Yes, Adeline, today the surface will break.” You prepare to make the opening incision, a drill straight through the occipital bones, only to drop your hands when you realize there is nothing in them. 

Adeline smiles up at you, and you curse at yourself for never noticing how beautiful she was. Paler than moonlight both in skin and hair, blonde strands cascading over the operating table as she sits up, taking your face in her palms. Wrenching your body towards hers, her grip fractures your wrists, lips brushing by your ear as she gives you one last kiss. Breath as cold as ice, eyes as pale as the moon. 

"Only an honest death will cure you now."

Plip, plop, plip, plop. 

She is dead. 

Everyone is dead. 

A rogue Hunter broke into the Research Hall, slaughtering everyone in the observatory deck in the midst of your surgery, blood from the bodies pooling down over the railings and steps. Years of research- of true progress - destroyed by a man worth little more than a beast. 

You can hardly think. You just run. 

Church Hunters are killers by nature, beasts who oh so easily give in to the Scourge. Clearly, this one was already lost, driven mad by his own bloodlust. 

Dying screams and unanswered prayers echo down every hall like a haunted church during worship, and no matter how far you run their last words ring in your ears and rattle your skull. The air tastes like iron and you feel something warm trickle down your lips. Your nose is bleeding.

Running into a laboratory, you duck as bodies are thrown against priceless equipment, vials shattering and blood splattering onto countless records as the Research Hall runs red. The water runs red. The ocean rises. 

Surely someone has raised the alarm, more Church Hunters should be coming to the rescue, but by then you fear it may be too late for— 

“Stop running, you fucking scum.”

You freeze.

You swore you had outrun it. You swore it was behind you, lazy and greedy in the carnage it had already created. And yet here it stood, blood-soaked and snarling before you. 

Death itself.

Hunched in the corridor before you was the rogue Hunter, standing in the ocean of blood as he bites into a trapped scholar’s neck, the poor boy writhing with a violet scream until he goes limp in the Hunter’s arms, drained. 

Vampyre. Vileblood. Accursed beast. 

“Monster.” 

He smiles back, fangs bloody and bare. “Likewise.”

With a lunge, the Hunter is upon you, but it is not the harsh tile but rather a soft thud of soil that breaks your fall. The petals of crushed sunflowers shrivel under your body as they dim in their dying moments. 

No, not sunflowers, there is no sun, not anymore. Instead, these ghostly imitations of sunflowers seem to feed off of something else entirely, curling around your bleeding legs and stretching towards the Hunter as he too appears in the gateway to the garden. 

Unsheathing his claymore, the Hunter stalks forward, shadows warping his form with every arch he passes under, ticking closer and closer and closer still. But instead of swiftly delivering you the killing blow, the Hunter stalls, pausing at the last archway before the garden as he sees a patient writhing against the marble. 

Their bloated head was too large for their deformed shoulders to support, and instead of fleeing they were doomed to writhe on the dirt, chained limbs flailing with every gurgled cry. The Hunter barely wastes a moment, cutting free the patient’s bindings before a dull thud echoes down the garden walkway. 

You watch the patient’s head roll across the marble and scoff from your place on the ground. What a waste of a valuable test subject. 

Even in death’s face you can’t help but laugh at the self-proclaimed righteousness of this Beast. “Do you think yourself a savior?”

At first, he doesn’t grant you the dignity of a reply. “I hold no illusions. I'm just a different breed of monster from you, heretic.” Swinging his claymore, it glints the same violent red as his hair. It’s as beautiful as it is blinding. “But at least I’ll die knowing I haven't condemned hundreds to an early grave for the selfish illusions of gods and power.”

You laugh, “Illusions? Your kind will never comprehend the truth. Their lives were willingly offered for the sake of evolving mankind, so that no plague or war or sin could corrupt us again.”

The Hunter is above you now, kicking a boot onto your chest as he forces you to the floor with the tip of his claymore pressed to your throat. 

You simply greet the kiss of metal with open arms, saying a final prayer in hopes the Great Ones accept you in your next life. “Kill me, Beast. Kill me, but know that our pursuit of knowledge can never be quelled.”

“You call it knowledge, I see only carnage.”

“And the dog can stare at language so long as it desires, but it shall never speak.”

“Then howl.”

And with a single slash, the Hunter severs your head from your shoulders. 

Plip.

We fail to realize our own latent potential until the moment it is lost, and we sense its absence. Ironically, this is the very nature of insight, like the moment one licks one's own blood, only to be startled by its sweetness.

And your blood, mon cherí , was oh so sweet. 

Plop.

· · ─────── ·♰· ─────── · ·

Every night, without the sun ever coming up, the lunar cycle inches closer to the full moon. And with every cycle, the neverending hunt grows more violent and vicious. 

And when the full moon finally takes up Her place in the sky, She hangs low with a silver glow and the promise of blood. She is enchanting, haunting, and hungry in a way only the divine can be: utterly insatiable.  

The early spring snow has long since melted, slathering cobblestones in a bloody sludge, the cold air tainted with the rotten stench of iron and the screams of the Beasts, newly transformed and starving. Down the flickering streets, far in the distance, and even inside alleyway buildings, the howls of the damned are inescapable.

Everybody who has once called Yharnam their home is dead, dying, or transforming into something else entirely. 

You’re not sure which is worst. 

Where the Beasts go the Hunters follow, two sides of the same twisted fate, and the hunt quickly turns into a bloodbath. To quell public panic and unrest, the Healing Church has deployed wave after wave of Hunters, and soon both man and monster prowl the streets of Yharnam, nearly indistinguishable as they are doused in red and silver. 

The Church has eyes everywhere tonight, and yet, with so many injured you cannot help but keep your clinic doors open. You took an oath, and you shall keep it no matter how dark this night gets. 

Within hours, your clinic is overwhelmed. 

The main floor only has three rooms, several dozen cots crammed in between supplies and maze-like walkways, and the stench of gore and panic overwhelming the small space. Even with extra makeshift cots you and the orphans scrambled together, several dozen Hunters and injured civilians lay sprawled across boxes of medical equipment, bleeding out against tables or on each other. 

You tried to mandate Scourge infection screenings at the door, checking for darkening veins or fogging pupils, but with only the children and yourself left to run the clinic you’re quickly overrun and forgo the physical examinations. Perhaps that was the first mistake. By the second toll of the bell the clinic already reeks of blood and piss and sweat and death. Combined with the rising temperatures due to the growing crowd of bodies and the overlapping screams of your patients, it was nearly unbearable. 

For the sake of basic sanitation, you tried to delegate each patient to their own area and medical equipment, but cross-contamination is inevitable as panicked townsfolk and aggravated Hunters scramble and fight for the quickly dwindling supplies. It was a nightmare come to life.

“Doctor!”

Turning, you nearly barrel into an elderly woman, helping her out of the way before you rush to Alison, who is still calling your name as she and Edwin fight to keep a patient down. He’s a Hunter, you quickly realize, pinned onto the cot as he thrashes and screams, a black rot squirming and crawling like a parasite burrowing into the gash across his open stomach. 

“ Merde ,” you curse, watching the rot spread, “It’s the Scourge. Edwin! Strap his limbs down and ensure no other patients come near.” 

The boy nods, already shouting orders to the other children as they struggle together to tie down the screaming Hunter as you force panicked observers out of the way.

Running past, you shove past the door to your lab, scrambling up the stairs and between the numerous experiments until you find the mixed cultured samples of Diluc’s vampire blood.

There was no time to check which of the trials- if any- actually contained an antibody capable of fighting the Beastly Scourge, but you’d be damned to have collected this much information and not try when a patient was dying right below your feet. 

You pick one randomly. “Please,” praying into the syringe, you fill it with culture #9801. “Work.”

Downstairs, someone screams.

A few seconds later, you hear a loud crash, a body hitting the floor, then nothing but panicked shrieks, chasing you down the stairs as you burst through the clinic doors.

The infected Hunter was already in the midst of transforming, one furry arm freed from the restraints and thrashing widely at the air, snarling like a mad beast as Edwin and Alison fight to keep the other limbs locked.

Disregarding the flailing claws of the half-beast, you duck beneath the equipment, crawling until you lay under the mad Hunter’s cot. Snapping up, you lunge to avoid getting pierced, twisting around the bottom of the cot before thrusting the syringe into his side, pushing down as you watch the gray liquid inject. He howls and you tremble, fighting to keep the needle lodged in his rotting skin. 

Then the Hunter lies still.

A moment of silence.

And, before your very eyes, he begins to revert, fur receding and bones snapping back into place as he groans and gasps in human pain. It worked.

It worked. 

It really worked. 

Giddy with hope, you’re already running through countless possibilities of furthering testing on mice and the logistics for mass producing a vaccine, the reality of finally creating a cure for the Beastly Scourge so impossibly wondrous you’re physically shaking. Biting your cheek does little to hide your smile, and it's only another look around the packed clinic that reminds you of the task at hand. 

Rolling out from under the cot, you instruct the children to leave the man’s restraints on, just in case, you tell yourself, and move them on to treat new patients. 

Notes can wait. Plans can wait. Hope can wait. 

Your patients cannot.

You repeat the mantra over and over, yet it does little to ground you against the flurry of thoughts surrounding this potential cure. Which, in hindsight, is probably why you failed to notice a fallen medical tray, boot skidding across the metal surface as your ankle rolls out from under you. 

You couldn’t even process the fall in time to scream. Only a blink, and your vision swoops to the ceiling as you plummet backward. 

But you never hit the floor. 

An arm wraps around your waist, holding you tight the other hand re-balances you from the small of your back. Then you’re hoisted up, the walls shifting back in place. Even so, your savior’s touch lingers, the burn of his palm radiating even through your lab coat. He smells like smoke. 

“Careful.”

You breathe in deeply despite yourself, “Diluc.”

You didn’t even notice him enter. 

But then you falter. Why is he here? Your Hunter makes it a point only to arrive when the clinic is empty, or at least sneak by to avoid as many people as possible. There is no way he wouldn’t have heard- or frankly smelled- the blood and panic in your clinic from miles away with his enhanced senses.

Your brows furrow, and Diluc flinches ever so slightly as your fingers graze his jaw.  “Is something the matter? You look weary.”

Refusing to meet your gaze, Diluc notices Alison and Orton struggling to drag another cot through the crowd of patients, and vanishes from your side. He single-handedly lifts the bed and sets it down across the clinic hall, reappearing beside you within a fraction of a second. His palm immediately returns to rest against your back. 

“You seem busy.”

Avoiding the question. Typical. 

And yet it’s really quite hard to stay mad at Diluc when he subconsciously hugs you tighter, shielding you from the mass of patients pushing past, so clearly overwhelmed by the noise and the crowd and yet lingering by you. For you. Not only that but the heat of his touch and the looming reminder of how much his form towers over you makes you far more distracted than you’d like to admit. 

But before you could even think of teasing him for the habit, Diluc pulls you even closer still, making your tongue twist in your mouth as your jaw goes slack. His hand comes up, skimming past your collarbones as it pauses by your neck. 

Is he—? Here? Now? 

You’re still in the midst of processing the initiation of this very public display when Diluc frowns, his hand brushing past your jaw. 

“How…” Ever so gently his fingers tilt your head back, tracing across your neck with a touch so cold it almost feels like the tip of a blade. “When did you get this scar?”

“Scar?”

Startled, break from Diluc’s hold, picking up a medical tray for a makeshift mirror as you crane your chin backward. 

Sure enough, slashed across the near entirety of your neck was a needle-thin scar, silver and almost invisible in the low light. You would have thought it a trick of the fluorescent clinic lights or side effects of your fatigue if not for Diluc questioning it first. 

How had you received the scar? 

You can’t remember. 

Your vision swims for a moment, distorting as if a veil has been thrown over your eyes, focusing and unfocusing as if the cloth of reality danced and fluttered just outside your perception. Seeing through omission. Noticing only that which is not there. Remembering that which has not happened yet and what is to come. 

It rushes against your ears, a sound strong enough to be a feeling, like getting tossed under the waves until your very sense of being is distorted, not knowing which way is up. 

A blink and it’s gone; you’ve resurfaced, and your head throbs in its absence.

“Saints.” Groaning, you cradle your temples, muttering that you’re fine over and over again as you manage to hear Diluc’s voice through the roar of the surf. 

He says your name again, louder this time, and the sound of the ocean cuts off with the scream of a child. What the fuck. You look wildly around the clinic, and yet there are no children in sight, only a young maiden and a few young Hunters getting treated for their wounds. 

“If there something you’re keeping from me—”

You force a smile. “I’m fine, Diluc. Just a little tired from all of this,” you motion, arms sweeping across the clinic and towards him before running your hands up your face and into your hair. Even so, you keep the grin, eyeing the infected Hunter still sleeping peacefully in his cot. “Enough about me, did you see it? The cure?”

He still looks abnormally tense, eyeing you with something you can’t quite place, something between reverence and regret that makes your chest pang. You step forward, about to ask again when another voice cuts across the chaos of the clinic. 

“Pardon me, are you the lead physician of this establishment?” 

You jolt away from Diluc, whipping around as you find a young man— A patient? A Hunter?-- grinning in an almost overly-friendly manner as he approaches the both of you with clasped hands. Correction: as he approaches Diluc , clearly mistaking him for the physician.

Clearing your throat, you step before the stranger, offering him a gloved hand that he takes half in reflex and half in confusion. “Correct. However, if this is a request for quicker treatment, allow me to remind you that we treat every patient here equally and you or your friend will simply have to wait your turn.”

The man's face lights up in surprise, and he immediately shouts out an apology. “I beg your pardon, I only assumed that–” the man stops himself, nearly doubling over in laughter as curls of thick blonde hair flop with every hearty chuckle. “I suppose that was the problem to begin with, no? No more assumptions. A pleasure to meet you, m’lady.”

“Doctor will work just fine.”

"Oh, well beg your pardon, Doctor. You may call me Alfred!" He says, offering a deep bow and salute, his elbow pulled across his waist as he bends down, almost parallel with the ground. 

You shift in place. Despite Alfred’s unfaltering smile you cannot help but feel on guard around the boyish man: a type of unnerving fight or flight instinct one gets when cornered by a being that resembles something almost human.

A wolf in sheep's clothing. A monster in human skin. 

A mirror. 

Scanning his heavily embroidered cloak, you note its uncanny familiarity, a solid gray from top to bottom and covered in tight lapels and buttons. It was adorned with the rune stitched right into the center of his chest, revealed only when the heavy cloak hanging from his shoulders swung out to the side. 

That’s why you recognize them. They resemble Choir garbs. Not exactly, and he’s definitely too young to also be an orphan, but the similarity is undeniable. 

And that rune, you now remember what it stands for: God’s Executioner. 

You instinctually go for the dagger kept sheathed away in your lab coat. One strike. The clinic begins to warp with silence and static, and somewhere through the haze you watch Alfred lean closer, your vision narrowing into the hollow dip of his throat. One strike to the carotid artery, and the monster will bleed to death almost instantly. 

Trembling, your arm raises, snaking under your coat almost in slow motion, clasping around the handle just as someone’s hand stops yours in an iron grip. 

“M’lady?”

Their touch snaps you back to the present. Breath is punched back into your gut, and your senses are rushed with the smell of gore and rubbing alcohol, remembering the chaos of the clinic and the conversation you were in the midst of having. 

Alfred’s smile is twisted with concern, but you’re hardly coherent enough to stop him from coming closer as he continues talking about something or other you can’t quite hear above the roar of your own heartbeat. 

“The Doctor is rather overworked right now.” Your hand is nudged away from the concealed blade, and your back hits something firm, grounding you. ”Excuse us.” 

Diluc. It was Diluc’s hand that stopped yours just moments before you brandished your knife in the middle of the clinic. It was Diluc’s chest you’re pressed up against, an almost casual position if one failed to notice his hands lingering around your hip and wrist.

Saints, what is wrong with you?

Alfred opens his mouth to speak again, but your Hunter cuts him off with a curt nod, turning the both of you away before pushing towards the clinic's back door. You squirm against his hold, constantly twisting around as you watch Alfred’s gaze obsessively follow you. 

“Diluc, that man was wearing a Holy Shawl.”

“I am aware.”

“You- you don’t understand, he’s a hunter.”

“I know.” Diluc keeps pushing you forward, turning your neck back around when you fight to look behind you.

“No, no, you do not. He is a hunter . An Executioner, a hunter of Vilebloods, and he saw you-” This time when you turn back, Alfred is gone. You scan the clinic wildly, fighting against Diluc’s grasp. 

Diluc calls your name. “I know.” His hands slowly cup your cheeks, forcing you to quit looking erratically over his shoulders and finally meet his gaze. “I knew.”

The overwhelming smells and sounds of the clinic fade away as the sudden rush of the cold night air nips at your skin, the clinic’s back door clicking shut as Diluc leads you into the dim alley. You don’t realize how much you’re shaking until you try and pull his hands from your face, your fingers trembling against his own. 

How could you have been so fucking careless? You’re not a registered physician, not as far as the Healing Church is concerned, and that alone could be grounds for punishment, anywhere from mutilation to public execution. Not to mention, as a woman there’s no guarantee accusations of witchcraft or colluding with the devil wouldn't be charged against you as well. Now not only have you put your practice and patients at risk, but also Diluc and the children, not to mention jeopardize the cure you’ve only just managed to— 

You need to get the Church off your trail. 

It’s only the lingering heat of Diluc’s palms against your face that keeps you anchored from the voices rattling your skull with promises of violence. Breathe. 

You step back. Diluc lets you. Inhale. Your eyes are still locked with his, and your breathing syncs with his own, and you watch the worry fade from his crimson gaze before you curse at the ground. Exhale. 

“Don’t.”

“What?” You flinch at your own tone.

Diluc crosses his arms, blocking your path back into the clinic as you are forced backward. “I’m not a fool. You almost brandished a knife at a church executioner, you’re not thinking clearly.” 

You scoff. “Very well, so I panicked. But if you had let me lure him outside alone I could have taken care of—”

“What, and you believe the Healing Church would simply fail to notice when the Executioner they assigned to investigate this clinic doesn’t return?” A snarl, and you swear his eyes glow red in the dim light. He steps forward and instinctively you shrink back. ”I knew you were reckless, but I never took you as plain stupid. Do you want a larger target on your back? You like throwing yourself in danger?” 

Before you could even think to respond Diluc lets out a curt, mocking laugh, humorless as he motions between the two of you before snapping back to you. “Of course you do.”

Now it’s your turn to see red. 

How dare he. 

How dare that impulsive, violent, martyr of a Hunter accuse you of being the reckless one. 

And then— “You will stop seeing patients.”

The sheer absurdity of the request is enough to give you physical whiplash. “Excuse me?” 

Not a request. A demand. 

You gape up at him, insults and plain curses boiling up against your throat as you stare at Diluc’s apathetic, unchanging face, scowling down at you as though disciplining a bratty child or spoiled dog. 

“I certainly will not .” You step towards the clinic, the screams and prayers of patients resounding even through the door frame. “Tonight's Hunt has no end in sight, and already there are dozens who need my help. Not to mention I finally might have a cure for the Scourge.”

“That is precisely why you must lie low! You saw the Executioner prying, what makes you think the Church won’t send more dogs?”  

"This is my duty, Hunter. Just as you have yours."

Diluc snarls, "I'm fully aware of what being a doctor entails. But you are not—" He catches your gaze, tired and frustrated, and goes silent. Fuck. How is it that everything he says around you comes out wrong? He thinks it might be the curse of being undead. Oh, how easy if he could blame it on his lack of a heart, to blame it on Vampirism to blame it on the Church. But he feels it, he feels it skip when you look at him like this, he feels it tremble as he fails again and again to hold on without leaving claw marks and open wounds instead.

His anger has a way of always attacking the people he wants to protect. 

“You’re right,” You whisper. “We have only failed before, but that is precisely why we cannot fail again. If I can somehow manage to get the Church to distribute this cure, everyone in Yharnam could be immune in only a week's time. We could stop the Scourge in a matter of days- is that not worth every risk?”

"It was foolish. There was no guarantee that cure would have worked."

You stare at him, and by the gods are you tired. You’re tired of reaching, tired of convincing yourself that there must always be a catch, a drawback, a trap, that every effort is just an illusion of hope waiting to shatter. You simply want the conviction to truly believe that for once the world will get better.

 You think you have to hope. 

After all, that is why you saved him, is it not? It’s why you couldn't pull the trigger all those months ago. It’s why, after knowing all these reasons not to, you’re falling in love with him.

A sigh, and you're overwhelmed with the need to hold him. So you do, resting your head against his chest. He’s warm. "There are never guarantees, Diluc. Every treatment is subject to trial and chance, but at the end of the day I still treat my patients, and you still hunt your monsters."

And Diluc wants to fight back. He wants to stop you, to stop you before you truly cross the point of no return. To tear himself open and display the horrors of what the Hunter’s contract has forced upon him, anything to make you realize how much of a privilege the option of ignorance and the ability to just look away is. 

But all that you hear next are the screams coming from inside the clinic. 

You tear yourself away from the Hunter, jerking towards the backdoor before Diluc stops you, one hand pulling you backward as the other lands on the hilt of his greatsword. He unsheathes his claymore with practiced ease, kicking the door wide as you both push into the clinic. 

The stench of blood and gore nearly knocks you over. 

Bile crawls up your throat, and you drop to your knees in time to dodge an operating table hurled at the door. Diluc cleaves it in half, the pieces clattering to the floor. A Beast, writhing in pain as its ribs crack open, fur and limbs emerge from its writhing body in bloody spurts, still half restrained to a cot as it screeches and drags behind him.

You lunge for your rifle, aiming for the Beast’s head when you recognize that torn uniform, the Hunter garbs. He’s the patient, the patient you cured. 

The rifle trembles and your finger loosens on the trigger. “I can’t...” The cure had worked. 

You can’t kill a man.

But your Hunter knows no such hesitation. Diluc moves with an eerie grace, his sword flashing in the dim light of the clinic as he meets the Beast before it lunges at the mob. Blade strikes claw and the monster roars. Diluc ducks a swing, twisting his grip before punching the claymore upwards, slicing through the Beast’s ribcage as blood sprays in an arch across the clinic walls. 

"Stop! Don't kill him!" You cured him. You saw it, the cure worked. It had to have worked.

Diluc pauses unnaturally, stopping mid-swing as if his heart and instinct were fighting for control. "Are you mad?” It snarls and he drives the blade in again. ”It’s the Scourge, it's beyond saving!"

You shake your head, your eyes locked onto the Beasts. You can see it, the pain flickering in his cloudy, poisoned gaze, the slight twitch of his furry limbs as they resist the transformation. Only a human would fight that hard to stay alive. 

 But Diluc doesn't listen. The Hunter sees only a Beast.

Panicked, you’re about to drop your aim when your head rushes with an eerie ringing, a muted toll of bells throbbing through your ears as your balance gives. You barely register the pain of your knees ramming into the tile as your vision spins, throbbing in time to the ringing. Then, with a suddenness that makes you jump, it speaks. 

The Beast’s snarls part to form words, his voice now broken and guttural, as though attempting to make human speech from an animal tongue. "You believe you can save me?" it howls in laughter. "You believe you can break the curse that’s been wrought upon us?" 

Fool.

Foolish greedy human, always wanting knowledge that should never have been yours. 

Diluc steps back as though stunned, his sword lowering slightly. The Beast takes advantage of the momentary distraction and charges towards him. Your body moves on instinct. With a bang, your rifle goes off, the Beast howling as it convulses over its bleeding stomach, its flesh bubbling around the silver bullet with the stench of rotten flesh.

Diluc takes the opening, claymore following a clean arch over his shoulder. The metal sings, hitting the clinic’s floor at the same moment the Beast’s head does so too, its massive body following suit in a bloody heap. 

The screams of the other patients fade into the background as you stare at the lifeless body of the beast. Diluc turns to look at you, and you ground yourself in the inferno burning in his eyes. Such a violent, violent red. 

“Did you…” Diluc kneels before you, and you cling to him, gaping. “Did you hear him?”

The Hunter's brows furrow, and he lifts you slowly, as though scared of startling you. “Hear what?”

You don’t remember. 

Your gaze flickers back to the corpse of the Hunter. You lock eyes with his decapitated head, skull morphed into something half-wolf half-man, eyes still blown open as he stares back, frozen in horror.

He’s dead. The Hunter is dead.

Your cure failed. 

And yet, before it failed it worked, did it not? There was a moment of time where it worked, where it truly worked, and in that moment alone you imagined a Yharnam cleared of the Scourge and of the rot. And it was beautiful. 

You have to try again. You must find the cure. No matter the cost.

You don’t even realize you’re muttering it to yourself, over and over again until Diluc’s hand clasps onto your shoulder, ripping your gaze off the Hunter’s mutilated body and back to his own. 

Diluc’s words are quiet, recited more to himself than you. "You cannot save everyone."

You know, and yet.

“If I don’t, then who will?”

[qsycomplainsalot]

So I watched Furiosa

Furiosa Road: a Star Wars Story. It wasn't likely to live up to Fury Road, and it didn't. It would have been a tall order. While it was well worth paying to see in theaters, I was still a little disappointed; I'm going to explain why, without spoilers, and then after a very visible cut I'll comment on a few specific things in the movie.

First of all it felt long, but not two hours long so I guess it speaks to its quality. Going through the cast, everyone did a good job, although I wasn't blown away by the on screen chemistry of Anya Taylor-Joy and Tom Burke. More on that later. Chris Hemsworth as the overarching antagonist is this movie's standout performance, in a way that I'm somewhat conflicted about. More on that later too.

Overall it feels as if, after making Fury Road a trim and thrilling movie, the creatives behind it strung together all the piles of amazing ideas they had left on the cutting room floor into another complete movie, but not a very cohesive story with a beginning middle and end with enough connective tissue to captivate an audience. There's no shortage of props, costumes, characters, stunts and just straight up visuals, although the music is not up to the standards set by Fury Road. What's really missing is a tight knit script.

I'd say watch it if you like the franchise, otherwise I'd just wait for it to release on small screens.

My biggest complaint with this movie is that it's split between two relationships, between Hemsworth as Dementus or Tom Burke as Jack with Furiosa, when really with how it's paced it could barely afford one. I am just completely confused by people saying Jack and Furiosa's relationship was the highlight of the movie, it was vague, bland, and Jack died before I could really care about him. All this relationship did was explain how Furiosa became so good at driving a war rig, despite the fact that by this point in the movie she'd fended for herself just fine, presumably using what she'd been taught by the vuvuzela tribe. Likewise Dementus as a character is extremely simple, in a good way, and is the a better representation of time passing in the movie than literal text onscreen telling you it's been fifteen years or some such. It's on the nose, but Chris Hemsworth is acting his heart out and it's always a joy to see him on screen. He's spiraling his way through the movie in a perfect exemple of what Furiosa must avoid becoming. So knowing that, the main plot should be about Furiosa having to lose her way home (the star map tattoo on her arm, which we know she lose by Fury Road) and choose to stay at the Citadel to kill him, setting up a bitter ending where she's gained nothing and is stuck killing more people instead of letting go of revenge and going home. Unfortunately Furiosa: the video game: the movie very much lives in the shadow of its 2015 sequel, and so the plot is split further to set that up. I've talked about how it hurts the pacing and how much screentime the other characters could have gotten, but I think it actually greatly diminished the ending. The end of Furiosa has her catch up to Dementus, bind him and beat him up, asking him to give her her childhood and mother back, only for Dementus to refuse to play along in anyway. He tells her that revenge achieves nothing, that he knows from personal experience and that she can kill him however she wants, that he doesn't particularly care. I don't do it justice it's a pretty good end to his arc this movie. Instead of Furiosa killing him there and then and validating that speech for a cohesive theme to the movie (keeping the hope stuff for Fury Road where it works), the history man voiceover tells us that although the true end of Dementus is disputed, Furiosa told him the truth, that she kept him alive with a peach tree growing out of his dick ?? And then she brings the peach to Immortan's wives in the Citadel, and then the credits are interspersed with shots from Fury Road. I can excuse the impossibility of keeping someone alive while a tree is growing on them for the sake of Mad Max movies very much being wasteland fairy tales, but I think directly linking Furiosa: Road One with Fury Road like that is both pointless and very hamfisted, on top of being a big disappointment when it comes to Dementus' character. Like the guy was clearly fucked up from losing his daughters just kill him and be done with it. Anyway yeah I don't think I'll rewatch this movie nearly as often as I rewatch Fury Road. Shoutout to the Octoboss though, he's the Most Valuable Sidecharacter of this movie.

[darkfeanix]

I've got conflicting feelings about the new episode of Vows and Vengeance. Under the cut in case of spoilers.

On the one hand, great to finally have some real Taash content.

On the other hand, it feels like the people behind the podcast had only a passing knowledge of Dragon Age. The way the Temple of the Lost Dragon was handled felt too... religious, for starters. If it was meant to be sacred to the Qunari, I feel like it should have been tied more directly to the Qun, perhaps a site visited by Koslun or something like that? My understanding of the Qun is limited, but I actually wonder if they would even have sacred sites in the way that it seems to suggest in the discussion of it between Taash and the Qunari soldier.

Speaking of the Qunari soldier, there was at least one, maybe even two, that sounded a bit too feminine. I don't know which actor was voicing them, they listed a few for additional voices. It just broke my immersion a bit when one of the biggest things about the Qunari is their extremely restrictive gender roles. Could this soldier have been Aqun-Athlok? Sure. But that feels more like a Watsonian explanation than a Doylist one.

Really, the portrayal of the Qunari as a whole felt just... a little off. The whole "kadan" exchange... I could almost dismiss it as an intentional case of miscommunication, but it really feels like they were writing it to just mean "friend", when we know from past uses that it has a much deeper meaning than a friendly stranger.

Also, saying Taash will be hanged? It feels so un-Qunari like. Wouldn't they send her to the Tamassran to be re-programmed, or if not that, to be subjected to qamek? I feel like executing an able-bodied woman like Taash would be considered wasteful under the Qun, which feels like it ties back to the idea of the temple being "sacred".

Unrelated to any of the above, Nadia is really starting to frustrate me as a protagonist. I'm trying to interrogate those feelings, asking myself if her behaviour would annoy me as much if she were a man... and to be honest, yeah, I'm pretty sure it would. It's a really unfortunate combination of selfishness, self-pity, and angrily lashing out at everybody that is hitting all the wrong buttons for me. I get where it's all coming from, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating.

Also, this is absolutely the nitpickiest of nitpicks, but at one point Drayden asks how Taash knows the Gamordan Stormrider is female, and Taash says it's the "ridges and colouring of her spine". But it's established in lore that only female dragons can grow into high dragons, so it should go without saying that the Stormrider is female, because a male wouldn't have gotten big enough to cause the damage done to the Qunari settlement.

As I said, it was great to finally get some Taash content, and I absolutely loved Jin Maley's performance in the role, but this was probably my least favourite episode so far.

[hoeratius]

okay, asking this question is maybe the dumbest i've ever felt bc it feels like there should be a straightforward, obvious answer here, but every time i've tried to look it up, i've found nothing but pages upon pages of what feels like people talking in circles and only serving to make me more confused in the end. since you're the most knowledgable person i follow when it comes to the Classics, i figured this might be a good place to ask and maybe get an actual answer? (that being said, it's fine if you don't want to/don't have the time to answer this! obviously!!)

where can i read about the older greek myths? as in pre-trojan war. mostly, i'm interested in theseus but also just pre-trojan war stories in general. i know not everything got the iliad/odyssey treatment and there's probably not any surviving text to point at in a lot of cases, but there must've been something. every time i try to look up where to read about the history of theseus, i'm being directed to a bunch of modern retellings, but google has gotten so bad as a search engine, i literally cannot find anything about the origins of this thing everybody's retelling

from what i understand, theseus was sort of everywhere sticking his nose in everything at all times, so i'm not asking for a comprehensive timeline of his whackass life and everything he ever appeared in or anything, but if you could point me in the direction of anything about him--actual plays or academic texts, anything like that--that's more credible than, like, a self-published, self-described "bold new reimagining" with a stock image of a dude in party city roman cosplay as the cover, it would be MUCH appreciated 😭

(again, sorry about how... basic this question is i guess lol? i'm very new to classics in general and still pretty ignorant about everything, so it's EXTREMELY likely that this is a very dumb question with a very obvious answer, but thank you regardless!)

Hello! What an exciting ask (and apologies for my excited and maybe incoherent answer)!

Since you seem to be most interested in Theseus, I’ll use him as an example but much of this can be applied to other Greek heroes/myths/stories more generally.

As you noted, few get the Iliad/Odyssey treatment. In fact, even Achilles and Odysseus don’t, considering the Iliad spans only 7 weeks or so, and the Odyssey misses out on Odysseus’s actions before and during the Trojan War, and after he came home – and he did a lot after he came home. So where to go to find all the other stories that happened?

Some things to keep in mind:

Writers assumed their audience was familiar with the hero’s greatest deeds already

The big boys – Achilles, Odysseus, Theseus, Perseus, Heracles, Oedipus – had their stories shared in many formats. Think of the Parthenon metopes, which show Theseus’s key deeds in sculpture, or vases, hymns, public performances, bedtime stories, etc. People would encounter these often enough that the outlines of these heroes’ stories were known to them from a young age.

One of the Metopes of the Parthenon, showing (probably) Athena and Theseus.

As a result, ancient texts never show the entire story; they select the moment they want to tell and focus in on that. Hence the Iliad focuses on Achilles’s wrath, the Odyssey emphasises his homecoming, and the Argonautica tells the story of the Golden Fleece. Similarly, tragedies will choose a meaningful moment: not all of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra’s struggles, but his return home in the Agamemnon, or the events that lead directly to Pentheus’s dismemberment in the Bakchai.

So finding one text that will give you a useful overview will be hard!

These heroes are often also connected to so many other famous characters, that sometimes they show up as a side character in their stories, so it depends on which stories capture your interest most.

Pre-Homeric texts are few and far between

But this is not to say there aren’t pre-Trojan-War myths!

There are loads! Anything with Heracles or Theseus is pre-Iliadic, and others, like the house of Pelops, link more to the Trojan War but are also separate from it. Plus, there is Hesiod’s Theogony (roughly contemporary with Homer), which tells of the births of the gods and goes all the way back to the start of the universe.

The Ovid situation

Many Greek texts are lost, and we’ve only got allusions to this or that part of the myth in the existing fragments, etc. etc. So how do we still know so much about so many of these stories?

Enter my fave: Ovid.

Far later than Homer (1st century versus 8th century BC), but with access to all the Greek texts and them some, he wrote a lot of fairly comprehensive stories. These include the Heroides, letters written from the perspective of female characters trying to connect to their male lovers, with letter 10 coming from Ariadne to Theseus, and Metamorphoses 8 with parts of Theseus’s story.

If you’re looking for a high-level overview of what was what in ancient myth, starting with the Metamorphoses will give you all the big boys and many of the smaller ones.

Theseus specifically:

I must admit that Theseus is not my strong suit, but sources I’m familiar with that I would recommend:

Hippolytus, by Euripides and Phaedra by Seneca: these both tell of Theseus’s second wife Phaedra falling for his son Hippolytus and causing his death

Catullus 64: A lament from Ariadne after Theseus has abandoned her on Naxos

Metamorphoses 8, 12, by Ovid: Snippets of Theseus’s life, incl the Minotaur

Ones I’m not as familiar with but might be up your street:

Life of Theseus, Plutarch: a historian/scholar’s biography. He had them in pairs, where he compared the two; Theseus is linked to Romulus

The Argonautica, Apollonius Rhodus: Follows Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece; Theseus is one of his heroes

Oedipus at Colonnus, Sophocles: apparently Theseus is a major side character here but I don’t remember!

There is also The King must Die by Mary Renault, a modern retelling from the ‘80s that blew me away. The only book set in ancient Greece I’ve ever read that doesn’t shy away from how alien their culture and values are to us today and doesn’t try to sugarcoat things.

And if you’re looking for more heroes: Wikipedia is your friend!

The Classics-related pages are pretty reliable, and they often mention the main sources per character.  

I hope this gets you started but please do hit me up with more questions, I always love diving into these things!

[tachimichishrine]

"mornings and marriage"

⫭◦⨝◦⫬

tachihara michizou x fem! reader

warnings: nsfw ; morning sex it's literally just morning sex with slight fluff afterwards followed by more sex ; hard tachi soft tachi hard tachi to sum ; short n vanilla but uhhh no buts i have no excuse ; intended lowercase ; cursing ; unedited af

gentle rays of sun snuck their way into your bedroom. a soft glow of pink as the sun rose signaled that the day had only just begun, and the musical chirping outside your window provided further proof of the time.

you had a bit of trouble hearing the birds' call though, as it was muffled out by the sound of skin slapping skin and heavy breathing.

"mmmn... michi, if you want teruko to stop... haaah... demanding piggyback rides, you should just tell... nng... her."

your boyfriend was the one who asked to sleep with his dick still in you, and you told him that he was the one who was going to have the deal with the repercussions in the event that you did some kind of weird movement in your sleep and it popped right off, or some other dramatic outcome. however, the real consequence just turned out that he went to sleep and woke up hard and ready to fuck you; you told him that he would have to put in the work this morning because you were still exhausted from last night.

he was so good at taking commands; of course he was, he was a hunting dog after all. you worked in one of the ability research labs that took down information about the super soldiers' conditions in order to optimize their performance, and you'd made the first move by asking him if you could get some measurements down there. in his flustered daze of a response where he almost seemed angry out of embarrassment, you specified that you would need to measure it with your lips after you took him out to dinner. you had no idea how you got him to accept that first date.

a few years later, he grinded his hips into yours lazily. he didn't even bother to prop himself up on his forearms, just letting his weight rest on you and messily burying himself in between your legs while he told you about his day. it was actually what happened yesterday, but as soon as he had gotten home you barely let him get a word in before pulling him into bed.

"yeah, it doesn't work that way," he huffed out, chuckling a little bit when your thighs tensed and you wrapped your legs around his waist to pull him in better.

your fingers slid from the mattress up to his shoulders and held him tightly when you inadvertently clenched and he groaned. "you'll never... aahhh~ know until you try. I had a coworker who pissed me off-f ah! fuck, fuck, do that again... the coworker was an asshole to everyone so I got him transferred to another division.. nng, fuck, oh god you feel so fucking good, michi..."

your voice was shaking from pleasure, and soon enough he picked up the pace in order to finish inside of you. even through the cum leaking out of your pussy, he pulled out and filled you back up with his fingers in order to not leave you high and dry. one order from your lips telling him to clean up his mess and he buried his face in between your thighs, sucking his own cum back down along with the taste of you.

"you know," you managed between heavy breaths, his teeth grazing your throbbing clit, "there's somethin' I've been mea-ahh!... meaning to ask you, and I want to ask it now. you don't need to respond, just keeping sucking on me like that, baby."

to readjust the angle, he grabbed your thigh and brought it over his shoulder to make it easier to jut his tongue in and out of your pussy. he had no idea what you wanted to talk about, but you told him just to listen and keeping eating you out, and he was more than happy to oblige.

"so, I was at the store the other day, and... hahhh... mnnnf... they had a discount for soldiers and veterans, and their families, and I was- I wa-..." you took a short break to catch your breath and flatten your feet on the bed to rut your hips upwards and chase after the addicting sensation. "I was thinking about whether you would be eligible, since you're... you know... but it got me thinking about how I wouldn't get the discount since... nnng... we're not married. and I don't really care but if we got married I'd have to meet your family... and I was just... hah, all this to ask... mmmn... if I could meet your parents."

as soon as those last words slipped out of your mouth, his mouth slipped out of you. he looked up at you with his face flushed from eating you out so hard, but even the dripping liquid around his lips wasn't enough to hide the irritated look on his face. you motioned for him to slide back up, and you kissed the mess on his face away before he could say a thing. his dick was hard enough from having heard your moans, and you slid it back in between your legs once you flipped him onto his back.

"what is it?" you humped him slowly so that he could answer, but he shook his head slowly.

"when I marry you, I don't want my parents there."

it was your turn for shock; you stopped rocking into him just to process his words.

"when? michi baby, did... did I just accidentally propose to you, and you accidentally said yes?"

he snickered, teeth flashing in his smile. "yeah, I guess so. that's hella romantic of us."

rolling off of him to lay down on your side, you giggled as he shifted himself to do the same. "sorry darling, that wasn't my goal. I was just... thinking." you took his hand and played with his fingers, nails dancing especially on his ring finger. "it's been so long since we've been together and I've never met your family."

"they're pieces of shit," he seemed to be trying to push the thought away and focus on the happier thing that you said. "you serious about the marriage thing?"

"I'm serious about you," you shrugged, "and I wanted to know what you thought about it. hell, I don't even know if it's an option given what you do."

which was a thought you couldn't get out of your mind. he would leave for months on end, unable to call you because it might blow his cover during his spy missions. you had no clue what he was infiltrating or just how dangerous it was, but with time he'd get more freedom among the ranks and have just enough time to send you pictures of himself from a burner phone, which he'd toss away as soon as you responded with your very own.

you didn't care that the relationship was like that; you were incredibly busy with your research, and everything felt comfortably low maintenance. he'd surprise you sometimes by coming home for one night and letting you make him pay for leaving for so long.

fingers danced around the outlines of his features and thumb rubbed softly against his lips while he tried to speak. he let out a content sigh and held your fingers next to his mouth to plant a soft kiss onto your knuckles. "don't worry about that. babe, you think too much, if you wanna get married I'll do it. I don't give a damn about all the other things if it makes you happy."

now you were the one smiling dumbly at him, loving it when he was soft with you. "in that case, yeah, I think I would like that." you used your available hand to wrap around his waist and pull him close, hoping to kiss him again but he was still peppering your fingers with his lips and had a grin on his face.

"I guess all I gotta do is ask you to marry me, then," he murmured, golden eyes looking up at you and lips curling upwards. you wanted to tell him again how beautiful he was but something poked your shoulder.

a wire - maybe a piece of jewelry you hadn't touched in ages - floated in between both of your faces, meticulously contorting until it was wrapped around itself in circles that would just about fit your fingers. he held the hand he'd been kissing up, and spread out your fingers for it to lower itself onto your fingertip. "[_____], will you make me the luckiest man alive and be mine?"

he already knew the answer, so the makeshift ring slid down your ring finger and you brought your hand up to his cheek while you kissed him slowly.

"I'll get you something proper once I have the time," he murmured, but you just shook your head.

"if you think I'm getting rid of this, you're the craziest man alive." you pulled him back in, and he chuckled when your bodies rolled over under the sheets. it wasn't a grand proposal, hell it was barely a coherent one, but neither of you minded the complete lack of formalities. it felt right, laying down on top of him with a ring on your finger that was dragging all over his skin.

your hand had wrapped around his erection, and you pumped him up slowly with the metal grazing his sensitive skin with every stroke. he grunted, pulling you back on top of him so that you were sitting on his lap while you fucked him on your hand.

"are you sure about the parents thing, though?" you inquired further, throbbing in your core subdued as you just grinded yourself on his thighs and watched him close his eyes at your actions. "I know you don't have the best relationship with them, but... I don't know. would be nice if I didn't feel like we were eloping or somethin'."

his lips parted to respond, but you barely realized just how merciless your pace was. you felt his muscles tense up when you took notice of his state and slowed down, the look he shot you telling you that he was begging for you to keep going, not stop. in the mornings, you didn't feel the need to tease or edge him until he was a crying mess; you just wanted him to feel good.

"yeah, I'm... fuck, fuuuuck... ah, fuck, [_____]... [_____]..." he came undone faster than you thought he would, finishing to the sound of his own voice whimpering out your name. his body spasmed and he went limp, so you decided just to let him stay flaccid and hold him gently when he continued his response. "I'm sure. those fuckers don't deserve to meet you, and I ain't even talked to them in years."

"mmmn," you hummed in acknowledgment, not wanting to push him any further given that he'd already told you about how awful they made him feel particularly after his brother's death. the question seemed to stir some bad memories, so you wiped your hand on his abdomen to keep it the least sticky possible and run it through his hair. "okay, I won't mention it again. to be honest, I think I would've ended up getting too mad at them for treating you like that. you know you're amazing, right? fuck, even if I wasn't crazy for you it'd take a real shithead not to see how strong and beautiful you are."

he couldn't handle compliments, and you knew it. he just bit the inside of his cheek while his face turned a different shade of pink and you giggled at him being so flustered over something so trivial. you smiled into his lips again, lazily kissing his breaths and murmuring sweet nothings until he seemed unable to handle it and just kissed you harder to get you to shut up. you just kept thinking about how adorable it was that he was threading his fingers through your hair just to pull you closer so that he didn't have to deal with your teasing.

you whispered his name, getting him to let go of your head so you could litter his face with butterfly kisses that migrated from his jawline to his ear to his neck. you painted him with your teeth, hickeys writing verses of your love all over him even when you bit too hard into his collarbone and pierced layers of skin. you mumbled a soft apology while he inhaled sharply from the sting, but you both knew he wasn't complaining. your thumb drew circles into his stomach while you held him, shifting down to his chest and marking him there, too.

"hey, [_____]?" he whispered, the room only echoing his gentle voice and the birds' song from outside. "training starts in half an hour, I gotta head out soon."

you frowned against his skin; you hated it when he left, but there was nothing you could do to keep him with you any longer than he already has. you repositioned yourself again on top of him, nodding solemnly while you placed a chaste kiss on the tip of his nose. "mkay, I'll finish up then let you go. I wouldn't want my fiancé to be late now, would I?"

the world felt foreign, but welcome. he thought about it a lot when you fucked yourself on him for the countless time this morning, leaning down so you could kiss him while thrusting your hips onto him. his hands were on your waist, but you pulled them off to place them on either side of his head and intertwine your fingers, hand pressing into his own as you kept grinding slow enough to trick your mind into thinking this moment was going to last forever. the bed creaked slowly under the sound of your dragged out moans and his shameless whimpers which morphed to and from deep groans.

tachihara considered just not showing up today and spending it with you, but he knew you wouldn't let him do something stupid for no reason. he wondered whether there was a way for him to get enough of a break in his schedule to throw you the wedding you deserved, but he told you his thoughts as you buttoned up and fixed his uniform for him, and you said that all you needed was him and some ridiculously large cake.

your lips lingered together for a bit too long at the entrance to your apartment, and you had him pulled in by the waist tight enough to have him pick up again on his earlier thought to just stay. he walked out the doorway, glancing back to see you checking out his ass with a playful smirk. he rolled his eyes when you giggled, and walked away but not before seeing you wave goodbye to him.

he'd never felt happier seeing that ring on the hand you waved.

[maybeanartist02]

sacrarium pario modern au // trivia night

summary: Violo and Vivere join their friends at a local bar's trivia night. There, they cross paths with the charismatic performer Anne.

2.7 k words, violo has a cochlear implant, vivere is chronically ill, heimos is a little bitchy

"This body was submitted by this man's daughter," the research manager explained. Violo stood in the lab of Pario Research Facility where he worked, speaking to two fellow researchers who were there to discuss a new body Violo was assigned to examine. The manager was a tall and callous woman who Violo struggled to tolerate outside of work. She, along with the other Doctor, was there to speak to him about the newly donated body.

"Their name is Ayad Amsel-Faris. They passed away four months ago, but the daughter only recently was able to process the paperwork for handing them off to us," the shorter doctor explained. "I am unsure how that happened, but regardless… we have the body now, and should be able to conduct our research on it. According to the daughter's account, Ayad had many allergies, skin conditions and were frequently misdiagnosed. Their death was written off as a natural cause, but the daughter believes they were ill."

Violo lifted the sheet laying over the body, and peered under it. Like all corpses, the person's expression was a bit disturbing to most—but Violo couldn't see, so it wasn't problematic at all.

Ayad was a brown-skinned person with a square jaw that was almost entirely covered in vitiligo and psoriasis. Their hair was also white, and seeing the state of them, Violo wondered how no one else suspected something to be wrong. Violo had to feel his way over the body to determine the psoriasis, and Eva told him about the rest.

The body reminded him of Vivere—uncomfortably so. It made him uneasy, but also gave him some hope; if Violo could find Ayad's cause of death… there was a chance it was related to the disease he was researching. This body… could be the key to all his woes, and all his fears regarding Vivere.

Swallowing the apprehension in his throat, Violo spoke eagerly:

"When do I begin?"

—

"A trivia night?"

Violo's voice curved up with the questioning echo of Necare's words. Necare nodded, a smile on her lips. The group of neighbors who lived on Warden Street 35 were gathered at Amare's place, for one of their usual monthly game nights. The five inhabitants of the apartment complex had gotten close after meeting at a renfaire a few years back and discovering they were neighbors. The friendship had been set in stone since then.

"It's a pretty new thing, meant to generate more traffic for the bar. We been kinda plateauing, so she's experimenting with new events to draw in customers."

"Will his hearing aid even be able to register the person hosting it?" Vivere asked, frowning. Despite Violo's frequent reminders that he could handle himself, Viv had a habit towards overbearingness. Violo rolled his eyes.

"Most people don't speak in a way easy for my implants to interpret easily anyway. I'll manage. I'd love to come!"

Vivere pouted, "I know… but I can still worry about your comfort."

"Well, I don't think it'll be a problem, to be honest," Necare shrugged. "Anne's the one hosting, and I speak to her a ton. Her vocal range goes crazy—if we give her a heads-up, she'll make an effort, but if we don't, she'll still enunciate well." Necare grins, "She claims to be a lyricist, but I've heard her vocals—she's a vocal acrobat, I guarantee. Low or high, she'll hit any note you give."

"Mm," Amare hummed, taking a sip of their tea. "Interesting. She performs at the bar?"

"Yeah," Necare nodded, "writes her own songs, but sings a bunch of covers too. Got a few rumors floating around, but she's always been upfront with me."

"Rumors?" Amare questioned. For the first time in what felt like ages, Heimos spoke up.

"Is this Anne Amsel-Faris?" he asked. Necare nodded, and he scoffed, "In that case… I've heard a few. Word on the streets is she's a volatile little shit."

"Volatile?" Viv asked with a frown. Violo was hung up on the surname—had he heard that name somewhere before? Necare waved a hand.

"Lotsa people got lots to say 'bout her. I hear she's busted a few kneecaps 'round town. I can't imagine her doing that unprompted, though. I'm sure the bastards deserved it."

"Who decides who deserves what fate, though?" Amare said gently. "I am not questioning your judgement, Necare. Merely the notion of personal justice."

"I hear she's got a few slighted lovers," Heimos added.

"Oh come on," Vivere laughed, "like that's a crime."

"It's possible she alone's gotten around more than you two combined," Necare joked, gesturing at Violo and Vivere. The lovers smirked, leaning into each other in such synchronization it almost looked planned.

"That's not that impressive," Violo said. "We're particular people!"

Violo and Vivere's relationship had a set of rules to follow. As far as sexual relationships went… they weren't limited to each other exclusively. Romantically, though… they weren't against the idea of partners outside each other, but the caveat was that they both had to like the person. If Viv disliked a man Vio wanted to date, Vio would drop the poor guy, no questions asked, and vice versa. The two didn't mind triads, and often shared interest in people and things, but they also found they had a bit of jealousy, and a tendency to preferring each other over their third that led them to dialing back on three-ways.

In short: sex was free game, but dating required some prerequisites to be met, and some rules to be reevaluated. The two hadn't found a long-term third yet, though, and considering the two had been dating since they were 16, it didn't feel like they'd ever add a lover to their relationship.

That being said, they were prone to flights of fancy, and one-night stands. The group of friends was vaguely aware, and none of them minded—it just meant they did not really have anything against people who fucked around a lot. That courtesy seemed to extend to Anne, too.

"I wouldn't think too much on the rumors," Necare shrugged. "Lots of them aren't favorable to her, and unfair. She's a good kid—sweet and fun. Simple as that."

"Well," Amare set their teacup down, "I'd be happy to join. It sounds like a fun night."

"I'm definitely in," Violo grinned, "can't let you have all the fun, after all."

"That just leaves Heimos," Vivere said, nodding towards him, an arm around Violo. Heimos rolled his eyes.

"Whatever. I don't care. I'll come, I guess."

"Woo!" Necare cheered, "Group Excursion!"

—

The Clover Gate Karaoke & Bar was a little place in the walkable downtown area of the city, and a place that Vivere has drawn in his sketchbooks many times. It's a picturesque place, visually, but even so, he'd never been inside before tonight.

Necare is waiting by the door when they arrive, and Violo greets her with a hug she warmly returns. With Violo's hand tucked into Vivere's arm, and Necare gesturing for them to enter, the five neighbors head inside.

The inside of the bar is spacious; to the left is a rounded bar counter, with drinks stacked to the ceiling. The seating area consists of a few bar stools by the counter and countless round tables. There's a stage at the back, and a balcony over the bar and front doors. A few groups are already seated, but more steadily pour in while Necare gets them all seated.

The neighbors are chatting about things—work and creative projects and local news—when their chatter is interrupted by Necare calling out to an approaching lady.

"Anne! Hey!"

Vivere looks up to find a tall-ish woman approaching the table with a tray of drinks and a smile. The first thing Vivere notices is curly, fiery auburn hair, the color of a dying bonfire. The second, is the vitiligo spreading over her skin. The third is the tight fitting tanktop, miniskirt and delicate jewelry around her wrists, fingers, neck and dangling from her ears. Star and butterfly are the common denominator in her accessories, as far as Vivere can tell.

Fascinating.

"Evening, all!" she greets with a wink, setting the tray down on the table, "Nix here," she gestures to Necare, "put an order in for you all, so I hope she got your order right. If she didn't, well, take it up with her."

The group shares a round of chuckles. The positive feedback seems to empower her and cause her to glow from the inside out.

"We got a glass of wine, straight whiskey, beer, and tea, mead and absinthe?—" she says, pointing at each beverage, "is that all right?"

"I'm surprised tea is in there," Amare notes, "is that a special for tonight?"

Anne smiles, "It's a new permanent feature. When your options are as limited as mine, the boss takes pity," she giggles. She waves a hand, "anyway, I take it you're here to support Necare for trivia night, right?"

Necare pouts, "what do you mean, support me?"

Anne presses her lips together and shrugs coyly, "Who's to say? Maybe I meant nothing by it." She shrugs as she retrieves the tray.

"We're here to enjoy the event with her, yes," Amare confirms. Violo scoffs.

"Speak for yourself! I'm here to win."

"In that case, I'm glad we're all on the same team," Viv rolled his eyes, "you two are horrible to witness compete." He leans towards Anne, "they are far too combative to keep any competition healthy."

Anne giggles into a hand while Violo whines at his boyfriend, "Viiiiiiv! That's not true! I can very well lose sometimes."

"To him, maybe," Heimos scoffs. "Everyone else knows you suck at losing."

"Well then," Anne interrupts slyly, "let's hope you win then, huh?"

"Hey, while you're here," Necare says, "shouldn't you be setting up? Why are you running drinks?"

The shift in demeanor is not noticeable to the group, foreign to Anne's mannerisms as they are, but she deflates, ever so slightly.

"Yeah, well, Winston called out last minute. We're a bar-tender short now, and I didn't want them to stress all night." She shakes her head with a fond smile, "it's no biggie. I don't need that much for the event, and I'm sure the band can buy me a little while."

"Oh, alright then," Necare nods, then smiles. "Next time, just call me in. I can handle running drinks for a night."

Anne smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "Will do. I should get to running—enjoy the night! And good luck!"

With that, Anne was off to the bar with a wave.

"She was… lively," Heimos mutters. Amare laughs.

"She's cute!" Necare says. "Come on, Viv thinks she's cute, right?"

Vivere shrugs, "she's good at her job. I… can see why people call her flirty." He snorts, "I'm sure the winking and giggling gives many the wrong idea."

"Oof, yeah," Violo nods. "She's funny! I can see why you'd like her, Necare."

"Why d'you care so much if we agree?" Heimos asks dryly, then smirks, "you into her or something?"

"No… not like that!" Necare shakes her head. "She's just… you know. Someone I'm rooting for! With a bit more ambition… she could take the music industry by storm, I'm sure."

"But she lacks the ambititon needed?" Amare questions further. Necare shrugs.

"Pretty much. She says she's fine working here the rest of her life, but… that's a long time to be working at the same place. I feel like I'd get bored."

"You would," Vivere snorts. "Maybe she prefers the monotony. Different people have different preferences, after all."

"True!" Violo nods, "she seemed pretty happy to be hosting us. I wouldn't worry too much. You're friends—she'll probably be honest with you if you express your concern."

"She seems like the honest type," Amare nods along. "If you're worried, communicate that to her. I'm sure she'll either confide in your, or put your concerns to rest."

"True," Necare nods. "She's a real down to earth person. I can trust her judgement call I think." She clapped her hands, "Anyway! Violo, you said work's picking up steam again?"

Violo brightened. "Oh yea! We got a newly submitted body I get to use for my research. Super interesting. I'm meeting the donator on Monday to talk about lived symptoms and medical history."

"Sounds like you'll have your hands full soon," Amare says, then smirks, "should we count you out of game nights for the foreseeable future?"

"Ha!" He laughs, "you wish! I'm sure you'd like for me to sit out, with how often i beat you."

"You don't beat me that often."

"Please do not start this now," Vivere groans.

—

Anne hastily hooks up the laptop to the stage screens. The band is buying her some time with a musical intermission, but it's a closer call than she'd like. She cusses out the tech in her mind, but takes care not to verbalize her irritation. She's changed out of her previous outfit already, and when the trivia page opens on the screens behind the band, and cheering erupts from the crowd, she signals to her coworker, Bailey, that everything is good to go.

Anne jogs to the stage stairs, then takes a moment to catch her breath, put on a smile, and saunter onstage.

As the spotlight illuminates her, she beams at the crowd, waving as she struts out towards the mic. She wears a pair of bedazzled jeans, patterns of vines and roses drawn out with sequins sewn into the fabric. With it, she pairs stiletto heels and a red off-shoulder top that hugs her chest just right. Her trademark star-hoop earrings are paired with a choker, rings and bracelets.

She knows she's dressed to impress. The wolf whistles from the crowd are nothing new—a part of her enjoys the positive feedback.

Anne makes a show of bowing before stepping up to the mic.

"Good evening Clover Gate community!"

She removes the mic from the stand and steps back to allow the crowd to applaud her.

"I see you're all in high spirits," she grins, "good, good! Tonight we're offering a new kind of entertainment to you lovely folks: Trivia night!" She begins to pace the stage as she speaks, the words only vaguely following a bulleted script, "Apologies for the delay, the racoons got out of the attic and stole my dress. Hence the new look," she curtsied to the laughs. "The way this will work is simple. Each table creates a team. Shout the answer the questions to win points. The winner gets a trophy of various snacks and free drinks for their next visit!"

A sea of cheers and whoops sounds out, and Anne smiles brilliantly.

"You're all eager to start, I see. Well then, without further racoon-enduced delay… let the games… begin!"

Anne made a show of clapping twice, implying that the clapping was what caused the screen to change to the first question. She gestured to the screen, theatrically, making the crowd laugh more.

"Here's an easy one to start us with: what is the universal blood donor type?"

Violo's voice rung out just barely before someone else's did, "O negative!"

"Correct!" Anne pointed, "Two points for team 15!"

That got the ball rolling pretty quickly. Anne continued to lay the charm on as she listed off the questions. She realized quite quickly that team 15 was dominating. At one point she was forced to put them in timeout just to give others the chance to answer, but she didn't silence them for long—that'd have been unfair to them, after all.

Anne had a weird skill for balancing humor and justice, for keeping the atmosphere light in a way where the brief timeout didn't ruin the table's night. She called for it lighthearted, laughingly, joking about them having Trivia Gods on their side.

Two hours later, Table 15 was given a plate full of snacks, and five coupons for free drinks on their next visit—they'd won by a closer margin than they expected to, which was thanks to Anne's interfering. The interference wasn't meant to hold them back, but instead served to give others a chance to speak. So, in that regard, it had served its purpose.

With that, Trivia Night had run its course. The neighbors of Warden Street 35 made their way home together, tipsy and a little high on adrenaline. Anne stayed late to help clean before making the longer trip home herself.

She arrived home with the sunrise, collapsing on her couch, and exhausted breath escaping her.

[divineerdrick]

The Warhammer Preview Show: Warhammer Day 2024

I'm once again liveblogging my reaction to a Warhammer preview, and I couldn't be happier!

Why?

Because the Preview was live again!

If you've followed my Warhammer Liveblogs you know how much I hated that they moved to prerecorded live shows. And I wasn't the only one! But once again the studio has listened to the community and it looks like we've got live shows back.

This is one thing I will constantly press about Games Workshop. Being less than a billion-dollar global company, in a niche hobby, means they still have to respond to us. If we make our displeasure known for long enough, and it impacts their sales, they have to act. If even 1% of Warhammer fans don't buy the latest and greatest product that GW releases, it hurts.

It also helps that they're under UK corporate law instead of American corporate law.

And I have a feeling from some of the things I've seen on discount retailer sites, that certain big releases have been under-performing. So hopefully this is the first in some course corrections.

Give San Guard their wings back!

I'm still wondering about what's going on with how few releases have been announced for Christmas. They do seem to be pushing War of the Rohirrim more than I was expecting, so maybe they really are trying to just let releases breathe instead of smothering them. I'm wondering how Necromunda Secondus and Mechanicum performed given how they released along side Age of Sigmar 4.0.

Honestly I think that most Warhammer fans hold GW products as being the best in the market. When they start taking a downturn, we start asking why we're paying so much for them. I think GW really should go back to a slower release cadence of higher quality products. Releasing both of their major game systems back to back in essentially a beta state should not happen. There's no excuse for 10th Edition Eldar to release one summer only for 4.0 Nighthaunt to release the next. And the less said about 4.0's Regiment system the better.

All and all, I'm still really excited for this Preview. I'm not expecting too much right now, but I'm willing to be surprised. For now, just having a live Preview is enough.

Enough rambling! Onto the Preview!

Preshow

Our hosts today are veterans of the Preview shows, Alex and Nick. This was one of the first things that got me excited when I checked in on the stream after discovering WarCom was down. After some of their traditional introduction, including asking for location shout outs, Alex tells us what we've got in store. The reveals today are for Underworlds, AoS, 40K, Kill Team, and Legions. Legions in the past hasn't gotten a lot of love in these Preview shows, so I'm hoping for a little better presentation this time around.

But then Nick slyly cuts in that those are just what was announced, and we should keep our eyes pealed. I've heard some rumors already, but let's see what they actually tease for us.

Underworlds

We're starting with GW's original Skirmish game set in the Age of Sigmar. I'm still really hoping that Warcry gets some love again soon, but I'm betting Underworlds must be just slightly outperforming it.

Oh wow! So with the new edition of AoS out and the story advancing with the Vermindoom, the team has decided to release a new edition of Underworlds. And this edition looks like it will also start with a Stormcast verses Skaven box.

They're once again pushing that accessibility factor with this new edition. I will say this much, other than a few sticking points I have I don't really feel this push to accessibility has resulted in any "dumbing down" of these editions. Probably the worst offender was Kill Team 2nd, and they've undone some of that. Admittedly they pushed the worst part even more . . . Still I feel that 40K 10th and AoS 4.0 are still very tactically deep games. And that, at the end of the day, is what really matters.

And unfortunately we're probably never going to see this push to expand the audience through accessibility ever go away. Businesses in the current corporate world live and die through growth. There's only so much money GW can wring out of their current audience. There has to come a point where GW expands their audience, or investors will leave and the company will decline.

Unfortunately that's tricky to do when you also keep raising the prices of starter products.

But Underworlds has always been relatively inexpensive compared to GW's other products. It's a perfect example of creating a stepping stone into the larger hobby. Buying a board game style starter box with only a few push-fit miniatures to assemble and paint is much easier than buying and painting something like Skaventide. And GW looks to be leaning into that.

They're really throwing a lot of long looks into the miniatures and the board. Still, no matter how much time they spend here this is never as good as the bright, close-in pictures WarCom usually has later. One advantage of the Live previews is we often get to see some of those ahead of time. Hopefully Nick and Alex will focus in on some like they used to.

Here's our box reveal.

And you're making me nervous Nick. This is very similar to a lot of those prerecorded shows. Now that the reveal trailer is done I don't want to be here having someone presenting a prerecorded message on why I should want to pick this up. I want to be back in the studio, with chat, getting live impressions and active responses to questions and feedback from you and Alex. You got me excited for a live show, Nick. Don't turn this around on me.

Uh oh! It's a reset! Normally, this would have me excited. But there are two things that make me nervous here.

The first is that this game incorporates cards and deck building. If they're completely updating the rules, does that mean previous cards won't work anymore? Will we have to get new decks for any warbands we play?

The second is Kill Team. In case you didn't know, Kill Team just introduced a Standard style rotation that means that eventually your Kill Teams won't be legal in competitive play. Many classic Kill Teams already don't have rules in the new edition. Now many of those Kill Teams are still perfectly fine for casual games . . . for as long as GW writes compatible rules for them. But eventually you won't be able to play a given Kill Team without going back to a prior edition of a game. That's fine for collectors who have lots of friends going back to previous editions. But for most LGS communities, that creates a problem.

I'm guessing Underworlds will work in a similar way. I don't know if any previous Warbands will get retired, but they'll probably introduce a cut off point and then rotate out older Warbands eventually. You'll probably have to go buy a new deck for any of the older Warbands to use them in the new rules. This is all just speculation, but it's speculation based off how GW has been running their other games.

This may be a small point to some, but it's a legitimate up-sell to me. GW has gotten considerably better at creating and designing rule books. They've gotten much easier to read in recent editions of their games and much easier to use at the table. I'm hoping they continue to refine them. Also their apps have gotten better too for looking up the latest version of any given rule.

We're also going to single boards, war scrolls, and they're defining Warbands with stat systems to help you understand their play style. One thing I'm not sure of is the replacement of card art with miniature photos. I kind of liked the way the cards added some of that great GW art into the game. I'm not sure how well the various cards will depict the action if it's just still photos.

All and all the new edition looks good, but I've got questions that are going to need answered.

Back in the studio we've got some great shots of the miniatures - not sure I'm liking the sculpt around the eyes for this one - but we're not getting any community interaction yet. There's no point in these being live shows if we don't have any response to the community feedback and questions!

Hm . . . We've got them just talking over these repeating slideshows. I'd honestly prefer to just seem them sitting their and talking to each other to gauge their live reactions. And while I'll admit that this is a new edition, and there's a lot to talk about, they're kinda just going over what the presentation showed. Yes! I'm going to harp on this! I want community interaction, dammit!

Okay, here's one point answered. The starter set is going to come with four decks in it, one based on each of the now named play-styles, Strike, Take and Hold, Flex, and Mastery. These decks will be playable with any Warband. So any of the old Warbands that receives rule updates can use these decks to start with.

It looks like with other recent new editions, we'll get our first chance to see this played at a GW event. In this case it's the Tampa Open, which is next weekend! So we'll probably learn a lot about the game in the coming days.

. . .

And now we're moving into the next part of the show. No questions taken, no feedback, not even a glance at chat. I'm not happy.

Age of Sigmar

And it's just the Warhammer Day miniature. We've already seen this. It's a pretty cool looking miniature to be sure, but why are we covering it here?

My hype is draining away.

Same thing with the Darkoath. Though this looks like it might be a box set, and that means it might have some new miniatures.

Oh! While they didn't show it, this is the announcement for the Slaves to Darkness Battletome. I did miss that this box set is the Darkoath Spearhead. So this will be our first big release for AoS 4.0 following Skaventide.

We're getting a new release for a Sorcerer Lord outside of the Warhammer Day model. This one sounds like it will have a few options for it. Hopefully we'll see these on WarCom.

And here's our Battletome reveal! It sounds like they're doubling down on how little changed between the Skaven Index and Battletomes. This is potentially bad as some of the AoS armies need some real changes.

We are getting a new Army of Renown, Be'lakor's Legion of the First Prince. So hopefully that will bring something interesting for AoS players to experiment with. It's my understanding though that Regiments of Renown aren't seeing much play right now. But we can wait and see.

Speaking of! We've got a nice rules preview here of a new Regiment of Renown that can be included in any most of the god-aligned Chaos factions. The Daemon Prince gets to keep it's Gift of Chaos that it would have claimed in an S2D army and gets the relevant faction Keyword too. However, I can't imagine spending a drop on this the way AoS 4 currently plays, unless they change how drops work in the next rules update.

Battleforces

They didn't mention any universe transition, just that big boxes are on the way soon. My guess is this is our first look at the holiday boxes, which will probably included both 40K and AoS, maybe Old World if we're lucky.

These are all themed after detachments. The Tau box is obscured, but we saw it earlier in the preview, and is the Retaliation Cadre. This means that this is probably a sneaky reveal of one of the new Imperial Knight Detachments, the Valourstrike Lance. Though that sounds suspiciously like it might be a rename for the Noble Lance.

I'll note that none of these battleforces are Chaos themed. We've got three Imperial battleforces and two Xenos. But there looks like there's a lot of value in these kits. That Tau box has a Riptide in it, the Knights have a Paladin and four Armigers, the Sisters comes with two vehicles and a pair of Penitent Engines, the Necrons get the Void Dragon, and the Dark Angels get The Lion. I'm not gonna add everything up here, since I can't see exactly what everything is, but that's over $300 worth of Knights.

And just as I suspected, we immediately go into AoS boxes.

We're only getting four here, Maggotkin, Cities, Iron Jaws, and Flesh-Eaters. One for each Grand Alliance. These don't appear to be based on any Regiments or Armies. And I'm not seeing anything popping out at me for high value items.

These are indeed our holiday boxes. As with recent years, these are designed to go along with the intro boxes. So if you get a Combat Patrol or Spearhead alongside one of these, you'll have a pretty decent collection. Whether they match well with previous Battleforce launch boxes, I'd have to check. But at the very least, I know the Dark Angels one didn't have The Lion in it.

They're saying they're supposed to match Regiments in AoS. I only checked Iron Jaws, but looking through the others they also don't match any current Regiments. So these might be renames or new Regiments coming in the Battletomes.

Hah! They even just mentioned that the Cities of Sigmar force can represent different Regiments! So maybe there wasn't any actual consideration made there at all.

They also just brought up that there's duplication with the Morbheg Knights. So not so good there for the AoS portions either.

Warhammer Armoury

They tease that no one knows about this reveal yet. But it's an Officially Licensed product, so outside of games I'm not sure how much interest there will be.

Warhammer Armory! Okay, you have my attention.

Also, gee! I wonder what's about to be revealed?

There it is! Ghal Maraz! (Subject to GW's approval.)

i haven't gotten my hands on any of these, but I really want to see if I can. I just love stuff like this. If my father's business could get them to sell, we would in a heart beat.

I still have my Slayer of Kings. It's sitting right next to me. I'd honestly love to collect more stuff like this.

Legions

So we've already had Mechanicum for Legions revealed, so they're starting off by going into the lore. I guess that's one way to try to pay more respect to the specialist game. Still I'm hoping for more news for Legions.

"Now you're probably sat at home, thinking, "Games Workshop we've already seen these." It had crossed my mind, yes.

Dark Mechanicum! While they haven't shown any traitor specific models yet, the new rules will allow you to field these models in both Loyalist and Traitor forces.

But they're not keeping us waiting for long! This is the Serperos Heavy Stalker. Looks like it's a near Titanic scale model for the Dark Mechanicum. Like most of the new Mechanicum stuff, I'm totally here for this.

I'm also still hoping to see some even larger creations hitting Titanicus and Legions. Say a certain class of Titan that hasn't had an official model for a while . . .

And book reveal! This book will apparently have the rule for playing both factions. So hopefully we'll see more force specific miniatures in the future.

A Special Surprise

Something a bit more lighthearted. A feast in the field, huh? Blood Bowl? Don't they already have halflings?

40K! I know what this is! Apparently Death Korp isn't all the Guard is getting!

"Make a pie crust from compressed cardboard and fill it with a tin of Munitorum issued nutrient paste." Yummy.

I'm so here for this!

These ratlings look fantastic and have so much life and character to them! This is a fantastic addition to the Guard range!

Oh! It's a commemorative model! Boo! I want this to be a part of the main range!

Oh well. Looks like I'm picking up at least one thing for myself this year.

Kill Team

They teased more ratlings, but look at these Boyz! More proper Orky miniatures! Yes!

And there's our new ratlings! Look at the bulldog!

So I guess the next Kill Team box is Orks verse Ratlings. So much for the idea that the next team would be Storm Boyz. Specifically this is Ratling Snipers verses Tankbustas.

All of these miniatures look pretty bespoke. The ratling kit is definitely new, but that doesn't look like an upgrade sprue on the Orks either. I'm wondering if all the Kill Teams will be new kits from now on?

This Kill Team set will include a bunker terrain piece and missions for trying to defend the bunker or storm it. Sounds like a fun time.

The holiday miniature will also have a mission for trying to steal the food for their provisions. So there's another fun detail.

Hmm. New animation or game?

Bandai Namco? Guessing game.

Oh! I was wrong! It's an animated short! Looks like a free one too!

Our next preview will apparently be in November, for the Championships and Grand Narrative Campaign. I'm hoping they do a better job there.

But as the sign off, they hit us with one more teaser.

Final Thoughts

I've apparently hit my image limit, so I'm not gonna go into more details on the miniatures. But on the whole they were fantastic. Not the biggest fan of the Stormcast models for Underworlds but the Skaven models were cool. All the other new models, especially our new Kill Team set and commemorative mini look fantastic! While this Preview was light on new models, what was shown was great!

And that's all the good I have to say.

So this did definitely need to be a Preview because they were revealing the new Underworlds. But honestly, they could have made the whole show about that and I think it would have been better. The Kill Team reveals were good, but the rest was stuff that would normally just be a WarCom article. So they may as well have just dedicated it all to an Underworlds deep dive and left the Kill Team stuff for later.

And while I think this was better than the prerecorded stuff we got before, this might as well have been prerecorded. In fact I'm sure there are gonna be people who accuse this stream of being prerecorded. There was zero interaction with chat. Yeah, they asked chat to call out where they were from like they used to, but then didn't acknowledge any responses. Chat might as well have not been there, and that means this might as well not be live.

This isn't okay! And while I appreciate the nod to the old format, this was honestly something where I wanted to see designers talking about what they were doing. I don't want to hear Nick and Alex talking about the new mechanics and design ideas of Underworlds, I want to here it from the people who made the game! While I didn't like the mock interviews, there's no reason not to have the designers on there talking about what they're excited about.

Between lack of meaningful reveals and the misuse of the live format, this is still a fail. If the last review was a student handing in a print-off from Wikipedia with his name on it, this one was two guys who threw together their paper at the last minute. This will probably be my last liveblog for these. I'm certainly not gonna do another one until I see meaningful changes in the format.

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

It's Showtime! - June 2024 Devlog

Howdy! Cobalt here, for another devlog over It's Showtime. This month was actually really swell, especially since I got more of my adhd meds recently. So I should be getting way more done in the coming months, yippee!

Programming wise, not a lot was done this month I've mostly spent it changing a few things about the way the map is built. Particularly I'm gonna need to rebuild most of the first floor. However in the long run it should be for the better, for stuff like performance and making it easier to add more to it. I also just needed a break after all I did last month. I have created things like the base for the main menu, a proper testing room and a lot of coding for the cut scene system though!

Writing wise, a ton of progress was made. Most of the major writing for Chapter 1 is done! Or at least on a great first draft. So very soon Chapter 1 will be done writing wise. [For the record currently the in depth writing for Chapter 1 is 7,122 words long] Chapter 2 also had a significant amount of its in depth writing done, almost all of the 'intro' is written out but obviously I'm trying to focus more on Chapter 1 right now. Speaking of the other chapters and such. Chapter 2's summary is almost done, with some things just needing some elaborating or bridging with other parts of it. Chapter 3 has 3 thousand words written in its summary currently, so a lot of what goes on in that chapter has been written out. I recently had a ton of revelations about what is going to happen in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 has also had a lot added to its summary. Sadly, writing wise, I simply cannot reveal much more without getting into spoilers.

I've also been learning Blender a lot lately. I'm working on a few models, none of them for It's Showtime quite yet. [well besides the walls and floors for the first floor] However soon I'm gonna be trying to make Henry's first model and animations for the game. Probably won't be the final one used for the project, or even the one you'll see upon chapter 1's release, but we'll see. Sadly, a lot of this process is simply tutorials and looking things up, then double checking those things to make sure they can be used in Unity, aren't performance heavy and will work with the systems I've already got in place. Art wise, me and my partner have gotten a lot of fun concept art done.

We've also started a sketchbook purely for Encore! related drawings. We've got so much fun stuff to show you guys when more is done, but for now, I'd love to show off a proper look at Henry's design.

Here we have Henry's reference, specifically for his in-game appearance.

The sketchy reference made for modeling him out. Yes, he is tastefully nude in this appearance. That's just the way it has to be.

Then finally a rough run cycle I animated to show off his character and as practice for when the proper 3D gets made. I'm really proud of how this came out and I hope it gives you guys a good idea for what to expect from him character-wise. As always, feel free to ask any questions about this project and its story if you'd like. I'll do my best to answer them without giving too much away! See you next month!

[666writingcafe]

Check-In

A Text Conversation Between Levi and MC

Levi: How have you been doing at the castle?

MC: It's quiet. I've been able to relax and focus on my studies.

Levi: That's good.

Levi: Everyone's arguing again.

MC: Not surprising.

Levi: Would you like to know what they're arguing about, or do you want to talk about something else?

MC: Diavolo just asked, "What are they arguing about?"

Levi: Didn't realize he was with you.

MC: It's more like I'm with him. I've been staying in his room, you see. He wants to keep an eye on me. Plus, it's soundproof.

MC: And before you ask, we've just been talking or working. Nothing freaky happening here.

Levi: I see.

Levi: Well, Asmo thinks that Mammon got a little TOO excited watching you read your lines earlier and that he needs to learn how to control himself. Apparently, he gulped loudly as he was watching you.

Levi: I wouldn't know, of course. I was too busy looking over my lines because I didn't want Simeon yelling at me.

MC: Makes sense.

Levi: Anyway, Mammon's upset because Asmo thinks that he has a dirty mind.

MC: Doesn't he, though?

Levi: That's what Asmo said.

Levi: Meanwhile, Satan's been complaining about every single aspect of our performance.

MC: I mean, he DID help come up with the concept for the play, as did I.

Levi: I know. He still shouldn't be such an ass about it. His critiques are more like insults than anything constructive.

Levi: And now Belphie's thrown himself into the ring because he feels like everyone's disturbing his sleep. Mammon thinks that Belphie should sleep in his own room if he doesn't want to be disturbed.

Levi: Belphie - "Mind your fucking business and let me sleep wherever I feel like sleeping."

MC: Diavolo just busted out laughing.

Levi: I glad he finds this amusing, because I don't.

Levi: Anyway, Beel's now in the argument. Belphie ate his cake without permission, you see.

Levi: Belphie apparently did it to get back at Beel for eating his pudding.

MC: Speaking of food, if there's anything in the fridge that's mine, make sure it isn't expired. If it is, pitch it.

Levi: And if it's not? Do you want me to drop it off to you?

MC: Sure.

Levi: *thumbs up emoji*

Levi: Asmo - "Speaking of pudding...Mammon, you need to pay back the money I lent you."

MC: ASMO????

Levi: I know. Surprisingly, Mammon doesn't owe me anything.

MC: How does he jump from PUDDING to MONEY?

Levi: I KNOW!

MC: Diavolo - "Perhaps his sugar daddy calls him pudding."

Levi: *gif of someone gasping*

Levi: *gif of someone laughing*

MC: Diavolo: "Do you think that if they keep arguing, they'll wear themselves out to the point of going to bed early?"

Levi: Not sure.

Levi: Lucifer just walked in the room.

Levi: Lucifer - "Why is everyone arguing?"

Levi: Everyone but me, because I'm not an idiot - "Shut up!"

MC: *gif of someone going 'oooh'*

MC: ^ Diavolo.

MC: *eek sticker*

MC: ^ Me.

A Few Hours Later

Levi: No one's talking to each other anymore.

Levi: I mean, I've tried, but I've either gotten the silent treatment or got told to go away/shut up.

MC: Diavolo wants to know if you want to come over for a bit.

Levi: To get away from my brothers?

MC: *thumbs up emoji*

Levi: I appreciate the offer, but I'll be fine.

Levi: They do this sort of thing all the time. They'll end up forgetting about it eventually, and then everything will be back to normal.

Levi: Besides, the quiet will allow me to focus on costumes.

MC: Diavolo - "The offer still stands if he changes his mind."

Levi: *thumbs up emoji*

[ell-vellan]

WIP Wednesday

I haven't done one of these in a long time because it feels like everything I write lately is dull and boring, but I'm trying to break out of the little box I've put myself in.

Tagging a few people who I thought might have a bit of work to share, but no pressure: @thebookworm0001 @the-grandest-plan @thegoblinwitchqueen

And please take this as an excuse to post your WIP even if I didn't tag you!

Content warning: this is a "should we have a baby? and how?" conversation between El/Bull with...unconventional options, lol. so it's under the cut!

They'd talked about it, just the once. When El had gotten her courage up and tentatively asked what he’d meant that time, way back in the beginning, that they didn’t have to worry about pregnancy. 

Bull had explained the way tamassrans perform a reversible sterilization procedure on every Qunari when they got their assignments around age 12 as though it were a normal mark of growing up. Something like her vallaslin. The tamassrans, of course, would not allow any unauthorized reproduction under the Qun. Everything was strategically, meticulously planned, even the bloodlines of their people. Children were not simply born, but created with a purpose already in mind. Breeding stock. Like her people did with halla.

Unless they were specifically chosen later in life to be part of the breeding program and the procedure undone, there would never be any accidents or surprises, he'd told her. 

She hadn't expected the strange mix of emotions that welled up in her throat, choking her. Couldn’t control the strong reaction from showing on her face that arose before she could hide it.

“Hey, hey, come here,” Bull said with surprise as he pulled her into his arms. “I'm sorry, El, I should've explained a long time ago. This conversation usually comes up earlier. Or not at all.”

“No, I’m fine.” She shook her head and tried to step out of his arms, but he wouldn't let her leave. “It’s not like it was a surprise. It's just..."

“There was a reason you asked."

El sighed. “It's foolish. Go ahead, you can say it. I know. Obviously I should ever have expected…Of course we can’t have children. What a ridiculous notion. I mean, at the very least, our jobs--”

“It’s okay,” Bull murmured. “You’re allowed to want stuff for yourself, El.”

“I want you. That's enough. I shouldn’t still be holding onto silly dreams from childhood. Yet somehow...until just now, I hadn't yet confronted the fact that my life will never be as I once thought it would."

She was irrevocably on a different path. Even if she could have a family with Bull, it wouldn't be a Dalish one.

“Your future looks a little different than you imagined,” Bull finished quietly. “I know. Same here.”

“Nothing about my life now is how I imagined it. Not just this. It's not the first time my plans have had to change.”

Bull made an unhappy sound. “You want kids, though? Even if it’s a ways down the line?”

Ellawyn hesitated. “I want children in the same way I want most other impossible things. I want to be rid of this anchor in my hand. I want to not be Inquisitor. I want my normal life back. It's just yet another reminder that my life isn’t my own…But it doesn't quite matter what I want. I’ve learned better than to make plans.”

He made another sound of dismay. “Yeah, but this is one thing that’s not impossible for you. And I don't like you giving up shit you wanted from life. You already got dealt a crappy hand with everything else. The war's over, the Inquisition doesn't need you anymore. You can do whatever."

She turned in his lap to face him, her expression grave. “You’re acting as though this is still possible. When you just told me that it isn't.”

Bull hesitated. “I...could get it reversed." Slowly, deliberately neutral. A statement of fact, not necessarily an offer. "It's possible, in theory. Tamassrans leave that option open on purpose."

She stared at him. “But you don’t want to.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“But it's what you think.”

Bull looked at her, lips pressed tight, and exhaled a sigh through his nose. “I’m wary, is all. It’d be dangerous for you. And there’s no guarantee it would even work.”

And then he told her there was another option. 

She balked, immediately. “You want me to sleep with someone else?”

Bull held up his hands placatingly. “Only way to have an elven baby is for that baby to have two elven parents,” Bull said evenly, watching her carefully. “You told me how precious elven children are in your culture. And I’m not the jealous type. You know that.”

“But…” 

Everything felt weak and watery inside her. He was right. She couldn't have an elven baby and Bull’s. It wasn't possible. 

She would have to choose.

Bull was entirely too calm. “I'm saying it's an option I'm okay with, that's all. Not something you have to do. And nobody's saying you have to decide anything right now, either."

[gaykey]

Hi! I'm Kshawol. I've just recently gotten into SHINee and I have a few questions that I was hoping you could answer (I'm using a translator right now, so I can't help it if my English is awkward).1. actually... I'm pretty sure some Kshawol's besides me don't think Key is straight, seriously, not just an RPS thing. Of course, they don't say that on their public Twitter accounts, they just talk amongst themselves on their private accounts. To be honest, I think that's what the public thinks, too, just, "Everything Key does and says makes me feel like he's gay!" And we report those YouTube comments when we see them, because it's rude to make assumptions about someone's sexuality anyway. So, I'm just curious, because I've been Googling and there's a lot of stories, and you have them on your account right now, that Key used to frequent gay bars in the early days of his career (was that in the early 2010s?) and that Minho used to pick him up when he was drunk, and I'm wondering if that's true, and if he's been saying queer-coded things in interviews and Instagram posts and stuff. I got that feeling recently when he was explaining why he gave his fans the nickname Lil freak. Personally, I don't think he'll ever come out of the closet, even if he is queer, and he'll continue to live in his frosted glass closet. Coming out in Korea is very difficult and takes a lot of courage, especially for celebrities. Right now, the most famous gay celebrity in Korea, he was outed unwillingly, and he immediately had his whole career in jeopardy, and as far as I know, it took him about 10 years before he was able to go back on TV again, with all kinds of sexual harassment and bigoted comments from people. Anyway, that happened. Umm... what do you think about that?

2. talking about Taemin, his queer performance is already widely known, so I won't ask about it. Sometimes some people talk about him having ADHD or even being on the autism spectrum, though they're in the minority, and I know of a tumblr blog that talks about it, and it's a very interesting hypothesis! As an ADHD person myself, there are times when I'm pretty sure he does have ADHD, but of course, that's... Kshawol doesn't really like it and it's not even talked about... In Korea, that interpretation is considered very rude and insulting, because we don't have good awareness of neurodiversity, so it's kind of a cultural difference. I wonder how Taemin's ADHD/ASD behaviors are viewed abroad.

hello, hope you're well! oooh, well your translator must be pretty good, because your english is coming across pretty perfect.

ok, so i'll try to answer all your questions as best as i can.

i've said before, and i've heard, that a lot of kshawols & the general public, pretty much know key's gay, especially in the queer community. in regards to making assumptions being rude - it depends on if those assumptions are from people assuming based on negative stereotypes. i think queer people, like myself, assuming based on seeing parts of ourselves in him, is not rude or harmful.

the kind of comments you report, are probably intended to be hateful.

when we talk about key's sexuality here it isn't. straight isn't the default, and there shouldn't be a this weird stigma around queer people, seeing and recognising other queer people!

the stuff about gay bars are all rumours. i noted that in the posts about it, that they're really old (yeah it was the early 2010's) and have no source, and should therefore not be taken too seriously. it was just a bit of fun to talk about the kind of things that were floating around the fandom at the time.

has he been saying queer coded stuff? tbh, i think soooo much of what he does, says, likes, dislikes, sings about, is interested in, ect. is queer-coded. i genuinely couldn't pick out a singualr incident.

and like yeah! i have an entire tag about how he calls fans lil freak alone, and what that means, and why it's significant to me, and to other lgbt+ people. and why it's very telling that kibum chose to call us that.

i've gone back & forth a lot about whether i think he'll come out one day, and i agree with you. whilst he's in the industry, he'll stay in his glass closet situation.

he doesn't need to come out if he doesn't want to. the ones that get it, already get it!

and yes, i know about hong seokcheon, and what happened to him, and whilst he's doing well now, it wasn't easy, and he endured so much. he clawed his career back, and it's incredibly inspiring, but.....

nowhere near enough progress has been made since.

i would never want key to have to face that in the current industry climate.

in regards to taemin!

i don't have adhd and i'm not on the spectrum in any way, so i would not at all feel comforable with making any judment on taemin in that way - but yes, i have seen a lot of discussion from neurodivergent people in regards to it.

it's definitely not something that's taboo to talk about in some cases, but, i would still say there's still a stigma in regards to neurodivergency in the international fandom. possibly moreso than kibum's sexuality?

some fans get sooooo angry when people with autism suggest taemin might have it too. again! it's not a negative thing!

anyway, i hope i answered your questions???? i don't know how well your translator picks up my all over the place way of talking lol

hope you have a good day/night! 💕

[den-ai-d]

Ooof...a decade on this site eh?

Oh no, story time incoming!

10 years and yeah, so much has happened already. Originally, I made this blog back when I was in high school as a place to post my drawings; back then, it was all just pencil drawings on paper. Looking at them now...well it was obvious I still had a long way ahead of me LOL. And to think some people assume that everyone skilled enough in art must have had some innate talent for it. CLEARLY, they don't know what they're talking about because I was terrible at it early on!

But I mean, I didn't really think that of my art, did I?

No. In fact, I'm pretty sure that kid me was very much impressed with his own works. See, that child had a very bloated ego and a high opinion of himself. You should ask his poor friends; I'm sure they'd agree that the bugger could take a few lessons on humility with how he'd be sharing all of his silly sketches to them and pontificating on and on about how nice he thinks they are. Yeah, I was an insufferable kid.

But I do think that overinflated ego of mine turned out beneficial for my growth as an artist because without it—without my love for my own art—I wouldn't have stuck to it.

And stuck to it I did.

Went to college soon after that and took a program majoring in biology. Not much of a surprising choice since I've always liked the sciences and figured it would later on give way to a stable career; funnily enough, while I was very passionate about making art, I never thought it would be a profitable source of income. But that didn't mean I'd stop doing it on my free time though! Actually, this was when I got myself my first tablet! And what better way to start my digital drawing experience than to buy a FUCKING EXPENSIVE cintiq!!! With the extra motivation coming from the monetary pressure of such a purchase, you bet your ass I used the hell out of that thing. I was so intent on making use of it that—would you look at that—I still use it to this day! (Wow, they really made those old wacom tablets to last, didn't they?)

Obviously, college work ended up taking a lot of my time so I couldn't really draw as much as I did a few years ago. There were even times when I could only make one painting throughout a whole month; a far cry to my previous output. But even so, I never wavered in thinking that making art—being an artist—was something that was part of my identity; it was something that I always will come back to, no matter how much busy I got contending with course work.

And speaking of which, fuck that! Got my first honest-to-goodness mental breakdown because of all the studying I was doing at one point. See, I'm the type of student that likes getting good grades because BIG NUMBERS so I made it a point to be studious. To the point of insanity, apparently.

Anyway, I got better eventually and it all turned out nice. Even snagged all the awards I could've gotten for my thesis by the end of it! Yes, I am bragging. I deserve it, thank you very much! (For anyone curious, it was a study about plant pigments and using them in solar cells).

After that debacle, I found myself whisked into Adulthood which meant I finally had to find a job. Guess I was lucky since I didn't really have much of a hard experience searching for one. Got accepted into a cosmetics company for a lab position. Hmm, in hindsight, I think they just wanted a fresh graduate who wouldn't demand a high salary and that was me so I got in pretty easily. And honestly, the work was AWESOME. My job ended up with me coming up with formulas for new products. I got to make lotions, shampoos, soaps (ugh, I hated that one), perfumes, toners, balms, scented candles, and—oddly enough that one time—glue! It was a wonderful experience for me since it blended my interest in science and art with how it required me to think of creative ways of applying technical solutions in order to make products that needed to look, feel, smell, and perform a certain way.

As a bonus, I even got to make stuff for myself! I was particularly fond of making creams with menthol. The soothing chill on the skin is just so nice!

It wasn't all good though. I mean the menthol was fine and dandy, I assure you, but even if I was enjoying myself with the work, it just so happens that it just wasn't giving me enough money to provide for the family. Also, there was that one time I splashed chili oil on my eye. A very eye-opening and spicy turn of events to be sure.

With the bills stressing the hell out of me, I then thought to myself: if only I had a marketable skill that I could use in my off time as a way of engaging with a hobby whilst earning money.

Yup, I started my singing career!

LOL no. I opened art commissions for the first time!

It was a very scary experience, mind you. I don't consider myself a social butterfly and the prospect of talking with other people in a transactional context was a big reason why I haven't even considered doing it all this time. Turns out being poor and running out of money outweighed such concerns. Also, my keeping up with art and posting them online all these years seemed to have payed off well; my twitter having then recently crossed over a thousand followers which meant I had a decent pool of potential clients!

And so I bumbled through my first few commissions trying to appear professional and all put together in front of my clients while consistently shitting myself on the inside. Just like all well-functioning adults!

It was October last year when I started. I figured that I wouldn't have much in way of commissioners—what with being new to the business—and that was fine since I didn't have much time to put on them anyways since I did still had to go to work on my day job. What mattered was that it gave me enough of a financial buffer so that I didn't have to worry too much about going under.

This continued to the turn of the year where I was able to juggle both my job and doing commission without much of a hassle. In fact, I noticed that people were actually really interested in getting commissions from me. So much that at one point...I actually made more money in a month than what I would've with my monthly salary! At that point, it was so over! Like, I originally was planning to at least observe how things went within this year and then decide after if I would just keep it as a side gig or go full-time with art. Turns out I was much more impulsive than I expected.

It was on a bright sunny February morning (no cinematic storm clouds in sight, unfortunately) that I decided on a lark to approach my boss at work and tell them that yup, no joke, I was gonna be leaving. I handed my resignation letter a few days later.

I would've liked to say that it was a tearful goodbye with my cherished co-workers whom I've spent the last five years of my life with but...COME ON, I barely talked with those people! Instead, it was a lukewarm farewell between people who just happened to work in proximity to each other. Eh, like I said, I wasn't much of a social butterfly and no one really made an effort to get to know me so oh well. MOVING ON!

Actually, I couldn't just up and leave because there are laws around these kinds of things so I worked there for another month but all that was a blur. Soon enough, I was officially unemployed!

So like I mentioned earlier, I full on did not expect doing art as something that would bring in much in way of income. My parents too thought the same. They said that yeah, art was a good hobby but as job? Let's be serious here! Well, turns out we were wrong all this time. With me fully dedicated to commission work, I was able to take on a larger volume of clients. Not as many as some of you go for (I'm looking at you, people who take ten or more commissions per batch, you monsters!) but enough that I was actually making a stable living! And yeah, WAY more than my now previous job. What an absolute shock to everyone involved; me most of all.

Now it's almost the end of the year, my plans having all but shattered into tiny pieces. Tiny pieces that scatter with the wind as I look back on the past ten years that has led me to where I am today. A lot of time has passed. I graduated high school, college, then got a job. Then graduated from that too. Certain people have come and gone. Some more permanent than others. I've lost friends and made new ones. Tumblr got fucked. Twitter got fucked. The world stopped for two years. For some, it's still stuck in those two years. I made glue in a lab. Almost lost an eye in a lab. I bought chips with my very own money for the first time. I loved people. Hated them too. Things have happened. Things have changed.

I certainly am very different from that kid who was having troubles fitting in with others from his class, what with being bullied and suffering through a particularly angsty teenage (oh my god I was CRINGE). A kid who often sought drawing as an escape to all of those terrible things out of his control.

I guess I'm happy I can still relate to that kid.