#a sad goodbye

[aristocraticvision]

Chapter 320: Secret Romance

“So will I see you tonight?” Ted asked as he prepared to leave Jack’s hotel room. Despite their passionate night together, he was still hungry for more.

“I’m afraid not,” Jack replied. “All I have to do is sign my new contract this morning, and I’ll be done with my business here. If I don’t return to Torenth today, my father will start asking questions.”

“Just tell him you want to do some sightseeing while you’re here,” Ted replied.

“I suppose I could,” Jackson said. “But I’m not in the same position you are, Ted. I’m not out to my parents. I’d really rather not give them any reason to be suspicious.”

Ted shook his head.

“I’m tired of sneaking around, Jack,” he said. “I spent half my life hiding who I was, and now I have to hide from your parents, too?”

Jack turned away, frustrated.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know how hard this is for you. But as the youngest of three sons, I’m not going to inherit a title or money. My parents have given me a roof over my head while I built my writing career. I can’t jeopardize that – at least not yet. This contract gets me one step closer, but we’ll have to see how sales of the book go before I start making any long-term plans.”

“I know,” Ted replied. “But you know that I’m here for you, right? If things go badly, you can always stay with me.”

Jack turned and smiled, taking Ted’s hand.

“Thank you,” he said. “But our relationship is still pretty new. I’d rather not add any unnecessary pressure. I promise, when the time is right, I’ll tell them. But until then, let’s just enjoy our time together.”

Ted sighed.

“So you’ll be leaving today?” he asked, sadly.

“Yes,” Jack said. “But it’s for the best. In Torenth, we’re both pretty anonymous, but here, you’re a Prince of Weston. Chances are, the press would eventually get wind of our relationship. I’d rather not go public that way if we can avoid it.”

“I guess you’re right,” Ted said, shrugging. “But promise me that, when I get back to Torenth, you’re mine for a couple of days.”

“I already told my parents I was planning to go skiing with some friends,” Jack said. 

“Good,” Ted said, pulling Jack back into an embrace. “Then I’ll see you when I get back to Torenth next week. Until then ….”

Ted kissed Jack deeply.

“Don’t you have a garden party to get ready for?” Jack whispered.

“Don’t remind me,” Ted replied.

CHAPTER 1 | BEGINNING OF PART 4 | PREV | NEXT

Continent of Oceana | History of Weston | History of Corwyn | History of Torenth | History of Allycia

[evercelle]

brother, i'll set us both free

[roseworth]

goodbye brazilian twitter you will be missed dearly 😔

[spiderzlover]

The 00p book club💧💧

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

Farewell to Dream (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1956)

[bixels]

Portal 2 is still the perfect game to me. I hyperfixated on it like crazy in middle school. Would sing Want You Gone out loud cuz I had ADHD and no social awareness. Would make fan animations and pixel art. Would explain the ending spoilers and fan theories to anyone who'd listen. Would keep up with DeviantArt posts of the cores as humans. Would find and play community-made maps (Gelocity is insanely fun).

I still can't believe this game came out 12 years ago and it looks like THIS.

Like Mirror's Edge, the timeless art style and economic yet atmospheric lighting means this game will never age. The decision not to include any visible humans (ideas of Doug Rattmann showing up or a human co-op partner were cut) is doing so much legroom too. And the idea to use geometric tileset-like level designs is so smart! I sincerely believe that, by design, no game with a "realistic art style" has looked better than Portal 2.

Do you guys remember when Nvidia released Portal with RTX at it looked like dogshit? Just the most airbrushed crap I've ever seen; completely erased the cold, dry, clinical feel of Aperture.

So many breathtakingly pit-in-your-stomach moments I still think about too. And it's such a unique feeling; I'd describe at as... architectural existentialism? Experiencing the sublime under the shadow of manmade structures (Look up Giovanni Battista Piranesi's art if you're curious)? That scene where you're running from GLaDOS with Wheatley on a catwalk over a bottomless pit and––out of rage and desperation––GLaDOS silently begins tearing her facility apart and Wheatley cries 'She's bringing the whole place down!' and ENORMOUS apartment building-sized blocks begin groaning towards you on suspended rails and cement pillars crumble and sparks fly and the metal catwalk strains and bends and snaps under your feet. And when you finally make it to the safety of a work lift, you look back and watch the facility close its jaws behind you as it screams.

Or the horror of knowing you're already miles underground, and then Wheatley smashes you down an elevator shaft and you realize it goes deeper. That there's a hell under hell, and it's much, much older.

Or how about the moment when you finally claw your way out of Old Aperture, reaching the peak of this underground mountain, only to look up and discover an endless stone ceiling built above you. There's a service door connected to some stairs ahead, but surrounding you is this array of giant, building-sized springs that hold the entire facility up. They stretch on into the fog. You keep climbing.

I love that the facility itself is treated like an android zooid too, a colony of nano-machines and service cores and sentient panel arms and security cameras and more. And now, after thousands of years of neglect, the facility is festering with decomposition and microbes; deer, raccoons, birds. There are ghosts too. You're never alone, even when it's quiet. I wonder what you'd hear if you put your ear up against a test chamber's walls and listened. (I say that all contemplatively, but that's literally an easter egg in the game. You hear a voice.)

Also, a reminder that GLaDOS and Chell are not related and their relationship is meant to be psychosexual. There was a cut bit where GLaDOS would role-play as Chell's jealous housewife and accuse her of seeing other cores in between chambers. And their shared struggle for freedom and control? GLaDOS realizing, after remembering her past life, that she's become the abuser and deciding that she has the power to stop? That even if she can't be free, she can let Chell go because she hates her. And she loves her. Most people interpret GLaDOS "deleting Caroline in her brain" as an ominous sign, that she's forgetting her human roots and becoming "fully robot." But to me, it's a sign of hope for GLaDOS. She's relieving herself of the baggage that has defined her very existence, she's letting Caroline finally rest, and she's allowing herself to grow beyond what Cave and Aperture and the scientists defined her to be. The fact that GLaDOS still lets you go after deleting Caroline proves this. She doesn't double-back or change her mind like Wheatley did, she sticks to her word because she knows who she is. No one and nothing can influence her because she's in control. GLaDOS proves she's capable of empathy and mercy and change, human or not.

That's my retrospective, I love this game to bits. I wish I could experience it for the first time again.

[tubbytarchia]

I don't know what this is all I know is that LimL Joel makes me really emotional

[mpotato]

I will never forget you.

[ricky-mortis]

Mariah Rose Faith Casillas, the woman you are.

[theythemmer]

phinktober day 11: ur fav AU

i dont rlly do AUs so i just drew them how i wish they would dress xo

(dan’s tats r carnations and snowdrops and phil’s r roses and honeysuckle. for no reason 🤗)

ALSO bonus version w makeup bc i couldn’t pick <3

[socialbutterfly19]

The day I stop will be the day for regrets

[katerinaaqu]

Isn't it freaking adorable how both Odysseus and Penelope could remember down to exact detail what clothing she had packed for Odysseus before he left for war even 20 years later?!

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

And she packed them herself. She didn't use the help of any servant or slave to do it. She wanted to prepare her husband herself. What is even more is that all the clothes were of vibrant colors which had me thinking;

What if Penelope deliberately prepared vibrant colored clothes for Odysseus solely so that she could see him from afar for as long as possible?! And man I can so imagine her doing the same! Like standing on the top of the hill where the palace is, wearing a vibrant dress that floats in the wind, holding baby Telemachus in her arms and watch Odysseus's bright tunic on the ship and Odysseus turning his head to look up at that aetherial figure on the hill almost leaning over the ship to see her JUST FOR A LITTLE LONGER until he cannot see her anymore and this is where he keeps looking at his island becoming smaller and smaller to the horizon, shedding tears of goodbye

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Man ninjas are cutting onions around me again!!!

[fangirlyness]

She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat - Episode 30/30

[almond-gallery]

an enjolras because i miss him

[soupbtch]

you know what, actually? fuck everything forever. fuck corporate greed and fuck capitalism and fuck homophobia and fuck racism. no one can get invested in shows that don't already have established IP because they get cancelled. every new piece of media is at risk because streamers and networks don't have 20+ years of data to back up the investment. they may try for a year or two, but their solution will always be to cancel shows in their prime in favor of producing the same shit they churn out year after year because it's 'safer'. when you have a rabid, built-in fanbase and media attention and the streaming numbers and still no one will pick it up? yea. fuck everything.

[bixels]

I'm not getting into The Giving Tree discourse...