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screamingatanemptyroom · 5 years ago

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I Can’t Eat Love pt 4

Here is part 4 guys!

Also, I worried about this, since I’ve posted it in such a piecemeal fashion that it might be a little confusing. Let me clarify the timeline just a little:

After the first scene in part 1, where the engagement is broken, the story goes back 3 years to when Lenora first wakes up in her second life. So all the parts I’ve written since have been in the second lifetime, leading up to that scene. (In case you’ve wondered, getting to the broken engagement won’t be the end! Seeing how she prepared for that moment will set the stage for the fallout after the engagement is broken).

Anyways, hopefully it has made sense so far, and thank you for all the positive feedback on this story so far!

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 linked here

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“Your Highness.”

I plastered a polite smile on my face, performing a perfect curtsy, but all the while my mind was racing, desperately trying to figure out how long he had been there, how much he had heard.

Even if I was planning to let the engagement be broken up like last time, I needed the three years to get my family back on track financially before that happened. If we broke up too soon… the debtors would come calling and my life would end very much like the first.

Fortunately, Ronan didn’t seem upset or angry, he looked more bored than anything.

I let out a silent sigh of relief. He must not have heard the “temperamental child” comment I had made to my father. I wasn’t too concerned If he had heard my blatant lies about the Queen managing accounts. He didn’t know enough about how things worked in the palace to know if that was true or false.

“… We’ve come down to check out the horses.” Ronan had been talking while I wasn’t listening.

I blinked, realizing for the first time he wasn’t alone. I was slightly shocked that I hadn’t noticed the young man next to him, he stood a head taller than both myself and Ronan, with dark hair and eyes that contrasted with the prince’s lighter coloring. Odder still, I came to the conclusion that I had never met him before, in this or the past lifetime.

Chastising myself, I was unsure if Ronan had introduced us properly while I wasn’t listening, and if so, how I had responded. I could have performed a formal court greeting by sheer muscle memory, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that I had done something odd.

Ronan’s companion studied me with a curious expression, he stood neither too close or too far from the prince. Hopefully judging by his lack of confusion or disapproval, I had yet to humiliate myself.

Only 3 more years of keeping up this charade, and I’m already slipping. I must stay focused!

I forced myself to listen to Prince Ronan.

“The stupid stable master insists he is too wild to ride, but I think he is just too unskilled. If I were to ride him, he would be tamed in moments.”

That at least provided me with the mental image of Ronan falling off his horse and injuring himself. My smile came much more naturally. “I’m sure your highness could manage even the wildest of horses. “

Ronan nodded distractedly, already losing interest now that he had finished his horse story. “Is Lady Edith here?”

Three. More. Years.

“No, Your Highness, I believe she is home today.”

His gaze sharpened. “Is she ill?”

“Not that I know of.” Years of royal court training kept my smile perfectly in place.

Ronan coughed, seeming to realize even with his denseness how out of place his question was. “I was just thinking, since you two are such close friends, if she was ill, you would be visiting her.”

“Would I?” I could barely hear my voice.

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“Go to sleep.” Angela tried to tuck me into bed, but I stubbornly refused, sweating profusely from the fever.

“No, with me being sick, surely someone will be by to visit?”

Her face was blank. “No one has come, miss.”

“Prince Ronan? Edith? … Mother?”

“No one.”

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“… give her my best when you do see her.” Ronan was still talking. Lucky me. How had I ever not realized where his heart truly leaned? Had I really been so blind?

Even as I felt disdain for my former self, a part of me wanted to forgive her. Not blind. Young. Naïve. A little girl who thought the world would go her way just because she asked nicely. A girl who thought love was the most important thing in life, the only purpose of life.

… I was not that girl anymore.

I curtsied once again as the gentlemen took their leave. My smile perfect, polite, concealing the darkness I felt within.

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Hallers set up the office within an hour, surely using some sort of supernatural ability, given the absolute chaos he had to work with.

I sat down at the desk, looking through the stacks and stacks of papers and slowly did the numbers. It was not a simple task. After hours of poring over tax documents, expense sheets and overdue lendings, I had only a few pieces of the overall picture.

But even from that I could tell it didn’t look good.

It was clearly evident that my father should never be allowed near money. The personal spending habits of our family were appalling. Thousands of crowns wasted on the most frivolous of items.

This had to stop.

I estimated our projected income, wincing when I realized just how much money was being diverted from the proper channels. If we could cut down on the stealing from the collection services, we should have just enough to cover the duchy’s expenses. But that would leave us almost nothing for personal spending.

Could I convince my family to stop spending? As I looked around at the luxury that surrounded me, I felt a sense of futility take over. No. even though I was sure of the cuts I would make in my own expenses, I would have to find a way to support our family through other means.

I spent the next few days working my way through all the paperwork, working from morning until night, stopping only to sleep and eat.

I was so focused on my task that I was startled by the soft knock on the door. It was Hallers.

“Excuse me miss. I have taken the liberty of contacting of few of the smaller vendors and consolidating some of the debt with a smaller interest rate.” He handed me a stack of smoothed out bills. I glanced over them, whistling with appreciation when I saw the improved numbers.

“This is perfect Hallers, thank you!” I leaned back in my chair, rubbing my eyes with a sigh. “We will need to set up a meeting with all the men involved with taxation collection. If we don’t put a stop to this corruption, nothing I do will save this duchy.”

“Very good, Miss.” A delighted grin crossed his face, passing so quickly I almost missed it.

“Let’s aim for next week, I need to come up with a plan for terrifying a group of men into doing exactly what I want.”

“I’m sure you will be quite successful,” Hallers answered with a perfectly straight face. I couldn’t help but let out an amused chuckle.

“If that’s all, I’ll return to my work… “ I paused as he didn’t move an inch. “Was there anything else?”

Hallers hesitated. “Your etiquette lesson with the Queen is scheduled for tomorrow, yes?”

“Y-yes.” I blinked, confused by the direction of the conversation. “I will head out to the palace in the morning, why?”

It was actually something I was dreading. How many hours had I spent in those rooms, sweating, crying, trying over and over to perfect the lessons the queen had to give me? All to impress a man who had no interest in me. It seemed so ridiculous, now.

“Well, there is a man who works in the Royal treasury…” He paused, looking slightly embarrassed. “My brother, in fact… I have expressed to him your recent efforts over the last few days to organize the Duchy’s finances and enact change and he was eager to lend his assistance.” He bowed. “I apologize if I overstepped my bounds.”

“No need,” I waved a hand, dismissing his apology. “How exactly does your brother wish to help us?”

“He would like to share some of his experience and knowledge regarding taxes, land ownership and financial reform.” Hallers again looked slightly embarrassed. “He’s somewhat of a progressive man, Miss, not exactly a monarchist, but he is very skilled…”

“HE’S PERFECT!” I stood up, smiling. An experienced person who could give me advice on reforming the Duchy AND didn’t like the monarchy? I couldn’t have asked for better! “Can you arrange for us to meet after my etiquette lesson with the Queen?

Obviously shocked by my enthusiasm, Hallers nodded. “Very good, Miss. I’ll arrange it. He’ll be very pleased.”

“As am I.” I sat back down, settling in to continue organizing the accounts. “We’ll save this Duchy, Hallers.”

“Miss?”

I chuckled, the sound a little more sinister than I intended. “Whether they like it or not.”

#writing #short story #I can't eat love #part 4 #second life #second chances #thanks everyone for the support

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hookedontaronfics · 5 years ago

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First Contact series - Part 12

Title: First Contact - Part 12 Read the previous installments here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 Rating: M Pairing: Taron x OC Warnings: Some slight smut A/N: Finally, the chapter you have all been (hopefully) waiting for! This part of the story finds Jess and Taron finally getting their relationship back on track. There are mostly just some incredibly sweet and heartfelt moments in this chapter, and I hope you cheer right along with me as Jess tries to break through her fears. Enjoy! x

The morning broke bright and sunny, and with it a thousand promises. I’d woken up excited for today, excited to reconnect with Taron, and to hopefully give back to him somehow for all his faith in me. I wanted to know I had earned that faith, and while I knew he had promised he’d wait for me, I didn’t want to keep him waiting forever. Because for truly the first time since Kevin’s attack, I felt happy. I felt like some kind of heavy burden had lifted. I felt hopeful. Every hard truth I’d talked about in therapy, every wound I’d reopened and examined, every painful memory I’d tried to root out and mend, had culminated in this day. I wanted to move forward with my life, and the way to do that was right in front of me.

I sat up in bed, stretching out slightly, and feeling literally like a new person. I couldn’t tell you if something chemically in my brain had shifted, or if I just had unlocked a new state of mind, but the reason behind it didn’t matter. Everything felt new again; the way the sunlight filtered through the blind slats and warmed me, the whisper of the fabric of my pajamas over my skin, even the familiar scent of lavender from the satchel I kept under my pillow. Nothing had changed, but everything had.

Okay, so maybe that sounds like a completely Disney-fied version of reality, but I just felt different and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I was looking forward to being awake, not dreading it, and that made a massive difference in how I appreciated all the small things too. I wasn’t in sensory overload any longer, though I was certain I could easily slip back into that mode. I wanted to enjoy this small break of clarity for as long as I could make it last.

Before I fully got out of bed, I decided to call Taron, as it wasn’t exactly early. Saturdays were most certainly for sleeping in. He answered just before the call would have gone to voicemail, his voice still thick with sleep. “Mmmmmello?”

“Oh, did I wake you?” I asked, unable to keep the giggle out of my voice.

“Just a wee bit,” Taron yawned slightly, rustling about in his bed. “But it’s bloody late in the morning already so I guess it’s about time I got up.”

“You’re adorable when you’re sleepy,” I smirked.

“That so?” he replied, and I could hear the grin in his voice. “Would be better if you were next to me, you know.”

“Would it now?” you smiled at that.

“I do mean it, why can’t I have you here with me again?” he asked in a pouty voice.

“You know why, T. I’m working on things here,” I replied softly.

“I know, I know. I just miss you dearly. The bed feels far too big now without you in it,” he said, and I could hear the bedsheets rustling some more, and then a slight involuntary grunt as he stood up. I imagined him running his fingers through his inevitably messy hair, his nightshirt a bit rumpled, and I sort of wished I could run my fingers over it, smoothing out the wrinkles.

“Anyway, I called to talk about our plans,” I said quickly, wondering at the thought I’d just had. I hadn’t had much of an urge to touch Taron since Kevin had interrupted everything. But now I wanted nothing more than to feel that warm, firm chest under my fingers. I longed to hear his heart beating, just for me.

“I’m all ears,” he said, yawning again and making something else open up in my chest as I imagined him leaning over the bathroom sink, peering at himself in the mirror. I felt my heart trip a little at the thought, fully aware of how much I hadn’t appreciated that enough during the month I had crashed at his place. Then again, I had been actually crashing in my depression and anxiety and unable to appreciate those things. I had a lot of time to make up for.

“I just need you to pick me up at 6 sharp. I’d say I’d pick you up, but then we’d be riding the tube and seeing as it’s getting colder out now, your car is probably the better option,” I grinned.

“Yep, got it. 6 p.m. sharp. What are we doing?” he asked.

“I can’t tell you that, it’s part of the surprise!” I laughed lightly. “But just wear jeans and a nice jumper and a coat or something. We don’t have to be super dressed up for this.”

“Coat. Jeans. Jumper. Got it,” he replied. “Do I have to wait until 6 to see you?” he asked again, the longing so evident it squeezed at my heart.

“I- …” I trailed off, not really sure what to say. That hadn’t been part of my original plan either, but in many ways it felt difficult for me to wait to see him too.

“Just ignore me, I’m being ridiculous. I will be patient, and I will see you this evening love, and we will have an amazing time together,” he answered for me, probably mistaking my hesitation but I didn’t correct him.

“I could never ignore you, Taron,” I said, running my fingers over my lips in a sudden memory of his kisses. “Yes, 6, until then enjoy your day,” I replied distractedly.

“Of course. It will be so much better after 6 though, so the first part might be quite forgettable,” he smirked into the phone at me.

“Oh shush,” I had to laugh. “Just go do whatever it is a Taron does on Saturday,” I teased.

“Mostly cleaning my place, it’s a hideous wreck,” he chuckled.

“I doubt that,” you laughed with him.

“Alright, I best get to it. See you later, my love.”

“I am looking forward to it,” I said, blushing despite myself. We managed to say our good-byes and hung up, and I laid back on my bed for a long moment and sighed happily. I pulled the ring out from under my nightshirt and examined it in the sunlight, letting the diamond sparkle. Tonight was going to be special, I could feel it.

I finally managed to get up and, in a fit of inspiration from Taron himself, decided to spend my morning cleaning our flat. I felt like my depression had kept me from contributing anything to my roommates and I wanted to make up for it, so I started with the bathroom, scrubbing it down until it shined, and then going to do the same with the kitchen.

That’s where Mary found me, sprawled out on my hands and knees, head under the sink, containers of bleach and dish soap and sponges scattered around me.

“What in the world are you doing?” she asked, scaring me so that I jerked and whacked my head on the underside of the metal sink.

“Owww, fuck!” I said, backing out and resting on my heels, pressing a hand to my smarting forehead. “I’ve been cleaning!” I laughed lightly. It would be just my luck to give myself a shiner right before my date.

“Oh, well, it looks really nice,” Mary smirked at me. “I can see my reflection in the toaster now.”

“We all didn’t know what we were missing,” I giggled lightly, finishing what I was doing and stacking everything back in the under-sink cabinet. “Now we can make sure our makeup is on point while we eat our toast. Much more efficient this way,” I continued to joke, making Mary giggle even more.

“You’re ridiculous, Jess,” she grinned.

“Here, give me that,” I said, checking my forehead in the toaster reflection and rubbing the red spot that was already starting to darken. “Well I’ll be wearing my bangs down today,” I said, blowing the hair out of my face for emphasis.

“What’s tonight?” Mary asked as she poured herself a bowl of cereal. I handed her the milk absent-mindedly, already lost in thought.

“You know, I’m taking Taron out later,” I smiled. “He’s been so patient with me while I went and lost my marbles. I just feel like I should try and make an effort to give back, you know?”

“Lost your marbles?” Mary asked, sounding confused, and I forgot that sometimes phrases that were natural to me in American English were confusing as hell to her.

“You know, lost your marbles… Went a little crazy. I mean, I use that cheekily because I wasn’t crazy but I certainly wasn’t easy to deal with either. I crashed and crashed hard after Kevin and I moped around Taron’s place for a month and had very little motivation to do anything or basically exist. He’s really been a saint,” I tried to explain, as Mary gave me a sympathetic look.

“But you went through something really awful. You should be kinder to yourself. I think you’ve been incredibly strong, and I’m sure Taron would think the same thing,” she said sweetly.

“It’s just difficult to reconcile how hard I fell though. I thought I’d made better progress after three years of dealing with the fallout from the first time Kevin attacked me. So I feel a bit ashamed for falling apart so much to be honest,” I admitted.

“But the only person judging you is yourself,” Mary pointed out, words I’m sure I’d said to her before. I was good at giving advice; not so much at actually following it myself.

We chatted a bit longer before Mary decided to join me in my cleaning frenzy, and we ended up tackling the living room together, Tim protesting at us when we shoed him off the couch so we could vacuum it free of his hair. He promptly jumped back up after we were finished and glowered at us while we swept and dusted and organized everything, getting rid of old newspapers that had stacked up and even washing down the windows. They say cleanliness is next to godliness for a reason; the whole place somehow felt lighter and better for our efforts.

While Jules was still at work, Mary and I decided to run to the grocery, and I found I was truly enjoying her company as we laughed and sent Jules stupid Snapchats with jokes about various food products. It was probably juvenile, but we were in fits by the time we finally checked out. Emotionally, this was probably one of the best days I’d had in a long time. I couldn’t believe how happy I felt, and it gave me hope that there were better days coming. I could feel the darkness still waiting for me below the surface; I knew there was still work to do to keep from sliding back into it. But for now, I felt like I had gained a little freedom and I didn’t want to let that feeling go.

Once we got home, we put the groceries away and I ended up straightening up my room a bit before trying to read a little while I waited for the clock to tick closer to 6. Eventually I deemed it was time enough to start getting ready for the evening. I chose a pretty yellow silk blouse and layered that under a black pinafore with thick black tights and black boots. It was comfortable and effortless and that’s how I wanted to feel tonight. I also made sure to dig my winter jacket out of the closet, and stuffed my gloves in the pockets too. I’d probably need them later, for what I had planned.

I quickly did my makeup, able to take the redness out of my new bump but not the bruising, so after also hiding my scar, I made sure to pull my bangs down over my forehead. I was a mess, but Taron wouldn’t care; he’d only tell me I was the loveliest woman he’d ever seen. I could very nearly hear him say that in my mind, and I couldn’t help but smile. He never saw the superficial things, the flaws I tended to obsess over. He’d really seen me at my worst, no makeup, unshowered, exhausted and unkempt and depressed as hell, and he still wanted to be with me so that said a lot for his character.

I paced my room slightly before my phone chimed with a text. I grabbed it and saw that Taron had texted that he was on his way. I felt a small thrill of excitement run through me, nearly like it was our first date again, and in some ways I supposed it could be counted as that; the first actual date since Kevin had altered my path, again.

When Jules finally made it home from work, she screeched at me in a decibel probably only dogs could hear about why I hadn’t told her and Mary. I tried to explain I’d only decided on this date the day before, but I’m not really sure she heard me.

By the time Taron arrived I felt like I’d worked myself up into a tizzy. Even though it was custom for Taron to come to the front door I decided to preempt that and meet him halfway so he wouldn’t have to deal with all the screeching from my flatmates. “Alright, I’ll see you ladies later,” I laughed, swinging the door open only wide enough for me to squeeze through. “Byyyee,” I laughed as Jules tried to wrestle the door away from me.

“You know Mary and I won’t mind if you don’t come home tonight, alright?” Jules said, only half-teasing me, I think.

I rolled my eyes in appreciation and then hopped down off the stoop, making Taron chuckle as I nearly ran down the walkway to him. “What’s the hurry?” he smirked, waving at Mary and Jules, who had their faces pressed to the window I’d just cleaned earlier.

“Those two, that’s the hurry. Come on,” I laughed, tugging his hand as I walked toward the car. Taron just seemed amused as he opened the car door for me, always the gentleman, but he stopped me for a second before I could sit down.

“You look absolutely stunning tonight, Jess,” he said sweetly. “And I like this,” he added, touching the ends of my wavy hair, which was now just barely sweeping over my shoulders. “When did you get it cut?” he asked curiously.

“Um, Tuesday? I think? It all sort of blurs together, but I completely forgot to tell you,” I laughed, realizing that we really hadn’t seen each other in person for a week. I suddenly felt compelled to hug him, and so I did, wrapping my arms around his middle tightly and pressing my face against his chest, breathing him in as he hugged me back. We held onto each other for probably a moment longer than was necessary, but the need was there, obvious and permeable as it hung in the space between us. He tilted my chin up to gaze in my eyes before his eyes drifted up.

“What on earth did you do here?” he asked, tapping his finger lightly on my forehead.

“Oh, that,” I cringed lightly. “I fought the sink and it won,” I said, and Taron laughed before shaking his head.

“That’s my Jess,” he said affectionately as I carefully placed the duffle bag I’d been carrying in the backseat. Taron raised an eyebrow at that in question but didn’t ask and I finally managed to duck into the car, my stomach growling. He handed me his phone after also getting in the car and I punched the address into Google Maps for the restaurant I had chosen, and soon enough we were on our way, enjoying the views of the city in the evening light. He dutifully followed the directions from Google but once we were close seemed to recognize exactly where I was taking him, and we were able to find parking quickly because he knew where to go. We walked hand in hand down the few blocks to Oxo Tower and I couldn’t feel giddier at the moment.

“Excellent choice. I’m quite fond of this place but I don’t get here enough,” he said as we took the elevator up to the eighth floor. Taron held me to him while we were in the elevator, lightly kissing my forehead and making my heart yearn for something more, but there would be time enough for that. We knew each other and yet we were just getting to know each other again in my new normal.

I gave my name at the front, thankful I had made reservations at the Brasserie as the place was rather crowded, and we were led to a table right by the large floor to ceiling windows with the very best view of London over the Thames. We got seated in the mod blue chairs and Taron stared out at the view for a long moment, looking thoughtful and handsome as ever in the black jeans and grey jumper he’d worn over a red collared shirt. He looked deeply vulnerable for a moment as he looked back over at me, and we were suspended in that moment, exchanging thoughts without a single word until our server came up, introducing herself and taking our drink orders.

“Isn’t it lovely?” I said, also staring out at the calm waters, the sun starting to sink toward the horizon and painting the clouds every color imaginable.

“Not as lovely as the view right across from me,” Taron replied, reaching over and taking my hand in his and I think noticing for the first time that I was wearing the ring on a necklace, not tucked under my clothes as before but on full display. He sucked in his breath for a moment, seeming a bit overwhelmed, and I tore my gaze away from the sunset to catch his full reaction. His eyes were twinkling a bit as the smile grew over his whole face, crinkling the corners of his eyes in the way I so loved. “You’re wearing it,” he commented softly, running his thumb over the back of my hand gently.

“I have been for a little bit,” I nodded with a smile. “I heard you, you know, when you said it was a promise. I’ve held onto that, and I think it’s helped keep me going. None of this was about running away from you, I hope you know that.”

“I didn’t understand it that day, I don’t think. I was a bit hurt and miserly but I also knew I wasn’t willing to lose you over being butthurt,” he smiled. “I’d take any kind of pain you could send my way if it just meant I got to be with you.”

“But I don’t want to hurt you, T,” I said, resting my chin in my hand and biting at my lip nervously.

“You don’t hurt me. What you went through hurts me. What I had to witness you going through, that hurts. Because I feel for you, I hurt for you, do you see? I can’t just be over here only feeling my own feelings. There are a lot of things I feel for you too. Things I wish I could inspire in you also - joy, happiness, love,” he said, his eyes actually misting up a bit.

He had to quickly recover as the waitress dropped our drinks off and we put our orders in. I asked for the pan-fried sea bass with cauliflower puree, potato gnocchi and cavolo nero, while Taron ordered the pancetta-wrapped pork filet with a lentil and treviso salad. Everything sounded so good and I wanted to order it all, but I figured we would try bites of each other’s meals, at any rate, and probably split a dessert too. The lights on the buildings were beginning to twinkle on, one after another in the darkening horizon, and the last bit of sunlight really gave us a show, oranges and reds dancing with blues and purples in the sky.

“Hey, I have an idea!” I said, getting up from the table suddenly and pulling him with me. He laughed in surprise but followed as I pulled him out onto the balcony with me. There were a couple brave souls at the tables outside but they didn’t seem to give us a second glance as we posed with the sunset backdrop, trying to take a decent selfie but Taron kept making funny faces and the harder I laughed, the worse the pictures kept turning out.

“Taaaron, I want a nice photo before it gets dark!” I giggled into my hand.

“But I love this laugh,” he grinned, wrapping his hands around my waist and pulling me in close, my hips nearly against his as he gazed at me for a minute, his expression full of adoration. He leaned in and kissed me and the rest of the world seemed to stop. Everything else just faded away, and it was just Taron and me, the feel of those soft lips against mine, claiming me, wanting me, loving me.

“Now, a proper picture,” he said after breaking away and turning me back into the crook of his arm, his head resting against mine as he held his phone out and snapped a couple of photos. I’m not even sure what my face was doing in that moment, but it didn’t matter. I was with him, and everything felt right as the day faded into darkness. By now the chill in the air had crept in under my coat and I was starting to shiver, so we ran back inside, our cheeks a bit reddened from the nip in the air too, but feeling a lot of things other than cold.

In the subtle lighting of the restaurant, the shadows danced across Taron’s face a bit, deepening his expressions as we talked about whatever came to mind, enjoying each other’s company immensely. The food was as amazing as it had sounded on the menus, and we were all too happy to dig in.

When we were quite done with our meals, stomachs full to bursting, Taron looked over at me, about to say something but the thought died before it left his lips. But I’d gotten to know him well enough to know when he had meant to say something and chose better of it. “What’s on your mind, T?” I asked him, and he shook his head.

“Nothing,” he hedged slightly, and I sighed.

“You can talk to me. Be honest with me, please,” I pleaded softly.

“I was just thinking about what I’d said earlier, before the waitress came to take our orders, that’s all,” he said after a moment.

“I heard what you said, Taron, it was very sweet,” I replied with a smile.

“Yeah, you heard me here,” he said, indicating his ears. “But did you hear me here?” he asked, tapping my chest lightly.

“I… yes, of course,” I said, watching him watch me in that introspective way he had that always made me feel like he saw more in me than I did.

“You have to let me in, Jess. There’s only so much I can do from the outside,” he said quietly. “I will always be here, no matter how much or how little of yourself you’re actually willing to give me. But I want it all, desperately.”

I had trouble sorting all of this out in my head as Taron realized I wasn’t going to respond and he resorted to paying the tab to fill the silence. But it wasn’t that I hadn’t heard him; I’d heard him loud and clear and I was at a complete loss for what to say. His words had struck me deeply because I knew he was genuine in that feeling, and I had to grapple with my fear and figure out a way to push past it if I were truly going to let him behind the walls.

“I think we should go somewhere else,” I said, a bit breathlessly, my heartbeat pounding in my ears even though I knew he couldn’t understand why I was suddenly nervous.

“Alright, anything for you, love,” he said, helping me back into my coat. We departed the restaurant and packed ourselves back into the car, and I once again plugged the address into Taron’s Google Maps. We drove in silence for a small space of time, his music our only accompaniment. This was the part of the plan I was most excited about, and as Taron drove us further away from the lights of the city he went “ahh” in recognition.

“You remember what happened here, don’t you?” I asked at that, and he nodded but didn’t say anything at first as we took the winding road past thickets of trees that signaled the preserve was near. We eventually got parked and I pulled the lanterns out of my duffle bag, handing one to Taron and hefting the bag over my shoulder. I slipped my gloves on and then entwined my gloved fingers in his as we walked along the worn path, our breaths puffing out into the chilly air.

“I remember the last time we were here I was a complete and utter dick. What kind of man leaves his lady in the middle of the woods to fend for herself?” he sighed, his voice loud and clear in the still night air. There was no bonfire today, not a single soul in sight as we made our way to the hidden pickup truck in the clearing in the woods, a place where we’d first really connected, and the place I had caused us both so much pain. We clambered back up into the bed of the truck after Taron had uncovered it again, settling into the cushions and covering ourselves with the blankets I’d brought with me, snuggling up to each other and staring at the stars twinkling far overhead.

“You didn’t understand what you were up against. I don’t hold that against you, at all,” I said softly, feeling his warmth radiating out as I hugged onto his body and he enveloped me with his arms. The lanterns gave us just enough light to see each other by, and he had such a soft, warm expression on his face at the moment it made my heart beat even faster, if that were possible. “I’ve tried to explain it, tried to help you understand. The things I think in my head aren’t always rational, the fears I have feel insurmountable. But it’s not about you, at all. And I need your help to grow beyond these things. Your patience, your faith in me, your love. I have been happier and I have been healing ever since I somehow tripped into your life, and I needed to speak honestly about that. It’s been a long journey, and I can’t imagine there won’t be more difficult days ahead, more times where I seem to take steps backwards and not forward. But Taron, please, don’t ever doubt how much I love you back. No matter how afraid of that I can be, the joy waiting on the other side is worth it to keep fighting. And I will fight, for us. Through everything Kevin has put me through,” I rambled slightly, my voice growing passionate at times, teary at others, trembling with the rush of my words.

I felt his arms tighten around me as I talked, watched the way his expressions changed as he reacted to what I said. “I’ll fight for you too, every damn day you let me,” he said, brushing my bangs back slightly. “I know I can’t protect you from everything, I couldn’t protect you from this. But you’re mine, and if I can help it nothing else will ever hurt you again,” he said a bit fiercely, his eyes burning with a bit of passion that I felt reach into my soul.

“I told you I needed to make a promise, and so this is it; I promise to be as kind and true to you as you’ve been with me. So,” I said, sitting up enough to unclasp the chain from around my neck, and sliding the ring off of it, tucking the chain in my pocket and taking his hand sweetly. “I think it’s time for you to put this on my finger,” I smiled softly at him, and the sheer unbridled happiness reflected back at me was worth every bit of this moment.

“Yes ma’am,” he grinned, gingerly picking the ring up and taking my left hand in his and sliding it carefully on my finger before lifting my hand to his lips and placing a sweet kiss there. “You know I’ll do this proper, of course, but you have no idea how happy this makes me,” he smiled sweetly.

“I know how perfect this moment feels,” I smiled back, wishing we could stay in that moment forever, but I already couldn’t feel my fingers or toes, and Taron wasn’t even wearing gloves, the tip of his nose already reddened from the bite of the air.

“It is perfect. I feel a bit on fire,” he said, his voice going a bit gravelly as he pulled me to him and kissed me deeply, passionately. Oh to be kissed by Taron, it was unlike anything else. He was never pushy even when he made his desires known, but there was always so much emotion behind it too. I knew without a doubt that he was never going to leave me alone in how I felt. He was always so giving of himself, and I was falling ever so much more in love with him as we kissed under the stars, wrapped up in each other until we couldn’t stand the cold anymore.

I laughed as I struggled to wrestle the blankets back in the duffle, and on half-numb legs we managed to totter our way back to the car, our teeth chattering but our laughter light and our hearts even lighter. We blasted both the heat and the Elton, singing at the top of our lungs, and I couldn’t have felt more like I belonged anywhere but by Taron’s side. He kept looking over at me as he drove, so much love in his expression I could barely stand it. This was what it was like to let him in, I thought. It wasn’t so scary after all. I knew I could trust him; I also knew that this would take a lot more work on my part to keep the gates open. Tonight was easy; tomorrow might be a struggle. But we were both ready to face that together, and making this commitment to stay together, to be each other’s one and only, bonded us far deeper.

He pulled up in front of my darkened flat and put the car in park, brushing his hand over my thigh slightly and sighing. “Really wish I didn’t have to leave you here tonight,” he said softly.

I looked up at my flat and then back at Taron, realizing that I truly didn’t want to leave him either. “You don’t,” I said quickly. “Take me home, Taron.” He gazed at me for one long instant before quickly putting the car back in gear and taking the streets he knew oh so well, driving us back to his home. We made it just inside the door before he had pushed me up against the wall, kissing me with an intense need I could only try and match. We had only been intimate once after the attack and I’d sunk into my depression; I hadn’t been able to give this to him and though we’d never spoken about it he had always respected my need for space.

But the heat and tension and desire between us now was undeniable, a force greater than my fears. I needed and wanted to give in to him as we shed our jackets in the hallway, dropping our clothes along the way to his bedroom. We fell into bed in a strange assortment of half-dressed; I was in my bra and tights while Taron was still in his jumper and boxers and one sock still on. We couldn’t care less though as we deepened our kisses, lust taking over any sort of logic as he climbed over me.

“Is this okay?” he breathed into my face, checking in with me even as his fingers dragged along the skin of my waist, leaving a trail of fire wherever he touched.

“Yes, please, I want you now,” I gasped slightly, feeling how hard he was for me already. He made quick work of our remaining clothes, his hands traveling over the curves of my body, seeking out the places that made me moan for him, still learning his way around me as I gave in to him in every way. He remembered to grab a condom and slid it on before joining our bodies, making both of us groan for each other. The sensation was heady, certainly, and I could only crave more of this intimacy. Because this was more than just having sex, or being used, or even worse, abused. Taron gave so much of himself over to me, trusted himself to me, and I knew we were only just standing at the beginning of something really beautiful together.

Neither of us needed long to find our highs together, and when he finally collapsed on top of me, his weight both familiar and comforting, I felt sure that our souls had collided too. I felt completely calm, the constant storm inside of my head subsided, at least momentarily. I ran my fingers through his messy hair, watching him as he tried to keep his eyes open, having worn himself out. It made me smile to know what we had, what I was capable of opening my heart up to. Taron made me feel strong and fierce and worthy, things I had never fully known about myself.

“I’m so grateful for you, T,” I spoke into the comfortable silence that surrounded us.

“You are my world, Jess,” he said sweetly, running his finger lightly over the band that now encircled my finger. “I won’t let you forget it,” he smiled sleepily at that. Getting to see this side of him always felt like the best part; the way he looked at me just before he fell asleep that told me we’d be together even in his dreams. And maybe we were really living inside those dreams, I thought to myself as his eyes drifted closed again and stayed that way, his body relaxing into sleep beside me.

“Oh you beautiful, beautiful man,” I said to the quiet bedroom, hardly believing I was even here right now. I closed my eyes and pulled the blankets up around us both, getting comfortable while snuggling into his body, happy for this one perfect moment at least. Laying there next to him, knowing his heart belonged to me, truly felt like being home.

While her relationship with Taron feels certain, can Jess keep the storms at bay? Or will their happiness run out? Find out in Part 13 - Coming soon!

#taron imagine #taron egerton #taron x reader #taron fluff #taron fanfiction

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tellywoodtrash · 5 years ago

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Sanjivani - Weeks 7 + 8

Overall Plot

Sid and Ishani are about 10 minutes away from hardcore Love. And literally every single person knows and is rooting for it (including the security guards at Sanjivani/Ishani’s apartment complex!!!!!), except the two idiots themselves. Shashank is still dealing with the fallout of the thing with Juhi and the admin issues stemming from their unresolved issues, but small mercies, his relationship with Anjali seems to be looking up. Nurse Philo's daughter Jessica has been admitted mere days before her wedding and found to have a terminal illness and it's heartbreaking as fuck.

The Medical Stuff

Lol, does Ishani's "sickness" count? She's pretty convinced that she's dying of something serious, the way she was charting her symptoms and kept getting diagnostic test after diagnostic test, so I think it should. Glad she's finally gotten a diagnosis and the prognosis looks promising! Other than that, Nandini got operated on successfully by the Shashank-Juhi team, and the only active case we have is Jessica's Stage IV cancer. But I think that's going to focus more on the emotional side of things (getting her the dream wedding she wants), since it's at such an advanced stage that it wouldn't respond to treatment anyway.

The Acting

Thank the lord above, they have started giving Surbhi comedy to do, which is where she really shines as an actor. Namit is most excellent at heart eyes, and his crying has improved from the first few weeks; dialogue delivery still needs to be more polished though. Jason and Kunal are being used effectively by giving them hilarious, snarky scenes while they drill some sense into Ishani/Sid. Robin is still pretty much in the background other than to pop up and deliver the occasional wisecrack. Very sad to see Rashmi go, she'd really won my heart as Asha. The seniors got to ease up on the angsty scenes these weeks and I'm grateful for that; it's nice to see them loosen up a bit and smile and joke around. Special mention to Vedika Bhandari as Jessica, who's just ridiculously adorable and sooooooo likable, that I already am having trouble at the thought of letting her character go.

The Characters

Sid: MY DUDES, I DID NOT EXPECT TO FALL THIS HARD FOR SIDDHANT FUCKING MATHUR, BUT WELP, HERE WE ARE. I honestly cannot believe that this boy exists on Tellywood. Where to even start with him in these two weeks? How much younger than his years he seems when he was imploring his mom to stay to meet Shashank; his heart eyes when he wakes up to see Ishani first thing next morning (after waiting to see her the whole night!!!); his bashfulness at all the love he's getting from the whole hospital staff; his good-natured humoring of Ishani's weird behaviour... He's just so unassuming and Soft. I can't really recall seeing this lovable a male lead in tellywood in forever (all I can think of is Hussain K. characters in the early 2000s, in Krishna Arjun and Kumkum and all.) But by no means is Sid a pushover who tolerates any kind of BS. He rightfully rips Rishabh to shreds when he tries to discredit his relationship with Ishani, and understandably calls Ishani out on her nonsense when she's evading her duties, but in a decent way. There is some against-the-wall-caging (because Tellywood), but in a non-threatening manner; he maintains an appropriate distance, does not touch her, and while he does talk in a raised voice due to frustration, never does it veer into yelling that feels dangerous, and he repeatedly asks her if he said or did anything that's making her uncomfortable to be around him. I found it a little strange that he was so vehemently in denial of his feelings for Ishani in last week's episodes, because he seemed to readily accept after his conversation with Guddu Mama (“Halwa banaa ke leke jaaoon? Usko achcha lagega?" with the most hopeful smile; calling Ishani a "bohut hi pyaari si princess" to her face and specifying that he specifically made the halwa for her "pyaaaaar se", being open to the idea of marrying Ishani when Nurse Philo/Jessica jokingly suggest it....) but I guess it would be pretty incongruous for him to instantly fall hard for Ishani AND recognize it, with his past as a "player". So I like that they brought in one of his flings to contrast how different his feelings for Ishani are compared to the other girls he's dated; and subsequently how he's processing his many emotions about the situation. Most of all, I love that his feelings for Ishani don't hamper him from doing his job right; instead they just make him more sensitive to understanding her and making her feel good in any capacity that he can. He came all the way over to her house to apologize for making her cry, AND MADE HER PARATHAS!!!!!!! He slept over, but respectfully all scooched up on her tiny couch! What a goddamn Good Boi. Also, him crying over Jessica's diagnosis? Heart-fucking-breaking. We should all be so lucky to find a doctor who cares about his patients THIS much.

Ishani (or lol as Guddu Mama calls her, "Pareshaani"): I really was expecting the absolute worst with this "Ishani has Loveria" track. And it did not start out well; almost 3 whole episodes were just her puerile lovesick imagination waale music videos and that goddamn CGI titli and I was just like jfc whyyyyyyyyyy. BUT THEN!!!!!!! They finally started showing us the funny side of Ishani, and it's succeeded in making the character lovably kooky, instead of just unpleasant to be around. Her panic attack in the bathroom where she legit thinks she's having a stroke and tries to literally shake off the crush, making all the first year residents repeatedly do ECGs on her, her awkwardness around Sid, the rant where she bemoans falling in love with Sid of all people, her child-like crying to Asha when Sid finally gives her a dressing down for acting idiotic ("Mujhe ITNA daanta! ITNAAAA! Aur unprofessional bhi bola! *violently stabbing finger in the air* UNPROFESSIONAL!!!!!!!!"); all of it was just hilarious as fuck. We're finally seeing the endearing side of Ishani's addled personality. I'm also very glad she got the much-required wakeup call from Sid/Asha, that she's being very unprofessional by running away from her duties, and hopefully from here on, she'll be learn to focus on her job, even with Sid's distracting presence. She's also made quite a bit of progress when it comes to her germophobia; but realistically: it's only with Sid (and Asha) - the two people she's really close to; she's still seen being touch-averse with the rest, but slowly getting better; letting children touch her, offering to shake hands with Jessica and Jignesh, etc.

Asha & Aman: I'm super bummed that Rashmi is being replaced as Asha, because she was honestly so good in the role; cheerful and hilarious in most of her scenes, gentle and sensitive with Ishani, helping her out as much as she can with this inconvenient crush... It's not an easy role, with the accent and all. I hope this new actress is as competent as Rashmi, who always highlighted the humour but without making the accent the punchline; it was always the things she said and how she chooses to word it. It's an important distinction, to not make the regional background into a caricature.

Aman is Aman as usual, lol; vicariously getting kicks thanks to the shenanigans of everyone around. Also, to my surprise, Aman and Asha live together! They offer up their place for a party for Sid; when Ishani freaks out that the cake he ordered isn't Sid's favt. flavour, Aman just shrugs "Meri Asha ko butterscotch pasand hai." I still don't really know what his equation with Asha is, but whatever it is, I love it. Asha's a self-sufficient girl, but it's obvious that Aman feels really protective of her and wants to see her happy always. I really hope the new actress maintains this ambiguous chemistry with Robin too, till the writers decide what direction they wanna take this relationship in.

Dialogue of the Week: Asha [walking in on Ishani holding a sleeping Sid's hand]: Abbe! Humaare saamne toh badi "garma"phobic bani ghoomti hai, ab dekho Dr. Sid ke saath kaise touchy-wouchy ho rahi hai!!!!!!!!!!!

Rishabh: Fucking asshole. He Tried, but he's no match for the razor sharp wit of Sid, or Asha's jugaadu skills to relieve an overworked Ishani. Chal dafa ho, be! Manhoos kahinka.

Neil: He's really really enjoying Sid and Ishani's crushes on each other, taking the mick out of both of them at any given opportunity. I truly lmao-ed when he was seriously examining Ishani for an illness on her insistence and then eye-rollingly dismisses her with "Kuch nahi hua hai tumhe." Cutest snark bean.

Rahil: MY ACTUAL FAVE. Lmao, if Ishani’s got her little purple titli, then Rahil is Sid’s grownass plaid-shirt-wearing TITLA, who appears outta nowhere to serve up piping hot sass at his confused dumbassery. His acerbic, plain-speak snark seems to be the only language Sid understands (as opposed to the first years' gleeful teasing, or the good-natured ribbing of elders like Shashank and Philo and Guddu Mama), and him having to exasperatedly explain things to his boss-who-is-also-his-bff is just hilarious. I relish every single scene he appears in to the max! Also props to him for giving us the gem "same level ke ajeeb" as the OTP tag for SidIsha!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shashank: A much better fortnight for Dr. Shashank! Two of his idiot babies are very obviously in love (that scene of Ishani showing him her reports and describing the butterfly through pantomime though, lmao) and now his relationship with Anjali is defrosting (the exchange about the surgeon she was interested in and how he wants grandkids from her??? The cutest!!!!) Things still remain frosty with Juhi though, and I don't understand why he won't just address the issue and clarify things in a straightforward manner, instead of dragging it out like this and making it awkward with his COS/mentee. Anyway, good on him for getting that win on Vardhan, but I feel like he needs to stop being so damn stubborn on his issues without giving reasons. It’s not helping matters around here, personally or professionally.

Juhi: Literally the classiest female professional on TV??????? She hasn't stopped holding Shashank accountable for how he sabotaged her career, but I love that she has sorted it out enough to work with him, but also engages in minor acts of pettiness like gleefully scraping his car with hers, cheekily grinning and apologizing saying she needed to get out some of the angst before they operated on a patient together. For what it's worth, I was fully on her side during the argument with Shashank about the machines for the hospital; it sounded like a good deal, but of course, she should have had the foresight to know Vardhan would try to do some kinda fuckery. She’s right in not really trusting Shashank anymore, but needs to be a little more prudent with how she proceeds while making decisions for Sanjivani. In a way, it’s really sad how she doesn’t really have any allies at her level. Shashank was the only one she could really rely on, and he went and blew that relationship up, and now she’s kinda adrift in the organization. I hope Shashank does good by her and repairs the relationship.

Anjali: Phew, finally a good break for Anjali. I'm ecstatic. She's realized that Vardhan's manipulating her and broken free of his gaslighting nonsense. She's much smarter than both Shashank and Vardhan thought she was and yes sis, play them both!!!!!!! She got her COS post, but also isn't playing by Vardhan's rules. Ultimate winner! But does she also have some romantic feelz for V? Coz that last scene between them had very intimate vibes, from the way she walked into his office and knew where the booze was, to her pouring him a glass and casually lounging against the wall like a wife/girlfriend would. She wasn't even really fazed when he grabbed her; either she's a hella strong woman who cannot be trifled with, or she's familiar with this side of him. I really hope it's the former coz she deserves someone who's a grown up version of Sid (*cough* Atul Joshi *cough*) who's super good and healthy for her, not this deceitful fuckwad.

Vardhan: What is his deal? No honestly, does he have some kinda personal stake in saving Sanjivani from financial ruin? It seems so, with how overwrought and devastated he seemed at Shashank exposing the machine waala scam. Also, the way he manhandled Anjali? Unforgivable. Die in a fire, scum.

Rahul: Still haven't seen him but apparently he's hiding in that secret room in the luxury ward? What the everloving experimental fuck is he doing with pregnant women who look to be unable to afford medical care? Nothing ethical, that's for sure. I have a feeling this will maybe tie up to Ishani's parents waala plot, but for the meanwhile, jfc, just reveal yourself man, coz this shit is getting scary as fuck the longer you go unseen.

Overall Rating: 5/5

#sanjivani #tt reviews #sanjivani (new)

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austencello · 6 years ago

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Arrow Music Notes - Season Six Soundtrack Review

Each year the soundtrack for Arrow is released. This year was a bit unusual in that it is currently available only in cd form. Rumors have it that the Digital album will be released some point in January...but we shall see! I was going to do this review a month ago but life got a little busy.

Here is my rundown of the soundtrack: the good, the bad, and where it ranks with the other Arrow soundtracks.

A little disclaimer: usually during the weekly reviews, I generally try to interpret what we are given and focus less on what I liked or not. So this will be much more subjective than normal. Add to that the fact that I had a wrist accident last fall, making writing difficult (I wrote 3-4 reviews with one hand and voice dictation) so my memory and notes are not great regarding 6A.

A soundtrack usually covers a few criteria: the musical highlights that represent the big moments of a movie or show, Character themes or the setting of the place, as well as an overview of the movie or TV season. When looking at a TV show, there is more plot and music moments to cover. The tricky part is to pick music that encompasses the big moments, the feel of the season, and doesn’t seem monotonous. When I buy a soundtrack, it is because I want relive moments through the music and the feelings from that show or it is so good musically that it doesn’t matter (John Williams often falls in the later category).

Since Arrow relies less on sweeping melodies and timbre changes, the danger is that the soundtracks can be a bit monotonous in color. This has been true since Season 1 and why I like Seasons 3 and 4 the most. Those provided the most interesting variety and remind me musically of heart-break and joyful moments during those seasons. As the years progress, new variations of older melodies are used which is great in telling a long story over seasons and tying them to the previous seasons but having new melodies are important as well. At this point, I want Arrow to balance emotional melodies from the past, intense action music and new memorable melodies and motifs. While each track is nice as a whole (it has grown on me listening to it several times), I walk away with very few tracks that are memorable and new.

The Arrow soundtracks focus the most on the first and last episodes as musical bookends. Here, the first four tracks are from 6x01 which is a little more than usual but then covers music from almost every episode. Almost every track has at least two moments from an individual episode (which does happen pretty frequently) but happens chronologically instead of thematically. This means that the titles sometimes seem to apply better to one moment instead of both. “I killed my daughter” (6x01) has Quentin dealing with shooting Black Siren but also Oliver finding Samantha and promising to take care of William before she dies. While that has happened a bit in the past, it seemed a bit more extreme than normal in this soundtrack which gives it a less cohesive whole.

The bad:

Season 6 was probably the weakest musically and that is reflected in the soundtrack. Quite honestly, I think a lot had to do with story. The storyline was a bit weak in many areas, not providing new exciting music opportunities. The new themes were often used for characters or scenes that people did not resonate with or care about. The tricky part about music is that it should help you feel grief or joy or excitement but it should also feel earned and not forced. Unfortunately, the two most heart-wrenching new themes felt forced and regarding characters that the audience did not care about as much: Dinah and Vince’s love theme “Dinah Identifies Vincent” and Cayden James’ son dying: “The Devil’s Greatest Trick.” The second one was heart-wrenching, matching Season 3 level of angst and beauty but was used for the wrong characters, trying to make the audience sympathetic towards the villain as he lost his son. I want to hear a theme and remember the heart-breaking or joyful moments of the story for the heroes I care about: Oliver, Felicity, Thea, Diggle, William, Quentin, Team Arrow. I think Blake may have been overcompensating for the story, trying to give more emotion in moments that did not earn them story-wise or character-wise.

Along those lines, a lot of themes were repeated for better or worse. For interpretation, this makes things generally exciting for me to hear old themes and see what Blake is saying. However, if the season relies on that too heavily, then the soundtrack is a rehash of previous themes because there were not enough new ones to balance it out. As much as I love “Not Black or White” from Season 4 and how it were used in this season with Diggle becoming Green Arrow “You Could be Greater” and Felicity’s speech to William about Oliver being a hero “What Your Dad is” having it twice in the same soundtrack felt a bit much. Interestingly enough, there were not as many action tracks in the soundtrack compared to previous seasons (excepting Season 1 which was a little unbalanced with too many action moments) which also gives it a little more mellow feeling but then everything start to blend into together and sound the same if you can’t remember when the individual tracks happened throughout the season. Once I looked things up as to when and where they happened, that helped me to enjoy it much better but that shouldn’t have to be the case for the more casual listener.

There were a one or two times when the use of a specific theme didn’t match what was happening on the screen or felt like they should have left it in the past. Most particularly “Promise Kept” when Moira died in 2x20. For that to be used in Slade’s journey with his son and Oliver made me super mad (“Like Father, Like Son.”). I get that Deathstroke’s music is one of Blake Neely’s favorites to write and he got to use it a lot in 6x05 and 6x06 (”Deathstroke Extracts Revenge”) but that particular track should have been reserved for Moira’s death and the later effect it had on the Queen siblings. Not with Slade dealing with the relationship and trying to find his son while Oliver is there. It tried to raise sympathy and instead hardened my heart reminding me that Slade killed Moira and in that light, it made no sense for Oliver to be helping him to that degree. (I didn't write about those two episodes so I had to vent it out.)

The good:

On the flip side of bringing back themes, I love how certain tracks give an evolution and new instrumentation to older themes as the story and characters evolve like the goodbye scene for Thea “Take Good Care of Her” having a new version of “I forgot who I was” which was a beautiful use of this family theme for Oliver and Thea, as well as “What Your Dad Is” for the evolution of Oliver as a hero (first “Not Black or White” - 4x23).

There were several music moments that stood out to me during the season that were included: “I know you’re the Green Arrow” (6x02) with a scene between Oliver and Rene about being fathers and in the field, “Why do they all leave?”(6x18) when Oliver asks Quentin why everyone leaves while he was under Vertigo, “Team Divided” (6x10) terrible moment but memorable sad music, and the use of the Olicity oboe as Oliver is Overwatch helping Felicity in “Inside the Internet.” (6x04). That is the only version of the Olicity theme on this soundtrack but if you want more, then check out “Crisis for Earth-X” because that has a lot of Olicity music in it and the best of all the crossovers for music.

The most memorable track of the whole soundtrack is “Final Showdown with Diaz” (6x23) which was also used in the SDCC teaser trailer for Season 7. Personally I think it worked better for the trailer! (Thanks to @ah-maa-zing for reminding me that it was used in that capacity)

My favorite is the last track “At What Cost?” (6x23) combining “Scars” (1x01) and “The Essence of Heroism” (2x22) with a new theme in the harp for Felicity as Oliver and Felicity talk before Oliver goes to prison. It is the quintessential Arrow track: emotional use of old and new themes leading to the epic use of the main Arrow title motives for the end of the series.

Having the cd means lots of pretty pictures which is fun...especially two cute Olicity pictures and lots of Team Arrow pictures. I find the pictures don’t match what music is in the album but still encapsulates the season well.

Having listened to the cd 4 times, it is growing on me but it did not wow me. In fact, I would rank this with Season 1 as the weakest albums. I think part of that is due to the lack of connection with many of the story lines represented on the soundtrack. I also wanted more new exciting music to balance the new versions of ones that I love. I will say that Season 7 is already looking much more promising in that direction. However, I am aware that we are very lucky in the Arrowverse world to be getting soundtracks for every season as that is rare in the TV world. So, I am very grateful that we have this soundtrack despite my nit-pickings!

Brief overview of characters on specific tracks:

If you are interested in listening, the cd is available through LaLa Land Records and is also posted on YouTube.

Quentin/Laurel: I killed my daughter (6x01)

Thea and Oliver: Been Mad at You Before/Oliver is Back (Purest Heart theme), Take Good Care of Her

Dinah and Vince: Dinah Identifies Vincent, Right Before Her Eyes

Diggle and Oliver: You Could Be Greater, Been Mad at You Before, Brothers in Arms

Black Siren: Fallout, Siren Storms the Lair, Team Meets Cayden/Inside the Internet

Ricardo Diaz: The Dragon, Love is a King Killer, Final Showdown with Diaz

Team Disintegration: I Need Someone, Team Divided, Right Before Her Eyes

Oliver, William, and Felicity: I know you’re the Green Arrow, You Could be Greater, Inside the Internet (Olicity), What Your Dad is, Why do they all Leave?, Never a Normal Life, Love is a King Killer, At What Cost?

Happy Listening!

@academyofshipping @smoakmonster @ah-maa-zing @herskirtsarentthatshort @scu11y22 @mel-loves-all @pulpklatura @withgraceandlight99 @green-arrows-of-karamel @dmichellewrites @almondblossomme

Special thanks to @jorahandal who was my sounding board as I was processing my feelings and observations of this soundtrack.

#arrow season 6 #arrow music notes #arrow soundtrack #blake neely

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sorrelchestnut · 8 years ago

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EVERYBODY’S PICKIN’ UP ON THAT FELINE BEAT, PART 31

GUESS WHO’S ACTUALLY WRITING IN FALLOUT AGAIN MOTHERFUCKERS. man it feels good to make some actual progress on this beast.

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11. Part 12. Part 13. Part 14. Part 15. Part 16. Part 17. Part 18. Part 19. Part 20. Part 21. Part 22. Part 23. Part 24. Part 25. Part 26. Part 27. Part 28. Part 29. Part 30.

Title: everybody’s picking up on that feline beat Author: Sorrel Fandom: Fallout 4 Rating: Mature Warnings: None Relationships: Deacon/Female Sole Survivor Series: Part 3 of everybody wants to be a cat

"Well, at least we know the lay of the land," Whisper says a day later, peering down the scope on her rifle at the courser standing deceptively still in front of the big double doors to Kendall Hospital. “That’s something, at least.”

"Unfortunately, so does the other guy, and they've got home field advantage." Next to her, Deacon studies the approach through a pair of binoculars, but he already knows what he'll see: only one way up from the road, all other entrances carefully blocked off with rubble or flipped cars, just a single clear line with a dozen and a half different sightlines on anyone dumb enough to come up that way without authorization from the second courser posted down by the road.

He knows it because he set it up that way, goddammit, and it grates even more than he would have thought to see the Institute using his carefully-designed safety procedures against him. Bad enough that they cracked this place once already, killed their way from top to bottom and left his people where they dropped to be binned like trash by opportunistic raiders, but now this? It's insult to injury, and he knows he's not the only one who's pissed. Whisper's too-still body next to him screams with tension, more than can be accounted for by the enemy combatant in her sights.

Even that enemy combatant.

"You sure those two coursers on watch are the only ones here?" Whisper asks Hancock, on her other side.

Deacon leans up on his elbow, catches the tail end of Hancock’s answering shrug, a small economical movement of his narrow shoulders under the heavy rotting fabric of his coat. "'Bout as sure as you can ever be with the Institute, yeah. We watched 'em a solid week ‘fore I called you in. They've got a fuckton of the plastic types, but only the two of flesh and blood. And the doc himself, ‘course."

“Of course,” Whisper says. The muzzle of her rifle sweeps from one courser to the other and back again, thoughtful, and Deacon gets a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Partner,” he says, not wanting to use her code name in front of Hancock, and when she doesn’t respond, he nudges her with one elbow. “Ey. Liv.”

That gets her attention, sure enough. The line of her shoulders tightens up, and she shoots him a look he can’t quite read. “What?”

He’s spent too many years cultivating a personal talent for being fucking annoying in the name of justice to be put off by her petty irritation. He nudges her again. “Tell me you’re not thinking about trying to get past them.”

“‘Get past’ is such a broad way of phrasing that,” Whisper says, going back to her scope. She’s not looking at the courser anymore, but something further in the distance, Deacon can’t quite tell what. “We have to get past them eventually, obviously. But if you’re asking if I’m planning to storm the front door, then no. I don’t think that would work as well on ‘cutting edge Institute fuck-up-your-day technology’ as it does on raiders that are too goddamn high to think straight.”

“Well,” Deacon says, mollified. “As long as we’ve got that settled.”

“Such insightful critique.” Whisper lays down her rifle and rolls over onto her back, bringing up her left wrist to fire up her Pip-boy. Deacon insinuates himself in against her side to peer nosily over her shoulder, and she obligingly shifts to show him the map she’s pulled up on the screen. “If you're going to be useful, at least offer constructive criticism.”

She’s got the map zoomed in as far as it can go, just a few blocks in either direction. There’s not much nearby; another reason he’d picked this spot, back in the day. “Give me a hint.”

“I'm thinking something like a Killdeer Shuffle.”

It only takes a moment to see what she's talking about, but Deacon allows himself a slow count to five to make sure that he's not imagining things before he slowly twists around to give her a look of pure unadulterated reproach.

"You're insane."

"What?" Hancock says, looking back and forth between the two of them. "What's going on?"

Whisper doesn't look away from him. "As I recall," she says, the corner of her mouth ticking up a little, "I specifically asked for constructive criticism. These personal attacks are so childish."

"Here's your criticism: it's insane."

"Seriously, what's going on?"

Deacon raises his eyebrows at her: you want to tell him? She grins back.

"It’s a distraction play,” she explains to Hancock. “Make a big noise on their front door, draw out the watchdogs, and then slip in the back and take the prize while they’re still chasing their tails. We can’t face a pair of coursers head on, but…”

“There’s another way in,” Hancock surmises. They both nod; Deacon doesn’t have any secrets left to protect here, and maybe Hancock can talk her out of this. “Okay, sounds like a fair deal. What’s the catch?”

“Johnny’s got his panties in a twist about the distraction,” Whisper says. Hancock raises a polite eyebrow, and she taps her thumbnail on the map, right over the Cambridge Crater. “If you’re going to throw a party, it’s only polite to invite everyone.”

Hancock’s not slow on the uptake, Deacon’s got to give him that. “John’s right,” he says, flatly, after a moment. “You’re insane.”

“Oh, ye of little faith.” Whisper doesn’t look anywhere near as daunted by their combined disapproval as she rightly should. “Look, even a courser has to step in if you send a horde of ferals past their front door. It’s a straight shot up from the crater; two guys in power armor could pull them all the way up here without too much risk, as long as they were moving fast.”

She’s… not wrong. Exactly. “And where are these ‘two guys in power armor’ going to come from, again?”

“I think Sturges has a few he hasn’t shipped back to Preston yet out at Starlite. I could send Cait to pick them up; this is just her kind of party. They’d come down the tracks and cross the river near Graygarden, loop around and come back up across the Longfellow Bridge. From there it’s a straight shot across the Crater, and since it’s out of clear view from here the lookouts won’t know what started thes scuffle. It’d look like a normal patrol that just went crossways.”

She’s put a lot of thought into this. It’s not some fly-by-night plan (not that they ever do that, of course), and that’s nice, but it doesn’t really make him any less wary. There’s a lot riding on this- Kendall’s damn near in spitting distance of Bunker Hill and Ticonderoga bother, and they already know about Goodneighbor- and while normally he trusts Whisper to cover all the angles, he can’t forget that she’s been distracted lately. They can’t afford to give the Institute an opening, not with so many balls in the air.

“And you think the Institute is going to buy that?” he challenges. “You think when our fine feathered friends down there finish plowing through those ferals, which they will, and come back to find the body they’re guarding gone with a bunch of dead Gen 2s lying around, which they will, they’re just gonna go, ‘oh yeah, those whacky Minutemen, what a wild co-inky-dink,’ and go home like nothing happened? You think your people aren’t going to see reprisals for that?”

Whisper gives him a faintly pitying look.

“What?”

“I don’t think the Minutemen are, no,” she says, talking like she’s explaining things to a particularly slow child. (Or Carrington if you’re trying to piss him off. Not that Deacon’s ever done that. Much.) “A double patrol in power armor, coming up from the southeast and heading west into Cambridge proper? Why would they think the Minutemen had anything to do with it?”

The elegance of her plan comes clear to him in one beautiful rush. “The Brotherhood,” he breathes. “They’re going to think the Brotherhood is behind it.”

She nods, trying and failing to bite back a smug grin. “Sure will, partner.”

If Hancock wasn’t here, he’d grab her shoulders and plant one right on her smirking mouth. “And with the Brotherhood seeming to gear up for a move against them, the Minutemen will drop down the Institute’s threat list.”

“That’s the hope,” she says with a shrug. “Might not come to anything, but at worst it’ll cover our tracks here, and at best we buy Preston some time. It’s win/win.” A sudden wry turn to her smile. “Assuming we pull it off, that is.”

“Oh, we’ll pull it off, don’t worry.” He grins over her shoulder at Hancock, who’s sitting patiently on her other side, keeping very quiet so as not to interrupt and clearly, avidly drinking in every word. Deacon’s not worried. Whisper might trust Hancock, but she didn’t say anything he didn’t already know, either. “Especially with a little help from our favorite local politician.”

Whisper gives him a look: you sure about that? Deacon grins lazily back: trust me, grasshopper. She tips her shoulder in a shrug and turns to Hancock. “You game?”

Hancock’s black eyes flicker between the two of them before landing, oddly, on Deacon. “Hell yeah,” he says. “I want these bastards out of my city almost as bad as you do. Just tell me what you need.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Whisper says. That Pavlov guy really knew his shit, Deacon’s got to figure, because he’s feeling a rush of warmth down to his stomach from nothing more than the triumphant, toothy edge to her grin, in spite of the extra company. “Okay. What we’re going to do is this…”

#fallout 4 #deacon #deacon/sole survivor #deacon/female sole survivor #fic #update!#everybody wants to be a cat

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actutrends · 5 years ago

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GamesBeat editor Jeff Grubb’s top 20 games of 2019

We’ve had a lot of really good years in gaming recently, but 2019 is at the top of the list for me. I get that not everyone feels that way. For me, however, I got to play so many games I was looking forward to. And then several other games caught me by surprise.

So sure, we didn’t get the Gods of War or Red Dead Redemptions, but … I don’t even like those games. What do I like? Well, how about these 20 games right here?

20. Untitled Goose Game

Goose is the breakout video game of the year. It has the most viral buzz, and that’s for a good reason: It’s fun to watch. I also enjoy playing it, but it’s significantly better as a game you play for others. It’s a joy to do something silly and make everyone in your family laugh. And Untitled Goose Game is great at creating those moments.

19. Resident Evil 2

I’m not a Resident Evil guy. I adored Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 1 Remake on the GameCube, but I had never even played the original Resident Evil 2. Thankfully, Capcom gave me a chance to go back to this game in an exquisite reimagining. While I didn’t find the game all that frightening, it’s still fun to work my way through the Raccoon City police department while avoiding the indestructible Mr. X.

18. Ape Out

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Ape Out is a game where you you help an ape get out. As a ferocious and unjustly imprisoned gorilla, you can smash enemies like the Hulk or use them as human shields. And your goal is just to run to the exit on every stage. But the game’s top-down view, simple art, and dynamic percussion soundtrack make it one of the most stylish games of the year as well.

17. The Outer Worlds

I’m a fan of the recent Fallout games, but I’ve always wanted a similar game that took place in space. The Outer Worlds definitely delivers that. It might not have all of the interlocking systems of a Bethesda RPG, but it does well with its slimmer scope.

16. Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a bizarre and challenging game. It has you guiding a lineage of primates through eons of time and evolutionary progress. If that sounds like an obtuse, high-concept idea, that’s because it is, but that’s also why I love it.

15. A Short Hike

A Short Hike is exactly what its name suggests. It’s a short game where you hike through a woodsy terrain. But it is so charming and packed with different little things to do that it feels much bigger than its 2-hour playtime. I also love the charming, aliased visual style that is like Animal Crossing on PS1.

14. Disco Elysium

I haven’t played enough Disco Elysium to put it much higher on my list than this. But even after only a handful of hours, I can see why people are so enamored with it. Its reactive world is always aware of the context players are working from. And its mystery is genuinely interesting. But the best part is the conversation system where almost all of the game happens. Even as someone who has never really gotten into an RPG like this, it’s winning me over.

13. Shovel Knight: King of Cards

Shovel Knight is such an accomplishment. Developer Yacht Club Games has packed it with tons of content. And King of Cards is the exclamation point on years of work. This is a completely new release, with excellent platforming mechanics and a full card game. I haven’t finished it, but I keep sneaking in more time with it when I should be playing other games.

12. Tetris 99

Tetris continues to prove itself as one of the most resilient games of all time. It can come back year after year, and it did just that with Tetris 99. Despite Tetris Effect ending up on my list last year, Tetris as a battle royale was just as fun and impressive. I’m probably going to play different versions of Tetris for the rest of my life, and I’m OK with that.

11. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening for Game Boy is my favorite game of all time. That makes this near one-to-one remake for the Switch difficult for me to assess. It’s still that game with some new visuals and an improved interface. And while it’s dense with discoveries, it is also simple. I also can’t help that I prefer the look of the original black-and-white game. Still, I played through this version back-to-back when I got it for review, and it’s still excellent. It’s also the first Zelda I would give to any kid looking to get into the series.

10. Factory Town

Factory Town was an obsession of mine this year that I wish I could have given into more than I did. This is just one entry in the growing automated-production genre where you must design a world to process resources into currency you can spend to expand your processing capabilities. You have a lot of options in this category, but I’m glad I went with Factory Town. It’s in 3D, so you have to deal with elevations. But it’s also streamlined enough that I felt like I could always deal with any issues. And now I want to go back and check on my town.

9. Trials Rising

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Trials Rising is exactly what I want from the motorcycle-platforming franchise. It has excellent courses that are exciting to run over and over, and it has a wild and irreverent tone and sense of humor. It definitely has some issues with progression that are going to turn a lot of people off, but it’s a game I’m still going back to regularly as a Trials fan.

8. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Bloodstained came out, and it is great. This is Castlevania: Symphony of the Night spiritual successor from former Castlevania director Koji Igarashi, and it lived up to that legacy. It has fun, fast-paced combat, great exploration, and a bizarre roster of enemies.

7. Luigi’s Mansion 3

I wish Nintendo would’ve released this earlier in October. It came out on Halloween, and I didn’t have time to play it. And then suddenly it was November, and the timing didn’t feel right. But I’m playing through it now, and I’m enjoying it. That’s the right word, too. It is nice to play with really satisfying vacuuming action and incredible animations. But I hope that I end up loving it.

6. Super Mario Maker 2

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Super Mario Maker 2 should be higher, but Nintendo is not great about some key things. Mostly, it doesn’t integrate your Switch friends list to make it easy to track your friends’ creations or their leaderboard times. But the game is still excellent — especially after its most recent update to include Link. That completely changes how the game works. I’ve also had a great time racing against people in the Vs. mode even if I’ve had little luck winning.

5. Sekiro: Shadow’s Die Twice

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This is the game that got me into From Software’s style of punishing combat. It took a while to win me over, but it did. I love its battles that force you to get creative with attacks and items. And I also love its world and grim characters.

4. Lonely Mountains: Downhill

Lonely Mountains: Downhill is exactly the kind of game I want to discover when I open up Xbox Game Pass. It’s a game about guiding a bicycle through a hilly obstacle course. And while it starts out laid back with the goal of just getting to the bottom, it quickly turns into a significant challenge where you need to get to the bottom as quickly as possible without wiping out too often. This leads you to searching out the plentiful shortcuts, which is a satisfying experience in itself.

3. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

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Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is exactly my kind of game. I jive with all of Respawn Entertainment’s design decisions. And then the studio also nailed the implementation of the Star Wars universe.

The game is an expert combination of Dark Souls combat and progression, Metroid Prime environments and exploration, and a sprinkle of Uncharted set pieces at the beginning and the end. And all of that worked for me. I especially love slowly pushing through a world, getting a new power, and then having an easier time working my way back out. And I am so impressed by the boss fights that always find a way to stay interesting and push the story and state of the world forward.

And then I totally fell in love with the characters. I especially appreciate the relationship between hero Cal Kestis and the Nightsister, Merrin. That friendship/budding romance was handled deftly and has me rooting for Cal, which is not where I thought I was going to end up when his adventure started.

Respawn nailed this game, and I am desperate to see a sequel.

I’ve gone back and forth about placing it as my No. 1 of the year, and I may regret leaving it at No. 3 once I actually publish this list.

2. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I’ve played Fire Emblem: Three Houses for 90 hours. That’s for one playthrough. I guess some of that is idle time, but not much. Still, I think it’s a testament to how engaging that game’s characters, writing, and tactical battles are. I don’t have time to play games for 90 hours, and yet Fire Emblem proves that I still will for the right game.

This is another game that could easily end up as my No. 1 of the year.

1. Outer Wilds

Outer Wilds was such a surprise. It’s a game that is technically only 22 minutes long. But you’ll repeat those 22 minutes over and over until you discover all of the secrets contained within its clockwork solar system. When I look back, it’s amazing how many moments left me astonished and in awe.

At its core, Outer Wilds is a game about learning rules and then deploying that knowledge to solve larger and larger puzzles. Eventually, you will know enough to go from the beginning of the game to the end before your 22 minutes are up. And along the way, you’ll jump across the surface of the sun, ride debris beyond a planet’s atmosphere, and travel through a wormhole.

Outer Wilds is good enough to be my game of the year, but I had a pretty rough experience getting through the end. It was not a game I could play uninterrupted due to my many children, and that made it difficult to keep all of its secrets in my head at once. So I had to turn to guides for help enough that I didn’t get to experience the “aha!” moments for myself. I’m not gonna hold that against the game — except for on my personal GOTY list.

The post GamesBeat editor Jeff Grubb’s top 20 games of 2019 appeared first on Actu Trends.

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game-refraction · 8 years ago

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Skyrim: My experiences with mods

Like the majority of people, I started playing Skyrim in 2011 when it was released. I put a solid 90+hours into the game, and made it decently far into a lot of side quests and a little way through the main quest-line. I always get distracted by side quests, and lose my focus on the main quests. The same thing happened when I played Fallout 4, but I eventually got myself back on the path of the main quest-line for it, and finally finished that; however, I’ve never finished the main quest-line in Skyrim.

As silly as that sounds, I am glad I have never finished it. I will always have something to do in Skyrim, though Skyrim really doesn’t need anything like that for me to keep me playing. About 4 to 6 months after Skyrim first came out, I got distracted by another game, and for reasons I cannot remember, and Skyrim kind of fell into my forgotten realm on my hard drive, sitting there idle. As it turns out when Bethesda was getting ready to release ‘Skyrim: Special Edition’ I remembered my old save from when I first played Skyrim. I fired it up and was immediately overwhelmed by where my character was, and I couldn’t remember what my plan was or where I was headed. At that point I quit the game and didn’t really give it much thought. Soon after, I started looking into more mods for Skyrim. Mods were available at Skyrim’s launch in 2011, but they were not as main-stream as they are now. I had tinkered with a few mods, downloading them from the Steam Workshop. Each mod was fairly simplistic; a player house mod, or one that changed the guard’s helmets. My entire mod list at that time was maybe 3 or 5 mods in total.

When Fallout 4 came out, mods were definitely more prevalent in my game. I learned about The Nexus, a massive website where creators shared mods for most modded games out there. Fallout 4 had thousands of mods available, and I quickly learned the ins and outs of installing and removing mods, using their mod program the NMM (Nexus Mod Manager).

Mods for games like Bethesda’s Skyrim and Fallout 4 can be broken in to several parts.

Mods – an add-on for the game, generally include a plugin in order to be used, but not always

Plugins – This is what the game actually uses

Texture/meshes – these replace the default or vanilla textures and meshes in the game

Scripts – these are used to make certain things happen in the game

But back to Skyrim, with me being a bit more informed on mods, I started digging into the Skyrim mod database,

and found that the nexus had over 200,000 mods available for Skyrim on the PC. More mods are being added every day for Skyrim. I started looking at the mods that were most endorsed. The Nexus site has an endorsement system, where if you liked a mod, you would endorse it, and the higher endorsed mods are generally the most downloaded. It is a lot like the thumbs up/thumbs down system for YouTube.

I can’t originally remember why I wanted to get back into play Skyrim, but all I do remember is I wanted to play the game this time with as an immersive game as possible, so I started researching immersive mods and other highly endorsed mods. The mods that were definitely worth getting were some like SkyUI, a menu system for Skyrim that includes a MCM (mod config menu) allowing you to configure most mods in the game. SKSE was also another essential mod that was required. The SKSE was the Skyrim Script Extender, a small add on to Skyrim that allowed mods to run new and added scripts, opening up a whole slew of new things that could happen to your game. It is easy to get overwhelmed with mods, and it is also easy to get addicted to trying out and testing mods like crazy. There is a limit to how far you can mod your game though. The original Skyrim was created so many years ago it relied on older hardware, and faced limitations in the code and engine that restricted you to only 254 maximum plugins. Since the Skyrim main and its 3 DLC’s are also considered plugin’s you are automatically restricted to 250 plugins. You can increase

the amount of mods and plugins you can use by creating merged plugins or bashed patches, but that makes things really more complicated, and I won’t really go into them more.

So as you can see, there is a lot of stuff you can add to Skyrim with mods, like new armors, changes to weather, graphic overhauls and additional monsters, NPC’s and followers. With such a huge variety available on the nexus, it’s easy to keep looking for new mods to try out. I did just this, almost to the point of getting ‘addicted’ to searching for new mods to try out on the Nexus, all while playing my new play through in Skyrim.

I decided on a new play through because my old one started back in 2011 was well, old. I didn’t remember what my plan was with the character, so I archived the save, and started fresh. I wanted to play a style of character that I had never played before in either Skyrim or Fallout 4. I chose a tank warrior style, relying on heavy armor, a sword and shield. I didn’t want to fall into the stealth trap I always end up doing, so I didn’t use any stealth at all, just my sword, and on occasion, a bow.

Inigo, is a Kahjiit follower mod that adds many charming aspects to the game, such as him randomly singing while you adventure

Everything was going well; I had started off with a handful mods that I felt make the game more interesting to play. I wanted to step away from the main story line of the Dragonborn, so when I discovered the mod ‘Skyrim Unbound’ I was excited to have that in my mod list. Skyrim unbound allows you to start a new character in Skyrim, but not take part in any of the main story line of the Dragonborn. You might think this kind of bypasses the whole point of Skyrim, but this is where you would be wrong. Skyrim is a rich, open-world for you to explore. My main goal was to be just an average adventurer, with an evolving backstory as I went. I also decided on FrostFall, which is a mod which enables weather effects and disables fast travelling. Fast travelling allows you to instantly travel to any place

you have already discovered in the game, making getting from one place to the next as easy as click of the mouse on the map screen. Frostfall also enables weather effects on your character. Skyrim is made to be a cold and frozen north to the continent of Tamriel, so suffering from exposure and struggling to deal with the cold seemed appealing. Coupled with the inability to fast travel you suddenly needed to plan your excursions, so you wouldn’t freeze to death while travelling.

I also had a smattering of armor mods tossed in, changing how armors looked, as there is so many of them available for female characters and NPC’s, as well as body replacers that allowed you to change how character bodies looked. When I was ready to begin I had about 2 dozen mods ready and loaded.

Some other tips I learned from starting out with mods, was the load order. Mods and plugins needed to be loaded by the game in a specific order so they overwrite each other properly. If something isn’t loaded in the right order, it either won’t work, or the game will crash. Let me tell you, having your game crash is not fun, and I’ve spent many hours troubleshooting and reviewing my mod list due to crashes. I’ll talk more about this later.

Mods can be sorted generally by a program called ‘Loot’. Loot is an acronym for Load Order Optimization Tool. It has access to a database that is somewhere on the cloud that keeps a track of which mods need to go before or after other mods. It is not a perfect system, but it gets it right in 9 out of 10 times. Once it is run, your nod load order is saved and you are good to go. Fire up Skyrim and lets play.

Mod Organizer, using the dark theme, shows your installed mods on the left, and activated mods with the load order on the right

With my mods list sorted, the game loads fine and in I go. Using ‘Skyrim Unbound’ I chose a few settings on how I want my character to begin. I chose the north shore, as if shipwrecked, as my mind begins to form a backstory of my character having no memories, and waking up on the frozen coast of Skyrim, with nothing to his name. The mod dropped me off on the coast, right next to a campfire and a cave, and upon entering the cave I find bandits and begin working my way through them, trying to get better gear and the ability to survive.

Things go well, and as I progress through the cave, and soon after other areas I come to enjoy the disabled fast travel. You see there are many hidden things in Skyrim, places you can only get to if you explore. By not fast travelling I discovered many new places I had never been, and I actually enjoyed getting side-tracked by discovering a new bandit lair, or a new cave while travelling between the main cities of Skyrim. Let me tell you, the map is huge. Walking from one place to another takes time, which is why most people love fast travel, but with fast travel off, you find a new appreciation for exploration.

Mod: Helgen Rebuilt

While I had fast travel off, there was always the option of horse, and the carriage system. I decided that from an immersive game standpoint, the carriage system would be allowed, as they only go to the main capital cities, and you actually have to go to a city to use them, you can’t just summon them to where ever you are. To me, this made the game more immersive in the long run, and I still rely on the carriages to get between cities often.

Let me get back to the mods though. As I found myself adding and removing more mods each week, my mod list grew to over 200 plugins after about 200 hours of game play. My character had progressed up to around level 50, he had a nice homestead, a wife and several followers (thanks to mods that allow multiple followers) and things were going well. Or so I thought. What I didn’t realize at the time was that by added and removing mods so often, I was actually causing my game to get unstable. My save files started to cause crashes, and after 261 hours of playing I was at the breaking point. I spent a good 4 or 5 hours tinkering and cleaning my save game of broken scripts, orphaned add-ons and other items of bloat, all to no avail. You see when you add a mod that has scripts, those scripts are tied to your game, even after the mod has been removed, causing it to be orphaned. That adds up to bloat, making your save file bigger and taking longer to load, as well as crashes your game whenever your game calls the script that doesn’t work any further because the mod has been removed. As I mentioned you can clean your save file of these orphaned scripts, but that only gets you so far. After spending several hours a day for about a week, I had to abandon my save due to instability. I researched up different items in forums as to why my save file corrupted and I found out that some of the mods I had used were so script heavy (meaning they had massive scripts or scripts being run constantly by the game in the background) that my game was just too badly corrupted there wasn’t anything I could do. Even though I tried cleaning my save, I discovered the remnants of mods I had removed months before still lingering around.

Sad at losing 260 hours of game play, I moved on. I chose my mod list a little more carefully, and scaled back to about 160 plugins, I started another character, following along the same lines of my last one, a tank warrior with a sword and shield.

Things went well this time for about 30 hours, until I ran into similar problems. This time though my mod list was smaller, and I wasn’t adding or removing mods at all. But it seems several of my mods were still quite script heavy and they were causing issues. One such example is a mod called ‘Wet & Cold’. ‘Wet & Cold’ is a mod that ads the ability for NPC’s and followers to equip a hood or face mask when the weather is cold or dusty. A great mod for Immersion, but one thing it does is it runs on every NPC in the game all the time, and this can cause issues on a lower end system like mine. Let me say this here, I am not bashing the mod author in any case. I love this mod, and I would use it if it wasn’t a possible culprit in my instability, but because it was, it had to go. I was upset again after losing 30 hours this time, but at the same time, not sad I hadn’t lost 260 hours. I needed to figure this out, I after all wanted to play Skyrim, but it had to be stable and also enjoyable with mods.

This third attempt I spent about a week organizing picking and choosing my mods carefully. This time I managed to scale back to about 70 plugins in my list, most of them armor mods or graphical mods, along with Frostfall, SkyUI and a new one called ‘Live another Life’ which did the same thing a Skyrim unbound, but according to my research was a lot more stable in the long run. Deciding to make things a little closer to the main quest-line I also added Dragons to my game, by way of a mod called ‘Immediate Dragons’. I felt that Dragons were an integral part of the Skyrim experience, but I still didn’t feel like playing the Main quest-line as the Dragonborn. I also added Falskaar, which is a new area of the map to explore, a whole town with new NPC’s and new quests to run. While this mod does add some scripts into the mix, it is well done and fun to play. Scripts are not bad, just adding and removing them all the time is what is bad.

So far on this play through I have had almost no crashing, and my game continues to be stable. I have not added or removed any mods since starting, and it will stay that way while I play. While there is always the ability to add and remove mods, my plan is to stick to what I currently have, aside from the odd texture or mesh replacer which won’t affect the game play in any way. Mods that add scripts will not be touched. I still have my old saves from my corrupted plays, as well as my original character from 2011, and I know there is a way to extract the characters and place in a new play through, and I might look into that someday, but for now I’m content to continue exploring and interacting with all that there is to offer in Skyrim.

Skyrim: My experiences with mods was originally published on Game-Refraction

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