#and at THAT point i might as well play origins again especially since i never finished the postgame stuff

[knightshade-ships]

I haven't played a dragon age game since origins and everything I know so far has been acquired through osmosis, but...lucanis is kinda 👀

[galactic-magick]

Be Proud: Viktor x Plus Size!Reader

Summary: Viktor's newfound fame as the co-founder of Hextech has taken its toll on your insecurities.

Words: 2.1k

Warnings: mentions and allusions to body dysmorphia/eating disorders

Author's Note: I starting writing this to play with the idea of how founding Hextech probably gave Jayce and Viktor celebrity status in a way and how that would affect them and people involved with them. It ended up turning into a vent fic about my body image issues as well, to the point I almost didn’t post because it got so personal. But I figured there’s people out there who relate and might find solace in reading this as I did writing it.

-

-

-

You’re so proud of him. Everything he’s accomplished, everyone he’s helped. He’s living his dream, creating the future, and he’s being listened to and valued by topsiders. This is all you’ve ever wanted for him, and you would never think of standing in his way.

Which is precisely why you’ve never told him how insecure it all makes you feel.

Before Viktor got involved with Hextech, life was so much more predictable. You both could live your days together in peace, never being in the spotlight and rarely interacting with the highest of powers in Piltover. Life was hard, sure, but nothing you couldn’t manage without some tasteful spite and stubbornness. Viktor always knew his background would be a stumbling block for him up here, and you really weren’t much farther ahead, being from a title-less family with half your relatives from the Undercity.

But you’re not used to being around such glamour and poise. As Viktor becomes more involved with the Council and the wealthier areas of Piltover, making Hextech gadgets per their requests and being invited to fancy events, you’re left mourning simpler times. You’ll never get used to people coming up to you on the street while you bring your husband some lunch, or people staring at you during conferences when you’re just there to support him. Everyday citizens want to know and analyze everything about you, simply because you’re married to Piltover’s finest scientist.

You don’t like to bother Viktor with how it’s affected you, especially since he’s so good at handling it all. He’s always been so proud of who he is—where he came from—because he’s had to be. He’s not phased by the new fame as the co-founder of Hextech, and he easily shrugs off any comments people make about his past or his looks. To him, celebrity status is just a slight annoyance that occasionally distracts him from doing his work in the labs. But for you, it’s brought back every insecurity you’ve ever had about yourself.

You’ve stopped joining him as much at dinners and banquets because you fear they’ll judge how you look in a dress. You’ve stopped chiming in to interviews so you don’t say something stupid and embarrass him. You’ve stopped visiting him so much while he’s working so people won’t talk to or see you on the street.

You’ve started picking yourself apart in the mirror again, fussing every morning until you might cry. You compare yourself to the beautiful specimens that surround you, perfect in face, body, and manners. You start wondering if people judge how you speak or how much you eat. You wonder if people gossip about your family origins or your marriage. You wonder if you really, really, tried—if you could look like them. If you could be like them.

Viktor has started to stay back from some events with you lately, claiming Jayce is better at being the face of Hextech anyway. But tonight marks the five year anniversary of the company, and Councilor Medarda insisted there be a grand celebration.

The feast and dance will be held in her personal mansion, with the rest of the council and all the investors invited, as well as several reporters and journalists. Jayce will give an update address on what they’ve been working on, and what they hope to achieve by the bicentennial Progress Day.

This is something you can’t get out of and you know it. You drive yourself crazy trying on every dress in your closet, hoping to find something suitable for the affair. Half of them don’t even fit, which sends you into a further spiral, and the ones that do still don’t look good enough in your reflection.

Now the floor is covered in failed attempts at getting dressed, negative thoughts taking over your mind. Thoughts you know aren’t true, but you can’t stop thinking them.

He’ll be embarrassed to be seen with me.

I’m not good enough to be here.

I should eat less.

If I tried harder I could look like her.

I should check how much I weigh again. What happened to that damn scale?

They only invited me because they have to.

They probably talk about me—

You’re so deep in your head that you jump when you see Viktor leaning against the door frame, eyes full of love and concern.

“Are you alright, darling?”

You look down at yourself, wearing the last dress you had in your closet. It fits perfectly, but that’s part of the problem.

Viktor moves towards you as tears well in your eyes. He wipes them away with his thumbs, smearing some of the makeup you put on earlier.

“Talk to me,” he says.

“No.” you reply, avoiding his gaze.

“No?” he chuckles. “Why not?”

“It’s so stupid,” you sigh. “I thought I recovered from this. I should be able to handle this.”

“Handle what?”

“All this publicity shit!” you finally look at him. “I hate being watched and talked about and judged for what I say and look like all the time. I hate being asked about personal things and nearly passing out because I’m scared to eat in front of people. I hate all these superficial gatherings that are probably just for show-”

“You’re alright, you’re alright,” he cuts you off, dropping his crutch to the floor and wrapping his arms around you. “Why didn’t you tell me you’ve been feeling this way? Why didn’t you tell me it was getting bad again?”

You sniffle, “I...I didn’t want to bother you with something that doesn’t seem to bother you. You’re so good at being confident no matter what people say about you.”

“You think it doesn’t bother me?” he questions. “You think it doesn’t hurt me every time I overhear insults about me or my home, let alone when they say it to my face? You think I don’t notice that most of these people wouldn’t blink an eye if I died if it wasn’t for what I can offer them?”

He squeezes you tighter before slightly pulling away to look at your face, “I’m just better at hiding what it does to me, darling. Having a drive to prove myself is not the same as confidence. Now,” he kisses your forehead, “Tell me why you’ve been in here for over an hour and still aren’t ready, hm?”

“Well,” you gesture to the piles on the floor. “Those ones don’t fit. I must’ve gained more weight but I don’t really know for sure because I can’t find the scale. And those ones I just don’t like. And this one does fit, but it’s tight and I’ve never worn something form-fitted to an event before. I don’t want to deal with comments about my stomach sticking out or my arms looking puffy or whether I’m proportioned to their tastes.”

“You truly believe they’ll say those things?”

“I don’t know what they’ll say. That’s what’s so scary.”

The tears return, falling slowly down your cheeks.

“Darling,” Viktor says softly. “No one will ever think or say anything as horrible as what you think and say about yourself. I promise you that.”

You nod, allowing him to soothe you, “I know.”

“I need you to tell me when these thoughts are getting bad. Do you understand? I never want you to go so long feeling this way ever again,” he tilts your chin. “Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Good. Now, if you really don’t want to go, I’ll make up an excuse to get us out of it. But…” he slides his hands down your curves, “...it would be quite a shame if I didn’t get to see you wearing this all night.”

“You actually think it looks good?”

“Of course,” his eyes travel down your figure. “You always look perfect to me.”

“But-”

“No buts. Listen to me,” he faces you towards the mirror. “This body has gotten you through so much. I want you to be proud. Most of these people have never known a day of true hardship, but not you. You’re strong and you’re soft and you’re beautiful, and you’re the only one I’ll ever desire.”

You smile, knowing he means every word. You try to see what he sees, remembering every time he’s showered you with praise. You know he’s never once agreed with any of the horrible things you think about yourself. You know he loves everything about you, including how your body compliments his smaller, angular one. He’s never made you feel bad about anything, so why is it still so hard to believe him?

“Thank you, Viktor,” you say, turning to kiss his cheek. “I’ll try to be proud.”

“Good,” he nods. “Now, no more worrying about the scale or falling into old habits, alright? I want you to enjoy yourself tonight.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll try,” you laugh a bit. “You know what happened to it, though, don’t you?”

“Of course. I threw it out months ago,” he smirks. “You think I didn’t notice you checking it every single day?”

“You’re too good to me,” you bend down to pick his crutch up off the floor and hand it to him. “Let me just fix my makeup and we can go.”

“No more crying it off, alright?” he chuckles.

-

Jayce and Mel are waiting for you, welcoming you both to the celebrations. You can already feel the eyes and cameras on you, but you hold your head high, squeezing Viktor’s hand extra tight.

It’s been awhile since you’ve attended an event, but they always seem to go the same. Investors and council members come up to chat, mostly directing their questions towards Jayce. Sometimes they act as if Viktor isn’t even there, which boils your blood to the point you’ve said something on multiple occasions. Viktor has told you many times that he doesn’t mind being behind the scenes, and that Jayce is better at talking anyway, but you can never fully let it go. If people are going to gossip about him and your lives but not actually talk to him, you’ll gladly take the liberty of giving people a piece of your mind. You’d rather focus on lifting him up than dwell on your own self-consciousness, anyway.

One thing is different this time though—being that Viktor is a lot more handsy tonight than usual. He’s not normally one for public displays of affection, sticking to hand-holding and a few reassuring touches here and there. But tonight he can’t keep his hands off you.

It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, whether it be listening to the conversations, answering questions, or participating in the feast and drinks. He always has a hand on your waist or your thigh, gliding to your hips and stomach every so often. It seems mindless, as if he does this every time you’re out together, but you know he’s putting in a special effort to make you feel good.

And damn is it working.

You feel more at peace than you ever have since entering the public eye, proud of who you are and who you’re with. Who cares if people are whispering about their opinions on the Zaunite inventor? Who cares if there’s pictures of you in tomorrow’s tabloids with unflattering angles? Maybe all that matters is you’re having fun with your husband, and he’s making you feel oh so beautiful.

The night goes on for hours, attendees fizzling out until there’s only a handful left. You convince Viktor to dance with you before you leave, leaning against you and swaying simply. You wrap your arms around his neck, wiggling your fingers into his hair. He looks at you with such admiration, such devotion.

How could you ever doubt yourself under the gaze of those eyes?

“You lovebugs ready to head out?” Jayce approaches you both. “Viktor and I have a meeting with Heimerdinger in the morning.”

“Ah, yes, we do,” he briefly looks away from you. “But...perhaps we could push it until the afternoon?”

Jayce rolls his eyes and chuckles, “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you guys are in for a long night. Have fun.”

He waves and walks away, and you burst out laughing.

“Is it really that obvious?” Viktor jokes, returning his full attention to you.

“Viktor, darling, you’ve been all over me since we got here. I’d say the entire city knows how bad you want me tonight.”

“Maybe I want them to know,” he grins, sliding a hand up your dress and squeezing your thigh.

“Viktor!” you gasp, playfully slapping his hand away.

“Alright, I suppose we can go home first,” he pivots around, moving towards the door and extending his arm to you, “Shall we?”

You nod, quickly returning to his side.

Jayce was right, it’s going to be a long, lovely night.

[honey-tongued-devil]

↠The last drop tour

| Part 1 | | Part 2 | | Part 3 |

Alright, alright, I know I’ve already shown you the Last Drop, so here we’re looking at the one from the alternate timeline, as seen in Episode 7. The elements and layout don’t change too much, but there are variations, and since my story is set in this universe, I imagine this version is the most helpful for anyone wanting to explore the universe I write about. The link to the story is HERE, but I hope this can also be useful for anyone writing or reading their own work.

Here we are once again! This tour might be a bit challenging, but don’t worry—your guide has got you covered! This time, we need to start outside.

I know we all recognize the exterior of the bar, which hasn’t changed, but I ask you to take a closer look at the streets. They’re clean and bathed in sunlight. (The Last Drop is in the Entresol, the middle level of Zaun’s three depth levels.) While it may seem almost normal or expected, the smog that used to accumulate made it impossible for light to filter through the thick air, even during the day. As a result, the underground city never got to see this much light. This is the first time.

In Heimerdinger’s sequence where he’s seen playing "Spin the Wheel," we can catch glimpses of glass greenhouses protecting plants, and people in wheelchairs, hinting that the city is now more accessible.

This is the third post where I’ve mentioned this damn ceiling, so I went back just to show it to you, because it was necessary at this point. Let’s start with the fact that the Last Drop has been renovated. The fact that Ekko is wearing a gold earring and is so well-dressed suggests that their profits have increased, and the first thing they did was fix up the place. But enough talk—let’s get to the proof. Now that natural light reaches Zaun, the LED lights on the ceiling aren’t needed anymore. What is needed? Glass, to let the light in.

And so, we move on to another small but significant difference. Scattered throughout the Last Drop, but especially at the bar counter, there are terrariums with plants. Claggor and Mylo are even working on plants capable of converting the dense air of the Sump into clean oxygen. But why do plants have such prominence here? In Season 1, we’re shown that in Zaun, only one place had plants: the Chembarons' meeting room. It was so high up and so clean, thanks to the ventilation on the ceiling, that plants were a privilege of the oligarchy, not something for everyone. But here, even ordinary people in Zaun have plants around, and they thrive.

The bar counter remains the same, the barrels behind Vander are still protected by the same glass partitions as always. The difference now is that everything is adorned with what used to be a symbol of luxury.

Did you recognize these booths? Now, instead of the Chembarons' photos, there are sheets with dart game scores written on them—both for the kids and the three older men. To be honest, the one I’m showing you in the photo from Zaun’s original timeline is actually the first booth on the left from the entrance. Meanwhile, the one shown where the kids are sitting is the second booth, a bit closer to both the bar counter and the narrow hallway that leads to the arcade area and the pool table.

Which ones? These. Actually... this photo was taken in front of the first booth, and we can see Powder's drawings hanging there. Basically, we understand that they’re portraits of all of them together, happy. Maybe some are solo portraits, but they’re definitely very different from how things are now. (the comparison)

I imagine that the basement where Vander and his children used to live is now the place where they store alcohol and reserve drinks, or maybe it has become a boiler room. We don’t have photos of the lower area (which, I remind you, can be accessed by taking the door to the right of the bar counter and going down a long staircase) nor of the upper area, which is reached by climbing the stairs to the left. So, I can’t show you more parts of our beloved bar, but I can tell you that according to what we’re told in episode 7, they now offer both live music and events. So, the Last Drop has continued both Vander’s family-oriented, rustic management and Silco’s vision of a nightlife hub and heart of the city.

As for the rest—how we got to this point, what brought the change, how Silco's eye healed, how they managed to reach such an economic development to renovate the bar in that way—I can only speculate. But, I won’t do that here.

The theme of the universe’s development from episode 7, starting with Vi’s death, is what I talk about in my fanfiction. So, I’ll take a moment to advertise myself during this tour and let you know that if, in addition to the objective facts, you'd like to hear my opinion, I address it HERE (Everytime it rains).

From these three tours, I think you've gathered that I’m someone who pays a lot of attention to details, which is why a superficial analysis of the differences wasn't enough for me. I needed a bigger space to narrate (and analyze) the politics and the domino effect of events. So, I don't know, I hope to see you again at the bar.

Sincerely, your guide, provided by...

-Kiramman's chronocare

[myhamartiaishubris]

Ben Hargreeves is the worst written best character and I can prove it

This is a poorly organized meta/essay about my baby boy who got massacred. Originally posted in the discord server so some of y'all have seen it already.

Let me be clear: this is a love letter to my favourite Hargreeves boy. I could write him better. I could fix him (narratively).

Here's why Ben is a great character who, paradoxically, was very badly written.

Umbrella Ben

Listen. Listen to me. Ben Hargreeves was, from the moment I saw him, my absolute favourite character. He's already dead? Doomed by the narrative before the narrative even begins? Also, an East Asian character in the year of our Lord 2018?? I was on board. And Brelly Ben gets a lot of good moments! You know that scene where Klaus is in the motel closet, tied up, and Ben says something like, "How does it feel being helpless? This is how I feel, watching my brother piss his life away." Um, hello?? That's such a delicious line.

Because up until this point Ben's been kind of quiet, in that dead broody way, or we saw his young self being soft and reluctant. But suddenly we realize, oh, Ben isn't nice. In fact, he's kind of nasty to his addict brother, and you get this kernel of a glimpse into his character. This is a character who might have been soft-spoken in life, but death and the years since have shredded him down to all his razor edges. He's still that bookish little Ben, except he's not little and he's frustrated, angry, traumatized, and in pain.

And season 2 builds on this! He's willing to violate Klaus's personal boundaries just for a taste of life again. Holy shit that's so delicious. My problem is that, especially in season 2, this isn't explored nearly as much as it could be. Ben's possession shenanigans are mostly played for comedy, when in fact we could be delving into the implications of Ben's character and his relationship with Klaus. You have this character who's kind, who (from what we know so far) represented the "good" of the academy, who loves his brother so so hard and it hurts him so bad to see Klaus hit rock bottom every time. The little "I missed you guys" in season 2? Devastating. And yet despite his goodness he is capable of being a bad person, and he repeatedly hurts those around him (namely Klaus).

So surely this is part of his arc, right? This is going to be explored and resolved. Right?

The Season 2 Ending

So the thing is, I didn't immediately hate the way they had Ben move on / die to save Viktor. I was sad to see my favourite character go, but also excited to see where the writers would take that storyline. Because, obviously, it wasn't over. Right? Obviously Ben's arc isn't finished, he hasn't resolved his frustrations, his complicated relationship with Klaus is never fully untangled, plus the rest of the family never get a moment of real closure with him (except maybe Diego). So clearly, it wasn't over. Right?

Well, in light of season 4, I can confidently come back and say that killing Brelly Ben off here was a stupidass decision.

And here's why: you've effectively splintered his arc in half. Starting from season 3, Ben is an entirely different character, with an entirely different arc that needs to be built from the ground up. While everyone else gets 4 seasons of development, Ben only gets 2, both times. And I'm so not over the fact that his arc isn't over. We saw Ben do some reprehensible shit to Klaus, especially in season 2 with all that possession shit! And we just. Never hear from him again? That's bullshit.

But anyway, since we're here, let's make peace with being here. Hey, Justin H Min is still playing a version of Ben, and he seems interesting, if way different! Surely this will have some interesting implications.

Sparrow Ben

Oh god, Sparrow Ben. In terms of Ben's character writing, season 3 is... fine. Like I said, it suffers from effectively fracturing his arc in half and having to start over, and this isn't the complicated, kind but frustrated and prickly ghost Ben I originally fell in love with. But ok, I do like Justin, and EA rep is still a win to me, so let's go with the flow.

For the most part, season 3 does a solid job. We get some solid beats relating to Ben's ambition and inferiority complex being Number 2. There's a bit of overacting on Justin's part, but hey, that's camp. (I think. I have no idea if I'm using that word right. Am I hip with the kids?)

I really, really loved Ben's moment with Sloane as she's getting married, because it highlights the core of this Ben's character: someone who desperately yearns for family but has forced himself to be all hard shell and soldier. In a way, he's the other end of Brelly Ben's spectrum. (Like forsterite and fayalite - all Mg on one end, Fe on the other.) How much of this Ben is family softness, how much of it is defense mechanism and lashing out?

And then of course - the thing I've been craving so badly - the in-universe comparison to Brelly Ben. This was done... underwhelmingly, if I'm honest. I liked that Ben had a moment of crisis where he couldn't live up to the Umbrellas' dead version of himself, and his moment with Klaus was nice, but in light of season 4 it becomes clear that we could have had more. I wanted him to have an entire arc about it - after all, it's a pretty significant aspect of your character to be "the worse version of yourself from another timeline." (Refer to @vyther16's Gongye Jiwu fic.) I feel like there's a lot of meta you could pull from that, about how your siblings who aren't your siblings look at you and see someone different. Someone you won't be. Someone you can't be, even if you tried, so why bother trying? And they really don't dig through that at all, which is disappointing.

The tentacle samurai fight is badass, though.

Season 4

Oh buddy oh boy. There's so much dumpster fire here, but I'll start with the season 3 loose ends and then move on to season 4's own problems.

1) Sloane. Luther picks Ben up from prison, so I thought they might have an interesting bonding moment over Sloane - after all, they're the two people who cared most about her. But actually no, apparently Ben doesn't give a shit about the one real sister he actually had left at the end of s3.

2) The subway thing. Wasn't he in Korea? My grasping-at-straws ass truly thought that might have been Brelly Ben in the reset timeline, and we'd get a Ben-Ben confrontation or a battle in the minds thing. But I guess that doesn't matter.

3) The Jennifer Incident. So we all know that everyone forgetting about an incident they explicitly reference is stupid, right? Especially because the name Jennifer only exists because they reference it in s3. Ben obsessively draws Jennifer, and then he doesn't recognize or know her? Kill me.

The continuation of his arc is also just sloppy, if it even exists. No more identity crisis about being the worse Ben, no more secret yearning for family or inferiority complex about being a good soldier. Suddenly his arc amounts to, uh, being an asshole and getting hit with sex pollen so powerful it ends the world.

And look, there is a world where Sparrow Ben spiking everyone with marigold could parallel with Brelly Ben's consent problems with Klaus. There is a world where Sparrow Ben dying because of Jennifer could echo Brelly Ben's death in a haunting, tragic, destined kind of way.

But, uh, none of that happens. Here we are, finally getting a Ben-centric season, and it's this. Being relegated to a plot device in your own season. Looking back and realizing that you were always the plot device, even in season 2. Carrying all that tragedy in your little ghost body and being treated like Chekov's waterlogged gun.

And I can't help but look back at season 1, Klaus trying so desperately to prove Ben's existence, and contrast it with the literal next season where a single throwaway line from Klaus sidelines Ben for a whole season. And then he dies. And he dies again.

Fucking hell.

It feels like I'm being made a fool of. Oh, you cared about this East Asian character? You wanted him to have narrative weight and character presence instead of being a plot device for the benefit of his White brothers? Idiot.

Because you'll still be here anyway, right? You'll grasp onto your crumbs for a cool EA character, you'll let us run a character through a trash compactor and keep pretending he's a good character because you latched onto this one East Asian protagonist and you don't want to admit that maybe you should have let go years before.

[lover-of-mine]

what are your thoughts on nde for either eddie or buck in 8x08? me personally, im thinking buck is gonna get the nde, and i think he’s gonna be shot. tim recreating s4/5 when he originally wanted to do buddie, but what im thinking, is buck realizes his feelings for eddie but doesn’t want to/doesn’t know if he should tell him, then he gets shot and it’s all dramatic and eddie is there and freaking out, trying to save him and keep him alive (aka why they’re pushing medic eddie so much this season) and buck realizes this might be his last chance so he just goes for it anyway and while he’s bleeding out he tells eddie he loves him😭 i know this is probably not what’s gonna happen but lol i just enjoy theories and i always love to hear what you think!

adding onto this, i ALSO saw around twitter the theory that buck would get a nde, but he gets hit by a car or just in a car accident in general, and eddie is there and it parallels shannon’s death (obviously buck doesn’t die but you get the memo😆)

Hi, darling! Okay, I don't mean to shit on anyone's specs, but I think either of them getting shot again would be so uninspired. The show is slowly reintroducing new ways to pull the triggers they put down for buddie because they need to address the stuff that happened to them somehow, but a direct mirrored parallel to the shooting wouldn't work as well as everyone seems to think it would. Partially because I think that forcing Buck to confess because he (or Eddie) is dying is yet another way to take away Buck's agency and further attach Buck to the idea he's only worthy of love when someone bleeds. But also because putting one of them in the position to be doing the saving again won't really further their storyline. Eddie watched Buck in a nde twice, the bombing and the lightning, and Buck watched Eddie in a nde twice, the well and the shooting, and I think they need a combined trigger, aka a combined nde.

I am attached to my drown Buck theory, have them off duty, crash the car, end up trapped and the car filling with water, but I also think that the trapped dads theory also works a lot here, especially if you put them both in the situation while off duty, aka without gear or backup, and you can play with a lot of elements of every nde before that and create a catalyst for them to talk and figure themselves out. I also think everyone is getting ahead of themselves, I don't think they are in the place to get that catalyst yet, and 2 episodes are not enough to get them there when we are talking about an ensemble show. I feel like people are expecting a direct callback because we got a well callback and are getting a lightning callback, but while buddie was front and center during the well callback, they actually used it to further Chim at first. It works to get the audience thinking about different aspects of their past, which in turn makes it so that when they talk about it, it will be in our minds, but it doesn't explicitly address the implications with buddie. I think the lightning callback will be a lot about reminding Buck of whatever it was that he was supposed to learn with it the first time around that they never truly explored due to the network switch and Natalia not coming back. I also think that confronting the situation where Buck almost died and possibly watching a freshly heartbroken Buck be impulsive can push Eddie to look at some stuff that would push him into action to figure himself out.

Especially if @stagefoureddiediaz ends up right and the lightning callback ends up being a truck bombing callback too since the well callback is also a subtle callback to the kids on the cliff call in 304 and could be played into different directions when it comes to what comes out from it moving forward. Buddie has a lot to talk about, but they need a reason to think about the stuff they need to talk about on their own before getting to a point where they can actually have those conversations. I think they rely too much on how well they understand each other that they fail to consider the way they can't actually read each other's minds, and figuring that part out is important before pushing them to the catalyst. And please don't get me wrong, I'm like, 90% sure that the catalyst will be another nde, I just don't think it's gonna happen until 8b.

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

The differences in cultures and behaviors between different fandoms is so fascinating to me, I love just musing on the various differences

Back in my Warrior Cats phase on scratch there was barely an single fanart of canon characters, everything was original characters and original clans.

During my time in the Genshin Impact fandom people would play with the various canon character elements to make new characters but there wasn't quite the level of wholly divorced from canon stories there.

There was shipping tho! An absolutely unhinged amount of shipping. Every single character who wasn't a literal child had at least one, maybe two default/mainstream ship partners that most people shipped them with, then a handful of rarer ships as well

Then I moved to Dream SMP 'cus I heard that it had a lot of platonic relationships that were so popular that they made it into the top 100 ao3 ships multiple years in a row, and I was getting pretty romanced out by Genshin at that point so it seemed like a perfect choice.

And it was! Dream SMP had the best platonic relationship representation of any fandom I've been in before or since. But it has the dark flipside to it, where the reason was partially because the fans were freaking off the rails toxic and hostile to the mere suggestion that any character might ever be attracted to another

The Hermitcraft and Life Series are better with platonic relationships than Genshin Impact, but nowhere near as good as DSMP, with the return of a handful of mainstream ships, but not the pressure to have a ship for every single character

Then there's the fascinating ways MCYT fandoms had every characters' designs and even species up in the air and it's common place to just make any random guy part any random animal, which is incredible fun

But then OCs in the MCYT fandom are a whole other thing, as they tend to come most in the Warriors style where they come out of fanmade servers and tend to be fairly divorced from canon most of the time, only generally inspired by the setting

And now in the Magnus Archives fandom we've got the canon ships, with one specific one vastly dominating the whole fandom to even more extremes than any singular Genshin ship ever reached, which I've gathered is a pretty common experience in other fandoms but this has been my first time actually experiencing it first hand

And TMA has a similar thing with Warrior Cats where it works really well as a set of world building that can be shoved upon other fictional characters for some fun AUs, which was never really a thing with MCYT (though I think it kinda was with Genshin Impact, to a degree, where people would draw other characters in Genshin splash art style and assign them Visions and all that.)

Warriors is by far the most extreme of these, up with My Little Pony in terms of how you're almost guaranteed to see at least one fanart of the characters in any fandom drawn as warrior cats/ponies

And then there's the popular AU types! Genshin Impact was chock full of highschool AUs. Dream SMP had Foster Family AUs and Superhero AUs galore (especially with SBI), but it also had a smaller Humans Are Space Orcs / Alien AUs phenomen that I've not been able to find again in my other fandoms since. I never read enough Life Series and Hermitcraft fanfic to get a good grasp on their popular AUs, but various flavour of Modern AU with the characters assigned random jobs seemed common, and they had a lot of Superhero AUs spawned by HoTGuY. TMA is mostly everyone is happy AUs, like No Paranormal Nonsense AUs and Happily Ever After Post Canon AUs, but also a whole heckin' lot of Time Travel (usually fix-it fic) AUs, which is something I never really saw in the other fandoms

I don't have a good ending to this post as there's no real point to it, it's just me babbling about fandoms

[bonesandthebees]

Ao3 Wrapped

saw @antimony-medusa do this and I thought it seemed fun especially since I do take screenshots of my ao3 stats on the 1st of every year to see how they change over time, so here's my ao3 wrapped for 2024!

__

Overall stats for 2024!

User Subscriptions: 6,386

Kudos: 234,501

Comment Threads: 26,236

Bookmarks: 69,438

Subscriptions: 28,394

Word Count: 2,537,180

Hits: 4,789,741

so while that might seem like a lot of user subscriptions, I actually started 2024 with 6,815 so I lost nearly 500 user subs over the course of this year, which is understandable given... well, everything that happened in 2024 with this fandom. (Of course that's still a huge number of user subs I'm so grateful for but I just want to point out I actually lost way more than I gained this year which had not happened to me in previous years) My word count also only increased a little over 200k words which is a much smaller amount of growth compared to my previous years which, again, it's been a weird year to be a writer in this fandom especially with my focus so that makes sense for me lol

Fun Stats: 

Fics Published: 10, including a few more I posted on anon that you guys will never get to know about lmao

Number of One-Shots: 4 and all are QSMP fics! idk what it is about QSMP that makes it so easy for me to write one shots but it's very fun

Number of Multi-Chapters: 6 including my two ventures into writing HOTD fic :)

Longest Fic: my ongoing fic under the hanging rose is now sitting at 101,897 words, but if we're talking finished fics then that belongs to ready set detonate at 35,724 words

Shortest Fic: the one shot I wrote for the morningstar zine playing pretend which is sitting at 1,275 words

Most Kudosed Fic: technically my scrap bin but I'm not counting that as part of these stats so it would be under the hanging rose at 1,333 kudos!

Most Viewed Fic: under the hanging rose again at 38,277 hits although I think most of those are from 2023 so from this year exclusively it would be ready set detonate at 7,061 hits

Most Subscribed Fic: andddd under the hanging rose again at 359 subscriptions

Most Bookmarked Fic: surprise surprise under the hanging rose at 286 bookmarks

Most Used Fandom: surprisingly this is actually QSMP with 5 works, although DSMP is at a close second with 4 works

Least Used Fandom: Origins SMP because it's tagged for under the hanging rose, but ignoring that then it would be House of the Dragon at 2 works

Most Used Rating: Teen and Up at 8 works

Least Used Rating: General and Mature are both tied with 1 work lol

Most Written Relationship: Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit and Quackity/Wilbur Soot are both tied with 3 works each which no one is surprised about

Most Used Additional Tag: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting with 4 works which does not surprise me. I'm a girlie who loves writing modern aus

Most Frequently Used Characters: 

Philza (6)

Wilbur (5)

Quackity (4)

TommyInnit (4)

Tubbo (4)

Niki Nihachu (3)

Technoblade (3)

Bagi (3)

Rhaenyra Targaryen (2)

Alicent Hightower (2)

ngl I'm very surprised Phil took top spot this year but at the same time it makes sense he's definitely slowly shifted into being one of my favorite characters to write

hope you guys had fun reading this it was very fun to look back on all my fics from this year even if it was a bit of a mess lmao

[cecilysass]

Milagro Fic Recommendations

These are good for any time of year, of course, not just February 14. But here are my favorite fics related to the season 6 episode Milagro, a long time favorite. (And @sisterspooky1013's favorite episode of all time: happy VD, girl!) I’ve been reading and sifting through these for some time, and I have tried to include some from all eras: newer AO3 fics, some written right after the ep aired, etc. But I'm sure I've missed some, so hit me with your own faves, please.

Because of Milagro's ending, this entire genre of fic tends to be heavy on the hurt/comfort and angst (which is fiiiiine by me), but that’s not all that’s here. Many of these are smutty, but not all.

Adagio - Terma99 A meditative, peaceful take on the aftermath of Milagro by a veteran author that includes both agents realizing something they had learned. Lovely.

Alma - 6hoursgirl (@sixhours) A lovely hurt/comfort Milagro piece. This one is Mulder POV, which is a little less common for post-Milagro, I think, and I like this characterization of Mulder as desperately wanting to help Scully, desperately wanting to protect her, but also a tiny bit scared of the intimacy and relationship he feels they’re on the cusp of. He’s so good-hearted and also a little dysfunctional here, and I love it.

Bated Breath - dreamingofscully (@dreamingofscully) This one has an original take on Scully's experience; it leaves Scully with clarity and new direction in her relationship with Mulder. DreamingofScully tends to write a more confident, in-charge Scully in the MSR than some do, and I appreciate it.

Beyond the Strokes of a Typewriter - storybycorey (@storybycorey) When Scully is stricken and ashamed that it’s been so long since anyone has seen her as a woman as Padgett did, Mulder is pushed to revelations. Mulder 3rd person POV. Very good smut build up. And nobody does a gorgeous feelings reveal from Mulder like storeybycorey, man.

I Believe - Diana Battis There are a lot of lovely, heartfelt hurt/comfort fics about the aftermath of Milagro (for obvious reasons), but this one is especially well done. Viewed from Scully’s third person point of view, it focuses on Mulder’s capacity for tenderness and guilt. Plus some smut.

Don’t Look Up - ArtemisX5 After Padgett's hallway revelation, Scully is horrified that she has no secrets left. But you know, Mulder is much slower on the draw than she gives him credit for. There is also such moving hurt/comfort in this.

Intimacies with Strangers -mldrgrl (@mldrgrl) This mid- and post- Milagro piece has Mulder and Scully simmering in tension and then boiling over. Their relationship is complex and painfully entangled, and I love how it plays out. There is also excellent Scully characterization. This one helps me to get more fully why she might have been drawn to Padgett initially, something I struggle with in the episode.

La Madrugada - h0ldthiscat A carefully told tale of RST that takes both characters seriously and is sincerely moving. Excellent.

Lacuna - Aloysia_Virgata (@aloysiavirgata) This is a longer work, not really a classic post ep per se. But I love this moody, angsty casefile set right after Milagro. This Scully has not come to terms with her emotions, is thoroughly freaked by how she reacted to Padgett, and hasn't even entirely worked out how she feels about Mulder. There is Scully/other here, but the ship is steering home. The end of this is so moving, but cw: dark themes in the casefile, extreme violence against children, traumatized agents.

Still Life - Seek_Its_Opposite (@seek-its-opposite) Ah, this is such a thoughtful and exquisitely written Scully character piece — and it contains some truly beautiful insights about Mulder, too. It suggests the heartbreaking idea that Mulder’s way of showing Scully respect (giving her distance) is continually hurting her. So tragic (and consistent with canon, e.g. Never Again.) One memorable line: “Every one of their fights is about how to care for one another, every last one.”

Alma Gemela - matchingfabric (@matchingfabric) After the events of Milagro, Scully (and Mulder) get accustomed to platonically sharing a bed for comfort. This is a slightly different take on post-Milagro. Exceptionally, irresistibly sweet. Oh, and smutty.

What did I miss? Tell me. And yes, I'm working on my own short Milagro fic that will be coming soon-ish.

[neverchecking]

I have a brain rot for sage, hes challenging the chain for their time with player/reader, he basically wants all His/Her/Them's attention, of course none of the chain and sage are going to "play" fair their going to cheat no matter what. the only ones he might not win against is time, FD and maybe twilight. wind, four, Hyrule, and sky would do sad puppy eyes to get cuddle time, twilight and legend turn into their animal form to get pettings, sage and wild would cook food to get points for being delicious. (etc.etc.) just some yandere shenanigans for attention. the challenges he did were sword fighting, bow and arrow targeting, sparing, arm wrestling, and so forth.

-Eevee

Okay, last one for the night! I figured since this isn't really a request, I could spitball some more of my headcanons for our beloved Sage.

Jk it delted itself so I gave up and went to bed bc last time I tried to push through I wasn't happy with the end product, so sorry for the delay!

For those of you who don't know, Sage is another name for the Tears of the Kingdom Link--dubbed Hero of the Zonai-- should we decide he is not in fact Wild.

For the Wild and Facesitting request, it's in progress I promise! I try to go in order with my requests, but like I said, this is more headcanons versus a scenario. It should be out tomorrow later today so look out for that ;)

ANYWAY-

Y'all. The amount of Sage requests in my inbox right now? You guys are feral for this man and I love it. So I'm here to feed you guys.

TotK spoilers below!

・❥・Okay, so lemme start this off by saying. I have done you all wrong. And for that I apologize.

・❥・Because our wonderful @wayfayrr has opened my eyes to new possibilities that I would've never even thought of. So everyone say thank you rn >:(

・❥・So let's make some amendments!

・❥・First off, let's talk about nicknames. I love the idea that Reader, and only Reader, can call him anything other than Sage. And calling him other herb-related nicknames? Kills me. He is a flushing red mess the first time it happens. You had deemed him worthy of a nickname? You considered him person enough to have a moniker that wasn't also a title? If he was down bad before, it's so much worse now. Because you see him as a person. He's sure the others just see him as a means to the end. The second one of them, maybe save Wind, try it, he's shooting them daggers and snarling at them for even daring to try and impeach your privilege. (I also love the Calm, Wild and Feral thing, I thought that was so freaking clever.)

・❥・And you know how each of the hero's have their own 'sword' right? Well, what if Sage's was the Master Sword Remastered? Like Sky's (Like most of their Master Swords actually) but now it's been boosted by ten thousand years worth of direct light magic. (Does the Zonai time fall before Skyward Sword or after? I have no idea where they fall on the timeline tbh.). Just a thought. It could also be a gloom sword which probably wouldn't effect him as hard in other timelines because there's no demon king to power it, but it probably does hurt the others if they try to touch it.

・❥・Now, the juicy part. Let's retouch on Wild's and Sage's relationship. I originally said that Sage was okay with him? I lied. Wayfayrr has opened my eyes.

・❥・Sage probably can't fucking stand Wild. As they said, this is a version of him that didn't have this second adventure. Got to rest and distant himself from the Hero Title. And that just pisses him off. Why did he get the shittier hand? Why did he have to do it all over again? Why when this failure got to get off easy? Why couldn't he have the same grace, huh? What made them so different?

・❥・And if we're using the past oneshot (Here!) as they're 'canon' meeting, this filth let you get hurt. You were hurt before meeting him, which means that they can't be trusted with you. Especially Wild. So Sage cannot stand you being near Wild. At all. It eats at him and he doesn't last long before splitting the two of you up.

・❥・Calamity is even worse. There is probably an active hate towards Calamity (In this Yandere world, in a normal, not toxic world? They probably work out their differences a little better). This was a version of him who didn't even have to die to complete his quest. And this just shows that Fraud has favorites and it's not him.

・❥・You know who else he probably doesn't like? Twilight. Now, hear me out. This is purely me just spitting this out, but Sage has to be aware. He listens when they don't think he does, he's awake when they think he's not, he's watching when they don't even know he's there.

・❥・So he probably picks up on all of their little secrets. Meaning he knows Twilight is Wolfie. And (I think this is Canon is LU but I'm not sure) Wild had Wolfie as a guide. Which means Sage had Wolfie as a guide. The difference? When he needed him the second time, left stumbling around like a newborn fawn crawling out of the shrine all over again, he was left alone. He was fighting robots with a fucking Stick. He fused a mushroom to a shield just to buy himself more time. At one point, he was fusing a long stick to another long stick just to fight from a distance to save his battered body. Rauru did as much as he could, but there were some times he wished he was left for dead.

・❥・Not anymore as that means he would've never met you, but then? different story.

・❥・They also brought up that Sage probably doesn't stop at just cooking your food and I agree. When on the road, he for sure goes straight to the source. If he doesn't know exactly where it came from, it's not going anywhere near his Goddess. Nope. Not a chance in the gloomy depths from hell.

・❥・He's going to farmers themselves rather than merchants for produce, hunting any protein himself, climbing trees for eggs, he probably even makes his own butter. Now, because he's also cooking savy this for sure makes the rivalry between him and Wild widen. Wild is set in his cook for the chain, not you. Sage can't trust them to not hurt you again. Whose to say they don't over spice the food? Or undercook the fish? Or drop shells into the egg?

・❥・He can't trust them and may force you to pick one of the other. Depending on who you chose, he'll either hold his victory up high or work even harder to separate you from the chain. Can't you see, Reader? They aren't good for you.

・❥・When it comes to the Gloom, he for sure uses to his advantage. You know he's been infected, but you don't know how much light he's gathered to dispel it. At this point, he's probably gotten most, if not all of it, out, but you don't know that. And he preys on that fact.

・❥・Oh, the Traveler wants to down to the river with you? But, Reader, there's something rotten in his chest and he's stumbling against trees, exaggerating his steady steps just in case to really sell it. He needs you by his side, can't you see?

・❥・Oh, the captain is trying to get you to settle with him for the night? But, Reader, he's tossing and turning, feigning sleep and acting just enough to catch your attention. He's listening, ears pricked, just to hear you swiftly apologize before your gently hands are laying on his shoulders and he's won again.

・❥・And because his Hyrule is one of, if not the most dangerous Hyrules, he's given so much ammo to keep you tethered to him. You can't trust anyone, don't you know? The Yiga uptake has skyrocketed and they are everywhere, along with Ganon's new ability to make puppets? Can't you see how you can't trust any of them?

・❥・He even entertains you when you come up with the idea to have a secret saying between just the two of you as a fail safe. (It's probably something like 'Deforestation Enthusiast' because of how the two of you met.) Anything to have you pulling further away from the Chain and into his arms.

・❥・If it begins to take longer than expected, Sage is not above letting you wander just enough in his Hyrule. Maybe you set off a bit of Gloom hands (Or maybe he nudges them in your direction, hard to tell, really) and they go charging at you. The others don't know how to deal with them, but he does. He saves your life before the others even know what hit them. He's cooing into your ear, reassuring that where the others fail, he would never dream of it. He's whispering that he knows how scary the feeling of those hands are. He knows how freezing the feeling of sudden restriction, only accompanied by the burning sizzle of malice, is. He knows and he understands, but he's right here. He'd never let anything happen to you. Not like the other frauds.

・❥・Now, all that being said, Sage for sure does not play fair. Oh no. He does challenge them in his own ways, but does it in a way that can only reflect badly on them should they call him out on it.

・❥・He's fighting (Picking apart) with Wars and Calamity on their sparring routines, angling it in just a way that should they snap back he can turn on the innocent little look with a 'But I'm just trying to protect you. I don't know how any of you fight, I'm still learning.' Just in time for you to catch them barking at him to 'Learn faster' and it just falls perfectly into place.

・❥・He's calling out Twi and Four every time they try to wander off (Probably to bring out Wolfie or split to relieve a headache of sorts) because 'The woods are dangerous, what are they doing going off alone?' and now they can't leave because all eyes are on them and he's restricting their movement without even really trying. They wanna go foraging? But he and ...Wild were their best foragers and they were busy with dinner (That was something bitter to get out).

・❥・And wow, Time, Legend and Fierce have so many secrets, can you really trust them? Sage has laid down his entire adventure to you, and regardless if Reader is a LoZ player and knows of them regardless, Sage told you. Those two are trying to hide from you. He would never.

・❥・Wind, Hyrule and that filthy disgrace want to drag you along to go Shield surfing? Reader, do you know how dangerous that is? Especially with someone's track record. Here, you wanna go riding on this motorized wagon he just happens to have on hand? (Between the Zonite in his Purah pad, he can build any component necessary.)

・❥・Not even Sky and First are safe as he uses carefully laid words to sully their once golden image towards you. Afterall, they're so close to Hylia, whose to say they aren't behind all of this?

・❥・Now, you said that the only ones he may not win against are Time, Fierce and Twilight, but like I said, I can imagine him loathing Twilight, so instead, may I suggest First.

・❥・Time and Fierce are both pretty burly dudes that demand some semblance of respect and while Sage has muscles, he's not overly tall. So while he doesn't bow, he may just back off from their forefront for a while.

・❥・Now, First. He's probably the only one who can put Sage back in his place of the hierarchy. It's the first in the timeline, versus the last (As of right now). And it's not pretty. They probably go to blows a few times when you're out of ear shot.

・❥・The problem is that First can only push him back when you're out of ear shot and Sage makes it a point to keep you as close as humanly possible.

・❥・And while yes, some of them may use puppy eyes, Sage is not above using pity to get what he wants because he just hurts so badly don't you know?

・❥・He unfortunately can't do anything about wolves or rabbits. If they manage to disappear before he can call them out on it, he's left bitterly sulking as Wolfie laps at your cheeks or dumb rabbits nose at your hand. He may know who they are, but not even he's cruel enough to call them out (Yet) because that would just pit you against him. They weren't his secrets to tell, you would scold, and he just couldn't handle that possibility.

・❥・The biggest difference between Sage and Wild, one that the chain will fail to realize right away, is that Sage is much more experienced. He is on his second, THIRD if you count the pre-calamity, adventure. He knows everything Wild does, and more. Wild knows how to improvise and adapt, Sage can do it faster. Wild knows how to forage and concoct incredibly potent elixirs? Sage can do it tenfold with half the ingredients. He knows all the little tips and tricks and is not only backed up by the champion's gifts-- should they have remained-- but now he has the sages with him.

・❥・Like imagine their mid-battle, they had forced you away from Sage just to create some distance (At long last) and mans comes rolling in a giant fucking robot. He's using Sidon's sage to shield you over and over again and decimating a battle field using nothing but Riju and an arrow. Hell, the bigger enemies are struck down by Yunobo crashing into them. Sage alone is enough to cut the enemy hordes in half through recall and sending their own attacks back at them or fusing together weapons they wouldn't have ever dreamed of with new abilities. Even his outfits give him benefits far beyond anything they could think.

・❥・You saw him as someone more than just Link. He wasn't just the Swordsman to you when that was who he was to everyone else. You dubbed him something far beyond what a damned sword made him.

・❥・And he would have to be four days dead before letting you go.

・❥・And as he's proven before, Not even death could truly kill him.

I am so glad I waited bc I like this one so much more than the one that was deleted.

[brokenmachinemusings]

so. what’s up with diving?

a lot of people tend to think that diving is some paradoxical thing which has happened but also hasn’t at the same time.

i’m here to say; no it isn’t. all dives did not happen originally, and alter the course of time later.

there are plenty of other posts who go into more detail than mine will, and they mostly focus on season two.

i’m here to focus a bit more on s1. not in detail, just pointing some things out before i go completely batshit. and some thoughts. actually, mostly thoughts.

well, in short, diving never actually happened before the aforementioned dive, which in turn — not always, but usually alters the timeline. sometimes the changes are so minimal it’s barely consequential — sometimes they’re so important they kill someone, get someone stabbed, or save them. obviously, the butterfly effect.

i really do wish i could go in depth in this post outside of my simple disorganized thought processes but i don’t have the time or energy for that. alas, physical as well as mental illness and busy schedules strike again.

studio lan also likes to play around with these concepts. maybe to throw us off, maybe to hint towards the bigger picture, who knows.

well. that’s not what this post is about. i just wanted to point out some examples. which are, here, as goes;

while rewatching, i’m still on ep1, but the most obvious thing is emma upsetting the cup. hers is more of an accident, obviously just spilling over the table.

cheng xiaoshi WHACKS that cup. while it might be for comedic effect, i see quite literally no one pointing this out — and it spins around and hits mr. zhu’s head. and then falls on his pants, which is the timeline reorienting itself.

the next example is have, which is on top of my head, is one that really baffles my mind how i don’t see anyone speaking about xu shanshan more. while lu guang watches the photo, she’s giggly about the message she receives and we all know it cuts off right before liu min enters her apartment — well, that’s not important, but i did want to point out how she’s giddy.

cheng xiaoshi simply solemnly stares into her phone as he reads dong yi’s message. which might be a whole can of worms to unpack later, but either way, it always struck me as kind of odd.

we don’t have concrete evidence that xu shanshan was murdered — but in my personal theory, she was in the original show’s timeline (not the og tl itself), before cheng xiaoshi managed to overwrite it. from her being depicted as a victim once, to cheng xiaoshi’s plan — i doubt li tianchen or liu min cared enough about her to actually have to go through with it.

anyway, i do think cheng xiaoshi’s plan practically worked, especially since li tianchen managed to go “oh shit, there’s people with my type of power, i must see this,” and actually left her alone.

i do think some kind of “alternative timeline” was mentioned, but that’s kind of evading my memory right now. i’ll get back in on you in the next 100 business days. maybe more or less.

well, i completely forgot to mention xss being mentioned in the newspaper after cheng xiaoshi’s whole meddling which ended up with her turning into a victim — again, kinda steering the timeline. and again, another butterfly effect, considering that turns into xu shanshan dying having to make a plan to avoid her death, catching liu min, lu guang getting stabbed, the li twins, all of s2. which is to say, this is heavily hinted at for not happening in the timelines prior which lu guang had experienced.

ah, speaking of lu guang. sweet boy lu guang. who’s from the future, and considering the timeline being rewritten, he cannot return to the future. this is also implied, or could be a plot hole. considering every time li tianchen touches cheng xiaoshi while the latter is possessing someone, he gets forced out of said body, to the present — as for lu guang, he fully stays there, in the past which isn’t the past, more like a new present or future. with all of his plans intact. sucks that the future he’s aiming for isn’t changing, though.

there’s also the mess which is s2ep8-9. you know, the speedboat episodes. it isn’t quite obvious at first, but lu guang is lu guang the first time. and well, he wasn’t expecting anyone to know his password either. he likely just stashed the phone away for safekeeping, for his own dive, but then the cops found it and cheng xiaoshi decided to dive in — it’s a bit of a mystery on how cheng xiaoshi knew exactly what to do as well. since he was likely very disoriented the first time he was brung out of his possession by li tianchen. well, i’m not one to really delve into this, again there’s other people who have in far more detail than i.

i mean, yes, time nodes are a thing and the timeline reorients itself however it needs to be. no matter how much of change might take place, how out of hand it can get. but it has this margin of error as well. it’s quite odd, really, i can’t quite describe it either.

there’s some kind of mindfuck theory about time not actually being time but i won’t get into that. i don’t remember what it said. but shoutout to you, other theorists.

in short, i don’t think i made this clear due to my incessant rambling; diving always alters the timeline. even if only little deviations happen, it always alters what it was originally supposed to be. and it only happens once, unless you count lu guang diving into himself multiple times… but that isn’t as clear, considering like i said, the future changes — which is stated in the donghua itself, but it changes and he theoretically dives into a different version of himself. theoretically.

well, whatever the case, thanks for reading. hope this makes sense — kind of at least, if you’re interested on my thoughts on anything let me know. or if i forgot to cover some part in more detail.

happy 0913, hope everyone survived well today. i, and cheng xiaoshi, sure didn’t!

[thecoolerliauditore]

big post now that the adrenaline is cooled down a bit. thoughts on each team so far.

overall: ohh I really didn't think I would be enraptured again I really didn't think I would be. Like don't get me wrong I'm not one for wanting the series to end or anything but I was very, very happy about the year long break after Secret Life because it was feeling like quite a lot of content to the point where it was overwhelming.

That break was crucial, I think, to the vibes since I don't know if it's just me but the players just feel like they have so much more energy and excitement for the new season. Etho and Mumbo especially are so quirky this session.

The new mechanic is. shrugs. Really no way to judge it yet seeing as we've pretty much barely seen what it can entail. The fact that everyone has six lives though is making me think some of them are gonna be crazy in future sessions cus that's a ridiculously generous number otherwise and I assume Grian doesn't intend for this season to be twice Third Life's length.

EIGHTEEN PLAYERS! EIGHTEEN PLAYERS! Lizzie, Mumbo, Rendog, Gem 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 I don't have much to add I'm just so happy we're finally getting a season with All of Them. Rendog Ren Ren Diggity Dawg I'm so happy. I'm so happy.

The lag on the server looks um ..... ? Aternos lookin ass. I hope it doesnt impact them too much beyond this episode and they get that fixed cus whoagh that is um bad. Joel being soooo fucking angry about it is so funny please never change Joel.

~

Renwood Mound: First of all horrid name but I would be disappointed by anything less sexually suggestive. Second of all please check up on your Treebark mutuals this is a difficult time. Refeeding syndrome might just kill a couple of you I'm so sorry.

I'm not a big Ren/Martyn understander but my dash has been more celebrating their reunion than crying tears of anguish like the other toxic rebounds (ethubs, tango, pearl) that have popped up so I can only assume it's going to be okay we're all gonna make it.

If they do stay as a duo this season is going to be crazy for Martyn specifically I think. He's already gotten the betrayal he wants, he's already achieved the villainous role he so wants to play, and now it's just him and Ren together with no Dogwarts to lead. I genuinely have no idea where this one will go. o7

~

BAM Boys: I really hope the "boys" part stays in the name despite Lizzie joining them at the end for my very specific Lizzie headcanons. It would tickle me.

Anyway we're finally freed from the grasps of blue man and get the Scar/Jimmy team up this time with added Lizzie flavour. I'm very excited and like. I've seen a lot of people doubting this team will go far which confuses me because I don't know if you guys are aware but Scar won last season. And Lizzie, despite her early death in SL, really is no pushover either (she had one of the highest body counts in LL and I wish more people talked about that).

Scar specifically is in a great spot with pretty much full diamond armour already. He gets all giddy while mining and says to himself something like "ooh I get to share some with Jimmy!" which is so sweet to me.

Scar remaking the reputation board from Third Life is actually insane. What is he doing.

All this to say I think this team looks wholesome and I'm optimistic for their future. This could be Jimmy's Mounders. Or it could be Fairy Fort 2 idk let's see.

~

I think Bigb's possessed again.

~

The Hobbits(???): Hilarious to me that they stole Flower Husbands' original branding. Anyway Grumbo is back idk if I know them well enough to make a statement but I'm mentally chucking them into the toxic rebound box in my head just to get the number up.

This is the POV I've seen the least of but they seem fun. I wonder if being out of the horrific environment that was the Southlanders will do any good for Grumbo's relationship. Skizz being there also tends to bring the mood up 400% (unless it's Dogwarts).

~

Joel & Gem: IM SO EXCITED. This is pretty much the Bdubs/Joel team-up I wanted originally but now we get Ethubs too which is even more awesome for me. Very cringe take from me but they are both shounen anime.

Despite what Scott says I really don't think they'll "spontaneously combust". They're both high energy and aggressive but historically loyal to the people who accept them, the sample rate for Gem is not exactly scientifically viable but. Vaguely gestures to all of Secret Life.

I kind of wanna see Gem kill Pearl.

~

Whatever the fuck the Ethubs + Tango team is called: Why.

No like seriously Tango I thought you hated these bitches why are you third wheeling them. He's also surprisingly Bdubspilled like he sides with him on the horse thing and tries to warn Bdubs about Etho lying later. Like, don't get me wrong I really don't think Tango has spite for Bdubs comparable to like. Pearl for Scott for example but he certainly isn't fond of him after he um Fucking Murdered Him and was completely unapologetic.

I'm not really a Tango guy so I can't speak on what's going on inside his head regarding that it's just. Interesting to observe. At least the brief ranchers interaction was cute (and really funny to see in the background of ethubs yelling at eachother).

Anyway Ethubs are insane. It's so funny to me that their horse argument literally lasted an entire in game day.

It's fun for me specifically because I always viewed Secret Life as somewhat of a soft end/reboot point for the series for multiple reasons - the year long hiatus, scars win bookending things really well, pearl and scotts arcs wrapping up (oh how naive) and, of course, the conclusion ethubs reached.

I think I've made a post before about how beautiful of an ending SL is for Ethubs. The distance allowing them to overcome their own personal issues with Bdubs learning he's capable and to care for people who aren't himself or Etho and Etho learning relationships don't have to be minefields, leading into HC10 where Bdubs moves into the rural countryside away from everything and Etho hanging out with his new coworkers at the post office. They can still talk and visit, of course, but the time away from eachother does them wonders and adds a bit of hope for how they will be in the future.

So how should I even fucking feel about Etho pulling a Limited Life and almost killing Bdubs for a prank. Or Etho asking Bdubs what he's done for him. Or Etho in general being a little shit about the horse thing and Bdubs being equally stubborn.

Bdubs even kinda?? Talks like they're a couple who've gone to therapy with the "I should express how I feel and how I feel is.." and the way he catches himself when he's halfway through yelling. Like I'm not insane you guys hear it too right.

Like don't get me wrong I'm very stuck in my ways of insisting Ethubs isn't really toxic, at least not anymore, but I can totally see someone else being horrified by them and I would cheer them on for it. This episode is especially going to be horrible for that person. At least for me it seems like Bdubs' character development is very real i.e. him rejecting Etho's chestplate with the classic "I can take care of myself", a stark contrast to LL/DL Bdubs and he bites back when Etho is weird.

I have hope for Ethubs is what I'm trying to say and it's totallyyyy not because they're my first ship and I'm biased. I need to figure out what's wrong with Etho and why he's doing this. I saw a post that theorized Etho wanted Bdubs to get mad at him and kill him this season which I'm rotating a bit but I'll have to keep watching. Ethubs girls we're in for it we really are. Tango girls I'm um sorry.

~

PICS / the Islanders: My 13th reason why.

Trying to not repeat too much here from whatever happened to me emotionally last night but this is what hell looks like. It's what I expected but like. DAMN. I wasn't expecting it to be. That bad.

Seeing a lot of people say that the team is just. Pearl, The Horrors and Impulse who is just 🧍‍♂️and I don't think that's completely wrong or anything however ☝️I must say that Impulse continues to frighten me and him being here is making me personally shake like a chihuahua. Like I can't really explain his character if you put a gun to my head I just think the guy might have some issues communicating emotions and prefers to hold grudges/be passive aggressive like with the psychological horror that was the impdubs DL POV and I can't imagine him being particularly Good for Pearl. Also he's done several insane things in the past e.g. the Bdubs grudge, laughing at Tango when he tries to kill himself in SL, being excited(??) for gem to kill him in SL, trying to kill Skizz in SL wow wait maybe it's just proximity to gem and scott that fucks this guy up. Idk though I don't trust his ass.

Anyway. Yes like we are all Martyn Inthelittlewooding it up for Pearl in here. I have so many somewhat misogynistic fantasies in my head about her being saved by Gem or Bdubs or Joel or Bigb for that matter. Emotionally that's what I would want. HOWEVER I don't think that would actually be anything that would help Pearl in fact I think she'd just run back to her team because she's loyal like that. So now I kind of just want to see the consequences of her actions. Whittle her down to nothing 💥💥💥💥💥It would break me it genuinely would.

Cleo fucking catching herself and correcting "trauma" to "damage" mid sentence is insane can we kill. can we kill them.

So yeah um I'm excited for this season

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I sent a complaint about my upstairs neighbors to our buildings management despite never having communicated with them directly? Okay so I live in an apartment building. My upstairs neighbors regularly have loud parties (?) It doesn't always sound like it, but at least loud music playing, and sometimes that includes stomping around (assumed dancing) and loud talking/laughing or rarely fighting. This usually occurs on weekend nights, from friday to saturday or from saturday to sunday (most common I'd say), and can last for hours. Sometimes it's just during the day/afternoon, which, annoying, but sure, it's day, can deal with it while just being annoyed.

At some point, this was mainly an issue when I had sleepover guests, since they would sleep in the living room, opposite side of the flat I sleep on, and usually where all that originates (assuming they are also doing this in their living room) But I feel like it has been getting progressively worse, both in volume and times this happens at. It's currently 3.45 am on a Saturday, and they've been going since at least 3, probably earlier, but that's when I woke up/became aware enough to actively notice it. (Proofreading and it's now 4.10am, still going strong up there-) Now, I'm not one to call the police, especially when there is no actual danger or physical harm that can't be dealt with otherwise effectively, bc ACAB, but I've taken several clips with audio tonight because I'm fucking tired and am heavily considering sending the management company for our building a complaint about them. The issue I'm not clear on is mostly...that I never really talked to them directly. I know they've gotten complaints and stopped before, and I've left a note together with a guest of mine in front of their door before. Yet it remains a recurring occurrence. I've never actually knocked or rang the doorbell to directly ask them to stop. I live alone and am afab in my 20s, all I know about my upstairs neighbors is that it's two men (though there's definitely sometimes people over, as I said sometimes these occurrences are definitely parties). At most I will have one friend over who's also afab on these occasions. (We are both trans/nb but p much present as our assigned gender in current circumstances) I also have social anxiety, though I don't think it's particularly unreasonable to be worried to confront unknown men, who will know where I live as well, about literally anything considering we live in a society TM. (Obviously I don't know that it wouldn't just go over very easily however, exactly the issue that you can never rly know that- like ik most people would probably react chill or at best annoyed I'm interrupting them or whatever but there's always a chance to run into the exceptions TM)

I don't need to work on the weekends (though other people in flats around us might, idk) but I still gotta like, maintain my sleeping rhythm ideally, and you know. Generally pleasant to be able to sleep at night if you would like to- I do not know what actions they would or could take if they do consider the complaint at all, but I'm not really assuming they'd like, cause them serious issues regarding their living situation, it's more likely at most they get a letter/some shitty little flyer to not loudly party in the middle of the night get put up in the hallway/at the building doors. But again that's my assumption and not a fact I know for sure, I could be completely wrong about that, and I don't know if there's potential other complaints.

So, WIBTA if I sent clips of the loud music in the middle of the night and a complaint to our building management without knowing potential consequences, even though I have not tried to communicate with my neighbors except a singular note one time?

What are these acronyms?

[writer-sedai]

I've been thinking about how Rand's relationships might be handled in season 3 of the show, since there are already several big differences in how various relationships have been portrayed/set up as of the end of season 2 compared to where things are at the beginning of The Shadow Rising:

1. Rand and Egwene: in the books, their relationship is definitely portrayed as more of a puppy-love, "we'll marry each other because it's what's been expected our whole lives and not because it's what we actually want" sort of situation. By aging up the Emonds Fielders, the show also matured their relationship into something that was, as of s1e1, more romantic than their book relationship ever was.

It's true that Rand and Egwene already broke up in that first episode and never REALLY got back together, but it's clear throughout season 2 that Rand still loves Egwene (she's the one he's trying to forget with Selene! When given the opportunity to visit anyone in the world, she's the one he chooses!) and Egwene, if not for the fact that she believed him dead, would still love him too (given the state of their relationship at the end of season 1, when they reconciled).

The original reason they broke up was because Egwene was going to become a Wisdom - a position that meant she couldn't have a family - and a family was all Rand really wanted. Their futures were incompatible. Now, neither of them is going to have the future they imagined a year ago - a family is completely out of the question for Rand (poor boy) and Egwene is set to become an Aes Sedai, with a lot more freedom to choose other aspects of her life.

Likely, their futures are still incompatible. But I think they need to figure out why that is again before they can break up as amicably as they did in the books - especially if they end up traveling the waste together.

2. Missing connections: Egwene never met Gawyn or Galad in the Tower to develop a crush on one or both of them. Elayne did not meet Rand before going to the Tower in order to discuss her feelings for him with Egwene. Min is out of the equation completely at this point. And Egwene and Elayne never met Aviendha in order to form a friendship with her. The timing needed to set various pieces into place before all the groups split up again is missing.

Now, I think a time jump at the beginning of season 3 could fill in a lot of the gaps here if it's handled well. But I can't see Elayne/Egwene coming to the same agreement re: Rand as they do in the books unless Egwene is sufficiently over Rand.

Which brings me to:

3. Everyone's older and more mature: the scene where Egwene breaks up with Rand and then leaves Elayne to pick up the pieces is, tbh, one of the cringiest in the series. (Actually, TSR is one of my fave books overall but the first hundred or so pages do feel very immature). I caaaaaan't see this scene playing out in the show the way it does in the books.

And even with the romantic meet-cute between Rand and Elayne in 2x08, I don't know if they'll introduce the idea of them as a pairing yet both because of time constraints before they get thrown into different storylines, and because...

4. Rand hasn't been taught about polyamory yet! In the books, I think he's already having dreams about multiple women and feeling guilty about it by this point. Similar to the time constraints in point 2, Rand hasn't had time to get used to the idea of having feelings for multiple people (even if he takes a very long time to actually be COMFORTABLE with that idea).

The audience has been introduced to polyamory through Alanna and her warders, prepping us for a similar type of relationship with Rand in the future, but Rand himself is missing that conditioning. I don't know that the show will have Rand going from Egwene to Elayne over the space of one or two episodes (I doubt they'll spend more time than that together) and then ALSO try to build up him and Avi this season.

Which kind of ties in to my final point, which is:

5. Writing relationships for seasonal television: it makes sense from a writing perspective to work on relationships between characters that are in the same place together, and save everything else for later. The time between seasons is long and each season needs to act as a self-contained arc, so setting up Rand/Elayne only to not pick up that thread again for another season or two is not very time conscientious.

Imo they've already done something like this with Min; Rand met her in s1 but now likely won't see her again until S4. As far as we know Rand has absolutely no romantic feelings for Min based on their encounters in Fal Dara and likely won't develop those feelings until they meet again. (Min herself might feel differently, but she always knew she was Prophecied to fall in love with Rand anyway and could be dealing with that knowledge in the background.)

___________

Anyway, all of that is a prelude to the following preposition:

Keep Rand and Egwene together (or semi-together, uncertain of their actual status) for the first part of season 3.

Leave Rand/Elayne as a slowburn for a future season and instead have Aviendha come in as a new love interest for him. Instead of Aviendha aggressively reminding Rand how beautiful Elayne is while feeling angry and hopeless over her own feelings for him, transfer that over to Egwene - Aviendha and Egwene have become good friends, Egwene's feelings for Rand are still ambiguous, Aviendha is angry at herself that she would fall for someone who "belongs" to one of her closest friends.

Egwene can still give Aviendha the necklace that Rand spends so much time thinking about. Aviendha (or the Aiel in general) can introduce Rand to the concept of polyamory. When Rand and Egwene do finally break up amicably, Egwene can make it clear to Aviendha that Rand no longer belongs to her.

Everything else from TSR, including Flesh Balloons and Sex Igloo, can proceed as written.

Thoughts?

[plottwiststudios]

Women of Xal II Kickstarter: Delayed?

Hey, have you heard of the overly ambitious visual novel titled "Women of Xal" for Steam and Itch.io? (PC/Mac/Linux) Because that plays into why we might need to shelf the series for a few years. Full breakdown under the cut. (No spoilers)

For those who have gotten the True Ending, you should be fully aware that the story is about to vastly expand outside of Xuna's castle. It's a narrative must where everything that happens, happens well outside the scope of the original game in so many ways. And let's talk about scope! Especially if you have no idea what's so staggering about the original Women of Xal visual novel:

600+ optional choices we painstakingly programmed

Branching paths that people are still asking for guides on

A dozen romance options

Poly and gay options that interact with one another

Voice acting from now VERY popular voice actors

A 15 hour story full of mystery, lore, and tense politics

110 track soundtrack

4 Endings

Animations

Thousands of art assets (Bless Cat)

Years of hard work and long nights

No AI Art

100% positive reviews as of this post

Recouped $6000+, or roughly a fraction of the cost of development. After 2+ years of being released

Note that very last bullet point. Doing things for the art and passion is amazing and all, but I can't be investing literal thousands of hours into creating a game for a subset of a subset of a subset of people. I have bigger projects I want to finally get to work on. Ones I really hoped Women of Xal I would help a bit with funding. But it's not. And because of certain facts about the game, it may never be able to do so. To no fault of any of the players.

When I made Women of Xal I, my time was more readily available and I was quite a bit younger. The cost of running a company and creating a game like WoX as the first product hadn't quite hit me. I was also silly enough to believe "if you make it, they will come" to a degree. That part makes me grin in a not fun way.

But these days I have a job that takes me away from creating, but does pay the bills and debts. Debts I don't want to get into again in order to create the sequel that will undoubtedly come with far higher costs due to the game's scope. I have a better understanding of the costs of hiring returning and appropriate talent necessary to create a game better than the last. (I don't personally believe in being satisfied with an intentional steep downgrade.)

Yes there is the Kickstarter option for Women of Xal II, but there are plenty of costs and time investment that makes it an unviable avenue to explore during this point in time. After all, who but the people who sat down and explored everything the first game had to offer would understand how we came up with a $50,000 Kickstarter price tag for a visual novel's sequel? Especially since too many will look at the first Kickstarter and believe we made the first game with only $14,000.

I have thought about giving Women of Xal I a modernized facelift with a smaller Kickstarter, complete with a ton of new features and fun ways to streamline and highlight the narration's strong points, but there's a LOT of baggage that comes with that, including not wanting to go backwards when I still want to create my "pipe dream" projects.

So I'm thinking we'll give it a bit more thought these next few days, and if we can't think of a solution that we haven't already tried, we'll officially announce the delay (and before you suggest your own ideas, know that there's a 99% chance we've already tried it).

A long, long post just to say I do sincerely apologize for having people wait longer, but I am literally still a few thousand dollars away from paying off all my debt that came from funding the first game. It's a micro-trauma I do not feel inclined to repeating again. When the franchise is in a better place, or I am emotionally/physically, I will return back to Women of Xal to finish the story. If I cannot, I will release a summary of events that transpire after the first game's true ending.

But for now, I'm going to focus on financial and emotional healing, and creating projects that I feel will be more appreciated by both myself and people who are turned off by what "Women of Xal" offers.

Thank you all for supporting our small company these past several years. <3

-John

[cookiesupplier]

Käresta's NYE (nsfw)

pairing: Joakim “Jolly” Karlsson x ofc (Evie)

cw: 18+ Minor DNI, vaginal fingering, vaginal sex, safe sex.

summary: Evie went out of her to make his Christmas special, and he can't keep going without telling her how he feels, he's going to, before the new year!

author’s note: Unbeta’d. The original smutty idea to the fluffy piece I wrote for Christmas!

tags: @tearfallpixie @cncohshit @nyxthedestroyerofworlds

~~

It was New Year's Eve, and in about a week and a matter of days were going to be well on our way to the UK for their next tour. Jolly was actually glad this next leg wasn’t one they were headlining, it was a step back, and for some, it would seem like a slap in the face, but he found it refreshing, not that it had pulled back on the insanity any, if anything that had stepped up in the fandom around the band. The pressure was still as insane as ever, especially for Noah. However, for him, tonight, the tour wasn’t where his mind was dwelling.

No. He was focused on Evie. Ever since Christmas, after she had gone out of her way, after all that she’d done to try and make Christmas special for the house, for them, it had made him realise he had to tell her how he felt. Oh, she was his Käresta, his sweetheart, his angel, but telling her that in so many words, he had never gone so far. How could he when he was always leaving her tour with the band?

When he found her in the house, she had a drink in hand and she was laughing with Folio about a fishing trip he’d just gotten back from, of course, she always listened to his stories about fishing, she listened to everyone's stories whether she was personally interested in the topic herself. She’d told him once, that it was their interest that she loved, the way that it lit the other person up was what made listening exciting, just watching her expression as she talked with Folio made him smile.

“He’s not boring you, is he Käresta?”

“Hey!”

Jolly chuckled low as Folio exclaimed at him, moving to punch his arm lightly, Nick might be soft-spoken in voice, but he was always the most outgoing of the lot of them.

“Whatever, I need another drink anyway, I’ll leave you to Mister Grumps Evie.”

Winking to her, Folio disappeared back to the kitchen, and Jolly was thankful for it, he was really hoping to get some time with Evie tonight. They’d known each other for years, they’d been friends for years, and this last week, since Christmas, he knew he had to tell her. Whether she felt the same or not, he was going to, tonight

BEFORE MIDNIGHT.

He was not going to start the New Year lying to her all over again, even if it was going to be painful enough knowing he was going to be leaving in a week and a half… though… was it too selfish to do this right before he was leaving, again?

Then, he was always leaving on tour, and he was always talking himself out of telling her because of their tours, but after Christmas, and after everything she had done, she deserved better, she deserved to know. She deserved the truth. If she didn’t want him, he’d move on. He would. If she told him it was too much, he would let her go to move on.

Reaching for her free hand with the one not holding his drink,

“Come, Käresta, walk with me.”

They found their way out to the back porch, sitting on the swing seat, Jolly moving to sit beside her, his free hand entwining his tattooed fingers with hers as he took a pull of his beer. As he swallowed his mouthful, he looked over towards her as she looked out to the stars overhead of the backyard. While they had friends over for New Year's Eve, they didn’t have as big a party as they used to, so it was rather quiet out here, everyone inside playing silly buggers, and if they wanted to watch the fireworks, the beside view was from out front anyway.

Squeezing her hand lightly,

“I can’t imagine who I’d be without you in my life anymore, Evie.”

At that point, she looked over him, and Jolly took in a breath, he’d said it, as to how she took what he said, that remained to be seen, and if she understood what he was meaning, he hadn’t admittedly been explicit, and he would be, he would. He felt as she squeezed his hand hand back as she giggled,

“I’m not going anywhere silly, why would I?”

No, he was right, she didn’t get what he meant. Lifting her hand as he hummed softly, considering how to tell her, and absent-mindedly pressing a soft kiss to the knuckles of her fingers before bringing her hand back down to his knees and rubbing his thumb over her skin over the back of her hand in ting little circle.

“No, Evie, Käresta, I mean, I love you. It’s alright if you don’t feel the same way, I know my life means I’m always gone, and it’s just…”

He sighed, and Evie set her empty drink bottle aside and took his larger hand in both of hers,

“Oh Joakim, you are oblivious, aren’t you? I’ve been in love with you forever. I’ve never told you, because, I guess, I was always worried that I might hold back, and I was always worried every time you’d leave for a tour. I love you, every part of you, I never want to hold you back, from your music, from the band, any of it.”

She never wanted that, and she had seen how sometimes the fans went crazy with the band at times. That didn’t matter now, none of that mattered as Jolly leaned towards her, leaning his forehead towards hers.

“God, Käresta, what did I do to deserve you?”

Pressing a kiss to her forehead, his arms wrapped around her before her face tucked into the crook where his neck met his shoulder. Leaning against his side, she smiled, feeling overjoyed right then, even if she knew in less than two weeks he’d be not only leaving for tour, but the whole country, he’d just told her he loved her.

It was a little later when Evie heard a shout from others playing games inside the house, she lifted her head, glancing over to the door that led back into the house, and Jolly, for a moment, followed her gaze, before back to her. Lifting his hand now wrapped around her, he was looking down to see her slightly, his fingers brushing along her jaw until his thumb was brushing along her lower lip lightly before he titled his head til he could scrap his teeth at her ear as he whispered low,

“Let's head back inside, Käresta?”

He smiled as he felt her shiver slightly against him at the brush of his brush of air of his soft words against her skin, the way his lips skimmed ever so slightly against her ear. Oh, he couldn’t wait to get her inside, out of the could, get her alone.

Immediately, Evie nodded, and they both stood from the swing seat and headed inside. Jolly immediately avoided the majority of the party, taking her hand and tugging her towards the stairs and up to his room right away, no, he didn’t feel like sharing her anymore tonight. Sure they hadn’t even gotten to the typical ‘fun’ part of the evening, but this wasn’t a typical NYE for him, not with Evie finally by his side as so much more than as his best friend over the years past. Then again, they’ve always been more, but it felt like a door had been opened.. And with these touches, Evie allowed, Jolly wanted to enjoy this time together. He wanted to feel this time together.

It would also be a lie to say that he hadn’t spent years fantasising about what he wanted to do to her if he got her to himself, and now he finally had.

Once they were upstairs, Jolly pulled her into his room, and closed the door without a word, her back pressed against the back of the wood, his body pressed against hers, holding her there as he brought his lips immediately against hers in a kiss that stole her breath away, his large hands slid around her her waist, squeezing as he kissed her.

Fuck.

He’d wanted to kiss her like that for far too long, his tongue swept over her lip before her lips parted in a gasp against her kiss and he licked into her mouth as he deepened the kiss with a moan. After a moment, Evie’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, and Jolly hiked her up, lifting her from the floor to wrap her legs around his waist. He couldn’t stop kissing her, lost in her lips, her skin, as his lips travelled down the side of her neck, feeling Evie’s hands grasping at his shoulders, his shirt.

When he felt her start to try and grasp at his clothes, he picked her up from the door, his hands curving around her behind, lifting her from the wood and carrying her over to his bed. Clothes started being strewn from their bodies in the process. He didn’t care where they went, he didn’t even care if they made it intact anymore, all he could think about was getting closer to her, feeling her skin against his, finally getting to explore her body in a way he’d wanted to for so long. They might only have a short time before he had to leave, but he wasn’t going to waste a moment with her.

Laying her down on his bed, looking over her bare body, oh, she was an absolute vision, his Käresta, and he couldn’t wait to explore, and taste, every single inch of her. However, right this second, he was dying to be inside of her. His hands ran up over her thighs and one slid between them, and, gasping softly under his breath in his native tongue, the feel of how wet she was,

“Already, so perfect, Käresta, all mine.”

Evie arched up to him with a moan as he pressed a finger into her slowly, circling her clit a little with his thumb, whimpering under his ministration,

“Jolly, please!”

Smiling down at her, her hands reaching up to him, he was holding himself up on his other arm over her as he stretched her a little, pumping his finger until he added a second,

“Please, what? Käresta? Hmm, use your words if you want more.”

Okay, he was teasing, maybe he shouldn’t be teasing, but the way she was writing like that on his fingers was so tempting, and picturing her like this was going to get him through so many lonely months on tour, and he knew it.

“Please, please, I need you inside me, I, I want you, I’ve wanted you forever.”

Hearing that, oh, oh that would do.

“Hold on Sweet Thing, hold on.”

Slipping his fingers out of her, lifting his wet digits to his mouth and bringing them to his lips, letting her watch as he sucked her juices from them and hearing her groan as he smiled,

“I can’t wait to taste you later.”

And, he would, he most definitely would.

Now however, he was reaching for his bedside table and pulling out a condom, he loved her, more than anything, not only they had only just confessed, but he was leaving for tour, and he was going to be gone for months, he was not leaving her with surprises, pill or no pill. One day they could risk it, maybe, but it would not be tonight. Ripping the packet open, and rolling it onto himself as Evie’s hands were running her nails down his side and he lined himself up as she grasped his hips.

As he lined up his cock, Jolly brought his lips to Evie’s and her small hands curved around his backside, as he pressed his hips forward slowly, pressing into her. Filling her slowly, inch by inch, fuck, she felt so good wrapped around him so perfectly like this, her knees bent up around his hips until her hands were literally pulling him into her with a moan.

“Fuck, Käresta.”

Hiking one of her thighs higher around his hip as he pulled out so he could thrust deeper into her, she cried out as he started to pick up a rhythm. Evie gasped against his mouth with a whimper holding on and enjoying every second as Jolly fucked into her claiming her body as he drove his cock into her, filling her, feeling the way she was clenching so tightly around him as he found that sweet spot inside of her. Fuck, there, right there, that was what he wanted, groaning when she got so tight,

“Cum for me Käresta, God on Sweet Girl, Cum for me.”

Moaning as her legs wrapped around him and she clenched tighter around his cock as he continued to thrust into her, aiming for that sweet spot, as hard and as deep as he could, she was practically milking him as she came. Her nails dug into the small of his back as he shuddered, his thrusts growing uncontrolled as she clenched around him until he just couldn’t hold back and he was cumming into the condom, moaning against her mouth. His teeth scraped over her lip, hands grasping at her thighs, holding onto her to ground himself.

It was when they were both gasping for breath after Jolly had disposed of the condom, collected a damp cloth from the bathroom to clean them both up, and Evie was wrapped up around him and they were calmed down.. Jolly was contemplating what was coming next. The tour.

“I’m sorry.”

His voice quiet,

“I’m sorry it took me this long to tell you Käresta. I hate having to leave you, knowing you’ll be alone, and I just, it’s not fair, I’ll understand if-”

“Joakim, stop, it’s okay.”

Evie smacked his tattooed chest lightly, her hand settling against his skin, fingers brushing over the images detailed on his pecks. Jolly swallowed, looking down at her, seeing a softness in her eyes, a determination, she was his Käresta alright.

“It’s okay, Jolly, you go off, be the amazing rockstar I love, and I’ll be here when you get back. I’ll always be here when you get back. Because you are my home.”

[lunarblessingart]

My first completely original emblem design belongs to Seliph!

I knew as soon as I'd finished the Rivals ring design (which still hasn't gone up yet as of writing this post) that I'd want to do Emblem Rings for characters that weren't emblems at all eventually; so now that I've done a few, here's Seliph, inspired loosely by a fanfic series that will be linked at the bottom of the post.

Although I do have to confess that I've never actually *played* Genealogy/FE4 or Thracia 776/FE5, so I'm not the most educated on Seliph as a character. Which isn't new, I haven't played Shadow Dragon or enough of Awakening to really know Tiki that well either, but this became a problem with Seliph when I realized that he doesn't really have a lot of easy, distinguishable character design traits to choose from.

I did eventually find that Seliph's legendary alt in Heroes had a good number of four-pointed stars (something he shares with Sigurd's alts) as well as a pattern that curled in a way that loosely resembled vines (which is present in the design of Deirdre's alts, particularly legendary), so I ended up trying my best to incorporate both of those things here.

I might make one for Julia eventually, since she was one of my favorite units when I still played Heroes, but I still want to make more AA visions, so the emblems will probably end up on the backburner for at least a bit, especially as my fire emblem brainrot starts to slowly die down again.

To end this post, here's that fic I promised: