#been a fan since 2014 though

[jak--ash]

I see a lot of people posting that they think something big is going to happen with dan and phil this month because of anniversaries and birthdays and gay but honestly if they did do something would you even believe it? they could title a video "it's official we're getting married" and I'd assume they're playing another game and not think twice

[stardestroyer81]

You ever wonder how Mike is going to keep seven foot tall animatronics out of his office with a flimsy door in place of the ones we're used to?

[lady-assnali]

Absolutely incredible immaculate stunning life-changing unbelievable. Could your fave ever!?

[birdy-bird27]

What is it with you and DJ Music Man? When did that happen?

I’ve been a fan of him since security breach came out! My brother bought the game and I watched him play his section was the best section by far. The music was great. The build up and tension. Plus he’s so cool and funky I love him. I love me a grooving dj 😎 all his character traits just appeal to me

[flanaganfilm]

Mr. Flanagan, I’d like to ask a question and I deeply hope that it does not offend or upset you. I am strongly considering canceling my Netflix subscription due to their new password sharing policy. However, Midnight Mass is one of my favorite shows of all time and I know it isn’t available on DVD, and I’m also profoundly anticipating your take on my favorite Edgar Allen Poe story. So I wanted to ask your take on people accessing your work through, uh, other means. If it’s something that’s offensive to you or will harm you or the other people who work so hard on these shows, I’ll happily keep my Netflix just so that I can keep supporting your work. I respect you far too much as an artist to do otherwise.

Again, I really hope I’m not upsetting you by asking this question. Thank you for everything, and I hope you’re having a great day!

(NOTE 6/4/2024: I'm editing this entry because, well over a year since it was posted, some journalists dug this up and used it to create click-bait headlines that are misleading, out of context and artificially combative. While I was of course disappointed over the years that Netflix opted not to release my work on physical media, I never experienced any hostility or aggression in those discussions, and I sincerely regret the manner in which this post was used in the press this week.)

Hi there - no offense taken whatsoever, in fact I think this is a very interesting and important question.

So. If you asked me this a few years ago, I would have said "I hate piracy and it is hurting creators, especially in the independent space." I used to get in Facebook arguments with fans early in my career when people would post about seeing my work on torrent sites, especially when that work was readily available for rent and purchase on VOD.

Back in 2014, my movie Before I Wake was pirated and leaked prior to any domestic release, and that was devastating to the project. It actually made it harder to find distribution for the film. By the time we were able to get distribution in the US, the film had already been so exposed online that the best we could hope for was a Netflix release. Netflix stepped in and saved that movie, and for that I will always be grateful to them.

However...

Working in streaming for the past few years has made me reconsider my position on piracy.

In the years I worked at Netflix, I tried very hard to get them to release my work on blu-ray and DVD.

It became clear very fast that their priority was subscriptions, and that they were not particularly interested in physical media releases of their originals, with a few exceptions.

While companies like Netflix pride themselves on being disruptors, and have proven that they can affect great change in the industry, they sometimes fail to see the difference between disruption and damage. So much that they can find themselves, intentionally or not, doing harm to the concept of film preservation.

The danger comes when a title is only available on one platform, and then - for whatever reason - is removed.

We have already seen this happen. And it is only going to happen more and more. Titles exclusively available on streaming services have essentially been erased from the world. If those titles existed on the marketplace on physical media, like HBO's Westworld, the loss is somewhat mitigated (though only somewhat.) But when titles do not exist elsewhere, they are potentially gone forever.

The list of titles that have been removed from streaming services is growing.

I still believe that where we put our dollars matters. Renting or buying a piece of work that you like is essential. It is casting a vote, encouraging studios - who only speak the language of money - to invest more effort into similar work. If we show up to support distinct, unique, exciting work, it encourages them to make more of it. It's as simple as that. If we don't show up, or if they can't hear our voice because we are casing our vote "silently" through torrent sites or other means - it makes it unlikely that they will take a chance to create that kind of work again.

Which is why I typically suggest that if you like a movie you've seen through - uh - other means, throw a few dollars at that title on a legitimate platform. Rent it. Purchase it. Support it.

But if some studios offer no avenue for that kind of support, and can (and will) remove content from their platform forever... frankly, I think that changes the rules.

Netflix will likely never release the work I created for them on physical media, though I'll always hold out hope.

Some of you may say "wait, aren't The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor available on blu-ray and DVD?" Yes, they are, because they were co-produced with Paramount, and I'm grateful that Paramount was able to release and protect those titles. (I'm also grateful that those releases include extended cuts, deleted scenes, and commentary tracks. There are a number of fantastic benefits to physical media releases.)

But a lot of the other work I did there are Netflix originals, without any other studio involvement. Those titles - like Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, and the upcoming Fall of the House of Usher - along with my Netflix exclusive and/or original movies Before I Wake and Gerald's Game - have no such protections. The physical media releases of those titles are entirely at Netflix's discretion, and don't appear to be priority for the studio at this time.

At the moment, Netflix seems content to leave Before I Wake, Gerald's Game, Midnight Mass, and The Midnight Club on the service, where they still draw audiences. I don't think there is a plan to remove any of them anytime soon. But plans change, the industry changes.

The point is things change, and each of those titles - should they be removed from the service for any reason - are not available anywhere else. If that day comes - if Netflix's servers are destroyed, if a meteor hits the building, if they are bought out by a competitor and their library is liquidated - I don't know what the circumstances might be, I just know that if that day comes, some of the work that means the most to me in the world would be entirely erased.

Or, what if we aren't so catastrophic in our thinking? What if it the change isn't so total? What if Netflix simply bumps into an issue with the license they paid for music (like the Neil Diamond songs that play such a crucial role in Midnight Mass), and decide to leave the show up but replace the songs?

This has happened before as well - fans of Northern Exposure can get the show on DVD and blu-ray, but the music they heard when the series aired has been replaced due to the licensing issues. And the replacements - chosen for their low cost, not for creative reasons - are not improvements. What if the shows are just changed, and not by creatives, but by business affairs executives?

All to say that physical media is critically important. Having redundancy in the marketplace is critically important. The more platforms a piece of work is available on, the more likely it is to survive and grow its audience.

As for Netflix, I hope sincerely that their thinking on this issue evolves, and that they value the content they spend so much money creating enough to protect it for posterity. That's up to them, it's their studio, it's their rules. But I like to think they may see that light eventually, and realize that exclusivity in a certain window is very cool... but exclusivity in perpetuity could potentially limit the audience and endanger the work itself.

[gay-chef-boyardee]

The first of my Ever After High Fan-Redesigns! Cerise Hood.

I /love/ Cerise. I think her name is the cutest (I’m glad they didn’t go with the obvious pick of Scarlett), her color scheme is amazing, and she definitely should have been a more major character. I chose to do her first because I already loved her design, and figured it would be a good test-run of this /maybe/ series(?)

For Cerise I gave her a more petite build to go along with her story of being the /little/ red riding hood. I imagine her to be around 5’1” and significantly shorter than the other characters around her, especially her sister.

Instead of a cape I fitted her with a big comfortable hoodie for a bit more modern take on the hood, though I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. I think if I were to try again I’d make the red a bit more emphasized, since for me, it’d be important that a kid walking through the doll isle would be able to identify what story each doll came from without having to check the name.

I do quite like the flowers though. In the original Little Red Riding Hood, she strays off the pass to pick a nosegay (objectively funny old word for bouquet) for her grandma to accompany the wine and cake, and that’s when the wolf sneaks away and eats the grandma. On her hoodie are Asters, which represent daintiness, as you would expect from Little Red Riding Hood. But on her dress underneath are Mock Orange flowers, which represent deceit.

I went with a sort of ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ theme for Cerise. Though she looks very cute and dainty, all EAH fans know that she’s anything but. And when you take her hood off, you’re left with a very 2014, almost scene outfit (though I wouldn’t go that far, since she’s still quite preppy). Without her hood, her ears, which are disguised as her bangs, flip up and expose her true /wolfy/ nature.

Anyways, I’m really happy with the final design and I think I would definitely pick up a doll of her. I’m doing a little poll on who I should draw next, so please vote if you’d like to see another :>

[questionablecuttlefish]

Where is Jinx going?

Bilgewater is a strong contender, but don't discount Demacia.

Jinx/Lux is part of it. That's actually the oldest fan ship for Jinx and was the most popular for both of them in fanfic and fan art until Season Two dropped; the common claim that it's a fringe ship or 'only' in Star Guardian is inaccurate. It's been a part of League fandom for a long ass time. It started in 2014 in 'main Runeterra canon' only months after Jinx's launch and before either the Burning Bright video or Ekko existed. It was later boosted in popularity by the Wild Rift trailer, various promotional arts featuring the two together, and later by the Valoran Town animated series released in China. Why? Initially, just pairing the two poster girls of League together, probably, or the classic hero/lancer dynamic of the optimistic 'light' character with the edgy 'dark' character.

But since Lux's comic, the Mageseeker game and then Arcane there are more lore parallels between the two than ever; both are young women struggling with a society that hates them for something they didn't choose to be, both trusted an older mentor with revolutionary ideals who encouraged them to embrace their destructive powers and then betrayed them (Silco/Sylas), both accidentally unleashed their power and got people killed, both triggered a violent revolution, both have a complicated relationship with an older sibling (Vi/Garen). If they are romantic interests or just friends, Lux gets someone who will encourage her to embrace her magic and Jinx gets someone who won't judge her on her past and the potential for conflict and companionship and a very interesting, opposites-but-actually-mirrors dynamic is all there.

It's commonly dismissed by people ignorant of League's history and of the lore of both characters, but it DOES work. If you know, you know. 🦄

Outside of that, though, why Demacia? Doesn't seem like a place our crazy girl Jinx would want to go for any reason, ever, but the end of Arcane makes it more likely than even Bilgewater because at this stage Jinx is trying to cut her ties and move on from her old life. She wants to be:

FAR away from Noxus and Noxian influences (Demacia and Noxus are bitter enemies)

FAR from her "Jinx" identity and all the violence and chaos that stands for (if she wants to disappear and try to put it behind her and heal from her trauma, Demacia big, spacious, and quiet)

FAR away from her family and friends, so she can't be tempted to get involved in their lives and hurt them (as she sees it) again. (Demacia is waaaay over there, a lot farther than Bilgewater)

FAR AWAY from the Arcane that has, from the moment she picked up that first Hexcrystal, ruined her life and taken people she loves (Mylo, Claggor, Vander, Isha, and in a roundabout way, Vi) from her. (Demacia is a kingdom that despises magic and is full of magic-sucking stone made from magic sucking forests)

So I think it will entirely depend on the direction they want to take with Jinx from here. If they want her to continue to be a violent, chaotic crazy girl we know and love, they'll make her a mercenary pirate in Bilgewater, maybe tangle her up with Sarah Fortune's crew.

If they want her to try to turn her back on her "Jinx" identity and heal from her grief in peace and quiet, they'll take her to Demacia and she'll pop up unexpectedly, maybe as a tinkerer, or artisan, trying to reconnect with her Powder side.

This is where she could meet Lux (if they're going the Lightcannon route, which would make more people than you'd think very very happy) or otherwise get drawn out of her peaceful life and into the turmoils gripping Demacia, particularly as the Mage rebellion starts to break out. Particularly if Jinx ends up siding with the rebel mages, or siding with Lux either for or against Sylas's faction and/or the Mageseekers.

She has a bit of experience with being a rebel, she might end up using her experience with Hextech and the Arcane to give those rebels the edge, and "Jinx the reluctant pacifist being drawn back into her old chaotic ways to fight for a cause because deep down, she still longs for the thrills and the chaos and the noise" might be a really cool arc to take her on.

What do you think?

[youkissedareaderinthedark]

Pay Attention

Synopsis: The 3 times everyone else knew you and Lando were in love with each other, and the 1 time you two actually admitted it

female driver reader x lando norris

A/N: for this one, reader is 22 and drives for mercedes with george. also, most of the story is told from lando’s pov because this originally started off as an entirely different 3+1 fic, and I don’t have the energy to fix it. and obviously, things like race results, driver lineups, ect will be changed to better fit the story

1-

Lando Norris knows Formula 1 is unpredictable. He knows you can’t tell what will happen during a race, nonetheless a season. But no matter how unpredictable the sport is, this was the most surprising part by far.

It’s barely been 10 years, but Lando feels like he’s known you forever. You two first met at the Karting World Championship in 2014, a race you were teammates with both him and Zhou Guanyu in. Even though he beat you to first place, your 14-year-old-self didn’t let that stop you from becoming best friends with him.

It was hard to keep track of each other when the two of you were traveling all over Europe to compete in different series, so Lando almost thought he’d never get to see you again. Until in 2020, when he heard talks of the most successful female driver yet making her way through the ranks.

Since you were announced as apart of the Mercedes driver line up in the beginning of 2022, you two have been attached at the hip. You both lived in Monaco and whenever you weren’t busy with media or team duties, you were together. Traveling, in the paddock, celebrating races; if you were there, so was Lando.

Fans were used to that fact and they usually expected it off the track, but not for races and track battles, so everyone was a bit surprised when you two placed P3 and P4 in Bahrain.

It was Round 1 of the 2023 season and even though everyone knows your results at Bahrain don’t dictate your entire season, Lando was still excited you were on the podium. He had qualified P6 behind George and yourself in P5 and P4, and with both Fernando’s Aston Martin and both Red Bulls in front of you, you weren’t expected to make it on the top steps.

Though after a few badly timed pit stops, Lando ended the race in P4, 5 seconds behind you in P3. Cheers rung out from around the grandstands as both the Mercedes and McLaren cars crossed the finish line. Your team garages were ecstatic, climbing the fence to meet you at the checkered flag and shouting congratulations through the radio.

Lando watched from behind as you steered your car into perc ferme alongside Max and Sergio and climbed out to celebrate with your team. It wasn’t P1, but it was a huge achievement to place so high so early in the season and it was obvious how proud everyone was of you.

He couldn’t help himself from leaving his car and engulfing you in a hug. You were both laughing and the Brit could practically hear your grin through it.

He couldn’t help himself from leaving his car and engulfing you in a hug. You were both laughing and the Brit could practically hear your grin through it.

“You did amazing! I’m so proud of you” He says, the words muffled through your helmets.

“Thanks, I wish you were gonna be up there with me, you deserve it” you say, looking up to the podium.

Lando smiles and he’s suddenly grateful his helmet is there to hide his blush. “Thanks. Don’t worry though, soon enough we’ll be up there with a 1-2”

“With me P1, I assume?”

Your eyes are playful underneath your helmet, and he laughs. “Yeah, we’ll see. Go celebrate with your team, Y/n. Don’t ditch me for the after party though!” He shouts as you walk over to your post-race interview, starting to laugh.

“I’d never ditch you!” You shout back over your shoulder, your helmet and balaclava coming off to reveal your grin.

Lando leaves to get weighed and meet his team back in the McLaren garage, keeping his head gear on because of the stupid smile he’s all too aware is still on his face. He was supposed to go to the media pen to finish up some race interviews before sitting down for the debrief with McLaren, but you were his best friend; he couldn’t miss your first podium of the season.

Lando, still clad in his orange race suit, arrives just as Max’s national anthem is playing. He probably should be paying at least a bit of attention to the winner, he’s one of Lando’s best mates after all, but then he saw you, grinning on the third step under the many bright lights of the street circuit, and he couldn’t look away.

He watched with his own smile as you opened your bottle of champagne and poured the majority of it on the Red Bull drivers, before downing the rest of it yourself. He’d wait until you came back to street level, where he’d be waiting for another hug and feeling the sticky champagne and bright grin against his neck.

You’d start talking about the race, the moments where you didn’t think you’d make it to the podium and how happy you’d be if you could get another one. You’ll ask about his race and tell him that next weekend, he’d better be up there beside you, no matter what.

And Lando will be next to you, like he always is, smiling and hanging on to every word you say because you’re happy, so he’s happy too.

What Lando would not realize is that each moment, from when he hugged you after you got out of your car to just then when you were walking through the paddock together, had been caught by multiple people, each one thinking the one thing you two had not yet realized.

“They’re so in love with each other”

2-

Lando Norris did not hate the Miami Grand Prix, at least not usually. But this time around, F1’s 2023 stop in Florida is one he could’ve gladly missed.

It was a double header weekend, and after coming off an extremely mediocre P9 finish in Azerbaijan, Lando was less than excited to spend 4 days in the hot sun in an even more mediocre car. There were so many unnecessary media obligations to go with the flashiness of Miami, and by Friday evening he was already looking forward to the flight back home.

The one thing that did brighten his day was you, who he also had dinner plans with after FP2. He let you distract him with whichever details about your life you had neglected to tell him before, let you get him excited for Sunday’s race again, and let you put him in a better mood.

You two were walking from the restaurant to Lando’s car, still talking and laughing as usual, when Lando asked to you come by his hotel after qualifying the next day.

“If both our qualifying are shit, we can get ice cream and mope together,” he posed jokingly, “and if it goes great, we can celebrate together as well”

But then you stop laughing and your tone changes. “Oh, sorry Lando, but I’m going out with Logan after qualifying; he’s gonna show me around Miami a bit. I’m sure he won’t mind if you come though? Do you want to?”

He pauses; Logan? “No it’s fine. I should probably be relaxing after tomorrow anyways, I think the heat’s getting to me a bit. You two have fun, though” He assures you, keeping a light-hearted tone to mask his distaste. 

Logan?

Lando didn’t have anything against Logan, he thought he was a nice guy with a lot of potential. But now he’s taking his best friend away from him and for what reason? You can see Miami any day, any time you want, and if you wanted to, you certainly didn’t need him as your guide.

But fine. Lando does not own you, you’re perfectly allowed to have your own friends, and if you wanted to have an evening out with Logan Sargeant, it was perfectly okay with Lando.

The Brit drove you back to your hotel before setting off to his own, and while you were his best friend and of course, delightful company, he couldn’t help but dwell on the sour taste left in his mouth. He didn’t know why this bothered him so much.

By the time Lando was back in his room, he was too tired to figure it why and decided it was a problem for Future Lando.

He woke up Saturday morning completely forgetting about the events of last night and instead focused on getting the best results possible today. He met up with his trainer for breakfast, left for the track, and joined his PR officer in the McLaren garage. She was escorting Lando to the media pen when he suddenly slowed.

“Lando? What’s wrong?” The woman took note of his tense figure, his hard-set eyes.

All because you were walking away from the media pen with Logan at your side, laughing and looking way too happy for his liking.

He felt the sourness this time. He felt it rise throughout his body and spread like wild fire. His only question was why.

Why were you laughing so much? Why did he feel this way? Why couldn’t he let any of this go? Why were you with Logan and not with him?

“Nothing,” the McLaren drives says. “let’s go” Lando never usually hurries to the media pen, but he didn’t want to look at you and Mr. American boy-next-door any longer.

He was asked questions and he gave answers, Lando just couldn’t tell you what any of them were. This was the problem Past Lando had left for him, and he couldn’t ignore it any longer.

He ruled out anger; he didn’t feel mad, per se, more frustrated than angry. He wasn’t upset; he certainly didn’t feel sad. Possessiveness? He wasn’t usually possessive over his friends though, and you two weren’t dating or anything like that, so there was no real reason to feel protective. Still, Lando couldn’t shake the sourness, and was once again left without answers about you and his feelings.

It wasn’t hard to miss the Brit’s change in attitude, and it wasn’t something his friends were going to ignore.

“Are you okay, mate?” Carlos says, walking alongside him through the paddock after FP3. “You’ve been quiet all day”

“Yeah, ‘m fine. Just tired, I guess” Lando shrugs, not sure if he should tell the Ferrari driver.

“C’mon, you’re seriously not gonna tell me? It’ll make you feel better, trust me” Carlos pushed, and he hesitated before answering.

“I don’t know. I barely know what’s wrong myself” Carlos gives him a look, and he sighs before continuing.

“It’s just weird with Y/n lately. I don’t know but the entire weekend’s just been weird”

“Why? Because she’s hanging out with Logan?”

“How did you-”

“Lando, it’s not that hard to notice, and it’s not that hard to notice why you don’t like it” The Spaniard nudges him, looking at him with a mischievious glint in his eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“You like Y/n, so you don’t like her hanging around with Logan” He says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“What’re you talking about? I don’t like Y/n, she’s my best friend, that’s ridiculous” Lando makes a face. That makes no sense, of course I don’t have feelings for Y/n.

“Yeah, and the Haas is going to win tomorrow. Lando, I told you, you can trust me. Just admit it, cabrón”

“Admit what? I don’t like her, I told you that” Lando insists, because he doesn’t. There’s no way.

“Okay mate, whatever you say” Carlos says, putting his hands up in surrender and moving towards the Ferrari garage. “Let me know how that ‘not liking my best friend thing goes’”

Lando just shakes his head and sighs. Carlos has no idea what he’s talking about.

Qualifying turns out to be the thing Lando needs to get his mind off everything; he qualifies P6 with Oscar right behind him and confidence in his car for tomorrow. The man spends some extra time going over the data from today with the strategists and leaves the track just after sunset to head back to his hotel.

He wasn’t completely lying to you yesterday night; the heat was having a bit of an effect on him, and it was probably a good idea to relax and stay in for the night. He ordered something from room service that his trainer would approve of and took a shower before climbing into bed.

A knock on his door is the thing that stops Lando from falling asleep.

It’s past 10, no one should be knocking at his door, but that’s not good enough of a reason to ignore the person, so he gets up to answer it and should probably be more surprised that’s it you.

“Not here to collect team secrets for tomorrow, are you?” Lando questions, jokingly.

“I don’t think we need anymore help beating you McLarens, thank you” You play along with a laugh.

“I’m offended. I hope you have an apology along to go with whatever that it” He gestures to the bag in your hands, and you nod.

“I do, but you’ll have to let me in first to get either” Your best friend moves aside to let you into his room and onto his couch.

“Seriously though, what’s up? Is something wrong?”

“Oh no, nothing’s wrong. I just felt bad for ditching you today and figured I could make up for it with ice cream” You shrugged, opening up the bag and holding a container covered in frost.

“I appreciate the gesture Y/n, but we both know our trainers-” You cut him off. “Would kill us if we eat this, I know. That’s why I only bought one, so we could just share and have half. That way it’s not really eating an ice cream sundae, it’s just eating a scoop and a half”

“I like your thinking”

“That’s why you keep me around” You both smile, and Lando gets up to get two spoons.

“You don’t have to be sorry, by the way. It doesn’t bother me that you went out with Logan” He knows you must’ve felt really guilty, because you’re still wearing the clothes you wore in the paddock, meaning you went immediately from wherever Logan took you to straight to get the ice cream and come here, despite the fact you should be in bed and it would be chaos if someone found out you were here this late Saturday night.

He also knows you wouldn’t do this for just anyone.

“I know. I still felt bad though” You shrug, thanking him before taking a spoonful of ice cream.

“Don’t be. Where’d he take you, anyway?” Lando questions. He knows that if he was talking about this any time else, he feel that sourness all over again. But there was no reason to if you were right here beside him.

“Nowhere special; we just walked around, shopped a bit, and stopped to get some food before we realized we should probably head back to our hotels”

“And aren’t you having the same realization now?” He asks, taking another spoon of ice cream.

“Yeah, but I’m not worried enough to the point where I’m actually gonna do it” You explain, and Lando laughs.

“So what? I’m stuck with you for the rest of the night then?”

“You say it like you don’t totally love the idea” You smile playfully.

“You’re right, I’d rather you here with me than anywhere else”

“Me too” The man misses your soft gaze and love-sick smile.

Truthfully, Lando just likes when you’re with him in general.

3-

It was the Austria GP and for the first time in a while, Lando Norris felt a little carefree. He had over two weeks to recover from Canada, the next round was his home race, and things were looking positive for Sunday. He was happy with racing, and he was happy with you too.

Ever since Miami, you two have been closer than usual; fans were used to seeing you guys always together, but this time, they really never saw you without seeing Lando, and Lando without seeing you. Both of you seemed oddly smiley recently and it didn’t go without notice. Even more than usual, it was like you and Lando were in your own weird little obliviously-in-love bubble that nothing could break through.

Maybe that was why you and Lando finished P4 and P5, each of you one place away from a repeat of Bahrain. It obviously wasn’t your best finishes you two have ever had, but it was good enough for there to be a celebration afterwards. The drivers you and Lando were closest to also finished high in the points, and before you knew it, you had agreed to attending the after-party happening in a few hours at the nearest club.

You put on some makeup, fixed your hair, changed into a beautiful outfit, and stuffed your purse with your essentials before you got a text from Lando telling you that he was outside. You insisted that you could drive yourself and he didn’t need to pick you up, but Lando persisted, saying that it was stupid to bring two cars incase you weren’t fit to drive at the end of the night, and had to leave your very expensive car on the street all night.

“You look gorgeous, it almost makes up for the ridiculous amount of time I’ve spent waiting here for you” Lando says with a smirk as you open the door to his car.

You roll your eyes through your blush. “It wasn’t that long. Besides, my room’s on a high floor, it was the elevator’s fault.” You reason, clicking your seatbelt into place before Lando pulls out of the hotel parking lot and onto the streets.

“Yeah sure, blame the machinery because it’s never your fault you’re late”

“It’s not!” You insist with a laugh. He hums sarcastically in response, turning on the radio and letting it fill the comfortable silence

The streets in front of the club are lined with dozens of high-end cars, so you and Lando are forced to park nearly a block away from the entrance. The bouncer lets the two of you in without hesitation, and even from outside, you can hear the bass from the speakers inside.

The interior is exactly how you expected it to be, colorful strobe lights from overhead, music that you have to shout to hear someone over, and a dance floor that’s packed to the brim with celebrities, drivers, and everyone in between.

You and Lando claim the nearest booth to the exit, and he leans in close enough to be audible. “I’m going to get us a few drinks, try and see if you can find a few people” You nod, and the two of you go off in different directions.

You manage to locate Alex, Lily, George, and Carmen in a booth together and after a few very loud greetings, manage your way through the mob again to find Lando and lead him back to your friends. You all start talking and laughing, placing bets on which drivers are going home with a mystery girl, which ones are going to get black-out drunk, and which ones are going to show off their embarrassingly bad drunk dance moves in front of everyone.

Drinks and shots get handed out, a few more drivers join your table, and soon enough, you and your group are somewhere between tipsy and drunk and are moving onto the already-packed dance floor. Lando moved up to the DJ, telling you he’d be back to dance soon, and left you with your fellow drivers and their girlfriends.

You spend a few hours dancing with the girls, giggling through your drinks, and wandering around the club in search for more friends. At the point where your vision starts to got a bit blurry and the music is making your head hurt, you feel a hand on your shoulder and a familiar voice in your ear.

“Hey stranger!” Lando shouts, turning you around to face him.

“Lando!” You call out loudly, wrapping your arms around him in a hug. “Missed you” Alcohol made you a bit affectionate.

“Only been gone an hour and a half, love” Even though you can’t see his face and you’re not at your sharpest, you know he’s got a dumb smirk on his face.

“Missed you too, though” He says, taking the drink out of your hand and taking a sip before wrapping his hands around your waist.

“Are you here to dance with me?” You pull back, looking into his eyes. His pupils aren’t dilated, so you know he’s sober and the designated driver for the night.

“Wouldn’t want to do anything else” Even though everyone else around you is dancing at a fast, eager pace, you and Lando keep your arms wrapped around each other, bodies swaying softly, heads laying on each other’s shoulders.

Even with the flashing lights and booming music, you probably could’ve drowsed off on your best friends shoulder. You don’t realize how much time has passed but at some point, Lando taps your arm and pulls away from you.

“Time to go home, I think” He says, placing his hands on your shoulders to get you to focus on him.

“You think?” You reply, both drowsy and a little drunk.

“I think so. I’m gonna see if anyone else needs a ride and say goodbye, then we’ll leave, okay?” Lando tells you, intertwining your hands together before leading you further onto the dancefloor.

The Brit finds the other drivers and does what he said before handing you your purse and guiding you out of the club, hands still held together. Your best friend hands you his jacket to wear and places his arm around your waist as the two of you walk back to the car.

You know that Lando will get you back to your hotel and to your room where he’ll take your heels off for you. You know he’ll place a glass of water and a few Aspirins’ on a nightstand for you and lay down underneath the duvet with you because he’s too tired to drive back to his own hotel.

You’ll know you two will fall asleep almost immediately, and wake up closer than you were laying last night. You know Lando will not mind doing any of this, will actually like it, because you don’t let him take care of you as much as he’d like.

You know all of these things and a lot of other stuff too, you just don’t know that the person you did it all with is the person you’re in love with, or that he’s in love with you too.

+ 1

Lando always appreciated the summer break after half a season of racing, but there was something special about this one that made him wish it would never end.

You, Lando, and a group of your mutual friends planned a week-long trip to an island in the Caribbean as ‘one last hurrah’ before you two had to fly to Zandervort for the second half of the season. It was your fourth day on the island, and even though every moment since you arrived has been filled with some sort of fun and exciting adventure, this was already your favorite day of the trip.

You and Lando had connecting rooms, ‘a complete coincidence’ as your friends had put it, and this morning, you two decided to take advantage of it and make breakfast together. You weren’t supposed to meet with the others until a few more hours, and you loved cooking with Lando, so shortly after you woke up you made the short journey into his room.

“Morning,” your best friend greeted you, clad in black sweats and an old T-shirt you’ve seen millions of times. “I bought pancake mix from the store in the lobby, but we can run out and get something else if you like?”

“No, it’s okay,” you insist, “pancakes are fine. Besides, I know you make the best ones.”

“I know, you must be so jealous” Lando smirks, grabbing a mixing bowl and pan from the hotel’s kitchenette cabinet.

“Totally. So what’s on our agenda today?” You say, moving around him to take ingredients from the fridge.

“Not much, actually. I think we’re just going to the beach and walk around the town a bit” You nod as you grab your phone and click on the shared playlist between yourself and Lando.

You let the music fill the comfortable silence as the two of you move around the small kitchen. It’s a beautiful and all-too domestic scene; the morning sun streaming through the windows, the soft music in the background, the way you both seamlessly know your way around the kitchen, how easy it was to work around each other. They’re the facts your mind notices too quickly, and it’s hard to stop your brain from thinking about a future where things could be like this everyday.

Within a few minutes, you each had a reasonably-sized stack of pancakes that you brought outside onto the balcony with you. You settle into the adjacent chairs that look out to the waves crashing onto the beach and deep blue ocean. It’s still early; this part of the island isn’t awake yet, and it’s easy to relax in the still quiet.

While you shooed away the image of the future like this, Lando welcomed it with open arms. He thought how effortless it would be to make a scene like this; a hotel room, an apartment in Monaco, a house in the UK, Lando would take either and all of them. As long as you came with it.

His mouth speaking before his brain can control it. “I wish it was like this forever” He blurts out.

“You don’t want to go back to racing?” You look over at him, eyebrows furrowed. He doesn’t look back at you, keeps his eyes on the view in front of him instead.

“No, I do. I mean-” Lando pauses, thinks it over. He gets up from his chair to lean on the railing, his back facing you. This could ruin everything, he thinks. If he says it, he can’t go back, and nothing will be the same again.

He stops thinking.

“I mean with you. I honestly don’t care where we are; racing, on an island, whatever. We could be on another planet for all I care. As long as it’s just you and me, I think I could handle it” He finishes, feeling your presence next to him a few moments later, your shoulders brushing.

“Really?” You ask, eyes widened. You would’ve never thought he felt the same.

“Really. I’ve always felt that way” Then he’s looking you in that way, the way everyone’s been trying to explain to you for a while.

You don’t second-guess yourself when you put your hands around his face and press your lips onto his, and especially not when he starts moving his lips against yours. He wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you closer to him, and you don’t think you’d be mad if this was your forever.

You two finally pull away from each other, and even though the waves on the beach are still the same waves and the ocean is still the same deep blue, you think that everything changed just a little bit.

You’re still so close you could probably count his eyelashes if you wanted to, and you smile.

“I love you”

His smile mirrors yours the second after he hears it. “I love you too”

You two don’t really have to tell people; everyone figures it out within the first five minutes of being around both of you. Everyone teases you relentlessly, but internally, they’re just glad the two of you finally saw what’s been there all along.

i never really know how to end these. anyways, a lando fic to make up for the time i’ve been gone. sorry about that btw, i got major imposter syndrome and the lack of f1 content makes for a lack of motivation. this is also my first ln4 fic, and i have no idea what to expect from it. hope u enjoyed tho 🫶

[ohsohoney]

When it comes to love you're just as blinded.

Part One

Eminem x Musician

Summary: It starts with a drunk embarrassing video, it spirals into something a whole lot more.

Note: Hey! First time writing for Em so I figured I'd use a side account and see how it went? Honestly this is a whole series in my mind so might add onto this first part soon! An oc character but can be read as a reader insert if you prefer:)

Set in 2014, just after the release of LP 2

Warnings: Lots of swearing, dark humour

Masterlist

I was mortified.

More so than I’d probably ever been, in truth. All because of a stupid video that had been taken a couple of years back when I’d had one drink too many on a holiday I’d always dreamt of.

To be fair though, the majority of the blame lied heavily on my younger sister’s shoulders, who’d found the stupid thing whilst reminiscing through old memories and thought it would be hilarious to post online. Forgetting about the millions of fans who would soon see it– and not just mine, it would seem.

No, because that just wasn’t how the internet worked, was it? And when a newly nominated artist, who had only been in the game for a couple years, was filmed rapping an old noughties classic instead of singing like expected, it was basically bound to go viral. Didn’t help that I was a Londoner through and through and had the accent to prove it, making the whole video that much harder to watch. In truth, I continued to cringe each time I was reminded of it, which was practically anytime I opened up social media or witnessed the guilty expression that continued to mar my sister’s face.

“Stop doing that.” I huffed at her later on when the worst of it still continued to storm on, almost whining actually as I looked away from my phone screen and down at the food I wasn’t really eating, just picking at. I was supposed to be mad, infuriated even, but it was proving to be a fucking chore when she kept on looking at me like that.

“Doing what?” Lottie retorted, not even attempting to wipe the culpable look from off of her face. She was currently residing back at mum’s now, seeing as how she had school and I’d only just landed back home, but I’d give it a day before she was back here again. My flight over had been strenuous, it always was when flying to and from Cali, but still I made time for her– even after the most recent stunt she had gone and pulled.

“Don’t do that either.” 

I’d meant to sound scolding but the soft laugh that escaped me truly was accidental. I couldn’t quite help it, I knew that being mad at her wouldn’t solve anything now and that she hadn’t really meant any harm by posting the video. That was just the type of person she was, she acted before she thought things through and didn’t ever think much for the consequences. Then again, she was still only fourteen and her putting the drunken moment on her Instagram story had just been one of those sibling type moments, the kind where you’d rip the piss out of one another simply because you could.

“I mean it, Lotts.” I sighed around the words, eyes flitting back to the screen and the way she was chewing on her lower lip. “It’s being sorted and, I don't know, I guess it’ll die down sooner or later. Mila reckons so anyway. We’ll give it a day or two, hey?”

A day or two did pass. And no such thing happened.

I’d been cooped up at home ever since I’d touched down at Heathrow, having jumped in the first cab available and fallen asleep the second I’d gotten in through the door. I’d been working out in LA for a couple weeks with a few other writers, just messing about with new sounds and ideas for the next album I eventually wanted to release. So I hadn’t been witness to the media catastrophe Lottie had created until later the next afternoon when Mila, my manager, had all but mowed down my front door, having called my phone three dozen times and gotten a guy she was currently seeing in the city to come buzz my intercom. It had been a wake up call and a half to say the least.

Still, she had assumed it would all die down fairly quickly, went as far to say that it could do wonders for my career– even with me being visibly tipsy– after having had the absolute gall to say that I hadn’t sounded half as bad as I thought I did. I’d cackled hysterically into the phone at that, then had somewhat of a meltdown, in utter disbelief over the apparent reaction she claimed the video had gone and garnered. Because I was absolutely not looking. Knew that if I did there would be too large a chance that I’d check myself into the nearest psychiatric unit. 

But as I said, a couple of days had passed and typically something like this would have eventually blown over when the next big story hit the headlines. White girl can spit a verse, who cared? Only then the VMA’s had happened and shit hit the fucking fan.

I hadn’t attended, shit like that had always irked me. I could perform in front of a crowd of thousands and step off feeling as high as a kite, but stick me on a carpet and force me to interact with cameras, questions, and people? That was where I drew the line.

At the start, I had tried. I’d been new on the scene and people had reasoned that I would just end up being another one hit wonder, so the label had figured it best if I got myself out there, if only to interact with other artists and producers in similar circles.

It had gone down a treat– like a cake being knocked over at the wedding of the year. Maybe even worse. I didn’t like to linger too long on it.

But I’d tried again and again afterwards, although it had only proven to worsen my mood each time and forced me to retreat, avoiding my team and the responsibilities I had lined up for a short while after. It was only following a particularly uncomfortable night that Mila had called it quits and had a contract drawn up stating that I only had to attend a certain amount of events a year. It had been at that moment that I’d realised just how fucked I would have been in this industry without her.

Even so, life still continued on without me and the VMA’s were just another show I would be mostly avoiding, only making a statement at the end of the night online for the nominations I’d been gifted.

It was around midnight when I heard the scream.

Lottie was staying with me, typical for whenever I was back in London for a few weeks at a time, and so I’d felt my heart literally drop to my feet at the very sound of her screech and legged it across the entirety of the house. At first, I’d thought she’d slipped and fallen, maybe cracked her head open on a counter. And then the thought of an intruder had crossed my mind whilst I’d gone skidding over the landing. So anyone could understand why I was so worked up when I finally threw open her bedroom door only to find her simply sat there on her phone, hand covering her mouth.

“What the hell is your problem? It’s just gone twelve, Lottie! I thought something had happened!” I rebuked her, chest heaving as I dropped the heavy bookend I’d managed to pick up somewhere on my way over down onto her desk. “Shit.”

Her eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them though when I finally did get around to catching my breath and chanced another glance back at her.

“I was literally just about to fall asleep.” Which really meant that I’d been getting into bed to scroll through my phone or read a book when I’d heard her shout. “Then you screamed as though Freddy Krueger was stood at your window.”

“Elia.” 

I blinked, Lottie rarely did that, used my entire name and not the usual shortened version or whatever other epithet that came to mind– and truly, there was a large variety, the shit I’d heard this kid come out with was insane. But I shook my head at the thought and quirked a brow at her. “What? Did someone die?”

“No,” She answered me, dropping her hand away from her face even though her jaw was still gaping, “But I just might.”

Rolling my eyes at the theatrics, I exhaled and walked over to slump on the end of her bed, figuring that something had happened between her and one of her friends, or maybe some lad she might’ve been speaking to. “And it deserved a scream like that? Honestly Lotts, just be thankful this place doesn’t have any neighbours listening in through the walls.” I told her, thinking back to my own adolescent years and the woman in the flat beside ours, “We’d have someone knocking at the door in under a half hour.”

It was her turn to roll her eyes then as she scoffed at me– like I was the one being dramatic here– before she then shook her head and shuffled hurriedly over the mattress to sit closer. “No Lia, just listen, look.”

Confused, I sighed and tilted my head when Lottie moved to shove her mobile in my face. I squinted at the sudden contrast, showing off my age and the horrific tragedy that was my eyesight, and tried to make sense of whatever it was that she was so hellbent on showing me. 

From what I could first make out, it was just a Twitter thread, but then Lotts then clicked on the main video at the top. I waited as the clip buffered for a second, then a familiar face panned into focus and I felt my brow furrow. I peered over at Lottie for a split second before her eyes were widening in retort and she gestured her chin back towards the screen.

I narrowed my own eyes in turn, but watched on.

It had to be a coincidence, I reasoned. That of all people it was him that Lottie was currently showing me.

“Well, aren’t we in for a show tonight! Eminem is in the house, people!” An interviewer started, she was a tall, leggy blonde who held a too big microphone too close to her chin. “How are you feeling?”

I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was to see him on the VMA’s carpet, not after the comeback he’d made late last year with LP 2, but I was, eyes caught on the bleached buzz cut he’d since reverted back to for the album’s release. Fuck, I’d be so pissed if it came out that he was performing tonight and I’d gone ahead and missed it.

Lottie thumped my shoulder, hard, realising fairly quickly that I hadn’t really been listening, and so I scowled in retort but gritted my teeth to keep from thumping her right back. She might’ve been my sister, but I had well over a decade on the kid and was marginally her guardian, just not in writing.

The rapper had seemingly just finished commenting on a question the tall blonde had asked him and so I forced myself to pay closer attention, brain whirling as I wondered what could have possibly been so important that it had Lottie screaming bloody murder in the middle of the night.

“I feel that!” The woman practically beamed at the rapper, head nodding along to whatever he’d just said, “But it’s good to hear that you’re enjoying being back. In truth, I wasn’t sure I’d catch you here tonight, there’s been a lot of buzz surrounding you at the moment and not just because of the album!”

My heart stuttered in my chest. Actually, I was pretty sure it had gone and fallen out of my arse, especially when the interviewer continued to press on the topic and it appeared as though the man in question understood exactly what she was getting at. His stoic facade cracked just a tad and– there! A smirk. An ever so slight crook of his mouth. I shot a startled glance over at Lottie but her gaze was fixated on the screen.

“I mean, have you seen it?” The interviewer prompted whilst he simply stood there, fisted hands clasped before him. No sign of the split second curve he’d just had on his lips. “The whole world’s been wondering about your thoughts on the singer!”

And there it was.

“I can’t,” I started to say, turning away from the phone just as a rush of nausea flooded through me, but Lottie held strong, hand coming up to catch my shoulder so that she could position her phone back in my eyeline. “Lottie–” I tried. Please.

“Just listen.” She persisted, face so serious.

Immediately I wanted to rescind my earlier statement. This was now my most mortifying moment. In fact, I wanted to hide in the nearest cupboard and never come out again. How the fuck was I going to show my face in public, not to mention at the next event, after this?

I swallowed thickly, entirely unprepared to hear a word he had to say about me. I mean, who would be? This man was leagues above a majority of the industry, me included. Never had I ever even thought that he could hear my name in passing, let alone listen to one of my songs playing in some shop he was coincidentally in or a random radio station. But here he now was, rolling his lips as he pondered over a question which concerned that stupid fucking video. 

“I hate you.” I whispered at Lottie, mostly in hopes to cover up whatever he was about to say, but also because I was embarrassed beyond belief. And this was all her fault.

In the time spent since the drunken video had first gone up and now, I had yet to even think about him ever seeing it. Because the idea was that far fetched. But this was me, so of course he had.

“I’ve heard it.” Marshall confirmed, his head dipped in a barely there nod. My throat cinched. I wondered briefly how quickly I’d be able to tie myself a noose.

“And?” The woman prodded and internally I cursed her future bloodline, hoping that she'd somehow spawn the next antichrist or that her grandchild would become a shit-headed politician.

The man in question merely hummed, hollowing out his cheeks. “I was surprised, I have to admit. But she’s good, even when wasted.”

“I wasn’t fucking wasted!” 

I hadn't even realised I’d spoken out loud until Lottie snorted on a chuckle. I turned towards her, brows raised high, “What? I wasn’t. You were there!”

I rolled my eyes when she didn’t deign me with some sort of assent but my head snapped back over to where she still gripped the phone when I heard him speak again, his voice echoing throughout the quiet bedroom.

“Then again, her shit goes hard. So it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.”

That heart of mine that I kept on talking about? Yeah, I had zero clue as to what the fuck was going on with it now, only that my chest was wound as tight as it possibly could be and my eyes stung as I withheld the urge to even blink.

“You’re a fan?” The woman asked him, appearing genuinely surprised by the notion, even though it sounded more like a declaration rather than the question it was.

Marshall hummed, sparing a brief glance over his shoulder when a group shuffled on past them, disrupting the interview. It didn’t deter the woman though and I couldn’t blame her, no matter how much it pained me.

“So, could this mean we’ll be seeing a new featured artist on whatever you put out next?”

I made some sort of inhuman sound at that, but barely moved a muscle. And then I all but shutdown when the rapper's wide eyes flickered over to peer straight into the camera’s lens, “I mean, if she’s down.”

The next scream that was emitted once again came from Lottie, but I couldn’t think to scold her for it, not when I was hardly even functioning and wanted to implode myself. 

The girl toppled over onto me, shaking my shoulders whilst she squealed unabashedly. “If. She’s. Down!” She repeated, squealing with excitement, “El, this is insane! How are you not screaming too?”

The air I forced from my lungs came out in a breathless chuckle as I clung to the forearm that was still wrapped around my collar. In truth, I didn’t know how the hell I was supposed to react. 

“Figure you’ve screamed enough for the both of us.” I replied faintly, not really thinking but somehow managing to carry on, mostly out of sheer shock. I glanced her way, “I feel a bit sick.”

Lottie just shook me harder and when we eventually went falling down onto the duvet in a mess of limbs I wondered what I was going to do with the knowledge that I’d just been given. God. He knew who I was. The shock of it was almost like reliving my first time on stage all over again.

That night I ended up listening to Lottie rant on and on for a good while after whilst she scrolled through her Twitter feed and the rest of the internet. Mila eventually intervened, calling after having seen it too, and was as smug as ever. “Told you.” She’d said the second I’d hit the answer button and I hadn’t had the heart to play it off or act as though I hadn’t seen it either. 

After the interview eventually finished trending and stopped being posted here, there, and everywhere, I was left with a flow of new followers but also a nightmare of opinions spouting from every corner of the planet on any comment section I had to offer. I forced myself to come off most apps I had downloaded after that and resorted to gaining my daily entertainment, and any real news, from Lottie. Which seemed sad, in retrospect, but honestly? It was more than a little self-serving and I’d even managed to get a shit load of stuff done.

I worked on a couple new songs, sticking to what I did best, but my mind did end up drifting away every so often, back to a conversation I’d had with Mila and Travis at the label a couple days after the media storm had passed. It seemed they all wanted me to try implementing a few new concepts into the music I was currently working on before we started to draw up ideas for the next album. Travis reasoned that even attempting to add a couple freestyles into the motions whilst I went about writing would do me wonders later on. 

I just felt uncomfortable with it all, really. I’d never been a rapper. I mean, I loved it. It was mainly what I’d been brought up on, having grown up in an area where every kid on the estate was either attempting to become the next big thing or just blaring the biggest hits out of their car stereos. But that was just it. I listened and sang along, had even built up an extensive collection which I was immensely proud of, but the label were now aiming for this next album to make it onto a Grammy nominations list. It was all they had been fretting over since I’d somehow managed to chart the last one– although a single number one and an almost throw away making it to number seven didn’t make me all that hopeful. 

Even so, it forced me to wonder how it would all work if I started to switch things up now. I could appreciate all genres but I didn’t wanna become the next hopper just to appease the people yessing me and then fall off.

The entire concept had me confused and so I had taken to keeping my head down for a while longer.

Lottie had headed back to mum’s earlier that morning, seeing as I was due to make an appearance in Paris for Fashion Week, attending the Vogue show alongside Vivienne Westwood. An utter dream, yes, but also still an incredibly daunting reality. Even so, it was something I couldn’t quite worm my way out of even if I had wanted to– see, with that contract there still came clauses.

I’d been prepping for my upcoming early morning flight most of the day, showering later on than anticipated just so that I could pack my case and eat before I eventually climbed into bed. Hoping to somehow get a couple hours kip.

I’d thrown on a robe and kept the speakers blaring once I’d eventually jumped out from under the spray, wet hair curling at the ends as I worked on throwing something quick together in my kitchen.

It wasn't long before I went and took the bowl I’d just made out into the living room with me, simply so that I could curl up on the settee and wrap up the few emails I’d been working on earlier. I was just nodding along and humming to the next song that played through the overhead speakers when my phone started to buzz against my ankle, shooting a funny feeling up through the bone. I was quick to pick it up, wrinkling my nose at the feel and not paying much mind to the caller, figuring it had to be either Mila or Lottie.

“Hello?”

There was a short pause as I shifted the phone against my ear before a voice eventually sounded, “This Elia?”

Frowning, I casted a quick glance at the phone’s screen to find a number with an unfamiliar area code staring back at me. I let my gaze stray on over towards a clock I had hanging on the far wall only to find that it had just gone eight. 

I fumbled for a moment, “Um. It is, can I ask who’s calling?”

A low cough rumbled through the line before the same voice spoke again, I shuffled to set my laptop off to the side on the sofa, brow furrowed. “It’s Em– Marshall.”

Suddenly my head felt so very empty and my mouth was working around words that couldn't seem to find their way out. Em. The Em?? Fucking, Em?

I’d obviously been quiet a beat too long, drowning in the sudden panic that had shrouded me, because he spoke up again, “That Nas playin’?”

I shot a startled glance over my shoulder to where the fancy sound system was installed, the biggest reason I’d gone and purchased the home, in truth, and was immediately reminded of the music I had piercing through the air. Clumsily, I rolled off of the corner of the settee so that I could stumble over to turn the thing off, doing exactly that before I was forced to blink at the sudden silence that greeted me.

I winced and was quick to turn the music back on, keeping it low. All the while I still held my phone close to my chest.

“Uh, yeah. Hi!” I blundered helplessly after a moment, carding a hand through my damp hair as I stared at the empty wall before me stupidly. I wasn’t sure what to say, let alone do. I could sort of wrap my head around the interview, his brief mention of me. But a fucking phone call? It was on another level.

He chuckled though, enough so that I felt myself flush bashfully at my obvious awkwardness and forced my body to move back towards the sofa, if only so that I didn’t have to stand on shaky legs anymore. 

“Hi.” He mimicked, voice low albeit a tad amused.

I smiled. Unable to do anything but, in all honesty, as I lowered myself down onto the cushions, vaguely aware that I should probably be saying something else now that he’d gone and replied, but was simply more than a little caught off guard by everything. 

“Sorry, I– Well, I didn’t expect your call. Or anyones really.” I murmured, trying my best to shake off the nerves that were apparently wreaking havoc on my brain to mouth filter. “I just jumped out of the shower, had yet to turn off the stereo. Sorry.” How many times had I just apologised? I wanted to scream.

“You’re good.” He assured me, voice unlike what I probably would have expected and so I blinked once more at the sound of it, reminded that it was actually him I was talking to. But all that was fluttering through my head was ‘what the fuck are you doing calling me?’ “Nice choice, I gotta say. This an alright time for you to talk? I don’t wanna disturb you much.”

My eyes widened at both the compliment in song choice and well, him. Then withheld another sudden urge to scream, the hand not holding my phone clenching into a tight fist against my chest. “No, no, of course not. I mean, you’re fine! Not disturbing me at all.”

His next reply sounded more than just a little mirthful, “Sure ‘bout that?”

I willed myself to relax and took an inconspicuous breath as I pulled my legs back up under me. “I’m sure.” I told him, laughing lightly at myself for being so socially inept– or maybe it was just this entire scenario I’d been shoved into. “How’d you even get my number anyway?” 

I hadn’t meant for it to sound so forceful or abrupt, but it had been yet another question my sluggish brain hadn’t been able to find an answer to. 

“Mila?” He answered me, and I blinked stupidly at the name. “We had a mutual contact, figured I’d chance askin’ her instead of gettin’ lost in your DM’s. That cool? She said she’d let you know.”

The conniving cow, I thought to myself, though I wouldn’t have put it past her to have reasoned with herself that I would’ve probably freaked out if she had told me beforehand, before then having proceeded to just let my phone ring out whilst I stared pitifully at it. She knew me all too well. 

“She did not.” I replied through a baited breath, “But no, yeah. You’re alright, just caught me off guard is all. You’re probably the last person I expected to call, if I’m being honest here..”

When I heard him laugh once more I grinned, all too pleased with myself. It was a low gruff sound, not deep enough to be sarcastic or ingenuine, but rather warm. It surprised me.

“Oh yeah? Even after everything that’s gone down lately?”

My eyes slipped closed at the instantaneous reminder and I winced. The video. Honestly, in the whirlwind that wasn’t just my life at the moment, but this phone call too, I could have almost forgotten about it.

“I still can’t believe you saw that.”

Marshall let go of another amused huff that I figured to be a chuckle, breathing in deep enough that he forced me to wait on his next words. “I don’t lie. I meant what I said. But tell me, how many drinks d’you have in you?”

I curled my tongue against the back of my teeth in hopes to keep from grinning too hard, feeling a slight sting at the tip. “I was tipsy.” I argued pointlessly, knowing it would be a tireless venture, “I’d only had a couple.”

He hummed, seemingly not convinced.

“It was years ago, too!” I felt the need to tack on, the rosy hue the alcohol had given my cheeks sprung to mind and made me wonder. My face wrinkled as I dragged a helpless hand across it. “Who even sent it to you?”

���A couple people, actually.” Marshall ended up revealing and his words sounded playful enough that I could almost picture the curl of his mouth. “My daughter was one.”

Without thinking my hand flew up towards my mouth and I shook my head as I let it rest against my palm. “You’re not being serious.”

“Dre too.”

I let go of a hissed curse and crumpled a little bit in my seat before laughing stupidly at myself. If I couldn’t talk myself out of this then I supposed I would just have to get over it. I hoped thinking sensibly would allow me to actually follow through on that sentiment, but I very much doubted it.

Marshall laughed again, slow and easy almost as though he’d shared it with me a hundred times before. “I wasn’t kiddin’ neither. ’s why I called.”

Pulling my head from out of my hands, I wet my lower lip, mind promptly flashing back to the clip Lottie had shown me. “What’s that meant to mean?” I asked him, treading cautiously. 

“Listen.” He began, pausing only briefly to inhale before he then added, “I’m workin’ on another album–”

“No.” I interrupted, eyes suddenly wide and alert, “Already?”

A tittered snort followed the disruption but my mind was already reeling. 

“You’re not fucking with me?”

In all honesty I had prepared myself to wait a couple more years for another drop, hoping for him to feature or for someone to send for him if only so that he’d make a track in reply. I’d been obsessed with his recent work, even going as far as to add it onto the tour bus playlist late last year. It had actually been played so much the roadies and the band had threatened to rip the system out. But a new album? Fuck. I hadn’t expected it.

“Who else knows?”

There was a slight click on the other side of the line. Or scuffle. “As of right now? Like six people.”

I swallowed down the understanding that then hit me, but my stomach lurched at the very thought of it. “And I’m one?” I chuckled, holding back the hysterical laughter I felt bubble as my hand fell over my heart, “Wow, I feel honoured, Mathers.” It was teasing, the rib I meant, though my eyes still widened when I realised what I’d gone and said, not wanting him to take it the wrong way. 

I needn’t have worried. 

“As you fuckin’ should be.”

I gave a real laugh at that, almost a full-belly type shit. But could you really blame me? 

I was still smiling as I went to retort, humming with it, “God, you really just went and sprung that shit on me.”

“Hold you to keepin’ it on the low for now.” Marshall said, reminding me how paranoid the press and Hollywood had made him out to be in the past. I wondered how much truth there was in the sentiment. I mean, the man was almost a recluse– not that I could blame him, I was pulled from the same sort of cloth there– but to put a secret like that in my hands? It had to take some amount of faith.

I nodded seriously, even though he couldn’t see the gesture. Seemed he could hear the sincerity in my answer though, “‘Course.” I told him and then chewed on my lower lip for a second before a soft snicker escaped me. “That the only reason you called though? I mean, as honoured as I am to be one of the infamous six, I’m surprised you just phoned to let me in on the know. Have I just been roped into some sort of celeb elitist group? Weird initiation.”

His huffed laugh was breathy and made my mouth twitch that little bit more. 

“Nah. You always this weird though?” Marshall wondered and I bared my teeth in a light grimace, figuring I’d gone too far with that one. Or maybe.. I'd just hit the mark? I snorted lightly at the thought.

“It was an honest question! I’ve heard horror stories.” And wasn’t that the truth, events and parties weren’t all about the awards and just getting trollied. Some of those fuckers were as strange as people could come.

The man clucked his tongue, although I could hear the slight smile in his sarky response. “Uhuh. Sorry to disappoint but nah, initiation starts in the belly of LA. Gotta dissect a virgin and drink Ciroc out of their intestines. Funnel that shit down.”

The snort I gave in turn was ugly and loud enough that it forced a hand to fly up and cover my mouth, but it didn’t appear to bother the rapper none, who chuckled before clearing his throat.

“Change this shit to Facetime.” He said not a second after, swiftly cutting short my absurd amusement. “Then we can talk about the album.”

I fumbled for a moment. “I look a mess.”

“Good thing this ain’t a fuckin’ fashion show then.” He only pressed, “You think I give a shit what you look like right now?”

That struck an odd chord in me for some reason, but I didn’t want to linger much on the feeling. “No. But I do, dickhead. It’s half eight at night, I have sudocrem on my face and I look like a dog off of Lady and the Tramp.”

I was so flustered by the very thought of acquiescing to the man’s demand that I didn’t even think much of the name I’d gone and called him. 

“Again, do I give a shit? And what did you just call me?”

I paused, reeling back to whatever it was I’d just spouted at him. Upon rehashing my words I felt my tongue press between my lips to keep from laughing loudly, if Mila or Lottie had been there I’d already be strung up by a pair of metaphorical balls. 

“You heard me fine.” I brushed it off, if he wanted to call me out of the blue and act all chummy then chummy was what he’d get.

Besides it wasn’t like I’d meant the term maliciously, I used that type of endearment with everybody. Something my manager had tried and failed to force out of me time and time again.

“But back to this whole ‘seeing my mug thing’. Not happening, mate. Why couldn’t you have called like, six hours ago? I looked like an actual person then.”

“Dickhead.” He muttered beneath his breath, barely even loud enough for me to have heard him and I could only guess that he was shaking his head with it, hopefully somewhat amused. “You ain’t an actual person then?” He said in reply, forgoing the name calling for now, “Figures, you give off lizard vibes.”

“Fuck you!” My laugh was sudden, jaw having dropped a tad at the quip. “Lizard vibes, the fuck are you then? And yes, an actual person! You can’t just call people, drop a bomb, and then demand things!”

“Shit typically works.” He quipped all too quickly that it had me shaking my head around another quiet smile of my own. “Just entertain me though, for a moment.”

My head fell back against the arm of the sofa, eyes casted towards the high ceiling which loomed above. I couldn’t quite believe I was actually considering it.

He didn’t even have to goad me before I relented. I huffed, blowing a strand of hair from out of my face as I sat back up, “Fine. Just gimme a sec.” 

He hummed.

Elbowing my way off the settee I skidded over to the closest mirror, dragged a hand through my mostly dried hair and made sure that I didn’t have racoon eyes from any lingering mascara I’d had on before my shower. The patches of sudocrem would have to stay though, I deemed, seeing as he already knew about those. 

I gave up on the preening and sighed as I fell back onto the sofa, thankful for the dim lights the living room offered in that moment. It was just as I was switching the call though that a thought hit me, making me question if the reason he’d asked me to start the Facetime was due to him wanting to give me the option to turn it down or simply because he had no idea how to do it himself. “Still there, old man?”

A scoff echoed into the room before my phone screen stuttered and I was left staring at the sharp lines of his face. It wasn’t like I hadn’t actually believed it was him I was talking to, but seeing the man was another thing altogether. He was a real person and that idea alone had me reeling. 

I wrinkled my nose almost shyly around a smile when that sharp gaze of his slid away from something behind the camera to meet mine. He tilted his head to look me over, the hood of his jumper moving with the motion. 

“I was right about the lizard thing.” Was the only greeting he offered me, jutting his chin out as he feigned all seriousness. 

My mouth dropped open upon hearing him and my tongue quickly flicked out towards a canine to keep from biting back at him. There was humour written in the gesture though, even as I moved to narrow my eyes. “He’s got jokes! Reused ones, I might add, but jokes nonetheless.” I snarked, lifting my eyebrows at him in exaggeration, “Hilarious.”

His mouth curled very, very briefly, but I was quick to work out that it was all in the eyes with him. They held a certain amount of mirth as they flickered over my face. I wondered what he saw. 

“Suits you though. Even with all the…” He waved a hand over his own face, probably referencing the white dots I had littered in a few places.

With a shake of my head I raised a hand to my chest, feigning a fond appreciation for the sardonic comment. “Is that the famous charm the world’s heard so much about then? Really know how to make a girl feel special, Mathers.”

His eyes slitted but still shone with a slight glaze, he hummed deeply in retort. “Best believe it. Why d’you think I’ve gotten divorced twice?”

A low whistle escaped me before I then laughed, eyes squinting with the strength of it. “Figured you might just have a kink for courtrooms.” 

His tongue swept into his cheek at my boldness, fighting back a real smile as he glanced away and then back again. “I’m down bad for a good Judge. Spank me vibes, you know?”

I chuckled outwardly at that, amused by his quick witted replies. But that in itself didn’t surprise me, it was well known just how hilarious the man could be, his stoic demeanour only prodding that revelation further. 

That sternness his face seemed to consistently hold softened though in that next moment and I watched on as he shuffled a little closer to the camera, sat somewhere indoors with enough natural light that he could have only been in his kitchen. It hit me then how wild this whole thing suddenly was. “What’s with the last name anyway?”

I blinked, caught off guard by his ask. “Um,” I fumbled, a slight wrinkle forming between my brow, “What do you mean, me calling you Mathers?”

He hummed and I had to think about it for a second. Ultimately I ended up gifting him a shrug, “Don’t know. Just feels strange to call you Eminem or whatever.” I laughed lightly at myself, hand falling to my knee to toy with a loose thread on the hem of my robe. “What do people usually call you?”

It was his turn to shrug then, his being a singular and fluid motion whereas mine had been more thoughtless. He was watching again though, the wide eyes I was so used to seeing in old interviews where he was always playing a part were now gentler, narrowed sure, but softer and slightly wrinkled at the very edges.

I tugged on the frayed thread, wrapping it around my finger enough to whiten the skin before I had to let it go again. “Is Em okay? Or just Marshall maybe?” I queried, watching him too.

“Whatever you want.” He murmured and it was then that I noticed he’d propped his phone up somewhere in front of him because a pair of hands came to rest at the bottom of the screen just as he pressed further into the counter he was sat at.

I wrung my lips to one side, teeth biting into the inside of my cheek enough to keep from smiling much more than I already was. “Most people call me El or Lia. Elia just started to feel unnatural away from, you know, everyone else.”

It was the worlds now, as well as one of few reasons I had for the stigma I felt around my own name. 

The man jerked his head in a short nod in response whilst his fingers intertwined against a marble countertop. “So we should just slide that into the writin’ credits then? Or you finally gone take me up on that offer of a feature?”

You know that odd feeling you get when you’re on the tube or a plane and so suddenly your ears just pop and there's this ringing sound that floods the single sense? It just happens, out of nowhere, and you blink. So all you can immediately focus on is the sound. The odd feeling of it driving waves deeper and deeper into your skull. And the only way you can recover is by holding your own breath?

That was what that question felt like to me. 

“What?”

His eyes were alight, akin to a low flame of flickering amusement and perhaps hope. “You deaf now too? Know you heard me.”

Of course I fucking heard him but that didn’t mean I understood. “This is for real?”

Finally, he let go of a dulcet chuckle, almost a ringing sound in and of itself. “You gone make me repeat it? You in, or not?”

“How is that even a question?” I breathed back to him, my hand shaking against the hem of my robe. “Yes! God, if I ever say to no to an ask like that you better fucking shoot me. What the fuck, Marshall?”

That chuckle again.

It was unlike anything else, the only sound I could hear around the blood rushing between my ears. Stupidly, I pinched my thigh and released a stuttered breath when the twist of skin radiated a short snap of pain up my leg.

“That the go ahead then?”

I must’ve looked so incredibly starstruck but I couldn’t even bring myself to care, this was unreal. I nodded, almost frantically at him. “Of course that’s the fucking go ahead! Are you sure about this? I mean, I don’t know how much help I’ll be. I mostly write radio shit.”

“Your earlier stuff ain’t.” Em shot back, the quip startling me enough to snap my jaw shut because not a lot of people ever dug that deep. But he continued on before I could think to hone in on the slip, “‘sides, your lyrics are what I fuck with. That shit makes you think, has you lingerin’. Playing with words is the aim, I want people thinkin’, leachin’ onto each syllable and every phrase. You do that.”

The air in my lungs lurched.

I could only offer him one reply, “When do we start?”

[acealistair]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard GameInformer Article Transcribed

I saw some people lamenting that they had no way to read the GameInformer article, and while MVP dalishious posted screenshots of the article here, I figured that might be a little difficult to read, plus people with screen readers can't read it of course. So I've gone ahead and transcribed it! Full thing below the cut!

As a note, I transcribed it without correcting any typos, capitalization errors, etc. that the article itself had (as much as it pained me, omg the author capitalizes so many things that shouldn't be and vice versa). There may be some typos on my part as I did this as quickly as I could, so apologies in advance for any you might encounter.

I have also created a plot-spoiler-free version of the article for those who would like to learn more about the mechanics of the game without learning more plot info than they want!

Throughout my research and preparation for a trip to BioWare’s Edmonton, Canada, office for this cover story, I kept returning to the idea that its next game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard (formerly subtitled Dreadwolf) is releasing at a critical moment for the storied developer. The previous installment, Dragon Age: Inquisition, hit PlayStation, Xbox, and PC a decade ago. It was the win BioWare needed, following the 2012 release of Mass Effect 3 with its highly controversial and (for many) disappointing ending. Inquisition launched two years later, in 2014, to rave reviews and, eventually, various Gameo the Year awards, almost as if a reminder of what the studio was capable of.

Now, in 2024, coincidentally, the next Dragon Age finds itself in a similar position. BioWare attempted a soft reboot of Mass Effect with Andromeda in 2017, largely seen as a letdown among the community, and saw its first live-service multiplayer attempt in 2019’s Anthem flounder in the tricky waters of the genre; it aimed for a No Man’s Sky-like turnaround with Anthem Next, but that rework was canceled in 2021. Like its predecessor, BioWare’s next Dragon Age installment is not only a new release in a beloved franchise, but is another launch with the pressure of BioWare’s prior misses; a game fans hope will remind them the old BioWare is still alive today.

“Having been in this industry for 25 years, you see hits and misses, and it’s all about building off of those hits and learning from those misses,” BioWare general manager Gary McKay, who’s been with the studio since January 2020, tells me.

As McKay gives me a tour of the office, I can’t help but notice how much Anthem is scattered around it. More than Mass Effect, more than Dragon Age, there’s a lot of Anthem - posters, real-life replicas of its various Javelins, wallpaper, and more. Recent BioWare news stories tell of leads and longtime studio veterans laid off and others departing voluntarily. Veilguard’s development practically began with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. When I ask McKay about the tumultuousness of BioWare and how he, as the studio manager, makes the team feel safe in the product it’s developing, he says it’s about centering on the creative vision. “[When] we have that relentless pursuit for quality, and we have passion and people in the right roles, a lot of the other stuff you’re talking about just fades into the background.”

That’s a sentiment echoed throughout the team I speak to: Focus on what makes a BioWare game great and let Veilguard speak for itself. Though I had no expectations going in - it’s been 10 years since the last Drag Age, after all, and BioWare has been cagey about showing this game publicly - my expectations have been surpassed. This return to Thedas, the singular continent of the franchise, feels like both a warm welcome for returning fans and an impressive entry point for first-time players.

New Age, New Name

At the start of each interview, I address a dragon-sized elephant in the room with the game’s leads. What was Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is now Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Why?

“These games are reflections of the teams that make them, and as part of that, it means we learn a lot about what the heart and soul of the game really is as we’re developing it,” Veilguard game director Corinne Busche tells me. “We quickly learned and realized that the absolute beating heart of this game is these authentic, diverse companions. And when we took a step back, as we always do, we always check our decisions and make sure they still represent the game we’re trying to build.”

Dreadwolf no longer did that, but each member of BioWare I speak to tells me The Veilguard does. And while I was initially abrasive to the change - lore aside, Dreadwolf is simply a cool name - I warmed up to The Veilguard.

Solas, a Loki-esque trickster member of the Elven pantheon of gods known as the Dread Wolf, created the Veil long ago while attempting to free the elves from their slave-like status in Thedas. This Veil is a barrier between the magical Fade and Thedas, banishing Elven gods and removing Elven immortality from the world. But players didn’t know that in Inquisition, where he is introduced as a mage ally and companion. However, at the end of Inquisition’s Trespasser DLC, which sets the stage for Veilguard, we learn in a shocking twist that Solas wants to destroy the Veil and restore Elves to their former glory. However, doing so would bring chaos to Thedas, and those who call it home, the people who eventually become The Veilguard, want to stop him.

“There’s an analogy I like to use, which is, ‘If you want to carve an elephant out of marble, you just take a piece of marble and remove everything that doesn’t look like an elephant,’” Veilguard creative director John Epler says. “As we were building this game, it became really clear that it was less that we were trying to make The Veilguard and more like The Veilguard was taking shape as we built the game. Solas is still a central figure in it. He’s still a significant character. But really, the focus shifts to the team.

“[We] realized Dreadwolf suggests a title focused on a specific individual, whereas The Veilguard, much like Inquisition, focuses more on the team.”

Creating Your Rook

Veilguard’s character creator is staggeringly rich, with a dizzying number of customizable options. Busche tells me that inclusivity is at the heart of it, noting that she believes everyone can create someone who represents them on-screen.

There are four races to choose from when customizing Rook, the new playable lead - Elves, Qunari, Humans, and Dwarves - and hundreds of options to customize your character beyond that. You can select pronouns separately from gender and adjust physical characteristics like height, shoulder width, chest size, glute and bulge size, hip width, how bloodshot your eyes are, how crooked your nose is, and so much more. There must be hundreds of sliders to customize these body proportions and features like skin hue, tone, melanin, and just about anything else you might adjust on a character. Oh, and there’s nudity in Veilguard, too, which I learn firsthand while customizing my Rook.

“The technology has finally caught up to our ambition,” Dragon Age series art director Matt Rhodes tells me as we decide on my warrior-class Qunari’s backstory, which affects faction allegiance, in-game dialogue, and reputation standing - we choose the pirate-themed Lords of Fortune.

Notably, instead of a warrior class, we could have chosen mage or rogue. All three classes have unique specializations, bespoke skill trees, and special armors, too. And though our Rook is aligned with the Lords of Fortune faction, there are others to choose from including the Grey Wardens, Shadow Dragons, The Mourn Watch, and more. There is some flexibility in playstyle thanks to specializations, but your class largely determines the kind of actions you can perform in combat.

“Rook ascends because of competency, not because of a magical McGuffin,” BioWare core lead and Mass effect executive producer Michael Gamble tells me in contrast to Inquisition’s destiny-has-chosen-you-characterization.

“Rook is here because they choose to be, and that speaks to the kind of character that we’ve built.” Busche adds, “Someone needs to stop this, and Rook says, ‘I guess that’s me.’”

Beyond the on-paper greatness of this character creator, its customizability speaks to something repeated throughout my BioWare visit: Veilguard is a single-player, story-driven RPG. Or in other words, the type of game that made BioWare as storied as it is. McKay tells me the team explored a multiplayer concept early in development before scratching it to get back to BioWare basics. The final game will feature zero multiplayer and no microtransactions.

Happy to hear that, I pick our first and last name, then one of four voices, with a pitch shifter for each, too, and we’re off to Minrathous.

Exploring Tevinter For The First Time

Throughout the Dragon Age series, parts of Thedas are discussed by characters and referenced by lore material but left to the imagination of players as they can’t visit them. Veilguard immediately eschews this, setting its opening prologue mission in Minrathous, the capital of the  Tevinter Empire. Frankly, I’m blown away by how good it looks. It’s my first time seeing Veilguard in action and my first look at a Dragon Age game in nearly a decade. Time has treated this series well, and so has technology.

Epler, who’s coming up on 17 years at BioWare, acknowledges that the franchise has always been at the will of its engine. Dragon Age: Origins and II’s Eclipse Engine worked well for the time, but today, they show their age. Inquisition was BioWare’s first go at Ea’s proprietary Frostbite engine - mind you, an engine designed for first-person shooters and decidedly not multi-character RPGs - and the team struggled there, too. Epler and Busche agree Veilguard is the first RPG where BioWare feels fully in command of Frostbite and, more generally, its vision for this world.

We begin inside a bar. Rook and Varric are looking for Neve Gallus, a detective mage somewhere in Minrathous. The first thing players will do once Veilguard begins is select a dialogue option, something the team says speaks to their vision of a story-forward, choice-driven adventure. After a quick bar brawl cutscene that demonstrates Rook’s capabilities, there’s another dialogue choice, and different symbols here indicate the type of tone you can roll with. There’s a friendly, snarky, and rough-and-tough direct choice, and I later learn of a more romantically inclined “emotional” response. These are the replies that will build relationships with characters, romantic and platonic alike, but you’re welcome to ignore this option. However, your companions can romance each other, so giving someone the cold shoulder might nudge them into the warm embrace of another. We learn Neve is in Dumat Plaza and head into the heart of Minrathous.

Rhodes explains BioWare’s philosophy for designing this city harkens back to a quick dialogue from Inquisition’s Dorian Pavus. Upon entering Halamshiral’s Winter Palace, the largest venue in Dragon Age history at that point, Dorian notes that it’s cute, adorable even, alluding to his Tevinter heritage. If Dorian thinks the largest venue in Dragon Age history is cute and adorable, what must the place he’s from be like? “It’s like this,” Rhodes says as we enter Minrathous proper in-game.

Minrathous is huge, painted in magical insignia that looks like cyberpunk-inspired neon city signs and brimming with detail. Knowing it’s a city run by mages and built entirely upon magic, Rhodes says the team let its imagination run wild. The result is the most stunning and unique city in the series. Down a wide, winding pathway, there’s a pub with a dozen NPCs - Busche says BioWare used Veilguard’s character creator to make each in-world NPC except for specific characters like recruitable companions - and a smart use of verticality, scaling, and wayfinding to push us toward the main attraction: Solas, attempting to tear down the Veil.

All hell is breaking loose. Pride Demons are rampaging through the city. Considering Pride Demons were bosses in prior games, seeing them roaming freely in the prologue of Veilguard speaks to the stakes of this opener. Something I appreciate throughout our short journey through Minrathous to its center below is the cinematography at play. As a Qunari, my character stands tall, and Rhodes says the camera adjusts to ensure larger characters loom over those below. On the flip side, the camera adjusts for dwarves to demonstrate their smaller stature compared to those around them.

This, coupled with movie-liked movement through the city as BioWare showcases the chaos happening at the hands of Solas’ Veil-break ritual, creates a cinematic start that excited me, and I’m not even hands-on with the game.

Eventually, we reach Neve, who has angered some murderous blood mages, and rescue her from danger. Or rather, help… barely. Neve is quite capable, and her well-acted dialogue highlights that. Together, Varric, returning character Lace Harding, who is helping us stop Solas and is now a companion, Rook, and Neve defeat some demons. They then take on some Venatori Cultists seizing this chaotic opportunity to take over the city and other enemies before making it to Solas’ hideout. As we traverse deeper and deeper into this hideout, more of Solas’ murals appear on the walls, and things get more Elven. Rhodes says this is because you’re symbolically going back in time, as Minrathous is a city built by mages on the bones of what was originally the home of Elves.

At the heart of his hideout, we discover Solas’ personal Eluvian. This magical mirror-like structure allows the gang to teleport (and mechanically fast-travel) to Arlathan Forest, where Solas is secretly performing the ritual (while its effects pour out into Minrathous).

Here, we encounter a dozen or so demons, which BioWare has fully redesigned on the original premise of these monstrous creatures. Rhodes says they’re creatures of feeling and live and die off the emotions around them. As such, they are just a floating nervous system, push into this world from the Fade, rapidly assembled into bodies out of whatever scraps they find.

I won’t spoil the sequence of events here, but we stop Solas’ ritual and seemingly save the world… for now. Rook passes out moments later and wakes up in a dream-like landscape to the voice of none  other than Solas. He explains a few drops of Rook’s blood interacted with the ritual, connecting them to the Fade forever. He also says he was attempting to move the Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, part of the Evanuris or Elven gods of ancient times, to a new prison because the one he had previously constructed was failing. Unfortunately, Solas is trapped in the Fade by our doing, and these gods are now free. It’s up to Rook to stop them; thus, the stage for our adventure is set.

The Veilguard Who’s Who

While we learned a lot about returning character but first-time companion Lace Harding, ice mage private detective Neve Gallus, and veil jumper Bellara Lutara, BioWare shared some additional details about other companions Rook will meet later in the game. Davrin is a charming Grey Warden who is also an excellent monster hunter; Emmrich is a member of Nevarra’s Mourn Watch and a necromancer with a skeleton assistant named Manfred; Lucanis is a pragmatic assassin whose bloodline descends from the criminal House of Crows organization; And Taash is a dragon hunter allied with the piratic Lords of Fortune. All seven of these characters adorn this Game Informer issue, with Bellara up front and center in the spotlight.

The Lighthouse

After their encounter with Solas, Rook wakes up with Harding and Neve in the lair of the Dread Wolf himself, a special magical realm in the Fade called the Lighthouse. It’s a towering structure centered amongst various floating islands. Epler says, much like Skyhold in Inquisition, the Lighthouse is where your team bonds, grows, and prepares for its adventures throughout the campaign. It also becomes more functional and homier as you do. Already, though, it’s a beautifully distraught headquarters for the Veilguard, although they aren’t quite referring to themselves as that just yet.

Because it was Solas’ home base of operations, it’s gaudy, with his fresco murals adorning various walls, greenery hanging from above, and hues of purple and touches of gold everywhere. Since it’s in the Fade, a realm of dreams that responds to your world state and emotion, the Lighthouse reflects the chaos and disrepair of the Thedas you were in moments ago. I see a clock symbol over a dialogue icon in the distance, which signals an optional dialogue option. We head there, talk to Neve, select a response to try our hand at flirting, and then head to the dining hall.

A plate, a fork and knife, and a drinking chalice are at the end of a massive table. Rhodes says this is both a funny (and sad) look at Solas’ isolated existence and an example of the detail BioWare’s art team has put into Veilguard. “It’s a case of letting you see the story,” he says. “It’s like when you go to a friend's house and see their bedroom for the first time; you get to learn more about them.” From the dining hall, we gather the not-quite-Veilguard in the library, which Busche says in the central area of the Lighthouse and where your party will often regroup and prepare for what’s next. The team decides it must reach the ritual site back in Arlathan Forest, and Busche says I’m missing unique dialogue options here because I’m Qunari; an Elf would have more to say about the Fade due to their connection to it. The same goes for my backstory earlier in Minrathous. If I had picked the Shadow Dragons background, Neve would have recognized me immediately, with unique dialogue.

With our next move decided, we head to Solas’ Eluvian to return to Arlathan Forest and the ritual site. However, it’s not fully functional without Solas, and while it returns us to Arlathan Forest, it’s not exactly where we want to go. A few moments later, we’re back in the Arlathan Forest, and just before a demon-infested suit of mechanized armor known as a Sentinel can attack, two new NPCs appear to save us: Strife and Irelin. Harding recognizes them, something Dragon Age comic readers might know about. They’re experts in ancient elven magic and part of the new Veil Jumpers faction. The ensuing cutscene, where we learn Strife and Irelin need help finding someone named Bellara Lutara, is long, with multiple dialogue options. That’s something I’m noticing with Veilguard, too - there’s a heavy emphasis on storytelling and dialogue, and it feels deep and meaty, like a good fantasy novel. BioWare doesn’t shy away from minutes-long cutscenes.

Busche says that’s intentional, too. “For Rook, [this story’s about] what does it meant to be a leader,” she says. “You’re defining their leadership style with your choices.” Knowing that Rook is the leader of the Veilguard, I’m excited to see how far this goes. From the sound of it, my team will react to my chosen leadership style in how my relationships play out. That’s demonstrated within the game’s dialogue and a special relationship meter on each companion’s character screen.

Redefining Combat Once More

Bellara is deep within Arlathan Forest, and following the prolgoue’s events, something is up here. Three rings of massive rocks fly through the air, protecting what appears to be a central fortress. Demon Sentinels plague the surrounding lands, and after loading up a new save, we’re in control of a human mage.

Following the trend of prior Dragon Age games, Veilguard has completed the series’ shift from tactical strategy to real-time action, but fret not: a tactical pause-and-play mechanic returns to satiate fans who remember the series’ origins (pun intended). Though I got a taste of combat in the prologue, Veilguard’s drastic departure from all that came before it is even more apparent here.

Busche says player complete every swing in real-time, with special care taken to animation swing-through and canceling. There's a dash, a parry, the ability to charge moves, and a completely revamped healing system that allows you to use potions at your discretion by hitting right on the d-pad. You can combo attacks and even “bookmark” combos with a quick dash, which means you can pause a combo’s status with a dash to safety and continue the rest of the combo afterward. It looks even cooler than it sounds.

Like any good action game, there is a handful of abilities to customize your kit. And, if you want to maintain that real-time action feel, you can use them on the fly, so long as you take cooldowns into effect. But Veilguard’s pause-and-play gameplay mechanic, similar to Inquisition’s without the floating camera view, lets you bring things to halt for a healthy but optional dose of strategy.

In this screen, which essentially pauses the camera and pulls up a flashy combat wheel that highlights you and your companions’ skills, you can choose abilities, queue them up, and strategize with synergies and combos, all while targeting specific enemies. Do what you need to here, let go of the combat wheel, and watch your selections play out. Busche says she uses the combat wheel to dole out her companions’ attacks and abilities while sticking to the real-time action for her player-controlled Rook. On the other hand, Epler says he almost exclusively uses the combat wheel to dish out every ability and combo.

Busche says each character will play the same, in that you execute light and heavy attacks with hte same buttons, use abilities with the same buttons, and interact with the combo wheel in the same way, regardless of which class you select. But a sword-and-shield warrior, like we used in the prolgoue, can hip-fire or aim their shield to throw it like Captain America, whereas our human mage uses that same button to throw out magical ranged attacks. The warrior can parry incoming attacks, which can stagger enemies. The rogue gets a larger parry window. Our mage, however, can’t parry at all. Instead, they throw up a shield that blocks incoming attacks automatically so long as you have the mana to sustain it.

“What I see from Veilguard is a game that finally bridges the gap,” former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah, who left BioWare in 2021 before joining the Veilguard team last year as a consultant, tells me. “Uncharitably, previous Dragon Age games got to the realm of ‘combat wasn’t too bad.’ In this game, the combat’s actually fun, but it does keep that thread that’s always been there. You have the focus on Rook, on your character, but still have that control and character coming into the combat experience from the other people in the party.”

“This is really the best Dragon Age game that I’ve ever played,” he adds, noting his bias. “This is the one where we get back to our roots of character-driven storytelling, have really fun combat, and aren’t making compromises.”

Watching Busche take down sentinels and legions of darkspawn on-screen, I can already sense Veilguard’s combat will likely end up my favorite in the series, although admittedly, as a fan of action games, I’m an easy sell here. It’s flashy, quick, and thanks to different types of health bars, like a greenish-blue one that represents barrier and is taken down most effectively with ranged attacks, a decent amount of strategy, even if you don’t use the pause-and-play combo wheel. Like the rest of the game, too, it’s gorgeous, with sprinkles, droplets, and splashes of magic in each attack our mage unleashes. Though I’m seeing the game run on a powerful PC, which is sure to be the best showcase of Veilguard, Epler tells me the game looks amazing on consoles - he’s been playing it on PlayStation 5 and enjoying it in both its fidelity and performance modes, but I’ll have to take his word for it.

Pressing Start

The start or pause screen is as important to a good RPG as the game outside the menus. Veilguard’s contains your map, journal, character sheets, skill tree, and a library for lore information. You can cross-compare equipment and equip new gear here for Rook and your companions, build weapon loadouts for quick change-ups mid-combat, and customize you and your party’s abilities and builds via an easy-to-understand skill tree. You won’t find minutiae here, “just real numbers,” Busche says. That means a new unlocked trait might increase damage by 25 percent against armor, but that’s as in-depth as the numbers get. Passive abilities unlock jump attacks and guarantee critical hit opportunities, while abilities add moves like a Wall of Fire to your arsenal (if you’re a mage). As you spec out this skill tree, which is 100 percent bespoke to each class, you’ll work closer to unlocking a specialization, of which there are three for each class, complete with a unique ultimate ability. Busche says BioWare’s philosophy here is “about changing the way you play, not statistical minutiae.”

Companion Customization

You can advance your bonds by helping companions on their own personal quests and by including them in your party for main quests. Every Relationship Level you rank up, shown on their character sheet, nets you a skill point to spend on them. Busche says the choices you make, what you say to companions, how you help them, and more all matter to their development as characters and party members. And with seven companions, there’s plenty to customize, from bespoke gear to abilities and more. Though each companion has access to five abilities, you can only take three into combat, so it’s important to strategize different combos and synergies within your party. Rhodes says beyond  this kind of customizable characterization, each companion has issues, problems, and personal quests to complete. “Bellara has her own story arc that runs parallel to and informs the story path you’re on,” Rhodes says.

In Entropy’s Grasp

As we progress through the forest and the current “In Entropy’s Grasp” mission, we finally find Bellara. She’s a veil jumper, the first companion you meet and recruit in-game (unlike Neve, who automatically joins), and the centerpiece of this issue’s cover image. Because our mage’s background is Veil Jumper, we get some unique dialogue. Bellara explains we’re all trapped in a Veil Bubble, and there’s no way out once you pass through it. Despite the dire situation, Bellara is bubbly, witty, and charming.

“When designing companions, they’re the load-bearing pillars for everything,” Rhodes says. “They’re the face of their faction, and in this case [with Bellara], their entire area of the world. She’s your window into Arlathan Forest.” Rhodes describes her as a sweetheart and nerd for ancient elven artifacts. As such ,she’s dressed more like an academic than a combat expert, although her special arm gauntlet is useful both for tinkering with her environment and taking down enemies.

Unlike Neve, who uses ice magic like our Rook and can slow down time with a special ability, Bellara specializes in electricity, and she can also use magic to heal you, something Busche says Dragon Age fans have been desperate to have in a game. Busche says if you don’t direct Neve and Bellara, they’re fully independent and will attack on their own. But synergizing your team will add to the fun and strategy of combat. Bellara’s electric magic is effective against Sentinels, which is great because we currently only have access to ice. However, without Bellara, we could also equip a rune that converts my ice magic, for a brief duration, into electricity to counter the Sentinels.

As we progress through Arlathan Forest, we encounter more and more darkspawn. Bellara mentions the darkspawn have never been this far before because the underground Deep Roads, where they usually escape from, aren’t nearby. However, with blighted Elven gods roaming the world, and thanks to Blight’s radiation-like spread, it’s a much bigger threat in Veilguard than in any Dragon Age before it.

I continue to soak in the visuals of Veilguard with Arlathan Forest’s elven ruins, dense greenery, and disgusting Blight tentacles and pustules; it’s perhaps the most impressive aspect of my time seeing the game, although everything else is making a strong impression, too. I am frustrated about having to watch the game rather than play it, to be honest. I’m in love with the art style, which is more high fantasy than anything in the series thus far and almost reminiscent of the whimsy of Fable, a welcome reprieve from the recent gritty Game of Thrones trend in fantasy games. Rhodes says that’s the result of the game’s newfound dose of magic.

“The use of magic has been an evolution as the series has gone on,” he says. “It’s something we’ve been planning for a while because Solas has been planning all this for a while. In the past, you could hint at cooler magical things in the corner because you couldn’t actually go there, but now we actually can, and it’s fun to showcase that.”

Busche, Epler, and Rhodes warn me that Arlathan Forest’s whimsy will starkly contrast to other areas. They promise some grim locations and even grimmer story moments because, without that contrast, everything falls flat. Busche likens it to a “thread of optimism” pulled through otherworldly chaos ravaging Thedas. For now, the spunky and effervescent Bellara is that thread.

As we progress deeper into the forest, Bellara spots a floating fortress and thinks the artifact needed to destroy the Veil Bubble is in there. To reach it, though, wem ust remove the floating rock rings, and Bellara’s unique ability, Tinker, can do just that by interacting with a piece of ancient elven technology nearby. Busche says Rook can acquire abilities like Tinker later to complete such tasks in instances where Bellara, for example, isn’t in the party.

Bellara must activate three of these in Arlathan Forest to reach the floating castle, and each one we activate brings forth a slew of sentinels, demons, and darkspawn to defeat. Busche does so with ease, showcasing high-level gameplay by adding three stacks of arcane build-up to create an Arcane Bomb on an enemy, which does devastating damage after being hit by a heavy attack. Now, she begins charging a heavy attack on her magical staff, then switches to magical daggers in a second loadout accessed with a quick tap of down on the d-pad to unleash some quick attacks, then back to the staff to charge it some more and unleash a heavy attack.

After a few more combat encounters, including one against a sentinel that’s “Frenzied,” which means it hits harder, moves faster, and has more health, we finally reach the center of the temple. Within is a particular artifact known as the Nadas Dirthalen, which Bellara says means “the inevitability of knowledge.” Before we can advance with it, a darkspawn Ogre boss attacks. It hits hard, has plenty of unblockable, red-coded attacks, and a massive shield we must take down first. However, it’s weak to fire, and our new fire staff is perfect for the situation.

After taking down this boss in a climactic arena fight, Bellara uses a special crystal to power the artifact and remove it from a pedestal, destroying the Veil Bubble. Then, the Nadas Dirthalen comes alive as an Archive Spirit, but because the crystal used to power it breaks, we learn little about this spirit before it disappears. Fortunately, Bellara thinks she can fix it - fixing broken stuff is kind of her thing, Epler says - so the group heads back to the Veil Jumper camp and, as interested as I am in learning what happens next, the demo ends. It’s clear that even after a few hours with the game’s opening, I’ve seen a nigh negligible amount of game; frustrating but equally as exciting.

Don’t Call It An Open World

Veilguard is not an open world, even if some of its explorable areas might fee like one. Gamble describes Veilguard’s Thedas as a hub-and-spoke design where “the needs of the story are served by the level design.” A version of Inquisition’s Crossroads, a network of teleporting Eluvians, returns, and it’s how players will traverse across northern Thedas. Instead of a connected open world, players will travel from Eluvian to Eluvian to different stretches of this part of the continent. This allows BioWare to go from places like Minrathous to tropical beaches to Arlathan Forest to grim and gothic areas and elsewhere. Some of these areas are larger and full of secrets and treasures. Others are smaller and more focused on linear storytelling. Arlathan Forest is an example of this, but there are still optional paths and offshoots to explore for loot, healing potion refreshes, and other things. There’s a minimap in each location, though linear levels like “In Entropy’s Grasp” won’t have the fog of war that disappears as you explore like some of Veilguard’s bigger locations. Regardless, BioWare says Veilguard has the largest number of diverse biomes in series history.

Dragon’s Delight

With a 10-hour day at BioWare behind me after hours of demo gameplay and interviews with the leads, I’m acutely aware of my favorite part of video games: the surprises. I dabbled with Origins and II and put nearly 50 hours into Inquisition, but any familiarity with the series the latter gave me had long since subsided over the past decade. I wanted to be excited about the next Dragon Age as I viewed each teaser and trailer, but other than seeing the words “Dragon Age,” I felt little. Without gameplay, without a proper look at the actual game we’ll all be playing this fall, I struggled to remember why Inquisition sucked me in 10 years ago.

This trip reminded me.

Dragon Age, much like the Thedas of Veilguard, lives in the uncertainty: The turbulence of BioWare’s recent release history and the lessons learned from it, the drastic changes to each Dragon Age’s combat, the mystery of its narrative, and the implications of its lore. It’s all a part of the wider Dragon Age story and why this studio keeps returning to this world. It’s been a fertile franchise for experimentation. While Veilguard is attempting to branch out in unique ways, it feels less like new soil and more like the harvest BioWare has been trying to cultivate since 2009, and I’m surprised by that.

I’m additionally surprised, in retrospect, how numb I’ve been to the game before this. I’m surprised by BioWare’s command over EA’s notoriously difficult Frostbite engine to create its prettiest game yet. I’m surprised by this series’ 15-year transition from tactical strategy to action-forward combat. I’m surprised by how much narrative thought the team has poured into these characters, even for BioWare. Perhaps having no expectations will do that to you. But most of all, with proper acknowledgement that I reserve additional judgment until I actually play the game, I’m surprised that Veilguard might just be the RPG I’m looking forward to most this year.

[fancyfade]

2009 era Damian reading

As I've been doing my 2009 era Damian reading, I'm trying to condense the good stuff and bad stuff, and things I believe are relevant for his character. These are in addition to what I assume is obvious (Batman and Robin 2009, the comic where he has a starring role).

Battle for the Cowl: this has how Damian becomes Robin. It's not necessarily good. Daniels really does not understand Damian, especially this early in his writing, but it does have some important context for things going down b/c Damian helps Squire save Tim's life, and we can see Dick viewing training Damian as something he is responsible for.

Secret Origins (2014) #4: This is a much more in character Damian becoming Robin, though fit for a condensed new 52 timeline that leaves some stuff out (like Damian's rocky intro with Bruce).

Batman #688 (Long Shadows part 1): Winick seems one of the early writers who does a Damian as he lines up with later characterization (views himself more as a professional assassin), so I think this one's good.

Batman: streets of Gotham #1-6: damian makes some minor appearances here.

Batgirl #5-7: Always take Damian's guest-starring stuff with a grain of salt, as often times writers just go with "how would an obnoxious 10 year old boy act here" without understanding he's a specific kind of obnoxious 10 year old boy... that said I do like some of his interactions with Steph, and I think it's incredibly important that we see Damian defends his competence based on his training, not on his blood.

Like he'll sometimes justify why he belongs based on his blood (which like... no one acts like they want him around), but he isn't going around saying "I'm better than you b/c I'm batman's son". he was trained intensely since birth (and that's why he should say he's better than you :P)

Batman #692-697: not a ton of Damian in this, and it is Daniel's writing, but he's a little better than he was in Battle for the Cowl. We see Dick training Damian some.

Batman: Streets of Gotham #7, #10-#11: love this plotline for him. Good show of competence and characterization.

Blackest night: batman: More focused on Tim and Dick, and Tomasi sucks at writing Babs, but at there is some Damian content that I remember enjoying.

Red Robin #11-15: as long as you read this one with your brain turned on, it's good for explaining some Tim and Damian stuff. Sadly some fans are like "woooo arrogant 10 year old gets beat up". Nicieza makes some missteps (frames Tim's thinking around Damian as coldly logical, when it is anything but and he is reacting from a place of emotion), but one can ignore those.

Batman #703: shows Damian's character pretty well in a default Batman and Robin adventure, and his relationship (or lackthereof) with Bruce and his dynamic with Dick and Alfred

Teen Titans #88-92 (including Red Robin #20 in a crossover plot): surprised by how well I liked this one. I think it portrays Damian pretty fairly, and we can see that he is trying hard, but hasn't been given a lot of support up until now (or even now, Dick kind of just drops him off with a bunch of older kids who all also have issues and are predisposed to disliking him XD). His dynamic with rose is fun and I think it is notable how quickly he does acquiesce to following Cassie's orders when she's like (at first) the only Teen Titan who is OK with him being there and assures him its not personal when she makes a comment he doesn't like.

Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Batman and Robin: Has some nice Dick and Damian banter, showcases how they've worked together well

Batgirl #17: more damian and steph interactions.

I will probably add more (either editing this post or in a reblog) as I keep reading.

[nunan-neomuyeppeoseo]

Hihii I just wanted to ask how your doing and I wanted to drop a request in here !!

Top! Jeonghan x bttm! Male reader

[ ] I'm down bad for jeonghan it's not even funny anymore.

[ ] Ok so get this the reader and jeonghan are childhood bestfriends and they debut in svt together (already cute ik) so jeonghan is so madly inlove with the reader and spoils him endlessly and the reader can literally do anything and jeonghan would still look at him with the most adoration in his eyes the world has seen . And during Nana tour (you can watch it for free on dramacool) the fans literally see them all cuddly with eachother (they are normally too but it was even more ) and then fans like make cute posts about them and stuff (I forgot to add that they are in a relationship)

𝗁𝗂𝗂𝗂, 𝖨'𝗆 𝖽𝗈𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗉𝗋𝖾𝗍𝗍𝗒 𝗐𝖾𝗅𝗅 𝗂𝗆 𝗁𝗈𝗉𝖾 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝗀𝗈𝗈𝖽 𝖺𝗌 𝗐𝖾𝗅𝗅! 𝖨'𝗅𝗅 𝖺𝖽𝗆𝗂𝗍 𝖨'𝗆 𝖺𝗅𝗌𝗈 𝗏𝖾𝗋𝗒 𝖽𝗈𝗐𝗇 𝖻𝖺𝖽 𝖿𝗈𝗋 𝗃𝖾𝗈𝗇𝗀𝗁𝖺𝗇, 𝖨 𝗅𝗈𝗏𝖾 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝗂𝖽𝖾𝖺 𝗌𝗈 𝗆𝗎𝖼𝗁 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖨'𝗅𝗅 𝖻𝖾 𝗌𝗎𝗋𝖾 𝗍𝗈 𝖼𝗁𝖾𝖼𝗄 𝗈𝗎𝗍 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝖼𝗈𝗇𝖼𝖾𝗋𝗍 𝗐𝗁𝖾𝗇 𝖨 𝗁𝖺𝗏𝖾 𝗍𝗂𝗆𝖾!!

𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 ── 𝗒𝗈𝗈𝗇 𝗃𝖾𝗈𝗇𝗀𝗁𝖺𝗇

𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗋 𝗌𝗂𝗇𝖼𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗂𝗋 𝖿𝗂𝗋𝗌𝗍 𝗆𝖾𝖾𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀, 𝗃𝖾𝗈𝗇𝗀𝗁𝖺𝗇 𝗐𝖺𝗌 𝖼𝗈𝗆𝗉𝗅𝖾𝗍𝖾𝗅𝗒 𝖾𝗇𝗋𝖺𝗉𝗍𝗎𝗋𝖾𝖽 𝖻𝗒 𝗆!𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋, 𝖿𝗋𝗈𝗆 𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝗉𝖾𝗋𝗌𝗈𝗇𝖺𝗅𝗂𝗍𝗒 𝗍𝗈 𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝗅𝗈𝗈𝗄𝗌. 𝗃𝖾𝗈𝗇𝗀𝗁𝖺𝗇 𝗐𝖺𝗌 𝖼𝗈𝗆𝗉𝗅𝖾𝗍𝖾𝗅𝗒 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗎𝗍𝗍𝖾𝗋𝗅𝗒 𝗂𝗇 𝗅𝗈𝗏𝖾 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴

○▹ 𝗂𝖽𝗈𝗅 𝗃𝖾𝗈𝗇𝗀𝗁𝖺𝗇 𝗑 𝖺𝖽𝖽𝖾𝖽 𝗆𝖾𝗆𝖻𝖾𝗋 𝗆!𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋 (𝖿𝗍. 𝗋𝖾𝗌𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝗌𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗇𝗍𝖾𝖾𝗇) 𝘄𝗰. 𝟧𝟢𝟩 𝘄. 𝗌𝗅𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍𝗅𝗒 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗇𝗀𝖾𝗋 𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋 (𝟣𝟫𝟫𝟪 𝗅𝗂𝗇𝖾𝗋), 𝗃𝖾𝗈𝗇𝗀𝗁𝖺𝗇 𝖻𝖾𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖽𝗈𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗌𝗆𝗂𝗍𝗍𝖾𝗇, 𝗀𝖺𝗒

Since the very beginning, Jeonghan had been struck by the beauty of the m!n. Despite the three-year age gap and the fact that m!n was male, Jeonghan couldn't help but feel captivated by his presence. To Jeonghan, m!n was one of the most mesmerizing individuals he had ever come across.

In 2013, Jeonghan joined Pledis at the young age of 17. Over the years, he had experienced fleeting crushes and even been in previous relationships. However, everything changed when m!n entered the picture in early 2014. Jeonghan realized that his feelings for m!n were much deeper than a simple crush. He found himself completely captivated by m!n, whether it was his radiant personality or his talents as an idol. It was as if m!n had ensnared Jeonghan's heart like a net, refusing to let go. Jeonghan didn't mind at all - he was happily captivated by this irresistible pull.

Later in their careers, after years of friendship and working together, Jeonghan finally mustered the courage to confess his feelings to m!n in early 2020. This confession coincided with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, adding an extra layer of uncertainty. Fortunately, m!n reciprocated his feelings, solidifying a new chapter in their relationship amidst the challenging circumstances. Their relationship only seemed to blossom to conscious touching to Jeonghan’ s bold displays of affection on and off camera, and although the couple never explicitly told fans their had their inklings especially when October 2023 rolled round along with their ‘NANA Tour’.

With the freedom of being a relationship within a group, Jeonghan didn’t have to worry about the headlines of his ‘out of character’ behaviour: especially with the fact he participated in skin ship with a lot of the younger members, however what did catch both fans and non fans attention was his actions towards the third youngest member. Sticking to him like glue, never letting m!n move to far away from him even if it was a few metres.

Jeonghan knew that his transformed self would inevitably attract a great deal of notice, but he had reached a point where he was unconcerned. He had finally found happiness, even though the relationship had to be kept under wraps. He was deeply in love, and for him, that was the most important thing.

Following the tour, fans were still pondering the topic of ‘Jeonghan & m!n’ compilation videos, along with ‘evidence’ proving their relationship. With clips spanning from that disastrous green room.             

Jeonghan's adoring gaze toward m!n was as if he believed m!n hung the moon, while m!n's look at Jeonghan conveyed a sense of finding his soulmate. This mutual admiration and connection between the two filled the fans' hearts with joy and contentment, two of the members finding solace in each other even if that means Jeonghan lets the younger of the two get away with anything causing even more fights in GOSE episodes, both the fans and the other members could live with little meaningless disagreements if it meant something much more meaningful would grow and flourish.

[fenxshiral]

Some quick notes of import

just gonna put this out there, as a reminder, since Dragon Age is getting a surge in popularity due to veilguard: 1. My language project is a fan conlang. I did not "figure out" the laguage. I merely made a fanmade conlang because bioware confirmed that their version of the language is a cipher and not an actual language.

2. The above fact about it being a cipher was confirmed back in 2014 by Gaider himself (see this post ). Since Gaider is no longer at bioware and it has been some time since that post was made, it is entirely possible that Elvhen may no longer be a cipher (I doubt it though).

3. I am not an authority on Elvhen or Elvhen culture, please don't treat me as such. My posts are here as a resource, not to be used as doctrine. Use them however you wish, but please don't treat me as if my conlang is the only valuable resource on the subject. Since I started this project many people all over the internet have done their own fan things with the language, some of which are wildly different than mine.

4. No I am no longer working on the project and I do not currently have any plans to pick up work on it again. I lost most of my notes and work on it when my computer died, so if I did change my mind it would take quite a while to build up all my work again. So I won't say never, but it's unlikely that I will ever do more work on it.

5. No I won't help you create your character's name. Please use the resources on my page or in my AO3 docs. "But are there any rules to creating Elvhen names?" nope. Not as far as I've seen. Go wild. Be creative.

6. You can find said AO3 here.

7. "Can I use your resources in x?" Yes. Please do. It's why they're there. I appreciate it if you credit me if you use *only* my resources, but it's not required.

[gloomy-prince]

SUPER OLD RAINBOW! ART THREAD!!! Open only if you are brave enough to face teen me's cringe art...

(mostly joking but fr white Mimi and skinny Boo jumpscare below)

Very first digital piece of Boo and Mimi circa 2011!! I was 14 when I drew this. Usually I'm able to look back fondly at super old art of mine but this one does make me cringe a liiiiittle bit. Mimi girl what are you wearing, why are you white. Boo also had pink eyes in the beginning, which she would continue to have for several years to come (even in the current iteration of RAINBOW! they were pink at first, I later recolored those pages) but it was only later that it was due to the color scheme of the comic and not because they were literally pink. I'm pretty sure they were meant to be contacts, because their hair is and always have been dyed rather than anime-esque natural colorful hair, so that was some crazy dedication from Boo back in the day.

More 2011 art showing off Mimi's goth/scene-ish style and green eyes. They were initially meant to have pastel and neon fashion senses, respectively. The story was already named at this point, only a few days or maybe weeks into its inception, which is impressive considering it has taken us literal years to name other stories (I'm looking at you, Phantom Pains)

this one is from super early 2012! Interesting to think that this was less than 9 months later since it feels completely different to me. The first version of the comic had started at this point, and the pink and green color scheme was just starting to develop. This lineup features some characters that would later be cut. Lucian and Lily were friends of Boo, and Cecilia was Mimi's ex girlfriend. Notably Clarice is not on this lineup, and frankly I'm not sure why.

A picture I drew to commemorate 50 fans on RAINBOW!'s smackjeeves page, mid 2012. Boo's outfit resembled a recolored version of her 2011 outfit, but I have no idea what Mimi is wearing. What. are. you. wearing.

Chibi-ish drawings of Boo and Mimi cosplaying various characters, from early 2013. Homura Mimi is very funny to me, I really don't know why I didn't draw her as Kyoko. I assume I was trying to keep them as paired characters, but I didn't do that with the Sailor Moon or Disney ones, so I who knows why I did it with PMMM. Mimi's hairstyle changes to a shaved cut somewhere around this time, but it is much more dramatic than her current undercut, and her hair is still pretty long. Boo is wearing a closet cosplay of Fluttershy that I myself wore once. These also resemble the chibi-ish drawings on the chapter intermission pages of RAINBOW! Vol 1.

A character study I did in late 2013, which would be shortly after I made a major style shift into the art style that would eventually develop into the one I currently have. At this point, Boo was meant to be fatter than Mimi, but the execution wasn't really there at all. There is also a doodle at the bottom of me and Sunny at the time (I am the one with long hair), expressing thanks for 300 fans on smackjeeves. Considering it had 50 in mid 2012, the readership was pretty slow growing back then.

outfit exploration for Mimi, circa 2014. At this point I started to expand the color scheme a little bit more so that not every character would be paper-white, though she is still very pale even though she is no longer meant to be white anymore. None of these outfits really resemble her current style, and I don't particularly like any of them either. It took me a very long time to settle on a fashion sense for her.

an Adventure Time-eqsue drawing of Mimi and Boo that I actually drew less than two weeks after the previous image despite the difference in things such as the way the hair was drawn. I had to include this one because it blew up overnight, which was a huge deal for highschool me, I remember checking my phone at school a lot because it was just getting hundreds or even thousands of notes over the span of the day. I think it has something like 16,000 notes. Still the post with the highest number of notes I have by far, so I guess I peaked in high school, whomp whomp

More fashion exploration, this time of Mimi and Boo, from early 2015. The color scheme is starting to approach what it currently is, but much more dull since I used to be afraid of bright colors. Mimi's fashion sense is starting to get closer to what it currently is, but the pastel goth influence that was popular in early-mid 2010s tumblr is apparent. In chapter 1, Boo wears an outfit that is extremely similar to the one with the bear shirt, except it's a rabbit instead. The dress that Mimi gives to Boo is also almost identical to the depiction of it here. This drawing implies that Mimi was originally going to be present in the film noir scene where Boo finds her mom, which is interesting...

Another cast lineup! This one is from late 2015-early 2016. Mimi is wearing an outfit pretty similar to what she wears in chapter 1 but with the colors altered. The execution of Boo's body type is starting to improve but she's still kind of pear-shaped. Mimi is also a little more square, and her hair finally looks like the style she has now. Clarice gets to be in the lineup this time and she is SUPER tall. I think she is still taller than Milo. And Mimi is around 5'7"-5'8", so Clarice must be around 6 foot by that logic.

The original version of chibi-ish Boo riding a bike in her Kiki outfit, from 2016. I think it was meant to be a banner of some kind, possibly for tapas or tumblr. A newer version of this drawing features as a chapter intermission drawing in the physical book.

The original cover for RAINBOW! from 2017. The color scheme is finally starting to get a little brighter! This is actually a redraw of an older drawing from 2014, I want to draw it again someday. Also, I was going by Rain at the time.

A drawing I did in late 2017 for a class in which we were meant to try digital painting and I went for a very simple approach. I like that Mimi's legs are a little noodle-y. This is also the first drawing where Mimi's eyes are no longer green, but dark pink instead. By the language of RAINBOW!'s color scheme, that means they are brown. Boo's eyes are still pink, however.

Another drawing for a class, this time from 2018. I can't remember the specifics of the assignment, but I used the opportunity to draw the playground and Max, the dog, for the first time. I like the way the trees look in this. That little snip of hair by Mimi's ear also made a reappearance here for some reason.

The original version of the drawing that would become the cover of RAINBOW! Vol 1, from mid 2019! I believe I drew it to be a banner on Tapas, but I used it for tumblr as well.

And lastly, Boo and Mimi outfit sheets from 2019-2020. I messed with them for a while, hence the timeframe. Boo's eyes are finally green, which I changed since I liked the idea of Mimi having green hair and pink eyes, and Boo having pink hair and green eyes, as if they are reflected a bit in each other. Outside of RAINBOW!'s color scheme, Boo's eyes are actually blue though. It took about a decade, but I finally settled on a fashion sense for Mimi.

BONUS ART!!! 💖💖✨✨ I thought these would be better grouped together rather than chronologically with the rest.

RAINBOW!'s banners from its era on smackjeeves! Smackjeeves didn't have square/circular icons but rather these thin long banners which could also be animated. I thought that was so fun, so I always animated them at least a little, even though one doesn't seem to work. It was customary to write girls love/boys love on the banner of mlm/wlw romance stories then, so almost all of them say that. I still see that trend on some comics on webtoon and tapas nowadays. They are from 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2017. I don't believe the 2017 one was ever used.

And RAINBOW!'s icon throughout the years! I always refused to change it, only update it, because I thought it was really cute. They are from (approximately) 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2021.

And finally, art from 2021 of Mimi with her cousin August, who will be the protagonist of our next comic, Phantom Pains. Weird to think that we'll be on that comic in foreseeable future, since it is also over 10 years old now. Bit of a passing the torch type drawing to end on. 💕 If you made it all the way here, thanks for reading! Hopefully it was fun and didn't hurt your eyes.

[keepthedelta]

what would you consider Rosberg's best race? (wanna hear people wax poetic about their special interest)

it's going to be a list because i am weird about nico

singapore 2016. an absolutely dominate weekend for him, fastest in every single session, outqualified lewis by 7 tenths (and danny ric by 6) setting what was (at the time) a track record. spent the entire race managing brake and engine issues, got screwed over by merc strategy when they were trying to get lewis back onto the podium after he got overtaken by kimi, had to make his tyres last an extra 20 laps with danny ric chasing him down 2-4 seconds a lap faster than him. won the race and then posted a slutty shirtless photo of him being cooled down by a fan in what could be considered the ancestor of the ice bath videos that teams post now.

canada 2014. a real contender for my favourite ever nico race even though he didn't win. both merc cars had mgu-h failure about 20-30 laps in thereby losing half of their power. nico switched brake bias to the front brakes so that less strain would be put on the rear brakes because on the lack of power and potential overheating. about five laps later lewis dnfs with rear brake failure. nico should have been overtaken by just about everybody, but instead he spends the next 30 laps using all of his power and speed in one specific sector (the one with the drs detection point) so that checo (now in second) is too far behind to get drs, and then, even though nico's car is barely alive for the rest of the lap, he can never overtake him. it literally took checo's car breaking down and allowing danny ric (now driving the best car in the field) for nico to lose the win. the mechanical masterclass of modern f1 (and yes it might not have worked at another track or i f someone other than checo had been in second, but i firmly believe that the lowest nico could have ever come given the circumstances was third) and it is not appreciated enough.

china 2012. i rewatched this recently and literally no one believed that nico was going to win until about five laps before the end. he was driving one of the world's shittiest mercs (i promise every single merc pre-2013 was worse than any car since then), got pole by half a second, got a perfect start, flawless tyre management, cruised to victory while everyone else was fighting for their lives behind him (the battle for second was absolutely insane, and nico was just minding his own business about 15 seconds ahead of them all).

singapore 2008. crashgate has entered the building. back then cars refuelled during the race and so another factor in the strategies was fuel load. nico and a number of others were running low initial fuel loads, so they would have to stop relatively early. except, just before they were going to stop, nelson piquet jr binned it into the wall (on purpose) and the stewards closed the pitlane for safety reasons. however, nico and the others on similar strategies needed to refuel so they had to enter the pitlane anyway which earned them a stop and go penalty which had to be served within three laps. nico did those laps as fast as he possibly could, meaning that after he served his penalty he only lost a handful of places (i think 3). robert kubica who also took a stop and go penalty on the exact same lap for the exact same reason (and was in a better car) lost far more places and i don't think he even finished in the points. nico spent the rest of the race rising up the field and finished second only to fernando (who got there by cheating) with lewis in a distant third (tbf i don't think he needed to try that hard by the end as he got a massive points gain over felipe massa his championship competition due to the ferrari pitlane incident).

malaysia 2016. casuals will tell you that this is the race where lewis lost the championship because of his dnf (and if you're a lh hater i recommend watching it because the level of conspiracy that emerges from lewis and sky sports is genuinely quite funny) but i think that's very misleading. in the very first turn seb crashed into nico, spinning him around and leaving him in dead last by the end of the first lap. nico fought through the field, pulled off a rallycross overtake on kimi, got a penalty for it, and was already sitting in fourth when lewis's engine blew up. he then pulled a ten second gap over kimi so that he kept his podium place, got danny ric to make max do a shoey, nearly threw up when he did one himself, told a room full of reporters that he didn't want danny ric to win another race (that year) and filmed one of the funniest ever post-race vlogs where he fidgeted with the neckline of his t-shirt while describing how seb had apologised to him for the crash and that was nice but it didn't get him any points back. truly iconic.

there is definitely a running theme in these choices i think. mostly that i think nico was at his best when he was fighting against the potential capabilities of the car/circuit/circumstances rather than other drivers 🤷🏿‍♀️

[virtual-winter]

It's been 10 years since I first watched Frozen!🌻❄️⛏️☃️🦌

(Swedish DVD-copy of Frozen)

November 20th, 2014. It seems like forever ago. I remember watching this movie through my desktop ASUS PC (remember when computers used to have actual DVD-drives?) on a by today's standards pretty crappy Philips monitor. It didn't matter. The movie was like nothing else I had seen before. Even though I don't even have a sibling and can't fully relate to the conflict, Anna and Elsa's adventure is IMO one of the best stories ever told💕

I was 22 back then. A young man and totally in love with this Disney movie. Now I'm 32 and it continues to be among my favourite movies of all time. Even now, ten years later, I still live and breathe Frozen every day! It is a part of who I became and it is the way I wish to remain 😄

I have become a devoted fan of all things Frozen and I'm trying my best to be a part-time Frozen-analyst, mapmaker, worldbuilder and collector. I'm also known for using too many emotes and exclamation marks!

Below, I have tried to summarise some important and meaningful keepsakes and events from the past ten years. I hope you enjoy scrolling!✨✨✨

I believe this was the first ever Frozen-related pic that I saved (it's the oldest in my album) (April 2015)

I was equally in love with the OUAT Frozen arc and no one can tell me Georgina and Elizabeth were anything but perfect for their roles (April 2015)

🥹🥹🥹

(March 2015)

In just a couple of years we saw the franchise grow (did anyone else prefer the original logo for the musical?) (February 2016)

The official announcement we'd all been waiting for (April 2017)

The architect in me loved the castle! (2017)

I mean, who could ever forget this moment? (December 2018)

AJHFSJASJFKAGKJFGSKFDSGSJF!?!?!?!?!?!? (February 2019)

What are those????? (February 2019)

My first piece of "big" Frozen merch (April 2019)

I made a custom calendar just to count down the remaining days to Frozen II (I also avoided spoilers for the last 6 1/2 months) (December 2019)

🥹🥰😭

(December 2019)

Perfectly balanced, as it should be (February 2020)

Me collecting stuff! (February 2020)

Me going crazy saving as much Frozen content as possible 😅 (August 2020)

I joined r/Frozen (June 2021)

I started my deep-dive into Arendelle's geography in 2021 which ultimately lead to "An odyssey through Frozen geography", the first of many fandom projects! (July 2021)

Together with a group of equally dedicated Frozen nerds fans, I helped building the @arendelle-archives server and later tumblr-blog! (2021)

Collecting more things! (October 2021)

A Frozen comic writer responded to my reddit post?😲(December 2021)

I started developing ideas for a Frozen fanfic (2022)

Frozen III-announcement! Finally! (February 2023)

My Norway-trip of 2023. Without a doubt one of the most beautiful destinations on Earth and a must-go for anyone who wants to visit the real Arendelle!!! (July 2023)

I continue to delve into more map-related stuff in Wonderdraft (May 2024)

Together with the rest of the wonderful folks over at @frozen10fanzine, I helped create and design a fanzine summarising the memories of Frozen fans from the past decade! (July 2024)

A slice of my current Frozen collection! Some figures were very kindly donated to me by @yumeka-sxf 🙌 (July 2024)

And lastly, from today: the first snow of the season❄️🩵

If you made it this far, thank you for scrolling😅

Finally, a little shout-out to friends and acquaintances I've made through the likes of reddit, discord and tumblr in the past few years:

@bigfrozenfan @yumeka-sxf @greatqueenanna @queenritaofarendelle @saiten-gefroren @snowflaketale12 @cloudberriesforaqueen @theartoffrozen @secretsofthestorymakers

A big thank you also to the whole @arendelle-archives and @frozen10fanzine - teams! Y'all continue to inspire me!