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jokertrap-ran · 3 years

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(光与夜之恋 Light and Night) Event! 沐野拾趣: Charlie’s BDAY 2021 Event! Pickings in the Wilderness Translation (Chapter 4)

“If you could use more force this time, dear fiancée.”

*Light and Night Master-list | Charlie’s Personal Master-list *Spoiler free: Translations will remain under cut *Image used with permission from 蓝咕咕 ☆ *Join my Light & Night Discord (＾▽＾)~ ♪ *Event story tag will be #For Light and Memories

Following the recommended route as written in the leaflet, we walked out of the market and could already see the faint silhouette of the village in the distance.

Walking closer, we could now see it. There were a pair of small swings hanging side-by-side on the branches of the old tree, swaying gently in the wind amidst the clearing.

MC: So this is the “Century-Old Tree”!

MC: We’ve been walking around for so long. Now, we’ve finally found a great spot to take a little afternoon break!

I happily pointed to the swing, running up in front of Charlie.

MC: Want to go for a round on the swing, Charlie?

Charlie gave an enthusiastic nod. However, the corner of his mouth suddenly twitched downwards in disappointment.

Following his line of sight, I saw two young boys, about the age of three or four, who’d gone right up, hopping onto the swings before us.

Charlie: ……

MC: How about we wait for them? They shouldn’t take too long…

The words had only just left my mouth when the kids from the Farmhouse Tour Group all rushed over.

The small heads swarmed before the swings, fighting over who gets to go on it first and comparing with each other on who could swing the highest. Our turn at the swings suddenly seems much further away than we’d thought…

MC: Wanna play? We have plenty of time to spare!

Charlie: I…

???: What do you mean you want to play on the swing? You're already so old!

I froze in embarrassment, only to realize that it was just a mother speaking to her daughter as they passed by.

A Mother: Look, only three-year-olds play on the swing. Don't you feel embarrassed fighting over the swing with them?

A Mother: Be good. Hurry and go to the tearoom with mommy.

The expression on Charlie's face soured at the mother's words.

By the time the mother pulled her daughter away, Charlie had already been rooted to his spot, seemingly stunned beyond measure. It was almost as if he'd been dealt a big blow to his ego that he'd never experienced before in his entire life.

Charlie: Let's go. It's a kiddie thing. I'm not interested.

Charlie: I’m such a perfect and strong adult. Swings and I don’t gel.

MC: No can’t do!

I crossed my arms together in front of my chest in an “X-Formation”, expressing my express refusal to let things stand.

MC: Don’t let age get the better of you!

MC: You’ll only know the fun of a swing, or the lack of, when you go up and give it a try! It has nothing to do with your age!

He helplessly shook his head again, as if on instinct.

Charlie: I'm not letting age get the better of me. It's the opposite, actually. This is the conclusion I came to after looking at it from a scientific point of view.

Charlie: Swings were made to make up for the shortcomings of people’s lack of power and speed, and also to satisfy the dreams that people have about reaching the skies.

Charlie: Alas, I am not lacking in anything. Hence, there is no need to make up for anything. Therefore, swings are truly something unsuited for one such as I…

MC: Never thought that you'd manage to answer that smoothly.

Charlie: Because perfection is a trait of mine.

Charlie remained bored for a good long time after that as I accompanied him, squatting beneath a tree, until the sound of frolicking children gradually faded away into nothingness.

MC: Do you want to have a go at it now?

Charlie: No.

MC: The kids down there have all left!

MC: Don't worry, I'm going to be there so there's nothing for you to be ashamed about.

Charlie: Really?

He turned back, curiously shooting a glance in the direction of the swings.

The two empty swings swung gently in the wind as if the exuberant laughter from before still hung in the air.

Charlie: If you insist.

❖☆———————————★❖

Charlie sat down next to me on the swing beside me. I didn't wait for him, immediately kicking off from the ground and propelling myself up high in the air.

Without the ground to ground me, I felt like I was a free bird. The gentle freeze whistled past my ears, making me feel exceptionally good.

I looked down to the other swing at the side when I reached the peak height… only to see an aggrieved figure scuffing at the ground in utter boredom.

MC: Why aren't you swinging?

He craned his neck up to look at me, his eyes, hidden under the shadows of the overhanging tree, filled with dejection.

Charlie: My limbs are too long, it's impossible to lift myself off the ground.

I lowered my head to get a closer look, only to find that with no other place to put them, his legs were awkwardly folded beneath the swing.

An idea popped into my head. I secretly crept up behind him… Without any warning, I hurriedly grabbed onto the ropes of the swing and dragged him, swing and all, backwards.

Charlie: Ahh— What are you doing!?

MC: Careful. Hold on tight!

Once the swing reached a certain height, I vehemently pushed forwards, sending him swinging up into the sky.

A low grunt of surprise followed him as he flew up into the air.

Charlie: *sharp inhale*...

The swing swung by me once more, and I could hear a sharp intake of breath.

MC: Man, don't tell me he hasn't even played on a swing before…

Looking at the figure currently suspended in the air, I couldn't help but start wondering just what sort of childhood this oddly mysterious man had.

I came before him as the swing gradually came to a stop.

MC: Did that give you a scare?

I thought that I'd see him in utter disarray, but he was all smiles, his brows raised in sheer delight. He even raided a hand to comb back his windswept hair.

Charlie: Again.

Unfazed, he calmly adjusted his position on the swing, giving me a look that told me to get behind him.

Charlie: If you could use more force this time, dear fiancée.

MC: Did he suddenly find the joy of swinging on a swing?

Partially fuelled with curiosity, I pulled the swing back once more before launching him into the air with a much harder push.

This time, a fairly cheery voice sounded from above.

Just as the swing was approaching its peak height, Charlie suddenly extended his arms out towards the sky, almost as if he wanted to embrace it as he relished in the moment.

Charlie: Ahh… Now, this is what true rural life is like!

MC: ……

It was a long while before the swing came to a standstill once more. Charlie turned towards me, an expectant look written all over his face.

MC: Okay, one more.

Charlie: My dear fiancée, there's no one else in this world who knows me this well, but you.

MC: I don't think anyone will mistake such a straightforward "hint", though…

As his silhouette was highlighted against the bright and clear skies, I couldn’t help but picture a couple of wondrous, yet seemingly unrelated sights...

Like a cub, showing its belly to a stranger, a Rosella fruit being mistaken for a flower bud, and the moist, misty, eyes of Sea Turtles as they come ashore on a moonlit night…

MC: I don't think he's that hard to understand…

Granted, only if he was willing to be understood.

❖☆————— ⊹ For Light & Memories⊹ —————★❖

Previous Part: (Chapter 3) | Next Part: (Chapter 5)

#光与夜之恋 #Light and Night #Otome #Translations #Tencent #查理苏 #Charlie #For Light and Memories #沐野拾趣 #Pickings in the Wilderness #Charlie BDAY 2021

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sor-vette · 3 years

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one, strike!! (index/description)

☜ profiles II

two, down!! ☞

Naturally what was estimated into an hour quickly grew into three hours and naturally, those three hours involved a decent amount of manhandling and lots of loose fists. All in all, you limped your way into the annual celebration late and with a busted lip and a nicely settling lilac shade on the cusp of the jaw. The celebration was nearing the end. There were no speakers on the stage or even in the front row. The crowd had mingled already long before.

Jin is actually the first who you notice in the crowd. Uncharacteristically he’s sitting alone by one of the side tables of the room. In front of him, there’s a small gathering of empty champagne glasses, even as you’re looking he’s playing with the thin stem of the glass, face completely blank. You sidestep into a larger group of people to avoid any eye contact. Namjoon is of course the next.

He’s standing listening to someone unfamiliar to you speak. He nods along with the conversation but you can see his jaw clenched in a death grip. He’ll need a brace soon, you think dryly. The rhythmical bops on the sides of his cheeks were amusing, yes, but not when directed at you. At the moment where your legs hesitate by the banquet table, there rings a shutter sound of a camera. You try to peek as subtly as possible and upon seeing a mop of dark curls sticking above the lens, you dip towards Namjoon. Anything but that. Anything. Yeah, you’d rather deal with angry Namjoon than any jabs of resentment with V. Namjoon, in fact, does notice you and his veins, in fact, do actually start showing. He’s one split hair away from foaming at the mouth. And yet, and yet-

“Ah, Mr. Reyes and Mr. Kuznetsov, I’d like to meet R.D. It’s the woman I’ve talked to you about earlier in the evening,” earlier when you were supposed to show your ass up. His voice is completely neutral as if you’d showing up late, tousled, and looking like a digested raccoon was part of the plan.

“Sorry for meeting you this late, there was a situation that needed my attention,” even if they’re not placated by the excuse, the polite hmm’s are still given.

“Mr. Kuznetsov had heard how you declined positions in all of the other departments and he was wondering why.” And you once had thought that Jin and Jimin were award-worthy actors... Namjoon doesn’t give off anything, not a single clue. He paraphrases the belated questions so casually as if he didn’t know. As if he didn’t know that the answer was him all along. Sure, there were other… reasons, other circumstances but no matter how the dice was turned, the primary descent into your suicidal career choice was pushed by Namjoon himself.

“I like the freedom of the cleaner department.”

“Freedom?” Mr. Kuznetsov echoes and you politely wait for his interpreter thinking it’d be rude to intrude on his job.

“Freedom?”

“Yes. There are certain characteristics to other departments that require um… putting on airs? Being a cleaner means I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not and I’m largely responsible for my own choices.” Namjoon snorts. It is an ugly, mocking sound.

“Furthermore,” you continue, glaring at him “our department is very friendly and honest. We say what we want and don’t rope people in situations that are only beneficial to us.” Namjoon’s jaw makes an audible tick. For a split second, it seems he has simply managed to dislocate it entirely.

“I thought they were also supposed to be punctual.” He snarks through what was supposed to look like an amicable smile. A miserable fail on his part.

“Yes, they are. It’s just not me. Not a postcard material, you see.” If Mr. Reyes and Mr. Kuznetcov pick up on the rapidly increasing animosity, they at least have the working social sense not to remark on it. Both of them thank you for your answers and then stay a little longer to talk to Namjoon again. At that point, you start to zone out of reality and have something alike Ducktales intro loudly playing in your mind.

When they bid their goodbyes almost twenty minutes later, the re-purposed great conference hall is nearly empty. Jin had disappeared without you seeing. And so has V, thank God. Briefly, you try to find someone else familiar but there is none. Finally, the pair leaves, and Namjoon is left openly fuming. He takes those purposeful, long strides and you almost double in two, growling:

“Don’t you even-!” He does not listen and catches your elbow in a death grip, dragging you to the first exit door into those gray nondescript hallways you loathe. You shove him away unceremoniously.

“Do you enjoy creating a mess? Or are you simply incapable of keeping a promise?” His voice is low, monotone, kicking your self-esteem right underneath Earth’s crust. It was hard - to argue with Namjoon. Just…not impossible. Overall it helped to think of it as the world’s snidest debate match.

“I distinctly remember not promising anything due to this very reason.”

“Your reason being?”

“My direct duties as a custodian.” Namjoon actually snarls.

“To the boy?”

“His name is Erik,” you lightly correct and for some reason, he gives a mirthless laugh. As if that’s faintly amusing.

“You’ve never treated your duties seriously.”

“Actually, I have. You just don’t like it if I do something on my own.” It’s a deja vu at this point. You’ve had this conversation, point by point, five years ago.

A beat of silence passes.

Then another one.

“You’re happy now?” Namjoon asks. You suspect largely to make you feel guilty over something not defined.

“Of course. We just had a perfectly pleasant conversation.” You say matter-of-factly. Yes, it is hard to argue with Namjoon but once you learn that his biggest weakness is someone brushing off all of his righteous fury aside and not let it underneath the skin... Well, it is a couple of hundred steps towards mastery on this very vague debate team.

“Clean yourself up.” He bites his last and stomps away. You wait until he disappears up the exit stairs and let out a long sigh, letting your spine relax.

You turn around all too ready to go home and drown inside your mattress but freeze upon seeing Jimin. He stands quite far away, by appearance having just exited the conference hall. There are faint creases in his face and mute worry reflecting in the eyes. No doubt, he heard at least half the conversation. You both stand awkwardly in the silence of the hallway, each rooted in their own spot. He gives a small smile, an attempt at comfort. So very like Jimin. You lightly shrug as if to say - “it is what it is”. To not look him into the eyes, you turn your head to the top of his head. It is pink now. Looks nice. You point to the top of your own head and give a thumbs up, hoping he’d get what you’re trying to gesture. He does. Jimin gives another smile, a touch shyer as he lowers his eyes in silent gratitude at the compliment but the worry doesn’t decrease.

The conversation if it could be called that ends there and after another heavy sigh, he walks back into the hall.

“Life is like a hurricane, here in, Duckberg,” you bop quietly walking down the empty hallway.

***

Namjoon sags into the chair of his office in total darkness as he didn’t bother to turn on the lights. The only faint illumination is provided by the neon lights of the city below. The walk of twenty-five floors has taken all the wind out of him, along with it the anger. Thirty minutes ago he was mumbling it like a mantra in his head. He’d wrangle your neck if you dared to show your face and now he finds the very idea irrational. Jin had said his temper has gotten worse over the course of six years. The unrelenting stress taking a toll, he said. Maybe, maybe it was the stress. But Namjoon begrudgingly had to admit it was you who hit the nail of the problem. He took an issue wherever you or really anyone in his care did things on their own. He was the leader, the face of everything they try to do here. To save the world, that’s what the tag line said. But years after years of trying to save the world and years after years worth of sacrifices piling up, he’d rather start not to save the world but just save someone.

And then you came here, nearly six years ago, forlorn and bent on killing yourself and he lets you into this hellhole. Let's you stay so you could find meaning in the vague promises of being an underground hero, a vigilante. And then when it becomes peaceful when life seems to be good, you take a dive. A dive that just keeps ongoing. And it’s not that Namjoon doesn’t trust you. You’ve matured in heaps and bounds and reached a notable level of professionalism within the cleaner department. But the world is another thing. A shelter sometimes can be confining but it is ultimately safe. Isn’t safety better than running around jumping from one risky decision to another for the sake of “living adventurous life”?

Namjoon lets his head drop into the palms of his hands. Lately, this is all he’s been doing. Getting angry and then feeling like a complete villain. A pulse begins to form behind his eyes. The telltale sign of an incoming migraine.

God, he just wants to sleep.

***

“Get out,” you murmur half-heartedly, closing the doors to your small apartment. Pop music blasts inside the apartment with Erik lazily enjoying cherry candy sticks on the top of your bed.

“Oh, you’re home.”

“And you’re here. See how upset that makes me?” Erik stared at your stilled expression.

“Devastating,” he murmurs, “did your get your ass kicked? For being late?”

“Well, as long as never show my face there ever again and die on this very spot, no, I’ve handled it quite well.” He points at you with the red object, voice insinuating a captivating intrigue -

“I’m sorry for tonight but I promise tomorrow you’ll have reparations.”

- when it was just plain annoying.

“Instead of thousand sorry’s, I’d like to hear at least once you ask for my permission.”

“You’d say no.”

“I like saying no. It lowers your enthusiasm.”

Erik grumbles something indecipherable. A person busts in through the doors along with the hearty clanging of two bottles smacking against each other.

“What is he doing here?” Irina throws a disapproving look towards the bed.

“No idea.”

“Get out.”

“No, but -”

“Get lost,” you echo Irina.

“Okey-dokey.” And with obnoxious curtsy accompanied with “ladies!” Erik is gone without another whine. You sigh heavily, absent-mindedly poking at the small tower of empty coffee mugs sitting in the sink. There has been no time during the week. You’ve been far too busy spending your free time in alteration between watching old cartoons and staring at a wall.

Irina places her coat and shoes next to her, frowning at the door.

“Why do you even like this kid?” You give a simple shrug. Maybe deep down you know the answer, maybe you don’t but largely you don’t think it matters. Erik was your trainee and that was the end of that. Well, that was how much you were willing to share with the outer world.

“He thinks differently.”

“Isn’t it just the fact that he wears red eyeshadow?” You still for a moment, looking at the paper bags Irina places on your kitchen table.

“Omelas?”

“Yeah.” She puts down the two faded tourist mugs from inside the small kitchen cupboard. I love Vienna and Someone in Paris misses you respectively. You look at the mugs almost apprehensively as if their appearance was somehow offensive but say nothing. They were just mugs after all. Nothing more.

Irina pours the champagne and pops open the white takeout boxes, pushing one in your direction.

“Snagged this from the anniversary party.” She proudly proclaimed, “they had really big banquet tables.”

“Yeah, I saw.” You take a sip of the champagne wincing at the taste. The label of 2004 Philipponnat Clos des Goisses Brut promised its tasters lively energy and tastes of lemon peel, pear, hazelnuts, and mint. What was on your tongue tasted like pure acid. No better than the cheapest energy drink found in the shadiest small stores peppered across the town.

“What are you thinking?”

“The name is obnoxiously long.” Irina huffs while dutifully stuffing her mouth full of chicken.

“No, I meant -” she takes a breath, gulping down on the champagne. For a second you almost worry she’ll end up hacking herself to death at this rate of consumption.

“Did our CEO invite you?”

“Yes.”

“And something happened?”

“Yes.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No.” She falls silent. After a moment, she unexpectedly reaches across the table and pushes a bite of her rice into your mouth.

“Let’s never be sad over anyone, okay.” You push the rice on the one side of your cheek to push through a flirtatious -

“Only over you.”

Irina gives a wry smile.

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drawlfoy · 5 years

Text

The Wonders of Ohio P.3

masterlist request guidelines

part 1 part 2

pairing: draco x muggle!reader

request: no, this was my idea from forever ago

summary: american high school student y/n’s senior year is interrupted when a british exchange student comes to live with her.

warnings: cursing

a/n: i’m being so unproductive since my ankle is hurting ughggghghghggh. also: if you like this muggle high school au please please check out @silversslytherin and @fallatyourfeet and @jhspuff as they all have fics that contain some element of this fic! i pulled a little inspiration from them so give them some love!! also second a/n because i worked on this about a month ag oand i’m back now: hey everyone! it’s been a while! it’s going to be a longgg time until i’m posting like i did over the summer, unfortunately, but i will do what i can to get some writing out in my free time.

word count: 2,350

tags: @eltanin-malfoy @accio-rogers @geeksareunique @fallatyourfeet @daintyyukhei @lunathepettuna @writerandee

music recs: cherry hearts rac remix by the shins, everyone but you by young veins

Y/N took a sip of tea, staring down her mother.

“No. There’s no way. He wants nothing to do with me.”

“Y/N, sweetie, you’ve got to,” Mrs. Y/L/N said. She had a plate of semi-buttered toast in front of her, but she was paying no mind to it. Instead, her coral nails were tapping the surface of the coffee table. “He’s just in a bad place. He’ll feel better once you two are more connected.”

“I don’t know if going out for a day on the town is going to fix this,” Y/N argued. “He’s got some major issues that he needs to resolve on his own. We’d probably be doing him more of a favor by taking him to a therap--”

“Good morning, Draco,” her mother cut in cheerily despite the death glare she sent Y/N. “How polite of you to wait by the doorway for us to finish our conversation.”

Y/N refused to turn around to face Draco. She knew her face was burning red, and besides, she wanted to pretend like he didn’t hear what he just said for as long as possible. Draco seemed compliant to this idea as he glowered by the toaster, waiting for his bread to be done.

“How did you sleep?” Y/N asked, noticing how dark his undereye circles were.

“I’m sure not very well,” her mother cut in. “Jet lag and--”

“Mom, I was asking him.”

Draco shifted his eyes onto Y/N’s face in an unrelenting stare. “Not very well.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. The tea didn’t help?”

He scowled and turned his back to her, suddenly waiting very attentatively for the toast to finish.

“I was just telling Y/N that she should take you with her into the city,” her mother said as she began to butter her toast again. “You’ll love Cincinnati. It’s unlike anywhere else.”

“No thank you,” said Draco simply. Y/N took note of how tensely he was gripping the counter, watching how the veins in his pale hands strain.

“Draco, I insist! It’ll do you some good to see the city before orientation tomorrow,” Mrs. Y/L/N pushed. “I’ll be out to see Y/D/N and pick him up at the airport for the majority of the day, and I don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone here after only one day. It’ll give me some peace of mind to know that my Y/N is with you. She doesn’t bite.”

Y/N snorted ungracefully at this, tearing off a piece of bread to dunk in her tea. He seemed unimpressed and ready to refuse again when the pop of the toaster rang out through the kitchen, making him jump nearly a foot in the air.

“Sorry, it’s a bit of a loud one,” Y/N offered. “You get used to it after a while.”

His cheeks were just turning a carnation pink when he spun back around to plate the bread and reach for a knife.

“You two can go whenever you’re ready, Draco,” Mrs. Y/L/N said, setting her bread down and getting up to clear her dishes. “And I won’t take no for an answer.”

With that, she turned and left the two with the kitchen to themselves. Y/N was still working on her toast and fruit and began to curse whatever it was inside that made her a slow eater as Draco settled down across from her, elegantly ripping open a tea bag and plopping it into a mug.

“So, uh...” Y/N scrambled to think of a conversation topic. This conquest was made harder by Draco’s intimidating tilt of the head. “How’s the British school system? I’ve always wanted to know. Britain seems like it has it together.”

“I went to a rather unorthodox school,” Draco answered, “so I don’t think my experience would be a good example of my country’s education.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Y/N busied herself by eating, attempting to do so without getting to many crumbs stuck on her lips. It had never been a problem before, but now that a very tall and broody boy was sitting across from her and looking like he might off her right then and there, it became much harder to eat normally. Draco ate almost robotically, only pausing to sip daintily from his tea.

Y/N finished before him, and she was up on her feet and clearing away her dishes in record time. “Draco, I’m going to go get my things ready,” she called as she began to make her way out of the door. Come find me when you’re ready to go.”

He sent her a tense, tight-lipped smile that was so forced it looked painful.

<^>

Y/N was in the middle of her physics homework when a light tapping on the door took her out of focus, prompting her to drop her pencil and shut her notebook. “Yes?”

“I’m ready.”

His voice, apart from the obvious muffle, was noticeably more reserved, like he was defeated or something. Y/N closed her eyes and readied herself before she opened the door to see a very well dressed boy waiting for her, clad in a very expensive looking silk suit. She couldn’t help but laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“You can’t wear that into the city!” she exclaimed. “You...you look like you’re about to walk the red carpet or something! Not the streets of Cincinnati on a Tuesday morning!”

He looked at her blankly, like he didn’t understand a word she had just said. “This is what I wear in England.”

“I mean, it suits you,” she said, leaning into the doorframe to look him up and down. It certainly did--black was a welcome contrast with his ivory features and gold-spun hair, and the expensive fabric seemed to match his elitist aura. His shoes were strangely unique, with a very exotic pointed toe.

He cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable with the intensity in which she was examining him.

“Uh, yeah, let’s get going then,” Y/N said, making her way down the stairs to the garage and suddenly feeling very self conscious about her fashion choices for the day.

<^>

The car ride downtown was exceedingly awkward, with only occasional breaks in the silence for light conversation. Y/N managed to pull out certain facts about Draco--he was an only child, he was born in June, and no, he hadn’t been able to contact his friends back home--but he was still frustratingly vague and secretive.

“So, what do you want to do?” Y/N asked, unlocking his door and getting out of her own side. “I have to get some last minute stationary, but other than that, the options are endless. I have a few special locations that I have in mind, if you want me to take you to them.”

He shrugged. Y/N suspected that he was beginning to regret his clothing choices as he saw that no one else in the city was dressed as formally as him.

“D’you like history?” she prompted, stepping a bit closer to him.

“Not particularly.” God, it was crazy how Draco could make anything he said sound regal and beautiful.

“Perfect. Follow me.” Y/N locked the car and grabbed him by the sleeve, ignoring his protests about the material or the tailoring that she was going to completely ruin. She pulled them through alleys and backstreets until the bustling city was almost completely behind them and all that stood in front of them was a small shop, with a sign that read “My Grandfather’s Attic”.

“This is the coolest antique store you’re ever going to find here,” Y/N told him, proudly standing tall in front of the entrance. “I know it’s probably not nearly as old as the stuff from England, but half the stuff in here is so obsolete that I can’t even identify them.”

Draco scowled at the ground.

“If you don’t like it, we can leave,” she said. “All I ask is that you come in and see it with me for a moment. Maybe you’ll be interested in it.”

Y/N boldly grabbed his arm again, noting just how stiff it was, like an iron rod. Draco scoffed, attempting to tug it out of her grasp, but she held fast.

“You are coming with me,” she commanded through gritted teeth, resorting to dragging him to the entrance. “Would it hurt you to be enthusiastic? Or manageable? Just once?”

“I don’t want to be here!”

“And you think I’m enjoying having to sacrifice my senior year for some rich kid with daddy issues? As if!”

Draco’s silver eyes were blazing as he jerked away to glare down at her. Y/N was once again reminded that he was substantially taller than her and began to feel uneasy.

“At least I have a father to speak of” His voice was cool, unfeeling, and deliciously savage.

“I have a father! What are you talking about?” This prat was really going to try that?

“In theory, sure,” he said. “But he spends more time traveling than he does with you, right?”

“That’s...no!”

He raised an eyebrow. “So the calendar that your mother has set up isn’t accurate?”

Y/N, flustered, curled and uncurled her fists. “It’s been a bad year. He just wants to make sure he can pay for my college tuition.”

Draco made a sound that was infuriatingly disinterested before striding into the store, tossing her a rather sour look.

“If you really wanted me to come in, all you had to do was ask. Nicely, mind you. No need to manhandle me.”

<^>

Y/N hadn’t been in the old antique shop for over a year, and she was stunned to see just how many items she’d never seen before. None of them looked like familiar household items--instead, they were strange looking contraptions, worn with age and marked with the writing of older generations.

The most surprising aspect of it all was Draco’s sudden turn of mood as he floated about, picking up strange items with a familiarity that confused Y/N.

“Draco,” she called. He snapped his head up from something strange that he was looking at...was that a broken piece of a twig? “Come over here, will you?”

He set down the weird looking ragged stick with an especially broken end and strode over to her, a rather annoyed expression on his face. “What is it?”

“Do you actually know what all of this stuff is?” Y/N asked. “I think it must’ve come under new management...I knew they sold it last summer. The new owners totally revamped it; I don’t recognize any of this.”

“I don’t know what any of this is.” He was suspiciously quick to answer.

“Now that I think about it,” she continued, “I’m surprised I even found this place. I’ve tried looking for it with my friends before, and maybe we got lost or something since we couldn’t find it. But I found it this time, with you, so obviously I must’ve... I don’t know.”

Draco suddenly seemed very uncomfortable.

“I think I’ve had enough. Do I have your permission to leave now?” His tone was snotty and not unusual, but there was an underlying sense of urgency.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Y/N agreed, visibly shuddering. “The energy in here just feels weird.”

He laughed at this, a real, genuine laugh, and Y/N was treated to the sight of shallow dimples in his cheeks. “I can’t imagine why.”

<^>

Y/N was holding that strange looking box she had picked up in the antique shop, only it was black and much heavier. Her head hurt the longer she held it, and the simple engraving of a symbol she couldn’t recognize burnt into the skin of her palm.

How had she gotten here? And how was a simple box glowing like...that?

She shot awake, nearly banging her head on the headboard. It was only then that she realized she was dripping in sweat, her brow frothy with perspiration.

Gross. What kind of dream was that?

One glance at the clock made her heart drop: it was 6:05, and time to get ready for orientation. Her senior summer was really, truly, and absolutely over.

Y/N wasted no time in getting up and ready, taking extra care to wash off the sweaty remains of her dream in the shower. It was quickly fading from her memory, and by the time she was heading down to the kitchen for breakfast, she had nearly forgotten the entire ordeal.

“Good morning,” she greeted her father, who was sitting at the head of the table and staring down at a crossword.

“Oh. Good morning,” he said, glancing up from his paper for a moment. “I haven’t seen you in a bit. Is it time for school already?”

“Orientation. I have to take Draco this morning.”

“Draco? Did your mother get a dog or something?”

Y/N laughed stiffly as she prepared her tea. “No, Dad, our exchange student this year from Britain. Don’t make fun of his name so loudly, I’m sure he can hear you.”

Mr. Y/L/N simply nodded and returned to his work, occasionally taking a sip from his half full cup of coffee. Y/N had never been close with him, but they had spent enough time around each other to feel comfortable in silence.

Y/ N had only just sat down to eat when she saw a flash of blonde hair out of the corner of her eye, prompting her to look up and see Draco, wearing slightly less dressy clothes and a matching scowl.

“Hi,” she said, faltering under his gaze. He simply sniffed and entered the kitchen, floating over to the kettle and looking inside of it. Unsatisfied with the contents, he changed the water and placed it on the stove.

“This is my father,” Y/N attempted again. “He just got back from Australia on business.”

The two made brief eye contact and her father grunted in acknowledgement. Draco seemed wholly unimpressed and sent Y/N a “I told you so” look that made her want to get up and slap him. She stood up and forcefully stacked her dishes in the sink, turning around before she completely left the room.

“I’ll be ready in 10,”

final a/n: i’m still kinda swamped with work tbh and i don’t think it’s very fair of me to expect to get out anymore work than what i had going at the beginning of the month, but i’m hoping that once january begins, i can start writing more often. i know i promised a dramione fic that’s based in the fall but i’m not sure if i’ll have the time to do that...maybe once i’m in university? i apologize for any of the typos i may have made in here, i don’t have the time to proofread and just wanted to get something out to prove to you all that i’m not dead. love youuuuuuuu

#draco x reader #draco imagine #draco x you #draco x oc #draco #draco malfoy #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy imagine #draco malfoy x oc #draco malfoy x you #harry potter imagine #draco x y/n #draco malfoy x y/n

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ladylynse · 5 years

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So it was recently pointed out to me (via reading someone else's tags lol) that there's only one DP/Merlin crossover on FFN (well, there's 3 but the other two are not in English). Sooo... since you're the queen of crossovers (imo), what would your take be on a DP/Merlin crossover?

aslkdjfalskjdf I’m flattered anyone thinks I deserve that title. Thank you!

I can easily tell you how I’d start a DP/Merlin crossover. Because that’s actually in my giant file of fic ideas. Here you go:

Danny could end up in Merlin’s world after touchingsomething in Clockwork’s tower. He goes to ask about Dani’s whereabouts,feeling guilty for not seeking her out and worrying about her, wanting toreassure himself that she is still safe, that the Ecto-Dejecto worked, thatVlad isn’t after her and that she is in no danger of destabilizing. Clockwork gives him a look. “Do you think I keep track of everyone’swhereabouts?”“Actually? Yeah.” Danny shifted on his feet. “I mean, you watcheverything, right? So even if you don’t keep track of certain people, you couldfind them.” He paused, waiting for some sort of confirmation fromClockwork. When he received none, he ventured, “Right?”This time, he was rewarded with a small smile. “It is possible.”“So you’ll help me find her?”There was a beat of silence. Then, “And what if she does not want to befound?”Oh. Danny swallowed. “Then I won’t look, I guess. I’ll wait for her tocome back. Just…I want to know that she’s safe, Clockwork. Please?”A sigh. “Very well.” The ghost of time turned, and Danny took a smallstep closer to the table. He’d never seen Clockwork keep anything in his tower before. It made sense thathe did, but he just never had it out when Danny came around. Probably becausehe always knew when Danny was coming. Which meant it had to be strange forthings to be out now, but that didn’t mean there was any harm in taking acloser look. If Clockwork had left this stuff out, then maybe it meant he wantedDanny to see it.

Danny reached out to pick up the nearest object at hand, andClockwork’s voice floated back to him. “Don’t touch anything.”“Sorry,” Danny mumbled, withdrawing his hand. ———– caught hiseye, and he’d reached out again before he really realized what he was doing.Surely it wouldn’t hurt just to turn something over to get a better look at it,right? Clockwork just wanted to make sure he didn’t break anything.

Famous last words, right? *grins* So, I personally would set a crossover back in Merlin’s time, as opposed to showing Merlin in Danny’s time. There’s…just a lot more risk with Danny being the unwitting time traveller. (Also, he’s canonically time travelled, so there’s that, too. I mostly just like time travel, though. And a Merlin who’s lived through so much would be less surprised by everything with Danny than a Merlin who has not.) Then there’s the potential for initial misunderstandings, which is pretty much a given for any crossover fic of any length that I write.

In this scenario, Clockwork allowed the time travel to happen, which would mean there’s something Danny needs to do. (This would also be my cop out for language differences not being an issue.) There would be something to do with the Veil and the Dorocha and–perhaps even more importantly, depending on the ultimate plot–the Cailleach, and possibly but to a lesser extent the Horn of Cathbhadh, since those are the most logical connections between the two shows, and those are the kinds of connections I use to build a stronger crossover. Something like the Cup of Life may or may not turn out to be a Ghost Zone relic in Danny’s time.

Danny would also really misunderstand magic at first, since his reference for it is basically Desiree; that’s the only kind of magic that he knows is ‘real’, and not something out of stories/to do with technology/channelled by gems. He might not understand how the Sidhe staff works, exactly, but he’d pick up on it being magic a lot faster (and therefore be wary of it if he ever saw it) than he would figure out that the reason weird stuff keeps happening is not because his powers are acting up or because he’s being clumsier than usual because he’s nervous about this entire situation. (Who knew magic was ever banned in Camelot? He thought he knew the stories of the Arthurian legend as well as the next person. Apparently he does not. Or apparently the truth is a lot different than the stories.) He’s not particularly worried about being burned at the stake when he can just go intangible, but he’s changed the past by mistake before, and starting another witch hunt because he uses his ghost powers in front over everyone is not preferable. It would probably not be good. And he should figure out how the heck to get back home. Or even just to the Ghost Zone. He thought Clockwork would’ve popped in by now to explain something or at least berate him, but he hasn’t.

Now, Merlin’s used to hiding his magic, even if he’s not always terribly good at it, just like Danny’s used to hiding his secret. And until Danny hears someone refer to Merlin as Merlin, he’d be expecting Merlin to look like Dragoon. Which would give Merlin a little bit more freedom when it comes to investigating the stranger that turned up in the courtyard of the citadel which apparently no idea of where he was and no guards reporting seeing him sneaking around until someone saw him and started ringing the bell to alert everyone that there was an intruder. Danny’s excuses, naturally, will be terrible. Merlin’s excuses are also terrible. I’d pretend that he could spot another liar, if only with Gaius’s help. Merlin would initially think Danny has magic, except he’s apparently never heard of Emrys when Merlin’s forced to ask out loud when Danny cannot hear him telepathically. Except Danny’s reaction when he does realize that Merlin is Merlin? That is unnerving. Really unnerving. Merlin might even call Kilgharrah and ask if there’s anything in some prophecy he hasn’t been told about yet about someone fitting Danny’s description.

I would probably set it once Arthur’s king–I like going AU between S4 and S5–but, uh, finer details would depend on why exactly Danny needs to be there. Which I haven’t figured out, which is why I haven’t written anything else for this idea. Morgana would probably get involved eventually, if only because she’s curious about the newcomer once she catches wind of him, and possibly because she thinks she might be able to use him. Poor Danny, still unable to escape from people who want to control him–and have the means to do it.

(unrelated idea but another idea for this crossover)

#danny phantom #bbc merlin #merlin #danny fenton #crossover #fic ideas #musings #ladylynse #asks #i have a completely unrelated ask from a couple of days ago that I haven't answered yet #but I haven't figured out my answer to it yet #so uh #this first #Anonymous

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youremyonlyhope · 5 years

Text

The Last Jedi

Here we go. The most controversial Star Wars movie ever (unless Rise of Skywalker has reviews that are just as mixed. I haven’t read any so I don’t know how it’s been received yet.) I actually really really enjoyed the Last Jedi, but I haven’t rewatched it since I saw it in theaters.

Also, unrelated, but literally just a few hours ago I met Oscar Isaac. I was doing a caroling event where I work, and he came by with his son to watch. During one of our breaks, he asked if his son could try the microphone and he held him up so he could whisper and sing stuff into the mic. It was adorable.

I seemed to be the only person who recognized who he was, though one of my co-workers said he had thought so too but he wasn’t sure until I confirmed it. So I went up to Oscar and said hi, asked if he was Oscar Isaac, shook his hand, and thanked him for coming. He says that it was great and that his son loves to sing.

I always joked that I’d bump into Oscar one day since he lives in Brooklyn, but I didn’t think it’d actually happen. And not while I’m wearing a Star Wars shirt and Star Wars socks (which he obviously couldn’t see since I was bundled up in a coat and a scarf and boots but whatever). And definitely not the day before I’m supposed to see the Rise of Skywalker.

I’m still freaking out oh my god. Ok. Time to rewatch the Last Jedi.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... This was the first Star Wars movie I’d seen in theaters in like 12 years at this point. Seeing those words on a giant screen again was amazing. “Certain that Jedi Master Luke Skywalker will return and restore a spark of hope to the fight.” I love that line. I love any and all comparisons of Luke to hope. Yes I am biased. But also, restoring the spark is exactly he does in the end so yes, I love it. It’s just now hitting me that we’re picking up exactly where we left off. Having 1 night between the two movies is every different than having 2 years. ...Was that whatsherface from Game of Thrones, Catelyn’s creepy sister? (IMDB says yes) *BB8 beeps* “Happy beats here buddy, come on.” BB8 sort of said the thing! Also, OH MY GOD I JUST MET OSCAR ISAAC AND NOW HERE HE IS ON MY SCREEN WHAT THE HELL. Was today even real? Oh General Hugs. “Skinny guy. Kinda pasty.” Knowing Oscar and Domnhall are friends makes this better. Oh BB8. Very honorable of Billie Lourd’s Lieutenant Connix to make sure she’s in the last ship leaving the base so everyone else leaves before her. I forgot about the chain reaction of bombs destroying their own Resistance ships... You know, Paige dying while dropping the last of the bombs was already emotional. Rewatching it after you know she’s Rose’s sister makes it worse. First Binary Sunset of the movie. General Hugs has a very good upset face that makes me not feel bad for him at all. More like I want to punch him. Snoke can use the Force across the galaxy... forgot about that. I realized I didn’t mention this in the last one, but I remember the crew complaining that when they filmed the end of Force Awakens it was a cloudy day, but then when they went back to the island for TLJ it was super sunny. And now that it’s been pointed out, I noticed it immediately. Luke throwing the lightsaber. I can’t remember if I was spoiled for this but I feel like when I watched it, I wasn’t that thrown off by it. Something else I didn’t mention at the end of Force Awakens is that I LOVE this set. The stone houses are amazing. Oh porgs. Also, that porg looking into the lightsaber always gives me anxiety. The first words we hear Luke say in 40 years are an annoyed “Go away.” which at least is less whiney than the Tosche Station. Oh Chewie’s like “DUDE. WE NEED YOU.” “Wait... where’s Han?” Awww. Throwing in a little Vader’s theme in there. More temper tantrums. People getting mad at Luke calling a lightsaber a laser sword (in a purposefully mocking way) even though George Lucas himself called them that in some interviews. Yes, it’s not a laser sword, but Luke is trying to show how ridiculous he thinks the idea of him taking down everything is by calling a lightsaber that. I remember being like “Luke... no let’s not just milk that thing... oh ew” I do love the shot of Luke using the giant stick to cross to the other cliff and kill the fish. God that’s a steep hill. “No one’s from nowhere.” “Jakku.” “Alright that is pretty much nowhere.” That’s funny. “It’s time for the Jedi to end.” Remember when that line in the trailer made the fandom literally break down? I love knowing that behind the scenes, Carrie had to slap Oscar a billion times. Also, I do not blame Leia at all. So many people were mad about Leia and Holdo demoting Poe, but Poe was too fearless in that moment. Yes, he destroyed the ship and it worked out, but they lost so many people and they already didn’t have many to begin with. It was worth it, but at a very high cost. So I don’t blame her. Heyyyyyy it’s that girl from that Black Mirror episode and what was that other show? Chewing Gum or something? (IMDB says yes it’s Michaela Coel) See and Poe’s already learning a little by asking permission. Of course... later on he doesn’t ask permission... but whatever. Leia’s Theme... causing me pain. Oh, Kylo didn’t kill his mom. We’re supposed to be happy about that? The bar is on the ground. The utter horror I felt the first time the control room was destroyed and Leia was pulled into space. Oh I love the moment when Leia flies in. Because I’d heard that in the books and comics, we get to explore Leia’s Force abilities and stuff but we don’t get it in the movies besides “I feel that Luke’s in trouble.” Which sucks, because she is the “other” if Luke didn’t work out, so she’s just as strong as Luke if she got trained. They should have just trained both kids honestly, why did they pick the boy? Not saying Obi-Wan and Yoda are sexist... but they’re probably sexist. Also, foreshadowing. I actually noticed the hologram of the ship and Leia flying through this time. Oh Chewie. I like the porg that literally has his jaw dropped in horror. Knowing now that the dice were kind of a symbol of Kira (was that Emilia Clarke’s character?) and Han’s relationship makes me not like them as much. Still, cute throwback that they’re still on the Falcon. We can just ignore they weren’t there in Force Awakens (I kept an eye out and didn’t see them) The way Luke laughed when he said “R2!” I just... my heart. “Nothing can make me change my mind” *R2 plays the Leia hologram* I literally just went “AWWWW” out loud because I forgot that that’s why R2 started playing it. Oh my heart. That hurt the first time. Luke standing over Rey, but offering to help her. Parallels. Oh Admiral Ackbar. I love Holdo’s dress. I love the draping. Someone teach me how to make it. “Thank you for making me aware.” Yeah Poe, she already knows. Stop mansplaining. This is literally a case of mansplaining, why would Poe think he’d have to explain to a commander that there’s no fuel? Yeah it’s a little harsh, but is Holdo wrong? All of these fanboys complain about Canto Bight, but forget that it was Poe’s idea. Then they go and say Holdo was too mean should have put Poe in charge. Guys. Poe’s impulsive. We love him, but he’s the ultimate Gryffindor with no fear and will just do anything without considering consequences. I do wish Holdo had been more open like “I have a plan. You don’t need to know all the parts of it. Just let me do what I need to, ok?” instead of “Just follow my orders.” but still. Oh poor Rose. “Doing talking....” Oh she’s so cute. “I’ve had to stun 3 people trying to use this escape pod.” We love a girl who can fight. Yeah. Once again. Not mad at Rose. Finn does have some selfish tendencies, he’s well meaning but ultimately selfish (or at least, only thinking of Rey). So I do not blame Rose for stunning him.

And now I will take a nap since I have to go to a show tonight. And then I will finish the last 3/4-ish of the movie when I get home later.

Annnnd I’m back!

See. Rose has good reason to be mad at deserters. Ok so it wasn’t Poe’s idea to go to the Star Destroyer it was Finn’s. I will give him that. But still Poe went along with it. “That... wasn’t exactly my...” Oh 3PO. I wish Maz had had a bigger scene. More Lupita please. I have one question: from what angle is this hologram filmed? And how does the camera follow her? I guess it’s multiple hologram cameras, but still, it followed her as she rolled and ran around. Also, did Finn call Maz or did Poe call her? Because as far as we know, only Finn knows her. It seemed like they both had the idea to call her, but that Poe had it first. Did Finn tell Poe about Maz? I’m glad they showed Finn handing Poe the binary tracker thing, since for a second I was like “What if Rey had popped up next to Finn on the Star Destroyer?” I’m glad Rey’s first instinct is to shoot Kylo. “Can you see my surroundings?” “You’re gonna pay for what you did.” “I can’t see yours.” Why do I remember that line so vividly? Why does it make me feel so unsettled? Rey, my sweet Rey, I wish you had just told Luke that you saw Kylo. I love Luke’s explanation of the Force. And him messing with Rey was funny. I love when Rey’s reaching out and feeling life, death, peace, violence, etc. And I love Luke saying the Force doesn’t belong to the Jedi, because it doesn’t. The Jedi failed years ago. “You didn’t even try to stop yourself.” Luke’s horrified. But also, Rey’s just like an extreme version of Luke. Yoda knew that Luke’s emotions could make him vulnerable to the dark side, Rey’s already vulnerable. Yeah, I don’t blame Luke for being scared of Rey after he feels like this is Ben all over again. Oh my god. I love the porg that has a metal piece over its head. That actually made me laugh out loud. Poor Chewie.

I just had to refresh tumblr because my draft wasn’t saving. It brought me back to my dashboard. Where there was a spoiler for the new movie and it wasn’t tagged. PLEASE tag your spoilers people.

The water hitting Kylo still confuses me. Say what you will about the Canto Bight plot... the costumes are AMAZING. The costumes literally make the whole side plot worth it to me. Literally I was just in awe by all the costumes during every single scene. And the set! The set’s fantastic too! I literally just paused every single second to take in all of the costumes. Do I care if the Canto Bight trip ended up pointless? Nope! Because it gave me some of Star Wars’ best costumes. Oh... to be an extra in the Canto Bight scene... Just show up... And put on a beautiful outfit... And do nothing else but pretend to drink, talk, and gamble... That’s the dream. Oh hi Mark Hamill! That was cute that they let him voice that little thing. I remember noticing the thing and being like “...is he important?” and nope, it’s just Mark doing an extra voice. Oh I love the Fathiers. Aww and it’s the little Force sensitive boy. I have thoughts about that kid that I can get into later. The way BB8 jingles with the coins. I love it.

Rey: *Does a move with her stick* Rey: *Does the same exact move with the lightsaber* Fanboys: She’s too good too fast! Mary Sue!

As I said throughout all of the Force Awakens, she’s just applying the skills she already had. If anything, a lightsaber’s easier since it’s half the length and she doesn’t have to worry about the back of it hitting her. LOL, remember when we thought this shot was an epic shot of Luke training her? Good times. Oh that poor fish nun. Everything Luke says about the Jedi is true (also did I not say they failed earlier in the post? Luke agrees with me). Rey’s right that a Jedi got Ani to come back from the dark side, but the Jedi’s system enabled him to turn in the first place. Soooooo yeah. Oh Luke. Don’t blame yourself. Kylo was already basically gone. Sure, seeing his uncle standing over him with a lightsaber definitely didn’t help... but it’s not the only thing that made him turn. Who is this captain of the medical ship? He looks familiar. (IMDB says he’s Danny Sapani. I probably recognized him from the Crown) Oh BB8. Finn, did you learn nothing from Rey? Put the cover back on the vent! Awww the Fathiers have such sad eyes... I love the Resistance ring. Can I buy one? Ok. The shot of the bubble egg lady singing felt like it was much longer the first time, but it’s really only a split second. I. LOVE. THE. CANTO. BIGHT. SET. I know it’s a real town in like Italy or somewhere near the Mediterranean. I want to go. I love it. I love that the first thing Luke does when he decides to use the Force again is to seek out Leia. Oh poor Adam became a meme after this. He just has a very wide and bulky body, ok? God Luke looks so scary in Kylo’s flashback. “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.” That reflection scene is so visually stunning. So in a way, it’s like Luke is failing Rey like he failed Ben. He’s not helping her in the way she needs, so she’s being lured by the dark side instead. I love the walls falling around Luke. “Did you do it? Did you create Kylo Ren?” Rey, he already told you earlier that he believes it’s his fault, so the answer from him is yes. I can’t remember if we hear this story of Luke and Kylo one more time after this or not. “Then he’s our last hope.” Ok ew. No. Kylo is not allowed to be compared to hope. Only Luke, Leia, or Obi-Wan can be. Oh for a second I thought that torch was a lightsaber. YODA!!!!! I think I had been spoiled for Yoda showing up. It was definitely still exciting though. “The sacred Jedi texts!” Oh Luke. Oh memes. Not as whiney as I remembered. “But that library contained nothing that the girl Rey does not already possess.” Because Yoda knows she stole the books. Oh Yoda. I love Yoda. Oh Rose. Ok, so I will give it to Poe that at this moment it doesn’t seem like Holdo has a good plan. Abandoning ship isn’t necessarily cowardly, but on the surface it does seem like it puts them in more danger. Literally earlier today I watched a video about the layout of the Millennium Falcon, and the escape pods were mentioned. And I thought to myself, wow that must be something from the novels since we’ve definitely never seen that in the movies. Welp... I was wrong... Rey’s in one now. I was about to be like “Do they not care that an escape pod just docked?” before I saw Kylo. LOL the iron coming down like a ship. I feel like I remember being completely terrified when Rey stepped in front of Snoke. Oh BB8. Bumping into stuff. I remember being super relieved that DJ (has he told us this is his name yet? I can’t remember) gave back the medallion. Captain Phasma! Hey girl hey! Leia shooting Poe is still funny to me. Also Lieutenant Billie Connix is smart. I love the scene of Holdo and Leia saying goodbye. Also, Holdo’s purple hair with her bright blue eyes is super striking. Good choice. Snoke puts down the lightsaber. Unknowingly sealing his fate. Literally when Snoke reveals he connected their minds, I was like OF COURSE. Because the whole time I’m like neither of them are strong enough to do this. “She was more interested in protecting the light than she was seeming like a hero.” See. And that’s the flaw in both Poe and Finn. And Rey to an extent. They’re thinking about the big picture, but in context of smaller things like seeming like a hero, saving Rey, saving Kylo, etc. But Holdo’s thinking of only the big picture. I knew DJ betrayed them, I just forgot how badly.

And here’s another annoyance (which I was sorta trying to touch on earlier). Everyone hates the Canto Bight plot, yet they complain about Holdo trying to take charge. If Poe just let Holdo take charge and ignored Finn and Rose’s idea, then her plan would have been a complete success. No Canto Bight, no DJ to betray them, all the transports make it to Crait unnoticed, and the First Order eventually destroys a ship that’s empty except for Holdo. They complain about Holdo, but don’t think about the fact that Holdo could have prevented another plot they hated if the main characters had just listened to her.

And then Snoke hits Rey and literally puts the lightsaber back to where it will kill him. Ok literally I just misread a caption that said “Lord Vader” as “Lord Voldemort” and I was very confused. Taking a second to say that I love this set of Snoke’s throne room. Been thinking it forever, but Kylo picking up the lightsaber off the ground and seeing the reflection in the smooth red floor is amazing. Kylo igniting the lightsaber through Snoke is amazing. Also, I typed “Ben igniting” before literally freezing for a second and being like “...ok that’s a lot to unpack” I guess when he does something good my brain thinks of him as Ben instead of Kylo. ALSO, arm #16 and #17, I love that Snoke’s arms were cut off too in true Star Wars fashion. And I am VERY excited to see this fight scene again. I told myself not to pause at all during the Kylo and Rey team up fight, but I paused literally a second into it because Binary Sunset yes.

And my idiot brother and my mom are texting in the family group chat so it’s popping up on my screen throughout this scene. Ugh.

All of these red knight weapons are so cool. And I forgot about the one that gets chopped up... Oh my god one is a sword that transforms into a whip. LOVE. IT. And I love the quick lightsaber ignite through the head. Love it. Woah how is there still 44 minutes? I remember this battle being much closer to the end. I was wondering when the red walls went away, but I rewinded and saw that they had been slowly burning away after Rey made something hit them. Nice touch.

Ugh my brother and mom will not stop texting.

“You have no place in this story.” Wow Kylo, harsh. Oh shoot I forgot about the lightsaber breaking until they started their Force tug of war with it. I’d always wondered what would happen if someone lightsped through something... I want to say that I realized what she was doing before they told us, but now I realize that they basically told us what she would do when the First Order guy said “they’re preparing to hyperspeed.” so I guess I just caught on to the obvious hints.

God that moment still gives me chills. The silence. The way it sort of goes black and white. The multiple angles. So good.

I know for a fact that I spent the rest of the movie from this point on with my hands over my mouth in a constant stake of shock/fear/anxiety. Oh BB8. Some people thought this was ridiculous. But I had just spent the last few months rewatching the prequels before seeing this, and compared to the stuff R2 does, BB8 clumsily controlling a walker is nothing. Oh how I love Gwendoline Christie. I FORGOT THAT WE SAW HER EYE IN THE MASK. I hope Phasma survived. She’s so awesome. Ok my quality is like horrendous right now so I’m gonna refresh. LOL I FORGOT ABOUT GENERAL HUGS NEARLY ATTEMPTING TO KILL KYLO. Oh I forgot how much I love Crait as a set location. OH AND THE ICE DOG THINGS! LOVE THEM! Poe petting BB8 when he comes back kills me. I like those space age two person laptops. “People believe in Leia.” *Binary Sunset plays* My heart. Ok for a second I was like “This first person camera is like a war movie” and then it turns and we see the trench and I’m like “...ok... ok fine but that was very literal.” The red footsteps. Just... guys this set is so AMAZING. Ugh, these red streaks of dust behind them are so amazing. And when Finn passes in front of the camera, it gets covered in the dust and blurs part of the lens. Just like the Rathtar goo in the Force Awakens. I wonder if that’s going to be like... the thing of the sequels. One shot that has the camera lens partially covered by something. Also, I just wasted time trying to figure out if there’s an official name for that or not... oh well. The winding stripes left behind as they weave around... just... amazing. YEAH! GO CHEWIE! GO REY! Oh my god I forgot about the porg roaring. “Oh, they HATE that ship!” I’M DEAD. Look at the salt and how it forms the crystals in the trench. I love it. I FORGOT ABOUT THIS SHOT OF THE CAVE FULL OF THE RED SALT. I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. I remember when the trailer had the first shot of the gorilla walkers, and I didn’t notice at first that there were normal AT-ATs next to them, and then I realized these things were twice as big as AT-ATs and I was horrified. See, and now Poe has learned that you can’t always be a hero and is making a good decision. I forgot about Finn’s speeder literally melting as he gets closer. I don’t understand the people who were mad that Rose stopped Finn. I for one was HORRIFIED at just the thought of Finn dying this way and thankful she stopped him. “That’s how we’re gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love.” The kiss is pointless but I love the line and sentiment behind it. Oh god. Ok. Here come the emotions. Binary Sunset is playing. I was a wreck. And a little of Han and Leia’s Love Theme as she sees the dice. I remember actually noticing that in the theaters and half-sobbing. Oh god the forehead kiss. Oh and he winks at 3PO as he walks by. My heart. This is the specific shot of the gorilla walkers and the AT-ATs in a line that freaked me out. That shot of Luke standing up against all the First Order walkers and ships. Amazing. That shoulder brush though. Kylo’s so dumb, he literally just watched that lightsaber get destroyed, he HELPED destroy it. He should have known something was up, it couldn’t have been repaired that quickly. Purposeful shot of Luke’s feet not moving the salt. That Matrix back bend though. “I will have killed the last Jedi.” He said the title. Also, is that the only time it’s said? Because they say it a lot in Force Awakens but I don’t think so yet in this movie.. “And I will not be the last Jedi.” Ok so now it’s said again by Luke. Purposeful shot of Kylo’s shoe leaving a footprint as he runs to Luke. I’m pretty sure I probably shrieked when he tried to slice Luke in half.

I just now remembered that I’d actually kind of wondered if he’d be a Force projection or something when he first showed up. Because I’d just watched Return of the Jedi like a week earlier and saw Obi-Wan do it, so I wondered if Luke was doing it too. Especially when Poe said Luke was distracting the First Order. It passed my mind and was confirmed when Kylo couldn’t hit him. And here’s where I started to feel like my world was crumbling...

Oh god. My eyes are wet. It hurts. But when I watched it the first time, I really felt like my world was absolutely falling a part and ending forever while I watched Luke die. With the stupid binary sunset in front of him just like when he was a teenager and when he was a baby. One of the first things he ever saw was the binary sunset. I was like “This is beautiful, but that doesn’t mean I’m not completely in pain and dying.” That shot from above of Kylo with the stormtroopers, mirroring a shot from the prequels of Ani. Nice. So do they still have that connection even if Snoke’s dead?

HEY! Hey. Those dice were still visible to Kylo even after Luke was dead... was Leia Force projecting them to Kylo? It wouldn’t take as much work as doing it to everyone else at once from lightyears away. One person, your son, would be easier. So maybe... maybe Leia’s the one continuing the projection of the dice. I’m gonna stick with that theory thanks.

Awww BB8 asked Rey about his antenna, just like when they first met. Remember when people were like “Are Poe and Rey gonna be a thing?!?!?” and of course I’d much prefer that over Reylo thanks. The books! Somehow, that obvious shot of the books goes over so many people’s heads. So many complaints about the books getting burned, when they literally show us that Rey saved them. I had never noticed the bunks in the Millennium Falcon either until I saw that video earlier, and I’m glad I got to actually see one in use since Rose is sleeping in one.

Oh GOD the entirety of the Resistance can fit on the Millennium Falcon... that is NOT good.

I LOVE the scene of the kids retelling the story of Luke. I must have already gone in depth about this 2 years ago, but I love it. Luke became a legend in the end. He didn’t necessarily want to be one, but he’s become one. It was exactly what was in the opening scroll, he restored the spark of hope. That subtle use of the Force by that little boy. With Binary Sunset playing. And I love that last shot of him holding the broom up like a lightsaber.

I nearly forgot that they put in “In loving memory of our princess, Carrie Fisher” at the end. That’s what got me to finally cry. 40 straight minutes of covering my mouth in anxiety, then feeling like my world was crashing down around me as Luke died. Having it dedicated to Carrie made me just start sobbing so hard. Watch that happen again tomorrow.

I remember when I left the theater, at first I was like “What if the boys is Rey’s brother?!” but then... I realized that a huge point of the movie went over my head for a second there.

The fandom got so caught up in figuring out who Rey’s parents are, whether it’s Obi-Wan or Luke or Leia or even Palpatine, that they were mad when Kylo said they were no one. But like... guys... not every single Force user is related to the Skywalkers or anyone else we already know. There were hundreds of Jedi in the prequels, because anyone can be Force sensitive. Obi-Wan’s parents were nobody, Qui-Gon’s parents were nobody, Mace’s parents were nobody. They didn’t come from long lines of Force users (at least in movie lore), BECAUSE THE JEDI WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO HAVE KIDS. The Skywalkers aren’t even a long line, it’s just 3 generations at this point. So literally none of the Jedi of the past came from powerful Force users (or at least from ones who got the chance to become Jedi) since that literally goes against the code.

Luke found at least 11 other Force sensitive kids to train alongside Ben, their parents were all definitely nobodies since he’s the last Jedi. Ben is an anomaly, Luke and Leia are anomalies, the Jedi don’t have kids! The fandom got so caught up in figuring out who Rey could be related to, that they forgot that for millennia the individual Jedi were not related to anyone.

Anyone can be Force sensitive. Anyone can be a Jedi. Rey is an example of that. That little boy is an example of that. That’s why I love that the little Force sensitive boy was the final shot of the movie. He was meant to reassure and remind us after the Rey parentage reveal that anyone can end up Force sensitive. They don’t need a famous/powerful parent. They can come from anywhere and be anyone. And I love that that’s the final note of this movie.

Some people were not reassured. Some people couldn’t handle the idea that Rey’s powerful just because she’s Rey, not because she’s someone’s daughter. She HAS to be related to someone to be that powerful, right? But every Jedi before her who was just as powerful wasn’t related to anyone, so why does she have to be?

ANYWAY! I was actually worried over the last 2 years that I’d rewatch The Last Jedi and not like it as much as I did in theaters. I still like it a lot. Even the Canto Bight scenes get redeemed by the costumes and the set being so amazing. But I love the message of don’t be a hero, this is bigger than just you. And I love the message that even if you’re “nobody” from “nowhere” you could still be Force Sensitive and you could still be a Jedi. I love Luke’s send off, I love that he does end up reigniting the spark and being a beam of hope again. I love it.

And I’m excited to see the Rise of Skywalker tomorrow.

#hope rewatches star wars #ignore me if you want

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fanfics4all · 6 years

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I’ll Protect You: Part 2

Request: Yes / No

Request are closed <3 Have a nice day/night

Jughead Jones x Andrews!Reader

Word count: 2393

Warnings: A few curses

Y/N: Your Name

Y/N/N: Your Nickname

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(Not my photo, credit to whoever made it!)

I walked downstairs because I couldn’t sleep, every time I close my eyes all I can see are those green eyes. I was going to make myself a cup of tea but I found a sleeping Archie sitting on a box with a baseball bat.

“Arch?” I gently shake him and he instantly holds the bat up.

“Hey, It’s just me!” I said putting my hands up.

“Y/N? Sorry.” He said and put the bat down.

“What are you doing up Arch?” I asked walking into the kitchen.

“I could ask you the same thing.” He said following me.

“I couldn’t sleep, I was going to make a cup of tea. All I can see are those eyes…” I sigh. Archie hugged me.

“I’m going to protect you and dad.” He said.

“Is that why you’re up?” I asked and he nodded. Before I could tell him how he needs sleep we heard footsteps coming towards our back door. Archie grabbed the bat and pushed me behind him, he slowly made his way to the door when Jughead opened it walking in.

“Whoa, whoa!” Jug said putting his hands up.

“Jughead, are you insane?” Archie asked putting the bat down again.

“Hey, you’re the one that looks like a Dream Warrior from Nightmare on Elm Street 3.” Jug said sitting down, I sat next to him.

“What’d the lawyer say?” I asked and he sighed.

“I’ve been walking around all night trying to wrap my head around how bad it is. It’s bad. My dad is facing 20 years…” He said and I warped my arm around him just to give him some form of comfort.

“Crap, Jughead, I’m sorry. That sucks.” Archie said.

“The lawyer thinks he should take the deal and that if he doesn’t, and the case goes to trial, he could be facing 40 years.” Jughead’s voice trembled a bit.

“I’m just really, really scared.” I could tell Jug was holding back tears. He stayed the night, in Archie’s room of course. The next morning I got dressed in a gray sweatshirt, jeans, high tops, and a necklace. I wasn’t really in the mood to put effort into today so I didn’t put makeup on.

The three of us walked to school and went to class. We were all sitting in class waiting for the teacher when Principal Weatherbee walked in.

“May I have everyone’s attention? I have some tragic news to share.” He said. A few students looked at each other and there were a few whispers.

“Ms. Grundy, who was a teacher here last semester, was found murdered in her Greendale home last night.” He said. I looked at Archie and I knew this was going to be hard for him.

“I know some of you were students of hers, and that this news will be difficult to process.” Archie got up and rushed out the room. I got up and followed him I knew he was going home. I sat in the living room with my dad and Archie pacing around.

“First, you get shot. Then, Ms. Grundy is murdered. All within a matter of days. Dad what if some crazy person is going after the people I care about?” Archie stopped pacing and stared at us.

“What? You think I’m nuts?” He asked.

“No son, I think you’re scared. Understandably so. Truth is, we don’t know anything about what happened to Ms. Grundy.” Dad said.

“She’s dead, She was killed! Right across Sweetwater River!” Archie shouted.

“I know. It was a horrible thing.” Dad said with a sigh.

“Dad’s right Arch, we don’t know what happened to her, It could be totally unrelated.” I said. I knew the odds of this being unrelated were slim and that Archie was probably right. Archie sighed and walked off. I spent the rest of the night doing my homework and try ignoring what was happening.

Jug called me that night telling me about his plan to get Cheryl and her mother to testify for leniency. He asked me to come with him and I obviously agreed.

“It’s not exactly downsizing, is it?” He said as we walked up to the house.

“Hobo. Y/N. Welcome to Thistlehouse.” Cheryl said as we entered the house.

“Mother’s in the conservatory. Follow me.” She said. We all sat down at a large table and to say it was a bit uncomfortable was an understatement.

“Thank you for sitting down with us.” I said.

“Of course, Y/N.” Cheryl smiled.

“Okay, so the reason we’re here…” Jughead started.

“FP’s lawyer thinks that if the of the victim shows mercy-”

“Mercy. That’s why you’re here.” Mrs. Blossom cut me off.

“Well, it’s an appeal for leniency, from you.” Jughead said looking at both Mrs. Blossom and Cheryl.

“To reduce my dad’s sentence.” Jug finished.

“Where was your father’s mercy when I spent those countless nights walking the halls of Thornhill in agony, obsessing over what happened to Jay-Jay? Imagining the worst. Where was your father’s mercy when I slept under the same roof as a cold-blooded killer, night after night.” Cheryl said cutting Jug off.

“Cheryl, FP didn’t kill Jason. Okay? That was your dad. You saw the video.” I pointed out.

“If it were up to me, I’d watch FP fry in the electric chair.” Mrs. Blossom said.

“We need this sordid chapter closed forever, and FP is the last loose end to tie up.” Cheryl raised her voice.

“I will not have a living, breathing reminder of the darkest chapter of my life walking the streets of Riverdale.” She finished. There was no use in convincing them so we left.

“What do we do now that Cheryl’s gone all Poison Ivy?” I asked as we walked away from the house.

“Blackmail. Extortion. If they weren’t literally an orphan and a widow, I would do it.” Jughead sighed. I have to help him out, I have to help FP out. I know FP and I know he’s not a bad guy, he doesn’t deserve this.

The two of us went home and I went to bed. The next morning I got up and got dressed. I decided to put in a little more effort today. I put on a band tank top, black jeans, a plaid jacket, black beanie, and a cute pair of shoes. Archie and I walked to school and everything was normal.

The school day had ended, and cheer practice had ended as well; I knew Cheryl always stayed late so I went to the locker room. I shut the door causing Cheryl to turn around startled.

“Give a girl a warning will you?” She said tossing a mirror in her locker.

“You want closure, Cheryl?” I asked walking closer to her.

“I want to help my boyfriend’s dad.” I said.

“I already told you-”

“And I’m telling you to help FP or-”

“Or what?” She cut me off.

“Or I wide-release the video of your father shooting Jason.” I smirked.

“Try having closure with that out in the world.” I said. Wow I’m horrible right now… It’s for Jughead. It’s for Jughead.

“I thought you gave the damned thumb drive to Sheriff Keller?” She said nervously.

“No, not before I saved a copy onto Jughead’s laptop.” I moved in a bit closer.

“One click, and the darkest chapter of your family’s twisted psychodrama becomes a viral sensation.” I said.

“Are you threatening me?” Cheryl asked shocked.

“This? No this is just fun girl talk.” I smiled.

“You could save a man’s life. Think about it, a nice end to a sad story.” I said and Cheryl contemplated for a second.

“If I testify, you’re giving me that video. And a guarantee that any and all copies in your possession will be erased.” She said.

“You have my word.” I said and turned to walk away but turned back.

“Oh, and you let Betty have the Vixens for Retro Night.” I added.

“You’re a stone cold bitch Y/N Andrews.” Cheryl smirked and I left.

It was the day of the trial and I was sitting next to Jughead watching as Cheryl talked.

“Ms. Blossom, you may proceed with your statement.” The judge said.

“Your Honor, I speak for myself and my mother when I say we forgive FP Jones for the part he played in covering my brother’s murder, we humbly ask the court for leniency. FP’s guilt has been blown out of proportion to satiate what my father’s suicide denied us…closure.”Cheryl said.

“As much as I sympathize, I can’t ignore the quality of Mr. Jones’ crimes. There were no extenuating circumstances.” The judge said. Cheryl thought for a second and I raised an eyebrow at her.

“My father threatened him.” She said quickly.

“I overheard them talking in daddy’s study. Daddy said he would hurt Jughead if FP didn’t comply.” Everyone stared at her shocked.

“Is that extenuating enough?” She asked.

“In light of these revelations, I suggest that we take a step back and reevaluate certain aspects of the case. At which time, we will revisit the sentencing. Adjourned.” Everyone gathered their things and FP turned around making Jug stand up.

“Is that a win?” FP asked.

“It’s a delay. So yeah.” Jughead said. I smiled as the two of them hugged.

Jughead was at Pop’s trying to save the dinner, I want to be there to help but I don’t know if I can go back there. I was sitting in my room working on homework when Archie came in.

“Hey, sis.” He said.

“Hey Arch, what’s up?” I asked.

“Do you…do you maybe want to go to Pop’s with me? I feel bad not being there to help out.” I was shocked.

“Arch, I don’t know. I mean I really want to go but I don’t know if I can.” I said with a sigh.

“Neither do I but maybe if we go together it won’t be as bad?” He said. I thought about it, I mean we shouldn’t let one terrible thing ruin our favorite spot right?

“Okay.” I said. I grabbed my jacket and walked to Archie.

“Let’s go.” He smiled.

We walked to Pop’s and when we got there the Pussycats were on the roof singing ‘Milkshake’. I smiled a bit, it was a cringy song but it fits so perfectly with the cause. We walked in and Veronica greeted us.

“Hey Daddy-O” She smiled at Archie.

“Y/N, Jug is over there.” She said. I smiled and walked behind the counter to hug him.

“Hey, Juggie.” I said.

“Hey Y/N/N, I didn’t think you’d be coming tonight.” He said with a smile.

“I wasn’t, but Archie wanted to and thought it’d be easier if I went as well.” I answered.

“Well, I’m glad you showed up.” He smiled and kissed me.

“Ugh, you two are like chimps in captivity, grooming and picking lice off each other.” Cheryl said. We pulled away and looked at Cheryl who sat down in front of us.

“Hello, Cher.” I smiled, just because I blackmailed her doesn’t mean I’m not her friend. She would have done the same thing if she were in my position.

“Mark this day in your diary. I lied under oath for you. And thank God I’m quick on my feet.” She said.

“Cheryl, thank you.” Jug said handing her the drive.

“Honor your promise to me.” We nodded and she walked off.

Pop Tate gave a speech about how Betty saved the dinner and how the Lodge’s made a donation that would cover any storms that might come. We all sat in a booth enjoying milkshakes.

“Ronnie, should I introduce myself to your dad?” Archie asked.

“You’ve faced enough dragons for one night. Next time, Archiekins.” V said.

“So, I guess tonight is a win for the good guys.” Betty smiled.

“A rare win, but yes.” Jug said.

“Thanks to you Betty.” I added. Archie was looking out the window and he looked uncomfortable, I was too but I know how to hide my feelings pretty well.

“You okay?” V asked.

“I’m here with you guys. So, yeah.” He said. Something was up with him but I knew it had to do with what happened to us.

Jughead walked me home because Archie wanted to talk to Reggie for a bit. I was working on the rest of the homework I had left when I got a call.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Y/N.”

“FP? What’s wrong?” I asked shocked.

“Jug, he went to see Penny.” He said and my eyes widened.

“What?” I asked shocked.

“You didn’t know?” He asked.

“No, he told me he was going to talk to another lawyer but he never gave names.” I said. “He didn’t pay her, I told him not to contact her again but we both know she’ll try to get him so I need to you do whatever favor she asks him got it?” He said and I sighed.

“FP, I told you I can’t join the Serpents. If my dad or Archie found out-”

“You don’t have to join just please do whatever favor she needs.” I sighed knowing I would regret this later.

“Fine…” I said.

“Thank you.” FP said and hung up. I grabbed my jacket once again and rushed out of the house. I walked into the tattoo shop and a few Serpents were there.

“Y/N, what are you doing here?” Ace asked.

“Where’s Penny.” I demanded.

“Where she always is.”He answered. I walked in her office.

“Y/N, what a surprise, what can I do for you?” Penny asked with a smirk.

“Stay away from Jughead.” I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Whatever favor you think he owes you, you can call me and I’ll be doing it.” I added. She smirked.

“FP call you huh? Even in jail, he’s still trying to keep his boy out of this mess.” She said.

“You will stay away from him and come to me for whatever you want got it?” I said through grit teeth.

“Thought you weren’t going to be apart of Serpent business?” She said with a smirk.

“I’m not, I’m just doing FP a favor.” I glared.

“Sounds like you’re a Serpent to me.” I growled and stormed out to go home. What did I just get myself into?

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#riverdale #riverdale imagine #riverdale season 2 #jughead jones #jughead imagine #jughead x reader #jughead jones x andrews!reader #archie andrews #archie x veronica #archie andrews x sister!reader #veronica lodge #betty cooper #penny peabody #southside serpents #cheryl blossom #fanfic

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allaboutshouto · 7 years

Text

do you remember?

Summary: It's the night before their wedding. Izuku and Shouto did a little throwback.

Tags: Dating, Dates Gone Wrong, Fluff, Pure fluff, Late night talk, wedding, big day, proposal

Note: This is to make up for yesterday angst. A prequel to Shoe Game. @tododeku-week Day 6 | memories | quote

Ao3

'Do you remember our first date?' Izuku's soft murmur broke the silence of the night.

Shouto, who was starting to drift off to sleep at the lull of the conversation, blushed crimson on reflex. He always blushed whenever Izuku mentioned dates.

'The official one or the first first one?' He asked. Because Uraraka and Tsuyu had told them first thing when they started dating for real that it felt like they had been dating for ages, with how many times they did things with just the two of them.

'The official one,' Izuku replied fondly. It was too dark to see but Shouto was certain Izuku was smiling softly.

'Yeah. Why?' He answered. Looks like he was not going to sleep early tonight.

'Do you remember the movie we watched?'

'Yes, yes I do.' It was a special outdoor showing of Jaws. Widescreen on the bank of a lake at the dark of the night. They were taken out to the middle of the lake on a rickety old wooden boat to enjoy the movie. The movie was old, 19070s old, but it was surprisingly engaging. Izuku languidly dipped his arm elbow deep into the lake, not really watching the movie, but watching Shouto watch the movie. His left arm, which was thankfully dry, made an excellent head rest for Shouto.

That would have been a perfect night out if it had been a normal, innocent show.

As it was, there were people swimming around, grabbing arms and legs and scaring people out of their wits as the climax hit.

Shouto didn't know about that. Neither did Izuku.

When the scene with the shark dragging itself up the half-submerged boat rolled around, Izuku let loose a terrified scream. Shouto, already on edge, was startled enough to set himself on fire and burn the wooden plank underneath him.

Izuku jumped onto him and clutched at his neck, face bleached white in fear.

Their combined weight on one side of the boat sent them both toppling over into the dark water.

'You climbed onto my head and refused to climb down while I swam us back to shore.' Shouto deadpanned, looking at the luminous stars and galaxy painted on the ceiling. Luckily it was a warm night so he had hardly any difficulty guiding himself and Izuku the deadweight to the shore.

Izuku sputtered near his head, rustling about in the blanket.

'I did not!' He protested indignantly.

'And you were convinced that there were sharks. In a sealed off fresh water lake. One hundred kilometre inland.'

'There are fresh water sharks!'

'Not native to Japan.'

Izuku huffed in annoyance as he had no comeback for that.

'Well, at least I don't fall asleep in an IKEA wardrobe.' He steered the conversation in a completely different direction. Shouto didn’t need to turn around to see how madly Izuku’s eyes were twinkling.

They had agreed to never talk about that again.

‘We had an agreement.’ Shouto reminded, a bit peeved but mostly embarrassed.

There was a reason why they never mentioned that.

Dripping wet and soaked to the bones, they left the movie unfinished to hunt for new clothes. The nearest store they could get clothes from was a thrift shop, which had them some rather interesting choices.

Within five minutes, Shouto picked a white polo shirt and a pair of surprisingly comfortable black jeans. Not much different from his initial clothes.

Izuku, on the other hand…

His eyes literally lit up when Shouto drove them into the parking lot of the shop and he was out before Shouto even released his own seatbelt. It took him nearly ten minutes to locate Izuku, standing in front of a bookshelf, head bent a 90 degree to look at the title on the back of the books. Water made a pool at his feet. He looked so much like a downed rat, hair plastered to his head, clothes stuck onto his lean muscular frame. Shouto was probably not much better but it was so endearing to see Izuku like this. He had to physically drag Izuku away from the books to search for clothes.

(He made a mental note to have one of the biggest bookshelves and most comfortable reading nooks installed when they moved into a bigger apartment. If his room was smaller because of that, then so be it; as long as he could see Izuku’s dopey smile all the time, any sacrifice was worth it.)

Izuku was too distracted to pick his own clothes so Shouto had to do it. And he did it well. Izuku offered no objection whatsoever, still too distracted, so Shouto believed it was a job well-done.

His boyfriend only paid attention to what he was wearing when they were driving away from the thrift shop.

‘Shouto, what am I wearing? Why am I wearing All Might merch? Oh my god I’m not 10 anymore! Wait, why are we at IKEA? What are we doing at IKEA?’ His voice was an octave higher than it had been in the beginning, face flushing crimson.

‘I am hungry.’ I want to check out the bookshelves.

‘We can eat somewhere else,’ Izuku nearly begged.

‘They’re too far,’ Shouto said. ‘I’ll be quick.’

‘Can I just stay in the car?’ Izuku changed tactic when begging didn’t work.

Shouto merely shook his head.

He didn’t understand. They wore each other’s merch all the time. An All Might hood T-shirt and matching pants were not as outrageous as Izuku made them to be. And how could his boyfriend not see how cute he was in those? The yellow things sticking out from the hood would be absolutely adorable if Izuku decided to pull the hood up.

‘I have an image to uphold!’ Izuku whispered into his ears scandalously, trying in vain to hide behind Shouto as they walked to the restaurant section of IKEA.

‘There are few people around. They won’t pay attention,’ He said while prying Izuku’s hand away from his shirt so he could take it in his own hand. ‘You look cute in them.’

Shouto would never get bored of watching Izuku’s face flame up. So, he pushed the hood over Izuku’s face and pressed a soft kiss on his covered head. Izuku’s hand felt hot in his hold but he didn’t try to push the hood down so Shouto took that as a win.

He left Izuku alone for a few minutes at the restaurant with the pretense of looking for doormat since theirs showed wear of time while in reality, he meandered over to the bookshelf section.

Then he got distracted and lost track of time.

He found an interesting wardrobe. Wooden, tall, mystical. Kind of like the one in Narnia movie.

The inside was equally Narnia-inspired with demo woollen sweeping-the-floor coats and off white fluffy carpet. It was also big enough for him to sit comfortably. A little bit too comfy as he felt his eyes start to droop and he lost the fight against sleep.

When he woke up again, it was to Izuku’s half-panic, half-dying-of-laughter face.

‘I almost called for a hero agency before I realised I was a hero. And I did a spy move to get away from the security guy while running around searching for you. We actually spent a night in IKEA. I was having a panic attack and you were sleeping away in a wardrobe!’ Izuku howled uncontrollaby, shaking so badly the bed shook with him.

Shouto endured the embarrassment as Izuku laughed himself to a coughing fit. He half-heartedly pounded on Izuku’s back to ease it.

‘I will not mention Jaws night again if you never bring up IKEA wardrobe in the future,’ Shouto bargained.

‘Deal,’ Izuku agreed easily, shaking his hand once before going back to giggling.

What a load of dung. They both knew they would bring those up again at any given chance.

They lapsed back into silence, broken only by Izuku’s intermittent snorts. The luminous stars on the ceiling shone brightly, almost heavenly in the absolute darkness of their room.

‘Do you remember the time we danced in the rain?’ Izuku gently snuggled up to his side, whispering into his ear.

‘Of course.’ How could he not? It was the first time he ever felt so alive. He hadn’t smiled and laughed so much since ever.

A visit to cat island. Sun shower. Before Shouto could run to the eaves of a nearby house, Izuku yanked at their joined hand and swung him around.

It was not much of a dance since they were just doing whatever moves they felt like doing. Moonwalk, robot, tap-dancing, arm-waving. At one point, they held hands and swung themselves in circles, until they both could not stand up straight. Izuku straight up lay flat back on the middle of the road. Shouto leant onto the lamp pole a tad too far.

Luckily for them, there was no one watching, only a band of ten or so cats all huddling together on the porch of a house, eyeing them attentively.

Which somehow reminded him of something completely unrelated.

‘Do you remember when you proposed?’ Shouto turned the silver band on his left hand around.

‘How can I forget?’ Izuku chuckled. ‘Our moms are our best fans.’

‘Your mom said, what, ‘there are two beautiful engagement rings in your bedroom, Izuku. Do you mind if I show them to Shouto?’’

‘Exactly that. And I almost choked to death.’ Izuku laughed. ‘I bet your mom planned that too. She kept eyeing my mom with a smile throughout dinner.’

‘You went so red that a ripe tomato cannot be any redder.’ Shouto recalled fondly.

‘As if you were any better.’ Izuku placed his head on his chest to stick his tongue out at him.

‘You popped the question right then and there.’

‘And you said yes.’ Izuku dragged his arm across Shouto’s chest to stare at the ring on his left hand. Shouto pulled his arm out from under the blanket and placed his left hand next to Izuku’s. ‘Best day of my life.’ Izuku intertwined their fingers and kissed them gently.

Shouto ran his right hand through Izuku’s fluffy hair rhythmically. He felt Izuku’s breath deepened.

‘We should sleep. There’s a big day ahead of us.’

‘Uhm, good night Shouto. I love you.’

‘Good night Izuku. I love you too.’

#tododekuweek #tododeku #todoroki shouto #midoriya izuku #bnha #can someone draw tododeku dancing in the rain with the cat watching?#I just... love that scene so much I want to see it in pictures

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maddiviner · 7 years

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Greetings, everyone. I hope you’re having a wonderful day. I’m here tonight to present you with a short guide to Tumblr for witches who may be interested in starting a blog here.

This post is obviously geared towards witches wandering the internet, but maybe some who are already here on Tumblr will enjoy it, too. I’ll be talking about the benefits to joining the Tumblr witch community, as well as some tips for getting started! Here we go!

What’s a “Tumblr witch?”

There’ve been culture-related magazines that have done huge articles on “Tumblr witches” and the witchcraft community on Tumblr, painting the whole thing as some kind of fashion trend or weird millennial hangout.

I’ve been involved with the Tumblr witch community for three years, and I can say that most of these articles don’t quite reflect what the witchcraft community on Tumblr is like.

A lot of them tend to paint it as an ideologically, culturally, and aesthetically monolithic trend, when in reality, it’s not. While it’s true that many Tumblr-going witches enjoy similar things or share fashion trends, witchcraft itself is not a trend, nor a fashion statement, nor is it the sole focus of the community.

In reality, a “Tumblr witch” is just what the name implies. A “Tumblr witch” is a witch who uses Tumblr as a blogging platform/CMS. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s true that there’s a large community of us, but we’re quite diverse.

While many of us are young (millennials), not all of us as (I’m not), nor are we all of the same religion or mindset. You might even say that “Tumblr Witch” isn’t even a useful term, at all! Still, Tumblr is a great content management system for witches.

I think what makes Tumblr strong as a blogging platform for witches is that there’s an extremely diverse community here already in existence. So, in short, don’t buy into too much nonsense about what a “Tumblr witch” does or believes, because everyone’s unique.

Again, the only real way I can see to define a “Tumblr witch” is just “a witch who uses Tumblr.” It’s as simple as that! It’s definitely not some kind of tradition or mindset for witches - it’s just a matter of what blogging platform the witch uses.

Continue reading for information about why you should consider Tumblr as a blogging platform, tips for using the interface, and more! Tagging @witchypixie by request. :-D

Why join Tumblr as a witch?

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re a witch, like me. Or, maybe you’re a magician or chaote or something related (that’s cool, too). If I may, for a moment, I’d like to discuss the benefits and reasons why witches all over should consider using Tumblr as their blogging platform!

Obviously, other platforms exist. I’ve used Wordpress in the past, but Tumblr outpaces it (at least for witchcraft-related posts) in my opinion. Lets discuss why this site is great!

Firstly, Tumblr is more than just a content management system or blogging platform. Tumblr’s tagging system is extremely user-friendly and allows for the quick and quite intense sharing of information.

Since, to me, magick is about building connections to the universe and learning as much as possible, this is wonderful. I personally feel that a blog of any sort can supercharge your development in magick - mine definitely did for me!

Why? Reading blogs and blogging yourself (of any sort, but especially on a site like Tumblr) supercharges your ability to share information and learn more from other people. Granted, you could learn many of the same things at a library or from books, but blogs give a personal perspective not often seen elsewhere.

It is particularly helpful because you yourself can post your thoughts, experiments, and what you’d like to know. Then, others can comment (or, on Tumblr, reblog or reply) and share what they know, helping you. While you obviously can’t trust everything on the internet, the wide perspective provided by an active blogging community can really help you if you’re feeling stuck.

Tumblr itself is good for this, because the community is very open and accepting. This means that a wide variety of people participate, from many different backgrounds.

You thus receive a broader perspective by interacting with everyone. The openness also means that you needn’t be too intimidated or shy yourself. While skirmishes and arguments do exist in any community, for the most part, witches on Tumblr are not overly-critical of Craft differences or religious diversity.

There are many knowledgeable people on Tumblr, as well. While plenty of witches on Tumblr are newbies, there are also many experienced practitioners of different ages and skill specializations.

These blogs can be great, both to lean more, and to just see how other people do things. Another thing: don’t discount the newbies! New witches are definitely not without their own ideas to bring to the table and you can learn from them, too!

There’s also the most obvious benefit of joining such an existing community: making friends! I’ve personally met an befriended many awesome people on this website, and it’s a great cure for the loneliness some of us might be experiencing if there are no other witches living in our areas.

Lets Do It

So, how do you get started keeping Tumblr blog about your Craft? It’s actually quite simple. If you need help navigating and understanding how Tumblr as a content management platform works, sites like this one have you covered.

I suggest giving that a read if you’re new to Tumblr or unfamiliar with the system it uses. Explaining the ins and outs of actually creating an account and a blog on Tumblr is beyond the scope of this guide. Links like the one above, as well as just Googling, will be helpful to you if you have any questions about that.

Before you begin, perhaps before you even sign up, consider what sort of blog you want to have. What will the focus be? Some witches blog about specific topics, such as chaos witchcraft, divination, or other particular practices. Others take a more general approach.

To get the most out of your experience here, consider what you want your blog to be. Obviously, this can and probably will change over time, but it’s good to have a starting point! Some witches use their blogs for a short record of what they’re doing Craft-wise.

Others turn their Tumblr accounts into a veritable online grimoire. Still others keep a general blog covering all their interests (not entirely about witchcraft), and use that blog to participate in the community. What kind of blog do you want to have? It’s all up to you!

As you know if you’ve read about the site, Tumblr uses a tagging system to aggregate content and help users find what they’re looking for. If you’re interested in witchcraft, great tags to check out include the #witchcraft tag, #tarot, #divination, #magick, and plenty of others that you’ll discover as you go along. These tags tend to be incredibly active, and get many posts popping up every day.

Less-active, more specific tags, such as #sigils or #grimoire are also worth checking out, depending on what interests you personally. A small tip, though: regardless of how you feel about the spelling of magic(k), it’s much more convenient to spell it with a K on the end when tagging and searching Tumblr posts. This helps you find other witchcraft posts and separates the search from things like Harry Potter and video games.

Realize that no matter what tags you want to follow or use, none of your posts will appear in the tags at first.

This means that, until you’ve been posting for a while, other users won’t see your posts when searching for #witchcraft or whatever you’ve tagged them with. It’s tricky, and nobody really knows the formula for when it kicks in, but Tumblr blocks newer blogs from the tagging system for a short period of time, just to cut down on spam.

This is a mild annoyance, but does help keep the site free of spam. To get past this, make a few posts, or perhaps reblog some things that interest you over the course of a few days, and your posts will start appearing in the tags before you know it!

Third-party browser apps designed to augment the Tumblr experience are also useful and enhance features for the site. I use several. Among them is “Tumblr Savior,” which allows you to blacklist posts containing a certain word or phrase from showing up on your dash or in tags as you view them.

This is pretty useful, because, very occasionally, the #witchcraft an #magick tags do get hit with a barrage of spam about unrelated stuff and “special offers” selling handbags or whatever. When this happens, you can just add the keywords the spammers are using to TS, and never have to see any of it.

Once your posts begin appearing in tags, it’s pretty fun to introduce yourself! You could just make a short post explaining who you are, what kind of magick you practice, and what interests you most!

This will help you meet likeminded people. Another good idea is posting a short message in relevant tags, listing your interests and asking other witches who share those interests to reblog or like the post, and then follow them. This will fill your dashboard with great content in no time.

Best Practices

To round out this article, I’d like to just talk a bit about some extra tips I’ve found useful as a Tumblr blogger who focuses on witchcraft!

I personally do recommend you tag almost all the interesting posts you reblog. Why? While reblogs never appear in the tag pages themselves, tagging them will allow you to search your own blog more easily. In this way, you can use reblogs to gather information and build a sort of online compendium of content related to your interests.

For example, if you reblog a post about sigil-making and tag it #sigils, it will be easier for you to find on your own blog later on! I definitely believe it’s useful to have a well-organized blog! It’s also useful to tag all your original (non-reblogged) posts with a specific tag, so you can find them later!

You can create pages on your Tumblr blog, too, just like in many other content management systems. This is really quite cool, because it allows you to have a nice, full-length About Me page if you like, and you can also create pages about your interests and with quick information for your followers.

I recommend creating a page just introducing your blog, too. I personally have a page listing all the spells I’ve written - sometimes things get lost when you’re just going by tags, so it can be useful to list them all on page. You can do the same for longer articles or content you write. A lot of witches have a “Master Page” where they include links to all their best and most useful content, so give it a try.

As with any online community, I obviously recommend you treat your fellow Tumblr users with respect if at all possible. Don’t send anonymous hate messages - that’s just rude, and even if you’re anonymous, there are ways for the blogger receiving them to discover your identity.

It’s just not worth it, no matter how angry someone is making you. If you see someone behaving disrespectfully or promoting hatred in the community, I recommend not engaging with them, and just blocking them. That’s usually the best response!

If someone is saying something factually inaccurate or that you personally disagree with, you can always debate them, but I recommend doing so respectfully if they’re not vitriol-filled themselves.

On that note, regarding the tagging system, if you have something negative to say about a particular topic, think carefully about the tags you use. For example, if you find certain chaos magic practices annoying, you might not want to tag a post about that with “#chaos+magick...” unless you’re reading for a (hopefully respectful) debate about the topic.

Many people think online debates are unproductive, but I find them illuminating and I’ve been educated through a lot of them. If you feel similarly, feel free to engage in them, but please be respectful!

I hope you found this article about Tumblr’s usefulness to witches informative and helpful. If you do decide to sign up, why not message me and say hi? I love meeting newcomers, and a lot of other people here do, as well. If you decide to join us, welcome!

#magick #witchcraft #witch #witch community #occult #eliza.txt #long post #tumblr #tumblr witch #community #blogging

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kilieit · 7 years

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My £2 on alternative RP communities and the best way to go about making one

Originally posted on the RPC, here.

My summarised opinion/advice to people who want to create a Balmung alternative: I really, really want to see you guys succeed in creating a valid alternative... but I really fear it's not possible to achieve that with single-leader communities. Single-leader communities are great. While they last. But there's no longevity there. You need to consolidate into a multi-leader playerbase if you're going to create something sustainable, that will survive in the long term, and provide a genuine alternative to Balmung. Contact leaders of other alternative communities, pool your efforts on one server, and go on from there.

Full Post:

I come from a small pop RP server in WoW. I played there for almost 10 years, and roleplayed there for over 8. Here's my 2p (more like £2... oops) on the challenges you need to be addressing and the things you need to consider moving forward if you (any of you) want to make a genuine, valid alternative community to Balmung.

Here is the shape I've seen small communities take. At the beginning, everyone is really excited about the opportunity to have a fresh start. There's a boom in RP guilds, events, and community get-togethers, there's some method of communication established like a chat channel or a forum or both. People usually think this is the hard part, because it takes a lot of effort and promotion and logging in every day and it is hard, no doubt about it. But by comparison, it is the easy part. The hard part comes a year later.

By this stage, the original person or people (usually a group of 5 people or less) who began the community have begun to burn out. When someone burns out, what happens is they pull back their operations and start mostly doing their in-game stuff, or their personal RP plots, or just stop logging in as much. And the thing is... there's nothing bad about this! It's a healthy, good reaction to burn-out. Pushing through burn-out without heed to your own mental limits is a recipe for shitty events and shitty relations, because you start to resent the hobby, and inevitably lash out at the people related to it. So pulling back and doing something else for a bit is absolutely the right answer. But here's what you need to recall. Who is going to provide roleplay for people in your stead when that happens?

Here's my key point: roleplay communities under a certain size are NOT SUSTAINABLE. Let's say you're the singular leader of the entire RP community on a given server. You will reach burn-out. Maybe this year, maybe next year, maybe next month. It's going to happen. What next? If your answer to "who is going to provide RP" is "one of my friends who's been helping me so far", that is not adequate. Your friend's probably been working just as hard as you! Maybe even harder, depending on the systems you're using and how easy they make it for non-leaders to do stuff like set calendar events. There's only so many friends in a friend group - and if you go through all of them without the first guy feeling like he wants to come back, then you're screwed. If your answer is "I don't know but I'm sure someone will step forward", I have a little spoiler for you: no one is going to take over. That won't happen. Sorry. This is my experience: during their leisure time, people naturally gravitate towards either leader or follower roles, because they will have a preference (either conscious or subconscious) for which one they enjoy performing more. If no one has made themself apparent as enjoying the leader role so far, it's a vanishingly small chance that they're suddenly going to leap forward and take it up. So, then... things fizzle out... or people start getting upset that there's "no roleplay any more", and turn on each other in blame.

What you need is another group who's been running RP separately but concurrently to you. Let's take three Balmung events I attend regularly, and which I know have no overlap in leadership: Matron's Reach on Mondays, Stellazio Pizzaria on Wednesdays, and Fight Club on Thursdays. What happens if the leader of, say, Matron's Reach burns out and doesn't want to lead it any more, and nobody steps forward? Then I suppose that event would stop running. But what happens to Stellazio Pizzaria and Thursday Fight Club? Absolutely nothing. And if someone wants healer-based RP after that? Then there are three free companies I can think of off the top of my head that could scratch that itch, also not dependent on the Matron's Reach in any fashion whatsoever. Because these RP outlets are concurrent and separate, the overall community is stable. One person dropping out won't kill the whole community, no matter who it is.

That is the thing you need to strive for, even in a small server. If one person or FC stops operating, the overall community needs to have the stability and breadth to continue without them (maybe in a different fashion, but still to continue). Because if it doesn't, then this starts happening:

foxfirestorm Wrote: Mateus has a great deal of potential to become something AMAZING. We do have an active community here, but as of recent times (and why I went on my vacation), we have an issue where this... Large group of individuals (Not going to say names) are very entwined into their own little spot and due to the small nature of the RP community right now, this is effecting those that are not in this circle. As the one in charge, I voice time and time again that my officers need to do more world RP and actually go out and do things, however, they seem very convinced to remain in that circle and some of my own officers have been pulled into this little group-- which makes matters WORSE.

I'm not trying to single you out. I'm using this quote because it is so accurate to what happened to my server's community, in another realm, on another game, 5+ years ago. My guild was in the position "your guild" is in. We were the pillar upon which the rest of the community depended to initiate RP. Then our leader burned out, and took a break from big RP events. His inner circle closed ranks around him... excluding most of the members of his actual guild, including me, despite the fact that I was far and away the second-most active in organising things next to him. That's the familiar part - the part that sounds like it's happening to you. Here's the rest of my cautionary tale about the original community on my small server.

The rest of the community turned to our entire guild, even though it was just the one guy who'd pulled back (and we had as little idea about why as they did!), and started to demand why we weren't making RP events any more? Had we abandoned them? Did we think we were too good for them?

And of course it was none of these things. But even though there were a good 100+ people in the community, the fact that none of them were running independent, concurrent things meant people got angry at us for "making him quit" and "taking away their RP". People started to reroll or transfer, and those that didn't grew bitter. Even though it was just our leader that had burned out and I was still running RP events for people just like he had, on a similar schedule, with a similar quality, they were received with nothing but hostility. People either didn't see the point in putting their faith in someone who wasn't our leader, or they were too upset about our leader "abandoning" everyone to trust anyone with the same guild tag, or they were just apathetic in general and about to drift off to a PvE server. Eventually, I stopped trying. No one wants to put their heart and soul into something only to be called names because they have the wrong nametag above their head.

A few guilds tried to step up and fill the void. The problem was they were all either underestimating how hard it was to actually coordinate a "community-wide" event, or they were too consumed with anger over what had happened before to really make much good out of it (too focussed on trying to copy or be "different from" before, rather than just focussing on doing something that was good). I can think of three who tried, and two fell to in-fighting and either completely rebranded, disbanded, or both... the third's leader was perma-banned over something unrelated, and the guild fell apart shortly after. Our leader finally quit completely, I assumed his mantle on a formal basis rather than the de-facto one I'd been in before, and we actually changed our guild tag last year because years later, people were still blaming my members for the "death" of the original community. All because one guy had made a fixture of himself and then quit.

You'll notice I said "original", so here's the thing. I have word from my friends that the community is actually doing fine these days, although I'm not part of it any more (so I can't personally verify). What changed? Server merges. It was merged with two other RP servers, and although there were initial hiccoughs of people being territorial, these days it's stabilised into a much more sustainable, larger community. People were introduced from a friendlier neighbour-server, and diluted the bitterness in the community. If one guy doesn't like you, it's no longer the end of the world. And if one guy quits, there are a half-dozen others you can seek RP from instead.

Here is what I think y'all need to do if you seriously, actually want to make a solid alternative to Balmung.

Pick one server and pool your efforts. Work together with other people who are currently running small alternative RP communities to bring your efforts together in one place. It seems like there are a good handful of you guys, all with 20-100 people each, who all had the initial thought of "why don't we go somewhere other than Balmung? I'll just pick any low-pop server/the server I initially happened to roll on". If you seriously want to make a valid, serious, stable alternative, then I think you need to start bringing yourselves together with one another. Set aside your pride, stump up the cash to move if you must, and create one, unified RP community on an otherwise low-population server. Do your own thing there! You don't necessarily need to be in communication and coordination with everyone on that server, so place the logistical fears out of your mind - in fact, if there's so many people that you can't, that's a healthy sign that you're on your way to sustainability. Just do it all in the same place so people know where to go.

That way, new players aren't looking at entering one of a number of single FCs or small clusters of FCs where if they don't like the OOC culture, or the stance on lore, the genre of RP, or one of the people there just plain ol' dislikes them, they have to move or reroll again. There should be a choice within a single World, both in terms of what content is on offer and what people are offering it. That would be forming the basis of a genuine Balmung alternative, where people who would otherwise have moved to Balmung will actually want to go.

#kilieit thinks too hard about things #community meta #i thought since i accidentally spent ages writing this #i should probably put it on my blog too LOL

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rosewhipped22 · 8 years

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Cas Needs a Drink and Finally Got One

So I want to talk about Cas and food/drink (especially drinks) in season 12. There have been a lot of moments in the seven episodes he’s been in so far that clearly show Cas not eating/drinking (which, yes I know he doesn’t have to, but wait till you see how much this has popped up so far ).

I think it makes the most sense to go by episode. (Oh, and I’m tagging you @mittensmorgul because I know you keep careful track of food and drink. There’s been conversation around some of this already, but I’m not confident who was doing the conversing so... @elizabethrobertajones @bluestar86 @postmodernmulticoloredcloak @justanotheridijiton @ibelieveinthelittletreetopper)

So in 12.01 Keep Calm and Carry On the scene we get is Cas bringing coffee to Mary and Dean at a roadside cafe and then the three of them at that table--Castiel being the only one without a drink--the spot in front of him empty.

In 12.02 Mamma Mia the scene we get is a sort of family dinner with beer and pie at the Map Table in the bunker. Cas is completely absent (at least from the room, possibly from the bunker all together for reasons). Full disclosure: I haven’t seen these two episodes as recently and they’re currently off CW’s website--let me know if I forgot things!!

In 12.03 The Foundry there are several moments. In the middle of the night, Cas discusses with Mary that he’s not certain he feels like he belongs. Then bright and early the next morning Dean invites Cas to join him and Sam for coffee at breakfast (”Morning, Sunshine” <3). Cas declines, doesn’t even enter the kitchen, instead leaving to go find Lucifer and make himself useful. The next scene with Cas shows him with a cup of coffee in front of him (though he doesn’t drink it) while he interviews Vince’s band mate (who is drinking alcohol).

Cas is playing the hunter FBI agent Beyoncé and probably offered to buy the man a drink, because he is a good hunter, and also probably got something for himself to be convincing. Maybe the drink is for appearances, but we’ve seen Cas drink coffee before when he, just as easily, could have let it sit in front of him during his Biggerson restaurant jumping, back in season 8. Immediately, after this he runs into Crowley drinking his patented pitch-fork umbrella concoction (which we will see twice more in the next four Cas episodes). The episode is rounded out with Rowena offering tea to Cas and Crowley when they show up late and she already has everything under control re: Lucifer. I don’t think it likely that Cas had any, but still in one episode we have four people he could have drunk with and one stranger that he might have, for the sake of getting the job done.

Cas is out of the next three episodes (unless you count Dean on the phone with him in 12.04 while Sam gets coffee for the two of them), but he’s back for 12.07 in Rock Never Dies. His first scene is with Crowley at a bar while Cas calls Sam and Dean about Vince/Lucifer on the TV. We get a shot of Crowley with his fruity drink again and what suspiciously look like french fries (demons and salty food--weird) while the space in front of Cas is empty. Demons don’t exactly need to eat or drink either, but it’s never stopped Crowley. (Side note: has he been strictly having fruity drinks since he’s become Dean’s self-declared bestie?? He used to be all Craig all the time back when he was more... demonic? I know he had the hard stuff at the end of S11, but that was End of the World drinking.)

Then, same episode, Team Free Will makes it to LA and Cas is tied to drinking in two more scenes since he walks in when Sam is drinking the Vegetable Water and also when Dean caves and lets himself enjoy some too. Cas sits with the three of them when they’ve run out of leads, but isn’t seen drinking the water.

In 12.08 LOTUS we get Sam and Cas in the bunker library, Dean arrives with a bag of food and you can see Dean’s food/beer reflected in the back of his laptop in the next scene. Sam and Cas are sitting at the table together and Sam’s got two beers and food wrappers in front of him along with his laptop, while the space in front of Cas is empty. Again. Later, we get Cas delivering two cups of coffee (just like in 12.01), presumably for Sam and Dean, but he drops them.

At the very end of the episode, when everything’s gone wrong and the boys have been arrested, we see Cas with Kelly, who has food and drink in front of her, while Cas’s space is empty taken up by the magical egg (also, unrelated, is that pie all the way on the right?) I doubt Kelly had much of an appetite, so they were probably just ordering things to be allowed to sit there, but still Cas has nothing.

In 12.09 First Blood we see Cas really lost without Sam or Dean, but he still takes time to meet people in drinking establishments and continues to not have anything to drink. So we’ve got Crowley and Cas and the pitch-fork pineapple delight for the third time and Cas’s second drink with Mary and for both meetings his spot remains empty. I’m a little surprised Cas wouldn’t want to find a liquor store and drink it in this episode, because it hurt.

12.10 Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets flattened me like a pancake. Even bursting at the seams with all it’s greatness, this episode continued the drink theme with Cas and his past Flight members, his friends, namely Ishim. If you thought Cas was on the outside/not settled with all the past instances of not drinking then this example seems to drive that point home even more.

Cas sits with Ishim who drinks coffee while the spot in front of Cas is empty, but from what I can see Cas doesn’t even have a place setting!! It looks like all the other tables (and based on the glints of silver at the counter--there as well) have place settings. Fork, spoon, knife and a menu in between.

From the pattern on the other tables, Cas should have those utensils laid to his right, but they are missing and to me this empty spot in front of Castiel when there is supposed to be something, suggest that Cas no longer has a place in heaven--which has been a recurring topic for several seasons.

Look! More place settings as Cas walks in and even Mirabel is specifically shown in front of one. Everyone in the diner has a place setting except for Castiel. From the outside this may look like The Wright Spot where an angel would belong--with other angels--but Cas is clearly not welcomed here. He doesn’t fit in like he used to. (And even though Ishim leaves money for them to buy pie--they don’t buy any--none of them are in The Wright Spot to eat pie--Cas and his poorly trained monkeys don’t belong. They’re not comfortable.)

Cas doesn’t get a drink until Dean directly serves a cold beer right to him.

Finally! Finally, Dean fills that empty spot in front of Cas. Just like Cas has been struggling to figure out where he belongs, he doesn’t really know the Winchesters want him around until they (Dean especially since he’d been acting angry) directly say what he means to them in this very same scene. Once they’ve made this clear, only then does Cas raise his glass and drink with them. About bloody time.

#castiel #destiel #spn meta #spn season 12 #12x10 meta #The Wright Spot #All the drinks #none for Cas #spn spoilers #mine #my meta

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gman-003 · 8 years

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Trust - The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Analyzed, Part Six

(This is part of my ongoing series analyzing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, part of a bigger series where I play through and then talk excessively about every game in the Zelda series. If you want to catch up, earlier installments can be found with the #everyzeldaproject tag)

Every game has to trust the player to be able to play the game. At some point, after some amount of tutorials and hints and explanations, if a player still doesn't get it, that's their fault, not the game's. As a designer, you need to give the player everything they need, and then trust them to be able to do what you want. A puzzle isn't a puzzle if you hand them the solution. A battle isn't a battle if you make it impossible to lose. A dungeon without exploration isn't a dungeon.

Skyward Sword fails at this a lot, and I have suspicions about why. But I'll start with the places they did it well.

Good: Bokoblin Base

There's a section late in the game where, while skydiving into an erupting volcano, you're hit by a sudden updraft and end up captured by Moblins and stripped of your vast array of weapons and items. You escape, but without weapons you have to sneak around enemies that you're used to easily killing, and without tools, you can't easily move about the area you've thoroughly explored (but which has been built over by enemy fortifications).

Item by item, you reassemble your arsenal. First the Mogma Mitts, then the Gust Bellows, then the Clawshots, and so on until you get back your trusty Sword. And while the game does point you at the next item-bearing chest, it stops at that. It doesn't waste time telling you how to use each item - you've already proven you know that. It doesn't point you at the obstacle your new item can get you through - you can remember passing by it, or if you've forgotten, you can go explore a bit.

It's not a very lengthy section of the game, and it can get a bit excessive about pointing out where enemies are, but overall, I think it's one of the best sections of the game. Everything just clicks together. The area gets new life by giving a very different context, the low-level enemies become dangerous again, and you get a fresh set of puzzles. It's a moment of game-design cleverness in a game otherwise starved of it.

Okay: Sky Keep

The final dungeon of the game also makes an attempt at clever design. And it feels like the designers realizes that, in the final dungeon, it would be appropriate to cut back on the handholding, since if the player doesn't know how the game works by now, they never will.

But the final dungeon is a gimmick dungeon - it's a three-by-three grid, with the rooms being the pieces of a slider puzzle, which you control from special pedestals. The rooms have limited connection points - you can't just wander freely between rooms - and they even require you to enter from the "correct" entrance in order to make it through, thanks to liberal use of one-way doors.

That gimmick is explained - but what was not explained was that there is more than one location from which you can control the dungeon layout. My natural inclination when faced with a slider puzzle is to attempt to solve the entire thing. But that's actually impossible here - I actually sat down and mathematically proved it impossible before I resorted to the strategy guide.

However, lots of players would have ended up reaching for that guide anyway. While the dungeon presents the illusion of control, being built around a standard puzzle, it really forces you down a single, very specific path. You don't even seem to be able to go after the three Triforce pieces in whatever order you want - it's completely fixed. The slider puzzle is less a single puzzle and more three separate slider puzzles, where you have to guess at what the intended result is. It's functionally identical to three separate, unrelated puzzles, in a dungeon with a fixed, linear layout. The controlling pedestals are always positioned in ways that limit your possible moves.

The Sky Keep doesn't trust the player. It merely pretends to.

Bad: Hand-Holding

Everywhere else, though, Skyward Sword practically rips the controller out of your hands. The designers were deathly afraid that a player might, at some point, not know what to do - and so they made sure that you were always, always, being told what to do and where to go.

The normal Zelda routine is for NPCs to make references, in cutscenes and dialog, to your next main objective. You get a cutscene after each objective, where some exposition-spouter points you in the right direction, and if you forget it, you can talk to NPCs and they'll generally get you pointed again.

Skyward Sword does that, and then wallops you over the head, in case saying "there's something weird going on at [place], someone should go check that out" is too subtle. After every single of those post-objective pointer cutscenes, Fi pops up and tells you, to your face, where you need to go and what to do. There isn't even a delay - she just pops up, during the same cutscene, regurgitates the information you just received, and practically orders you onward.

Modern Zelda games have had somewhat illusory exploration. You always get a good push in the right direction, to keep you moving forward. But they maintained the illusion - the pretense that it was really you, the player, who was deciding what the best place to explore first is. It allows you to trick yourself into thinking that it was all your idea. Fi's repetition isn't just repetitive, but it shatters that pretense. It's no longer a game of the player exploring, guided by friendly NPCs, but the player merely following the path the NPCs have set for you.

This isn't even a full rundown of the ways Skyward Sword hobbles you with training wheels. There's the gossip stone, which gives video tutorials on request. There's the tag on your save file, reminding you of your general task when you come back to the game. There's a few sections (mostly sidequests) where it outright rips the choice out of your hand, putting the right item into your hands automatically and preventing you from switching. There's dowsing, which largely negates the need to explore. I'm sure I managed to forget some, since I'm writing this well after finishing the game.

The Wii Audience Problem

I have a theory about why Skyward Sword is so overloaded with hand-holding. It's because of the success of the Wii with casual gamers.

Twilight Princess, the first Wii Zelda game, had the normal amount of hand-holding for a recent Zelda game. More than I'd like, but it was still a very opaque, complex game. Other than a tedious pile of tutorials at the start, it generally lets the player do as they wish.

But it came out as a launch title on the Wii, before anyone knew just how popular the Wii would be with casual gamers. With it's dozens of mechanics, deep references to past games, and great length, Twilight Princess is a very poor game to get a casual gamer hooked on the Zelda series.

So is Skyward Sword, but I can see many things were done to try to make it a good casual player's introduction to the series. It has dungeons not much simpler than Twilight Princess (which isn't saying much), but it gives you plenty of save points and pointers on where to go. It strips away some complexity, getting rid of tunic-swapping and automating warping. And there's the handholding, constantly making sure that the novice player never gets lost or confused.

Constantly showing the controls on-screen? That's a very Wii Sports-like move, something you'd do for a game you might hand to someone who's never played it before at a party. Constantly telling the player what to do? People whose gaming up to now consisted of Bejeweled and Wii Sports aren't used to keeping track of multiple goals, like you have to do in any Zelda game.

My theory is that partway through development, it was decreed that this game be a good "gateway" Zelda - something that the Wii's casual audience might buy in effort of making their $300 purchase do something besides bowling, which would put them on a path of maybe buying more hardcore games.

This even explains certain other oddities. Why is Skyward Sword canonically the first in the series, despite not really fitting as an origin myth? Because that way, series neophytes aren't scared off by the thought of jumping into a story midway, or having too much nerdy lore to absorb. Why were motion controls so heavily integrated? To make it more appealing to the Wii Sports audience.

I don't have any evidence for this theory, besides the game itself, but it makes a lot of sense.

While this, finally, concludes my analysis of Skyward Sword, there's one tangent I want to go on before moving forward into The Minish Cap. Join me again next week!

#the legend of zelda #everyzeldaproject #loz #skyward sword #game design

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amandasmith03 · 4 years

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Proven Tips And Advice For Local SEO Success

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from https://mrphiltucker.com/proven-tips-and-advice-for-local-seo-success/

from Mr Phil Tucker - Blog https://mrphiltucker1.weebly.com/blog/proven-tips-and-advice-for-local-seo-success

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