#but i am working on posting things that don't fit my stupid standards because that doesn't mean they aren't worth sharing!

[kj-yikes]

15. Scotch

(on ao3 here)

Alex’s apology (or as much of an apology as Lena would ever get from Alex Danvers) is the hardest.

Lena had poured everything she could into creating a device to track Kara so they could find her in the Phantom Zone. And she had succeeded, just for Alex to take the device from her to use it to find the Prime Phantom’s lair. In the moment that the device went flying towards Alex, all the hope she had for rescuing her best friend had drained from her heart. 

Lena’s standing on the balcony of the Tower, brows furrowed. She wipes a hand over her face in frustration with herself. She had been wrong to fight Alex about the tracker. She knew that Kara wouldn’t have wanted to be rescued like that, but didn’t Kara deserve it? After everything she had done for National City? For the world? For Lena?

Lena leans with her forearms against the railing, looking over the city that Supergirl had protected for years, and wonders if anyone else in the city has noticed the Girl of Steel’s absence yet. 

She is lost in thought when she hears a voice from behind her.

“I brought you a drink.” Lena turns over her shoulder and sees Alex, a glass of what looks like scotch in each hand. With a small smile that probably looks more like a grimace, Lena takes one.

“Thanks.”

Alex shifts to stand beside her as they both survey the scene before them, sipping their drinks.

“You were right about the crysalis,” Lena finally breaks the silence, swirling the liquid in her glass. “I'm sorry I fought you on it.”

Alex lets out a heavy sigh. “I understand why you did. That's a decision I didn't wanna have to make.”

“But you still made it,” Lena presses on, the few sips of alcohol loosening her up to sharing her feelings. “Listen, I am so grateful to be part of the team here in the Tower, but I don't think I belong.” Alex’s brow furrows.

“Why would you say that?”

Lena sighs. “Well, it's like you said. I need to stop atoning for the sins of the past.” She takes another sip of her scotch and continues. “And I am determined to do good in the world, but... you and J'onn, Brainy, and Nia, I'm not like you. You're true heroes. I know how much your sister means to you, Alex, and yet today, you made the most painful sacrifice because it was the right thing to do, and... I don't think I could do that.”

Alex's face contorts, as if she's just realizing something for the first time. She seems to consider this for a long moment. Finally, when Lena begins to think that perhaps Alex is trying to find a way to let her down easy, her voice cuts through the silence.

“How long?”

Lena looks up, confused. Alex appraises her with her dark brown eyes, somehow probing past the facade and walls that Lena tries so hard to keep standing. “How long have you been in love with her?”

Lena’s sharp inhale seems to echo on the balcony as she shuts her eyes in shock. Surely, Lena thought, this conversation was long overdue. But Lena can’t bring herself to say the words out loud.

Alex nods and turns her gaze over the city. “You know, years ago, on a different Earth, Kara and I stood on the balcony of the DEO overlooking the city, and she told me that she would always choose the world over the people she loves. She chose to send Mon-El away to save National City from the Daxamites. And I stood there thinking that I couldn’t have made the choice she did.” Alex lets out a small laugh, her arms leaning on the railing of the Tower’s balcony. “If it had been me, I wouldn’t have sent Maggie away to save the city. No way in hell I’d sacrifice Kelly, now.”

Lena glances over to see Alex looking intently back at her, as if she’s finally putting the pieces together.

“I fought Kara every time she swooped in to your rescue, defended you when all the evidence pointed against you. And I never understood why she was so willing to sacrifice everything for you, with all the baggage of your family and…well, your questionable methods of dealing with problems on your own. No offense.” Lena lets out a small, wet chuckle and shakes her head a little.

Alex’s eyes narrow, and Lena feels like she’s piercing into Lena’s soul. After a moment, Alex continues. “I had never seen Kara so upset, after she found out you knew that she’s Supergirl. And all I could think was, over a friend?" Alex shakes her head, red hair falling over her jawline. 

There’s a long pause. “But…I think I missed it. From both of you.” Lena stares at Alex as the silence ticks on.

”I know you must’ve been hurt that she didn’t tell you. That none of us did. But you have to know, it never came from a place of malice,” Alex’s voice is soft in the cool night air. The softness pierces through Lena’s skin and makes its way to her heart.

This group of people, this family, Kara – everything she’s always wanted for herself, but felt like she didn’t deserve. That she had always held at arms length, waiting for the moment that they would break her heart. That she had smashed through when, inevitably, her heart did break, in moments of self-sabotaging that she thought she could never recover from. Somehow, it all ended up back with them. Each of them, in their own way, telling Lena that she had belonged all along, even through mutual mistakes and heartbreaks. Them, together, all because of Kara.

Maybe, just maybe, if she allowed herself a moment of vulnerability, things could work out differently.

Alex seems unsure of what to say next, so she repeats,“How long have you been in love with my sister?”

Lena takes in a shuddering breath. “Since the moment she stepped into my office,” Lena confesses, a lone tear streaming down her face.

“Does she know?”

Lena’s voice is barely a whisper. “Not to my knowledge.”

There’s a long pause, as Alex considers her next words. “We’re going to find her. And you should tell her.” Lena’s head snaps up. 

“Are you serious?” Lena asks incredulously, wiping her eyes from the tears that have somehow made their way down her cheeks. 

“Yes, I’m serious!” Alex wraps her in a quick one-armed hug. “Luthor, I just laid out the evidence for both of us. If you think for a second that Kara doesn’t love you back, then, well, I don’t think I can help you.” 

Lena shakes her head, her dark ponytail blowing softly in the wind. “I don't think it's like that for her.”

”I don’t think Kara has ever loved anyone like she loves you,” Alex says simply. There’s a heavy pause as Lena lets the words sink in. "Maybe she doesn't realize it yet, but she will."

“We have to find her first,” Lena whispers. Alex grabs her hand and holds it fiercely.

”And we will. And we will keep National City safe while she’s gone, or Kara will have both of our asses,” Alex reprimands lightly. “You belong on this team, Lena. I don’t think we could do this without you.” Alex’s brown eyes sparkle in the moonlight. “And besides, you are the only one with a decent taste in scotch.” 

Lena lets out a loud laugh, relieved that Alex has lightened the mood a little. She holds her drink up in silent cheers to Alex. Gazing out over the city, they both take a long sip.

Lena sighs, feeling a small swell of hope for the first time in weeks. That’s about the closest thing she’ll ever get to acceptance from Alex Danvers, and tonight, she’ll take it.

[meruz]

i hope this hasn't been asked before. what size do you make your canvas? and do you crop it to fit other socials (like Instagram for example)? i hear that 300 dpi is standard. i never know if it's good to make my canvas big or not.

hi i think this ask is like at least 4 months old but i was scanning my sketchbooks from last year and i abruptly remembered i had gotten this ask because i had made a little chart in my sketchbook trying to figure out how to answer it

anyways theres pros and cons. and the size of your canvas is really going to depend on personal needs + preference. how good ur computer is, how complicated ur art style, how comfortable drawing feels, how much disk space you have to spare, what youre gonna end up using the art for in the end...300dpi is standard for PRINTING specifically, if you only plan to ever post things online then 72dpi works great and will save you space (fun fact a lot of professional animation files i deal with are 72dpi. and those eventually go on your tv screen). but personally i make everything i draw 300dpi because i am always printing stuff for cons, zines, etc and its nice to have the option even if i dont end up printing.

when I was a teen I used to draw on a rly shitty laptop and i made everything 800x800px 300dpi because big canvases would cause a lot of lag and also the resolution on this laptop was pretty small so 800px was a lot of the screen already. now i have a slightly better laptop with a bigger resolution and i sketch on giant 10000px-40000px canvases with the hard round brush and no shape dynamics or transfer whatsoever to minimize lag. when it comes to making a final illustration when i know ill be using a bunch of layer effects/blending modes/colors/mixing brushes etc etc ill generally crop the canvas down to the 6000px range. most illustrations i try to make sure are comfortably printable on tabloid size paper so thats pretty much anything hovering around or above 3000x5000px w 300dpi (so 11x17in). HOPE THIS HELPS?

EDIT: OH ALSO re: socials. i always ALWAYS size down my art to post on the internet. i think its crazy when other artists dont. because why would i ever let the internet have my hi-res file for free. also in general i think it looks better if you do the resizing yourself because if you don't then many social media sites will compress your file for you! a lot of people will post a hi-res file to twitter and then go "Wow twitter killed the quality of this img!!!" UH YEAH because they have an automatic image compressor. because they need to save space too lol and they dont want your image to take 248263895 years to load. same with instagram and to a lesser extent tumblr. when i post anything on social media i resize it down to 1200px-1600px on the longest side... its a little arbitrary but im kind of basing it on the smallest resolution of widely available screens. mostly because i think it looks stupid when u open up an image file fullsize and u have to scroll to see the whole thing... also iirc instagram only takes images up to 1080px before it resizes them? granted if you upload something smaller than that itll also resize it up which will look worse so I think bumping the numbers just over 1080px is pretty safe.

I should really be bringing the dpi down to 72 too when i post online but often im too lazy to do that. but it will technically help ur image load faster and stuff. and make it less likely for people to yoink it off the web and print it themselves.

[armouredgoblin]

In regards to my previous post about Fem Custodes

I have a few points to make If I made you mad. That's not my problem. I still hold the opinion that they should not be a thing due to 30+ years of lore stating that they have always been men. I have heard a few arguments.

"Its always been political"

Well yes but actually no. Internally it has its own set of politics depending on which faction you look at. You can have politics that are separate to the real world. A good example of that outside of the Warhammer Universe is Helldivers.

Helldivers developers Arrowhead decided that they would not put anything that would represent the real world beyond the fact that humans exist. They rejected putting things such as rainbow capes and country based capes because it would take away from the actual internal lore and would cause division in the community.

The people that want these things tend forced into the media/lore to be the people who wont actually play it because they never wanted it in the first place.

"Its just a small change what's the harm?"

Its a step. One small step towards creating female space marines. If you can make custodes gene seeds work in woman; then you can make the space marine ones work in them too because who cares any more?.

Its an active attempt at slowly moving the Warhammer universe and turning it into the grey sludge that only appeals to the "Modern Audience" filled with the political messages that only goes one way.

I wanted to enjoy the lore as an experience separate to my own existence. I want to use this as an escape of this work but I am seeing it slowly being infiltrated and ruining the immersion.

"There isn't enough representation in Warhammer40k"

Who the fuck wants to be represented in the universe that is basically one constant war. Were the standard imperial guardsmen (of which contain both genders) eat what is called "corpse starch".

To be fair in the spotlight there is mostly the Space Marines which is an all male team of genetically altered super humans (the Custodes are further up that chain and are seen as even more powerful than the average Space Marine). Space Marines are barely recognisable as humans due to the effect of the gene seed.

However if people actually looked they would find there is plenty of representation within Warhammer40k. There are many factions outside of the Space Marines that have both female and males on the frontlines of this eternal war.

Factions: Eldar (Male and Female) Dark Eldar (Male and female) Imperial Guardsmen (As mentioned before) Sisters of Battle (All female) Sisters of Silence (All female) Not sure about them: Tau: I know they take from many species and I am not so sure what they have on the male and female ratio.

Errm: Tyranids: Alien bug species, fuck knows what they have. Chaos: They will defiantly have both, Slannesh will torture fuck you all.

Speaking of Slannesh While often referred as male, he actually can be both and neither.

"GW can do what they wish with their IP"

Yes. There is not much to argue with there. They could even pull a Disney Star Wars and state that everything from the next codex is now the true canon and everything before it no longer exists. In my opinion this would be stupid.

"Warhammer40k is for everyone"

Is it tho? You seem to be ready to throw out many people who don't immediately agree with you.

No media in any form is for everyone. People have a preference and can not like things.

Using myself as an example. I don't like sports games. Therefore I don't play them as it's not for me. I am not demanding sports games change the entire premise and add things to attract me to the game.

In short if you don't like it, don't force yourself into it. If you are interested. Experience it before making decisions. and especially before you decide that you can change the entire hobby to fit you.

Make your own thing.

Chances are there will be an audience however small or large it may be.

For those of you on the frontlines of the Gatekeeping Hold the line.

[henarikat]

Can you tell us more about your farmer? What is she like how does she meet mr qi how do they fall in love? Tell us everything!!!!

Omg the girl of all time?? You want to hear about my silly little guy?? And her blue man aaaaaa??? I have suddenly forgotten all of the lore I've ever conceived for them oh my goodness but um uh.... i will put it under a spoiler bc it'll probably be dumb and ramblyyyyy and I will absolutely regret posting in 5 seconds if I don't lmao

I guess, her dad is like the CEO of Joja or whatever, some really intense and high-up position. Idk anything about corporations. And he gets her a job after she graduates from college, she has some "dumb" (by his standards) artsy degree that he deems relevant enough to give her a very easy but very high-paying receptionist job. She doesn't have to do anything except for field calls and usually customers don't make it that far calling, so it's usually like... business deals or something. She also has to get donuts and lunch and coffee for the office, which, whatever. And anyway, she meets this guy and he seems cool. He works for her dad and he gets,,, close to her. And she gets,,, close to him. And anyway, it turns out he was using her for like, access to her dad/insider information about the company and then the night he dramatically breaks up with her, she feels like a FOOL and she cannot go back to work the next day. She remembers her dead grandfather's farm and the deed he sent her, so she spends the night packing up her things and leaves for the train station first thing in the morning, no word to anyone!!!! Obviously her dad is SO MAD and he just like... pulls her inheritance? Is that a thing that happens? Idk. And anyway, he doesn't talk to her ever again. She is very depressed when she gets to the valley and she's used to drinking every weekend in zuzu so she... kind of... drinks a lot?? every day?? she gets really close with shane, and they hook up once just before his heart event on the cliffs and after that, they both decide they're better off as friends, at least until they can both get clean. joja ends up firing him because he's so sick after he stops drinking and she hires him to work for her and pays him what he made a joja in a week for just a day's worth of work, so it's beneficial for him! She makes friends with Leah also because they both love art and Leah also majored in the same silly thing that Nora did and funny enough, that guy that Nora "dated" was Leah's ex. Crazy world we live in. Uhhhh and no one really has any romantic interest in Nora, they all sort of pair themselves up with each other?? Harvey has a silly crush on her (bc I hc Maru to be sort of an acespec lesbian in Nora's world), but she is not interested and doesn't want to break harveys strict doctor/patient rule anyway, even if she were. Uh and then 5 years into her stay in the valley, she gets a package with a note attached. I am a hopeless romantic, personallyyyyyy, so like, in my HC Mr Qi never sent her on any quests. He saw her on his screens when she arrived in the valley and he was like oh....ok um wow ok she's going to ruin my life cool cool cooooool. he was so infatuated with her aaaaaa. he never sent her on the quest for the battery or the rainbow shell for his club card, he didn't wait for her on floor 100 in the skull caverns. he coooouldn't. he tried to distract himself with flings, but even still, he could not stop thinking of her. so finally, he invited her to the casino to meet him. he sent her a gorgeous fitted gown and shoes and flowers and!!! and she came!! to meet him! and she was not scared of him or intimidated by him (she didn't even know who he was to be fair) and she thought he was cuuuuute aaaa. and I made up some heart events for him and them and I just!! they're my silly guys they mean everything to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And anyway here is a really cheesy dumb art I drew also because I’m stupid and I love them 😩

[ajeckaea]

I hate when authors "update" older stories, or the stories are "updated" for them. I am specifically going to use Lois Duncan as an example, and more specifically, Down a Dark Hall.

This book was written in 1974, and "revised" by Duncan in 2011 to add cell phones, internet, and make other edits that were, as far as I can tell, supposed to make it more appealing to modern youth and reduce the likelihood of questions like "well why didn't they just use a cell phone".

The example I recall best, although it's been a couple years so I'm fuzzy on the precise details, is that one of the characters makes a comment about there being no ethernet hookup (possibly it was wifi service? but I'm pretty sure it was ethernet) in her room for her laptop.

I looked at that line and instantly said to myself "That was a landline telephone in the original version. I just bet it was a normal telephone." Because it just didn't fit quite right.

But I was reading this in January 2022. And teenagers in 2022 did not use ethernet cables with laptops when they wanted to connect to the internet for fun. They used wifi, but more than that, they used smartassphones. I also have a vague sense that there were references added to chat rooms or chatting applications in the book. Perhaps even MySpace.

The problem with "updating" technology and terminology, you see, is that in another few years it will be dated again--except now you've sacrificed the authenticity of the book. It's no longer a book from the 70s, but it can never be a book from the 10s. You've mishmashed it into an awkward chimera, and it's not better. It can never be its old authentic historical snapshot self anymore--it will always give off "hello fellow kids" trying-too-hard energy. You know that thing about putting new wine into old wineskins? Yeah.

And this is a me thing, I know, but here's the thing--if a book doesn't mention cell phones or computers, I don't miss them. In the absence of any hard historical references, the story just naturally settles into my perception as being set in Comfortably Ambiguous Time. In fact, unless the author clearly sets the story in the Modern Tech Age and brings up technology from the start, the first time a cell phone is mentioned it will jolt me entirely out of the story.

There were people who thought it was stupid and unrealistic that in 2005, highschool student Bella Swan didn't have a cell phone. I never once questioned it--highschool student Aje didn't have a cell phone until 2009.

This entire post was inspired by the fact that I'm rereading a book right now that was written in 1961, and I would never have guessed it was that old, because of Comfortably Ambigous Time. If you'd told me it was set in 1980, I'd have believed you. 1950? Sure. 2010? Absolutely. The lack of technology is not a stumbling block for me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that books should be left as they were written. It's okay that tech and slang were different. It's okay if the plot wouldn't work in a world where people keep 911 in their pockets. It's okay for books to be historical snapshots. That's what they are, and they should be left authentic. An authentic 70s book that reads like an authentic 70s book is always, always going to be better than a 70s book mutilated in an attempt to fit some later standard. Also, any reader who actually picks up a book and judges it negatively because its plot wouldn't work if set in the present day needs to be sent back to grade school until s/he learns how history works.

Some people being idiots is not a valid reason to mutilate books.

[a-real-ghost]

nobody cares about your racism sob story tbh. just leave black people alone we dont want or need you. if its SOOO hard for you to stop being racist then just leave. like are you expecting us to feel sorry for you or something? what possibly could you offer us thats any of use, really. If you're struggling to do the bare minimum why do you expect black ppl to pat you on the back? cracker.

Okay so -

I didn't say that people made me "go back to being racist" - what was meant by my words was:

When I was starting to work towards becoming better and just beginning to realize that being a racist is a shitty thing, people being hyper-literal with what I said and assuming malice instantly made that process harder. You can't learn if you can't make mistakes.

I am not going to "become a racist again" no more than I am going to become a baby again. It was a part of my life, I outgrew it. I'm not going to start shitting my pants again just because somebody was unkind on the internet.

(The metaphor is obviously imperfect, because I am actively still unlearning harmful behaviors and patterns in my life - not going to try and pretend otherwise)

Now, I could have phrased that better initially. And given that my post was in response to a person acting in bad faith, I should have. I don't particularly care if people like me or find me agreeable but I won't have people misrepresenting me or my beliefs. If you're going to hate me, hate me for who I am - don't take the easy way out and make shit up.

I appreciate your comment, and will do my best to be more clear about my stances in the future.

That being said, to be as blunt as possible about things:

Racism is bad. Racists are bad.

Cops are bad.

Cops uphold the white supremacist standard in this country and serve at the whims of the wealthy and powerful to silence dissension.

Nazis are bad. Fascists are bad.

Racism is Violence.

Destruction of property during protests is not violence.

Assaulting protestors is violence.

Nazis, Facists, and white supremacists committ violence by existing - any violence against them is self defense and justified.

All humans are capable of change and growth if they choose to do so.

If someone chooses to harm others, they deserve to be harmed in return.

Encouraging suicide is bad and cowardly - if you want to send a death threat just send a death threat

Assuming people's intentions is bad.

Reading in between the lines to make yourself a victim is bad.

Intentionally misinterpreting someone is bad.

Ignorance is not inherently malicious.

Just because somebody is mean, rude, stupid, or impolite does not inherently mean they are being racist.

If people have to be perfect and address every aspect of a topic completely and without flaw in order to be an ally to whichever cause/group/creed - nobody is ever going to fit that definition.

If you criticize people who try to answer things with nuance and precision for writing too much, and at the same time you criticize them for being occasionally imprecise or not mentioning things - you are a hypocrite.

If you define anybody who is not a perfect ally as an enemy, you are wasting your energy that could be spent helping people or going after the folks actually responsible.

Not all of the things I have listed are bad to the same extent - the world is not as simple as "this is all good" and "that is all bad". Nothing exists on a binary, it's more complicated than that.

Not all of the things I have listed are a response to anything you have said.

Do not assume anything about me that I have not explictly stated.

If I make a mistake, I am happy to do the work to learn, grow, and do better in the future - but I cannot learn from a mistake I am not aware of.

If I ask a question about a mistake that I made, I am not attempting to justify what I did. I am trying to learn what I did wrong, how it was wrong, and how to do better.

Nobody is obligated to tell anyone that what they did wrong, how it was wrong, or how to do better.

People of all races, nationalities, sexualities, political orientations, etc, are capable of being wrong, making mistakes, and hurting people.

[annyoingkid]

I genuinely have no idea. It will not happen soon, that is for sure, with Dreadwolf coming out this or next year. The fate of Dragon Age and Bioware in general depends on how Dreadwolf will turn out so there is that. I think Dragon Age II might be a bit of a problem here which holds back the idea of remastering the series. Remaking Origins would imply DA2 would get a remaster as well and this game needs something more than a simple visual upgrade.

With Dragon Age, at least in my opinion, the situation is much more complicated than with Mass Effect Trilogy. The three games released so far are too distinct from each other - the Legendary Edition kind of thing might do irreparable damage. In Mass Effect's case, the remaster was based on the third game's visual style and models, which resulted in the ME1 and ME2 losing their original vibe (I will not discuss it further since I could write a whole separate post about it). Mass Effect is forgiven to a degree though since all three games have the same settings and characters, there are returning localizations like the Citadel and Omega so the world still feels somewhat the same.

Dragon Age does not feel like one entity - everything changes every game, this series is much more experimental in various aspects. Dragon Age games are too different in their presentation - imagine Origins or Dragon Age II with Inquisition's visual style, which is aesthetically pleasing but very colourful and bright. This style does not fit the settings and would affect the storytelling as well. The player feels the horror of the Blight because of the world’s portrayal – it is dark and ugly, Kirkwall feels like a shithole and looks like a shithole. Another problem is that Dragon Age games are often quite inconsistent in their portrayal of various races - it is especially true for Elves and Qunari, if Bioware decided to go with one model, the Dragon Age 2's models would likely get replaced which is a shame. In this game, Elves were quite distinct, they were not just smaller humans with pointy ears and big eyes.

Therefore, Dragon Age games would need a much more individual approach if the artistic value of originals was to remain. If Bioware/EA decides to go with a separate remaster of each game the situation gets easier, in theory, but it would require a lot of work.

I think most of us can agree that Origins desperately needs a remaster. Honestly, I do not think it was ever a good-looking game even by 2009 standards. The biggest challenge besides upgrading visuals while saving the original aesthetics would be improving the game's mechanics without streamlining it and keeping it tactical like in the original. However, despite all that I think it is the easier game to tackle in comparison to its' sequel.

As I have already said Dragon Age II is a game that does not need remaster, it needs a remake. I do not think any other solution would do since many of the problems lie in the game's fundamentals. Improving only the visuals would face a massive backlash - the release of the original Dragon Age II was controversial enough as it was, and re-releasing an incomplete product would be stupid, even by EA's standards. Let's be honest, would EA want to commit to that? Dragon Age II is the least popular one in the series by a huge margin. When you look at posts on Tumblr or Reddit it seems like the game has grown on people a lot (I, personally, am fond of it in this slightly guilty pleasure way - it is not a good game but it had good ideas and wanted to do things differently). However, these online communities are only a small fraction of actual players and many people do not remember the game well.

Inquisition would be the easiest one out of the three, getting most likely only a slight upgrade. Even now, in 2023, the game still looks beautiful - I can honestly admit that even if I am not a fan of the entry. Easy money for EA. Inquisition would be more like ME2 and ME3 in Legendary Edition, the textures are in higher resolution and that is pretty much it.

[knamil]

So class was Tuesday and people had their thumbnails and got reviews and I kind of barely paid attention because I was trying to meet my self imposed deadline which I missed anyway.

More comic stuff under the cut.

I stopped trying to do the daily figure drawing art challenge, which is moderately stupid because I could have just submitted the figures I was drawing on like every friggin panel of this comic. But nooo I wanted to do something separate and I was either noodling for so long on things or just phoning it in so I don't think it was really helping me with figure drawing improvement and it was making me fall behind my poorly-thought-out schedule.

I don't know if I'm satisfied with the quality of my drawings for Stasis. I know if I try to make them fit what I want I'd probably only have a page a week if I'm lucky. I also want to finish this thing so I think the standard I have will have to do for now.

I was thinking though, that maybe every week I'd pick one panel to make look really nice (as nice as I'm able) and either have that be a hero panel or just post the panel separately.

It's a thought.

Separately, I'm going to try to paint in clip studio again. I know I KNOW if you've followed me from my old blogs you know that I have tried to reach escape velocity from planet photoshop before and failed. This just means it's high time I try again. Also, photoshop randomly drops pressure sensitivity with my current tablet and I have to undo every third stroke which is not fun and also makes everything take longer.

I have to recreate my whole work flow and stuff, but I was already using clip to do the word bubbles, so maybe doing everything in clip will be better.

Also I've revised part 3 of Stasis so all of those thumbnails I made for part 3 are useless. It's funny because though the story is already written as prose, the adaption into comic form means I can take one paragraph and make it 10 pages long, or I can make it a single panel. Choosing which ones to elaborate on visually vs which ones to make into a hero shot with a caption box can mean a completely different book.

So far I haven't had to change much about Part 1 or 2, though every week I change the thumbnail layout of the pages I'm working on. :]

I thought it would be easier to do this because the story is written. The firm boundaries would make a solid framework, but I'm learning that there's still infinity inside the boundaries of a story to navigate. Which was kind of what they were talking about in art class, so I guess I am learning along side them.

[tetsunabouquet]

Understanding the view of Old World Cuisine

I read an article about a woman going back to the US after having lived like two decades in the UK, who talked about how she could never quite fit in when she lived in the UK. Considering pretty much half of her talking points were food related, I am going to say my piece as I recently had a conversation with @velezmp4 about Dutch cuisine so perhaps this might be an entertaining read regarding how the old world treats cuisine. First of all, I am going to start with what I considered the most insulting line and can totally understand how people might not have been the most friendly towards her if she ever uttered statements like that out loud, which is that 'we accept mediocrity' when it comes to food. The first example she gave was that everyone was 'so polite' when she worked at a tourist trap restuarant that served mediocre food. On that all I can say is: so you are saying with your own anecdotal evidence that Europeans are likelier to smile into a waiter's face and lie that the meal was good? What's wrong with being polite to a staff worker who didn't cook our meal for it being crap? This brings me to some of their other examples of 'accepting mediocrity' such as that waiters don't clean the tables all the time and that sometimes, what a horror, you will find someone's crumbs on your table and how Americans will demand a free meal if waiters leave them waiting to long. I didn't even knew the last example was a thing, and god I find it appalling to say we are accepting mediocrity by not doing so! We are NOT accepting mediocrity. Unlike people from places like the US, we understand our waiters are human beings just like us. Cooking food takes time, cleaning tables also does and there is not always waiting or cleaning staff available to take care of a table were there's just a crumb or two. In the EU we have the highest standard of food inspection rules and the UK didn't immediately changed to much lower standards after Brexit or something. The restuarants are perfectly safe places to eat and you won't die from a table that hasn't been cleaned. Most of the time, that is a social expectancy amongst ourselves. Wipe off your table if you left crumbs before you leave, it's not that hard! If anything, it just says we don't accept mediocrity from our fellow customer folk and expect customers not to be lazy and to be considerate. We don't believe the customer is king and gets to do whatever they want at their corner of the restuarant. Fuck that mentality along the lazy asswipes who don't clean up after themselves. And neither will our portions like our peppers ever get to the size of the ones in the US, that woman clearly didn't understood a thing of living in the Old World and how we view things. It's not like it's a brand new phenomena for US portions to be oversized, my mom already encountered that when she was travelling in the US before I was born. Yet, in the almost 30 years that have since passed, the old world is STILL doing things their way. You know why? Because to us, cuisine is part of a culture's legacy and we've had recipes older then centuries. Like, a Dutch bread roll, the Zeeuwse Bolus which I talked about with the person I mentioned above, is believed to be a recipe stemming from Spanish/Portuguese Jews that fled to our country during the Spanish Inquisition. How many American original dishes are as old as that? Our food is also healthier then most of the US equivalents. Again, remember my old post about how Cheetos has exclusive European versions of their chips they sell over here because the EU rejected Cheetos' American recipes over being cancerous? Why the fuck would we change centuries of our cultures and adopt unhealthier foreign foods on a mass-scale? I'm sorry, but not a single one of our governmental bodies are going to be that stupid, and the old world is going to continue with our versions of the meals rather then adopt the American way. Accepting mediocrity, is accepting American cuisine, I'm just saying...

[evvlevie]

Hello do you have any advice for “baby shifters”? I am one and I haven’t shifted yet and there are so many places I want to go and people I wanna see, and I just don’t know how to do it for certain, and is it just a dream or is it real? I think I’ve shifted to a different parallel universe before but it was identical to my cr if that makes since, so how do I get to where I want to go?

Hey there!
so first of all: I am very glad, that you have found me and chose to go to me for help and advice, you can't imagine how honored that makes me feel 🫂💖


Do i have any advice for baby shifters? 
well let's put it that way : usually when you go on any platform and type in "Reasons I haven't shifted yet" you get the same 5 pieces of advice everywhere. I recently made a post on shifting advice that is supposed to make shifting easier for you, but I assume that this is more helpful for people who don't consider themselves Baby shifters, but more for people who have been trying for a very long time and tried several tips already. 
Advice that can be helpful for people who are just starting their shifting journey from me would be the following:
🌧1. Have you tried a method, yet? How did it go? Did you feel any symptoms? Every shifting journey is unique and different things work for different people, which is ultimately why you should try different methods every once in a while, maybe try a subliminal or a guided meditation. Just try some things and look for yourself what feels fitting. Don't overdo it tho! Don't try a new method daily. Try something for maybe a week or maybe even more and test out what seems to bring you closer to shifting. Since shifting doesn't have any rules or a certain recipe, you can even mix different methods to create your own one, since it's you that shifts yourself, and you need to do whatever you think will do the trick. Methods and etc can be found on any major platform when you search for shifting methods. Subliminals are primarily on YouTube, such as guided meditations and methods are easy to find EVERYWHERE.



🌧2. Do not overcomplicate shifting. Do not put it on a pedestal and treat it like this glorious solution to all worlds problems and that it is a holy activity only a few selected people get to do. It's not. Truth is, if you found out about it, it is MEANT for you. My recent post goes further into this, but if you treat shifting like it's easy to do, it WILL be easy to do. You set the standards, you make it harder or easier, not the universe, no nothing. YOU are the key TO EVERYTHING.



🌧3. Trust in yourself and the ability to achieve it. I know some days are harder, some days are easier. So is shifting motivation sometimes. When you feel yourself get demotivated, and like stop trying/ believing, that's normal! But know that it is real, and you can do it, too. I usually tell people to get off Shift-tok because there is a lot of stupid advice circulating and a lot of fake information, but it is a great place when it comes to shifting motivation. If you ever feel like it's fake or hard or whatever, shifters on TikTok have always made the motivation come back for me!



🌧4. Theoretically, you don't even need a method. A method, a subliminal or a guided meditation are all just ✨helpful tools✨ that are supposed to make the transition from CR to DR a little bit easier, because when you can't comprehend what shifting is, yet, you usually want to feel like you can do something physical or an activity that will "activate" the shift. In reality you just need to want to do it. That's the fun part about shifting. You get to set the rules. If you tell yourself: All I need to shift, is fall asleep and wanting to wake up there, then that's your reality and that's how it's gonna happen. Shifting is all about intending. If you want to shift, you CAN shift. That's why shifters in the shifting community say your mindset shifts you. We call that a self-concept. A self concept is basically your idea of yourself and how you view shifting. If your self concept consists of you telling yourself you are the best shifter on human earth, then obviously you will make shifting an easier experience for yourself.



🌧5. Inform yourself on the topic of shifting, but also on the law of assumption and on the law of attraction. Inform yourself on the multiverse and study these topics a little. Do you NEED to know about these topics. no. will it help you with understanding the whole universe and so shifting too? definitely.



Is it a dream, or is it real?

It is real. As real as you sitting in front of your screen right now and reading this. I know that it sounds hard to believe at first, but it is literally you in another reality and not just a dream. As soon as you have shifted you will lose your damn mind over how real it is, so better script that you will stay calm once you arrive/wake up/ become aware.

It's totally possible that you have shifted to a universe that is exactly like your CR before on accident, some people call that a mirror DR btw. I recently saw someone on TikTok talk about how he shifted to a mirror-reality on accident and then woke up the next day in his CR realizing that he had spent an entire day in a different reality without him knowing or intending that.



So how DO you get to the place you want to go to?
See here's the thing:

most of the time, when shifters get asked this question their answer is: "just focus on your DR", which yes, is totally true, but at the same time there are tons of stories of shifters whose first shift went WEIRD. They shifted to places they didn't intend to be at, or only for a really short amount of time and so on. How do you avoid that? Well, the obvious answer is, the more you shift, the better you will be at it, just like any other skill, but what I can advice you to do, is keep in mind on why you are shifting. I believe these weird shifting situations often occur because the shifters try to shift for the "shifting of it all", and not because they want to be in that specific DR for example. Like when you go to bed and do your method, think "oh I can't wait to meet XYZ" instead of "oh I can't wait to shift, because I want to know what shifting is like". You subconscious will grab on to that, and shift you but you need to tell your subconscious the destination.

You have also mentioned that there are so many people you want to meet and places you want to visit, so what you might want to do is shift to a waiting room (WR) first, instead of a DR.

A waiting room is like a place between your CR and your DR(s). It's a reality you enter, from which you decide in what reality you want to partake next. Let's say you have a Marvel DR and a Twilight DR, and you don't know what DR you want to shift to, you can shift to a WR that looks like a School Hall for example, and on the different doors that would typically lead to classrooms, it has your DR name written on the doors, and you enter your DR once you step through the door. So is you don't know where you want to wake up tomorrow, shift to your waiting room so that at least you will not end up floating through space.

I really hope I was able to help you today❣️

a lot of love and positive vibes,

Evie <3

[annlillyjose]

Let’s Be Suns Tonight - WIP Intro

[Image Description: A silhouette of two boys walking on the road projected against a car's beam at night. The path is aligned by lights on both sides. In the center, in a creme and white serif font reads let's be suns tonight and ann lilly jose./ End ID]

Hey y'all! I have a new book. I know I have way too many WIPs but, I can't help it. So basically, here's what happened:

I was doing camp nanowrimo for dairy whiskey, my liftic novella

I wrote 1.2k of it in a day and realized that literally everything was going wrong (pov, tense, story opening, etc.)

I put off writing for two whole weeks and kept telling myself I'll write dairy whiskey when I feel like it (was still pretty sure I'd somehow win camp with my 10k goal, like no honey you need to stop being stupid)

Random thought at 2 am: Noah Anderson deserves a better story

Levi Shires. Girl. He needs a story of his own.

You're gay. Write gay.

Tries to put the project off for later and not write gay

Writes gay anyway

Let's talk about the specifics before rambling about the process. I promise, there's a lot (a LOT by my standards) of it.

Disclaimer: This is my original work. Please do not plagiarize in any way.

Genre: YA Contemporary

Setting: Not really sure, but it's an average small town

POV and Tense: First person present tense, dual POV. Possible ghost narratives.

Structure: Vignettes

Stage: Drafting

Playlist: Let's Be Suns Tonight (Updating)

Logline: Two boys who want to live life differently meet at a cafe and end up discovering secrets about each other, and about themselves too. (I'm pantsing this so things can change. I have no idea what's in store for the boys)

Characters

Levi Shires

18

Is questioning his sexuality

His full name is Levi John Antonio Shires

Is a pop singer

Just came home from his first ever world tour

Struggling with everything

Feels like something is wrong with him but doesn't know what

Face Claim: Troye Sivan

Aesthetics: music, guitars, posters, live shows, interviews, journalling at 3 am, obsessing over poetry even when you don't understand a thing except that it's beautiful, crying about being a crybaby, late night walks, questioning sexuality

Noah Anderson

20

Bisexual in denial

Father's boy

Is traumatized

Had tons of friends but is scared of it now

Wants to buy shirts with flower patterns but doesn't

Obsessed with Levi's music

Aesthetics: house parties, plaid shirts, trying to cry but cannot, laying on the floor, listening to the same song on repeat for hours, late night drives, night clubs

If you didn't already know who Noah and Levi are, here's the story. Noah is a character I created when I was in ninth grade (so that's like over three years back what) during a very angsty conversation with @jenetmoses. I drafted around 16k of his story in tenth grade and it was so much fun, but I never completed it. I then tried to fit him into so many stories but none seemed to work. Finally I decided to put him in Intersecting Parallels (another one of my WIPs I'm not sure if I'll ever even start writing) as a side character. Levi Shires is a character I created for the same project. But I fell in love with him instantly and now he's one of my favourite characters. It's almost like his existence gave Noah a story that he deserved.

Process

A few days back I felt like I should write a story for my darlings and now here we are. This is officially Ann stepping into gay waters (I'm biro ace btw) with her stories and honestly, this is so much fun. It took me a few days to actually make an intro post because I was scared that maybe this, like many of my other projects, will have a WIP intro and no updates because I. Just. Don't. Write. Anything. So I waited until I had sufficient content to share and had a feeling that this thing can work. Well, guess what. It definitely can and it definitely will.

I'm currently at about 1.2k words and writing this has been such a delight? I hope it stays the same for a long time because I haven't felt like this in over two years and now it feels heavenly. I had to go to a relative's house last week and I wrote a vignette before going. All the time I was there, I just wanted to get home and edit it (I edit as I write because it works best for me). When I came home, I spent an hour and a half editing it and it was for the first time in so long that I was longing to work on a project? Allow me to be emotional over this please thank you.

I have completed three vignettes now. None of them have titles yet, and I'm not sure if I'll title them. I know there'll be so many and I'm not sure if it's possible to come up with titles for so many vignettes, so for now it's just vignette 1, vignette 2, and vignette 3 (not fun at all i know). I'm also so happy that I can share a lot of stuff here because this, my loves, is a practice project. So here we go!

Vignette 01, Noah

I sit at a table for two, alone, raindrops bokehing the window I lean my head on. Outside the filmed glass, a litter of dogs fight for leftover meat from a barbecue joint across the street, a street light flickering above them until it dies out. The interior is all about pretence - Pinterest art printed on a large canvas hung up on the creme walls, plastic flowers hanging from fancy plastic pots, baristas speaking in an accent too thick for their age. LED bulbs coated in lime-tinted glass paper light up the cafe. They almost look like incandescent bulbs. Almost.

So, that's the opening. Not much to say about it, but I really wanted to set this story's beginning in a cafe so there it is.

Here's another excerpt from the same vignette. Noah being 1) attached to his father and 2) extremely angsty and pretentious.

The barista slides a ceramic cup towards me, smiling faintly with the corners of his eyes. The kohl on his lower waterline has smudged and darkened his under eyes. My latte stirs itself, the marbling on the froth a bit distorted now, the cream heart melting away, burnt and sacred. Papa told me that the heart is where life is. One evening after our family prayers, he pointed at a portrait of Jesus and said, "It is where love begins, and that's why love is what makes life worthwhile. Do all things with love, Noah."

Tonight, I want to feel capable of having a heart.

Tonight, I shall drink from the grail of life.

I'm sitting here like, boy, it's not that deep. It's just a latte. But then again, is coffee ever just coffee?

Well, let's not get into that because it deserves a whole post for itself. Moving to the next vignette now!

Vignette 02, Levi

Tonight’s weather slips chills into my faux leather jacket, yet my insides burn, like a star at the verge of dying out. That’s what they call me - a star, pop sensation, a child prodigy. Another lucky teenager whose YouTube covers blew up, landing them a record deal with a big label. Another wannabe Gen-Z musician, a clueless kid whose success in the industry is solely because of his social media following. Another wave that will die down faster than it rose, a whirlpool sucking in teenagers from across the world, just another boy who has girls swooning over him for his jawline, his height, his lips. But for my fans - Leviathans - my music is everything. That's what they say when I meet them before shows. That's what they post on their social media. That's what the tell newspapers and magazines and TV shows when they're asked about me.

What is everything? I don't know.

He's just so confused? So affected by what others say about him? Conflicted by varying opinions of media? Also let's ignore the fact that I named his fandom Leviathans. I have no braincells for more. Please leave me alone. Okay? Deal? Great!

And then this is how the vignette ends.

This is my hometown, so nobody squeals. Nobody points their fingers at me. Nobody hides behind trash cans to click my pictures. Because before I went on a hundred day tour, before open stages and live shows and official merch, before albums and debut single and record deal with Quercitron Labels, before YouTube fame and my cover of The Night We Met by Lord Huron, I was just another boy.

Some days, I want to be him.

Yep, so that's what's up with Levi. He craves for some normalcy in his life. I feel so bad for him.

Vignette 03, Noah

This is quite short, so I think I'll add the whole thing here.

A group of teenagers - two boys and three girls, all about sixteen years old - walk into the cafe. The taller boy has a dense voice. He's still going through puberty. He shaves his face every morning hoping he'll grow a beard by the end of term. He wears tight-fitted shirts to school, leaving the top two buttons undone, a silver chain dainty between his collarbones. He wears a cross on it, or an angel. Or maybe just the wings. The short boy is dating the black-haired girl. They're new at it, and it'll last a few months. But before it ends, they'll go on drives around the city wearing matching outfits they'd picked at the mall. She will sneak out with him in the middle of the night to drink wine in the front seat of his car. She'll take her first puff from his lit cigarette and will hate how it chokes her. She'll have a lot more firsts with him. They'll bunk classes and go for movies and neither will remember what happened on screen. They'll wish to dance in the rain and kiss in the pub, but they won't. Instead, they'll fight on sidewalks about college and long-distance and other friends. Eventually, they'll both acknowledge that they aren't working. The girl wearing dramatic makeup has a crush on him. She'll never confess, but the first girl will notice. Eventually. That'll spoil their friendship. The last girl is the third in the trio - the one that tags along, goes unnoticed because she takes up so little space and never talks. She wishes she were home. She's the kind that drinks black coffee and embroiders pillow cases at two a.m. so that she doesn't eat herself up.

They're a group of friends, the kind that thinks they'll last forever, but won't.

Four years back, I was the second boy. I hope four years later, he doesn't become me.

So, that's it for this intro. It's the longest post I've ever made (so far). Wow! I'm clearly so so so excited about this and I'll hopefully be able to share more stuff soon. Huge thanks to @showgirlcurio for pumping me up with this one! Tons of love <3

Thanks for reading so far. Please take care of yourself!

Love, Ann.

General Taglist (ask to be +/-)

@maxgraybooks @shaonharryandpannisim @heartfullkings @bookdragonfanish @vnsmiles @dallonswords @wannabeauthorzofija @sienna-writes @violetpeso @flip-phones @avakrahn @ambidextrousarcher @showgirlcurio @jenetmoses @17nim

[haleigh-sloth]

Hello,

I just found your page and after reading some of your mha posts had a couple things I wanted to ask if that's ok.

1. Since you feel Hawks is not justified because he could have chosen options other than killing Twice, do you think he would have been had he genuinely been made to choose between killing him and saving others? I.e. do you think it's just this killing in particular that was not justified and thus murder, or do you think heroes killing can never be justified, even if in self-defense or defense of others? If we take the "Heroes save people" maxim to its limits, it might be reasonable to argue for a deontological approach to ethics rather than a utilitarian one, so that killing one to save others is not justified because you actively break your code (as opposed to risking not being able to save others, which would be considered a lesser moral wrong under this mindset).

2. This might very well be a stupid question, but if we consider that heroes shouldn't treat others as an it and put them down for the "sake of society", do you feel this ought to extend to AFO too? I really don't mean to use this as a gotcha moment or anything like it, but I feel like if MHA is trying to move away from a punitive justice system in favour of a rehabilitative/restorative one, we ought to consider where people like AFO fall into this system as well. AFO is seemingly entirely unlike any of the other villains in the show, but if we judge that he deserves a different fate for this it also feels like playing into the "Some people just can't be saved" notion that's been perpetuated by hero society. It is of course entirely possible, if not likely, that he'll fall in battle, or that Shigaraki himself will kill him eventually, but I feel like that skirts the issue rather than answer it. As someone who does not seem to show any remorse, desire or even ability to be saved, and in fact feels rather inhuman, what should a reformed society even do with him? Even if we could convincingly argue him to be fundamentally different and thus deserving of punishment, it is much easier for us readers who have more information to make this call, rather than in-universe characters whose judgement will inevitably be based on something less than the full truth. So even if AFO's case in particular was easily answered, it would set a precedent for cases that may appear similar, but in truth be less clear cut. Basically, I believe you feel the villain league deserves another chance because they were victims of their circumstances, and thus not necessarily beyond salvation, because they never knew normality to begin with, but what about those who were not victims, those who by their nature have insurmountable trouble fitting into a peaceful society? Perhaps it's just my mistaken assumption that such people exist and I'm reading AFO wrong, or perhaps it's the opposite and I'm giving people like AFO undue consideration, or perhaps my assumption that AFO ought to be treated as a person rather than a carocature, a symbol, is flawed to begin with, but I just really don't think a manga that wants to argue that villains are people too should go "but here's THIS vile piece of shit, let's kill him!". Am I making sense here?

3. On another note, what do you think of Endeavor's recent speech and general recent development? I've seen some people who were upset by his "Would it fix everything if we showed you our tears" line, but rather than him being dismissive or callous I just see it as him awkwardly saying that he doesn't think anything other than actions can help him atone for what he did. He's still got a lot to work through, but him recognizing that he's got something to atone for and freely talking about what he did to his family is, as I find, certainly a huge step in the right direction.

WHOO hey! Sorry for taking a while to respond. You gave me some really well thought-out questions and I wanted to return the favor with well thought-out answers. Also I was heckin busy yesterday when you sent this. So, here we go:

To answer this question about Hawks, I first need to clarify what it means to be a hero in the eyes of the story that is BNHA:

This honestly doesn’t even make a dent in the amount of panels in BNHA that reiterate time and time again that heroes SAVE people, but I don’t feel like I should have to spend too much time looking for them, these I used above should suffice. The one with baby Midoriya and baby Tenko doesn’t even have any words in the panel, and it’s still powerful enough to get the message across. And make me cry.

Almost every story has its own “heroes” in it. And every story’s definition of a hero is different. In Marvel and DC superhero comics and movies, the heroes usually end up killing the villains, yes? I can’t say I’m familiar with these stories because they aren’t interesting to me in the slightest, but from the ones I HAVE seen, the final boss at the end dies. But all of the heroes get to keep their title of “hero”. That’s not really the standard we have in BNHA.

“Do you think it's just this killing in particular that was not justified and thus murder, or do you think heroes killing can never be justified, even if in self-defense or defense of others?”

So this is a fair point and I feel that the best way to answer this is by asking what you consider self defense? Say Hawks is at home mad chillin and not prepared for a fight in the slightest, and somebody breaks into his house and starts trying to hurt/kill him. He’s unprepared and at this point just trying to keep himself alive. If he ends up killing the guy, is he wrong? In my opinion, no. In real life this happens to people, and they aren’t considered murderers, as they shouldn’t be. To me, self defense is a situation where:

It’s either you or me. It’s one or the other.

I think it’s fair to say what happened with Hawks and Twice was absolutely NOT self defense. I’m not going to go into detail about how deciding to kill Twice was absolutely 100% premeditated, because there’s a wonderful post by someone else that already explains that in great detail here. But I’ll end this thought by saying that Hawks was not committing an act of self defense.

Nothing about this says “self-defense” to me.

“If we take the "Heroes save people" maxim to its limits, it might be reasonable to argue for a deontological approach to ethics rather than a utilitarian one, so that killing one to save others is not justified because you actively break your code (as opposed to risking not being able to save others, which would be considered a lesser moral wrong under this mindset).”

To make it simple for some people to understand these terms:

“Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that determines right from wrong by focusing on OUTCOMES.“ In a nutshell, utilitarian ethics means you make a decision based on how it will affect everything else.

“In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules, rather than based on the consequences of the action.” In a nutshell, deontological ethics means you make a decision based on whether it follows rules or not.

So this is a complicated question, and my answer to this is....both? Throughout BNHA we’ve had this dilemma over and over again:

Break the rules and save the day? Or follow the rules and possibly suffer the consequences? Well, BNHA just says “Yes” lol. Do both. Break the rules and save the day. Make a decision based on the consequences of said decision, but also try to follow the rules as best as you can. Even in reality, people do this to get through life. You really can’t live life under a strict utilitarian approach or a strict deontological approach. If Midoriya hadn’t persisted against his classmates and the law to go save Bakugo, he WOULD have gotten kidnapped AGAIN. They were actively trying to take him with them. If Midoriya didn’t break the rules to save Kota, Kota would have straight up DIED. Muscular was actively trying to kill Kota, not to mention Kota had zero ways of defending himself. But here’s where I don’t think this is a fair comparison:

Hawks claims his killing of Twice was to save others. I don’t completely disagree with this logic, if the situation was more dire and dangerous for Hawks. The league was taking peoples’ lives. Somebody had to do something. The problem is that Twice was RUNNING AWAY when Hawks killed him. Twice wasn’t fighting Hawks back, he wasn’t endangering Hawks himself. Hawks stabbed him in the back. AND Hawks had Dabi to worry about, who was actively trying to attack Hawks. But Hawks chose to murder Twice instead of fending off Dabi. And if you refer back to the post I linked above about how it was a premeditated decision to kill Twice, you’ll see that Hawks had the capability of knocking Twice unconscious. He should have done this from the get go. And honestly? There are other heroes who could have captured Twice. There SHOULD have been other heroes to capture Twice. If Hawks was the only hope for the heroes in that war then jeez, the heroes suck at their jobs.

So TLDR for this question: Hawks’s circumstances were not drastic enough for him to be justified in killing Twice. As I said above, self-defense is one thing, where yes I could understand how if a life is lost while defending oneself is probably inevitable in some cases. But this wasn’t self defense. Twice was running away. Hawks should also be able to rely on his hero comrades to help him out.

Instead Hawks chose to be law-enforcement, judge, and executioner all in one moment.

I hope this answers your question? I tried my best. If I misunderstood or missed a talking point, feel free to shoot me a message or another ask.

Next question:

Believe me. I have thought about this! What about AFO? He’s human too isn’t he? You have a point. Should the restorative justice system extend to AFO? I would say yes. If I’m going to stick to my guns that the villains deserve restorative justice and not punitive justice, I should be fair and say it should extend to all villains.

The problem is not in the idea of exploring saving AFO, it’s just that there simply isn’t enough time to explore this in the story. If Horikoshi had said “I’m not going anywhere guys! We’re in this for the long haul!” I’d say it’s possible to explore that route. We don’t know anything about AFO except from what we’ve seen on screen, and what we’ve been told by All Might and the other OFA holders. Which still isn’t much to go on. You’re not giving AFO undue consideration. It’s definitely a deserved consideration. There are people in the story (and the real world) who may not be victimized in any way and end up being villains. Do they deserve a chance? I’d say yes. It’s in my nature as a social worker irl to give people the benefit of the doubt and give them a chance to learn. You’re right that in the end, the league being saved and the characters not considering what could have led AFO to villainy is just “skirting around the problem.” And honestly, that’s probably what we’re going to get. I wouldn’t be surprised for the thought to pass in Midoriya’s head. After saving somebody like Shigaraki, who everybody in the story (and many readers) considered to be “too far gone”, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Midoriya entertained the thought for a brief moment. “What could have saved AFO from himself?” So honestly I don’t have an answer to this question that qualifies both sides. I can’t say that AFO is “too far gone” without undermining that fact that I never believed Shigaraki was “too far gone”, simply because we don’t get to decide what “too far gone” is.  All I can say is that in the eyes of the story, there are far too many differences between AFO’s circumstances and Shigaraki’s circumstances to compare the two, and say they deserve the same type of sympathy from us readers.

Truly I have no sympathy for AFO, because the story doesn’t ask for it. The story wants sympathy for Shigaraki, Toga, Touya, Spinner, and even a tiiiiiny bit for Overhaul. It asks for NONE for AFO.

Another post I’ll link here that isn’t by me but by another awesome meta blogger (@hamliet​) is this.

In a nutshell it says:

It’s not that AFO can’t be saved, it’s that he won’t. That’s the best answer I can give to that question honestly.

As for the third question:

That press conference was just...eh. I mean yeah, Endeavor not denying the allegations was good. Not that he really could anyway. It sucks for the rest of his family though. But at the same time Touya deserved his revenge, even though it was at the expense of his siblings and mother. It sucks, it’s a double edged sword because somebody is hurting no matter what was gonna happen. Endeavor was an asshole to that lady but I don’t really care too much. I’m really torn on what I think is going on inside Enji’s head because the Todofam is either extremely dense, or Horikoshi is writing their dialogue extremely vague on purpose to keep reader’s on the edge of their seats regarding what they want to do about Touya. I really don’t know. I’m not thrilled with the way the Todofam plot is being written right now, even though I’m 100% sure Touya is going to get his happy ending. But right now anything to do with the Todofam that isn’t Shoto and Touya just bothers me. I don’t think Enji really understands yet what he has to do for Touya. Yes he recognizes that he has to atone, but he’s not recognizing HOW he has to atone. Right now he’s still stuck in that “I have to be a hero to absolve my crimes against my family” headspace and I don’t think he’s going to get out of that headspace until he comes face to face with his son and realizes that he can’t just fight villains and go home to a happy family that he terrorized for 20 years. He’s going to have to let his family go, let them decide when to let him back in, if they ever do (I think they will just because of the way the story is being written.) As a reader, Enji is just a character that I cannot vibe with, no matter what happens. I definitely appreciate his role in the story. His role is vital to Touya’s saving and redemption. Touya is in my top 3 favorite characters from this series and I’m emotionally invested. So while I appreciated Enji’s role in the story, I don’t like his character or anything to do with him, at least until it comes time to help save his son. Also the trio of Hawks, Best Jeanist, and Enji just gives me major back the blue vibes and I just can’t read their chapters and be in a good mood lol.

Thank you for the ask! I hope I answered everything! This was fun to answer!

[noahstayed]

Sorry if you've already answered these questions but I still want to ask them so...

1) Are you going to make another book after Earthshine?

(If the answer is yes; (and you don't have to answer this one,) Are you going to do a time skip or will you go the 'the condom broke'?)

2) Will Edward have a mate (If yes; will you create an OC or simply pluck a character from the twilight saga archives are revamp them?)

3) If you do make a version of Breaking Dawn, will it have the same premise (Ie. Wedding, Honeymoon, (I typed hUMANmoon and then corrected it, don't know why my fingers went there.) surprise pregnancy (or not? Because Carlisle is a DOCTOR) turning, then the Volturi going all "We must kill the child!"?)

4) With regards to question three, in the (honestly, and sadly, unlikely) ( completely forgot what word I was going to type, and It as too much trouble to type that so I'm just going to use another word that won't flow as well) situation (I'm so unhappy with this word, my stomach is turning something fierce, man.) that you DO go the standard "with the other book as a very, very, loose guideline) Would you go the route of OYH or would make an entirely new plot?

Also, if you do go with the same general outline, (which is unlikely since Irina isn't with Laurant in newmoon but with Charlie, so there's no bitter feelings and she won't immediately go to the kings before she's heard Carlisle's explanation.) How would you make that work?

5) I know you said that if you do make a fourth book you would just use the dhampire from OYH, Elisha, does that still reign true? Or are you planning to make a new character entirely?

6) If you do make a fourth, and go the OYH route, would you still make Elisha Emse's mate, like in OYH? Or will you go with Garette?

7) Also, since you have previously made an ff about Garette and Bella having a brother-sister type friendship would we see that and get to see Garette claim her as his sister and charlie as his father, and everyone goes along with it? (Honestly, I REALLY want this to happen, especially since I've spent the last hour scrolling through your tumbler and stumbled upon the 'I'm older than my father' post.)

8) Really, all these questions border on the main one of "is there going to be a breaking dawn/part 4-5 (depending) in your rewrite?" but if you do, would Carlisle buy Isle Bella as a honeymoon present of would that be in the oneshots book (that you'll hopefully be writing after this is over) as like a "Have fifteenth anniversary" thing?

9) Are you going to write a book full of random one-shots you couldn't fit into your story? I REALLY HOPE SO.

enthusiastically hope so. :) (that's really a tense smile with eyes SHINING with hope. Just informing you that you'll be crushing my heart. Brutally. With a stake. No pressure :) )

10) If you don't write the fourth book will we get an epilogue with the wedding five years later? Like, with Bella being SUPER nervous?

And finally, 11) (I really want a war to showcase Bella's awesome vampire powers (because you've stated (in a previous Tumblr post) that you'd give Bella her BAMF!Bella OYH powers)) So if there's a part four, even though the Volturi is "lawful" and like, has a brain, in your series, can they like have a brain fart where they go. "He's making an army," Or just straight up CANNON!Aro with his need for power be like "It's an immortal child, and it needs to be destroyed." But really be thinking, "They're growing too large, already their numbers rival our own, they must be put down! This is the perfect time!" Like the (cowardly) power-hungry and villainess we all know and love. Kinda.

I have other questions but those can really wait lol.

I basically want breaking dawn and the third (Do you count Charlie's book as part of Bella's story or as a stand-alone since you weren't really progressing the plot very much (also a very good way to have a time skip in your main)?) isn't even done yet.

I don't know if you can tell, but I've been reading this series for three days straight (new fan!) and just started your OYH series and I'm just filled with a desire right now. Like, I typically hate sex scenes in a twilight book (but that's because I was a child when these movies came out (saw them all in theatre!) and still was when I read the books, so Bella is SACRED lol, and It just makes me uncomfortable to imagine her in those positions (it's like a trauma okay?) but I really enjoyed your stories (even if I basically glossed over your sex scenes and read through them quickly) and could actually sit through your sex scenes (mostly, because it wasn't INTENSE! Like, a lot of rewrites turn breaking dawn into literal Porn and sully the books for me because they basically remove a lot of plot to make room for Bella's sudden appetite, and while, yes, you gave her an appetite and... I am just really enjoying your stories and how you write so Thank You.

Okay, I've let you know your appreciated and put out my question into the tumblr universe so now I just have to wait for you to see this and maybe respond.

I hate waiting.

I haven't gotten an ask in a while and AJKHFJKHD Listen!! THE FACE I MADE AT HOW LONG THIS IS??? Superb!! I'm honored you've taken the time to write this all out so I'm gonna try to answer you as best as I can!!

Right now I'm 100% sure that there will be a couple of Novellas/Novelettes directly after Earthshine. The Renee Story, the Charlie Story, and the Roommate Story which all will get maybe 40k and mini plots that are far more focused than Charlie's first story. Charlie's new story will be focused on his relationship with Carlisle too, so that should be fun!

Edward having a Mate is still up in the air at the moment. Since he is still very young, I don't see the need to really give him someone so quick when other characters have waited WAAAY longer. As for who it might be, that's also still up in the air in case I want to do a short story with him that's a part of a series of Novellas after the main books

If I do make a BD rewrite IT WILL have wedding/honeymoon/surprise pregnancy then it will PRETTY MUCH go off the rails from there because the Pregnancy will be VASTLY different. Carlisle is a Doctor and Bella isn't an idiot. They won't be in Washington either.

Again. The first half will be loosely based on the book and then just go completely off the rails because, Like you said, the Volturi have brains and I LOATHE an 'idiot' plot where people are required to suddenly become stupid for the story to work. As for the OYH route, I will be borrowing a couple elements from OYH but the conflict will be very different.

Elisha is baby and there's no way I could make another Dhampir at this point. Not with how much I love him.

The aging process will work differently in this fic for Dhampirs, so this question is irrelevant since Elisha will be a child for the entire fourth book. As for when he's older, Its still up in the air for this series. He deserves to be baby and I very much dislike the trope of age faster = mentally develop faster because that's BS.

We'll see, I love Bella and Garrett, but there's A LOT I'll have to cram into the last book so we'll just see.

As much as I'd love to answer this, I'm covering the honeymoon in the fourth book so you'll see what happens in there ; )

I HAVE PLANS for random one shots. I REALLY DO. I just has so little time to work on the main story so I might write some when Earthshine is done! I have a name for the one-shot collection already too and some Ideas!

I very much plan to write the fourth book you'll be fine. Bella will not be nervous, she'll be WAY more anxious about it going right. Mostly her nerves will be from anticipation and excitement because she'll be 23 and be very secure in her forever with Carlisle.

There will be a fight in book four that will not have the Volturi turning stupid. Don't worry about how.

Charlies little story is a Novella so I don't count it as a book.... GOD hearing you plowed through the series in so short a time is MIND boggling. I get people telling me this occasionally and I NEVER stop being amazed by it!

As for the sex scenes, yeah, I didn't want this to be erotic literature. I frequently scream that 'THIS ISN'T A SMUT BOOK' because them having sex is just a normal healthy thing that happens in relationships and wanted to show that. The sex scenes I write tend to be glossed over anyways so I'm glad it was readable for you. I get feeling frustrated and wanting more plot, but there are plenty of people who prefer the very explicit smut.

If sex scenes aren't your cup of tea, that's fine. I don't view Bella as pure and innocent though. It teeters dangerously on the Madonna/Whore dichotomy to act like she is. I get wanting to preserve the innocence of your childhood through her. That's not me though. Bella/Carlisle's relationship is highly sexual in nature within SoG and that's ALRIGHT too!

Thanks for the super long ask!!! it was great to read and fun to respond to!

[villainwithinme]

Beauty Outside Pt. 1

Finally, Chapter two Part I of "The Villain Beauty Series". This wasn't easy for me to finish since there was a lot to discuss here. So, yes it will be a LONG post. I will start with beauty standards, pretty privilege, why you should still care about taking care of your appearance. And Part II I will give you tips on how to take care of your appearance. Let's get started.

Beauty standards in our society is FUCKING TOXIC. I mean look at how much it damaged peoples self esteem, caused eating disorders, get "unnecessary" surgeries, just straight up made people obsessed over looks. On top of that the beauty standards are around YT people. Because of celebrities like the Kardashians and Jenners some features that are not YT became a trend. Straight slim nose, big lips,tan skin, big boobs, big butts, slim waist. Don't get it twisted though these standards are still surrounding YT people. And these people can have pretty privilege.

Pretty privilege exists and if you don't fit the beauty standards you will get treated less than/ no one will really give a fuck about you. That's the truth about our society. Now I won't sit here and tell you that pretty people don't have it hard. But we are not here to talk about people that fit the standard are we. Yes, all of us have challenges in our daily life and our looks does have something to do with that (Obviously I am talking about certain situations). You can cuss me out all you want but this won't change how the world works. There is even a book by Laura James called "The Beauty Defense" talking about 30 women that got away with murder because of there looks. Still need more proof look up singer Kris Wu after shit hit the fan he still had fans defending him and even wanting to "break him out of jail." There are even numerous studies on how pretty people get less prison sentence, get paid more, are most likely to succeed, are most likely to get hired, and much more. Researching this topic you can see why this would be dangerous.

After reading you are probably wonder so why TF are you making a post on how to take care of your appearance?or you are probably going to be on some pity party. And I understand being in this society is EXHAUSTING but we can't be there for to long otherwise it will be damaging. My advise is to take breaks from social media and anything that can trigger you (or try to avoid). But remember running away won't change anything. My further advise won't be "It's all about being Confident" "You just need more confidence in yourself" honestly that's a bunch of bullshit. Confidence is a feeling, some days we feel good about ourselves other days we don't. The fact many people based that on how we should feel about our looks is fucked up. In the future I will be talking about the whole confidence thing on my other post "Beauty In Self Compassion & Attitude".

Taking care of our appearance shouldn't be a bad thing or feel like you are giving in to society. I want you to do this for you and not for them because your life is yours. It will also help you approach different areas in your life and can affect your mood.So start saying fuck you towards people that make you feel ashamed towards things you like to wear or just for being yourself. The way you want to dress, how you do your makeup and hair is a way of loving yourself. A way that can make you feel good about yourself. Remember what we feel inside can reflect on the outside. So learning how to have that IDGAF mentality. It will make you see that you don't have to put up with societies bullshit and especially the stupid beauty standards. You can unlearn everything society has taught you and be who you always wanted to be without feeling shame. Now despite what he did if you Google him, man was always looking fresh and had fits. Actor Mickey Rooney

Now as you can see my boy isn't the beauty standards (Throwing it out there he was also 5'2). But, he ended up marrying these Gorgeous women that were.

Now why am I mention him. Well like I said man was always looking fresh, he ended up pulling these women with his charm. But do you think he could have been with these women if he had been hesitant and insecure about his looks 🤔. NO he got dressed, didn't give a fuck and became one of Hollywood's Famous Fuckboys.

In the end we all lack something whether is looks or personality it doesn't matter. Society is always going to nitpick something. So learn how to have the IDGAF mentality.And someone that had this mentality was Kat from Season 1 Euphoria

(TBH I didn't agree on the some of the chooses she made but I ain't one to judge). As her mentality change, she started to wear clothes and makeup that made her glow and feel good . She stop giving in to insecurites or what people thought about her. And stop wearing clothes that didn't stand out and were "dull". She took care of her appearance which was lovely to see.

Conclusion to this post is take care of your appearance for YOURSELF and not for others. Don't become obsessed with looks, it will damage you. And just know that you matter as a PERSON and are WORTHY no matter how you look and hopefully these words of mine show you that. We are not dolls but humans with emotions that we should care about. And another thing FUCK SOCIETY.

You reach the end loves 💓. Right now I feel like I said a lot but said nothing at the same time. So give me feedback and let me know if I helped a bit. If not let me know what I should have added or if I said something that is flawed or wrong 🥲. Anyway loves hope to see you in Part II where I will give you tips and recommendations. See you later. 🙂

[dearmomimissyou]

So yesterday I tried to make a post explaining the back story of what caused Sunday's mental breakdown to happen and I tried to save it to drafts after spending 30 minutes on it while walking Miss Phyre outside but Tumblr decided to cock out and didn't actually save it which led to another mini meltdown afterwards so I'm just going to skip the background. It hurts to mich to relive it a g a i n. So thanks Tumblr.

Sunday I went to Sam's house after donating plasma cause dad was working on the electrical and I figured I'd just spend time there instead of being home. Instead, I ended up having a breakdown on Sam's back porch. I started crying inside while in the fetal position on the floor and figured that I should go outside so nobody heard me. I violently sobbed for at least ten minutes and dug my nails into my arm because I wanted to punish myself. I also went outside because I wanted to destroy Sam's living room and I can't do that but I can destroy myself and my things. I kept wanting to smash my head into something and eventually I did on the banister twice and screamed both times when I did it. After some time like five minutes of so Nemo came out and tried talking to me and I blew up on them and basically blamed them even though it wasn't their fault. They were crying and begging me to get help dad came out too crying because he heard me say that somebody was tearing me down and making feel like shit about myself but he didn't hear who and at the time it didn't make me feel anything but looking back fucking hurts. Sam came out too after Nemo went inside I think to talk to dad about what was happening and she brought Nala Tyler's cat and asked if I wanted cookies or soda to feel better. I just remember ignoring her and being so annoyed with her in the moment.

Eventually I got to the point where I couldn't physically talk and typed a message to Nemo:

I want to me normal I WA. T to be fixed and go just can't cause miss Phyre needs attention and the dress fitting and I don't want to worry mom and tge family but fucking here I dpimg just that all the God dam. Duckknf time vsvauar I can't fucking control my stupid fucking brain

They asked if I wanted to go to the lds hospital crisis center or if I wanted to wait til tomorrow:

I have to go today cause if I don't there be an excuse tomorrow like I feel better it always happens

So they drove me home so I could get some clothes and stuff to bring to be admitted into inpatient. The whole time I was getting stuff I cried and kissed miss Phyre and told her over and over how much I love her and that I'll be back I'm not abandoning her.

So we get up to the access center thing and because of covid Nemo has to leave but I get taken back pretty fast for the physical part and asking the standard health questions. They also take my stuff including my phone and the pieces of paper that I wrote down all my problems on and a brief breakdown of my childhood traumas. I sit in a pretty okay chair for what feels like an hour. I cry a bit but nothing too noticeable when I finally got back to see the crisis counselor she basically said I'm very knowledgeable about my mental illnesses and told me that she'd let their therapy coordinator know to give me a call on Tuesday and also gave me her business card so I could call too and said as long as I'm not a danger to myself I can go home. In that moment I wasn't in danger of hurting myself more and I did want to go home instead of being admitted so I could take care of Miss Phyre but this was the second time a crisis counselor told me I wasn't in enough danger to be admitted like? Excuse me? Sorry my fucking emotions turn on a fucking dime but I absolutely need professional fucking help please?

She led me back to my chair to wait for the psychiatrist or whatever and that time I didn't have to wait as long. I got a turkey sandwich box thingy that came with a fruit cup chips and a string cheese as well as mustard and mayo in packets to put on it and tomatoes and Lettuce on the side so you can add them if you want them. I only had time to eat the fruit cup and started spreading the mayo on my sandwich before the psychiatrist came to me and we talked and he said the same thing as the counselor thag I'm very insightful about my failings and then put me on welbutrin instead of Lexapro and said I'm good to go home. I went back to the chair finished making the sandwich and then ate it while filling out their crisis sheet thingy that's like when I'm in a bad place who can I go to type shit. I still had to wait to actually be discharged so J ate the string cheese too. I finally left and had to wait another thirtyish minutes for Nemo to come pick me up.

What the scratches looked like right after being discharged. We went back to Sam's house because dad was still doing the electrical and we stayed there for another hour or two before going home. Don't remember much after the discharge honestly.

Monday was labor day and we went shopping I got my pills and stuff from Smiths. Then we went back home to wait for mom and Karleigh to get up so we could go to Joanne's tk make a playyard thing for aidrian and the dollar store for other stuff I don't remember. Then we went to the grocery store to get pita bread for dinner and something else I forgot but we ended up shopping and spent like 200 dollars. We also went to Lowes to get more pvc pipe for the playyard because dad apparently didn't get enough the first time. We ate dinner with Dave which was tikki masala and it was pretty dang good. Also before we got my pills I walked Miss Phyre for a while outside and she loved it. I decided to give her a bath afterwards since she doesn't wash herself and she was oaky the entire time she didn't meow or hiss or anything. She tried to climb out of the tub but not like in an aggressive manner like she didn't want anything to do with the water. She was such a good girl.

When Dave left we started working in the playyard. We wrapped some pink tulle on the sides and tied it to the pvc with some thin yarn. It took us hours to do and it was just mom Karleigh and me because dad went to bed. It was grueling work because my body was already exhausted from shopping all day and I had to hold my arms above my head for extended periods of time. My heels were in excruciating pain but we finally finished half of the playyard at about 1230 only to find out the other tulle we bought was the wrong stuff. It was too small to have it folded over to keep the sides secure and wasn't long enough to reach both ends of the other tulle so we had to give up for the night which actually pissed me off more than finishing it would have probably. I ended up only going to sleep at 5 am and waking up at about 9 on Tuesday but it was a nice cool day so I took Miss Phyre out for another walk and while we walked I typed up the previous Tumblr post. When I was ready to go inside and take a break from reliving the shit that happened I saved it to drafts so I could finish it later and brought Miss Phyre inside. Then I realized that it didn't actually save it and I had another breakdown but not nearly as intense as Sunday. It didn't help that the therapy coordinator never actually called me. I got a call from a bit for Intermountain that asked a bunch of questions like do I understand my discharge orders am I feeling safe did I get medication and do I understand how to take the medication and I had to hit 1 for yes 2 for no and 3 for unsure and one of the questions was like am I still feeling like I'm in a crisis or something and I had to hit 1 three times because it just wouldn't register it and that pissed me off and made me mad that it was automated and they didn't even bother to have areal human call and talk to me. After every question I answered basically they said were sorry to hear that well have a nurse follow up with you later today. I ignored both calls from the nurse because I just didn't have the energy to deal with it after the Tumblr thing. Like I wasted so much energy just typing it out and what little I had left just instantly sapped after I realized it was gone. The second voicemail the nurse left mentioned that it would be the last time trying to get into contact with me but also that our insurance has mental health advocates so thats something I need to look into.

Eventually Cavell told my dad that I needed to be watched I guess and since dad was still at work and mom had just left to take aidrian back home mandi came downstairs and spent time with me. Cavell told my sad that I needed to eat so he texted mandi to make sure I ate something and we went upstairs and made pizza and waited for dad to come home. After that we had to wait for mom and Karleigh to get back so we could go back to Joanne's to get the right tulle and while we were there I bought some double pointed needles so I could make some wrist warmers to hide the scratches. I also wrapped them up which just made it seem way more serious than it was since they were too close for bandaids to work right I had to use gauze and ace wrap.

We thankfully didn't finish the playyard yesterday we're supposed to some time today but hopefully I'll be asleep before then.

I also left the access center a review since they only had two. One one star review that was basically my experience and one five star with no description from an account that only gives 5 star reviews and seems like a bot.

Nemo wanted me to call the center for evidence based treatment last night because Google said they closed at 7 but when I called they closed at 5 so I called today instrad and nobody answered so I filled out their online form and I just got the response email from them so I'm going to hopefully get better soon I guess.

Love you always.

[dontsee-observe]

Hello there! So I read your post responding to my question and I would still DEFINITELY be in to reading more chapters of Truth or Dare if it wasn't fluffy and happy. I really like when stories get angsty and moody and it's just a rollercoaster of emotions haha! If you don't want to continue it, I totally understand but I did want to say that if you were even slightly considering continuing, it you definitely have an eager reader waiting right here! 😄

(Honestly your support got me so happy I wrote another part because WHY NOT. I think I’ll try to make it a series. But if it sucks I am sorry. Anyway, this chapter is getting me really hyped up to write another chapter right now because of the way it ended.

Truth or Dare Part 3)

Reconditioning work wasn’t fun.

It was like being put in a box and escorting people to their deaths but instead of them dying they just lost whatever spark in their life they had. Of course you had never been thrown into reconditioning - you were thanking every star out there now that you saw what it did to people - but just seeing what it did sent shivers up your spine and you almost felt bad everytime you escorted another person inside. Almost. You were just more relieved it wasn’t you being escorted in.

Even though you were relieved though, you were very lonely. Where you used to work - on the bridge - there was a lot of interaction, even if it was just work related you still got to talk to people. Now though it was just a simple ‘hello’ and ‘please come this way’. Sometimes they didn’t even talk back! Besides, Phasma was too busy to come around so you were left staring off into the distance, left to think. Which eventually led to replaying every interaction you and General Hux ever had with each other. Which also led to you freaking out internally and spacing out while working. Which led to you ignoring everything around you. Which led to General Hux calling your name a few times before catching your attention.

“Lieutenant (L/n)!” You jumped in your seat and snapped your head up to look at your superior. He had that look on his face again. The one where he looks disappointed at everything. And at this moment it seemed that disappointment was mainly from you.

“S-sir!” It seemed like stuttering around him was apparently a thing now.

“I’m pretty sure in the job description I sent you it didn’t include spacing out.” His lips pulled up into a scowl at the words he was having to push off his tongue. You were shrinking, trying to hide behind anything, but the space was open and it would be too awkward and unprofessional to dive under the small desk that had come with the job. Yeah, this place was really open, not a soul came down these halls unless they were sent for - Wait. Why is the General even here? He has no reason to be here.

“Sir?” You were pretty sure you shouldn’t speak without being spoken to but you were just too curious to brush off the fact that General Hux was standing here, datapad in hand and nobody else around him. If anything you would expect at least some sort of stormtrooper by his side, whether they be a guard or somebody sent to be ‘repurposed’ as you’d come to say over the past few hours. The General - it seemed he was being generous - raised an eyebrow at you.

“Yes, Lieutenant?” Suddenly you were at a loss for words. What would you even say? ‘Hey, so what are you doing here General?’ No, he practically owns this place so he needs no reason to be here. ‘Are you here because you wanted to know how I was doing after that weird encounter?’ Yeah, the airlock seemed like a better option. 'Am I doing my job right?’ That one was just plain stupid. Definitely after how he caught you dazing off into space.

“Do you need me?” What. What. Why. Why would you even spew such a question. It could be taken so many ways and maybe hiding under your desk wasn’t such a bad option anymore. But the General seemed taken aback, unable to find a proper response. Then, his cold exterior was back up, his scowl back on his face and his glare fixed on you.

“I hope you aren’t implying that I came here to see you.” Now that. That hurt. For some reason the words slammed a screwdriver through your heart and twisted the tool just because it could. But, you had to stay professional.

“No, sir. I’m very sorry for the inconvenience. I was merely asking if there is anything I could help you with. I don’t think you would come here for no reason, sir.” The words came out precise, almost sounding as if they were programmed into your brain. The academy did things to the brain when it came to respecting your superiors.

The General, after a moments time, accepted your answer and straightened himself out. “Yes, well, I needed to see Jaxar for the details on the troopers that have come through here today. He hasn’t sent me any details yet and is not answering the e-mails I have sent.” Then, he glanced to the back door, his terrifying glare becoming chilling as he talked about the man. “He’d better have a good reason as to why he isn’t. Because if not…” His voice trailed off and a shiver went down your spine. You subtly noted in the back of your mind to never ignore one of the General’s messages in fear for what might happen to your position in the First Order.

“Would you like me to escort you to him, sir?” Goodness, it was like you were a merchant sucking up to a customer now. Honestly though, you just kinda wanted to get this ordeal over with. You had already embarrassed yourself more than once in the little amount of time you had spent with him.

The General turned his eyes back to you, his eyes softening the slightest bit. For a moment you felt relieved, almost happy, but he still kept his glare. “Yes, I think that would be for the best. I do not wish to waste time looking for him.” You almost hesitated. You didn’t actually expect for him to accept. Instead you thought he would just walk into the rooms behind you like he owned the place (technically he kind of did) and find Jaxar by himself. But instead of pondering over this you turned around and went to the doors, opening them to make your way through the maze of metal to find the control room Jaxar operated. Wordlessly the General followed you, his boots making almost no sound compared to the standard heels you had to wear. Finally, after a few minutes of awkward silence you opened the door to Jaxar’s room. Instead of finding him there operating the panels that were blinking with random colors you were met with nothing. Suddenly, the room felt much smaller.

“Jaxar?” Your voice was meek, and you swallowed heavily. You did not like the almost penetrating gaze you could feel glaring into the back of your skull. Oh how you wished you could take back your suggestion of escorting him.

“Jaxar the General is here to see you.” You hoped that Jaxar was behind one of the two doors in the control room. One was a refresher, the other a broom closet. Why there was even a broom closet in here you had no idea but when Jaxar had introduced you to the control room he didn’t allow you in that room. You just hoped that he had some family heirloom in there that he didn’t want others to see.

“Jaxar?” You repeated his name again, voice becoming an octave higher out of fear.

Please Jaxar, just come out.

“Lieutenant (L/n), where is he?” The growl through the words make you crumple in on yourself slightly. You didn’t want to turn around and look at him. You were positive if you did your knees would give out and you would crawl from him just to get away from the glare you could feel.

“I don’t know, sir.” You couldn’t turn to look at him so you just kept your gaze forward, moving your eyes around as if trying in vain to find the man in question.

“Look at your superiors when they talk to you (L/n).” Kriff, he was mad. Building up courage you slowly turned around. His face was pulled into one of the most terrifying glares you’ve ever seen from him. You didn’t know if the glare was merely because of Jaxar’s dissapearance or your refusal to look at him when addressing him. You hoped it was the former, but when he walked forward, eyes trained on you, his form hunched over almost like he was a predator you knew it didn’t matter what he was angry for. All that mattered is he was about to take it out on you.

“S-sir, I-”

“Did I say you could speak?” He hissed out the words and your mouth clamped shut. Slowly he reached your figure and he was glaring down at you over his nose. Somehow the action made you feel smaller, almost insignificant.

“You know (L/n)…” He started lowly. “I’ve been having a very hard time trying to convince myself that you are fit to work on the Finalizer.” Your mouth went dry and you could feel your heart drop to your stomach. “I decided a while ago you weren’t.” You felt like throwing up, but doing so would ensure you would never make it back into the First Order. “Do you want to know how long ago I decided that?” You stayed silent, didn’t move a muscle. You didn’t want to know, and you also knew he wasn’t really asking you. “I decided that two days after you had made it on board. And yet, you have been here for longer than two months.” Your eyes widened unconciously. Why were you even still here then?

His hand, still covered in those leather gloves, cupped your chin and tilted your head up even farther than it already was. His eyes, those peircing blue eyes, weren’t really glaring anymore, but instead they had a glint. A glint that sent shivers down you spine. You couldn’t tell if your shivers were from fear anymore and you weren’t sure if you wanted to know. Slowly his thumb brushed up and settled on your lower lip, just brushing against the skin there. Suddenly everything felt much more intense, and then beeping of the controls fell on deaf ears. All that you could hear in this moment was your own breath mixing with his. It was almost intimate, but it was most definitely scary. Scary because you didn’t know what was going to happen next, you weren’t even sure if you wanted to know what would come next. He had just threatened your job, but then at the same time kept you here. Now though, his thumb was brushing against your bottom lip as his own parted. He look like he wanted something, someone. You weren’t sure if you wanted to be that someone. But at the same time the coiling in your belly and the heat in your cheeks was telling you to go for it, take the jump and allow whatever was going to happen to happen.

“I must tell you something (L/n)…” Instead of his eyes being trained on yours his gaze was falling to the thumb brushing your lips. He applied pressure and your lips parted from his action. “I have become quite taken-”

His words were interrupted with a loud snore. Both your heads snapped to the sound. And when you started to look back to the General he was already making his way to the broom closet. He seemed furious, but he almost always seemed like that so you weren’t surprised when he whipped the door open, the handle slamming into the metal wall. The sound was so loud the sleeping Jaxar jumped and dropped the bottle in his hand. Walking closer you looked at the item.

Whiskey.

Very expensive and very illegal whiskey.

Now you knew why he wanted you to stay away from that room. He wouldn’t want anyone reporting contraband to a higher-up and lose his job. It made sense that he would put it here too. Rooms were inspected for those things but places like these weren’t. It would’ve been smart if he hadn’t drank on duty.

“Ah, Jaxar. Finally coming back to us I see.” You glanced at the General. He had such a mocking and sardonic smirk on his face you almost shrinked away for Jaxar.

Jaxar, being still woozy, and most likely feeling the full after effects of his mistake, could only answer with, “Uh… What'cha doing here General?” The words were so unprofessional you cringed and prayed he would only be knocked down to work in a lesser position even though you knew that the contraband itself would be sending him packing.

“Well, you see…” The General pulled his datapad from a pocket in his greatcoat. You hadn’t even noticed he put it away. He must have done so when you were escorting him. “I hadn’t got any information on the people sent here, and after sending a few messages I gladly took the time out of my day to come here and find out the reason why. I thought maybe you had died.” He emphasized the word with such a mocking tone you knew the General thought it would’ve been better for the man if he actually was dead.

Jaxar, sleepily nodded, not even processing the full context of the General’s words. “Sorry 'bout that General. I got off track.” He casually gestured to the illegal bottle of whiskey that lay on the floor.

The General, done with Jaxar’s nonsense it seemed, turned away from the man slightly, and looked at you. Your heart stopped, you didn’t know what he would do. He changed exteriors so quickly. “I want you to take the contraband from this room and put it on your desk. You will wait for stormtroopers to take the contraband and Jaxar. When the man comes to I will talk to him. After that ordeal I will see what needs to be done here, so you will be off work for a few days.” His eyes narrow the slightest bit. “If you’re lucky you might get back to work as a proper Lieutenant sooner because of Jaxar’s mistakes.” The words stung but at the same time you were happy. You wanted to get back to the bridge as soon as possible. Maybe you could even speak to Mitaka and Phasma when you got back.

The General, even though it seemed he was done speaking, stood there for a few moments, just watching you before turning away and leaving. As soon as the door closed behind him you could feel a weight lift off yours shoulders and you stumbled into the wall, knees wobbling. Taking in deep breaths your hand slowly came up to your chest, clutching at the clothing there.

Man did he really give mixed messages.