#but just in case someone else comes up with something so amazingly fantastic | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mutants-and-soldiers · 4 years ago

Text

The Proposition (Ch. 1)

summary || You've been thinking about Steve's proposal a lot. Part of you wants to decline but a bigger part of you wants what he's offering.

pairing || alpha!Steve x omega!Reader (Past alpha!Bucky x omega!Reader)

word count || 3,706

warnings || A/B/O, eventual smut, therapy talks, kink negotiation, lots of dialogue — 18+ ONLY//MINORS DNI

notes || I can't get this story out of my head, really! First chapter is all about setting up the smut so I apologize but I believe in talking things out. Thank you to everyone who commented on the first part of the series! I'm going to try and be better about answering comments from here on out! Keep the comments coming, I love hearing from you guys so much!

You can also read it on Ao3. Do not copy, translate, rewrite or repost any of my work, even if you credit me. I always welcome comments and reblogs!

Sequel to Helping Hands: One Two Three Four Five

Divider courtesy of the talented @firefly-graphics

After so many years of going to see Dr. Beta, you were used to the routine when you stepped through the doors. It was late in their work day so you were the only person in the office other than Valarie, the receptionist, who gave you a kind smile. “Good afternoon,” she said, typing something onto her computer. “Dr. Beta’s just about ready.”

“Thanks, Valarie,” you say, setting your bag down to take off your suit.

It had been weird the first time Dr. Beta had demanded you not wear the suit during your sessions. You protested but in the end, she won out. There were a lot of reasons for choosing a female-only office but this was the biggest one. They accommodate you so much just to make you feel welcome and safe in your own skin. It was one of the few places that you could take the suit off and feel comfortable.

The suit was just being zipped up into your bag when the door to the doctor’s office opened. Dr. Beta was a matronly middle aged woman with plenty of laugh lines and crow's feet from years of laughter and joy. She was a kind beta who had done wonders for your mental health and self esteem. Without her, you probably wouldn’t have gone through with the job proposal.

She called your name with a gentle smile, “You ready?”

“Yep,” you smiled, walking over to step into the room. The blinds were closed tight but there were several lamps around the space that allowed a soft light to keep it illuminated. The wooden diffuser was pumping out the soothing smell of lemon and sandalwood. Dr. Beta had always said the lemon helped cut the potency of your powers but you weren’t sure if that was true or if it was something she said to make you feel better.

The two of you settled into your usual spots before the doctor asks, “Anything new since we last saw each other?”

It had been a month since your last session. The milestone of going monthly instead of bi-monthly had been huge for you. There was a time that you saw her weekly, which was when you were at your lowest. You were glad to be where you were.

“Where do I even start?” you laugh, leaning casually back on the leather couch. The cold material felt nice on the bare skin that peeked out from your denim shorts and athletic tank top. “I’ve been meeting regularly with three guys to run with them every Tuesday and Thursday. We also go out for drinks and the game on Sunday.”

“Wow, that’s fantastic!” she gushed, genuinely excited for you. She even sat her clipboard and pen down to lean forward with her elbows on her knees. It was something she only did when you made some kind of...positive choice in your life. The way it made your chest swell with self pride was silly and kind of childish but the woman had always been extra motherly to you. “Clients?”

“One of them was,” you nod, trying to keep the flush of excitement from making you seem too eager. “They’re really nice guys and they invited me to start sparring with them next week after our runs.”

A gentle look crossed the doctor’s face that had you melting. It was a look that she gave when she was proud and the way your name came out of her mouth spoke volumes. “I’m so proud of you,” she said aloud even though you knew it by her body language. “It’s been a long time since you took time for yourself in your personal life. Are they on your level of martial arts?”

“Better!” you said, excited to have a good challenge.

“Better than you?” she laughed, sounding incredulous. “I’d have to see that to believe it!” You join her for the laugh. “Anything else?”

Your mind flutters to a certain blond and his proposition but decide to keep that to yourself for now. It wasn’t good for you to hide secrets from Dr. Beta and you usually didn’t, however, she would definitely encourage you to take him up on the offer. You didn’t think you were ready to come up with reasons (lies) for why you couldn’t do that yet.

“Not really.”

She nods, grabbing her clipboard to flip the paper. “Dr. Noland said you were going to get your heat early this time around. She said you mentioned you might know why?”

Damn it. You forgot how much the two doctors communicated between each other about your health. It was the program you were in and, while amazingly helpful, could be very annoying at times. Case in point, now you need to make a choice on whether to point blank lie to Dr. Beta or just tell the truth. Lying by omission was much more your style.

“Yeah,” you sigh, resigning yourself to the conversation. “The last client I helped had...intense pheromones. I think it may have kicked me into my heat cycle early.”

The doctor’s hazel eyes widened in shock, “Even with the suppressant you took?”

Nodding, you look away for a second. “The client was a super soldier,” you admit, running a hand through your hair in frustration.

Understanding blossomed on her face when she made a guess as to who you were talking about. “Well, that might do it, for sure,” she nodded, making a note. “Still, I’m going to have Dr. Noland change your suppressant just in case it’s not working.”

She stood up, going over to the cabinet behind her desk. She took out a large bottle, tossing it to you, that had heat vitamins in them. Another bottle was thrown your way full of pills specifically for healthy slick production. The last thing she came over with were a few vouchers for omega-centric energy drinks and heat-snacks.

“I know you hate this question but I am legally required to ask,” she chuckles. “Do you have someone you trust to help you through your heat?”

You hesitate. “No.”

Her head snaps up, hazel eyes pinning you to the spot. “You hesitated. You never hesitate,” she points out with far too much excitement. She sets the clipboard down, doing the lean again. “Do you have someone in mind?”

Well, the cat was out of the bag and now you couldn’t lie because she would never believe you now. “I was...propositioned,” you admit, feeling stupidly relieved that you had been honest with her. She had conditioned you so fucking well to feel better when you told the truth as opposed to lying. It had been a ‘bad coping mechanism’ you created during your childhood to gain some control of your otherwise uncontrollable life.

“By one of your new friends?” she asked, already getting the gist of the conversation. “Was it your client?”

“No, not my client but his...best friend,” you whisper, feeling a little embarrassed that you were having this conversation.

Dr. Beta is quiet for a moment, contemplating how to ask the question. “What’s the big deal then? Why not take him up on the offer?”

You cringe. “There are…a lot of reasons but I’m sure you’re going to make them seem like they’re not problems but things I’ve blown up in my mind.”

She laughs, shaking her head. “You know your feelings and worries are valid! I just help you see things in a more logical light. I think you should really talk this through with him but...would you like to practice with me?”

You bite your lower lip but give a heavy sigh when you realize there’s still nearly forty minutes left of your time with her. “Fine. It can’t hurt.”

You sat in the booth twitching with your napkin. You and the owner were good friends from back in your academy days so he allowed you to pay a certain amount for the whole rooftop terrace. It meant you could enjoy a meal with someone without having to wear your suit. You also got the same female server every time who knew your situation and didn’t care.

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” you heard a familiar voice say to your left.

Not really sure why, you stood up when he approached. He was wearing a thin blue zip-up jacket over a blue and white plaid button up shirt that was unbuttoned enough for you to see the white t-shirt he had under it. His jeans were dark and fit far too well around his massive thighs. A plain blue ball cap sat on his head and some fake glasses to help hide his identity. The smile he gave you was enough to make your preheat brain purr.

It took you by surprise when his big arms wrapped you up in a hug that smothered you in his masculine scent. Your hands touched his back, hugging him hesitantly. The squeeze lasted a little longer than you expected, just enough for your head to be perfectly swimming in his pheromones.

You pulled away when he did, allowing him to sit at the far side of the table, facing towards the rest of the area. He had insisted that you come without your suit so it was the least you could do to keep the waitress from noticing his erection.

“It’s okay, I ordered some water for us,” you smile, genuinely happy to see him. It wasn’t often that you saw any of the three men individually. They usually hung out in a pack and you were happy to know that you fit into the group pretty well. “Get whatever you want, Steve. It’s my treat.”

He gave you a look. “I would prefer it if you let me pay.”

Your heart gave a hard thump in your chest. There was something about the way he said it that was just short of a command. You look into his blue eyes, trying to gauge his intent before setting down the menu. “Is this some old-fashioned pride I see leaking through?” you tease, giving him a mischievous grin.

“No, I just figure it was only right that I buy you lunch before helping you with your heat,” he said so casually it made your face heat.

“What makes you think I’m going to agree?!” you laugh loudly.

There is a knowing glint in his eyes that makes your stomach flip. “Isn’t that why we’re here? Alone?” he questioned easily, looking up just as Julia came to the table.

“Welcome back,” she greets you, setting two empty glasses and a pitcher of water down on the table. “My name’s Julia.”

“Nice to meet you Julia,” Steve responded with a neutral smile. It caught you a little off guard because it...definitely wasn’t the smile he gave you. Was it just part of his disguise?

You both ordered a beer and your entrees. It wasn’t until Julia walked away that you focused back on the alpha across from you. He was already looking at you with an intense expression. You feel like he’s basically prying into your soul.

“I...spoke with my therapist yesterday and…” you start, finding it very hard to talk about this kind of thing. It was so easy to soothe your clients but so hard to give yourself a break. “She...convinced me to talk with you about my...worries.”

His expression softens a bit. “I’m willing to work with you,” he soothes, reaching out to take your hand. His fingers curled around yours, warm and solid. “Tell me everything.”

You take a deep breath. “I’m not afraid of hurting you,” you blurt out. “You can take me even on your worst day. I’m...embarrassed to count myself among the small population of omegas that go...feral during their heat. I...fight my partner. Dr. Beta says it's because of the trauma I experienced. Trauma doesn't just disappear during heat...it gets worse. I’m just not the usual kind of docile omega that society seems to exemplify.”

He looks up to alert you that Julia was returning with your drinks. He didn’t speak until she was back inside the building. “Truthfully, I’m actually more intrigued than put off by the notion,” he finally said after taking a sip of his beer. “Do you fight the whole time or just in the beginning?”

It wasn’t a line of questioning that you expected so you gaped at him like a fish out of water for a few seconds before finding your words. “I don’t...know,” you admit sheepishly, sipping your hard cider. “I’ve only been with one alpha during my heat and he had to go to the hospital a few hours into it.”

Something dark and tempting flashed through the blond’s eyes. “How do you feel about restraints?”

Your core throbbed at the simple question. It probably showed on your face because his smile started to widen in understanding. “Yes, that’s fine,” you breathe, trying not to think too hard about the implications.

“Would you prefer to do this at your house or in my suite?” he asked as if you had already agreed to the whole thing.

Your mind screamed at you to say decline. It was dangerous and there were so many things that could go wrong. Your omega brain though had already bought into the whole thing. You wanted this big, powerful alpha to hold you down and take you in the most forceful of ways. You wanted him to restrain you to your nest and have his way with you until the heat fog cleared.

“Wait, wait,” you say, trying to finish your thoughts before deciding anything. “I’m serious when I say I’m insatiable. I don’t have any refractory period between one wave and the next.”

Julia opens the door, alerting you both that she was coming out with food. You both wait until everything is set and she walks away before continuing. The food smells delicious so you grab the burger and bite into it. You always craved red meat before your heat so when the flavors burst across your taste buds, you hum in appreciation.

Steve took a few bites of his own meal before responding. “The super soldier serum makes it so I don’t have any refractory period,” he shrugs casually with a smile. “I’ve never met someone who could keep up with me so...I’m interested to see if you can. Any other worries?”

Heat blossoms across your cheek and in your chest. “I don’t want our friendship to be jeopardized,” you finally admit after finishing half of your burger. You grab some of the fries and eat them while thinking.

“Did helping Bucky keep you from being friends with him?”

“No, of course not,” you sigh, running out of excuses. Dr. Beta had been right, talking with him had definitely made you a little more comfortable with the idea. “Fine, okay, I accept your offer.”

“My place or yours?” he asks with a genuine smile.

You mull over the question for a bit before shrugging. “I have all of my nesting supplies at my house so we can do it at mine,” you chuckle, feeling a little nervous but excited too.

He nods. “Do I need to bring any supplies? Snacks or drinks?”

The two of you continue talking about the logistics of your heat while you finish the food. It makes you feel a lot better knowing you wouldn’t have to go through with it alone. You had already taken the initiative to send a message to all of your clients to let them know you would be out for your heat. You even went ahead and took an extra week just for yourself.

After you pay and you have your layers back on, the two of you stand outside the doors to the restaurant. You don’t want to leave him, truthfully. He smelt so good and you were so close to your heat that it was hard to separate from him. “Thanks for talking with me,” you smile despite the bonnet covering everything but your eyes. “I’ll give you a text when I’m ready.”

“Of course, thanks for lunch,” he chuckles, leaning down to kiss your forehead through the layers. “Here, take this for your nest.”

He shucked his jacket and offered it. Your hand reaches out to take it slowly. “Thanks but this might just push me into it faster,” you laugh brightly, holding the large jacket close to your chest. You could smell the scent of him even through all of your layers. It made your head foggy.

“That’s the idea,” he smirked, turning towards the tower with a wave. “Just let me know when you want me to come over.”

You watch him walk away, eyes lingering on the way his biceps stretched the fabric of his shirt and down until you stared at his toned ass in those jeans. It was obvious how close you were to your heat when sweat started to form along your temples and slick started to dampen your panties.

Once you got back home, you arranged your snacks and vitamins on the counter so they were easy for Steve to find. He might need to feed you for the first few waves because you weren’t sure if you’d be coherent or not. Then you went into your extra bedroom that you used for your heats and started getting it ready.

You pulled out all of your slick-resistant pillows, cushions and blankets from the closet to make a nest on your king sized bed. It was a nice four post bed that had your mind in dark places. All you could think about was being restrained with cuffs around one of those posts while Steve fucked into you.

It didn’t take long before you needed a pad for all of the fucking slick that was making everything so annoying. The nest took a lot longer that you would like to admit because it just didn’t seem...right. You’d never had this kind of issue before but your omega brain wanted Steve to be comfortable and happy too.

Looking back at the closet, you debated on whether or not you wanted to pull out the box of toys. You weren’t sure if Steve would want them or need them or…

“Fuck it,” you mutter, grabbing your phone to send the alpha a quick text. Toys or no toys?

You were adding his jacket to your nest when your phone vibrated in your pocket. Instead of the one or two word answer that you expected, it was...something else.

Definitely toys. I’ll enjoy teasing you until you’re begging for my knot.

Fuckin’ hell! Was this the same blond with the surprisingly boyish face that you had met during lunch today? The same guy that Sam teased about being an old virgin?

You didn’t think the pad was going to hold up to all of the slick that gush from you at the text. How does one respond to a text like that? You grabbed out the delicate pink box out of the closet, wincing at the color because it was the only color that the shop had to store your toys. Omegas were feminine right?! They liked pink, right?!

Laughing at yourself, you set the box on the little table in the room. You opened the lid and set it to the side so you could look at your assortment of toys. It was a collection you started when your first heat hit you at sixteen. You had been a late bloomer because of your constant martial arts training, which stilted your omega hormones.

It had all the necessities and even some extras. You had your typical knot dildo, a vibrator, a clit vibe, a few different types of condoms for when you weren’t in your heat, a bottle of lube that encouraged slick production, a bottle of regular lube, and a few different sized anal plugs. The last few were just because you enjoyed the feeling of being full when having sex.

Quickly you took a picture of the box and sent it to Steve as a reply. It was the best you could come up with. You had never really been good at those kinds of things. Well, you’d never had someone try and sext you.

Happy that everything was prepared, you cuddled under your fuzzy blanket in your nest. Comfort flooded through you as you nuzzled into the man’s jacket, deeply taking in his scent. It was nice and musky and made you feel warm and safe.

The phone buzzed. You’re okay with anal during your heat?

Your pheromone idled brain made you giggle, “Consent is important,” before you could text him back. Yes, I like being stuffed full.

It didn’t even register how inappropriate the text sounded before you hit send. You were obviously a lot further along than you had previously thought. The subtle throb of your core was starting to get worse but you weren’t too far gone to see his last text.

Good to know. Get some rest. Need me to come out and check on you before dark?

You groaned as a cramp hit your pelvis, slick becoming an issue. It simultaneously hurt and felt good. You were so distracted that you couldn’t answer the text message. Everything was suddenly too hot so you threw off your clothing, slipping your hand down to brush against your clit. It was already so sensitive it hurt but you needed relief.

It wasn’t enough and you knew that it would be futile to try and get yourself off with just your fingers but your brain wasn’t working. You groaned helplessly as the lackluster orgasm washed over you. It wasn’t enough, so frustratingly not enough. Sweat dripped down your cheek from your hairline making you kick off the blanket so you could turn over.

You didn’t care how it looked with your ass up because the scent of Steve on the jacket helped clear your head a little. It made your core throb but it also helped you become coherent. Enough so that you grabbed the phone and typed in a one word response that only said:

Now.

Credits for the pictures in Moodboard:

Unsplash photographers:

1. Kelly Sikkema

2. Vulkan Olmez

3. Toa Heftiba

Like, comment and reblogs are always welcome! Thanks for reading!

#a/b/o verse #alpha!steve x omega!reader #steve rogers x female reader #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x you #eventual smut #kink negotiation #therapy #mutants #fanfiction

126 notes · View notes

rwbyvein · 4 years ago

Text

Firen Lhain: Chapter 602: Prismatic Confessions: Part III/III

Blake sat on one of the beds in her room, Ilia sitting across from her on the other.

"I guess... I should explain..." Blake voiced, and Ilia just looked at her nervously. "Yang was my partner back in Beacon."

"Like... Adam?.." Ilia asked.

"I was SO afraid she would turn out like Adam, but Adam is not freedom, not independence, not even power or justice, he - is - spite. Yang is strength. She doesn't really know what to do with it, but... she's - not - out - to - destroy - the world. I kept her at arms length for the longest time... and... I can't believe I said that."

"Blake?.." Ilia quietly voiced.

"Adam," Blake said, fighting back tears, "cut off - her arm." Ilia did a double take before looking back at Blake. "But, apparently that wasn't enough to stop Yang." Blake shook her head, causing the tears to fall away, and developed weird smile on her lips. She then wiped her eyes. "Next we have Weiss, the... former... heir... to the Schnee Dust Corporation."

Ilia developed a terrified look. "She?.."

"Was disinherited for trying to help the people of Remnant. She became a Huntress so her father, who married into the family, wouldn't be the one to define the family name. As you might imagine..." Blake said with a bright smile, "we did not - get along - that well - at first. We learned to trust each other, love each other. Next is Ruby, who is," Blake said, and paused, "hope incarnate. She's the reason the rest of the team, the reason everyone, got back together. Just being around her makes me hopeful we can succeed."

"And... the buck?.." Ilia asked.

"He prefers hart, through he's actually a Caribou." Blake warmly said to her, "He's the warmest, gentlest warrior I've ever met."

"He did not feel..." Ilia tried to say.

"He didn't hurt you." Blake voiced, "I've seen him strip Yang's considerable Aura with a single punch." Ilia looked at her with wide eyes. "You can't tell me it didn't feel warm being carried by him."

"Even if I was being carried under his arm?" Ilia asked.

"Whom are you trying to convince?" Blake asked her, and Ilia stared into nothing for a moment.

"Wh... why... are you telling me this?" Ilia asked.

"Because," Blake voiced, "if you join us, it wouldn't be as my girlfriend... but you will still need to know how I feel about everyone here."

Ilia looked off into nothingness as she thought this over.

* * *

Blake walked down the stairs, only to step into the sisters shouting at each other. She didn't hear what Ruby had originally said.

"Chill, sis!" Yang shouted, "Everyone knows I've got it going on."

"But!" Ruby tried to say.

"But what, Sis?" Yang asked.

"I mean..." Ruby voiced.

Blake looked around inside, not seeing Jaune anywhere. It wasn't until she looked out on the patio that she found him. She walked out to the patio, closing the door behind her. Jaune turned his head briefly to see who it was before looking back over the night.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you." Blake nervously stated.

"A lot of things happened today," Jaune voiced, "but I wouldn't say disturbed is one of them."

"I'm not bothering you, am I?" she asked, as she nervously walked up to him.

"I honestly don't know." he said, and the two stared out into the darkness. "Just... so much happened today. It doesn't seem real. Does it?" he asked, and turned to her.

She nervously tried to look at him, but had to look back out into the darkness. Jaune turned to join her. "It, "she voiced, "makes far more sense than it really should."

"It, what?.." Jaune asked. "We can't... can we?.. I mean..."

"I mean," Blake said, and moved slightly towards him, "it makes more sense than it should." Blake took another step towards him, and then another snuggling up to him. He shook with a start for a moment and then continued staring into the darkness. He moved his arm around Blake, hovering over her shoulder, unsure of what to do. She grabbed his hand and pulled his arm around her. "You've never been shy, before." she voiced.

"It's never meant this much before." Jaune voiced. "You girls were always so unattainable. The most I thought I could expect was friendship. And you, along with my team, are the best friends I've ever had. I just... never... thought..."

"Never thought, what?" Yang asked as she walked over. "I've seen the way you look at us."

Jaune turned just enough to look back at her, trying not to disturb Blake, "With... respect..."

"Well... yeah..." Yang voiced, "but a little somethin' else. I've seen your eyes wonder, if you know what I'm saying." And Jaune sighed in reply.

"Okay, yes, you're all so amazingly beautiful." he stated.

"And apparently last night it was a cat burglar, as she decided to jump to the front of the line."

"I just... needed... someone..." Blake voiced.

"I could have..." Yang tried to say.

"You were having a... talk..." Blake voiced, "with your sister."

"Is there?.." Jaune voiced, "Actually a line, or?.."

With this Yang sighed. "Sorry." she voiced, as she walked up to Jaune's free side. When he didn't react she spoke up. "You've got two hands, and I expect you to use them." Jaune quickly wrapped his arm around Yang's shoulder. "So, we didn't want to fight about this, but this is my play. I'm a babe, and you certainly know that. I've caught you staring."

Yang squeezed Jaune and then slipped out of his arm, before returning to the house, Jaune's head following her before looking back at Blake..

"And?" Jaune asked, "this is yours?"

"Two Faunus," she said with a pause, "with eye-shine, staring out into the night?" Blake asked, "How could it not?"

"Exactly." Jaune said with a smile.

* * *

Jaune and Blake stepped inside, when a burst of rose petals appeared in front of them. "Okay!" Ruby shouted.

"Ruby?" Jaune asked, and Blake respectfully stepped away.

"So, Yang-and-Blake-made-their-move-and-I-want-to-make-my-move-but-I-really-don't-know-what-but-just-know-that-you're-the-first-one-to-talk-to-me-and-I-don't-think-I-could-live-without-you-and-I-wanted-to-thank-you-for-coming-with-me-and-I..."

"Easy, Ruby." Jaune stated.

"but?.." Ruby tried to ask.

"I don't think I could live without you, either." Jaune grumbled, "Which is one of the reasons this is so... difficult..."

Weiss cleared her throat, and Jaune looked over to her. Weiss had a light blue flush, and hands tented in front of her face; when she dropped them he saw a smile, "I do believe it is my turn." Jaune gave her a nervous smile.

"Is this going to be fancy?" Jaune asked, and Weiss nervously looked down and around, anywhere but at him. Ruby turned to leave but Jaune quickly pulled her into a powerful hug. He then kissed her on the head, let her go, and turned back to Weiss.

"I suppose?" Weiss teppidly asked, "candour is in order." She nervously looked up into his eyes. She breathed in deep for a moment. "Yes?" she nervously asked, and he lightly sighed.

"Remember, I want to spend time with you." Jaune stated, and Aurora appeared behind Weiss.

"As I expected." Aurora said, and Weiss jumped. She turned to glare at her. "I have made alternate arrangements."

"Aurora!" Weiss admonished her, and then breathed in deep, "And they are?"

"Not quite as fancy," Aurora voiced, "as he says, but a lot more private."

Weiss then looked at Jaune. "Well, he does seem to enjoy the idea..." She then turned to Aurora, "Very well. Dress will be?"

"Formal." Aurora said, and Weiss looked expectantly at Jaune.

"I... uh... walked here... with the clothing on my back." Jaune voiced.

"We could..." Weiss tried to say.

"After poking the dragon's den... queen... bitch..." Jaune voiced, "I would rather NOT be without my armour.

"Huntsmen are normally except from formal dress requirements," Aurora stated, "unless they are... well... Qrow..."

"You got a problem?" Qrow asked, and Aurora brushed her chin as she looked at him. "What, you don't like my beard?"

"That - "Aurora voiced, "is not - a beard."

Weiss looked at her incensed until Qrow just started laughing out loud. He then stood up and looked her in the eyes, "I like you." he said, and Aurora nervously looked away. "Oh, man, she's a keeper, Weiss."

"I will take your accolades into consideration," Weiss replied, "though, so far, she has been fantastic."

* * *

Weiss and Jaune walked along the street, side-by-side as they followed behind Aurora. "So, tell me?.." Weiss nervously asked, "Did you truly walk across two continents with but one set of clothes?"

"Well," Jaune voiced, "I did bring spare socks and underwear."

"And... who has been cleaning it?.." Weiss asked.

"The laundry fairy." Jaune stated.

Weiss smiled for a moment, "I doubt you mean that seriously."

"I think it's Ren," Jaune stated, "though I'm not sure, but Ren seems like the most likely candidate."

"Are you?.. serious?.." Weiss asked him.

"100%," Jaune replied, "swear to the good god. My clothes were always clean by the time I was done bathing."

"You - bathed?," Weiss asked, "Out in the open?.."

"Ruby and Nora always turn around, and Pyrrha was the same way."

"And I suppose you were just as much of a gentleman?" Weiss asked.

"Of course." Jaune said. "Trust is incredibly important."

"And as a former noble, you have your honour to think of." Weiss said, and Jaune sighed. "I'm sorry, I did not mean..."

"No..." Jaune voiced. "Whether that's why, or not, I try to always mean what I say."

"Your earnestness is infectious." Weiss replied. "Just please stay your charming self, and not the one I first met."

"Uh... yeah..." Jaune said, and then let out awkward laughter. "I was pretty terrible." he added, and Weiss giggled.

"Looking back on it, it's almost a fond memory, but... yes... you were. I much prefer this charming gentleman."

"Hardly... gentle..." Jaune voiced.

"You can be a bit of a lummox, but you are always genuine, always wanting to help. Too bad it took being a bird locked in a cage to make me realize it."

"I kind of find that hard to believe." Jaune voiced.

"Oh?" Weiss asked.

"Being in a bird cage and not trying to pick the lock or something?" Jaune.

"I tried to find lawyers to take my case, but the only ones I knew were the family lawyers."

"Ah..." Jaune voiced.

"They were right in that it was a conflict of interest." Weiss voiced.

"So?," Jaune asked, "then what did you do?"

"Hire Aurora." Weiss said, and made a thrusting movement with an invisible rapier, "And had her offshore my savings so I could be supported once I escape."

* * *

Weiss and Jaune sat on a table on a balcony, overlooking the night as a sommelier poured their wine.

* * *

Aurora opened the door to the house and walked inside, stepping aside so that Jaune could walk in arm-in-arm with Weiss. A burst of rose petals appeared in front of them.

"How was your wine tasting?" Ruby eagerly asked, trying her best not to be judgemental, or jealous, or at least less socially awkward than she usually was.

Jaune stepped forward to kiss her on her lips. Ruby turned pale(r) and nearly fainted.

"I suppose we can blame that on the wine." Weiss said with a smile, and then stepped forward to do the same. This time Ruby's knees did buckle, and luckily Jaune was ready to catch her. He picked her up like a princess and walked her over to the couch. He gently put her down, and stood up, staring at her. He dropped his hand and cupped her face before gently stroking her hair.

"Shit," Yang said, "you don't take any prisoners."

"You have your," Jaune said, and thought, "bodacious play. Blake had her quiet, Weiss her company. I had to give Ruby something."

"And ice queen?" Yang asked.

"My plan is to blame it on the wine." Weiss said with a bright smile.

#rwby #firen lhain #faunus au #pollinated knight #jaune arc #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long

17 notes · View notes

davidmann95 · 5 years ago

Text

All-Star Superman #2

A scant year to the day since part 1!

All evidence to the contrary I actually have always wanted to go back to this, especially since I keep getting asked if I’ll do so and it stirs my omnipresent sense of guilt over my lack of productivity, and also the last year has not resulted in a mass turnaround of people realizing it’s a for-real good book and not just comfort food so this remains necessary. This isn’t going to be quite as in-depth as the first go-around - both that as the introductory issue and that as the introductory recap had a lot of groundwork to lay - but still plenty to cover, as this issue sets up Lois and Superman’s arcs for the series, which is rooted (amazingly, especially right off the bat, given the book’s reputation of being about how amazing Superman is) in how badly Superman’s let his fears and shortsightedness poison the most important relationship in his life.

If the first issue is the big classic Superman material - Superman saving the day from the monster! Lois and Clark and the rest of the Daily Planet crew! Lex Luthor’s sinister schemes! A ticking clock to doom! - this scales all the way down to the uncomfortably, stiflingly intimate. Classic archetypal Superman stuff gives way to the most Silver Age issue: casual huge ideas, relationship drama, misunderstandings, last-minute reveals that recontextualize the entire issue, and baaaarely latent psychodrama bubbling up at the edges. In service of that the visual framing here is not unlike a stage play, a limited set of physically connected locales as a pair of figures bounce off one another. Quitely and Grant’s work is therefore comparatively subdued next to issue #1, keeping to traditional panel layouts and wide or medium shots with a background color palate of mostly blacks and whites and grays with a handful of other colors popping out...until Lois starts to lose her shit at the end of the issue and we get close-ups and full black and white panels and eerie glowing and dutch angles and that unsettling abstract image of her clenched teeth, as the story starts to squeeze us like Lois’s gut.

She’s right to be unsettled for that matter; she’s alone on Superman’s turf (the one issue where that’s the case other than #6, and that one’s about how Smallville stopped being his home), the weird antiseptic alien lair of the ultimate super-hobbyist, and all the baggage of their relationship is spilling out into the open as she has less and less reason to think the best of this odd man who’s been lying to her for years. Unlike the Silver Age tales this is referencing, she’s absolutely on the money with her complaints about him: he’s been dicking around with her forever and thinks it can all be okay now (His little “What?” on the second page when she bursts his bubble says it all), and he’s awkwardly overcompensating trying to fix it.

While the Fortress tour serves to peacefully acclimate us to how utterly bizarre Superman’s world really gets past the traditional rescues (the little cubic starfield we don’t know the meaning of yet, trophies are floating rather than physically suspended, the glowing flowers in Lois’s room, “The Phantom Zone map room’s pretty dull unless you can see radio-negative anti-waves”), Superman himself is...humblebragging isn’t the right way of putting it, but it feels like he’s working way, way harder than he ever will again in this book to be cool and impressive and assuring. He’s a dope in love, but he can tell something’s up and that super-brain of his isn’t putting the obvious pieces together, or noticing that this is just putting her off further and further until, like Bluebeard’s wife before her, she stumbles through the threshold of the door she was never meant to, even of course in the end he’s still Superman and there’s a perfectly good reason. Not a good enough reason, however, for her accusations at dinner to not hit home - his mind may be expanding, but he’s still way up his own ass here in a genuinely unpleasant way that’ll be elaborated on momentarily. For now he’s left stammering that she should trust him and it’s limp and phony, especially compared to his big entreaty for someone to trust him in #10 (which’ll be right after he finally comes clean with her); while Superman may not be considered a savior figure by his friends in here the way he often is in the mainline comics Lois seems to be the only one who doesn’t look up to him at least a little bit, but that clarity means she’ll call him out where no one else will.

Across the next two pages it’s all laid out, and we get to the roots of where things have gone wrong between the two of them. Lois is paranoid, certainly, the panels are literally squeezing in on her, but with Superman seeming so out-there and alien like never before she would have every right to be even sans alien chemicals. But notably there remains throughout a part of her assuming the best of him wondering if maybe this is just another big misunderstanding or that he’s simply been mutated by the solar overexposure. And in her heart of hearts, she admits that maybe she wants this to be another big damn trick with a completely sensible justification, because the alternative is that this is the new normal and she has to accept that he’s a flawed mortal man. It’s ugly and it’s mean - especially since she likes Clark - and it’s human as hell in the worst, most understandable way. It’s not going to be until said mortality is staring her in the face that she’ll be able to accept it.

Superman, meanwhile...someone could write a thesis on these panels as an articulation of the Superman/Clark dynamic. The Mirror of Truth is actually preexisting, centerpiece of a Jerry Siegel/Curt Swan joint in Action Comics #269 that was later adapted into the Superman newspaper strip where Lois uses it to figure out Superman is Clark Kent until he tricks her into believing the mirror can lie, after which he tosses it in a volcano; here it’s survived, and curiously shows him as Superman rather than Clark, when in the original tale it displayed Kent even though that was fully the era of Clark as a disguise. In here too it’s Superman who’s the ‘true’ identity of the two and which this time is reflected in the mirror, yet as in #1 it’s Clark who says what he’s truly feeling. In that light, the final panel of the abandoned glasses reads like nothing so much as Superman using the mirror as affirmation that the truth of the solemn, steadfast Superman identity gives him licence to deny the uncomfortable emotions his squishy human farmboy side is dredging up, ‘lying’ to him in a way he had to fake in the source material. Those emotions however knock right on the door of what he can’t grasp here: Clark’s so wrapped up in his own head trying to do the ‘right’ thing that he’s overlooking how his attempts at self-sacrificing selflessness are hurting the people around him. Throughout the series he’ll come to rely on others, first at his lowest points with Jimmy and the Bizarros, until at last he comes to invest true trust in Lois, and the Kandorians, and Leo Quintum, and even Lex.

For now though Lois is deep in a hole, a brief but memorable meeting with the Unknown Superman of 4500AD - everything Superman seems to be becoming to her even before she wonders if it’s literally him, cryptic and masked and with a big ‘ol question mark right on his chest instead of the familiar comforting logo, even his gutbuster of a question reinforcing his distance from a recognizable human experience - leading her all the way to reimagining her Silver Age ideal happy ending of marriage and family with Superman as a Cronenbergian horror. It’s still a Superman story, it turns out he had the very best reason possible for wanting to keep her in the dark, but right through to the end he remains just a little condescending in his reassurance, and his gift of essentially bringing her up to his ‘level’ isn’t going to solve the problem. While the next issue lets us see the two of them properly in love, it won’t be until the elephant in the room comes out that they can come to terms.

Additional notes

* God Quitely is so good. Look at the way the seatbelt curves in the first panel! Lois’s bemused little disbelieving smirk!

* Pages 2-3: Aurora Borealis?!

* Lois is the only character other than Superman who gets to have actual narration (in both cases as looks at their in-text writing), the only one whose viewpoint is thus privileged in the same way as his.

* The key is the realization of this series’ aesthetic in a nutshell: the old-school idea in a sleek, shiny, clever new way that doesn’t take away from the fantastical toyeticness of it all. For that matter, the key is the centerpiece of a later bit with Superman that could be fairly described as the long-term goal of the book book as Morrison’s hoped-for perennial: “One day some future man or woman will open that door, with that key. When they do, I want them to know how it felt to live at the dawn of the age of superheroes.”

* This is A. The first note of a larger DC universe existing offscreen, something that I’ll go into more when discussing #8, B. A brilliant, concise, fun little summation of his place in Superman’s world, and C. Absolutely hilarious given Morrison suggested in his exit interview that this could be seen as much later on in the same universe as All-Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder, which entirely rewrites the tone of that moment.

* Already discussed the key but the muscles in Superman’s hand tensing a bit at picking it up is another great detail.

* The glimpse of the Fortress here is excellent: the statues of his friends and enemies instead of pictures because he does things bigger with the yellow electric something crackling at the end of it, the off-model but curious-looking robot appearing to glance at Kandor (are it and the bigger robot with the seats on top of it trophies, or Superman Robots with different designs tasked for specific purposes?), the classic Bad Penny Good For One Crime, the Legion time bubble that establishes his time-traveling credentials for later, the Titanic where he and Lois will dine when their relationship hits a proverbial iceberg, and most strikingly the space shuttle Columbia, his apparent rescue of which I have to imagine is a reference to Astro City’s Superman analogue Samaritan debuting by averting the Challenger disaster.

* It’s next issue that has my actual favorite Superman/Lois moment of all time, but “When we’re married fifteen years, when I’m sagging and he looks just the same, will he still meet me and say things like...” “These are for you. I picked them on Alpha Centauri 4.” is right up there.

* The technological aesthetic of the Fortress is so different than P.R.O.J.E.C.T., sleek and solid and cleanly-lit and antiseptic, beautiful and advanced but a little cold in its own way. As stuffed with wonder as this place may be, there’s something hauntingly empty about it, suiting both the tone of the issue and as a physical embodiment of Superman’s emotional state. The one part that goes against it is the forbidden room, it even has beakers and test tubes to sell the mad scientist vibe...though if you were to stretch it, it much more close resembles the human technology seen at P.R.O.J.E.C.T., and this is meant as a gift for one.

* The cosmic anvil made it along with the key into the CWverse, Lois used it in Elseworlds! I may not be expecting All-Star quality from the upcoming Superman and Lois, but it’s good to know the powers that be are using it as a reference point (beyond how it inspired Supergirl’s take on Cat Grant, a connection I discussed in a post that seems to have vanished into thin air). The whole page is perfect, Superman at his most joyfully benign and beautiful and godlike; it’s the one bit where Lois’s skepticism cracks a touch watching him feed his adorable little Lovecraftian abomination from beyond the stars.

* While he never appears physically aside from a statue Brainiac hovers over this series from beginning to end in name and deed, the ominous ultimate enemy of Superman’s past, the great trial overcome even as the scars forever remain. Morrison mentioned in the exit interview that he didn’t appear in here because he and Quitely already used him as the villain of JLA: Earth 2, but that if he had it would have borrowed Superman: The Animated Series’ take on him as a Kryptonian AI gone rogue. Personally I like his place in here as-is, a little totem parallel to the Justice League references indicating the breadth of Superman’s history between putting on the cape and Luthor’s final scheme.

* A pair of minor notes: Lois points at Superman with the pointy fork when asking him pointed questions, and while it’s not immediately clear on first read she does in fact ask the Unknown Superman exactly 3 questions (“Kal Kent?” “Will Superman and I ever marry and have children?” “What do you mean?”) before he replies with his own, as promised.

* “Oww.” and “Tickles.” literally could not be more perfect Superman moments.

* Worth taking a moment to marvel at just how many future plot elements are seeded here. There’s the obvious bit of Superman thinking about having a partner setting up the next issue, but we also for issue #6 have our first look at Kal Kent and Lois wondering “What if (the Unknown Superman) was really (Superman)?” when Clark will indeed pose as him, for #10 we get our first look at Qwewq, and for #11 not only is the Sun-Eater introduced but so is Robot 7′s malfunction as a result of Luthor’s tampering.

* The structure of the series according to Morrison is a solar cycle, beginning and ending at midday with nightfall in the center. If last issue was the sun at its brightest we begin the descent here, with Superman remaining larger-than-life and ultimately trustworthy but with his classic persona and habits held to an additional, unflattering degree of scrutiny.

#All Star Superman #Superman #Lois Lane #Grant Morrison #Frank Quitely #Jamie Grant #Phil Balsman #Art #Silver Age #Clark Kent #Batman #All Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder #Fortress of Solitude #Astro City #DCTV #Brainiac #Opinion #Analysis

38 notes · View notes

whereisten · 5 years ago

Text

The Wedding Singer

Summary: You are an up-and-coming singer and songwriter who is thriving in the wedding singer business. When you find yourself singing for your former best friend Samantha Perez and not-so-former crush Yuta Nakamoto, shit really hits the fan.

Multi-part series: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

Part 1

Word Count: 4,000 words

Being a wedding singer in Miami, Florida was no simple feat, you thought to yourself. There was no one quite like a picky bride. But a picky bride and groom? That was another challenge in itself.

Especially on this specific day. April 29, 2019. You were meeting your clients in their lavish home in Brickell. Everything was very pristine but cold. You felt like you were in a homey clinic.

“Y/N, it’s so nice to meet you!” A young woman rejoiced when she welcome you inside. “Thank you so much for seeing us on such short notice. I’m Renee Torres.” Renee was the one who contacted the agency.

“It’s nice to meet you! My manager told me this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up so here I am!” You felt a little more at ease with meeting a friendly bridesmaid. Thankfully, she wasn’t catty like other bridesmaids you’ve had to interact with. “Fantastic, if you’ll just follow me.” Renee led you into the living room.

“Sam. Yuta. This is Y/N!” Renee left you with the couple.

Your heart fell when you heard her name.

And his.

Holy mother of God. Samantha Perez.

And Yuta Nakamoto.

“Y/N!” Your former friend Samantha Perez stood up from her loveseat and hugged you. “How long has it been? Eight years?”

“Oh my God, Samantha,” You said as you lost whatever oxygen you had left in that second.

“Y/N,” Yuta said as he joined you and Samantha. “It’s so great to see you.”

And there he was. The boy of your dreams. Well, no longer a boy. But still possessed that boyish charm that wrapped everyone around his little finger. Yuta Nakamoto was a star basketball player even when he was in middle school. You always hid behind your group of friends when you all went to every one of his home games. You drew the line at traveling to his away games, unless it was a championship.

Yuta was always beautiful. A radiant smile from the very first day you met. He was always kind to you in every class you’ve ever shared. He’d lend you a pencil on the very rare occasion when you were the one asking for one. He danced with you at homecoming when no one had asked you and you were very near the point of crying all the way home, feeling sorry for yourself. He bought you a rose every year on Valentine’s Day.

Well, he did that for every one of his female friends back then. But still. He didn’t have to do that.

But that was Yuta. The nicest “could’ve been a dick because he’s hot and popular but was not” guy.

As for Samantha, she was always beautiful, too. With her flawless makeup and fantastic bone structure. Her excellent sense of fashion. Heels that could you me neatly in the heart if she kicked you to the ground . Samantha also went to every one of Yuta’s basketball games with you and your friends, you recalled. However, once sophomore year started, she dipped and started hanging out exclusively with the popular kids. She did a complete 180 with you and until this day, you never understood why.

So eventually you stopped wondering.

Until today.

Once Samantha released you from her vise-like grip, Yuta hugged you and your throat went completely dry. He smelled just as amazingly as you remembered. Woodsy mixed with his cologne that he’d used since high school.

When Yuta released you, you said, “Congratulations to you both.” Very convincing, Y/N. Hopefully, they let you leave after singing a song and decide to go in a different direction so you never have to see them again.

��Thank you, Y/N,” Samantha said as she sidehugged Yuta. She was really rubbing it in your face. Especially since she knew you were in love with him for the longest time. Even before she was. Samantha may have crushed on Yuta like the rest of your friend group had. But she had many boyfriends throughout high school. But never Yuta.

“I had no idea you sang, Y/N,” Yuta said, looking particularly interested in you.

“She was spectacular in the junior year talent show,” Samantha nearly purred in his ear. She was massaging his chest. You had to fight yourself from cringing outwardly.

That wasn’t a compliment. Samantha was toying with me. We were supposed to be having a business conversation but Samantha was talking to Yuta like she was ready to rip his clothes off. And it would increase her libido if she did it in front of me.

You shivered.

“Are you cold, Y/N?” Yuta asked. For someone who was clearly getting seduced in front of a third person, he was awfully attentive.

You shook your head. “No, I’m fine, thanks.”

He smiled. Fuck you, Nakamoto. I know you don’t know the effect you have on people, especially me. And that pisses me off.

Samantha began, “Well, Y/N. Renee sent you a list of songs that we’re interested in having performed at the ceremony as well as the reception. So I would like to hear a song from each selection.”

You gulped. You’ve always dreamed of serenading Yuta when you finally had the courage. You thought the chance passed you by. But now that you had a chance, it was too late.

Samantha and Yuta sat back down on the loveseat. Samantha motioned for you to start.

“Which song did you pick from the ceremony list?” She asked.

“Let’s Stay Together by Al Green,” you replied.

Yuta’s big smile reappeared. He really needed to quit it or else you were going to place your head under a faucet and let cold water run over your head.

Samantha said, “Begin at anytime.”

So you did. You took a deep breath. Released. Closed your eyes and gave it to them acapella.

You stopped after the first chorus. Yuta jumped out of his seat and clapped. Samantha clapped politely from her seat.

“Y/N, your voice is incredible. You’re hired!” Yuta said as he took your hands.

You tried to hold onto his praise and not the fact that he was holding your freakin’ hands.

Samantha got up from her seat. You removed yourself from Yuta’s grasp. Samantha said, “Sweetie, I would like her to sing a song from the reception playlist and then we can discuss it.”

Yuta shot her a look. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he looked to be in disbelief.

Enjoy being married to that, Yuta. God help you.

“Okay,” you said, “I’ll sing Yours by Ella Henderson.” As much as you detested Samantha, she had the same taste in music as you and you had to give her high praise for her song selection.

As you sang again, you felt more confident. You felt secure and powerful. You had a gift to share with the world, you told yourself. And if Samantha didn’t see that, she could fuck off. You could sing at as many weddings as you wanted. And hopefully, someday, score a recording and songwriting contract.

When you finished once again with the chorus, Yuta turned right over to Samantha. “There’s no question. She’s the one.”

Not the right choice of words, Yuta. I winced.

Samantha sighed. “Of course, she is. Y/N, you’re hired.”

;;

Jungwoo was cackling across from you at the cafe table. He couldn’t stop. Johnny cringed but you knew he was fighting the laughter that would escape him at any second.

“Jungwoo...it’s not that funny,” you groaned.

Johnny caved. “Are you kidding me? It’s hilarious. Yuta is getting married to that she-demon?”

“Yes,” you replied.

“Yuta was always smart. He took AP Physics with us!” Johnny protested.

“Booksmart doesn’t always translate to lifesmart. If that’s even a word…” You should propose it to Webster’s Dictionary.

“Dude, you must’ve felt like your heart was being RIPPED out of your chest and stomped on the ground. For hours. To the rhythm of a Cascada song. That intensely.” Jungwoo was always so profound.

And merciless.

“Well, It’s been eight years so thankfully, I only cried once since the meeting,” you answered.

Mind you, the meeting was yesterday afternoon.

“So you’re going to do it?” Jungwoo asked.

“Why not? They’re paying me a fortune.”

“Samantha has it out for you to this day,” Johnny warned.

“Oh, I know. But...the more I thought about it...she’d want me to run and hide. I mean, she’ll also want to see me squirm at her wedding. A present no one else can give her but me. My pain and suffering.”

“Why go through with it? Why are you letting her torture you-oh God, you think Yuta will change his mind and run away with you? Oh honey bunches…” Jungwoo took my hands in his. Uh oh…he only threw “honey bunches” out when I was being truly pitiful.

You smacked him. “Don’t be silly. Yuta and I are never going to happen. We were and always will be platonic. He’s an undeniable flirt and too nice for his own good. That’s something Samantha will have to deal with. But me? I’m going to sing my ass off and make everyone cry like they’ve never cried before. I’m not going to let Samantha get to me.”

Much.

Johnny frowned. “I hope you’re right…”

“Sometimes I gotta be. And this is one of those cases in which I am!”

“Alright alright...Let’s change the subject.” Jungwoo scratched his blonde coconut head.

You smiled. “How’s it going with Vanessa these days?”

He blushed while Johnny chuckled. “She’s great, Y/N. She’s the first girl who has ever laughed at my jokes without a hidden agenda.”

“And how can you tell?” Johnny asked. He gave me a knowing smile as he directed that question to our friend.

“Because I walked her to her apartment and she cooked me dinner and then sent me off.” Jungwoo had a daydreaming look on his face. He was smitten.

“And you weren’t upset about that?” You asked.

“Not at all. I want to take it slow.”

You cooed. “Our little Jungwoo is finally becoming a man.” You, Johnny, and Jungwoo befriended each other during your stint of musical theater at the University of Miami. It was yours and Johnny’s senior year and Jungwoo’s freshman year back then. Three years later, Jungwoo was a senior now. Johnny was a producer, working at DC Records, a very affluent label in the States. You were very proud of your friends.

They were still idiots, though, and that made you feel even more fond of them.

“Okay okay next topic,” Jungwoo demanded.

You sighed. “Well, Samantha is so anal that she’s choreographed her entire wedding.”

Johnny and Jungwoo frowned at each other in confusion.

“Which means I’m going to every rehearsal, even if I’m not ‘performing’ the entire time,” you said.

“You sure it’s not Yuta who enjoys a good musical number?” Johnny chuckled.

“Yuta, as perfect as he may be, is no dancer,” you answered.

“I seem to remember you raving about how Yuta was an amazing dancer after Homecoming junior year,” Johnny delivered that sucker punch.

High school you had a big mouth. “But then we saw his Cupid Shuffle senior year.”

Jungwoo begged, “Send that video my way, please. I gotta see what is so special about this Yuta Watanabe.”

You and Johnny corrected him, “Nakamoto.”

Jungwoo shrugged. “Whatever.”

;;

A week had passed since you were hired by Yuta and Samantha. Today was the first day of rehearsal for the ceremony AND the reception. The rehearsal space was at the Brickell City Centre Ballroom. The ceilings ran high with diamond chandeliers. The dance floor stretched far and wide. Although the tables were covered, you already knew you would love to have your own wedding here. It probably cost a fortune.

The irony? This wasn’t the venue for the happy couple’s wedding.

There were over 50 people present. Most likely, some of them were dancers while the rest was the wedding party. You recognized some of your high school classmates. Although you weren’t particularly chummy with any of them, you still greeted each other.

Samantha got up on the stage and spoke into the microphone. “Alright folks, we’ll get started in ten minutes. In the meantime, feel free to grab some water bottles and snacks!”

Maybe Samantha could be redeemed. You walked over to the snack table. Your heart almost stopped when you nearly tripped on your wedge. Oh for God’s sake...Please don’t let me fall.

You almost did but someone grabbed you before you kissed the floor. You awkwardly clung onto a stranger as he dipped you. You two looked like you were in a freeze frame of a tango.

You looked up into the brown eyes of your savior and your body temperature reached astronomical levels. His eyes and even his eyebrows were sharp, making his face all the more striking. His black hair tickled your right shoulder.

“Oh my God I am so sorry! Thank you for catching me.” You rambled as you regained your balance and let him go.

He asked, “Are you okay? You seem panicked.”

So much for thinking you had it together.

“I’m okay, I promise,” you reassured him.

He lifted an eyebrow and it was the most attractive thing you’d ever seen. “If you say so. I’m Taeyong, by the way. The best man.” He offered his hand.

You shook his hand a little too enthusiastically. “Oh, hi. I’m Y/N. The wedding singer.”

“Oh, so you’re the infamous Y/N.”

“Oh dear God…what did Samantha say about me?” Yeah, you were panicked.

Taeyong chuckled. “Nothing. Yuta’s the one who wouldn’t stop talking about your voice.”

You blushed at yourself for jumping to conclusions and being in the presence of this man. “Oh.”

Taeyong said, “I can’t wait to hear you for myself.”

You gulped. It was the way he said it. You didn’t know if everything that he said came off so sensually or if it was all in your head.

;;

Rehearsals were in full swing. The wedding party was practicing their ceremonial entrance. The bridesmaids and groomsmen were paired up. Maid of honor Renee was paired up with Taeyong. He had an effect on everyone, it seemed, because Renee was almost to the point of melting.

Renee told you that you would be able to leave in the next hour after your rehearsal to the ceremonial entrance. The wedding party and the others would scrutinize you, then. Including the best man. And suddenly, all of the nerves hit you.

No, Y/N. These are clients. They don’t know anything about you and if they did, they would remember your Jesse McCartney phase and that you took very meticulous notes in every class you had together. That was that. None of them cared about how you liked Yuta. Everyone liked Yuta. There was even a waitlist to ask Yuta out in high school. So what made you stand out from the other girls? You were just a nice girl from high school, okay? Now show them who you grew up to be.

You got up on the stage and stood up at the mic, having pre arranged the songs with the sound guy. You were waiting to get approval from Samantha that Johnny perform piano and guitar with you, come wedding day.

It was just you and the microphone. And surprisingly, this was the first time you weren’t anticipating Yuta’s reaction.

Samantha and Yuta approved your cover of “Let’s Stay Together” that they decided that you would perform it during the ceremonial entrance.

The instrumental began. You sang the first verse. “I’m...I’m so in love with you. Whatever you want to do...is alright with me…”

You didn’t know what it was that happened to you when you sang. You just kind of transformed into the version of yourself you wished you could always be. Jungwoo told you that you turned into a seductress when you sang. Johnny said that you should own who you were and never look back.

You liked to close your eyes when you sang so you could really get into the song. But you chose to make eye contact with Taeyong since he was a stranger and in that moment you found it easiest to interact with him. Plus, you wanted him to know that you were interested and see if you really were a seductress.

Might as well shoot your shot.

When the song ended, you were overwhelmed by the roaring applause and you smiled. They could call you Miss Colgate Optic White with how big your smile was that moment. Taeyong was grinning right at you. You only noticed that he had moved closer to the stage. There was a little girl right beside him. She had wavy blonde hair and brown eyes.

She looked a lot like Samantha.

Samantha gave you a thumbs up and motioned for you to leave the stage. That was it for today. Thank the Lord. You went to grab your purse and water bottle when the little girl surprised you and only stared at you.

“Hi…” You said carefully.

The little girl took this as a cue to let it all out. “Oh my God, you are amazing. You are better than Leona Lewis, Ariana Grande, Alicia Keys, and Adele combined. And you’re pretty like a princess.”

The little girl couldn’t have been more than seven years old. She was adorable and very enthusiastic. Her words warmed your heart. “Thank you. Nah, I wouldn’t say that. But I do want to be a singer like them. Someday.”

The little girl’s mouth opened. “Please. That would be awesome! I’m Sonya!”

“It’s nice to meet you, Sonya. I’m Y/N.”

“Y/N, will you marry my brother?” She asked.

Well, that was a shock. You laughed. “Who’s your brother?” It sounded like you were entertaining the possibility of marrying her brother.

“Taeyong!” Sonya yelled.

Wait.

Taeyong, you realized, hadn’t been that far away from you and Sonya during your little exchange. He approached you. Sonya wrapped herself around one of his legs. “This is my big brother, Taeyong.”

“We’ve met, Sonya,” Taeyong said as he smiled fondly down at his sister and met your gaze with that same expression.

“She is perfect for you,” Sonya said, “I know he’s a neat freak and very very bossy but he’s a great guy. I think his plushie collection is pretty cool, too. Do you like plushies, Y/N?”

Taeyong gaped at his sister. You giggled.

“A plushie collection, huh?” You teased.

“He has Piplup and Pikachu and Rilakkuma, too,” Sonya bragged. “He would buy you a lot of plushies, Y/N. So please marry him.”

“Sonya, why do you want me to get married so badly?” Taeyong asked.

Sonya sighed. “Because Sam is getting married. And I want you to be happy, too.”

Wait a minute. What did Samantha have to do with this?

“Wait, how do you know Samantha, Sonya?” You couldn’t hide the frown on your face.

“She’s my sister, Y/N. She is my sister from Mommy and Taeyong is my brother from Daddy,” Sonya said. She definitely said this a lot.

You couldn’t conceal your shock.

“Y/N? Are you okay? You look like you saw a ghost,” Taeyong said, concerned.

“You and Samantha…” You began.

“Step-siblings. Sonya is our half-sister,” Taeyong explained.

How did you not know about this?

“Oh.” That was all you could muster.

“So what do you say, Y/N?” Sonya asked. “Will you give my brother a chance?” Sonya looked so hopeful and kind and radiant.

You started to see the resemblance to Samantha. The wide-eyed dreamy expression she used to have when you were in primary school. The giggly and teasing lilt in her voice. Her laugh most of all.

“Sonya, leave Y/N alone,” Taeyong said.

Sonya pouted. “Fine. But I’ll try again next time. And the time after that. And the time after that. You are coming to the next practice, right Y/N?”

You nodded.

“Good!” Sonya smiled. “There’s hope! Bye Y/N!” Sonya ran off to Yuta. Yuta scooped Sonya off the ground and spun her in circles.

“Y/N?” Taeyong asked cautiously.

You looked at him. “Samantha and I were friends. A long time ago.”

“Really?” He raised his eyebrows.

“It...didn’t end well.”

“But if that were true, why are you here?” He asked.

“Good point. There’s a lot of reasons I can think of.”

“Like?” Taeyong wasn’t hiding his intrigue.

“Please don’t laugh.”

“Now you know if you start off with that...There’s a guarantee that I will laugh,” he said.

“That is so true.” You sighed and continued. “She and Yuta hired me because...I clearly don’t suck at what I do.”

“Oh, definitely not.” Taeyong gave you a deep, meaningful look. Like he had more to say.

You gulped. “And Samantha probably wanted to throw it in my face that she was marrying Yuta.”

“You know Yuta?” He asked. A trace of disappointment was on his face. It was almost as if he knew where this was going.

“We all went to school together up until high school. Samantha and I were chapter members of the Yuta Nakamoto fan club.”

He asked, “Wait, that was an actual club? I thought Yuta’s high school friends were bluffing.”

“There wasn’t an actual club. There may as well have been. The waiting list to date Yuta was very real, though.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Were you on the waiting list?”

You laughed. “Hell, no. I didn’t think I had the right to be.” You regretted saying that last sentence. Your low self-esteem from high school was coming back in waves.

He glared, his jawline very prominent in that second. “Is that so?”

“I...have no idea why I’m telling you all of this but...don’t look too much into it. I’m just here to do my job.” And then go home and have some green apple sangria to numb the pain.

“You...don’t still like him, do you?” Taeyong asked. “Yuta?”

You winced. “Do you want me to lie?”

“Nope.”

“I kinda still do. But it’s been years since I’ve seen Samantha and Yuta. I don’t know who they are now. I never really knew Yuta in high school, either. We weren’t that close of friends.”

Taeyong still looked annoyed.

“What’s with that look?” You asked.

“I was going to ask you out...but now with the truth out…I’m not so sure.”

Your jaw dropped. Someone was going to have to help you pick it up off the ground. “Wait, what?”

“From the moment you grabbed a chocolate chip cookie, I’ve been trying to get up the nerve to ask you out. And then I caught you before you fell. And then you sang. And then it was really over for me.” Taeyong moved closer to you.

You didn’t want anyone to be suspicious of you and Taeyong. After the bomb dropped that Taeyong was Samantha’s brother, you were even more on your toes.

“Taeyong…” You didn’t know what to say. He felt a spark, just like you did. Who knew your clumsiness could work in your favor?

“If you’re still into Yuta…” Taeyong said.

You interjected. “Taeyong, I’m attracted to Yuta. But do I like him enough to really say I like him? Even love him? No.”

Taeyong put his hands in his pants pockets, waiting.

“Taeyong, we just met. I think we still need to get to know each other before we entertain the idea of a date.” You couldn’t believe you were saying this. Did the fact that Samantha was his sister now deter you at all?

His somberness faded completely. “Really?”

“Yes,” you said.

“Okay, well how about a movie tonight?” He didn’t waste anytime.

“What were you thinking of watching?” Please say horror. Please say horror. Please say horror.

“I’ve been wanting to see The Conjuring 3...Are you into scary movies?” He asked, hopeful.

It was as if the Lord smiled down upon you at that second.

Well, that day, the Lord smiled down upon you. Multiple times.

Part 2 (Coming Soon)

201 notes · View notes

haledamage · 5 years ago

Text

Sleepless

(I waited until after midnight to post this so I could count it for Watcher Wednesday :P Rekke POV, Rekkai unrequited crush (or is it? :3), early enough in Deadfire that he isn’t yet fluent in Aedyran but has started to learn it. Seki is in italics)

It was late at night when Rekke woke suddenly from his sleep. It took a moment to remember where he was, to recognize the sound of the ocean, the barely familiar language spoken in murmurs around him.

He was on a ship, in a land far, far from home, and he should have been sleeping.

He opened his eyes. The hammock across from his belonged to Edér, and it's empty. He sat up in time to see Edér disappear into the Captain's quarters.

He felt a stab of jealousy, but quickly pushed it away. He shouldn't have been surprised that he wasn’t the only one interested in her. She's beautiful and clever and fearless and Edér had years to win her heart while Rekke had barely known her weeks.

He rolled back over and pushed it from his mind. He was already asleep again when Edér returned.

The next night, Rekke was awoken again as Aloth climbed from his bunk above. He caught the elf’s eye as he walked past, and he didn’t catch all of the half-whispered Aedyran Aloth said to him, but he got the gist of it. ‘Everything’s fine, nothing to concern yourself about, go back to sleep.’ Like that’d ever worked to make anyone less curious, especially a man like Rekke.

He watched as Aloth carefully entered the Captain’s quarters like Edér had the night before.

Last night’s jealousy was overwhelmed by tonight’s curiosity. It’s doubtful this was another clandestine rendezvous, which meant the other probably wasn’t either. Which meant they’re up to something else and he suddenly, desperately wanted to know what that something else was.

It took Rekke a long moment to realize he wasn’t alone with his thoughts. Next to his hammock was the little girl he’d seen climbing around the rigging of the ship sometimes - Vela, that’s her name. Edér had said she’s an orlan; near as Rekke can tell, she’s a very young girl with furry ears and a smile full of trouble.

She had that smile pointed at him now. She offered him a hand wordlessly, and he barely hesitated before taking it. She led him to the door and knocked.

It’s Edér that opened it. Rekke hadn’t even noticed he wasn’t in bed either. He looked confused before turning a look of paternal annoyance on Vela. Before he could say anything, Vela spoke up. “Rekke wants to help Mama, too.”

The look Edér turned on Rekke was less paternal and more annoyed. “Does he.”

Rekke tried not to look like he had no idea what’s going on. His Aedyran was heavily accented, but confident. “I want to help.”

“Let him in, dear,” he heard her say from further in the room. She sounded like she was in pain or very, very tired.

“Kiki,” Edér started, turning from the door to look at her. Rekke caught a glimpse through the open doorway. She met his eye and gave him a listless smile. Tired, then.

She waved off whatever protest Edér had. “Let him in,” she said again. “He’ll just hover outside the door until you do.”

Edér moved aside to let him in, though he didn’t look happy about it. Aloth gave him a polite, tight-lipped smile from where he sat in a chair in a far corner, book open in front of him. Vela dropped his hand to instead sprint across the room and scramble into her lap.

Her. Rekke wished he knew what to call her. Even in his head, she was only “her.” Captain was just a title, too formal. He’d heard some people call her Watcher, always with a hint of awe or fear, but she didn’t seem to like that and no one would tell him what it meant. But her name was all vowels and he still had trouble shaping it right, though not for lack of trying. So he didn’t call her anything. He just said, “hello.”

“Good evening.” Her accent in Seki was as thick as his in Aedyran, but he liked that she was willing to learn. “Or good morning. I guess that’s more accurate.”

This close, he could see the exhaustion clinging to her like spiderwebs. Her hair was a mess, even by her normal standards, and her normally bright green eyes were dull and shadowed. Her smile was a distant, ghostly thing. There’s a cup of coffee on the table in front of her; as he watched, she touched a hand to the ceramic cup and steam started to rise from it where it had previously been cold. She lifted it to her lips and drank it all in one gulp, grimacing at the bitterness of it.

He sat at the table with her and offered her a hand. He didn’t touch her, didn’t know her well enough yet to know what she’s comfortable with, but he tried to make it obvious what his intention was. He put the offer on the table - literally, in this case.

She took his hand. Her fingers were cold. How did a woman who controlled fire with her mind have such cold hands?

She laughed, tired but warm, and Rekke realized he said that out loud. He blushed, embarrassed, but she didn’t appear offended. If anything, some of the light seemed to have returned to her eyes. “Ask your questions, dear,” she said. “I can see them in your eyes. Ask.”

He asked. Already, he knew he couldn’t deny her anything. “What’s wrong? Why can’t you sleep?”

And, amazingly, she told him.

In a careful, meandering combination of Aedyran and Seki and, briefly, another language he didn't know but he’d heard her speak before, she told him of her curse. Of what it meant to be a Watcher. She was thrice haunted, once by the dead, once by the gods, and once by her own distant past. They whispered in her ear, danced in the edges of her vision, and tormented her sleep.

Edér and Aloth reluctantly filled in the spaces that she couldn’t, pieces she’s missing from the time they first met when she lost herself to the voices. Also, at least two times that her… soul was kidnapped? That didn’t sound right, but perhaps his grasp of Aedyran wasn’t as good as he thought it was.

It’s a fantastic story, and Rekke’s pretty sure he only believed a quarter of it. How was he supposed to believe that this tiny, tired woman in front of him was the resurrection of a woman who had created and then rebelled against her gods two thousand years ago? That because of this, she could read a person’s memories and life story from their soul? It’s impossible. Wasn’t it?

She must have seen his disbelief on his face. “I wouldn’t believe me either. It’s a ridiculous tale, truly. I can prove it to you, if you’d like.” He nodded, too confused and curious for words, and she smiled at him and squeezed his hand. Then her eyes went… blank. Empty. A few moments passed in silence before he noticed the glow in them, violet light curling in their depths like smoke. Where their hands touched, he felt her skin go colder, almost painfully so, like wherever the life in her eyes went it took all her warmth with it.

She started speaking, in a distant voice but flawless Seki, and Rekke realized with a jolt that he knew the story she’s telling. It’s his own. He heard in her words (though not in her hollow, lifeless tone) his pain and fear and stubborn refusal to surrender to the storm they call Ondra’s Mortar as the waves and wind ripped apart the boat around him. He heard how close he came to drowning when the ship splintered and he was thrown into the sea.

The light faded and the life returned to her and silence reigned over the room. Rekke watched her face as all the emotions from what she saw (what she read. From his soul) caught up with her, tears filling her eyes and spilling over silently, falling on their joined hands. She brushed them away quickly.

“I didn’t mean to put you through that,” he said, as if he had any control over what his soul remembered. “I’m sorry, Kiki.”

The pain on her face was chased away with surprise and then a beautiful, bashful smile. “Kiki?”

“That’s what Edér called you earlier. Is it okay if I call you that?” It’s much, much easier to say than her other name and it suited her more than just calling her Captain ever would. But maybe it wasn’t a name? Maybe it meant something in Aedyran that he hadn’t learned yet; maybe he just insulted her, or it was a term of endearment or something.

The smile lingering on her face said she wasn’t offended. “It’s… a nickname my family gave me, that’s all. I don’t mind if you use it.”

He beamed at her and she blushed, her cheeks and the tips of her pointed ears turning a lovely shade of pink. There was something shy in the way she looked at him now, and it was new and intriguing and beautiful. He wished he knew exactly what made her look at him like that. He’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant she’d keep doing so.

Aloth said something, his accent much different than Rekke had heard before and tone sly and playful and completely not like Aloth. Rekke didn’t understand the words, they weren’t quite in Aedyran - but maybe something akin to it? - but whatever he said made Kiki blush darker and Edér chuckle.

“Iselmyr, please don’t say things like that in front of my daughter,” Kiki said primly, motioning to Vela still curled up in her lap. The little orlan was fast asleep.

“I should probably get her back in bed,” Edér said. He scooped the child out of Kiki’s arms; Vela didn’t so much as stir in her sleep. “You okay, Kiki?”

“I’m fine.” There was that tired smile again, even more exhausted than it was before. “You should sleep, my dear.”

“You should sleep,” he said, and his worry was audible.

“I don’t think I have a choice at this point. I’m…” she huffed an almost soundless laugh, “done. Someone come wake me if I start screaming about shipwrecks.”

Edér hovered about for another minute, but when Kiki just repeated 'I'm fine, go to bed' he reluctantly left. Aloth approached, leaning down to have a brief and very quiet conversation with Kiki before he left as well, wishing them both a good night.

And then it was just the two of them. Rekke wondered if he was supposed to leave now too, but he didn’t want to yet and Kiki hadn’t made any indication that he needed to. She was still holding his hand. Did she know she was still holding his hand?

“You’re going to have nightmares about my shipwreck now?” he asked to fill the silence.

She shrugged, casual like they’re discussing the weather and not the fact that Rekke has just become another of the ghosts that haunted her. “Probably. The things I See in other people’s souls tend to leave a mark, at least for a while. Don’t worry, dear. It’s still better than my usual fare.” She gave his hand another squeeze, then pulled away and ran it self-consciously over her hair. Her eyes stayed on his face, though, studying him as if trying to read his thoughts; briefly, he wondered if she actually could. “I hope I did not scare you. This… Watcher business, it unnerves people sometimes. They think it’s creepy.”

“I think you’re incredible.” It wasn’t what he meant to say, but it was true so he didn’t take it back, though he knew his face must be red. “I have never met anyone like you before.”

“I could say the same to you,” Kiki said, and she’s blushing again too. “Thank you. For wanting to help.”

Rekke smiled, sly and mischievous. “I thought you and Edér were having an affair. The way he sneaks in here in the middle of the night is very suspicious.”

She laughed at that, real and joyous and livelier than anything he’d heard from her all night. “I told him that would happen. I don’t know why he’s trying to keep it secret. I don’t make any effort to hide my condition.”

“He is trying to protect you.”

She pursed her lips sourly. “He always does. So does Aloth. I’m still not sure if I think they’re sweet or obnoxious.” Her frown turned into a fond smile, though, and he got the impression that her protests were habitual and not sincere.

“They are family. I think that makes them both.” Kiki turned that fond smile on him now, and it made him feel warm all the way down to his bones. It made him want to do something reckless, something to impress her and earn that affection for himself. Instead he said, “Do you want me to leave so you can sleep?”

“You can stick around a little longer, if you’d like. I can’t promise I’ll be much of a conversationalist, though.” Rekke believed it. Even though she was still smiling, her head was leaned heavily on one hand, elbow propped on the table. She was struggling to keep her eyes open.

“Do you want me to stay?” He thought he knew the answer, but he needed to hear it. Wanted to hear it.

Her eyes snapped open and she met his gaze in obvious surprise. She seemed taken aback by the question, like she didn’t expect to be allowed an opinion on the matter. “Yes. Just… Just until I fall asleep. If that is okay.”

He grinned. “I’ll stay as long as you wish, Kiki.”

There’s a few moments where neither of them moved, where the air in the room started to feel heavy and charged. Kiki cleared it with a shake of her head, like she simply didn’t have the desire for things to feel awkward and so they didn’t. She walked over to her bed and nudged at what looked like a pile of blankets. It turned out to be a large black dog and an absurd number of cats. The menagerie reluctantly moved to sleep somewhere else.

Kiki crawled into bed without hesitation, too tired for decorum, and Rekke claimed the nearby overstuffed reading chair. She gifted him with another warm smile, but he could see sleep pulling her down and away. Within minutes, her breathing slowed and evened out and she was out.

Rekke knew he should leave now that she’s asleep, but he lingered a little while, watching her. There was a knot of a frown between her eyebrows already from something forcing its way into her dreams. Without thinking, he reached out and smoothed his thumb over it, smiling as her expression cleared and she relaxed back into sleep. He brushed a few wild curls out of her face, then pulled his hand back and moved away from the bed in an effort to remove the temptation to keep touching her.

He took the opportunity to sate his curiosity and look around the room instead. He hadn’t had the opportunity to explore this corner of the ship yet.

There were a lot of books. What use could she possibly have for this many books? There seemed to be one or two on every surface, gathering in piles and drifts on any available space except the bed and the desk.

The desk was mostly covered in paper, haphazard stacks of letters and half-finished replies. He picked one up, but he couldn’t read it yet so he just shrugged and set it back down.

On a small shelf next to the desk was a collection of knick knacks that caught his attention. A pair of broken swords and a third sword that was still whole. Twin intricate bronze daggers. Several amulets tied together, all bearing the symbol of a black key. A speckled bird feather. A fox carved from white adra. A diving helmet. A stone bust of a woman whose eyes seemed to follow him wherever he went. He got the feeling that the woman was judging him, though he couldn’t say why.

Kiki made a small, distressed noise in her sleep and Rekke immediately abandoned his exploration to return to her side. She had curled into a ball, hands tensed into white-knuckled fists. He knelt next to the bed and covered both her hands with his. Her hands were alarmingly warm.

She whimpered again and he shushed her gently. “Shh. You are safe, Kiki. No harm will come to you while I’m here, I swear it.” When she didn’t immediately calm down, he did the first thing he could think of and started to sing. It’s a lullaby his mother used to sing to him, the first song that came to his mind, and he didn’t remember all the words, but he knew the tune enough to hum the parts he couldn’t recall.

Some of the tension drained from her as he sang, so he kept going. Most of the songs he knew were shanties or pub songs, but his singing voice wasn’t half-bad, and Kiki’s asleep so he doubted she’d judge his taste. He’s in the middle of the third song when she finally relaxed again and after a moment, he relaxed too. He rubbed his thumb over her palm, trying to soothe the crescent-moon marks left by her fingernails.

A few minutes passed and she didn’t stir, breathing still calm and even, so he reluctantly pulled himself away from her once more. He went back to the reading chair and, after a moment’s consideration, picked it up and moved it next to the bed before settling down into it. “If you need me, I am right here. Good night, Kiki.”

Rekke watched her for a little while longer, but whatever had been troubling her didn’t come back and her sleep remained undisturbed. He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.

Aloth found them the next morning when he went to check on Kai. She was curled up on the bed, the big black hound draped over her legs like a blanket. Rekke was still in the chair, with a cat on his head and two more in his lap. With a small smile, Aloth backed out of the room and let them sleep in.

#rekkai #pillars of eternity #watcher wednesday #rekke #kai cirdani #rhi writes #rekke has a BIG CRUSH and kiki is the only person in eora that doesn't know it #I love writing about watcher creepiness from an outside perspective #especially people that are less familiar with it than folks like aloth and eder #I haven't decided if I want to put this on ao3 or not but that's probably ye olde imposter syndrome talking #because writing from a canon character's pov always makes me second guess myself #(also from what I've been able to figure seki doesn't have any double-vowel sounds in the language #so I figured a name like kai would be something he struggled with at first #though he does get the hang of it later and calls her that sometimes #which is why he got very early special permission to call her kiki :3 totally only that reason and not because she liked him)#and yes kiki and rekke both switch back and forth between aedyran and seki #because they're at that stage of learning a new language where you can understand it find but still struggle to speak it #and it was fun to explore that a bit between them

22 notes · View notes

asterisquebloomed · 5 years ago

Text

Follow Forever

I seen a few of these before, and I thought what with the year ending, perhaps this was a good idea to do in commemoration of these past two years. I know I haven’t been the most active of RP partners. I’m really slow and my motivation is fickle, but I love RPing, I love writing, and I’ll never give it up, it brings me so much joy writing with everyone. So in honor of all that has happened, and as wish for more to come, here are some words of gratitude to some of my partners, friends, and mutuals.

@breakingreality

Avo, where do I even start with you? Oh I know, that you’re fucking amazing? Is that a good place to start? It better be, because here we go.

You are my best friend out of all the people I’ve met here in these last two years. I love talking to you, gushing about our characters, scheming and plotting future threads, teasing you with unanswered questions and unsolved mysteries, teasing you in general really, and just talking about whatever may cross my mind at the time. You’re easy to talk to, easy to get along with, and super friendly. I’m so happy to have met you and made friends with you, you have no idea. I’ll fucking fight anyone who dares talk shit about you. You’re understanding, smart, clever as fuck, and are one of the most enjoyable people to talk to. You’re a great writer, a great creator, and an even greater friend. I look forward to talking to you and I thoroughly enjoy your company. I don’t think you’ve ever once pissed me off, which is amazing because I have the shortest fucking temper ever. I wholeheartedly appreciate you and everything we’ve done thus far. If you ever need someone to talk to, to vent to, to confide in, whatever, I’m here for you. So if you ever feel lonely, or unwanted, or like you’re being ignored, come talk to me, cause I’ll never ignore you.

On that note, let’s turn our attention towards the RP side of things shall we? You’re an amazing writer, a wonderful RP partner, and your character are great. Like I love Eli, she’s fucking fantastic. Her sassy attitude, her impulsive nature, her quirky habits (Please don’t eat frozen steak Eli) and just all the intricacies and nuances, every single thing about her is great. A girl forced to grow up too fast, a child forced to face her mortality before she even got a chance to live. So when faced with two options, to die sad and alone without ever having had a chance to truly enjoy all that life has to offer, or to live by forsaking her humanity, the choice was obvious. She gave herself to the darkness, embraced being a monster, all for that chance. A chance to experience, to enjoy, to live. I’m sure most of us would make the same choice if we were faced with such a dismal situation.

Eli is amazingly written, you bring her to life in a way most could only hope to achieve. Her reactions are organic and visceral. She’s such an emotional girl, as much as she tries to hide it behind that stoic facade of hers. Her emotions are so raw and powerful that they sway the reader to feel along with her. To feel her fury as she fights against those who have done terrible things to her or those she loves, to feel her happiness however short lived it tends to be, and to feel her sorrow, the deep, bitter sorrow that seems to constantly plague her very existence. She can never seem to escape it. The abuse, the torment, the manipulation, all the suffering she goes through, that leads her to the edge, and when presented with it, she jumps. She leaps into circumstances she never fully understood, dives into a dark and twisted world, one full of horrific tragedy. Before she knows it and before she’s even aware, she’s lost her humanity. She’s become a monster, not only in name, but in nature as well. She’s become the demon those nuns claimed her to be, and she murders her tormentors for the things they have done to her. She gets taken in by a morally questionable individual and is put to work as an assassin, forced to kill people who are the same as she once was, humans who became monsters and lost control. She’s forced to essentially kill herself, over and over again. She’s been isolated her entire life. Made to mistrust others, to be distant, to be cold, to be uncaring.

And then she meets a girl, a special girl who accepts her for what she is. A girl who, while initially afraid of the truth that was revealed to her, overcomes that fear, because what you are doesn’t matter, it’s who you are that is important. She accepts her, refuses to let her go, and swears to never abandon her. For probably the first time in Eli’s whole life, she has a friend. Someone who truly cares about her and enjoys her presence. It’s no wonder she fell in love is it?

But like all things in this poor girl’s life, it’s fated to end in tragedy.

Listen, I love Eli, she’s a great character, she’s compelling, nuanced, and with so much depth, of both emotion and personality. She’s conflicted, she struggles, she has ups and downs, she feels and wants, she’s both silly and serious. She’s like a real person. She’s not just one thing, but many things, all blended together to create a single individual, just like we are.

You’ve done an absolutely fantastic job writing this girl. You should take pride in what you’ve done, because you’ve created an amazing character here.

I adore her relationship with Ivalinne and Reiko. They’re such stark contrasts to each other, such different dynamics, and the conflict between the three is great.

Which brings me to threads, I’ve loved every single one, and I have SO many ideas for more. I’ve got so many plans and schemes and plots in my head that I have yet to spring on you since I don’t want to overwhelm you, and I hope we’ll get to explore each and every one of them. I can’t wait!

You are probably the biggest fan of everything I do. You support me in my endeavors and are always cheering me on, and I thank you for that, I really appreciate your support, how much you enjoy my stories and characters, it makes me so incredibly happy. You’re probably the biggest fan of Ivalinne’s story, and by far the most vocal. I hope you’ll continue to partake in my stories as I tell them, I’d love to have you along for the ride.

Have I heaped enough praise on you yet? I could probably go on for hours about how amazing you are, so in the interest of not making this post even longer than it already is, I’ll stop here.

Avo, you’re great is all aspects, and I hope we continue to write together for as long as is possible. I look forward to the coming year and all the wonderful threads we’ll surely write together in 2020.

@intrinsicmirage

Aster, you’re such an amazing writer. Your narration is beautiful, I love the way it flows and how poetic it is. It’s a pleasure to read the things you write and a joy to see you on the dash.

You are a creative force, your ideas and concepts are awe-inspiring. The lore you’ve crafted is so interesting and well thought out, from the Coils to the Shroud, to the various species you’ve made all from scratch. You have an amazing mind and I love seeing what you come up with. Your characters are compelling, interesting, and in some cases downright terrifying. S9 is a fearsome being, an ancient god risen from the dead yearning for the power they once had and more, intent to make the universe bend to their will and take all they can get.

Syn is great. A woman struggling with her past and trying to find meaning, going from a materialistic, greedy mercenary whose focus rested solely on the wealth and possessions she could gain, to her confronting her past and taking on the trials of the Coils. She’s so haunted by her pasts traumas that in the past she couldn’t bear to speak of them, and to confront them head on took a lot of courage. She comes out triumphant and sees the world in a new light, making her realize just how pointless her treasure trove of amassed wealth is, and that there’s something much more important than money and material things. She takes her future into her own hands, reshapes herself and takes control of her own identity, giving herself a new name, one that she chose for herself, one that wasn’t given to her by someone else. It was hers and hers alone. Now known as Malam’schir, she sets her sights far higher than she once did as Syn, seeking to tear down a corrupted system of power where the strong reign supreme. All that she willingly puts herself through and endures for that goal, it’s admirable. She’s done a lot of horrible things throughout her life. She’s never been what one would consider selfless, in fact, she’s been the opposite, and for someone like that to, in the end, work towards helping the weak who are trapped under the heel of corrupt monarchies and corporations who hold an iron grip on the planets and systems in the galaxy, that is some amazing character development.

I think it really is amazing when a writer can make you feel for a character that isn’t morally sound and who is either grey, or downright evil. It takes a lot of skill to get the audience to invest in and sympathize with a character who isn’t an obvious hero. To have the reader root for someone who has killed countless people without a second thought, who lies and steals and does whatever it takes to achieve their goals, that in my opinion is a true sign of a skilled writer.

And you’ve done exactly that. I find myself wanting Malam’schir to succeed, cheering her on even when full well knowing that during the Lifeforce Coil she’s systematically torturing and murdering people to gain a better understanding of how that energy works before assimilating the lifeforce of those she’s killed into her own to bolster herself for the journey ahead. How detrimental this act becomes to her, as all the memories and personalities of all those she’s absorbed blend together. The gambles she takes as she descends into the Nine Hells and the risk all of this poses to her, not just physically, but on a fundamental level. The question of ‘is she still herself’ when all of those personalities merge and intermingle. What is truly her and what is inherited from all the souls she’s consumed. It’s fascinating and I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.

You’ve done an excellent job with your characters. They really feel like actual people, not mere concepts, but individuals with a will all their own. You bring them to life in such a spectacular way and it’s an honor to be able to write with you.

As a creator, I look up to you. You inspire me to go further and deeper, to explore beyond the world I created and reach out into the universe in which it exists. To explore my concepts on a cosmic scale rather than on a planetary one, and I thank you for that.

You’re a great friend, easy to talk to, fun to bounce ideas off of, and just an overall welcoming person. I’m glad to have met you and it makes me so happy that we’re friends. We’ve been mutuals since almost the beginning, sometime in March of 2018 or so, over the course of so many URL changes that I had to give you your own tag just to keep track of them all, and it’s been wonderful having you along for the ride. Thank you for your support through these years and for your continued interest in what I do.

I absolutely adore our ship and have so many ideas for what is to come for Reiko and Syn/Mala. Despite them both being terrible people, their relationship is so pure and beautiful. A love without expectations, one that doesn’t judge or hold the other to some sort of standard or code of conduct. A love with no burdens, but just simply being there with one another, enjoying the moment and each other’s presence. It’s so wonderful and I love every instance of it. Such rich emotion and such a profound love, even though both believe themselves unfit for love and unworthy of being loved. For such dangerous beings which such questionable morality, they are so sweet together. The fact that these two, who are ultimately very selfish individuals, would do anything to protect the other—even if it cost them their very lives—is so beautiful, it touches my heart.

I look forward to what is to come in the new year and hope to continue writing with such a wonderful writer for as long as I can, and I hope you too, feel the same way.

@sisterofthedevil / @cruentusscarlet / And more

Flan, you’re the reason I’m here in the first place. You were the first person I reached out to when I decided to come back here and enter the RP community. It was due to you that I got to join that first discord server, the first one I was ever in. It’s my home and I treasure it so much, so much so that even if that server is slowly declining, I’ll never leave it, because it’s the first place I got to call my home on discord. All of the friends I’ve made, all of them are thanks to that first step. If it wasn’t for you I might not have been able to make my place here. I’m so grateful for that. Even if we don’t talk much, I still consider you a good friend. And that’s not to mention how great of an RP partner you are.

Reiko and Flandre’s thread is one of my favorite threads I’ve had to date. I’ve loved every moment of it, it’s been such an intense roller coaster of emotions, and it’s probably the only thread where all of Reiko has been on full display. I hope going forward into 2020 that we can continue to write together.

You’re a great writer with such a unique style. Each one of your muses is fleshed out with intricate details and is a different spin on things, What with Flan having accidentally killed her sister and become the new mistress of the manor. Remilia embracing the role of being a terrifying monster and doing horrible things without batting an eyelash. Parsee being trapped not only emotionally and mentally, but spiritually and physically as well, unable to leave the bridge and be free. Satori, despite the horrors she’s witnessed, does not just follow suit to her species. You’ve given attention to every little detail, from the placement of her veins to the way she would have to put clothes on to accommodate them to the lasting effects of being able to read minds and bring other’s traumas to the surface. Alice is such a unique take on her as Shinki’s daughter, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything similar in regards to Alice’s origins and it’s amazing.

Each one of your muses shows how much thought you put into the characters you play and how dedicated you are to them. All of their trauma is very much real, and you portray it so well. There is never an easy fix to such problems, and you’ve done their struggles justice and shown just how hard it is to live with things like loss and abuse. Never does it feel like their trauma is overlooked or minimized, and their struggles with their demons and all the torment they’ve endured is very real, and how each one of them deals with their trauma in a different way shows such deep understanding of how different people react to things differently and everyone has their own way of coping.

I hope going into the next year that we’ll continue to RP together, there’s so much more I want to see and explore with your muses. You’re a great person, and I wish you all the best for the coming year.

@catacombofsouls

Lina, we’ve only become mutuals rather recently compared to most on this list, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed talking with you over these past months. It’s great to have someone to scream about The Case Study of Vanitas and Pandora Hearts with. You’re friendly and easy to talk to, and you’re always up for whatever ideas I come up with, or happen to mention. Really, you’re a very kind person and I enjoy your company. I hope going forward we’ll continue to be friends and RP partners for the foreseeable future.

I know with my recent lack of motivation that our threads haven’t gotten very far. With any luck, I’ll be able to regain my motivation and write more frequently. You have so many muses I want to interact with, particularly your OCs. Light is a very interesting character and I want to interact with her at some point in the future. I have quite a few ideas, but I don’t want to overwhelm you or myself for that matter, so once I get our threads going again and I’m not in draft hell, I’ll come to you with some even more fucking up ideas!

Thank you for reading Ivalinne’s story! I’m glad you enjoyed it, and I hope you’ll stick around for the stories to come! I’m glad you like my characters and I hope you’ll continue to enjoy what I create going forward.

@mayohigan-orange / @witchwaltzing

Cobalt, I know you don’t think you’re a good writer and all, but you really are. You’re not only fun to RP with, but fun to talk to as well.

Reiko and Chen’s interactions have been a wild ride, and a highly amusing one at that. Chen has such a feisty personality and she’s not afraid to speak her mind, or to even cuss someone out, regardless of who they are. Though that seems to get her in trouble more often than not. Between her picking fights with all the wrong people, and her devotion to those she cares about, Chen is joy to have around. Even with Ivalinne, who she hardly knows, she’s promised to keep her safe and she won’t betray her word. She’s an admirable little kitten who tries her best. She’s still very childish and her lack of worldly experience shows with just how easily Reiko has been able to get things to go her way, which still astounds me since that’s entirely unplotted and we just go with the flow with our threads.

At first glance, your Chen appears to be just the cute cat often seen in fanon, but once you get to know her, you see that there’s more to her than just that. You’ve developed her character and given her depth. Her eagerness to prove herself, to live up to her Master’s name and legacy, how desperate she is to do so despite the risks. How protective she is of those close to her, and even those she’s only recently met. She’s a good girl with a strong heart and even stronger convictions, and how passionate she is shows in not only her words, but her actions as well.

You don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re a great writer, and a fun RP partner who pushes themselves to do more. I seem to recall you not being too confident in fight threads, but here you are, writing one with me and doing it spectacularly. You’re dependable and reliable, probably one of the most reliable RP partners I’ve had the pleasure of writing with. You’ve never once dropped one of our threads, even though we have so many, and that’s something I greatly respect.

You’re a good friend. You’re easy to get along with, and you’re so casual and friendly, joking around and just overall are an enjoyable presence to have around. It makes me happy that you were so enthusiastic about Ivalinne’s story, to the point of wanting to change the ending. To have someone be so invested in something I wrote is amazing. I’ve done my job as a writer if I’ve made the reader feel for my characters and root for them, and I’m so glad you enjoyed it so much. Thank you for your support and your continued patronage, I hope you’ll continue to read my stories and continue to RP with me moving forwards into the coming year. Don’t doubt yourself, you’re a good writer, and I’m sure you’ll only get better as you go.

@soulwitch / @volatilepaths

Kako, you’re really just amazing on all fronts. You’re a great supportive friend, a calm voice of reason, and a wonderful and dedicated writer. You put so much of yourself into everything you do. You’re always there to help anyone who needs it, always willing to give advice and be there for those who are having a tough time, it’s really awe-inspiring just how much you give to not only the community as a whole, but to everyone you interact with. I know I’m frustrating to deal with at times, but you never give up on me, and I really appreciate that. So many others would have just been done with me, they wouldn’t have tried to work things out and make sure an understanding was reached. I’m really grateful for that. The problems I’ve come to you with, and you’ve helped me work through, I’m grateful for that, truly. You’re so friendly and accommodating, always wanting to make sure your partner is happy and comfortable, and that they’re enjoying how each and every thread goes. The way you put others needs ahead of your own is really admirable. You’re a great person, and you deserve all the best, really.

You writing is great, and your characters are amazing. You’re not afraid to delve into some really dark topics and that, in my opinion, takes a lot of courage. Jeanne is absolutely terrifying, through and through. She’s a great villain and a force to be reckoned with. A woman so utterly broken by all she’s been through that she’s become such a monster, one who cares not what evils she commits. She lies, she manipulates, she does whatever it takes to get what she wants, to satiate her desires. She’s a masterpiece of a villain, and I really need to find some way to get to see more of her. Reiko utterly despises her, and wants absolutely nothing to do with the woman, to stay as far away as she can and to keep Jeanne from encroaching upon her. They’ll never be able to get along thanks to Jeanne hitting upon the things she most abhors, so I’ll have to come up with something else, because I do want to interact with Jeanne. I want to see more of her, try to understand her better, she’s a character with a lot of depth, and I want to see more than just the surface.

Which brings me to the Redbellion event. Everything about that was amazing, Kako. From the story, to the interactivity, to the sheer size and the amount of time and thought put into everything. It was great and I’m glad to have been a part of it, even if it was only a small one due to my own anxieties. You were so helpful and accommodating, making sure I who was late to join, was able to get in on the action and feel like I made a difference in the event. I’m proud to have contributed, happy with what I got to do. It was fun reading through the various stories that came from it. I got invested in quite a few things and found my emotions swinging to the tune of your words. The androids that struggled to survive as they were divided between their mother and their nature as synthetic beings, Core who became a terrifying abomination, and Harune, who sacrificed all she held dear just to save this dying galaxy. It was a beautiful story and you did an amazing job bringing to life not just a single world, but an entire galaxy. It’s amazing what you did. You put so much time and effort into the whole thing. The sheer depth of your dedication and devotion is admirable. I could never hope to do something like that, let alone carry it all the way to the end. Your determination is amazing, and you have my deepest respect for your efforts.

You’re someone I look up to, someone I’m glad to know and happy to have the honor to write with. I know I haven’t been the best of RP partners, what with my sporadic activity and my flighty muses and motivation. I’m sorry for that, and I hope that I can do better in the coming year. You’re a great writer, an amazing person, and a wonderful friend, and you deserve all the best in the coming year.

@unhingedsea / @sophisticatedsuccubus / @justthatdamnrich / And more

Ellen, I know we haven’t spoken much recently, but I hope we’re still as close as we were a couple months ago. I miss having you check in on me and message me. I really enjoy your presence and love talking with you. Hearing about your ideas, how you’re branching out into fandomless OCs of your own setting, it makes me excited to see what you create. I hope you’ll bring them to tumblr so that we can interact and I can see more of them.

Your characters are a diverse mix of drastically different personalities. From Wada, who is batshit insane by any measure, to the shy and socially awkward 2pi, to the rage filled Klowni, you have such a varied mixture of characters. I’ve enjoyed the threads that we had, even though they were rather short-lived. I hope we’ll get to RP more in the coming year, I really want to see where things will go, especially with that thread between Reiko and Jo’on.

I know you’ve been struggling lately, feeling like what you’re doing has lost it’s appeal, and that you’ve lost touch with those who you once interacted with frequently, but I don’t think that’s the case. Everyone has been really busy lately for some reason, many people that were once frequent on the dash are active less these days, and it’s sad to see, but I don’t think it’s that they have lost interest in what you do. I for one haven’t, and I never will. You’re a joy to see on the dash and I hope you’ll come back and RP here more. I definitely want you around, and I’m sure others do too. So please, believe in yourself, I’m sure you can do it.

You’re such a great person. So friendly and welcoming, always cheering everyone on. You told me you swore to be that positive light for others, no matter what it takes, and that’s something amazing. Something I would never be able to do. I hope you won’t burn yourself out, because giving so much is a hard thing to do, especially in an unkind world. I hope you don’t give up, that you keep going and striving to be who you want to be. If you ever need someone to talk to, I’m always here for you.

Thank you so much for being such a fan of Ivalinne’s story. When you told me that reading my writing, reading my story, motivated you into writing, I was honored. That my writing could have such a profound effect on someone, it’s unreal. I’m happy you enjoyed it and I hope you’ll continue to read as I write Eliyah’s story and more.

@fxtelism

Dennis, you’re a good friend and I’m grateful to have someone I can confide in about the things I can’t tell anyone else. You’re nice, friendly, and easy to talk to and get along with. I really appreciate your company.

Thanks to tumblr eating the notifications of our threads at every turn, we haven’t made much progress RP wise, but hopefully that will change in the coming year. I want to see more of your characters and get to know them, get more interactions, and develop our muses further. Leon is really sweet and it’s adorable how much of a flustered mess he is, it’s great. Soft boys are good! Manifestation is very interesting, an opposite to the kind and friendly person who he was created from. I’m curious to see where things could go with both of them. If just tumblr would stop eating notifications.

Now then, Ivalinne’s story. Thank you so much for reading. You have no idea how much it means to me. When you were reading and mentioned that one thing, I was so excited to see you get to the end. Having someone realize and notice things really is great. Probably the best feeling I’ve ever felt. I hope you enjoyed her journey and will continue to read the stories I’ll tell in the future, because I’ve got plenty more to tell!

@echointheforest

Marii, you’re a great friend, and thank you for all your support. You’re so welcoming and easy to talk to about literally anything. I never feel awkward talking to you about things, even though I sometimes worry I bother you too much.

ReiMarii is love, ReiMarii is life. I adore our ship. It’s the first ship I’ve ever had, and it’s been amazing. Thank you so much for introducing me to shipping, I’m so grateful for it. Shipping is so much fun, so full of feels, and I love it. I hope shipping with Reiko hasn’t been too angsty for you, it seems that no matter what, everything comes up bittersweet, and I hope that doesn’t upset you. I love how Reiko and Marii are together, it’s adorable. Everyone else only sees the surface, the bitchy exterior that woman presents to the world. and they write her off as that being all there is to her. But there’s so much more to her than what’s on the surface, and exploring all that lies beneath it with you has been one of the greatest pleasures of this past year. Every interaction has been wonderful, I love every minute of it and I hope we’ll continue to interact more in the coming year.

I know you worry a lot about whether you’re a good RP partner, and while I’ve already said my piece on it to you, I’ll say it again. You’re a great RP partner. You’re in no way a shitty RP partner. You’re a joy to write with and I love interacting with you. Life has been hectic for you recently, but I hope it will calm down, so you don’t have to be so stressed and exhausted all the time. You’re a great person and you deserve the best. I hope we’ll continue to be friends and continue to interact through next year as well.

You’re the first person, and so far the only, to see Reiko’s core. You’ve seen a side of her no one else has experienced. Marii’s touched her heart, reached through the ice and rust and connected with her on a level not even she thought was possible anymore. If things continue the way they’ve been going, she might even end up telling Marii about her past, so I hope we’ll get to explore more and more of their relationship, sink the claws of love deeper into her heart. Maybe Marii can make her realize that being who she is isn’t as bad a thing as she thinks it is, maybe she could help her to accept that she’s not damaged or broken beyond repair. That she’s worth the love the youkai has given her. I want to see it, someone be able to reach her, to tell her it’s fine.

So I hope we’ll continue to write in the coming year, that we’ll continue to develop this tender, beautiful relationship between dark and light, because I’m excited to see where it goes. How deep it will get and how close they’ll become. The future is bright, and hopefully Marii can teach Reiko that as well.

@johnny-writes

Johnny, I know your retirement date is quickly approaching, and I’m sorry I haven’t fulfilled what I promised. I said I’d put priority on our threads, but I failed to deliver, and I apologize for that. I wish we could have had more threads, that I had met you sooner so we could have done more. It saddens me that soon, we won’t get to write together anymore. I’m going to miss you as an RP partner. I hope we can continue to be friends though, even if you’ll be leaving the RP community.

I know Mara and Tojava weren’t exactly planned characters for you. They were created from a meme and it all started from there. I like both of them, the concepts and tropes they’re meant to explore. I was looking forward to you writing their story, and though you got derailed during NaNoWriMo, I hope you’ll continue to work towards the completion of their tale.

The thread between Reiko and Mara was a very interesting one. I’m sorry my bitch of a muse made Mara cry, she didn’t deserve that at all and I still feel bad about it, but I enjoyed the thread nonetheless. Feels are fun, no matter what form they come in. The thread between Ivalinne and Kazuma was fun too, it’s a shame it won’t get to continue to the ending I had planned. It would have been a chance to show Ivalinne is more clever than most probably assume due to how most of her threads have gone. It’s a shame it will never come to pass.

Speaking of Ivalinne, thank you for reading her story! I appreciate your interest. When you told me you got hooked after the first two parts, I was overjoyed. I’m glad you liked it, and I hope you’ll continue to read Eliyah’s story as I write it.

You’re a good friend, a logical voice of reason, and I’m grateful for that. I know I’m not always the most reasonable person out there, but it really helps when there’s someone that can talk some sense into me. Thank you for your support this past year. I’ll miss having you around on the dash, sending asks in to my characters and I’ll miss seeing your characters around. But just because they aren’t around doesn’t mean that they don’t exist anymore. I look forward to seeing the story you tell with them, and I wish you all the luck with your plans for the future.

@geisthonoredferry

Koma, we’ve only met recently, but honestly you’re great. You’re so supportive of everyone, what with your little handwritten notes to people and all the positivity you spread, you’re a great influence on this community. This place needs lights like you, people that care about others and support them no matter what. You’re a blessing and I’m happy to call you my friend.

I hope in the coming year that we’ll be able to get some more interactions going. My motivation to write has been very low recently, and I’ve been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of drafts I have, but I’m not gonna give up! I’m going to reply to everything and keep moving forward.

Thank you for reading Ivalinne’s story, I’m glad you liked it and I hope that you’ll continue to read the things I put out and enjoy them all the same.

I really appreciate how much you care, how you check in on me to see how I’m doing, how you send positive little messages in the server and how you’re always doing your best to spread that cheer. You’re great, really. As both a writer and a friend. Though you should really stop lying to people and saying I’m cute. You’re the cute one here, not me.

@weaverstale / @draconianmyths

Kirbs, you’re great, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You’re so caring and compassionate, always concerned for everyone else and supporting them with positivity. Thank you for your support. I do appreciate it, really, even if I believe myself unworthy, it does make my day better. Don’t ever stop being that way.

We’ve both been low on writing motivation lately, and that really sucks. I want to RP more with you. Orochi is very interesting, and my dumb thot of a muse can’t resist an attractive man. Or an attractive women, as Konoe proves. She really just can’t resist attractive people in general really. I hope going into the next year that we’ll be able to have more threads and interactions.

You’re a good friend and you’re easy to talk to. I know at times our...interests in conversation topics just don’t always match, I apologize for that. I am but a shy nervous bean, naive and innocent about such topics. Regardless, I do enjoy talking to you, and I hope we’ll continue to be friends in the future.

@magicaldreaming

Xana, I know we’ve only become mutuals recently, but I’ve really enjoyed speaking with you. I love hearing about your OCs, it’s fascinating. You’re easy to talk to and really chill, and I appreciate that. I hope we’ll continue to talk and be friends in the coming year.

As for RPs, you’re an amazing writer with some amazing muses. Krolia was one of the first I seen, through your threads with another blog I follow. Krolia immediately caught my eye, she’s very strange in a curious and interesting way. She’s an ancient being with a love for modern technology, idol music, and junk food, and it’s adorable.I really want to have a thread with her someday, once I manage to get my draft situation under control. I hope to see more of her, she’s really interesting.

But probably my favorite muse of yours currently is Celia. I read along with her threads in Redbellion, and honestly, they were my favorite. I love her journey throughout the event, going from an emotionless killing machine intent to cleanse all biological life from the universe, to realizing the true beauty of life, and realizing she had set in motion the destruction of an entire galaxy full of it. How she fought so desperately as the end of all was looming over her, how much she regretted what she had done, and how badly she wished to right the wrongs she committed. How she gave her all to save people. to protect them from the menace she had unleashed, and how she gave her life, her light, in order to save everyone. The woman that once sought to exterminate all life sacrificed her own to save what remained, and that is beautiful. I teared up when she started to fade into slumber and go dormant. You did an amazing job building up her character and her development was spectacular. I look forward to see where she goes from here, now that her outlook on the world has so drastically changed. With any luck, I’ll regain my motivation and be able to see that hope through with our thread!

All in all, you’re a great writer, never doubt your talent. It really shows a writer’s skill when they make you feel for and root for an evil character. That’s so much harder to accomplish than simply having the reader side with the hero. Any writer that can do that has my respect, just as you do.

@fragmentedsilhouette

Sage, I know you’re not really on tumblr much anymore, but I’m going to list you here anyways. You’re a good friend, calm, easy to talk to, and your company is enjoyable. I should really talk to you more.

I miss seeing Amaeris on the dash, she really was a great character. Well thought out and of questionable moral standing (Wait a second most of the characters I’ve spoken of here have been that way...Do I have a thing for that type?!) A shadow of her former self, literally. A deceased ruler of an ancient empire aiming to regain her former glory and rebuild her kingdom anew, so that she may reclaim what she had in life. You put a lot of thought into her and I wanted to see where she would go, if she’d ever be able to take back what was taken from her.

I hope one day we can write together again. The brief instances when we did were enjoyable. Maybe sometime next year? Who knows, but one can hope!

@moonternity

Lilli, we may have never gotten to RP on tumblr, and we might not have RPed all that much in general, but I think you deserve to be mentioned here as well.

When we first met two years ago, you hated my guts and told me straight out. I admired that honesty, since honesty is something I value. You gained my respect by being so honest about your feelings. I wanted to be friends with such an honest person, someone who wouldn’t lie to me and who’d tell me flat out if I fucked up. So I wanted to win you over, and as you know, I did, and that made me so happy.

I’m glad to be your friend. Happy that you want me around. It means a lot to me, truly. I enjoy your company, the fun we’ve had with the campaign, and even just talking to you. Thank you for being my friend, for giving me my first D&D experience, and for just being you.

---

And thank you to all my followers, both on the RP Side Blog where I actually do all of my writing and to all the followers here, whether you’ve just followed the wrong blog or not! Thank you for your support! I hope I can continue to write more and more in the years to come!

Happy New Year to you all!

#Follow Forever #Appreciation Post #Positivity #Mun Speak #Thank you everyone for supporting me and writing with me!#This post is ungodly long #Sorry #It's just the way I am #Happy New Year to everyone!#Here's to a good next year!

13 notes · View notes

gaycrouton · 6 years ago

Text

The Newlywed Game

early msr // fluff // fake marriage but real yearning

This is dedicated to the always wonderful, always supportive Brandy (@dbebrandy) who was AMAZINGLY GENEROUS and helped me get some awesome merch when I couldn't. My grattitude is endless.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Part of her should have known that burying her face in the menu and crouching wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by Mulder. Nothing ever did. It was just her first instinctual move when she saw her ex walk into the bar. He looked good, smiling, a young girl hanging off his arm like a trophy. Maybe they were celebrating her high school graduation.

Fucking asshole.

She didn’t want to draw any attention to him, or herself, but she heard a gentle psst, and she peeked around her menu to see Mulder mimicking her. “What are we hiding from?” he whispered.

How Mulder of him, following her on simple blind faith. She was just as embarrassed at her frivolous desire to go unnoticed by her ex as she was irritated that it had to happen on one of the rare nights Mulder and her stayed so late they ended up getting dinner together. Quality time with him without mentionings of chupacabras or paranormal activities were few and far between, not only that, but last week had been so hard on him with the Roche case - and she felt like he was finally getting back to his old self. “It’s stupid,” she whispered back, but not moving to let her face be seen.

“Scull-ee,” he whined. “Tell me.”

She rolled her eyes before peering over again, “An old boyfriend of mine is here and I don’t want him to see me.”

“Did he do something to you?” Mulder asked, still confused by her out of character actions.

“No,” she corrected, raising her voice a little. “The break-up was just awkward and I don’t want him to-”

“Dana Scully, as I live and breathe,” she heard a familiar tenor proclaim in faux enthusiasm.

With a sigh, she let the menu fall and she was met with the sight of Paul Staehle standing in front of her with a boastful smile and a protective-puppy Mulder glaring across from her. “Hi, Paul,” she sighed, putting the menu down. “How are you?”

“I’m fantastic. I’m here with my girlfriend,” he boasted. “What about you, Dana? Is this a colleague?” He was clearly teasing her and she simply drew in a breath to conceal her reaction.

“Y-”

“No,” Mulder interrupted, drawing both the parties attentions to him. He smiled the most radiant smile she’d ever seen on his face as he reached across the table and grabbed her hand, stroking the back of it with his thumb. “I’m her husband.”

She felt her eyes widen involuntarily as a waiter walked passed and filled their cups, oblivious to the tension. “Married? Really? Since when?” Paul asked.

“Six months ago,” Mulder answered, his voice barely concealing his happiness. He was such a good actor it was startling. “But we’ve been together for a little over four years now.”

“Where’s your ring?” Paul asked accusatory, trying to catch them in a lie.

“In Dana’s line of work, it’s dangerous to wear it. She keeps it close to her, but it’s personal,” Mulder informed seriously, so convincing she could even believe it. She was still reeling from hearing her name and those words come out of his mouth when she heard Paul’s disbelieving grunt.

“Huh, well Dana. I never thought I’d see you like this. You were always so...frigid. I’m glad to see you’ve chilled out,” he smiled, as if that was actually a compliment.

“You should probably get back to your date,” she responded evenly.

They both watched him leave and Scully turned to Mulder with a raised eyebrow. “Married?” she repeated.

He shrugged his shoulders like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar, “You looked upset, so I wanted to help.” He noticed he was still grabbing her hand and shyly let go, with a little laugh. “So, why was the breakup awkward?” he asked.

“Because I told him I realized I was a lesbian,”she deadpanned honestly.

A look of embarrassed shock passed over his face and he incredulously asked, “Y-you what?”

She smiled at his expression before explaining, “I know it was awful of me, you should never use someone else's sexual identity like that, but he was so weird.”

“Weird’s not your thing?” he asked, sounding exaggeratedly disappointed, but she could tell the disappointment was real.

“I like my weird on the spooky side, not the borderline stalker type,” she laughed, taking a sip of water to avoid his eyes while he digested that.

“So you told him you were a lesbian?”

She blushed lightly at her youthful antics, “Well,” she chuckled in embarrassment, brushing her hair behind her ear. “In my defense, I was in high school, so blame it on childish foolishness. I wasn’t receptive to his advances and when I told him I just wanted to focus on my schoolwork he fetishized it.”

“Smart is sexy,” he mimicked.

She exhaled a small laugh, “Not like that, more like the sexy school girl fetish.”

“Oh,” he said, his eyebrows shooting up. “How did the lesbian route possibly stop that from happening?”

“Oh, I’m sure he thought about it a lot with his hand, but he left me alone,” she chuckled. “And - nevermind,” she laughed, shaking her head.

“What?” he asked, fully curious.

“I asked one of my friends to pretend to be my girlfriend, so anytime he came around, she’d be all over me,” she explained, blushing.

“Scully, I don’t mean to sound like a caveman, or objectify women of that community, but how did that possibly stop him from following you?”

She smiled at his honesty. “Because she could have gotten in a fight with Hulk Hogan and come out without a scratch.”

They both started laughing when the waiter from earlier came back over, but instead of re-filling, he gave them a look that could rival a car salesman. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but did I hear you guys say you were married?”

“N-” she started correcting.

“You sure did,” Mulder beamed, sending a teasing look to Scully.

“Oh thank god,” the young boy exhaled in relief, much to their confusion. He must’ve caught sight of their curious expressions when he explained, “We were hosting a Newlywed’s Game here tonight, but the couples didn’t show. There are people who came just for the event and we don’t know what to do, and I’m getting in trouble - and I really, really, really, really need you guys to say yes,” he rambled, wearing a sheen of sweat acting as an attestment to his anxiety.

“Yes to what?” Scully asked skeptically.

“Will you guys be the couple of the night and play?”

Scully laughed and gently responded, “No, no. I’m sorry.” She was surprised to see there were two disappointed faces looking back at her rather than just one.

“Come on,” he drew out, pouting his lip like a little kid in the hopes that if he endeared her, she’d agree. “It’d be fun.”

“Mulder,” she chastised, “You’ve never remembered my birthday for the past three I’ve had with you. I’m just sparing you embarrassment.”

“Scully, have you met me? When have I ever shied away from public ridicule?” he smiled. “Come on, let’s do it”

“No,” she stated plainly, looking at the menu while trying to ignore his attempts and the waiter’s desperation.

“The prize for the winning couple was a year’s worth of free pies, and since you would be the only couple, if you say yes it’s a guarantee,” the teenage boy offered.

“Scully, the pie. If not for me, do it for the sweet goodness,” Mulder pleaded.

She had to admit, as selfish as it was, she was kind of excited to hear Mulder try to answer personal questions about her. He was so absorbed sometimes that she was honestly curious how much he did know about her. That, and she simply couldn’t resist the puppy dog eyes he was giving her. “Fine,” she sighed relenting, snapping her menu shut and standing up.

She had to bite back a smile at the beaming grin that passed over Mulder’s face. Despite his relentlessness, he apparently hadn’t expected she’d conceed. However, her smile quickly disappeared as she followed the boy to the impromptu stage. All it consisted of was two barstools with dry erase boards, markers, and hand towels sitting on top - the finishing touch being a microphone standing proudly in between.

She made sure to send Mulder a few pointed glances as she settled into the chair, gathering the materials on her lap. The lights dimmed as the boy spoke into the microphone and it made it impossible to see how many people were actually out in the audience, or even, how many were actually paying attention. She didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse, but she didn’t spend much time worrying about it as she focused on the boy’s words. This was moving too fast and she was already regretting saying yes.

“Lucky for us, we were able to find a newlywed couple to step up and play for us all! So let’s allow them to introduce themselves.” He turned and gestured to Mulder.

He sat up in his chair and she got a little enjoyment seeing that, despite his previous confidence, he was just as uncomfortable being up here as she was. “Oh, uh, hello. My name’s Fox Mulder and this is my wife, Dana Sc-Mulder.”

She saw the way his lips twitched when he said wife and called her by his surname and she tried to stop herself from seeing what she wanted to see. “And how long have you been married?” he asked, turning to her.

“Uh, six months,” she stumbled, appreciative that their fumbling could be blamed on the newness of their relationship and not the compulsive lying it was.

“Congratulations! So, we’ve compiled some questions from the audience and a few of our staff and, customers, if you want to participate, write down your prediction on who will win and, if you’re right, your meal will be half off! Okay, so, for those that don’t know, we’ll simply be asking different types of questions and we want to see either who is right, or if they are able to agree. So, let’s begin,” he exclaimed, grabbing a folded piece of paper out of a bowl. “Where did you go on your first date?”

Scully pursed her lips in thought as Mulder started writing immediately. How was he writing like he already knew? It hadn’t even happened. She wasn’t sure if he was just making something up, or if he was writing where he would take her? She felt a blush creep across her cheeks when she wrote ‘Chinese takeout at his place’, as far as she was aware, that was the first thing they’d ever done off the clock together, so it probably counted.

“What did you put Mrs. Mulder?”

“Yeah, what’d you put Mrs. Mulder?” Mulder teased, enjoying this far too much in her opinion.

“Um,” she started, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear nervously. “Chinese at his place,” she murmured, turning her board around.

Mulder smiled sweetly at her and she instantly knew that wasn’t what he’d put and she felt exposed. Every part of her wanted to whisper that she hadn’t actually considered it a date. She just thought-

“Bellefleur, Oregon. A romantic walk through the rain,” Mulder laughed, with similar chagrin she’d been feeling. She smiled and giggled lightly at the fact he’d put their first case.

“Oh yeah,” she mused, pretending like she’d simply forgotten such a strange first date.

The announcer seemed confused, and she could hear the audience chattering amongst themselves, speculating how walking through the rain could be a date. “Um, hahaha,” the announcer awkwardly laughed, “Okay, uh so. Next question.”

This was going to be a long night.

Soooo, I have a few already, but I mean, you guys ARE THE AUDIENCE, so what pressing questions would you like to have answered? ;)

#gaycrouton #my fanfiction #x files fanfiction #msr fanfic #fluff #mulder and scully

151 notes · View notes

raeofalbion · 5 years ago

Text

Rules: List 5 quotes from various fics you love and link to the fics! Quotes can be short or long. Tag as many people as you want! (tagged by @leafenclaw - thanks so much! :D)

tagging: Idk who I follow and who follows me who hasn’t done this yet, so, if you want to do it, go for it and please tag me so I can see!

Okay, so I’ve decided to twist the rules a little and use this as a rec list for my current top five Sherlock fics and my top three Fable fics, in no particular order, so people who follow me for either fandom have something to go through. Under the cut because...long.

BBC Sherlock

Inevitable Destruction by @jimswestwood (formerly Dionysisch)

(Ao3; Sheriarty) Bored, Jim invites Sherlock into his home, Sherlock decides to stay. — It’s a beautiful 4 part oneshot series that deals heavily with existentialism and wanting, framed in an almost elegant, bordering on philosophical light. Oh and it makes me cry. It makes me cry a lot.

Sometimes it would hit him so hard it became painful even to breathe. The meaninglessness of it all. It all dissolved into the same ephemeral prettiness of clouds, of smoke, of things that could fascinate but hold no substance at all, vanish at the touch. The air in his lungs, the wall he kept staring at. Himself. The words flowing through his brain. Nothing. Just a casual connection, weak strings giving intolerable heaviness to sounds and letters. In the end, the more he repeated something, the more he realized emptiness. Sounds rolling in his mouth numbing his palate, as he took another mask, another voice, another self - an evocation of something he forgot along the way, and in which he forgot part of himself.

Bored, bored, bored. Bored.

His thin lips part slightly, tongue darting gently over scabs of a tormented nature, sign of a certain carelessness betraying a polished image in all its destructiveness. “Bored,” Jim repeats, again. Just a murmur. Gentle, quiet, making sure not to disturb the non-existent life in a bubble of static silence. It makes him think of grey, grey dullness, something like quicksand but gripping at his brain and his heart and paralyzing him until he cannot breathe and exploding into a million pieces sounds like the most tolerable image. Scattering himself like cosmic dust. He wonders if, in that case, he would give life to other stars or just decay. Once more.

Not Until Then by @jamlocked

(Ao3; Sheriarty, Sherlock/James Moriarty) After Sherrinford, Sherlock goes to see Jim’s brother. What follows is in no way straightforward. — There was a three-way tie for me between this fic, Daemon, and Between Shadows and Sunlight, but this fic. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it and I still can’t say for certain what I think is really happening. It’s gorgeous, elusive, and I love how much it makes me think. Jam’s a master at well-crafted, incredibly twisty plots and I’m just...endlessly fascinated by this one.

Sherlock watches his chest stop moving. David’s head tilts a fraction, like he’s listening to a far-off sound. And then…

…and then, his left hand moves to his left knee. It’s an instantly familiar gesture, one burned into Sherlock’s hard drive. Every other thought falls away. Sherlock feels his eyes widen and his mouth drop open, a gasp stuck behind his teeth. The cold, the silence of the country, the light of the windows, all melt to nothing as he watches David ripple his fingers (beats like digits) over his bent leg, pushing a slight emphasis on the roll of his thumb.

For a few seconds, he can’t breathe. His eyes snap up to David’s face - and it is David’s face, it is, but all he can see is Jim. Jim sitting there with his eyes closed and his hair a mess, slumped in exhaustion but still, always, drumming his own beat. Except that wasn't his beat, that was theirs. He knows of no one else who ever saw Jim make that move, and there’s no reason anyone ever should. That was part of their game.

He whirls to the side, back into darkness. His shoe makes a noise as it shifts on the gravel, but it barely registers. He blinks rapidly, playing the movement back, checking he saw what he thought he saw, not just what he wanted. Why would he want that? (Except wasn’t that his secret hope, wasn’t he sad when he realised he was wrong?) He doesn’t want that. It was just…

Logic. Logic. They’re brothers. He doesn’t know what characteristics they shared, and he doesn’t know when they last talked. There are any number of explanations; indeed, they’re lining up in his brain, each one ready to squash down the live-wire burst of shock. Coincidence (rarely so lazy), or wishful thinking, or his brain overlaying a strong moment from his past onto something innocuous.

Sherlock breathes out, and looks back through the window. David is rinsing the plates at the sink, ready for the dishwasher. Just a too-thin, tired man. Sherlock calms himself, and walks back around the house to let himself back in. He has to see this through. He has to know what he’s doing here, and then there’ll be no need to come back.

To What End? by collaborativesheriartyparty

(Ao3; Sheriarty) Texting, drinks, and...something more. Unique. Possibly dangerous. Definitely addicting. — I don’t know what to say about this series that someone else hasn’t already said but gods, they (the writers) are so good. There’s a depth and a complexity and a lovely, wonderful vulnerability to how both of them write their respective characters and watching Jim and Sherlock’s relationship unfold feels incredibly intimate and, at times, like I should have given them a bit of time alone. It’s fantastic. <3

Sherlock had a funny way of getting revenge, of paralyzing his enemy. Jim appreciated it. Why do with effort what could be done with a whisper? The nights he’d dreamt of the detective had transformed his mornings, either giving him a renewed sense of patience or a real urge to get creative in his ventures. Jim had wanted to give Sherlock every chance to notice him, and chase him down. If Sherlock slipped cuffs on his wrists right now with a ‘gotcha’, would it be worth it? Yes. “I think…” Jim murmured, his tongue darting out to wet his suddenly dry lips and, oops, brushing Sherlock’s lobe in the process, “that you should be texting John.” How he managed sing-song just now was a bloody feckin’ wonder. Maybe because he only took John so seriously. “Telling him you’ll be home…soon,” Jim continued, tone back to a distracted drawl, and took another deep inhale of Sherlock, his leg almost brushing the other’s now. To Jim, they were the only people in the bar right now, in the world. His eyes had closed, and it took every effort to keep his hands off Sherlock. “Instead of starting something you don’t want to finish.” He’d intended warning, but somehow it had turned out sounding like a challenge.

Circadian Disruption by @like-the-direction

(Ao3; Sheriarty) They are many things--brilliant, determined, enemies, lovers, human only in looks--and, if Molly has any say in it, soon they’ll also be free. — It was a tie for me between this series and Corpus Callosum--both invoke similar levels of internal joyful screaming, but I seem to recall CC being recced recently, so I thought it might be a good idea to rec this one. And oh, gods, what to say about these fics. They’re so incredibly well written--the prose is beautiful and feels impeccably well-thought out. There’s so many layers to everything that it’s impossible for me to read without finding myself just sitting there, wondering. And crying. This one makes me cry, too.

“Do you dream of waterfalls?”

Sherlock pauses mid-step.

“Waterfalls,” Moriarty says, hushed, “and a precipice. You, and me.” There is something in his voice, a quiet heartbreak, and it cracks ever so slightly when he asks, “Do you dream of falling?”

Slowly, Sherlock turns. Moriarty is deadly serious when he meets his eyes.

“Victorian clothing,” he goes on, while the image - the recurring dream Sherlock has had since the day he met James Moriarty face to face - begins to form in his mind’s eye. “Me, all in black. You, wearing that fucking--”

“Deerstalker,” Sherlock says in unison with him, unsure what is happening, but feeling in his bones that it is significant, important somehow. Moriarty nods a bit, and Sherlock slowly continues, “I...refer to you as--”

“‘Professor,’” Moriarty finishes with him, and Sherlock is dimly aware of his pulse rising as he makes his way back toward Moriarty at the ledge. His adversary’s eyes briefly appear wet, but it’s difficult to tell in the light. Moriarty says, “We stand at the cliff’s edge, and I ask you something. I ask, ‘Shall we--’”

“‘Shall we go over together?’” Sherlock whispers with him. They are standing so close. Sherlock can see his reflection in Moriarty’s eyes. “Why do you know that?” he asks faintly, looking between his twin reflections. “How could you know that?”

“You tell me, Detective.”

It’s a test - Moriarty knows, certainly he knows - but Sherlock thinks he may, as well. “It...wasn’t a dream.”

dinner by @very-trivial

(Ao3; Jimcroft) Mycroft Holmes is a dangerous man--mysterious, isolated. Sherlock and Jim are convinced he’s secretly a top government official, but they can’t begin to comprehend the scale of his power. To clarify: Mycroft Holmes is a food critic. — This fic never fails to cheer me up. It’s lovely and the descriptions of food, as well as the character interactions, are so amazingly spot-on. Jim and Sherlock’s insistence that Mycroft is a scary government-man is surprisingly funny, particularly alongside Mycroft’s worry that they’ll figure out what his job really is. Also, the end is oddly heartwarming? The whole thing is just really good.

“You’re a crit-”

A hand slapped over Jim’s mouth.

Despite everything Jim now knew about Mycroft Holmes, in this very moment, he looked scarier than ever.

“I’ll tell you everything, but not a single word passes through your mouth - not now, not ever,” the man hisses, sotto voce. The silencing hand did not relent one millimeter as he pressed on. Jim was starting to regret seating them in a corner booth away from prying eyes.

“If my identity so much as appears as a rumor on the D-list food vlogs , I will make sure you never eat in this town again. You’ll never be able to order curry without wondering if the dish has been tampered with. Maybe poison, maybe they just spit in it. I have clout in this world, Jim Moriarty, and you don’t. You put my name out there and I will use it . I have friends in high places, sir , and they owe me favors. I’ve made careers, I’ve launched veritable nobodies into international stardom. Don’t think for one moment you’ll ever be able to set foot into any decent restaurant again if you cross me. You'll live off cheap instant noodles for the rest of your life. Not even the good Korean kind.”

Fable

The Sergeant by deadpan riot

(FFN; m!Sparrow & Reaver) Reaver returns home from Samarkand to find Sparrow has usurped his home. Oh, and Sparrow has a new pet. — First things first: I adore deadpan riot’s Sparrow; our Sparrows are somewhat similar, so it makes this fic (well, actually series but the series isn’t up in full) a really easy read for me. This fic balances out the ridiculousness and hilarity of poorly-paired roommates (with a pet balverine) and the solemnity and almost depression that comes from everything that happens in Fable II and all the choices one makes but still manages to keep the story lighthearted and well-paced.

"Did you know, my dear boy, that that beast of yours has, in fact, retained a marginally functional knowledge of the human language? Illiteracy aside, of course…" Reaver toyed with one of the bottles nearest him, watching the hero through his bangs. Smiles had again gone to try his luck at bottle roulette.

"Well, yea, I guessed as much since he does tend to listen to me…But what the hell are you two doing?" Sparrow was now coming down the stairs, prompting Reaver to stretch languidly across them.

"Whiling away my time banished to the foyer, what else?"

Sparrow stopped on the step above Reaver, eyeing the pirate, the bottles, and the general disarray of the room at large. "So 'whiling away the time' includes turning all the pictures upside down as well?"

Reaver cast a glance at the reversed paintings. "As a matter of fact it does, oddly enough."

Snow and Stones by Lilith Encodead

(FFN; f!Sparrow/Reaver) Reaver hears rumours that someone new has taken control of Bloodstone only to find Sparrow and a cursed snowglobe waiting for him. — Considering I prefer platonic Sparrow and Reaver fics, you might be surprised to learn this is my favourite Fable fic of all time. And it kills me that it’s not complete. Lilith creates such an amazing atmosphere in here and there’s such a gravity to the fic that everything, even the lighter moments, just seem to carry a lovely weight to them. The way she writes Sparrow and Reaver is gorgeous too, and I just...Lilith, wherever you are, please??? finish??? fic??? D: Please???

"I'm not going to play your stupid little game." she sneered slowly. "If you want answers - look around."

Reaver did not move. He did not speak. Then, ungraciously he eased his grip, before giving his pistol one last shove into her head. Her fontanelle was knocked back into the stone Cullis Gate, as the force reverberated through her skull. With an aching head and blurred vision, Sparrow watched him rise up and survey his surroundings.

Reaver examined the hauntingly empty area briefly, before looking straight back at Sparrow, as if averting his eyes from something disgustingly gory. Around the two of them were the smashed remains of once mighty stone ruins covered in ivy and surrounded by dandelion weeds. Jagged lumps of stone nested the Cullis Gate, depicting faded carvings of the Old Religion bleached by sun and faded with time. A standalone rock archway stood crumbling in front of them; beyond which was a chalky white path leading down to the town.

Every water, every cell, of Reaver's body could sense a foreboding danger through the archway, down the dusty path, and back to his past.

"This is a trick." he insisted. "An elaborate deception fabricated by a vindictive Will-user."

Sparrow remained sat on the Cullis Gate, knowing that Reaver would knock her down again if she gave another dissatisfactory answer.

"Its not." she said simply, as if talking to a child that should know better. "You know it's not."

That Which Moves the Stars by ingresviolin

(Ao3; f!HoBW/Reaver, f!HoBW/Ben Finn) Beatrice, empath and princess, embarks on a quest to find her missing father shortly after her mother’s death. — It’s still in early days, but there’s something very charming and curious about this fic. I love that the quest is mainly research-based so far and that all the characters have a wonderfully defined depth and clarity. I’m so curious and excited to see how it all comes together in the end.

"You look very young for being very old," Beatrice whispered at a nearly inaudible level. Her mother and Logan did not catch the comment, but both men at the table did. Reaver glared at her with the same menacing expression as earlier that day, but his eyes were darker than before. Beatrice felt an internal prickle of excitement: her favorite feeling.

She didn't need to touch Reaver to know he was upset, but as his glare darkened her excitement turned to fear. She could see her own image in the darkness of his pupils, as well as the glowing flames of the fireplace behind her. And she could have sworn to Avo that the two were not separate, but that the Beatrice-shaped homunculus at the center of the tiny conflagration in his eyes was being burned alive.

#thanks for the tag!#memes #fic rec I guess #very long post #sorry this took so long I wanted to reread my favs to make sure I was getting my actual fav fics/lines #there are so many fics I wanted to put in here but couldn't because of space #I'm sure some people will be surprised by my Fable fic choices buuuut...yeah #the Fable ones were hard though; I have too much history with some of these writers #maybe one day I'll do a proper rec list #leafenclaw

19 notes · View notes

dumdeeedum · 6 years ago

Text

Some Queliot Queries & Exploration, hah! Shaddap.

So I really want to dive into some shit with this fandom because I really don’t understand, I really and truly don’t. And bear with me because this is going to get long but ideally it would open up a discussion and the dialogue can be a learning opportunity for me if someone comes correct or for others if someone takes something away from all of this: Why shouldn’t the writers have to deal with the fact that season 4′s decision to allude to Eliot and Quentin as a couple is a ret-con? Why shouldn’t they have to deal with the fact that for all intents and purposes Quentin’s bisexuality and Eliot and Quentin’s relationship has never been explicit (there’s allusions to it in season 1- maybe, season 3- barely, and now season 4)? Why shouldn’t they have to deal with the fact that the audience was never told that Eliot and Quentin were explicitly a couple in Fillory until season 4 and even then they can’t erase the fact that Quentin married a woman after having something with Eliot and that they then chose to ignore the entire episode until halfway into season 4? Why shouldn’t the writers have to deal with their poor decisions and poor writing in a meaningful way? Why is fandom trying to erase these things? I’m not being facetious or an asshole here, I’m truly curious.

And I really want to preface all of this with a critique of something I’ve been seeing a lot on here and that’s that fandom and Eliot are somehow erasing Quenin’s bisexuality. They’re not, the writers are.

The thing is, television is a mostly visual medium, you have freedoms that come with that but also limitations. There’s the freedom to show and not have to tell so as to not have to go into long descriptions and “show don’t tell” has really become a fundamental rule in visual media because it’s really hard to pull off the kind of exposition literary media can get away with in visual media. This has been true since visual media was limited to the stage and has only become more true as technology has caught up with the more fantastical things creators want show now. So it becomes imperative, given this show don’t tell rule, to find another way to express certain things you’d simply be able to cover in a book by describing somebody’s thought process or having a character narrate their story.

You can have a narrator in visual media but you really have to be careful with how much you use them and for what otherwise you’ve made bad visual media, especially when you’ve already set things up another way. Case in point, the show Veronica Mars started the show with Veronica narrating and normalized it so that it was never grating, never too much, and was generally never used when it was better to show instead of tell.The Magicians, on the other hand, has used narration very sparingly and it’s never become an aspect of the show that gives us those same glimpses into Quentin’s mind, especially since he no longer seems to be the sole focal point of the show.

So when it comes to representation on visual media it simply isn’t enough to imply or allude and then never bring it up again. Or, in our case, to overtly display certain aspect of someone’s sexuality while explicitly ignoring the other aspects with the expectation that the audience go with it when the creators call the character “bisexual.” This is especially true on a week-to-week television show where not everyone’s been watching from the beginning or has that long a memory that they can remember every aspect of what came before, or hasn’t or can’t rewatch the series several times on Netflix or some other streaming service to refresh. It just doesn’t work that way on television, that’s not how you do visual media representation.

And when we have so little visibility for certain groups and when part of representation means normalizing those groups in the mainstream so that in the future their presence or their expressions of sexuality aren’t taboo, you have to do that by showing those people and by showing those expressions of their sexuality, and not just the “palatable” ones or in a “palatable” way where you can just say it and not offend anyone by showing it. And usually it’s best to show them in a good light so as to off-set the amount of bad that’s out there that was outside of their control because of systemic oppression. It’s best to have a good balance of good and bad from the very beginning and that’s something that White, het-cis people have been able to enjoy for much of the time visual media has been around. We can argue about representations of women in media, especially White cis-het women, but that’s another topic for another day and they’ve still enjoyed more of a balance than anyone else besides White, cis-het men. It’s the same reason why we can’t simply have “queer-coded” villains or the “kill your gays” tropes be so rampant, it isn’t offsetting the tons of negative that already exists for the lgbtqa community in media.

That being said:

Narratively speaking, when Eliot rejected Quentin I strongly believe that at least in this the writers were doing right by them given the ret-con and I’d like to see it explored more. Season 4 episode 5 was a good start but only a start. Now do I think that Eliot should have implied that he wouldn’t choose Quentin? Fuck no, he absolutely should apologize for that and explain where that came from because it’s clearly the result of a defense mechanism, but that’s really it. I still think the decision for Eliot to reject Quentin was the right one if only to give Quentin the chance to think about what he wants within the confines of this shitshow of a “love” story they tried to ret-con and then staple and glue together as though we’d forget everything that ever happened before season 4 episode 5 and rewrite season 3 episode 5 in our heads. If you’re saying it’s OK to erase all of that for the sake of your ship you’re asking for a bad story, which kind of sucks and I kind of feel you, but it kind of sucks. I mean, their straight relationships haven’t been the most amazingly written either but they actually happened in a meaningfully explicit way. We were given a narrative where even after Quentin kisses Eliot for the first time in Fillory (a year after they got there) and presumably has a relationship with him in Fillory after that, which, really, we didn’t know for sure because they’ve never said it, it could just have been a drunken fuck for them up until that point, Quentin marries and goes on to have a life with a woman until she dies or leaves (I was never clear on which it was). The relationship with Eliot after that is only alluded to in season 4 and still hasn’t been explicitly shown, no kisses, nothing, not outside of Eliot’s mind. And for some people that may be enough to call Quentin canonically bisexual and to call Eliot and Quentin a canonical couple that will be together in the future and while I agree he probably is and that they might, I don’t think it’s a good example of queer representation in visual media, especially when season 3′s episode was never meant to be taken that way.

Now we can always assume that it was a consensually poly-amorous relationship between Eliot and Quentin when Arielle came along but then why was Quentin the only one who had someone? Is the assumption here also that Eliot is OK being a sister wife or some shit? Why didn’t Eliot have another boyfriend to split his time with since Quentin had a wife that needed attention? They’ve established that homosexuality isn’t bad in Fillory so why not give him someone if the poly thing was what was meant to be inferred here? I’m not saying it definitively can’t be the case but I’m working with what we have and raising questions because we’ve been given very little information otherwise and I’m not sure I buy that Eliot would be OK with sharing Quentin because up until now (outside of his marriage with Fen) Eliot has not been shown to be poly-amorous and has even shown that he gets jealous if his significant other looks at someone else. And I know that when it’s discussed in a relationship it’s different and jealousy isn’t an issue but we don’t have any information on the subject as it pertains to them. Earlier in the series Eliot said that being with women is not his preference, so no, Eliot is not bisexual even if he’s had to fuck Fen; he fucked Fen because he had to and it’s a problematic as fuck storyline that effectively worked to pad anything Eliot might have had with a man with a woman. So I’m also not sure it’s too realistic an idea to have him in bed fucking Arielle with Quentin if he’s in a consensually poly-amorous relationship with them. Maybe once in a while like, as he said, one would have Thai food, but if anything we’ll give him a 1 or 2 on the Kinsey scale? (for lack of a better way to put it) So why not given him someone for him while Quentin has someone for Quentin? At the very least we’d get a non-toxic homosexual relationship for Eliot too, right?

And no, I don’t consider anything to do with the season 1′s threesome to be rooted in anything but what we’ve been told over and over that it was: the result of a lot of alcohol and emotion magic. Otherwise you have something else to deal with and that’s that Quentin is a fucking untrustworthy asshole for cheating on Alice whom he claims to have loved and that Margo and Eliot are shit friends for going with it. It could be the case but they’ve made it a point to tell us it was a result of all 3 of them being compromised and even Margo refuses to allow people to blame her for it because of that compromise.

That being said, I can understand why a gay man like Eliot would be hesitant at the idea of jumping into a monogamous relationship with a man like Quentin without giving Quentin pause to really think about it. Remember, Quentin wanting to be with Eliot happened right after he got his memories of Fillory back so it was a pretty rash, emotionally-charged decision on his part. And we already know Quentin gravitates toward escapism because of his psychological issues. Why would Eliot jump into a relationship with a man whom, from Eliot’s perspective and, more importantly, from the viewer’s perspective, has been chasing a woman since season 1 and even in Fillory decided to marry a woman when Eliot was explicitly shown to be an option? And literally the first woman he met there. Outside of Eliot, Quentin has sought out and has had relationships with exclusively female partners except for season 1 and except for Fillory which was another time and place and which was never explicitly shown to us and is only alluded to in season 4, that’s bad representation and something that requires further examination within the story!

From Eliot’s perspective it absolutely makes sense that he’d wonder if Quentin would truly be happy with him given other options, especially given the enduring presence of a woman Quentin has been chasing since season 1. We don’t know if Alice would be OK with sharing Quentin either, it’s never been explored because most of anything to do with Eliot and Quentin as a romantic couple has simply been ignored! The writers were the ones who shit the bed by giving Quentin exclusively female partners (even in Fillory) that would make Eliot wonder if he and his penis were enough. If we had some more clear and explicit depictions of Quentin’s bisexuality, especially in Fillory, Eliot wouldn’t have to worry about this shit as much. But even in Fillory Quentin chose Arielle until she was no longer an option and the writers chose to do that, the writers decided to show us one kiss between Eliot and Quentin before giving Quentin a rando wife, making her fuck off to who knows where but subsequently never showing Eliot and Quentin in a romantically intimate setting again. Some bisexual representation!

Eliot and Quentin as a pairing only comes back up literally a season later, 13 episodes later! Something has to be done about this ret-con and pretending it wasn’t a ret-con is never good writing, not the way they’re doing it! Because even after Quentin confesses his feelings during season 3x5, which we only actually find out he did in 4x5, it’s never brought up again even by depression Quentin the very episode after 3x5! The whole situation was ret-conned for season 4!

Moving forward either there has to be some mutually agreed upon, explicitly stated, explicitly shown, poly-amorous relationship set-up where they could both be fulfilled by both having someone else if they so choose to or Eliot has to have Quentin’s assurance that Quentin sees him and that he is now Quentin’s first and only choice. And both of these options have to be a show don’t tell situation! It’s actually what I hope happens in episode 12, especially since they’re once again making Quentin and Alice kiss each other and showing us yet another expression of heterosexual love while stringing us along with the idea of a homosexual one that really hasn’t happened yet.

And perhaps some people might find that to be feeding into stereotypes about bisexual people that leave a bad taste but realistically speaking exclusivity is a conversation every romantic relationship has to have and mistrust will occur if the person you’re with has only had partners of the opposite sex, has only expressed interest in people of the opposite sex, and is still hung up on someone of the opposite sex they used to date and whom is still a romantic possibility for them. That’s just how it is unless you’re one of those miraculous people who don’t experience jealousy or insecurity or have had those conversations with your partner. In this scenario it wouldn’t be that Eliot doesn’t trust bisexual people, it’d be that Eliot doesn’t know who Quentin really wants and he doesn’t think Quentin truly, deep down, would want him if he took the time to think about it. That’s fair given the givens!

And the poly thing is certainly an option but feels like a more radical move, given what we know of these characters, than having Eliot and Quentin in a monogamous relationship and given how little they’ve given us of that prospect I’m not even sure what they’ll decide to do moving forward. Maybe they’ll decide it’s more palatable to include a woman in any capacity seeing as media is still really about padding anything to do with homosexual male love scenes with heterosexual love scenes or naked women, that could also be the case and then we’d have to decide how we feel about that. We know they did that with Fillory because Arielle was pulled out of someone’s ass because it could just have been Eliot with Quentin but it wasn’t. But as of now we don’t even know if the poly thing was ever really a thing with them to begin with, we just don’t, it’s just conjecture and I’m just exploring of the possibility, they could have gotten together after Arielle dipped. I’m not saying any of this to shit on the Eliot and Quentin pairing at all, or to shit on Quentin’s bisexuality, per say, I like the idea of them and I think it should happen and I like the idea of a bisexual Quentin. But I do think these are the consequences of the way the writers have chosen to navigate these things and now they have to deal with those consequences because otherwise this pairing is silly and unrealistic moving forward outside of Fillory, and if they don’t want to pursue it then that could explain why. So why haven’t they been dealing with this by showing us a more explicitly bisexual Quentin or at the very least a more explicitly interested in Eliot Quentin outside of his confession to Eliot in 4x5? And I’m not saying he has to jump on the first dick he sees but even having a conversation with his best childhood friend about his feelings, regardless of what he thinks Eliot’s are, would be a really great jumping off point to show us that Quentin’s feelings for Eliot are trustworthy and real and not just alluded to or the result of an emotional compromise. At this point people are expecting this confession and really want it to happen for a reason.

I’d just really like to see the writers make a decision about this and stick with it because this specific type of will they, won’t they shit is why they can’t be trusted and why it’s so easy to wonder whether they’re queerbaiting. If they can explore Julia and Penny23, Kady and Penny, Margo and Josh, and even Alice and Quentin’s relationships during this monster arc without it taking away from the life or death severity of the situations they’re in then there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be exploring Quentin and Eliot’s even if it’s just Quentin being introspective but showing us that introspection in some way. We’ve gotten Eliot’s but we really haven’t gotten Quentin’s and I think that’s what we’re all waiting for or should be waiting for and it’s imperative that it happens to build the trust in the writers the viewers need to become emotionally attached to the idea that a pairing will actually happen on screen and that the viewers aren’t just being fucked with for views. It isn’t fair to expect the blind faith from viewers towards the writers and show-runners that too many people in this fandom are demanding!

We shouldn’t have to go on a fucking deep-dive, clue-finding mission to break down every single fucking interaction to look for a relationship the writers are supposedly explicitly trying to build because that’s not how they’ve built any other relationship. They’ve jumped right into every straight pairing but somehow this one is the one they have to draw out to an almost unrealistic degree and add 50,000 layers of nuance to? The one with the most history and proof that it worked based on what the writers themselves have told us? Alice and Quentin were fucking within a season, Kady and Penny within a season, Margo and Josh within a season for some godforsaken reason, Julia and Penny23 are macking and seeing each other naked within a season but we can’t even get Quentin to be introspective about being in love with Eliot for one episode? We have to settle for allusions to their pairing and a couple of blink and you miss them kisses, one of which wasn’t even between the two men themselves? I’m not saying that the Eliot and Quentin pairing won’t happen but it absolutely hasn’t yet and I’m not here to pretend it has. Alice and Quentin were “in love” within a season, why can’t we explore Eliot and Quentin’s love in a meaningful way after a canonical 50+ years? Why has it been OK so far that the writers aren’t exploring Quentin’s part of this relationship at all if it’s their intention to pursue it? And why should we trust them and take it as faith that this pairing isn’t something they thought of doing but have long since thrown out?

Is it bad writing? Is it not gonna happen? What is it because I’m confused as fuck and nothing that’s been happening recently has helped because the writers have opted to waste a shitload of time in a 13 episode season rather than explore what they ought to be exploring in that limited amount of time.

I say all that to ask this: Can we just hold the writers and show-runners accountable to their shitty decisions already? That’s really what I want because I don’t think underrepresented communities should have to settle or take the scraps thrown at them in 2019 and that feels like what a lot of people are saying ought to be done. No, they absolutely should not be happy with the bullshit they’ve been given. The community didn’t come together with pitchforks and torches to storm their writer’s room and demand Eliot and Quentin be a couple, the writers and show-runners decided to move in that direction.

If people shipped them then there’s already parts of the fandom for that and people would have made due with fic as they always have done. So why the fuck is jerking the community around like this acceptable?

I sincerely hope that there are consequences from the community if the writers and show-runners go back on this, I really do, because it was the writers’ and show-runners’ fuckup and they don’t deserve to be rewarded for bad behavior. Make them work for the good graces of the communities they’re courting and stop allowing them to do this to these already marginalized communities!

It’s well past time that they show us Quentin’s bisexuality and feelings for Eliot in a meaningful way or drop it altogether and never pick it up again and accept that they’re pieces of shit for doing this and should be cancelled, although as far as I’m concerned the damage has already done and there’s no going back without them admitting they’re garbage.

#the magicians #queliot #eliot waugh #quentin coldwater #otp #queerbaiting #lgbtqa #representation #representation matters #social #media #tl;dr #television

65 notes · View notes

gh0st-patr0l · 6 years ago

Text

Selfishness v. Selflessness: An Analysis of Deceit

So.

Since the latest episode came out, I’ve been thinking about a LOT, but especially about Deceit. He’s an amazingly complex character, and it’s a lot to wrap your head around. However, I felt that the thing I wanted to talk about most was his overall intention with this whole scenario- note, when I say that, I’m not talking about the call-back v. wedding debacle. Because, when you really look at it, Deceit’s true intent had little to do with those events themselves. It was just a convenient scenario that could be used to illustrate a point. And I’ve already gone on a rant about that part- how in the end it wasn’t even an issue of right or wrong, but staying true to your moral compass- so I won’t get into it here. What I really want to do is take a closer look at Deceit’s closing arguments, in context of the rest of the episode and his previous statements.

I’ll be honest, the first time I watched the episode I was so invested in the drama that I actually didn’t even PROCESS what he meant with this scene, but now that I’m looking back it’s absolutely critical to understanding Deceit’s true intentions. Written out, it’s actually a pretty short exchange, but there’s a lot to pick apart here. Let’s start from where the actual argument begins.

Thomas: I don’t understand... you got what you wanted. You proved that I’m not as honest as I’d like to believe. Deceit: But you’re still missing the point! Didn’t it seem kind of ridiculous to take this matter SO seriously, to the point of settling it in a legal setting?! Everyone else: [mumbled disagreements] Roman: We do that kind of stuff all the time...

Alright, so this is where Deceit has obviously become frustrated that the others haven’t picked up on his intentions with this whole scheme. (Tbf Thomas’s Single braincell had been omitted from most of the situation so it’s really not totally their fault,)

Here, we see a BLATANT distinction between him and the rest of the sides. The sides all consider these elaborate scenes and lengthy discussions and journeys over their dilemmas to be a completely sensible way of dealing with their problems. It’s just how they do things, it’s how they work best.

But Deceit, despite being a part of Thomas, doesn’t get it.

Unlike the other sides, he doesn’t give equal weight to all issues Thomas has. He sees the choice between a social obligation and a career opportunity as obvious and pointless to agonize over.

It’s important to think about this in combination with what he says in the courtroom- his ultimate goal is to fulfill Thomas’s wants and look out for him. At first, that simply sounds like the same benevolent thought process that all the other sides have, and to a point it is. But when you think about that along with the fact that he considers his friends and family as inconsequential- not just a little lower on his list of priorities, but not even worth considering- it becomes clear that Deceit’s protection and concern of Thomas takes on a whole nother form in light of his outlook and actions. But we’ll come back to that in a bit, let’s get back to the argument.

Deceit: WHOO, okay, let me put it this way- life... is like a pinata. Patton: Colorful, and full of stuff that makes you happy??? Deceit: ...SURE. And you WANT that stuff that makes you happy, right?! Patton: Do I?! Roman: Do I... Deceit: Then in order to get that stuff, you must ATTACK the pinata!

THIS is where Deceit’s language comes into play. Thomas and the rest of the Sanders Sides team are fantastic at writing, especially dialogue, and I think the specificities of the metaphor Deceit’s chosen to use here are critical.

When Deceit describes the human experience and life in society, he describes it as an object that must be looked at through a gauge of offense. He doesn’t use language like take, obtain, earn- he says attack. He views life as a struggle, as something violent that must be beaten and won. And this is reflected in the court scenes. Specifically, when he’s talking about his motivation for wanting Thomas to lie, he uses the word disadvantage. Again, referring to life as a competition, or a game. (This actually made me wonder why Thomas didn’t choose to bring up Conflict Theory at any point, but now that I think about it more I suppose an anarchistic viewpoint would fit Deceit better than one rooted in socialism.)

And Deceit wants the others, and most importantly, Thomas, to look at life that way as well. He sees life as a competition against others, and because of that, sees no value in putting other’s wants and needs above his own. In my mind, this is where his rhetoric crosses the line from sensible into overly cynical. He was right in the point that sometimes selfishness can be good- but that’s not what he’s saying anymore, and I think it may have never even been in the first place, and that he was simply being less radical in the case to appear more favorable. Deceit doesn’t just think that selfishness isn’t inherently evil, he thinks that selflessness is damaging.

And, from a character standpoint, that makes sense. Because inherently, Deceit is a selfish concept. It’s lying at someone else’s expense to achieve your own goal. And, as Deceit pointed out, that isn’t always bad! Your goal can obviously be benevolent. But as a character, he is quite literally a personification of deceit, with the goal of getting Thomas what he wants and/or needs. In a concept like that, there’s little to no room for morals or empathy.

Which brings us to our last bit of relevant dialogue from that scene;

Deceit: But you’re wearing a blindfold right now. You can keep playing with the blindfold on, if you like the game better that way. But if you take it off, it’s easier to get that stuff that you want!

Admittedly, this bit is a little harder to understand, but I think it’s clear that by blindfold, Deceit is symbolizing what he sees as disadvantage or hindrance; morals and empathy.

Throughout the entire episode, and his other appearances, Deceit has never responded with concern towards the feelings or circumstances of anyone other than Thomas himself- it may look like that on the surface from his first appearance and his acknowledgment of Thomas wanting to be a good friend, but in reality, he only reacts to those things when they’re directly related to what Thomas wants. In the lying episode, he doesn’t actually want to spare Joan’s feelings; Thomas feels bad, Thomas wants Joan to think he’s a good person, and Deceit sees a way to fulfill Thomas’s want in that scenario. In that sense, he’s actually very similar to Logan- function over feeling. He doesn’t care what he’s doing or why, as long as Thomas gets what he wants.

And this is when Deceit’s argument finally becomes clear and concrete. Deceit wanted this trial to prove that being selfish is better. This is when his intentions are no longer agreeable, at least to me, because what he’s trying to say is his core philosophy is that Thomas should ignore his morals towards the people around him, because it will be easier to then achieve his own goals. The argument goes from what was seemingly encouragement towards self-care, to a complete disregard of others. He sees caring for the people in his life to be an optional difficulty and a burden that only makes it harder for Thomas to get what he wants. He places no value in Thomas’s relationships, and only serves, or attempts to serve, in their benefit when it is Thomas’s immediate goal to do so.

And that is interesting- Deceit has no control over what Thomas wants, but an obligation to help him achieve them, and apparently, opinions on what his priorities within those wants should be. And this is when we need to remember that the sides are not full personalities, but facets of Thomas himself.

Of course, the main four are such broad concepts that it’s easier to fit more of a “person” into each one. Morality is a vast understanding of right and wrong, but has a lot of room to move around in as far as demeanor and actions, and is combined with an interesting representation. The same with logic, and the same with passion- their representations combined with the flexibility of their definitions and interpretations offer a lot of room for filling out characters. Anxiety is a little different since at its core, anxiety and fear are really only an instinctual reflex. However, by extending that out into vaguer definitions and related traits like insecurity and morbidity, and once again tying it all up with a wonderfully engaging persona, Thomas still makes him feel like a character.

But the sides are not real people. They are built to represent a certain trait, and because of that, their behavior and motivations are more extreme and less well-rounded than normal people’s would be. They are written to be, for the most part, single-faceted characters. Their personality is only a specific section of someone else’s, and because of that they don’t act or think with the complexity of a real human person. And that is SO important to understanding Deceit.

To a point, Thomas managed to fully characterize Deceit as well- however, he’s a bit different. Because unlike the others, Deceit is a much more limited concept. He is a personification of lying and dishonesty. He doesn’t represent any emotions, any other traits, he’s just Deceit. Because of that, he can only be so emotionally complex (which is why I’m very impressed that Thomas and the team managed to give him so much life and feeling!). And that is partially why... I don’t really see him as sympathetic as many do, personally.

(This is where I’m gonna move away from Just Facts to more opinion based reasoning, so just skip to the end if you’re not interested in that.)

I’m not sure if I’m maybe missing something, but from what I saw, I don’t actually think Deceit was ever sad or hurt in that exchange- only frustrated because he couldn’t understand why the others didn’t see things the way he did. In the end, I don’t feel like him blowing up was from a place of emotional hurt. On the contrary, I think the source of conflict for him was in his reasoning. It was the fact that his logic couldn’t make sense of the choices around him, because he’s physically incapable of understanding the situation from a place of empathy like the others do. What he saw was Thomas making a decision that goes against what he directly wants, and Deceit literally just can’t understand that. He can’t understand the concept of Thomas choosing to uphold his morals over his personal desires, because he just doesn’t have the personal capacity to do so. So he loses his temper, gets bitter, and leaves.

I hope that this doesn’t give you the impression that I dislike Deceit as a character. I actually LOVE Deceit, from the standpoint of a writer and a fan. He’s a wonderful addition to the cast and adds a lot to the series.

However, I don’t fully sympathize with him, and I don’t feel comfortable idolizing him as he is in the show, because I honestly don’t see him as benevolent. I appreciate his motives, but I disagree too strongly with his outlook and logic to relate to or support him. I think that’s what I was trying to communicate with this analysis- it felt to me like a lot of people completely overlooked the intention of Deceit’s actions in this episode, which in my opinion does a HUGE disservice to the complexity of his character. He’s not a helpless, misunderstood victim. He’s a character who pairs good intentions with manipulation, carelessness, and immoral methods, which is a lovely thing to appreciate as an element of a show. But when you ignore those parts of his character to either idolize OR demonize him, it does a huge disservice to both him and the writers. I think I’d just like to see more people appreciate the intricacies of his character, especially in terms of his moral implications.

But, I think I’ve rambled enough as it is, so Imma end it here. This was a LOT of fun to write, and I might do more if yall like it, cause I have a LOT of thoughts about this series in general. Let me know if you’d want to see that! Bye for now!!!!

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #deceit sanders #ts deceit #logan sanders #ts logan #patton sanders #ts patton #virgil sanders #ts virgil #ts

39 notes · View notes

hiddlesgirl · 5 years ago

Text

SH 322: All Good Things...

This was a fantastic episode, I was crying from the moment the wedding started and I didn’t stop until long after the credits had rolled. As much as I want the show to continue with all my heart, this was a beautiful finale episode; it wrapped up the outstanding storylines and gave us a wonderfully bittersweet ending. I really don’t think we could have asked for anything better, the cast and crew did absolutely amazingly with the limited amount of air time they were given; I am seriously so grateful to them all that they were able to give us something so beautiful.

First thing to note is that this episode is 60 minutes long instead of 4o minutes; they gave us an extra 20 minutes air time to ensure that we got an amazing episode. Now, let me make sure you know that this was not Freeform or Netflix being generous; this was Todd and Darren not being able to cut the episode a minute shorter or else risk ruining it and going to the networks and begging for those extra minutes. So, in case you didn’t know this already, we owe those extra minutes (which enabled us to have some beautiful scenes) to Todd and Darren.

The first scene in which they defeated Lilith, cured Izzy and destroyed Edom therefore enabling Magnus to leave did seem rushed and extremely convenient fixes to the three problems; but this is completely understandable because they needed to wrap up these three loose ends before we could move forward in dealing with Jonathan and still have time for some scenes afterwards.

I really liked the morning montage of our three main couples; Sizzy’s first time, Clace getting to cuddle in bed after being separated for so long and Alec sleeping peacefully with Magnus by his side who is looking at Alec like he cannot believe his luck in finding him. I know that some people were disappointed that Malec weren’t cuddled up together too, I was a bit disappointed too but I also love what they did. Firstly because Magnus playing with Alec’s hair is so soft and adorable, plus I think that the moment spoke more about their feelings right now than cuddling would have.

For Alec he is finally able to sleep safe in the knowledge that Magnus will be there when he wakes up, we know that in the previous episode Alec fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. Now he is able to sleep peacefully, also his body is facing Magnus even in sleep; we know from previous episodes that he doesn’t always wake up facing Magnus (for example in 2x15 Alec was facing the wall when he woke up). I may be reading a little too much into it, but hey that’s what I do.

For Magnus he can’t quite believe that this man literally walked into Hell for him; he had been trying to come to terms with the fact that he would never see his fiancé again and now he doesn’t have to face that dim future. He loves this man so much and is so excited to marry him that he can’t even bear to take his eyes off him long enough to oversleep. The stroking of Alec’s hair is a lovely display of soft affection from Magnus, especially because it is just for him; Alec isn’t aware of what he’s doing so Magnus touching Alec is just for his own comfort. I just love this little moment.

I really loved the conversation between Simon and Izzy, they were both surprised by how easy it felt to transition into an intimate romantic relationship; I think that this is just beautiful because it shows that sometimes having that established bond and closeness can really lend itself to the beginning of a beautiful romantic relationship. It’s almost the opposite of Simon and Clary because although their romantic relationship was sweet while it lasted you knew it would never last because they were too close in a way, like siblings; whereas with Izzy there was always this mutual interest that was ignored in favour of their friendship.

Considering how awkward first times can be for on screen couples it was amazing to see them so at ease with each other and their new relationship. I also loved that they discussed their insecurities a little concerning past relationships gone bad, and deciding to learn to be better together. I love that this made the point that each relationship should be looked at separately from your previous ones and that you shouldn’t expect it to play out a certain way just because that is what happened before. Plus, that this is a relationship they are building together and that it will become what they make it.

I love that Magnus literally could not wait another day to marry Alec; they have been pulled apart so many times and he is scared that it will happen again because they never know what threat lies around the corner. I also adore that Alec seems to have wanted to plan the wedding, to go through that entire process with Magnus; I love this contrast to Season 1 when he wanted nothing to do with planning his wedding to Lydia. Now that he is choosing to marry someone he loves he wants to be involved in the process of creating that ceremony.

Alec wants to have their wedding at the Institute which confuses Magnus at first but Alec goes onto explain the message that it would convey would be so important. Alec experienced so much anxiety, self repression and low self esteem when growing up because he felt like he couldn’t be open and honest about who he is. He doesn’t want that to be the future of other Shadowhunters; he wants to show everyone that it’s okay to love someone of the same gender, and that it’s okay to love a Downworlder; he wants to show the Clave and the entire Shadow World that it’s okay to love whoever you love.

Magnus’ face softens where he realises Alec’s intentions because he also knows how it feels to be rejected by people, by family; he also is a very compassionate person. He shares in Alec wish for the Shadow World to be more open to relationships like theirs; he wants to show them that no matter your differences it’s the strength of your love for each other that matters most.

I adore the little flirty moments about tuxedos, especially when you look back to Season 1 when Alec was afraid to even be near Magnus or smile at him. I will never stop marvelling over Alec’s journey and how far Malec’s relationship has come.

The scene between Clary and Jace is very sweet, I love seeing them smile but you can still see how much the situation with Jonathan is hanging over Clary. She knows that he isn’t just going to disappear and is scared of what he is going to do, especially now that she isn’t there as a grounding influence. She also doesn’t want the threat of him to overshadow Alec and Magnus’ wedding, she loves them both so much.

Jace understands why she is hurting but he makes the point that in their lives there will always be demons, there will always be a threat waiting around the corner but that’s life. You have to enjoy the good times and celebrate because that is what they fight for, to be able to live and love. I just really adored this line and moment because it rings true for everyone, it is important to enjoy life.

I have to say that I was very surprised when Jonathan killed the Seelie Queen, she has been a constant powerful thorn in our characters sides since 2B. She is a very intriguing character and was always interesting to watch, that said you love to hate her because she has caused a lot of upset for our favourites and she is always looking out for herself, you can never trust her. But given how powerful she has been built up to be I was extremely surprised that she died, although we know that Jonathan has become extremely powerful (compared to Lucifer and a God) it just didn’t cross my mind that he would kill her (as much of an annoyance as she is to him) until it literally happened. I am glad that we did get to see Lola again (albeit briefly) before the Queen’s demise.

I really enjoyed the scene between Alec and Jace; Jace has developed so much in allowing himself to show his emotions and that has positively impacted his bond with Alec so much, they seem much closer now than they did in Season 1. Their new found emotional openness has helped them both so much as individuals and made their bond so much healthier than it was before.

I love that Jace was able to exhibit both his excitement and happiness for Alec and Magnus, but also his apprehension at Alec moving out. They haven’t lived apart since they were children so Jace is naturally anxious about Alec moving out, he doesn’t want them to grow apart and is nervous about feeling left behind now that Alec is taking his romantic relationship to the next level. Alec reassures him that no matter what they will always be brothers, just because he is becoming closer to Magnus does not mean he is growing apart from Jace; they will always be a part of each other and nothing can change that. For those reasons, I think this might be one of my favourite scenes between these two of the entire series.

I cannot tell you how much I love the bond between Izzy and Clary, right from the moment they met they have been supporting and loving towards each other. Too many times in shows, especially young adult shows, they create animosity between female characters for no real reason and I am so happy that Shadowhunters went in completely the opposite direction. Their friendship is one of my favourite things in the show; the friendships, between so many different characters, is one of my favourite things about the entire show.

I actually did tear up during this scene because they have become like sisters and you can tell how much they mean to each other; but to also take that step into becoming Parabatai shows just how strong that connection is. Especially on Izzy’s side because she never even considered having a Parabatai, preferring to work alone, but now she wants to be tethered to Clary; to share that bond like no other with her. For Clary, to have a bond that is so similar to family ties is so important and there is no one she would rather be bonded with than Izzy. I get so emotional about this.

I love that we heard Clary call Luke ‘Dad’, I am pretty sure that she has never called him Dad before; she has said that he raised her and that he was like a Dad, but she has never called him ‘Dad’ to his face. I admit that I cried, because I just love their Dad-daughter relationship so much. This is another thing I adore about the show, how many familial relationships exist between people who aren’t related by blood.

I was so happy to see Clary with her mum again, especially considering the circumstances in which she lost her; again I teared up a little. It was such a wonderfully sweet moment between them. Then we found out the reason she was there.

I completely understand why Raziel was angry that Clary had been drawing runes that he did not give her, going against his will; but I don’t like that his last straw wasn’t raising the dead (defying the natural order of the world) but was uniting Shadowhunters and Downworlders. Although you almost understand Raziel not wanting Shadowhunters to be affected by demon blood, it was a temporary rune that only connected them for a short amount of time; and it ended up feeling so much like discrimination against Downworlders that it left a bit of a sour taste in your mouth, especially after we were all so happy when Raziel said he didn’t wish the death of Downworlders in 2x20. I understand why from both a character and storyline point of view, but it still rankles a little that the Alliance rune was the breaking factor, not the Necromancy rune.

I did like the scene between Magnus and Lorenzo, clearing up and putting away that animosity between them. Magnus really appreciated what Lorenzo did for Alec, Izzy and himself in Edom; he wanted to show Lorenzo that his actions meant a lot to him. I think that Lorenzo realised that what he believed about Magnus wasn’t necessarily true, especially because he has all these people willing to risk their lives for him, because they loved him. I adored Lorenzo’s lines about making a family of your own.

I will always firmly believe that Lorenzo’s animosity stemmed from jealousy, personally I cannot completely forgive how he treated Magnus and I don’t feel that he was fully redeemed by those few acts in 321 and 322 but I am willing to believe that he was making steps to become better and that if there had been s Season 4 we would have seen him develop into a better person.

I really loved the moment between Maryse and Alec when they talk about Robert; so many times children think that they need to choose between their parents when they split up. I adore that Maryse made the point that no matter what happened between her and Robert, it doesn’t change that fact that Robert is his dad and that he loves him.

We find out that Jonathan is destroying all the Shadowhunter Institutes one by one, leaving the New York Institute until last. He wants to destroy Clary’s world while she watches, to take everything she loves away from her because he feels like she abandoned him and he has nothing left that he loves. You can see how distraught Clary is, she now feels responsible for the deaths of all those people because Jonathan killed them to hurt her. She has to carry so much, she is so strong and I love her so much.

Clary insists on going after Jonathan alone, she knows that Jonathan will not kill her because he loves her, but he would not hesitate to kill the others. My heart is breaking throughout the entire scene because you can see that Clary truly loves him, despite everything he has done she can’t stop herself from loving him. She knows that he is a murderer, that he has done terrible things; but he loves her and he is her brother. She knows he has to be stopped but it is breaking her heart.

All she wanted was a family, she wanted so much to believe in Jonathan but in the end their family has caused them both nothing but pain. She knows that there is nothing she can do to change Jonathan now, he has gone through too much and done too much to come back from it. I cannot express enough sympathy for her that she has not only had to kill her own father but now she has to kill her brother to protect her found family, the people she loves.

As much as I dislike Jonathan for the hurt he has caused I cannot help but sympathise with him; he was experimented on as a child, felt abandoned by Jocelyn, he was pressured by his father, then he was abandoned by his father, tortured by his demonic mother, manipulated by his unloving father and now he feels like his sister has cast him aside too. All he has ever know is pain, no one has ever truly loved him; he has been warped by his experiences, twisted so much that he almost cannot function as a normal human being. He is such a tragic villain.

His death was beautifully painful; the image of Clary enveloping him, trying to convey her love for him, while gently suffocating him with angelic power was shattering. You could see how much it was hurting her, and her shushing him was like a knife to the chest. I really start crying when Jonathan says ‘Let me go’ and Clary replies ‘I am’; the double meaning of it is heartbreaking. It is such a beautiful scene visually and emotionally, but also soul shattering because you can see how much pain Clary is in.

She has lost her last blood relative and her heart crumbles even more when her Angelic Power rune disappears because now she realises she is going to lose her found family too. She is going to lose her powers, Jace and those she loves; she is about to lose everything.

The Malec wedding was everything I could ever have imagined and more, I cannot say how much I loved this scene and how much it made me cry. Firstly, the colour scheme; the warmth of the colours is beautiful, the yellows and oranges was wonderful. Especially in contrast with Alec’s first wedding which was blues and pale colours, the complete contrast of cool and warm sums up how not only Alec feels about the weddings but how they made us as a audience feel. We knew that he wasn’t happy about marrying Lydia and that he wouldn’t have a happy life, it felt more like a prison sentence; but with Magnus, he loves him with his entire being and he could not be happier. I love that the colours reflected this emotional change.

Secondly, the colour of dresses the women are wearing. Clary and Madzie are wearing the same shade of red; this so much reflects their connection to Magnus. He considers them both his family, they are like his little sisters (they are almost like children to him) and they mean so much to him. Whereas Catarina, Izzy and Maryse are wearing deep blue; they have become his family in a different way. Catarina is his best friend, the sister he found; Izzy has become such a close friend and will soon become a sister to him too; Maryse has become the mother he wished for. I just love that their clothes represent their connection to Magnus, especially for Izzy and Maryse; to show that they accept Magnus into their family as much as he considers them his is beautiful.

Thirdly, Maryse walked Magnus down the aisle. We know that Magnus felt rejected by his own mother and his father figures were awful; now Maryse has fully accepted him into her heart. She has become like a mother to him, which means so much to him especially considering her attitude towards him in Season 1. I cannot express how much I love Maryse’s development and her new relationship with Magnus.

Fourth, they used ‘I get to love you’; that song just screams Malec and it honestly was perfect, they could not have found a better song to use.

Fifth, the vows were beautiful. They encapsulate everything the Malec are to each other, and I love that they would say a line each which would complete the two lines which just sums them up because they really do complete each other. The vows were honestly so perfect, they weren’t cheesy or lacklustre; they managed to hit the exact balance that made them emotional and honest to the characters.

Those are just the main things that I love but the entire scene was just so stunning that you really can’t describe it in words and do it justice. It was perfect.

I really liked that we had a little moment between Izzy, Simon and Raphael; after everything that has happened between them it was nice to get that lovely little moment of them all being happy. Raphael is moving on with his life as a mundane, feeling more at peace with himself than he has in a very long time; he is happy that Izzy and Simon have found each other. He cares for them both and knows that they will make each other happy. I just thought this entire interaction was very sweet.

After the tears had just started to stop after the wedding I started crying again during Clary and Simon’s scene because you just knew that this was her saying goodbye to him. She cannot bear the thought of leaving without letting Simon know just how much he, and their friendship, means to her. All the party scenes feel slightly bittersweet because although we are so happy for Malec we are hurting because Clary is slowly losing her runes.

I love that Helen and Aline are discussing wedding attire, I love that their relationship has flourished but it also shows that Alec has accomplished his aim; couples like them are having the confidence to show their love openly.

I cried when Max said that he’ll call Magnus ‘brother’, we were all so disappointed with Max’s behaviour at the party Magnus threw for him in 208 and this moment more than makes up for it. It is another member of Alec’s family that is welcoming Magnus with open arms and you can see how much it means to the both of them.

I adore the scene between Clary and Maryse; Clary knows that Luke will be happy with Maryse and she is glad that Luke will have romance in his life. She also is thankful that Luke will have Maryse to support him after she is gone. I cried a bit more when she asked Maryse if the angels could forgive. In this moment you could see just how truly scared she is of losing the Shadow World, she doesn’t want to leave everything behind and is holding out the hope that Raziel will forgive her.

I think that the dance scene between Clace is one of my favourite scenes between them of the entire scenes, even as heartbreaking as it is. Jace loves Clary so much and has been able to grow as a person because of her influence; she is the first person that he has ever felt secure knowing she loves him unconditionally.

Clary’s heart is breaking, she loves Jace so much and knows how much he is going to hurt when she’s gone; and his words just make her more certain of that. She needs him to know that she loves him, and that no matter what happens she will always love him. She words what she is saying so carefully hoping that he will look back on this moment and be reassured that she loves him even when she doesn’t know him. I cried the entire way through this scene because it was so sweet, Clary was in so much pain and you knew that soon Jace would be in agony.

Honestly, the moment Clary walks out of the hall breaks my soul completely because we know that not only is it Clary crying over what she is losing but it is Kat crying because Shadowhunters is ending. She openly spoke about the fact that a lot of that was just her crying because these were going to be the last scenes of the show. Kat loves this show so much and it really shows. So not only am I crying for Clary but I am crying for and with Kat.

The entire sequence of Clary forgetting and Jace finding the letter was so soul crushing but beautiful at the same time; I was surprised I could still see the screen I was crying so much. It made me feel such a painful sense of loss and I cannot praise Kat’s performance in this scene enough because I was literally breaking with Clary, and that moment her last rune disappears you can see it all just vanish, her facial expression and body language just changes completely. I openly sobbed my heart out at this second. I did like that her runes seemed to disappear in reverse order (with the exception of the Angelic rune) and that the last rune to disappear was the first rune she got, the Iratze rune that Jace drew to heal her. I was a complete and utter mess.

I was a little surprised that we got a year long jump, but I am also happy that we were able to see how their lives have changed; and in many cases for the better. It shows us a little glimpse of how their lives have progressed and potentially where we were supposed to end up if the show had continued, that this was supposed to be the natural ending (with the exception of Clary still not remembering. )

I absolutely love the fact that Alec is now the Inquisitor, this was always his dream job and I am so happy that he has been able to achieve that dream and be happy about his situation. Luke talks about Maryse and it seems like they are very happy and stable in their relationship. We find out that Shadowhunters and Downworlders are now working hand in hand, with Downworlders now playing an active role as deputies; it shows us that the Clave has evolved so much and that there is now a much healthier relationship between Shadowhunters and Downworlders.

We find out that not only is Alec in Alicante but Magnus is there too, they have moved their apartment there. This is amazing because before Downworlders could even travel to Alicante. He is the High Warlock of Alicante too, I honestly cannot tell you how happy this makes me; not only has he regained a role he loved doing but he is now stationed inside the Shadowhunter home city, setting an example for warlock and Shadowhunter cooperation.

His phone conversation also tells us that Shadowhunter Institutes (we presume) are becoming much more open to Downworlders because a lot of people are now adjusting their wards to allow for Downworlders which is amazing. These two scenes show just how much the Shadow World has progressed considering Shadowhunters and Downworlder relations in just a year.

I also love Magnus’ outfit and makeup; it is very much reminiscent of Season 1 which implies that he is feeling more confident in himself and happy with his life than he has in a while. Plus he just looks stunning.

I adore the moment between him and Alec, it eludes to the very domestic and happy life they live together, how comfortable Alec is living with Magnus. I also love the little bit of flirty Alec, and I adore the ‘To us’ because it mirrors 106. It makes me so happy that in their last scene Malec are happily married and both have careers they love.

I know that ‘Taki’s’ is a reference to the book, so I am happy for the book fans who were waiting for it to appear. I love that it is Maia who is opening it as a place for all Downworlders to socialise together, further encouraging good relationships and camaraderie between all the factions. We also learn the Simon has written a graphic novel like he always dreamed of, I love that we are seeing so many characters realising their dreams.

My heart breaks when they reminisce about Clary, you can see the huge hole that has been ripped in Simon. I love that Maia added a burrata salad to the menu in Clary’s name; so many people cared about and miss her that it echoes through everyone she touched.

IZZY IS THE HEAD OF THE NEW YORK INSTITUTE! Sorry for the yelling but I was so excited and so happy for Izzy, she has got to be an amazing Head of the Institute because she has always been forward thinking when it concerns Downworlders, she is leader material and I would have loved to see more of her being amazing. Simon is a Downworld deputy which I love and their interaction is so sweet; I am so happy that we got to see their romance realised and they definitely seem to be very happy a year on.

I have to say that I love the Jimon training scene. It is very playful, especially with Jace’s ‘boop boop’, but it also shows just how comfortable Jace and Simon are with each other now. Their relationship has come so far from the animosity from Season 1. They have truly come to appreciate each other as individuals and create a friendship that seems to be beneficial to them both; they definitely seem to have become a touchstone for each in Clary’s absence.

Simon wants Jace to stop checking on Clary because he knows that it isn’t healthy for him, he wants Jace to be able to move on because clinging to Clary is hurting him. He understands because Clary is so important to him too, but he can’t stand to watch Jace continue to torture himself like this.

You can see Jace’s agony at being separated from the love of his life, he is desperate for her to remember and cannot let go of that possibility. He is sure that their love is stronger than the spite of the angels; he just wished that they saw that. The only thing that would have made this scene better would have been if Jace and Simon had hugged, but maybe that’s just me.

We see that Clary has realised her mundane dream of becoming an artist at the Brooklyn Academy of Art; on one hand I am happy for her but it also breaks your heart because it is evident that she feels something is missing (just like the first time she was mundane). A wonderful person on Twitter (I cannot remember who and I can’t find the tweet right now) pointed out that her two paintings resemble the two weddings in colour schemes, and that was both wonderful and painful to realise.

You can see how shocked Jace is that she sees him and he panics, I am sure that he had decided (thanks to Simon) that this should be the last time he checks up on her because it was just too painful; but now she sees him. He runs because he doesn’t know how to deal with the situation and is scared that it was a mistake, and that she actually doesn’t know him.

Clary chases him and calls him by his name, you can see the happiness radiate from Jace which just increases when she seems to recognise his runes. As heartbreaking as it is that we don’t end with Clace together I do love that their last scene mirrors their first and it brings the series full circle and feels right in a way. It was so beautifully done and I was crying so much.

I cannot put into words how much I love this episode and just how much it affected me emotionally; it was truly a beautiful episode. I honestly believe that they could not have given us a better ending (in the circumstances). It felt like it gave all the characters some happiness and closure, it didn’t feel so much like an open wound. They created it so that gave us a beautiful ending but also in a way that the series could be continued if the occasion ever arose. I cannot thank the entire cast and crew enough.

I love this show so much and it will forever hold a special place in my heart. I ache over the cancellation and I will always hope that one day we will be able to revisit the Shadow World with our wonderful cast. But I sincerely love this episode and I do feel that it was a beautiful and meaningful end to our wonderful story.

#Shadowhunters Review #All Good Things #Shadowhunters #SH 322 #SH3x22 #Shadowhunters 322 #SH 322 Review #SH322 #Shadowhunters 3x22 #SH 3x22 #SH 3x22 Review

1 note · View note

marshmallow-phd · 6 years ago

Text

White Out

Part of The Untamed - EXO Wolf Universe

Genre: Supernatural, Wolf Au

Pairing: Kyungsoo x Reader

Summary: Bouncing place to place was just how lived your life. Settling down just wasn’t in your plans, especially with your past. But when you meet Kyungsoo, there’s suddenly a future in front of you that you never imagined possible. With both enemies and friends of the pack arriving in town, you’ll be pulled into a danger that you never asked for. Will you stick around for Kyungsoo or will you do what you do best and run?

Warning: none

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11 I 12 I 13 I 14 I Final

All you wanted was to pick up a box of hot chocolate at the grocery store on your way home. You’d had an amazing few hours spent in the woods with that peculiar wolf and now just wanted a drink to help warm you up in your apartment away from everyone. It was supposed to be an in and out trip. But life apparently didn’t quiet agree with that.

Just as you were reaching for the last box of your favorite brand of hot chocolate, another hand coming from behind snatched it first. You turned around to find a particularly tall stranger smirking down at you.

“Excuse me,” you said politely, “I was going for those first. May I please have them?”

The stranger shook the box mockingly. “Maybe.”

Rolling your eyes, you decided that this was not a game you wanted to play right now. You grabbed an off-brand box off the shelf and started to walk away. An arm flew out and grabbed the metal bar shelving, blocking your path. The hand of the other arm pushed your shoulder into the non-perishables behind you.

You barely managed to shove the stranger’s hand away, but he still kept you trapped, unable to leave.

“What is your problem?” you hissed.

His smirk just grew as he leaned down to you. “I just want to get to know you.” Coming in closer, you felt the air move by your neck as he took in a deep breath. “That smell is… intoxicating.”

A strange chill ran down your spine. What smell? The shampoo you used was nothing special. You pushed him away, the current situation frightening you for a reason you couldn’t explain.

“(y/n).”

To your left, Kyungsoo marched up and stepped in front of you, facing the stranger.

“Well, would you look at that?” the stranger smirked, straightening up. “Is an MR going stand up for the pretty girl? I’m so scared.”

A strange urge to wrap your arms around Kyungsoo and cower into his back came over you. You shook the feeling away, utterly shocked.

What was that? Typically, you would have been annoyed at Kyungsoo’s interference, like that first night you met. You were someone who could take care of themselves, you’d done it before. But this time around, all you felt was relief. It was a strange emotion, not one that you were used to.

“Better an MR than an omega,” Kyungsoo spat. What did any of that mean?

That just angered the stranger more. “You little punk.” He grabbed Kyungsoo by the collar of his sweater. “Why don’t you – ah!”

Your eyes widened. Kyungsoo had simply grabbed the stranger by his wrist, twisting it at an unnatural angle so he’d let go of the fabric, the stranger’s face contorting into a look of pain.

“Get out of here,” Kyungsoo ordered. He let go of the stranger’s wrist, who then tripped over his own feet multiple times as he ran for the exit. Picking up the box that the stranger had dropped, Kyungsoo held it out to you.

“Thanks,” you whispered, taking the box and replacing the less desirable one back on the shelf. Amazingly, he didn’t stop you this time when you turned to leave. With each step, your pace to hurry away from him slowed until at the very end of the aisle you came to a complete stop.

This twice now that he had saved you from someone who thought you looked like a new toy to play with. He didn’t have to step in, but he did. And here you were, acting ungrateful. Not to mention the small part of you that didn’t want to leave him.

Spinning on your heels, you said in a voice louder than necessary, “Do you want a cup of hot chocolate?”

His eyebrows jumped up in surprise. “W-what?”

Taking a deep breath, you walked back to him. Lowering your voice, you repeated, “Do you want a cup of hot chocolate? As a… thank you. This is twice now, so I think I should stop being so rude.”

This smile that lit up on his face nearly blinded you. How could a smile be shaped like a heart? Your own heart was picking up speed in your chest. Using the cardboard box in your hands, you covered the area up to avoid detection.

No. No thinking like that. It was just a thank you. You don’t know this boy at all. Think rationally.

Says the girl who just spent several hours with a seemingly intelligent wild animal that could kill her in ten seconds. All rationality has left you.

“I’d love to.”

You were a bit frozen at the moment. Never had you seen such warm brown eyes before. They were comforting and shining. You could just inside them forever. Opposite of that icy blue you were used to in the past.

“(y/n)?”

You blinked. “Yeah. Right. Um, did you need to grab something real quick?”

You’d actually spaced out and been caught staring at him. What other embarrassing thing could you do?

Kyungsoo shook his head. “No. They’re out of what I wanted.”

“Right,” you nodded. “Okay, then. I’ll just… check out.”

Was this the result of isolating yourself from the rest of mankind? You couldn’t even hold a simple conversation. But he wasn’t helping any. It was like his presence was sending your senses into overdrive.

Rushing past him, you went straight for the self-checkout, quickly scanning the hot chocolate and finishing out the transaction in a hurried fashion. Kyungsoo was right there next to you. You could feel his eyes on you. It took a few tries to get your card in the slot reader. You grabbed hold of the bag carrying your single item and turned to your companion.

“My apartment is just about two blocks away,” you informed him. Glancing down at his sweater, you frowned. “Don’t you have a coat?”

“No,” he replied. “I don’t get cold.”

“Lucky,” you mumbled, bracing yourself for the chill that was about to hit you as you walked through the automatic doors to the dreaded outside.

The two of you walked in silence to your apartment. You tried to come up with multiple conversation starters, but none of them would leave the tip of your tongue. This had to be proof. You really were broken, no longer able to function socially like a normal human being. Fantastic.

Groaning internally, you managed to unlock your apartment and flip on the light. Then you flinched at the sight. There were still boxes stacked against the wall containing the objects you owned but hadn’t needed to unpack quite yet.

“Are you leaving?” Kyungsoo asked. He sounded… worried? Almost panicky?

You shook your head. “No. I’m just….” Keeping things packed just in case, “lazy at unpacking. It’ll get put away eventually.” You scratched your scalp, embarrassed. “I just never have people over so I wasn’t thinking about it.”

Obviously fighting back a smile, Kyungsoo nodded while slipping his hands into his pockets.

While you warmed up a pot of water on the stove, Kyungsoo wandered around your living room, pausing at the entertainment stand that held your TV, a plant, the only two pictures you owned. One of you and your father when you graduated high school and the second of you and Mina on your twenty-first birthday. Right before you met Chace.

“Is this your father?” Kyungsoo asked, pointing to the first picture. The hot chocolate was done and you brought a mug over to him, for which he thanked you for.

“Yeah,” you smiled. Your dad was your best friend, although Mina pretended not to know that she was only in second place. He tried so hard to be there for you even when work had to call him away. Lately, he’d been hard to reach, stationed in the desert with spotty satellite connection. “He’s in the military, so I don’t get to see him much.”

Kyungsoo gave you a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry.”

You shrugged. “I’m used to it. We’d bounce from base to base. It’s probably why I can’t stay in once place for long. The idea of settling is... weird to me.”

For just meeting this guy, you were being way too honest. In just a few short minutes, he was suddenly easy to talk to. One little question and you were an open book. Had the lock broken so effortlessly? You’d need to watch it before you revealed the things you had to keep to yourself.

“Maybe if you met… someone?”

The expression Kyungsoo was giving you was simultaneously making you melt and want to build up a wall. A very high wall. Maybe one with a moat around it. With alligators.

Shaking your head, you took a sip of your drink. “I don’t really meet people.”

“Hmmm,” was how he replied. There was a moment or two of silence. “And this is Mina?”

You whirled on him. How the hell would he know your friend’s name? Noticing your look of horror, he picked up the picture. “It’s on her nametag?”

Her nametag?

You snatched the picture out of his hand, scanning it. Oh, right. There it was on her shirt. Of course. You’d given her crap all night because she accidentally agreed to stay an extra hour at her waitressing job to help with the random rush. She had to come straight to the bar from the restaurant, making you feel weird as you were all dressed to celebrate and she was still in her uniform. It didn’t matter in the end, as you two still ended up having a blast.

“Yeah, that’s Mina,” you nodded, handing the picture back to him. “She’s a riot. I miss her sometimes.”

“Understandable.” Kyungsoo returned the picture to its place. Then something else caught his eye.

A movie that you had taken out with the intention of watching yesterday but never got around to actually putting on was sitting on the second shelf of the stand. It was an old Hitchcock movie that not many had heard of. Kyungsoo picked it up, smiling.

“You like this movie?”

You nodded. “It’s one of my favorites. Have you seen it?”

“No,” he admitted. “But I’ve always wanted to.”

“Do you want to watch it?” The question was out before you could stop yourself. He was just supposed drink the coco and leave. So, then, why were you hoping he would say yes? You chewed on your bottom lip. Shouldn’t you be hoping he’d say no?

“Sure,” he smiled.

Damn it. If he kept smiling at you like that, you were going to end cooking him dinner. Why did you have to be a sucker for a nice smile? And it wasn’t even nice. It was brilliant – breath-taking.

What was wrong with you?

Without any sign from you, Kyungsoo went right into turning on your DVD player and popping the disk in. You settled on your old worn out couch, squeezing into the corner after placing your mug down on the ring-stained coffee table.

On the other side sat Kyungsoo, keeping his distance in a gentleman-like manner. Even as the opening narration began, you still couldn’t concentrate on the screen. Stupid urges plagued you. It had been too long since you sat and watched a movie with someone. Of the opposite sex, no less.

You kept wondering if he was warm. If he was soft. Would you meld perfectly into his side?

Stop it!

Huffing to yourself, you grabbed a throw pillow off the floor and repositioned yourself so you were halfway laying down but still on your side of the couch, your head resting on the pillow.

About thirty minutes into the movie, your eyelids became heavy. You fought them bravely but in the end, even with a stranger sitting in your living room, you drifted off to sleep.

Kyungsoo knew it the second you fell asleep. He could hear your heartrate and breathing slow. He smiled to himself. That meant that you were getting comfortable around him, at ease in his presence. When you asked him to come over for a warm drink, he could hardly believe it.

Granted, he knew that the reason you were opening up to him was because of the time you were spending with him in his wolf form. Even if you weren’t consciously aware of it, the mate bond between the two of you was growing, pulling you in more.

At your sleeping figure, the wolf inside whined. Kyungsoo had to fight against his instinct to nudge in behind you and wrap his arms around you, snuggling you in close to his chest where you were safest. Waking up to that just might take away all the progress he’s made.

But this was certainly something. You let him know just a little more about yourself. Apparently there were only two people in your life. Could you maybe make room for one more?

Kyungsoo shook his head. No, with him came at least a dozen more or so.

With a high toned shrill, his phone went off in his pocket. Glancing over at you to make sure you hadn’t woken up, he answered it, speaking softly.

“Hello?”

“Kyungsoo, its Junmyeon. Where are you?”

“I’m….” How was he supposed to answer? “I’m still in town.”

“Okay,” his alpha sighed. “Can you get back to the farm house as soon as possible? We’re about to go over new perimeter assignments with the others. I’d like you here.”

The others? Did he mean Kris, Luhan, and Tao? Junmyeon hadn’t even been in the house at the same time as Kris since they arrived. This could be good. Or a terrible argument waiting to happen.

“As soon as possible,” Junmyeon added.

“I’m on my way.”

Great. He’d have to run.

He hated leaving you there, but he didn’t want to disturb your sleep either. Covering you up with the blanket form the back of the couch, he let himself take in the view of you for another minute before exiting the apartment.

Making back to the house in record time, he was completely exhausted. Everyone else was already there and gathered around the table. Kyungsoo tossed his sweater in the direction of the laundry room, earning a glare from Minseok. He didn’t care. He was too hot to put it back on, leaving him in just the white t-shirt he’d worn underneath.

“Good, you’re here,” was Junmyeon’s greeting to him. He started passing out different papers to everyone. “This is the perimeter schedule from now on. I’ve paired you off in groups. No arguments.”

There were a few grumbles around the room as everyone looked over the schedule. After reading his running mates, Kyungsoo sent the alpha a silent death glare. Of course he would get saddled with Chanyeol and Sehun. This wasn’t going to end well. At least his runs were at the time that you were usually at work. A relatively safe place for you to be.

“Anyone have any updates?” Junmyeon asked. Most of them shook their heads. Kris was the only one who spoke up.

“We’ve lost the hybrids’ trail, so we don’t know where they are exactly now, but I’ve got friends in a neighboring town that are keeping their ears open. They’ll let me know if they hear anything.”

Junmyeon gave a single hard nod, barely acknowledging his old friend.

“There was another omega today,” Kyungsoo advised. “He went after (y/n).”

“Why do they keep doing that?” Baekhyun asked.

“It’s an unclaimed mate thing,” Luhan answered. “All mates have a scent that only their wolf is supposed to be able to smell. No one knows why, but omegas are able to pick up on the smell as well when the mate is unclaimed. It’s like cooking meat right in front of a starving dog. Almost impossible to resist.”

“This mate thing sounds complicated to the point where I’m not sure I want one,” Sehun sneered.

“You’ll get one whether you like it or not,” Chanyeol reminded him. “Right, Jongdae?”

“Stop!” Jongdae groaned. For once, Kyungsoo was on his side. The joke was getting old. Fast.

After a few more rounds of throwing verbal punches, everyone dispersed, Junmyeon being the first one out of the room to who knows where. Kyungsoo was itching to get back to you. Your apartment wasn’t close to the edge of town, but he’d go back tonight anyway as a wolf, keeping a close eye on any other omegas that might roll into town. If you really smelled that irresistible to those dangerous wolves, then he was going to have to work harder to speed up getting you to trust him and then fall for him.

597 notes · View notes

socmediamarketingtips-blog · 5 years ago

Text

Social internet marketing, Truth and Lies

youtube

Social media marketing Peterborough UK Social media seems to be the actual latest buzz word for everyone looking to increase their very own on the web presence and income, however is Social Press Marketing (SMM) most this is cracked up in order to become?

Social media marketing Peterborough UK

S. M. E global businesses are now springing upward everywhere you go these days along with they are telling anyone who will listen about exactly how unbelievably important social press like Myspace twitter in addition to YouTube are going to your organization but, for the common small to medium type of business, can marketing to be able to social networks genuinely are living up to all the particular hype? Is actually spending the small fortune on getting SMM company really really worth that? And has anybody really accomplished their study on this ahead of that they hired someone to established there Facebook business web page? Some SMM companies tend to be preparing things like Facebook or myspace business internet pages (which are usually free) with regard to $600 for you to $1, 000 or far more and telling all their customers that they don't have to have a website because Facebook could be the biggest social network within the world as well as anyone has a Facebook bank account. Now while it may well be real that Fb is the most significant interpersonal network in the entire world and sure, Facebook's associates are probable consumers, typically the real question is actually are generally they actually buying? Email marketing companies are all way too happy to suggests often the positives of social websites such as how many people utilize Zynga or how a lot of tweets were being sent out and about last year and just how a lot of people watch YouTube video and so on but are anyone getting the entire photograph? I once sitting up coming to a SMM "expert" at a business webinar who has been spruiking to any person who else came within earshot in regards to the amazing benefits involving setting up a Myspace business page for small companies (with him of course) and selling on Facebook or myspace. So, intrigued by the actual aforesaid "experts" advice My spouse and i viewed him up about Facebook and then find they had only 14 Fb friends (not a fantastic start). So being the analysis enthusiast that I am, Choice to take a great look into SMM inside regard to selling to help see if the idea truly worked, who manages to do it job for and if the item do why did Interpersonal Media Marketing help these people? And should business really rely so heavily on social support systems for sales?

As any website developer I ended up being constantly (and now increasingly) confronted with numerous sociable networking challenges when leads would say that getting a internet site sounds very good but they possessed some sort of Facebook business webpage and also had been told by simply various sources (the at any time present yet anonymous "they") that social networks ended up the fact to do, yet after going over their demands it became quite obvious which those potential clientele didn't basically know precisely why they essential social marketing networks or SMM to come up with on the net sales, They only wished it. For small to medium sized small business I always recommended constructing a quality website over almost any social network, why? Effectively really simple really simply because web 2 . 0 is Social Mass media, and internet sites are Sociable Networks they are not necessarily company media and enterprise arrangements (that would end up being more like LinkedIn). My partner and i know that sounds straightforward but it's true plus the statistics back it way up. The fact is that will social media marketing falls flat to tell you in which Facebook is a public network not only a search motor and despite the variety of Facebook users and Search engines users being around the particular exact same, people don't make use of Facebook just like that many people use a search powerplant just like Google (which possesses about half the lookup engine market), Google along with Bing to search regarding organization or products. That they use this to preserve in touch with household and friends or even intended for news and leisure. Throughout a recent study produced by the IBM Institute for people who do buiness Value around 55% coming from all social media users expressed that they can do not indulge with brands around societal media at all in addition to only close to 23% really purposefully employ social mass media to interact with models. Now out of all of the people who use social media and who also accomplish interact with companies whether actively or definitely not, the majority (66%) claim they need to experience a company will be connecting honestly before they might socialize.

So how do you actually use social internet marketing? And is usually it even well worth undertaking?

Well first of almost all Outlined on our site say that possessing a well im web page is still going in order to offer you far more small business that social networking in almost all cases especially if a person are a minute channel sized local business due to the fact far more people usually are going to search on "hairdresser Port Macquarie" in a research engine like Google, Bing and Bing than these people ever will on just about any Social Media Site as well as if you have to a web site you're missing out with so much potential business. Nevertheless inspite of all the (not so good) statistics We still realize its still a new good idea for company to work with social media just simply not in the very same way that many of SMM pros are today, Precisely why? Since it's clearly no longer working throughout the way they assert and also. Basically SMM Firms and also Business as the whole looked at great example of such like Facebook as any fresh new market ripe to get the finding and whenever Facebook started obtaining people measured by the thousands PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel invested US$500, 000 with regard to 7% of the organization (in June 2004) along with since these individuals a several venture capital firms made investments into Facebook since October 2007, Microsoft declared that it had acquired the one. 6% share connected with Zynga for $240 , 000, 000. Nonetheless since Facebook's simple start up until at this point (2012) both SMM Corporations and Business get hit a brick wall to truly capitalise about the huge number of Myspace users on the internet. The real truth is numbers does not really equivalent buyers. Is that in a Facebook marketing provider's best interest to chat the differences up? Absolutely. Will be it in the Social Networking like Facebook's needs regarding people to believe this firms can sell en hel masse by promoting using them? Of course the idea is. At the begining of 2012, Facebook or myspace disclosed which its revenue had leaped amazingly 65% to be able to $1 billion in the last season as its revenue and that is mainly from advertising acquired jumped almost 90% for you to $3. 71 billion and so clearly the concept associated with SMM is definitely working available for them but the item is actually working out intended for you? Well... statistically zero, but that does certainly not mean that it by no means will.

I really believe the key difference between social support systems in addition to search engines is objective. People who use Yahoo and google tend to be deliberately searching to get something whenever they complete a search for hairdressers that's what they are usually looking for too distinct time. With similar to Fb the primary intent will be to connect with friends as well as family. In August 08, Mark Zuckerberg themselves explained "I don't think internet sites can be monetized with the same way that will search (Search Engines) performed... In three years through we now have to figure away what the optimum type is. But that will be not each of our primary target today". The most significant problems enterprise face having social systems and SMM is usually belief. According to the APPLE Commence for Business Price study there are "significant holes between exactly what businesses feel consumers treasure and just what consumers say they desire coming from their social media communications along with companies. " Intended for example in our society men and women are not just planning to hand you over right now there recommendations, Facebook likes, responses or details without having some thing back for this, so the outdated pensée "what's in it personally? " comes into participate in. So the principal explanation most people give with regard to interacting with brands or perhaps organization on social growing media is to acquire discount rates, yet the brands and also business themselves think the reason why people interact with all of them upon social media is definitely to learn about new services. For brands and small business receiving discounts only rates high 12th on their listing of logic behind why people communicate with them. Almost all companies believe social media raises advocacy, but only 35 % of consumers recognize.

Businesses need to get more modern ways to help connect with social music whenever they want to view some sort of end result from that. There had been some good initiatives displayed in the IBM analysis regarding companies that experienced gotten some form of a take care of on how to work with social media to their own advantage, remembering that while asked what they perform if they interact with organizations or brand names via interpersonal media, consumers checklist "getting discounts or coupons" along with "purchasing products and services" as the top a pair of pursuits, respectively a You. H ice cream business called Chilly Stone Creamery offered special discounts on their particular products on their Zynga page. Alternatively there is actually a wonderful program presented by Ideal Buys within the U. T referred to as Twelpforce where personnel could respond to customer's inquiries via Twitter. With both equally Cool Stone Creamery in addition to Twelpforce the benefit will be clearly from the favour involving the potential customer as well as the great trick in order to social media is to will sell without trying to dispose of (or shopping like your selling) however most social media promoting is targeted the wrong technique.

Building a tangible consumer to consumer relationship through social media is not necessarily easy and of your gain to business' applying sociable media to boost their very own internet sites Google rankings. Nevertheless company need to know that you can't simply setup a Facebook company page and hope regarding the top. SMM requires efforts as well as potential customers want to see price inside what you have to be able to offer by way of your public media efforts allow them to have anything worth their societal connection and time and then you might get better results.

1 note · View note