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livingsurreal · 2 days ago

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Thoughts and theories in regards to my favorite senior necromancer

This man swept me of my feet so completely that I am still reeling. He is my new Solavellan and the amount of feels I have about him, its ungodly.

So I present to you my way to long essay about why Emmrich is the saddest and greatest man Bioware ever created, right next to Solas.

Please be aware of spoilers if you have not completed the game yet.

Also, shutout to @jaal-ama-daravv - you were looking for others peoples thoughts and theories. Also, thank you for all your posts and love for Emmrich.

(Edit for typos)

Their whole romance starts with dear Rook trying to flirt with him. And Rook being Rook their flirts are… questionable. I image Rook always doing a facepalm “Oh god, what did I just say?” afterwards. They… are not really that good at flirting. Half the time he doesn’t even seem to get that Rook was flirty with him.

But, oh, he did get it. He just couldn’t really comprehend it. This pretty, young and exciting person, flirting with him?!? Rook can be anything up to their mid-40s according to canon. That is not that much younger than him. But to him, they do SEEM young. Despite them being somewhat younger than Emmrich, I do think though, in quite a few ways, they are more experienced and knowledgeable than him. Emmrich led a pretty sheltered life. His childhood seems to be a happy one, despite them being poor. The loss of his parents had a huge impact on his life. To a degree where it still impacts him in a major way, even now, a lifetime later. But outside of that, I don’t think there was much strife or adventure in his life.

He is a quiet man who loves his books, and his time and work in the necropolis. He rarely even left the Necropolis. He never saw much of the world outside of it. But he always wanted to. Always dreamed of some kind of adventure. I think this is one of the reasons he so readily agreed to help Rook. A chance for adventure (and to help the world).

So here he finds himself in the company of a vibrant adventurous Rook who has seen and experienced so much. I think no matter their age difference, they would seem younger, “fresh faced” and vibrant to him. They are so full of life compared to him, who has not done that much living in recent years. They are less stuck in their ways, are out in the world and not sequestered in a life of routine.

In some ways he seems to be older than he is. That man is in his 50s. That is NOT old. But he seems to have lacked the courage to take life by its horns and just ride it. He is cautious, a coward in many ways. But somehow this dear Rook seems to bring out a different side of him. An almost forgotten yearning for more.

So, Rook awkwardly flirts with him. Bumbles and stumbles over words to flatter him. And he is exhilarated, touched and most of all confused. Why would this beautiful, vibrant person be interested in HIM of all people. There are other people around who should be so much more interesting to them than him. And how could he not be interested in them himself? They are, in a way, what he wants to be. Adventurous. Full of life. Indomitable. No matter what life throws at them, they refuse to yield. They have a courage the lacks, or thinks he lacks.

But that man is so much braver than he thinks. The fact that he is so open with Rook about his thanatophobia, even with a Rook that is not romantically interested in him is so touching. He tells them his most inner fears and all he wishes for it in return is some respect and kindness.

So, after some light and awkward flirting he tells them. If they DO mean it, he is interested. Emmrich is a deeply romantic man. In the dept of his heart he does not want a short-term affair. He wants someone to spend his life with. He wants something real. He wants everything. It’s what he always wanted, but never found and had completely given up upon. So he opens up a bit more.

But around that time, he also realizes that he absolutely has to tell them about his plans for lichdom. He tells the Rook on the friendship path why he hopes for their help in regard of Johanna. He explains why it is so important to him to find and stop Johanna.

Same goes for Rook on the romance path. But here comes the other side of the coin. Lichdom puts a possible halt on their fledging romance. He cannot know if Rook would be willing to continue what they’ve barely started.

They may either continue under the understanding that they have just temporary affair. What he never wanted. He always wanted that eternal flame – but by the Maker he wants to be with them, even if it is just a short time. He is still all feely at this point and the whole scope of his emotions have not yet hit him.

Or even, can he dare to dream, beyond that point of no return and stay with him after he becomes a Lich.

But he must put it out there. He cannot go further into their romance pretending his plans do not exist. He thinks Rook has a right to know what they are getting in to, and he is correct (and much respected) for that.

At the end, Rook commits to being with him with the full knowledge that Lichdom will come, sooner or later. If they stay with him from that point on is still undecided, but for now they are his. And how can he say no to that. He certainly did not expect this. I believe he fully expected this to be their end. But his confession ended truly in a night of unexpected splendor.

So, we know he always wanted “enduring affection”, love and commitment. And he had his fair share of lovers, paramours and affairs. I would think that he is someone who, when he does fall in love, loves so deeply and completely that it often scared his lovers away.

Not necessarily in an unhealthy way, but he is, underneath all that poise and manners, a deeply romantic man with strong emotions. I don’t think that Rook is special b/c he loves them more than he could love someone else, but b/c they not only accept all his love, more so, they welcome and return it in equal measure. They accept him and want him, even with all the baggage he comes with.

I think he was burned quite a few times in the past. So, he is trying to hold back, “be normal about it”. It’s just hard when this person he loves so much looks at him like he is their moon and stars and flame eternal. It’s hard when he feels finally and completely seen. He told them about his deepest fears, his plans about lichdom, and they are still here, willing to be on his side all the way. And while they seem to act like teenagers being all over each other, all want and need and stolen kisses, I think what they feel goes way deeper from the start.

At the same time, I also think that is partly at fault for not being able to find a lasting relationship. He had people in his live who did not want to fully commit to him. But I also think, the he never truly committed to anyone. He did, surely, on a more surface level. But a part of him always stayed closed off. He never gave himself completely. His fears made sure of that. What happens with Rook, the wonderful, oh so romantic start of their relationship? Only to end in this uncomfortable limbo because he lacks “the guts to say how he feels”? I think that was not the first time a relationship ended sour this way for him.

Take the amount of his feelings, add to that his thanatophobia, and that poor man becomes more and more a complete mess. What starts out as exciting and new and OMG THEY LIKE ME, becomes soon a new target for his fears. All those feelings inside him warring with each other. He wants to pin them against a wall and declare his undying love and run and hide at the same time.

Then comes Manfreds sacrifice and his big decision. Will he restore Manfred? Will he give up his friend to achieve his dreams?

Since I went with Manfred, I will mainly describe my feelings regarding mortal Emmrich. Though I believe Lich Emmrich suffers from the same base fears, they just find a different target.

Tbh, what Lace says to him certainly would not have helped. Her words feed into his doubts and fears and give them credibility. See, even Lace says this might not be right. Rook is younger. They move too fast. He will die earlier. Rook will be devastated. A whirlwind of emotions and half formed thoughts fueled by fear.

All he ever sees and what is constantly on his mind is not the time they can spend together, but the end of their time together. His death, their death, it does not matter. One of them will be gone and the other will be left with the pain he felt after his parents died. A pain that might even be worse than what he felt back then.

Rook being younger just becomes the vehicle by which he tries to convince himself that this might not be such a good idea after all. But its all his fears speaking.

And fear can be so strong, so overwhelming.

When they had this fight, my read on his words was that he wanted to break up with Rook. His words at that moment are condescending, bordering on mean. He is lashing out. We know he can be vindictive when he feels wronged, but he is nothing but kind and gentle to those he likes and who treat him with respect. I think, in a way, that it was not necessarily a conscious decision, but more of an instinct to hurt Rook. To make them angry and not love him anymore. To make it easier to end it, spare them the pain of breaking up now and of loosing him to death one day. By protecting himself from the pain of their death should he outlive them.

As if that would work and make any difference to Rook, or him. They are already so madly in love with each other.

And I think, what makes Rook different from his previous partners is that they realized, if they let him finish this sentence, he might break something beyond repair. Even if it was his fear speaking at that moment, not his love. Running away from his feelings is a recurring theme for him. And he does not WANT to break up with them. But his fear tells him its better this way. Fear is a liar, though.

So they speak a harsh truth. It’s his fear, insecurities and cowardice speaking. They do not let him get away with it. It is harsh, yes. But I think it was also necessary. It spells out a truth he did not want to admit to himself. He is afraid, insecure and a coward. And the big question, is that what he wants to be? They are, in sadly not the nicest way, telling him to get hid goddamn shit together. And sometimes that’s needed. Especially for an academic man like Emmrich. No Emmrich, that is not logical. It is pure emotion and fear is running your life, not you.

In a perfect world they would have told him so in a calm and collected manner. Less harsh words and more kindness. But would that have had the same impact on Emmrich? Rook is a person too, with their own fears and hopes and dreams. And Emmrich right now is breaking their heart. I think he needed that. To see the pain and hurt he inflicted on them.

Can you imagine the regret he would feel in the end? If he left Rook? It would leave him a broken shell of a man. His final defeat. Fear had won. Nothing would be better, and no one would have been spared any pain. I would just be a lifetime of regret and what ifs. The one person who accepted him fully, loved him so deeply, and HE threw everything away.

I think, the time Rook was trapped inside the fade prison might have been the best thing that could happen in the long run. It’s all his fears come to reality. Rook is gone. He lost them. And he just wants to curl up and hide. But he can’t. He needs to find them. If he lets fear win now, Rook might be lost forever. He cannot allow himself to be coward now. I think this time was a come-to-Jesus moment for him. It forced him to look at his fears and what they’ve cost him. It’s a moment where he needs to stop letting fear control his life.

The last real private moment they had was a fight, filled with fear and anger. (That short apology in the middle of a battlefield was hardly private and could in no way make up for the words that were said.)

That last evening should have been a time filled with love. A memory to cherish. But now it’s a memory one would want to forget. And that was his own doing. It was not something out of his control, like “death”. It was his words and actions that tainted their time together. And what if that was the last time they’d seen each other, been with each other? What if that is his last real memory of them? The look of anger and pain and hurt on Rooks face, caused by HIM, by what he had actively said and done? I think this might be the first time he realizes that his fears take more from him, than death ever could.

Phobias and anxieties are not cured that easily, of course. I think in a way, they will always stay with him, to a degree. But I do think he had some important realizations that will put him on a path of growing. At least in regards of how he deals with his fears.

And then he found them. He found his Rook. They are back and they are alive. He can hold them in his arms again and how could he ever even think about turning away from them? They are a gift, a miracle, the deepest wish fulfilled. A wish he’d given up upon. Something he thought he would never have.

And then the last scene with the coffin. Okay here I go the Astarion route and I am absolutely convinced that that coffin is his. Of course he had planned all things in regards to his death. He had chosen the crypt he wanted to be buried in. And at that moment he took them there. The place that had been the mark of the final end, now the mark of the rest of his life. And Rook? Rook still wants him, after everything. They still love him.

When they pull him into a kiss? He doesn’t see the end of their time, but the start of the rest of their life together. That look on his face when Rook leads him to that coffin? This look of absolute vulnerability? I think, in a way, this is a first time for him. All open and vulnerable. All he is and feels no longer hidden away but cherished and loved. He will always fear loosing them, them loosing him, how could he not. But they are here and HE is finally able to truly commit. He is finally giving everything. He will always fear, but now love wins. Rook holds his heart in their hands, and he trusts them completely. He gives himself to them. He is theirs, forever.

Hell, that man breaks my heart in so many ways.

So what’s in store for them in the future? Sadly we do not get epilogue sliders for our LIs.

But those two I truly think are in it for the long haul. There will be many good days, filled with happiness and laughter and kisses. They will go on adventures, see the world, experience life together in its fullest.

There will also be bad days, when fear rears its head, and his chest hurts from the sheer pain it inflicts on him. But I hope he comes to a point where he is able to turn to Rook in those times, instead of pushing them away. Where he lets them comfort him, hold him, until this feeling loses its grip on him.

Those bad days will never diminish those wonderful days they have together, though. Just a rain cloud, hiding the sun for a day or two. And it can’t rain forever.

Then, when one of them finally goes on to their last journey, they will wait for their love. And when they are united again, they walk eternity hand in hand.

#emmrich #emmrich volkarin #emmrook #emmrich x rook #dragon age emmrich #da4 emmrich #dragon age #dragon age veilguard #dragon age the veilguard #veilguard #da #dav #datv #let me explain to you in this essay #he deserves all the love and kindness #i have a demon of obsession within me

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sandraharissa · 3 days ago

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I think one of the many things wrong with Jinx this season is how like, half of her personality was cut off and thrown out.

Like her reaction to grief. We see her suicidal after Silco’s death and she’ll be again very suicidal after Isha’s death. Makes sense. Don’t have notes on that part. However I have so much notes on her rage. In s1 we see Powder sometimes responding to bad situation by being shy and sad, but sometimes she reacts in a more adversarial way, like complaining they should try fighting Piltover or trying to stand up to Mylo. But we also get these moments like when she’s left behind and has an absolute meltdown and starts wrecking shit but more importantly her reaction to Silco. He says they’ll show them all and she throws the audience the most rage fueled look you’ve ever seen. When really pushed beyond her limits this is Powder’s emotional reaction to tragedy/being wronged. We see that all throughout acts II and III and we see it when she blows up the council after Silco dies. And that’s the problem cos that’s the part that’s missing from s2. They cut her personality in half and only kept one half. Anger as part of her personality and reaction to grief was discarded when writing her in s2. Even tho she goes through a lot of grieving in s2.

Another example is Isha. Jinx prioritizing family and just chilling? Wanting affectionate interactions with family? Having an easier relationship with a younger family member cos there aren’t any expectations or need to prove anything or gain anyone’s attention? No fear of abandonment/betrayal? She just has this kid who hero worships her and follows her around like a puppy so no stress? No notes. However I have a lot of notes about Jinx’s paranoia and how not normal and possessive and toxic she is about relationships. And I have notes on the generational trauma. Where did all that go? That’s not how ppl work. Living in a messed up society and Silco’s parenting won’t just evaporate like that cos Isha is just so overwhelmingly cute. It’s more likely that Jinx would corrupt the kid. (which you could argue on paper she does cos the kid in the end thought that suicide was dope but why did the narrative frame it as this beautiful thing lol)

And on the topic of fighting Piltover where did “we beat the enforcers with just the four of us imagine what the whole Lanes could do” go? Jinx definitely prioritized family more but she wasn’t neutral or indifferent on the Piltover matter. The enforcers wrong her/hurt her/threaten her family yet again, they kidnapped Isha, and she just acts panicked and sad, but also jokes and quips while on the mission. Where’s the rage and hatred and desire for revenge on the ppl who wronged her? Sometimes it’s just ppl around her being mean or lying or smth, anyone could be her enemy, like Sevika, Silco or Vi, but a lot of the time it’s Piltover, they killed her parents, they were her fathers’ enemies and drove them to hate each other, they chased them as kids and tried to arrest them, they kidnapped and abused Vi in prison all her adolescence, they would have killed Vi so she blew up the whole blockade, Council tried to turn Silco against her and now he’s dead so she bombs them, all her life she can see that the quality of their life is bad bcos of Piltover, she’s in Jayce’s apartment and immediately goes for the sandwich. Jinx doesn’t come off as a very politically/ideologically motivated character but what happened to all her personal beef with Piltover?

They also inexplicably just ceased to write her fucking up all the time. what about her y’know, being a jinx? In s1 even in acts II and III when she is proficient in fighting and bomb-making they still constantly show her being more of a burden and fucking up in other ways. While never explained (which was good) to me it came off as a symptom of trauma and being neurodivergent, like how ADHD kids can’t escape the allegations that they’re lazy, but on a meta level it did make it feel like she was supernaturally cursed. Part of what felt so profound and empowering about s1 finale and her embracing being jinx it that it was her embracing that she’s different (and ‘wrong’ in some ways) and can never live a happy life in the society she lives in and so she lashes out. Now she just chills and nothing ever doesn’t go her way (ig until Isha died but that wasn’t even directly her fault, Isha just acted on her own choice and agency). Suddenly her mental issues don’t exist or get in the way of her socializing and being a part of society. This bigoted, violent and unfair society.

Don’t even get me started on her mannerisms. Remember how she would bite her lip? I’m not sure if she does that even once in s2. “Sister, thought I missed her”??? let Jinx rhyme sometimes and in general say weird shit, not one-liners.

So the only way for the writers to have Jinx do nothing, heal up completely and just chill with a kid in her lair (and really everything else she does (or doesn’t do) this season) is to get rid of half of her personality, the traits that would dictate she take action and feel wrath and lash out/hurt her loved ones in the process.

All of her tragic traits from s1 that made her Jinx were just erased, not changed throughout the course of an arc, absent from the get go, so that they can have her say that Jinx is dead and have it make sense in the context of s2 cos from her very first appearance is s2 this Jinx was devoid of pretty much all of her jinx-y character traits from s1.

#jinx #arcane #arcane critical #my:arcane #arcane s2

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youzicha · 1 day ago

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Thinking about that that "slop accelerationism" post, and also Scott's AI art Turing test.

I also hope AI text- and image-generation will help shake us loose from cheap bad art. For example, the fact that you can now generate perfectly rendered anime girls at the click of button kindof suggests that there was never much content in those drawings. Though maybe we didn't really need AI for that insight? It feels very similar to that shift in fashion that rejected Bouguereau-style laboriously-rendered pretty girls in favor of more sketchy brush work.

But will we really be so lucky that only things that we already suspected was slop will prove valueless?

As usual with AI, Douglas Hofstadter already thought about this a long time ago, in an essay from 2001. Back in 1979 he had written

Will a computer program ever write beautiful music? Speculation: Yes, but not soon. Music is a language of emotions, and until programs have emotions as complex as ours, there is no way a program will write anything beautiful. There can be "forgeries"—shallow imitations of the syntax of earlier music—but despite what one might think at first, there is much more to musical expression than can be captured in syntactical rules. There will be no new kinds of beauty turned up for a long time by computer music-composing programs. Let me carry this thought a little further. To think—and I have heard this suggested—that we might soon be able to command a preprogrammed mass-produced mail-order twenty-dollar desk-model "music box" to bring forth from its sterile [sic!] circuitry pieces which Chopin or Bach might have written had they lived longer is a grotesque and shameful misestimation of the depth of the human spirit. A "program" which could produce music as they did would have to wander around the world on its own, fighting its way through the maze of life and feeling every moment of it. It would have to understand the joy and loneliness of a chilly night wind, the longing for a cherished hand, the inaccessibility of a distant town, the heartbreak and regeneration after a human death. It would have to have known resignation and world-weariness, grief and despair, determination and victory, piety and awe. In it would have had to commingle such opposites as hope and fear, anguish and jubilation, serenity and suspense. Part and parcel of it would have to be a sense of grace, humor, rhythm, a sense of the unexpected and of course an exquisite awareness of the magic of fresh creation. Therein, and therein only, lie the sources of meaning in music.

I think this is helpful in pinning down what we would have liked to be true. Because in 1995, somebody wrote a program that generates music by applying simple syntactic rules to combine patterns from existing pieces, and it sounded really good! (In fact, it passed a kind of AI art turing test.) Oops!

The worry, then, is that we just found out that the computer has as complex emotions as us, and they aren't complex at all. It would be like adversarial examples for humans: the noise-like pattern added to the panda doesn't "represent" a gibbon, it's an artifact of the particular weights and topology of the image recognizer, and the resulting classification doesn't "mean" anything. Similarly, Arnulf Rainer wrote that when he reworked Wine-Crucifix, "the quality and truth of the picture only grew as it became darker and darker"—doesn't this sound a bit like gradient descent? Did he stumble on a pattern that triggers our "truth" detector, even though the pattern is merely a shallow stimulus made of copies of religious iconography that we imprinted on as kids?

One attempt to recover is to say Chopin really did write music based on the experience of fighting through the maze of life, and it's just that philistine consumers can't tell the difference between the real and the counterfeit. But this is not very helpful, it means that we were fooling ourselves, and the meaning that we imagined never existed.

More promising, maybe the program is a "plagiarism machine", which just copies the hard-won grief, despair, world-weariness &c that Chopin recorded? On its own it's not impressive that a program can output an image indistinguishable from Gauguin's, I can write such a program in a single line:

print("https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gauguin,Paul-Still_Life_with_Profile_of_Laval-_Google_Art_Project.jpg")

I think this is the conclusion that Hofstadter leans towards: the value of Chopin and the other composers was to discover the "template" that can then be instantiated to make many beautiful music pieces. Kind of ironically, this seems to push us back to some very turn-of-the-20th-century notion of avant-garde art. Each particular painting that (say) Monet executed is of low value, and the actual valuable thing is the novel art style...

That view isn't falsified yet, but it feels precarious. You could have said that AlphaGo was merely a plagiarism machine that selected good moves from historical human games, except then AlphaGo Zero proved that the humans were superfluous after all. Surely a couple of years from now somebody might train an image model on a set of photographs and movies excluding paintings, and it might reinvent impressionism from first principles, and then where will we be? Better start prepare a fallback-philosophy now.

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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 2 days ago

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What if Elsa and Anna’s parents survived their trip to Ahtohallan and back?

The thing is, there were answers in Ahtohallan, but they weren't very actionable or useful for your average person.

Elsa gets something out of it because she dies, turns into snowflakes, and is resurrected as the fifth element. The movie tells me this is the same Elsa we know and love but, well, we'll never know.

For Elsa's parents--they might find out Elsa's the fifth element, but probably not as the guardian horsey isn't going to let them get that close. The other part about shafting the natives that Anna and Elsa found out as the story progressed, well, they probably already have some idea/I can't imagine either of them are naive enough to really believe it was all a terrible tragedy given what happened.

And ultimately, the problem Elsa was having wasn't something that could be solved by the Ahtohallan trip in and of itself. Elsa had to learn not to fear herself, which up until this point everything her parents had done to try and help her had only made things worse.

Which means no matter what they find out, we're right back where we started at Frozen 1. Anna and Elsa have a strained and distant relationship that Anna is extremely frustrated about, but their parents are young and Elsa is highly unlikely to be coronated anytime soon. As a result, the gates are still not open for coronation day and there's no impetus to change (in fact, there might be less, as Elsa's parents are going "fuuuuuuuuuuck" upon coming back and not having an answer to Elsa's problems).

Where things get... interesting... is down the line.

Now, the couple has two daughters. On the one hand, Elsa has been preparing to be queen her entire life, she has sacrificed so much to do so. She's very intelligent, pragmatic, and capable of being queen. But, her powers are out of control with no solution in sight. Sooner or later, she's going to slip, and they can't lock up the fucking country forever.

However, the second daughter, has not been trained for being queen at all and is... Anna. I'm sure her parents love her, they seem to from what we see of them, but Anna, especially as of Frozen 1, does not walk around with the comportment of a queen. Anna's a charming but clumsy goof who is also, at that point in time, swayed by romance and fantasy. Anna wants an adventure, a grand romance, that she might get as a princess who could be married off to a foreign kingdom.... but not as a crown princess/heir apparent.

Not to mention Anna has given 0 indications she wants to be queen, at all, and Elsa really really really does want to live up to expectations.

THOSE POWERS THOUGH.

I imagine there's much debate of "do we send Elsa up north to the wilderness where she can make as many snow things as she likes and cover it up somehow? or do we keep her here and hope for the best despite it just getting worse :/"

And Anna, I imagine, is losing her patience. She's getting close to marrying age, she can get out of this fucking kingdom. She wants to meet handsome princes and LEEEEAAAAAAAVEEEEEEE. This is bad because a) it means no backup for Elsa b) Anna you haven't even met these fucking princes.

But Anna also can't be shut up forever and she really should leave and get married, you know, eventually.

So one of a few things happen:

Under Immense Stress, Elsa Causes Eternal Winter

Sooner or later, probably when some public appearance is mandated with no wiggle room, Elsa fucks up as she did in canon. Maybe Anna is insisting she's going to run off with Hot Prince Hans who is so Hot and Of the Souther Isles, but the way things were going--the pressure was unbearable, and she was near her breaking point.

At this point, we pretty much get Frozen as Anna (probably the catalyst) goes after her sister to find out "what the fuck?!" and is also going after her sister to prove a point to her parents "WHO LIED?! THIS WHOLE TIME?!"

Hans may or may not be involved, but if he is, then he has a lot more royalty to go through this time so is probably not scheming to murder absolutely everyone and "I AM SUDDENLY KING!"

Not quite the same situation as when the king and queen were recently dead, the country in a panic over whether Elsa could handle it, then Elsa's suddenly a fucking witch and oooooof Anna's queen... and she just ran off to the mountains...

Anna of the Souther Isles

Anna gets set up with a match just as she wants and ships off to somewhere warm without any fear of being shut out. Problem is, Anna has no idea who these people are or what she's getting into and it will likely be a fucking mess. Except she's also married to a man she doesn't really know and there's now no easy way out.

"hooraaaaaay" - Anna

#frozen #frozen meta #frozen headcanon #elsa #anna #meta #headcanon #opinion

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mae-lou-ron · 1 day ago

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More Than That

Pairing: Captain Rex x reader

Summary: Something has been on your mind, but you should have known your lover Rex would see right through you.

WC: 1,150

CW: A little angsty (secret relationship, anger over the tragedy of the clones, pining) with a happier ending, hurt/comfort, a side of fluff, sweetheart Rex, mando’a phrase / pet names.

A/N: here’s 1,100+ words that literally fell out of my brain after I got out of work tonight. Lately I’ve been thinking too much about the clones creation (as one does) and I guess this is where it decided to come out 🤷🏼‍♀️ Barely proofread. Also don’t come at me if I got the mando’a sentence structure wrong kthnx.

Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum = 93.5% sure that means I love you. source

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“Meshla?” Rex's gloved fingertips brushed the inside of your arm, pulling you from your distant thoughts and into the familiar whirlwind of sensations his touch always ignited in you. Not just his touch, everything about him from his warmth to his scent to the sound of his voice had a magnetic effect on you.

Instead, you stiffened and gently pulled away, wrapping your arms around yourself.

"Rex... sometimes I just can't think straight when you're touching me," you murmured, regret coloring your voice. "I'm sorry." You stepped back, and he let his hand fall to his side.

His eyes softened, concern in his gaze. "Hey," he said in a low voice. "It's okay." He removed his gloves and extended his hand, leaving the choice to touch him up to you. "Talk to me?" he encouraged softly. You took several steadying breaths before sliding your hand into his, the touch now grounding you as he guided you to the stack of crates in the corner.

Rex waited for you to sit before settling next to you, the small space seeing you pressed together from shoulder to knee. He then sat stoically at your side as you sorted through your thoughts.

Anger bubbled into your throat at your own selfish feelings—the fear of losing Rex suddenly in battle, and the anguish in knowing that if he lived to the end of this war, the cruel reality was that the Kaminoans had engineered the clones with a half life. It wasn't fair. Yet, you refused to say anything that might make Rex feel compelled to console you about the tragedy of the clone's existence—one he was already well aware of.

“It’s something I need to make peace with myself, Rex.” You smiled softly up at him. “I know you’d swoop in with a daring rescue if you could, but you already have to bear so many burdens…let me keep this one for you.”

Rex regarded you carefully, his golden eyes searching your face. You loved how his eyebrows furrowed so deeply when he was trying to sort you out.

He reached out, hesitating for just a moment before brushing his thumb across your cheek. The tender gesture made your heart ache, knowing that even these small moments of affection were stolen between duties and battles. His touch lingered, as if memorizing the feeling of your skin beneath his fingertips.

“There’s something else.” he said in a low voice. It wasn’t a question.

You chuckled a little at how intensely perceptive your sweet Captain was becoming lately. He was spending too much time with Ahsoka. You sighed, steeling yourself for what you were about to say.

"You've always meant more to me than those moments we were able to steal away. I know we agreed it was best to keep that way but…Rex I…I can't pretend anymore," you said softly before locking eyes with him, chest tightening, knowing that opening this conversation would likely prompt him to end things—he was far too honorable to drag you through whatever anguish he thought might lay ahead.

Rex's eyes fluttered closed, a flicker of what looked like pain crossing his features before he schooled his expression. He took a deep breath, his hand tightening around yours. "I understand," he said softly, his deep voice thick with emotion. "But I need you to know something first."

“That it’s over?” you quipped, voice cracking. Kriff. You swore you wouldn’t shed tears in front of him. He’d just want to try to fix something that neither of you had the power to change.

Rex's eyes softened. "No, cyar'ika. He sighed and you felt his hand squeeze yours gently. “That I love you." His voice was low, earnest, filled with an emotion that made your heart pound.

Your head snapped up to regard him as you processed his words. Love? That ember for him that you'd been so carefully guarding, afraid to even name, was suddenly thrust out in the open. Your eyes searched his face, looking for any hint of hesitation or doubt, but you found only sincerity and a rare flicker of fear in his gaze.

"I know our situation is… complicated, but how I feel about you isn’t."

"Rex, I..." you started, your voice barely above a whisper. The words you'd been holding back for so long threatened to spill out all at once. "Stars, we've kriffed up," you burst into a fit of watery laughter, your deep anxiety finally bubbling over now that he'd confessed what you'd been so afraid to.

Rex chuckled softly, and you loved how the sound rumbled deep within his chest, how his eyes crinkled at the corners. "Maybe just a little," he admitted, bringing your hand to his lips. Ever the gentleman. "But I wouldn't change anything." His eyes slid over to yours, vulnerability and hope shining in them. "So, what now?"

“I wish I knew…” you wiped at your damp cheeks with your free hand.

A sly look crossed his features, “Well…usually when someone tells you they love you…”

“You usually say it back," you replied, a small smile tugging at your lips despite the tears still glistening in your eyes. Your heart raced as you took a deep breath, gathering your resolve.

“Ner cyare…” you murmured, reaching out to touch his face. “Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum…”

Rex's eyes widened, a mix of surprise and joy flickering across his face as he recognized the Mando'a phrase tumbling from your lips. His grip on you tightened, and he pulled you closer to press his forehead against yours. His voice a low rumble as he responded, "Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum, cyar'ika."

Lost in the warmth of him, the weight of your shared confession settled over you like a comforting blanket. This moment eclipsed all your previous encounters in this room. Even if just for a moment, you glimpsed a future where you could truly cherish every precious moment with Rex, even knowing how short your time together might be.

"May I kiss you now, meshla?" Rex murmured, his eyes flickering to your lips.

“Please…” you breathed.

His lips met yours with a tenderness that made your heart ache, his hand moving to cradle the back of your head as if you were something precious. The kiss was slow, sweet, and filled with all the still unspoken words you’d both been harboring. When you finally parted, Rex rested his forehead against yours once again, his thumb brushing away the remnants of tears on your cheek.

“Be mine,” he whispered against your lips. “Ner cyare…”

You smiled against him, your heart overflowing with love and hope despite the uncertainty that lay ahead. "I've always been yours," you whispered back, sealing your words with another tender kiss. The galaxy might be at war, but in this moment, wrapped in Rex's arms, you found your home.

#captain rex x reader #captain rex x you #captain rex fanfiction #the clone wars fan fiction #mae lou ron writes #star wars fan fiction #captain rex

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ssa-dado · 2 days ago

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If Hotch is often described as a Stoic because of he rarely shows his emotions, then he’s probably the most flawed Stoic we've ever seen.

We often confuse “Stoic” with “emotionless,” but that’s not what Stoicism is about at all. The Stoics didn’t hate emotions, they just believed you shouldn’t let them boss you around. Instead, they thought emotions should be guided by reason, not blind impulse or fear.

A true Stoic takes their feelings, examines them, and asks, “Does this help me live a virtuous, meaningful life?”

Hotch is more like, “Let me just bottle this up and hope it doesn’t explode later”

Sure, he’s calm under pressure, but that doesn’t mean he’s a master of emotional control.

Guilt, duty, loyalty - while these feelings might originate from a "noble" place, they often control Hotch far more than he controls them. His overwhelming sense of guilt, self-blame, and desperate need to save everyone drive him to the edge, and it’s quite of a wonder he manages to keep it together... until, he doesn’t.

His emotions are messy, powerful, and deeply human. He's driven by them all the time actually.

Again, that’s not Stoicism.

The Stoics aimed for something called 'apatheia', which is about achieving inner peace by understanding your emotions and responding to them thoughtfully - guided by reason (logos). Hotch, on the other hand, seems to think if he doesn’t talk about his emotions, they’ll disappear

(Spoiler: they don’t. They just turn into guilt, sleepless nights, a broken marriage, and even more paperwork because, one day, he casually decides he wants to crash himself into the unsub’s car)

(I probably should have mentioned that he’s also the one who’s shown crying the most, but I’m sure you all already knew that)

Probably he is even the most human character of all the team.

'Stoic' is a hot adjective, but Hotch is even hotter.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

#aaron hotchner #hotch #criminal minds #phi losophy #phi talks

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simpingforheros · 2 days ago

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Lover Man

Pairing: Roy Harper X Single Mom! Female! Reader

Summary: Roy Harper gave up on love after his relationship with Cheshire never went anywhere other than creating his bundle of joy that was Lian Harper. That was until she came knocking on his door.

Warnings: 18+, Minors Do Not Interact, Female Reader/Female Pronouns/ Female Anatomy, Fluff eventually turning into Smut, Strangers to Lovers, Close Proximity, Mentions of Drug Addiction, Implied Abuse, Heavy Make-Out Session, Dry Humping, Implied Breeding Kink, Roy Harper being our Gentle King ((only this time)).

A/N: Soooo I had another Roy fanfic written completely in the drafts…and I hated it 💀. So I rewrote it and here it is. It’s a wee bit longer than my normal fanfics and I wanted to add more fluff and more descriptive detail instead of just smut. Please leave me some comments if you like this or if you don’t lol. Thank you.

A/N: I got my own ginger so it makes me wanna write about my second favorite ginger since I hardly see writing for him outside of him being a throuple with Jason. Roy Harper is just as hot as Jason because man’s literally got himself out of a bad place just for his daughter 😭🥹. Our responsibility king. Also Lian is aged up to 7 years old in this.

Dividers >>>> @cafekitsune

Roy Harper was a hardworking man. He slaves over his small mercenary missions with the occasional events of saving the city in the mix of raising a 4 foot ball of energy all on his own. He felt exhausted most the time, but that exhaustion keeps him out of trouble. It also gets him out of any venture for a personal life.

Sure, Roy had the Outlaws who would swing by after missions just to hangout and drink, and the Titans make a rare appearance to visit their favorite niece. Even Ollie and Dinah would occasionally come by to visit. But, after Jade came and left him high and dry, his heart was hollow…

Lian was his whole world and stars. He never thought he could love someone as much as he loved his little girl. He dragged himself out of his drug addiction just so he can take care of her, and she should be enough to make the backbreaking labor enough.

However, he notices how the doodled Mother’s Day cards that used to litter the fridge for Jade began to dwindle as her eyes began to look longingly at the other parents who had two parents and a pair or two of siblings. Lian says she’s happy to live with her Dad, who was her bestest friend in the world, but the occasional crayon drawings say otherwise.

The stick figures of Lian and Roy with a faceless woman and another stick figure child making it very clear that Lian wanted a mother figure, or at least a sibling.

Maybe one day Roy can give it to her…but right now he was too tired.

“What do you mean you forgot??” Roy yells into the phone as he speed walks back to his apartment complex.

He should have known better than to ask Garfield to wait at his apartment for Lian to come home and babysit for a couple of hours while he went grocery shopping. This week has been hell on him. He’s been dealing with some of Black Mask’s crew trying to expand to Star City and when he would try to get some sleep, the noise of some new neighbors moving in woke him up constantly. This was really his only chance to go do anything and Beast Boy forgot to come.

“I asked you to do one thing, Gar! Be here and watch Lian until I got back. How can forget to watch a 7 year old girl?” Roy seethes as he walks into the main lobby and bolting up the stairs.

His heart was pounding with all the possible scenarios. He knows he’s overreacting, that she was just probably sitting by the locked door either entertaining herself or crying. But he also couldn’t help but be paranoid that she strayed off to go find him or someone snatched her up.

His worst fear coming to reality as he walks onto his floor and sees no one. He quickly gets to his door and jiggles the nob, feeling the secured lock.

Just as Roy was about to scream at Garfield again to relieve the unrelenting anxiety, the sound of a door opening behind him catches his attention as a familiar ring fills the static.

“Daddy!” Lian yells as Roy turns around, relief filling his body as he kneels down to greet the girl.

“Oh fuck, you scared me.” He says, as he sighs in relief. His strong arms holding the small girl tight to his chest.

“I’m sorry,” the girl mumbles with sympathy pooling in her dark eyes. “I was walking Wren and she wanted me to see her new room.”

‘Wren? Who’s Wren?’ Roy thought as he quirks his eyebrow just as movement catches his eyes again to the door.

Another little girl was standing in the door way to the apartment. She looked the same age as Lian with colorful ribbons in her hair and the matching Star Academy uniform on as Lian.

‘Another Star Academy student? There isn’t any other student living here…’

Then the realization that this was one of the new neighbors hits him as a taller figure appears behind Wren. Her voice throwing Roy in a trance as she scolds the girl.

“Wren, I told you to not stare. Especially at strangers.” Her voice gently but protective as she kept her eyes on Roy. Her hand already on her daughter’s shoulder as her daughter apologizes.

“I’m sorry, Mama. I wanted to see Lian’s Dad and see if I can come over…”

The woman was the same age as him from what he can tell. Healthy, glowing skin despite the dark bags under her eyes. Her hair glowed like a halo in the fluorescent light of the hallway despite the messy frizz of what he thought used to be a protective hairstyle that her work day destroyed. Her boxy scrubs doing noting to hide her figure as the familiar logo of Star City General Hospital shined brightly.

“Dad.” Lian’s inpatient voice cuts through his daze as he looks to his daughter.

“Huh?” He says as his daughter giggles.

“I said, can I show Wren my room? I wanna show her all my Bluey toys.” She says excitedly.

His eyes briefly flickering over to the other excited little girl before stating gently, “I have no problem with it, but did you ask Wren’s mom if she can.”

“Yea! Miss (L/N) said it was alright.” She says happily.

‘Miss? I guess she’s not married…’ he thought as he handed Lian his keys with a joking quip, “Don’r throw a party while I’m over here talking to Miss (L/N).”

The girls giggle before running over to Roy’s apartment and entering. Roy stands up to his full height as he gives the mother a smile. She returns it with her own as she says,

“Normally Wren is pretty shy, so I was happy to see she made friends with a good kid.” She says as she pushes some stray hair out of her face before offering him her hand. “I’m (Y/N) by the way.”

“Roy. Roy Harper.” He introduces himself as he shakes her hand. He couldn’t help but smile brighter as they pulled their hands away, proud that his daughter helped out a new kid.

“Lian doesn’t have much of a shy side to her. I blame it on her mom’s genetics.” He jokes with a soft chuckle.

“You and your wife must be proud.” She says softly as she props her hip against the doorframe.

“Oh no, I’m not married.” He corrects her as he nervously stuffs his hands in his pocket as he felt a pang of gloom over his heart. “It’s just me and Lian.”

Her eyes dropped as she crosses her arms over her chest as she mumbles, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to assume…”

“No, youre alright.” He assures her with a shrug. “Honestly, I should be apologizing for your first impression of me being my kid locked out of my apartment.”

She giggles as she waves him off as she says, “Lian told me that her normal babysitters weren’t in town and that ‘Uncle Gar’ was suppose to be here.”

“Yeaaa.” He groans as he defends himself. “I promise that i’m normally on top of the babysitting situation since I normally work nights.”

She nods as she says, “I understand. I have to find my own babysitter now that I moved across the country. I work days at the hospital.”

The idea seeming to strike them at the same time as both their little girls scream in delight as they play in the apartment over.

A compromise between two single parents.

The deal was easy and benefited both of them. Since she had to work 12 hour shifts on a 3 on, two off basis, (Y/N) would drop the girls off at school on her way to work, and Roy adjusted his “work” time so he can be home when they come home from school and babysit until Wren’s mom gets off from work.

When (Y/N) was off and Roy is working, She will keep both girls at her apartment and gets them ready for school in the mornings before they tag off.

During the rare occurrence that Roy had to go away on a “business trip”, the girls would just be with (Y/N) full time with Roy’s promise that it will only be a week and he will watch them when the weekend comes so she can rest.

This has been the routine for three months, and Roy enjoyed it more than he should. It felt great knowing that Lian was in capable, non vigilante hands when he was away and she had a female role model to who doesn’t fight crime in spandex.

Roy also adored Wren. She took a minute to break out of her shell, but she reminded him a lot of Jason. A quiet type who surprised him with her temper and mischief. He can see why (Y/N) is the kind of parent she is and how she easily keeps Wren and Lian in line.

Over the weeks, Wren and Lian became the dynamic duo of Star Academy. They did everything together and would cry if they couldn’t. The two even begged their respective parents for matching Bluey backpacks and sparkly shoes so they can match all the time. They even developed a cute habit of leaving colored drawings under the apartment doors for the other to find. The friendship was very heart warming and helped form the bond between their parents.

The two had a lot in common too. More than they expected.

“Wanna beer?” Roy offered as he stood up from the couch.

“No thank you.” She answers as she focuses on wrapping the present infront of her.

Tomorrow was Wren’s birthday, and while the girls are having a sleep over in Lian’s room, Roy and (Y/N) prepped for her birthday party.

“You sure, doll?” He says as he grabs a couple beers. He sits beside her and holds his open bottle near her as he jokes. “You gonna let me drink alone, and make me look depressed?”

Her eyes darken as she scoots away from him. The air turning cold as she snaps on him. “I said No, Roy.”

Roy immediately freezes before frowning in concern. He puts the beer on the coffee table as he whispers to her. “Hey, I’m sorry…”

Her eyes relax as her shoulders slump. She sighs softly as she mumbles. “No, I’m sorry…”

She reaches into her pocket a pulls out a familiar looking token and hands it to him. A 5 year sobriety coin. His brows shoot up as he looks at her in shock.

She giggles somberly as she says, “it’s not mine. It’s my Dad’s.”

She pulls her knees to her chest as she looks to the wall around the muted tv. Pictures lining the wall of Lian and Roy with some of just them or with friends. She smiles softly as she recounts.

“My dad was a bad alcoholic, but a good dad. He would take me with him everywhere he could and it would be like everyday was a good day. I was too young to realize he drank too much or he yelled at my mom a little too harshly.” She says as she picks at the material of her socked covered feet.

“It wasn’t until I got pregnant with Wren that he realized he had to sober up. He managed to stay clean for almost 6 years until a drunk driver hit him.” She chuckles sadly as she sees the irony in her dad’s death. “He even help me leave my ex who was also a bad drinker. I guess seeing my dad doing it my whole life, I thought it was normal…”

Her arms wrapping around herself before finally looking back at Roy. Her eyes meeting his green ones, her gaze watery as she wipes the tears away.

“I’m sorry, that was too much to put on you..” she said as her voice wavers a bit. “You can drink though I don’t-“

Roy gets up and takes his beers to the kitchen. Confused by his abruptness, she follows him, only to see him dumping out his open beer and starting to dump out the other one. She looks at him confused as he finishes dumping the liquid out before he pulls out his wallet and pulls out a coin.

He hands both coins to her as she reads the one he pulled out of his wallet. 7 years sobriety.

“You were…?” She mumbles is disbelief before he answers.

“Yep, former heroine addict…” he says as he leans back against the counter. His arms flexing as he crosses his arms over his chest. His eyes shining with seriousness as he says,

“I understand why your dad got help. I did the same thing when I found out about Lian, and I don’t ever wanna do anything that can jeopardize giving her a better life than I had…”

An emotion crosses his face that makes her nervous but excited as he admits.

“And I don’t want to do anything that would drive you out of mine.”

“Please, (Y/N)!” Lian begs as Wren stands behind her with her puppy dog eyes shining behind her.

Those were the famous last words that were said when Lian and Wren convinced her to allow them to go to a slumber party while Roy was out of town. (Y/N) didn’t see the harm since it was Friday night and the girls had been good. Besides, Roy was supposed to be home late tonight so he can enjoy his Saturday morning resting.

It was a good idea. Or at least that’s what she thought before she got mugged on her way home from dropping off the girls.

The woman didn’t see it coming when she was snatched off the street and pinned to an alley wall as a disgust voice coos at her.

“Easy, Babygirl.” The masked man purrs as his dirty finger nails digged into her arms. “Just give me your purse and we can both walk away happy.”

“Fuck off!” She says as she tries to yank away from him .

“Now don’t be such a-!” His growl interrupted as the swoop of air shoots between them. She looks to where it lands and sees a red arrow buried into the wall behind them. The mugger was the first to look back to where it came from before gasping,

“Arsenal? What’s he doing here?” He curses as he pulls (Y/N) in front of him, making the struggling woman a human shield. “I’m armed, and I’m not afraid to hurt the bitch!” He says as he pulls out a knife and holds it to her neck.

(Y/N) only heard about the vigilante through the news. Apparently he used to be Green Arrow’s sidekick before he went solo for some reason and he was a rough guy. He works with the Red Hood who was known for killing criminals so she understood why the man was scared as a figure dropped down from a rooftop with his bow ready to shoot.

Her panic setting in as the bite of the blade was pressed hard to her neck, the anxious blade knicking her. Her panic eyes were set on the archer as she watches him slowly approach.

He looked…familiar. His height and built was impressive despite him being more on the leaner side and his features not obstructed by his sunglasses and hat reminded her of Roy…

“Let the girl go.” Arsenal warns the burglar. His voice was deep, but it didn’t sound natural. It was like he was trying to make his voice sound different. “You’re just pissing me off more and I’m gonna end up breaking your eye socket in.”

The criminal trembles before deciding the best escape plan. He grabs ahold of her purse before throwing her in Arsenal’s direction. Unprepared to the violent shove, (Y/N) falls to the ground before the vigilante can catch her. Her yelp filling space as the hero kneels down beside her to make sure she wasn’t stabbed.

“Hey, you alright?” He says as he scans her body for any serious injury.

She pushes herself up, cringes as her wrist throbs. His large gloved hands on her back and shoulder as he helps her stand when she notices his exposed arm. A familiar faded green tattoo visible on his bicep as the pieces fall together.

“Roy?…” She asks as she looks up Arsenal. Despite his eyes being covered, she can tell he was looking at her in a panic that she figured him out.

“Yea…” He confirms before looking behind her as he realizes the motherfucker stole her purse. He pulls his aviators down to the bridge of his nose, his eyes shining in concern as he mumbles to her.

“Go home. I’ll meet you there so we can talk about it.”

The look in his eyes and the pounding adrenaline makes her fear melt away as she nods her head.

“Okay.”

The throbbing pain in her wrist didn’t stop when she finally made it back to her apartment building, acting as her anchor as the revelation that Roy’s secret night job was him being a Robin Hood copycat.

Thinking back on it, she should have figured he wasn’t a normal guy. Constant bruises, noticeable limps, and stolen ibuprofen were a routine in their life.

The thought made her stop for a second in the stair way.

Their life. The one they shared for months basically together. At first it was just two single parents helping each other out while their daughters bonded. Then her and Roy began to get close, close enough to where they were constant in each other’s apartments as the other child was.

Now he saved her life…maybe he already did that the first day in the city and she babysat a kid she didn’t know…

As she reaches the arch way between the two apartments, her hands searches her pockets for her keys when disappointment answers her.

The keys were in her purse.

With a sigh, she decides to sit on the ground besides Roy’s door as she waits. (Y/N) curls herself into a ball with her knees to her chest as she felt the familiar feeling of exhaustion nipping her eyelashes.

(Y/N) was a hard working woman. When she wasn’t working herself like a dog in the Emergency Room, she was handling a 4 foot ball of attitude. She didn’t have time for any ventures outside of that. She loves Wren with all her heart, but that doesn’t help the hollow part of her heart from throbbing…maybe someday she can give Wren a father who’s worth something. But right now, she was too damn tired.

The door opens behind her as she jumps awake. The woman didn’t even realize she almost fell asleep, but a warm hand opens in front of her as she looks up.

Roy was standing in front of her now. A grey zip up was pulled over his shoulders to cover his costume as her purse hanged on his arm. His soft smile made her stomach flutter as he breaks the silence.

“I guess I got some explaining to do…”

She doesn’t respond right away. Instead she gives him her hand and stands up with his help. Her injured wrist cradled to her chest as they enter the apartment. The movement still felt natural despite the circumstances. Roy didn’t even have to ask about her arm to know she needed first aid on her wrist.

He tended to her sprained wrist as he tells her his life story. She already knew about the general events of his childhood and his life with Oliver Queen, but didn’t know he was a sidekick turned mercenary. The whole story made her head spin as she thought about the man tending to her as a boy wearing yellow and red spandex and managing to attract a female assassin who was Lian’s actual mother…

“So…” Roy says as he expects some sort of reaction out of her.

“So… You are a vigilante…Ollie and Dinah are too.” She recounts as she rubs her bandaged wrists. “And your ex is an assassin…”

(Y/N) sighs before looking at the nervous ginger fidgeting in his seat. His nerves were haywire.

‘What if she leaves?’

‘What if she doesn’t want anything to do with me or Lian anymore?”

‘Is she gonna keep Wren from Lian and Me?’

“Okay”

The phrase makes Roy’s neck snap was he blinks wildly at her. His heart pounding as he scans her completely calm face with a soft smile on her face as she giggles at his baffled expression.

“Okay? That’s all you gotta say?”

“I mean sure I’m not a fan of the whole putting yourself in danger shtick, but if that’s the only downside to you, then I’m okay with it.” She says calmly before giving him a serious glare. “Just as long as the girls are never endangered.”

Roy couldn’t help but fall out of his chair and on his knees infront of her as he laughs. His hands pulling her into his lap as he enjoys the chill of relief as his body yearns for the reassurance of her touch. It wasn’t until he cupped her face that he realized just how intimate their position was.

Definitely not something friends should be doing….

But are they just friends?

“Roy…” She mumbles. Her eyes speaking to his soul as the exhaustion and months of connecting and yearning reach the apex. Or maybe it was the reflection of his own feelings bubbling up as he moves her hair away from her face.

“I promise I’ll never let anything happen to you or our girls…I can’t afford to lose them…or us.”

The first move wasn’t clear. The blur of teeth and tongue distracting him as their hands held the pair close. His hands adjusting her to straddle his lap as hers ran through his hair and over his strong shoulders. His mouth trailing down her jawline and caresses her throat as her hips began to grind into his.

“Aw, poor thing…” Roy coos as his hips rolled to meet hers. His eyes shining with adoration as he marks her smooth skin. “How long has it been since anyone took care of you?”

She rolls her eyes at his teasing before pulling his head back by his hair. “When was the last time you got took care of, Red?”

He glares playfully with a smirk as he says, “Don’t call me Red.”

She giggles as she presses a soft kiss to his cheek before trailing along his jawline. Her breath burning his soul as she whispers, “Then how about…baby?”

He rips her back away by her nape before crashing his lips onto hers. The desperation dewing the walls around them as their soft moans and movement of clothes made their company.

His hands hungry as he finally pulls away from her long enough to push off her sweatshirt. A groan of appreciation fills the space as he admires her body. Every visible scar, freckle, mole, stretch mark, and roll made him want to explore every story that lead her to his arms. But that’s for another time.

His mouth watered as he looks back up at her.

“So pretty, Ma…”

His prayer is followed by his mouth devouring her skin as he kisses her collarbone. Her feathery moans filling the space while his hands caresses her exposed torso. He trails down to the valley of her breasts before pushing the offending bra up so they spill out. Roy couldn’t resist kissing around her sensitive skin, teasing her as her hands tangle in the mess of ginger on his head.

“Baby please…” she whines as her hips roll impulsively on his.

Her underwear was impossibly uncomfortable. Her body burning like iron as her intimate parts tried to cool down. The friction of her jean covered core against the rough tackle gear of his suit did not help as his hand began to grope her other breast.

His chuckle vibrates against the globe of fat as his fingers pinch the stiffening nub.

“Can’t wait to get me in bed? My, you certainly are a romantic.”

Before she can shoot back at him, he withdraws completely from her chest and his hands roughly cup her thighs. In a swift motion, Roy picks her up as he stands up from the floor. The pair share a soft laugh as her brief shock and his amusement leads them to his bedroom.

Once he places her on the bed, (Y/N) sheds off her sweatshirt and bra as Roy whistles in appreciation.

“I love when you strip for me.” He jokes as lust clouded his vision. “Can you do that again but slower?”

She glares at him as she leans back onto her hands as she tilts her head. Mischief fills her eyes as she examines him up and down with her lip between her teeth.

“Then how about you put a show on for me since you want one?” She teases.

His smirk widens as he decides to follow her suggestion. Roy rolls his shoulders back before reaching to slowly unzip the jacket covering his suit. Making a show of pulling it off his arms before twirling it over his head and tossing it.

Laughing follows his movements as he slowly strips off his gear as her hungry and amused eyes followed every rolling muscle exposed to her.

“Damn…” She whispers as a nearly nude Roy begins to crawl on the bed towards her. His prominent bones straining against his boxers as she continues. “And I wondered why you didn’t have a girlfriend…”

He laughs as he cages her in his arms. His ginger hair acting as a curtain over his forehead as he shrugs above her. “Maybe I was waiting on the right one.”

Their lips meet again as their hands began to map out each other. Soon all the rest of the clothes joined the floor.

His erection bobbing between them as his eyes remains trained on hers. His fingers trailing down to her exposed sex, groaning as he runs a finger between her folds.

“Already wet? And without foreplay?” He asks as faux sympathy plays on his face. “My darling clearly neglected that she gets wet from a few kisses…”

“I’m not neglected…” She protests before she whimpers as the bite from his finger entering her unused cunt hits her.

“I wasn’t talking body you directly, baby.” He corrects as his finger thrusts softly along her fleshy walls. The lewd sounds of her moans mixed with her wet sex made him melt as she begs,

“Fuck…quit teasing already, you bastard…”

He decides to oblige by adding another finger to speed up his pace. The thumb on the other hand joining the fun as it rubbed patterns into her puffy clit.

“I got get you all nice and ready..” Roy mumbles as he leans down to press soft kisses on her stomach up to her breasts. The mixture of gentle pecks mixed with the harsh stimulation below driving his lover insane as her hips arched to meet his hands.

“You deserve all that I can give for being such a good mom .” He praises her as he feels her walls clench around his knuckles when he finds the spongy mass he was searching for.

He contradicts himself by abusing that with archer like precision as the coil roughly tightens in her gut. (Y/N)’s gasps and cries desperate for the climax as she grips the hard flesh of his back. Just as she was reaching the peak, he stops.

“Asshole!” She curses at him as he pulls out of her. He chuckles before licking the tip of his soiled finger. Her eyes burning onto his mouth as he groans at the taste.

“Sweet as I thought..” he praises as he uses the hand to pump his cock. He climbs on top of her as he continues. “I’m gonna have to have a better taste next time, but I need you too bad right now…”

She calms her raging breaths as she smiles softly. “Next time?”

Roy pulls her legs up to her chest as he hooks her ankles on his shoulders. His red hot tip played with her clit as he rubs it through her soaked folds. He chuckles at her hopeful voice as he leans down to press a soft peck to her lips.

“Of course,” Roy whispers as his tip catches the entrance. “I don’t think I can go back to being friends after this..”

He slowly pushes into her as her hands shoot onto him as best she could. With her legs pinned to her chest, she can only grasp his bicep and his lower back as she is forced to endure the painful stretch of her neglected cunt welcoming him.

A groan ripping in his throat as he finally seats himself fully into her before peppering kisses on her face.

“Was gonna ask you out on a nice date without the kids around…gonna see if we would be a good fit.” He mutters as his mind seems to run on blanks. His hips rolling to gain some friction in the tight confines of her walls.

Her little breathless moans encouraging him as Roy begins to thrust shallowly to work her open before he pulls out almost completely. He slams back into her befor continuing his non coherent comment.

“But fuck…I don’t regret this. God, if I knew you would look so fucking hot in my bed…” He groans as his head dips to bite along her neck. “And your pussy is so tight…It’s driving me crazy. I wonder how a sweet thing like you could like me…”

His cock messaging all the right nerves in her as (Y/N)’s nails clawed into him. Her moans turning to incoherent shrieks as his tip abuses her spot, remembering exactly where it was when he found it earlier. Her guts twisting at both the words and his abusing pace. The denied orgasm from earlier building back up as her desperation grew wilder.

“God, Roy…So full…so good.”

Fuck she looked pretty. Her lips wet with tears and sip as she cries. Her eyes blown out in addictive lust and watery tears. Roy couldn’t help but cup her jaw in his hand and kisses her. The now familiar taste of mint and nicotine making her more addicted as his tongue claimed every inch of hers. He pulls away as his groans start matching her whines as his hand snakes between them to rub her clit.

“Honey, I may have to fuck a baby into you…” He mumbles as he buries his face in her neck. Her walls responding in a vice grip as he roughens his pace to meet their impending climax. “You like that, pretty girl? Want me to knock you up and give Wren and Lian a little sibling? Give you a nice big family with a white picket fence? God, you’re such a sweet thing that I wouldn’t mind keeping you as my pretty little girlfriend…”

“Roy!” She whines as her body shakes. Her walls closing in on him as she finally reaches her peak. Her eyes rolling back as stars cross her vision before Roy slams into her one more time as his hot cum fills her welcoming womb.

The pair remain still for a moment as soft pecks were exchange. Roy gently pulls out before he helps his love stretch back out. His hands massaging her thighs before grabbing his abandoned jacket to wipe her thighs and himself clean.

“You wanna go out tomorrow?” Her cracked voice catching the archer off guard before he smiles.

“With or without children?”

“Without. They are at a sleep over and gonna go to the zoo tomorrow with their friends.”

“Then it’s a date.”

A/N: Okay I didn’t know how to end this because Ngl I was tired on working on this tbh. I hope y’all enjoyed reading this and let me know what you think. Comments and reblogs are encouraged.

@simpingforheros fanfic. I DO NOT CONDONE MY WORKS TO BE STOLEN, PLAGIARIZED, COPIED, REPOSTED, OR TRANSFERRED ONTO OTHER BLOGS, ACCOUNTS, AND WEBSITES.

#roy harper x reader #roy harper #roy harper x you #arsenal x reader #arsenal #lian harper #Roy Harper fanfic #Arsenal fanfic #batman fanfic writer #red hood fanfic writer #red hood and the outlaws #simpingforheros

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the-gay-trashmouth · 1 day ago

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Hi I would like to address these tags! Obviously no hate to you, I get what you mean, I just wanted to respond! Because I definitely don't hate Curly or think he's fully responsible for Jimmy's actions, but I do hold him in higher standing than Swansea in terms of responsibility.

As the captain, he had the most power in the situation and he had a lot more resources to use after he finds out what Jimmy did before the crash. even after Jimmy says to his face he could "crash the ship and they'd be remembered as heros" after Anya tells Jimmy she's pregnant, he does nothing to stop him from going into the cockpit. It's not until the sirens are going that he runs back to see Jimmy on the ground outside the door. Jimmy was literally telling him to his face that he would rather die than see consequences, but Curly doesn't take it seriously and let's him just. Go?

I definitely see how I could be interrupting Swansea too charitably.The idea of him protecting the only other entrance to medbay is more of a speculation than canon, and I definitely acknowledge that he could very well have seen it as "none of his business" until Daisuke died, or he didn't want to ruin his chances of getting Daisuke off the ship by pissing off Jimbob, but either way, he was just the ship's mechanic. He couldn't demote Jimmy, or open anything that needed that captain's scanner or security codes. He didn't even know what Jimmy did until After the crash. By then, all he had was the utility closet, an axe, and the one cryopod, and he made sure Jimmy didn't know about it for months. I think there's enough in the game to point either way in terms of how much he tries to help Anya, but in terms of resources, power, and time, Curly had the most opportunities to do something and yet sat back and let Jimmy continue to do whatever. Not without guilt, mind you, and not without a genuine attempt to make sure it all worked out, but he still let Jimmy continue on like nothing happened.

As for the company docking their pay, I also mentioned this as Curly being specifically incentivized not to do anything, but I don't think that excuses his actions. They might get their pay docked, but Anya has to live with her rapist in a ship with no locks on the sleeping quarters. I understand fearing consequences, but that's just ignoring her safety for his (and the rest of the crews) own monetary gain, which I don't see as a point in his favor but it does add more nuance to his decision.

My ending point (which came way late in the post, it was just me rambling for a while) was that while both Swansea and Curly do what they think is best, it's too little and too late. Curly thought keeping the peace would fix it, Swansea thought hiding things and just keeping out of the way would help fix it, neither of them took real direct action that would have stopped Jimmy. But even despite that, in real situations of abuse, there often isn't a "right" answer, and it's understandable when they get stuck in place trying to figure out which way to go. There was no way to guarantee Jimmy wouldn't have gone off the handle earlier if confronted. Like I said, what happened was no one's fault but Jimmy's, and on a larger scale, The Pony Express, due to multiple ways they fail Anya and incentivize coverups, but Curly, as captain, had a responsibility to protect his crew, but he chose to see the best in Jimmy, and he didn't take him seriously when Jimmy tells him Exactly who he is. Until he's forced to.

I think something that's bothers me about how folks talk about mouthwashing is how they talk about Swansea. It's either "Swansea would have killed Jimmy immediately if Anya had told him" or "he knew and he did nothing just like curly." because, to me at least it leaves out a lot of nuance to his character and situation. Curly and Swansea are really good foils to each other, one who's got a reputation for being the kind and helpful captain but in the end does nothing to truly protect the crew from Jimmy, and one who's gruff, harsh, and cruel but genuinely tries to help in the background, the reliable mechanic.

(read more for a long Mouthwashing character ramble tw for unwanted pregnancy and SA)

Because Curly is the one with the power. He doesn't take what Jimmy did seriously enough. And you can say that he might not have known fully what Jimmy did, but I think the "I told you" pregnancy conversation and his reaction to Jimmy right before the crash ("come on we'll get through this together. We'll figure it out, you've had hard times before-") are indicators that he knew, but he still chose to stick by his friend and treat it like a "mistake" rather than what it really was.

Now that's my own personal speculation of course, there's no outright scene of her telling him "your best friend assaulted me", but I think there's enough evidence in game through Anya and Curlys interactions to say that he knew, and he knew before Anaya knew she was pregnant. He had a fully functioning ship and four fully functional cryo-pods. He could have at least given Anya more security, kept her far away from him, and at most forced him into the cryopod until they got back to earth. Jimmy STILL had full, uncontrolled access to the cockpit AFTER his freakout with curly. AFTER Anya tells curly she doesn't feel safe with him. AFTER Curly finds out he raped Anya. He's so focused on seeing the good in his friend that he does NOTHING to protect Anya, doesn't strip away not one of Jimmy powers as copilot and consequently endangers her and the rest of the crew.

Curly was the captain, he had the power to relegate Jimmy to the fucking storage closet if he really wanted, at least put him in the cryopod until they got back to earth. In fact, he was the only person above Jimmy in terms of rank on the ship, but he chose to do nothing. He chose to let Jimmy continue as acting co-pilot, chose to comfort him rather than actually confront him. Slides off his weird sexual comments as jokes "So what's this about horses?"

Now let's compare that to Swansea, the mechanic.

We don't have any evidence that Swansea knew about what Jimmy did until after the crash ("it's been her telling me things") where they were trapped with no captain, barely any rations, and a single cryopod that he kept hidden away in the one room he had the key too (and the only room that could lead into medbay). He didn't use it for himself, he makes it clear he didn't intend on getting off this hunk of metal in his last few conversations with Jimmy.

Swansea as the ship's mechanic, was used to fixing things in the background. He didn't need to get along with anyone to keep the ship running, he didn't need people to like him to keep them safe. We see that with Daisuke. He's harsh on him, for sure, but he leaves constant notes to help him learn. Genuinely tries to keep him out of harm's way when it comes to more dangerous jobs. We know Anya was scared of Jimmy getting a weapon, she hid the gun case in the medical bay even knowing she would never get it open. We can see Swansea and Anya off on their own towards the first days after the crash, and Swansea still has a tight grip of the axe weeks and months later.

I personally think that was him trying to keep Jimmy from having access to a weapon. The only time Jimmy gets the axe while Swansea is alive is when Anya Specifically asks him to use it to get medical supplies. I don't think that's a coincidence.

Swansea, like any good mechanic, was quietly trying to keep things running out of Jimmy's sight. It's not until everyone is dead or dying that he snaps, that he finally takes direct action. But it was too little too late.

Both Curly and Swansea thought they were doing the right thing, helping in their own way. Curly genuinely wanted to see the good in Jimmy, wanted it to just be some challenge they could overcome, but in doing so he failed to see the monster right in front of him. He had all the power (in context of the crew, the company is a whole other can of worms I have so many other thoughts on), but he was too afraid to use it. Hell, he was DISCOURAGED to use it if the memo about HR complaints are anything to go by. Swansea, on the other hand, never trusted Jimmy, never even really liked him, but he didn't want to make anything worse either. He didn't know what would actually set Jimmy off, or what he was capable of, and aside from just straight up killing him what else could he do that wouldn't just push Jimmy further off the edge? Like with the foam. "One wrong move and you'll rip this ship a new asshole", he worked carefully, hiding the last pod from Jimmy, keeping the only other weapon on himself, guarding the only other entrance into Medbay, but Jimmy was escalating quickly. He underestimated how far Jimmy was willing to go, just like Curly had, and in the end suffered the consequences.

The only character who actually understood how dangerous and unstable Jimmy was is Anya. She knew the moment she found out she was pregnant he would hurt her ("you won't let me protect myself"). He wouldn't be able to take it, he would do something drastic. She knew he was escalating the longer they were stranded. Anya is the only crew member who truly understood how dangerous Jimmy was and took direct action.

And interesting thing to me is that she doesn't just kill herself. She locks herself in the medbay. She could have waited for Jimmy to sleep, or locked herself in the cockpit, but she locked herself in the medbay with Curly. She knows that with her gone there would be no one left to take care of him, she knew Jimmy would continue to escalate his abuse, and with her gone all of his anger and fear and guilt would turn on Curly.

And wouldn't you know it? She was right. Without Anya to stop him, he takes curly out of the bed, forces him upright into the cryopod, and forces a man with no skin, no arms, no legs, and infected tissues to be frozen for 20 years while the rest of his crew Rot. And that's only what we know to be reality- if any of his delusions had some basis in reality he could have done so so much more. Anya is the Only one to take reasonable, direct action to keep herself, and then Curly, safe.

But she didn't have enough power over Jimmy to truly protect herself. She didn't have the code to the gun case, she didn't have a weapon or a rank to fall back on. She was outnumbered by men who she knew from experience either wouldn't or couldn't keep her safe, and she was heavily pregnant with a baby she didn't want and most likely couldn't even get enough nutrients to sustain either her or the fetus. She was physically weakened and trapped in a stranded ship with her abuser with no way home and a medical miracle (curse) in Curly.

This game is a really good reflection of reality, in my opinion as an abuse survivor. Some people will see them as "one of the boys" and constantly excuse or downplay their actions (Curly), some people will do small things in the background, recognize the abuse and disprove, but don't want to get in the way or make things worse (Swansea), and some people are just straight up oblivious/naive (Daisuke). But in the end, it's the system that allows abuse and incentives coverups to keep peace or save face that really allows abuse to fester and escalate.

Which is why I personally have a problem with the idea that Anya should have just Told A Different Man because it ignores the very real chain of power and her own agency in her story, AS WELL AS the idea that Swansea and Diasuke knew but didn't care because that's just not reflective of real life. Not every man is some rapist apologist who doesn't care what abusers do until it happens to them, some people just don't know what to do, or don't have any good options that wouldn't result in further abuse. Hell some people just don't even fucking notice! Not everyone has had exposure to the signs or knows what to look for.

It's easy when looking at fictional depictions of abuse to say "well if I was there I would have just punched him/killed him/called the police" but real life, in that moment, its never going to be clear cut. You can call out abuse, but that might just lead to that abuser taking it out on their abuse victim later. They could even start to target you for daring to speak out, or try to hurt you and cut you off from the person being abused. You can know all the right steps and the right programs, but in the moment, when faced with a real situation where someone could get hurt or even killed? You stumble. You think things over, you don't try and make any direct moves that would set their abusers off. Sometimes that's a good instinct, and sometimes that just lets abuse escalate. It's never a good situation, and it's never actually anyone's fault but the abusers. And this way of thinking also conveniently leaves out the survivor of this abuse, and portrays them as someone who needs to be saved, rather than someone who needs support and resources to save themselves. It also very conveniently lets the company that Put Anya in this situation in the first place get off Scott free.

The solution isn't "oh one of the men on board should have personally killed Jimbo and saved Anya all by himself" its "Anya deserved the support of her crewmates instead of being forced into close proximity with her rapist and also maybe Jimmy shouldn't have access to the fucking controls or medbay or any weapons- AND ALSO the crew shouldn't have financial incentives not to report things to HR"

#obviously after tge crash theres nothing he can do #and i do find him a really compelling character #an enabler turned victim #a captain forced to watch his entire crew die.#a man who realized his mistakes too late and could do nothing but watch in horror as everything Anya feared happened right in front of him #and at least he thought he was doing something right #he had a good heart i think #i also do just really like swansea as a character so i acknowledge im a little biased towards him #but i do stand by what i said

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daretoassume · 19 hours ago

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Hello , I hope you see this.

I might be a bit desperate.

So 2 years ago I wanted to kill myself but then I had a huge “spiritual awakening” where I say things beyond human comprehension. And from that moment I decided to give life a chance, I knew that life actually had a meaning and that was for me to discover what was beyond what I could think. It gave my so much clarity of the world around me and who I was. From that moment I also started to randomly consciously manifest things without knowing about manifesting. I’m not kidding when I say this but in that time I manifested 6 million overnight while I was just kidding about being a millionaire while listening to my rich music and then when I woke up my parents had the good news. I also manifested others things that I thought where extremely special. But I didn’t really put in effort it was just fun experimenting with my powers.

So then I decided to deepen myself in the laws. I started with law of attraction. And I ended up meditating so deeply everyday that I was so passionate about finding the ultimate truth of reality inside me, that I was extremely depersonalised from my 3D and basically lived inside my brain. I could ask things and receive answers on my questions, like the one time i asked how to invent something that could end humanity ( I still have a full doc on how to build to most effective machine that could end humanity in less than second) I also got the answer of questions about reality and my vessel. So that’s when I realised there was nothing but me. And that I was experiencing myself from the experience of myself ( if that makes sense!) I found that there really was nothing and everything at once while I was giving meaning to it. So that’s when I started with extreme anxiety and depression because I struggled so much with intrusive thoughts, not being able to ground myself in this reality and being so so scared of my thoughts. Still to this day my thoughts scare me so much that I can’t help but experience anything other than fear from myself. It’s like I’m living in a constant nightmare. I have watched so much law of assumption post and videos dedicating every second of my day on being focused and disciplined to affirming and being in the state of having what I want, but it makes me so fuckiyn angry and I don’t know why. Everytime I see a post I feel depressed because deep down I know everything but everyday I wake up in the same reality where everything fucking sucks ( I have been forcing myself to be kind self love gratitude letting go void state visualisation whatever exist I’ve done it all) and when I finally have build up that trust that everything is working out in my highest favour and I always get what I want and the 3D can’t tell me nothing yk I can delude myself into knowing I have it but it’s been over a year and I just can’t bear this reality anymore I know I’m meant for another reality and there’s just nothing for me to find here anymore. And I really don’t know what to do anymore I feel like I’m stuck in this reality where everything seems to get worse. And my thoughts are also getting worded everyday for the last year but whenever I tried manifesting a better self concept mindset etc it got worse when i don’t even want to be the person that is in conflict with themsef because that’s just a idiotic thing to do. But can you help me out?🫶

what you experienced, everything that you learned, was so profound. it is truly a gift to have such insight, so treat it as such. try to examine why it scares you so deeply. there is something within that fear that is asking to be understood.

you have seen how effortlessly you created before, simply by being playful and detached. you were experimenting, having fun with it, and not placing too much importance on the outcome. that is why there was no resistance. things flowed into your reality flawlessly. you already understand the law. you know how to apply it to your life. you do not need another blog post or video to teach you what you already know.

what you need now is to go deeper within yourself, to truly understand why you feel this way. these feelings are not here to torment you but to guide you toward something deeper. perhaps there is a message waiting for you, something significant you need to uncover, or even a realization that you are meant to share with others. your emotions, no matter how overwhelming, are part of your journey. they may be pointing you toward a greater understanding of yourself and your purpose.

if you feel an inner pull to create something meaningful, to express yourself, or to pursue something that sparks joy, do not ignore it. act on it. even if it feels small or insignificant at first, do it. follow what excites you, even in the simplest of ways.

i know it’s easier said than done, especially when it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. but remember, we both know the truth—what we focus on expands. even a small shift in focus toward what you prefer can create change. we often feel so much these days that we forget to acknowledge what we can be grateful for. take a moment and ask yourself: what are you truly grateful for right now? your family, your friends? doesn’t it bring you some happiness to know you’ve learned so much already? i am not saying you are ungrateful. i am suggesting that maybe starting with gratitude, even in the smallest way, could help shift your attention, even just a little.

as you take time for introspection to truly understand what is behind these emotions and why you feel the way you do, you might also set some goals for yourself. try doing something that excites you, even if it’s small. i know this reality can feel limiting, and maybe that’s why you feel like you don’t belong here. but if you see it as a curse, then that’s the experience you will live out.

what if you see it as an opportunity to discover something profound within yourself? what if the very limitations you feel are only reflections of the state you’re currently in, waiting for you to shift?

you don't have to force yourself to change everything all at once. just start small, day by day.

you already know how powerful you are.

#law of assumption #neville goddard #self concept #loa #loablr #affirm and persist #reality shifting #desired reality #manifestation #manifesting #law of attraction #shifting #consciousness #spiritual awakening

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