#he's so out of character here forgive me
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enough to make me cry
blade is your only roommate, your only friend, and your only way home from this terrible party you found yourself in.
blade x gn reader — 3.3k — college & roommates au!, very americanized college experiences, frat parties, mentions of drinking & vomiting, could be read as platonic but there are definitely romantic undertones, feelings of inadequacy/being out of place, hurt/comfort, social anxiety, blade is probably ooc i'm gonna be so honest, mild kafka & reader friendship, erggg im probably missing something
notes: no i have to be so honest blade is probably completely out of character i have not played a single side quest with him in it but i just think he has reluctant roommate-to-best friend potential and i wanted to pour that into a fic,,, this is mostly unintelligible but i did proofread! love you all
—°+..。*゚。*゚+.*.。.—
A warm hand rests on your shoulder, and the first thing that you think is Blade’s hands are supposed to be cold.
It’s really pathetic. You’re somewhere in a stupid frat house, the thrumming of music around you. There’s the flashing colors and sounds of Mario Kart on the TV, the smell of puke (probably yours) and corona lite, and a hand on your shoulders that you’ve discerned is not your roommate, Blade’s.
Looking to the side, you follow the hand (painted, manicured nails, definitely still not Blade’s), and it leads up to an arm up to a shoulder up to a face, and—oh.
“You’re—” you pause, getting your words in order before you puke them up, “you’re Blade’s pretty lady friend?” It’s supposed to come out as a statement, but leans more to a question. She looks down, a bit of a teasing grin on her face, but her eyes are a little soft so you trust her.
“Is that what he calls me?” she jokes.
“No, I’m— I came up with that.” If you had any dignity left in you, you’d be embarrassed to admit that to her. Unfortunately, you’re pretty sure that Kafka (the pretty lady friend in question) just held your hair back and wiped your face as you puked into a frat-house toilet, flushing your dignity away with your dinner. Your eyes burn with tears and mortification, and you pray that only Kafka saw your embarrassing mishaps.
“I called him to pick you up,” she tells you, already looking away from you and scanning the room as if looking for something, or someone. “I would take you home myself, but I’ve got some things to take care of. And I’m assuming you didn't bring your keys with you?”
A quick pat-down of your pockets confirms that, yes, you somehow managed to leave your keys at home, the one personal necessity that you were supposed to bring besides your phone. Which, thankfully, you do at least have.
“Umm, the…” you mutter, tongue tangling uselessly as you try to find a way out of here without facing the impending doom of Blade’s aggravated scolding and his I told you so’s.
A week ago, you went to him with an invite to this frat party and begged him to come with you, saying something like You don’t go out much, this is your chance! He’d adamantly refused, calling it a bad idea and rolling his eyes whenever you brought it up. But you were stubborn, and you wanted to have a fun college experience, so you forced him to drive you to the party with the promise of paying for his next gas payment and getting your own ride back home at the end of the night.
“I can go,” you finally tell Kafka, mind stringing along memories and thoughts and alarm bells of get your ass home before you have to sit in an awful car ride with Blade, “It’s, like, a fifteen minute walk, don’t call him.”
“It’s a little too late for that, kid,” Kafka drawls, amusement in her words. She’s smiling down at you, and you’re reminded of how small you feel. “He’s already on the way.”
“No!” you protest, a little too loudly, but not loud enough to be heard over the thumping of music and bodies and voices. “It’s— Kafka, please, just tell him to turn around, I really don’t want him to deal with me today.”
If you knew her even less, you’d misinterpret the twitch in her expression as concern—but you’re not too dumb, so you read it as amusement. “Trust me, he’s not going to have a problem with that. You’ll be fine.”
Whatever that means. Kafka’s too cryptic for your liking, but you won’t complain. She wiped up your vomit from the dirty bathroom tiles and stayed with you to make sure you didn't get trampled, and she didn't complain about any of that. In a week, when you have enough strength to face her again, you’ll treat her to a good, expensive, flaky pastry. She seems like the kind of person who would love those.
Her phone buzzes with a text notification, and she clicks her tongue, standing up and pulling you with her. Her hand is still warm, seeping through the sleeve of your shirt as she takes you by the forearm, gentle but guiding. Your stomach churns at the thought of seeing Blade, the thought of him seeing you like this. Freshly-puked-out with a nasty stomachache all because of a party that he told you not to go to.
You hold back your protests as Kafka leads you through the still-crowded frat house. What time is it? Has nobody gotten bored yet, seriously? At least you didn't kill the mood by running to the bathroom and weeping into the toilet. It seems like nobody noticed, except for Kafka, and you don’t know if that should make you feel comforted or just more upset.
The cool air of the night hits you as you step through the front door, eyes tracking your feet as you walk down the concrete steps. You see the silhouette of Blade’s ugly blue car in your peripheral vision, but you don’t want to look up in fear of seeing the disappointment on his face so soon. He’s going to rip you a new one, and then call you a slob and kick you out of the apartment and say I can’t have a party fiend living with me even though this was your first party ever, honest.
You barely register that you’ve reached the passenger side of Blade’s car, only coming back to awareness when Kafka opens the door for you and starts nudging you into the seat. A really pathetic part of you wants to grab onto her arm and cry hard enough that she just relents and lets you walk home, but you’re already half into the passenger seat, looking everywhere but Blade.
“Take care of them, won’t you, Bladie?” Kafka commands lightly, her hand leaving your arm as you get situated and buckled up in the car. Blade lets out a little huff in response and your stomach sinks. He’s already annoyed.
The car ride to your apartment is only five minutes at this time of night. You just have to survive five minutes in silence and pray that he doesn’t tear into you and scold you like a disappointed parent. A glance at the clock on the car’s console confirms that it’s half past midnight. What the fuck. What were you even doing at the party for that long, besides vomiting and crying?
The car rumbles, exhaust sputtering a little bit as Blade pulls out from the side of the street and drives slowly, carefully, as if not to rattle you, and you really just want him to speed up and throttle the car around so you feel more guilty about waking him up in the middle of the night to come pick you up. Blade goes to bed at eleven, the latest. You can’t imagine why Kafka thought it would be a good idea to call him, of all people, but then you remember that you kind of don’t have any other friends on campus. Your chest tightens at the thought.
Blade makes some kind of sniffling noise, his way of trying to initiate some kind of conversation. There’s not even any music playing, because he always drives in dead silence because he’s abnormal, and on any other day you’d tease him about it like you always do. You see him turn his head to you in the corner of your eye, but you refuse to acknowledge him. You wish he’d just start scolding you, yelling at you or something.
Tears prickle behind your eyes, painfully so, but your hands tighten around each other in your lap as you will yourself to not cry like a baby in front of your roommate. He lets out another sigh, but it doesn’t sound angry, just tired, and somehow that makes you feel worse.
“What were you guys even drinking?” is his question of voice, and it’s the one question you didn't want him to ask, and you can’t help it when the tears spill over and you bring your hand up to wipe them away frantically, hiccuping a little bit as your gut churns.
“What—” Blade stutters, and he never stutters, and you see him whip his head around to look at you, crying into your hands over a simple question, and you just want to leave the car and walk home like you told Kafka you would do. He pulls over to the side of some residential street. There’s a dog barking in a yard and wind chimes clinking together, and you think of your handmade bottle cap wind chime hung in the balcony of yours and Blade’s apartment, and it just makes you cry more.
The car comes to a full stop. Blade puts it in park and turns completely to you. You spare a quick glance at him through the gaps between your fingers, and there’s something like worry on his face, which you’ve never seen before. His face is pinched, lips parted as if wanting to say something, but he can’t. He’s waiting for you.
“I didn't drink anything, Blade,” you sob, feeling miserable at the state of yourself, at how you went to a frat party with nobody you knew and just walked around like a lost child, too scared to drink or talk to anyone, too anxious to say a word. “Not even a shot, or a sip, nothing from the fridge. It was so stupid, you were right, okay? It was a stupid idea, and I shouldn’t have gone.” Your breath catches in your throat, and the car is dead quiet as Blade lets your words sink in.
You try not to make so much noise when you cry, but you’re sniveling and wiping your face and wishing that he would just stop looking at you like that. You can still see the ruby-red of his eyes even when you can’t bear to look up at him, and it makes you so viscerally upset.
Blade is beautiful, really, and it makes you so upset that he looks better than you right now despite him being dragged right out of bed by Kafka’s phone call with a request to pick you up just minutes ago. You, who spent hours selecting an outfit, just to feel inadequate and wholly ugly the minute you walked through the door. It felt like you were back in middle school, spending hours with your parents picking out an outfit to a school dance, looking through ties and pants and shoes, just to show up and feel both overdressed and underdressed, feel like a fool, feel like you just can’t look the way everyone else does. Like something is always a little wrong.
“Kafka said that you got sick. You didn't drink anything? You’re sure?”
��No,” you confirm pitifully, wanting him to just drop the topic and drive the rest of the way home and never talk about this again. “I was just anxious, and I puked like an idiot. Kafka helped me, she was the only one that I knew at the party. I don’t know. I don’t remember anymore. I was just anxious.”
He says your name, not unkindly, but with a prying tone that just makes a fresh wave of tears stream down your face in rivulets. “Why would you go if you didn't know anyone?”
“I don't know!” you shout, heated with embarrassment. You’re acting like a child, throwing a tantrum and crying and shouting in Blade’s car. The seatbelt is too tight on you. You fiddle with it, pulling it from the juncture of your neck and shoulder and loosening it, scratching your bitten nails against the scratchy cloth and looking out of the car window so that you can avoid Blade’s awful, terrible, intrusive gaze.
“I just wanted to be normal, or something. I don’t know anybody from any of my classes. I don’t talk to anyone from my major. And then I got the invite for the party somehow and I just thought it would be fun. I don’t know, Blade, I know I should’ve listened to you, I’m sorry.”
“Stop,” he says firmly, fully turned to you now, as if he wants you to look back at him, to listen to whatever he’s going to say, and that’s the one thing you don’t want to do. You hate that he’s being kind. You wish he’d be sarcastic and mean and cruel, bite into you and feed off your self-pity. But he’s being nice, nice in the same way that he’s nice when he buys the right brand of milk for you (because the others make you sick, and the taste is different), or when he drives you places in his car when it’s raining so that you don’t have to take the buses everywhere, or when he comes home with your ridiculous coffee order that costs a hellacious amount of money with all of your substitutions and additions and flavorings.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he says resolutely, leaving no room for argument, “Just— I didn't know you were feeling like that. I would’ve gone with you if you told me you needed someone. I assumed you were going with a friend.”
You don’t respond with I don’t have any friends, because you’re pretty sure that’s clear enough by now, and you don’t want to confirm what’s already been confirmed a million times over just from the way you act. The way you cling to yours and Blade’s apartment, the way you never spend a second longer than you need to in any of your classes, the way that sometimes, when Blade goes out for class or work, you sit on the couch in silence with your laptop out, doing your work for the week and checking the clock and taking naps so that you don’t have to feel so alone for so long.
“You didn't want to go,” you say instead, “I wasn’t going to make you just because I’m— I don’t know.”
“I would’ve gone for you,” he tells you, really tells you, with a force in his words, like he wants to drive the point into you with a stake, driven right through your heart. “I would do a lot of things if you asked. You just need to ask.”
You don’t— you really don’t want to think about what that means. What he means. You rip your eyes away from the car window and turn to face him. He’s not too close. You almost wish he could be closer, but you would suffocate under the pressure in your stomach and behind your eyes.
He shouldn’t say things like that, things like You just need to ask, because you’d ask for a lot if given the chance. You’d ask for him to come to parties with you, stay by your side, let you put a hand on his shoulder and guide him around another disgusting frat house as if you know what you’re doing. You’d ask him to sleep in the same bed as you some nights, just a foot away from each other, backs turned to each other but still close enough that you can feel the unnatural coldness that radiates off of Blade.
You’d ask him to introduce you to Kafka and that other girl they hang out with, to say something stupid and funny like This is my abhorrent roommate, be nice to them, and that way you’d have more contacts in your phone that aren't just Blade and your parents and two old high school friends who you haven’t spoken to in a year. You’d ask him to be a lot more than just a plus-one to a party full of people you’ve never met.
“I just want to go home,” you breathe out, a guilty confession burning your gums and leaving a sour taste in your mouth. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry,” he asserts for the second time tonight, making your lungs squeeze as you puff out a tired exhale. Blade turns back in his seat, taking the car out of park and heading back onto the road—driving slowly, yet again, avoiding cracks and potholes in the road. “You need to eat something. You’ll wake up with a hellish headache if you go to bed dehydrated.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“I said it, so it’s true,” he says petulantly, turning the car down into a road that’s definitely not in the direction of your apartment building. To your hidden delight, the glowing sign of a twenty-four-seven ice cream store comes into view, and you sit up just a little bit. Blade slows the car as he turns into the drive-thru, glancing at you with an eyebrow half-raised.
“What do you want? I’ll order for you.”
“I don’t have my wallet,” you admit, just a little bit embarrassed. “I didn't even bring my keys with me. Do you think they take Apple Pay?”
A breathy laugh escapes him, and you catch sight of a dimple pressed into his cheek, and you want to press your thumb into it and look at his smile, just for a little longer. “Don’t be dumb. I’m paying,” he tells you, the same way he has every time he pays for your cafe drink, or when he comes home from work with your favorite, and says You’re broke enough without having to pay for these drinks, don’t pay me back in that snippy way he shows his care.
You ask for a medium vanilla milkshake, with sprinkles, and he gets you a large instead, which you’re more than grateful for. He refuses to let you look at the receipt for the total cost, and hands you the milkshake with a comical severity that you often see in him. The sweet drink washes away any bitter taste left in your mouth, and you feel a little better, a little nicer in your haphazard party outfit and under Blade’s fleeting gaze.
A deep sigh escapes you, one of relief, when the car finally parks at your apartment building. Blade puts a cold hand between your shoulder blades, unobtrusive and leading, and it’s a comforting contrast from the heat lingering on your skin from the party and the closed car. It feels right, more in-place than Kafka’s warm hands were when she wiped your face and kept you steady, though she was just as gentle.
Blade all but tosses you onto the couch, claiming that it’s much too late for a shower and he’d rather not deal with you collapsing from exhaustion in the tub. You relent easily, the exhaustion of the night hitting you and soaking into your limbs.
“I’ll let you sleep on the couch,” he says, and it’s a good and kind thing, because he knows that sometimes you hate your bedroom because it’s just too empty, and the constant sound filtering into the living room puts you at ease. He never lets you sleep on the couch, because it’s bad for your back, and he jokes about you developing adult onset scoliosis with the awful way you sleep. Letting you do it, just this once, is another one of his small mercies.
The TV is on, humming at a low volume, and your legs are thrown across Blade’s lap. You’re shocked that he’s willing to fall asleep with you like this, but he’s kind, sarcastic and biting but kind all the same, as much as he loathes to admit it. It’s not too lonely, you decide, hearing the bottle cap wind chimes on your balcony clink together in dissonant harmonies.
(There’s a missing text from a new contact on your phone when you wake up, coming from pretty lady friend, extending an invite to brunch in two days, and you kick your legs on the couch in giddy excitement, thinking about how you’ll rope Blade into coming with you, too.)
—°+..。*゚。*゚+.*.。.—
taglist: @tragedy-of-commons
(pssst!!! send me a msg or fill out the form in my navi to be added to the taglist!!!)
#blade x reader#hsr x reader#honkai star rail x reader#blade hsr x reader#hsr blade x reader#hsr ren x reader#thats his name right..........#blade x you#hsr x you#honkai star rail x you#begging myself to write something under 1k next time#i miss when i had the ability to write short drabbles instead of behemoths#i say this as if i don't have a supernatural blade fic thats already 5k and not even halfway done#THATS the real behemoth#he's so out of character here forgive me#i just like his pretty face#me writing about a frat party when i have yet to even touch the vicinity of a party house
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*grips Shen Qingqiu by the shoulders*
aren't you tired of being nice? Don't you want to crack under the pressure of the system and the robbed autonomy of being forced into a role you had no choice in but have to play anyways? don't you want to buckle under the realization that, to you, no matter what you do your life is going to end in a horrific death? Whether that be under Luo Binghe's hands or the System's?
Don't you want to realize that no matter all the good you have done and the lives you have changed and saved, you're still standing at the ledge of a cliff with a sword to your disciple's chest?
Shouldn't it be you at the edge instead? Balancing on the crumbling dirt's end of death on either side, and you can either walk into it or be forced?
don't you want to go apeshit?
#I AM SO NORMAL YOU GUYS I PROMISE *visibly foaming at the mouth and gritting my teeth so hard you can hear them crack*#svsss#scum villain#shen yuan#shen qingqiu#scum villain self saving system#HI YES I MAY NOT HAVE READ THE NOVEL AND ONLY BEEN HERE FOR A WEEK BUT I AM. OBSESSED. FIXATED IF YOU WILL#luo binghe standing at the edge of the endless abyss and he sees something snap in his shizun's eyes like metal creaking under#the pressure of the deep sea. or like heat rising too quickly. the steady slow snap of someone hanging on by a thread.#i dont think i've fully understood sqq's characterization howEVER. i think i've got enough of his character down to try and twist it the wa#i think could happen. forgive me if this isnt in character or anything ajhf#anyways i love isekai anything and i think the system could slowly drive someone who didnt ask to be here insane#SY adjusts rather quickly from what i've heard but what if he DIDN'T. what if it wasnt fine what if he was trying his best and it was#taking its toll because apparently trying his best just wasnt enough. his stubborn refusal to view the people around him as people#but as characters following a script is very frustrating to me but also it works in my favor for this. look at the best way to break him is#*stares at SQQ* i think he should go apeshit. as a treat. skin a man alive SQQ. bite someone. rip out their throat.#i know thats prolly not his character but what if it COULD be. what if it IS. people are so nuanced and niche and can change at the turn#of a dime and SQQ has been forced into an unfavorable position and frankly traumatic experience. he could change or he could not and#isnt that FASCINATING? to erode or to stand tall. are you copper or are you a canyon. will you change colors and stay the same or will you#crumble and shear and become something new? when facing the elements when facing the inevitable what will you become?
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my favourite writing device is having an un-Rei-liable narrator
#rei#volo#cheren#// tikposting#// character meta#the crowd booes me off the stage#forgive the pun XDDD his name is too easy to pun on#the way i write it it's not a conscious choice. it's just how the pov character (rei) experiences and contextualises the world#revealing backstory and personality and mindset through narration !!!!#not necessarily out of malice it's just. how he views things#interpreting new and foreign experiences through the lens of what came before...#conversations which read differently to different people.#in the context of rei that's stuff like unease around authority figures#always choosing his words carefully to project an image of competence (he has to be needed)#distrust and not taking things at face value but also paradoxically a fragile and nurtured sense of almost blind optimism#when it comes to friendships. like volo. (everyone turned on me when the sky turned red but it all resolved itself in the end didn't it?)#(what makes this different? / a lot of things. / i choose to believe)#volo [directly]: “i won't be stopped from my goal” rei thoughts: we can work with this!!!!#and everything with Arceus too and his divine blessings and a plan that will work out in the end#if Rei can just... figure out what part he's meant to play. interpreting events as a narrative hurtling towards some unknown conclusion#i am talking about rei here specifically but this writing device is so good in general#would be fun to try get inside volo's head. there's so much going on there i don't understand yet#quite fond of that one analysis post about how volo lacks emotional intelligence and sees relationships as transactions#not necessarily out of malice it's just how he views things. whether because of past experience or brain chemistry#also need to give a shout to cheren my guy who is an outsider pov who projects his own experiences onto new things so that he Understands#(an outsider to Hilbert and N's clash of truth and ideals. life changing experience and knowledge but felt just a little off to the left)#(the narrative repeated again with new heroes. all he can do is help them but it falls on their shoulders in the end)#(no wonder he tries to insert himself into Situations)#anyway tag ramble over feel free to also ramble to me about your takes XD#rei pokemon
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Hottest JJBA Outfit Bracket - Round 1 Match 62
#i looked it up and these seem to be official colors for charming man so i think i can judge him faily when i say#seriously??? white and PURPLE?#the bow just calls TOO MUCH ATTENTION i hate the bow#the white i could be okay with but the purple stands out and i can't see anything else in the design#which is SAD because he has some of the coolest makeup in a jjba character recently#i can even forgive the kneepads but not the bow im sorry#formaggio is always in a very specific zone for me where he's too boring around cool characters and too cool around meh characters#but here he has a strong vantage point with the studded vest and the stomach out#and he rocks the buzzcut which is rare for me to say#i feel bad for charming man because he's incredibly hot but the purple bow killed me so terribly#jjba charmingman#jjba charming man#charming man#charmingman#jjba formaggio#the jojolands#jojolands#vento aureo#golden wind#jojo no kimyou na bouken#jjba#who's hotter jjba#jojo's bizarre adventure#hottest jjba outfit bracket
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@isfjmel-phleg Well, I couldn't resist that prompt. This is extremely rough, and I reserve the right to decanonize any of this, but I had to take a stab at writing these two in this situation.
Beyond The Legend
"Tanza, what's this?" Auren called.
Tanza stormed into her house's gathering area, tossing aside the cloth she'd been wiping the dining table with. "Auren, I told you not to touch the electronics until I was rea—"
She froze.
The projection screen on the far wall was filled with the dull sparkle of a classic lumiscopic drama. The glimmers of purple and green added layers of depth to the muted colors of the image—which showed a square-jawed, golden-haired tephan man with ragged finery and a few artistically-placed smears of blood on his all-too-handsome face.
Auren was sitting on a soft chair, staring at the image. "Who is that?"
"An actor," Tanza said quickly, desperately scanning the room for the controls. If there was one drama Auren should not see…
"Naturally," Auren said, rolling his eyes. "What is his name? He seems familiar."
"Corphan Holbrith," Tanza said, then cursed her thoughtlessness. Auren might know the name. She might not be able to stop the showstream in time…
Auren's brow furrowed. "I've heard that name before. Usually accompanied by 'you're not as handsome as'."
"Well, you're not." Where on Arateph had Auren put her datapad?
"Thank you for your support, Tanza."
On the screen, Corphan Holbrith limped up a rocky mountain path, leaning heavily upon a man in an ill-fitting suit of workers' clothes.
Auren examined the image. "Do I resemble him? It's odd that its been remarked upon so often."
"He's extremely famous," Tanza said, desperately hoping to distract his attention. Why hadn't she sprung to get voice-controlled showstreams?
"For what?"
"He's been in a million lumiscopic dramas."
Behind the shelf—was that the control? Tanza dove to the floor. Just the light controls. She sprang to her feet, disgusted.
By now, Corphan Holbrith had reached a ramshackle door in the mountainside, but he was pulling away from his companion. "I must return," he said. "My people have need of me."
His companion tried to hold him back. "You must save yourself, lirishan."
Auren jumped at the word—a naming tongue title applied only to the crown prince.
The companion continued, " If Prince Auren dies, all hope is lost."
Tanza sank into a soft chair, defeated.
Auren gazed at her in open astonishment. "Is he—?"
"Prince Auren," Tanza sighed. "About thirty years ago, this role launched Holbrith's career. This drama was a sensation. Won all sorts of awards. People went crazy over it."
"Have you seen it?"
"A few times," Tanza said casually. Not in a million years would she tell Auren that she'd watched it every night for a year when she was twelve.
Auren grinned and turned back to the screen, his eyes sparkling with delight. "What's it about?"
Well, it didn't look like Auren was spiraling into traumatic memories, so maybe Tanza could run with this.
"Your typical revolutionary alternate history," she said. "Prince Auren was saved from the brink of death by a beautiful lady rebel who fell in love with him, was rescued by royalists, then escaped into the mountains, lost his memory, became a beloved member of the community, fell in love with the rebel lady, regained his memory, then had to decide whether to choose love or royal duty."
"What did he choose?"
"He tries to claim his kingdom, of course, while staying faithful to his love, but they both have to go into hiding and wait for the right time to emerge. It's all very artistic."
On-screen, the faux Prince Auren collapsed from exhaustion, while the beautiful dark-haired lady rebel wept over him, and berated the nobleman who'd been helping him up the mountain.
"I see that," Auren said with a grin.
"We can watch something else," Tanza said, finally spotting the controls beside the window.
"Not for all the money on Arateph."
Tanza shrugged and relaxed into her seat.
She had seen the drama a few times since she was twelve, but not since she'd met the actual Auren. The false history seemed even more melodramatic now that the real history was no longer hidden. Prince Auren was heroic and romantic—a sheltered royal cast out into a harsh world, tortured by his losses and driven by virtue.
"Please tell me I don't talk like that," Auren said.
The faux Prince Auren was giving a speech that had won Holbrith his first acting award. It actually was something Tanza could imagine the real Auren saying—all about hope in adversity—but the voice sounded strange in a way it never had before.
It was a pitch-perfect imitation of the way the royal accent sounded in decaying copies of pre-revolutionary recordings, but nothing like Auren's real voice—refined and old-fashioned, but with plenty of warmth and humor.
"Not a bit," Tanza said.
"Thank all the stars."
The story continued through yet another chase scene set among soaring mountain landscapes. "They thought I was in Kepha?" Auren asked.
"It made sense at the time," Tanza said. "Your mother's family was there, and the mountains have lots of places to hide."
Auren stared at the screen a moment, processing this new information. "No wonder it took them a hundred years to find me."
The story continued through chase scenes and fights, bouts of amnesia, dramatic speeches, narrow escapes, and touching emotional moments. The story was silly, sometimes surprisingly heartwrenching—but the story she'd seen a million times felt brand-new with the real Auren sitting beside her.
Once, Corphan Holbrith's Auren had been Tanza's ideal. He was noble. Unshakeable. A bit sheltered, but with a good heart. Capable of knocking down any number of rebels and then declaring his feelings to the love of his life. Enough inner turmoil to be endlessly fascinating to a twelve year old girl.
Holbrith's Auren was by far the most flattering portrayal of the controversial prince, but he was a pale shadow when placed next to the real thing. His Auren wasn't someone who would cook a meal, chat about the little details of a history student's day, laugh over a silly melodrama, face a world a hundred years in his own future.
The last scene of the story faded out—Prince Auren gazing over the land that he swore he would one day save, before disappearing into the mountain forest—leaving only the real Prince Auren.
"So that's the life I missed out on," Auren said. "I'm almost sad I slept through it instead. The real history must be disappointing compared to the legend."
"Are you kidding?" Tanza asked.
"It's certainly less exciting," Auren said. "And I'm no Corphan Holbrith."
"No," Tanza said, turning off the projector. "Believe me, the real thing is much better."
#arateph#the bookshelf progresses#unfortunately i did wind up having to go a bit sappy to get it to some kind of resolution#and most of the 'plot' is just me indulging in dull worldbuilding details#but it was fun to write these two again#i'm out of practice so forgive any out of characterness#i always forget about auren's dry sense of humor#when you fall into meta it's easy to focus on the drama#and forget about how he actually interacts with people#which involves a lot of self-awareness and sense of fun#so it was fun to see it come out here
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Hi Lexi
What do you think of partially blinded Vi? You never seem to draw her that way, and I kind of just wanted to know what do you think of it as a certified Vi lover.
I personally think that while something like this can be "cool" (as in, being beneficial to the character design), it's handled quite poor for Vi and it just looks a bit... ungrateful. Simply doesn't look good, doesn't fit her personality or character (am I missing something?) and it doesn't seem to fit or suit her...unlike Kenny's iconic eyepatch. To me, it has become a pivotal thing in his design to a degree in which Kenny with both eyes seems a bit odd looking. I see it as a symbol which stands for Ken being a martyr and all he's lost and sacrificed. He is all about family and helping those he loved, his loved ones truly were the "apple of his eye". It all makes sense, doesn't it?
But for Vi, it's excatly the opposite. I'm just so sorry to see her like this. 😭😭😭 I don't think it makes sense in any way. Louis losing his tongue because he's so talkative and "won't shut up" does kind of make sense, but I cant help but see Violet losing sight as kind of lazy writing. "We need something bad happening to her!!! suffer the children!!!'- the writers exclaimed.
i think vi losing her eyesight is incredibly impactful on her character and i honestly dont understand why some people say its lazy writing. especially since it was foreshadowed multiple times. vi losing her eyesight i think is even more impactful on her character than louis losing his tongue because at least louis still has his music to express himself and uplift spirits through (and its not like he cant communicate At All. his note still makes clem laugh). the reason i dont draw blind vi very often is because of how sad it is to me. for multiple reasons
violets whole thing is wanting to be able to protect the people she cares about, and feels immense grief and guilt about the times she feels shes failed them (thinks if she had been there with the twins that day that she couldve done something to save them. feels she failed everyone taken by the raiders. is scared of failing clem too "if something happened to you because of me? i cant lose you too. i wont". its why she cant leave minnie after shooting her. and a kidnapped vi attacks clem because she doesnt want anyone else to get hurt. hell it even ties back to her grandma and feeling guilty about not doing anything for her)
so for her to lose her eyesight? she took pride in her ability to fight and now she cant do that anymore. cant protect the people she loves. and as someone who started the season as an isolated loner, it forces her to rely on those around her for help, stripping her of her independence (and her independence is what allowed her to stand up against the group for clem when it came to the marlon situation in ep2). a blinded vi is forced into accepting community, whereas a saved violet accepts it on her own. her and clem turn ericsons into the home violet could never see it as
the other reason blind vi makes me so sad is that it is Directly a result of clems actions. kidnapped vi had nothing and wanted nothing to do with the bomb, and yet shes the ONLY ONE who gets hurt by it. clem choosing to let vi be taken means clem both breaks her heart, and then burns out her eyes. louis and his tongue is between him and lilly and was a choice THEY each made outside of clems direct influence (even if it was clem who inspired him to speak up, it is ultimately his choice to keep talking, and lilly hurts him for it. its sad he gets punished for a character moment, but clem had no direct hand in him losing his tongue. its why hes not angry to see her in the cell. he doesnt blame clem for what happened), but the way vi is feeling in that cell is DIRECTLY due to clems actions. vi feels like clem abandoned her after she had put herself on the line for her multiple times. she always had clems back but clem didnt have hers. clem is the one who planted the bomb and vi gets caught in the blast. clem hurts her emotionally And physically. and vi apologizes for getting upset (she tries to apologize on the beach too before theyre forced out in the cart, so she felt wrong for those actions immediately even tho they were understandable. lilly and minnie used her moment of weakness to get in her head. she just wanted everyone to be safe)
kidnapped blinded vi is just so incredibly sad to me, especially when you compare her to a fully realized violet. a violet who has come into herself, has confidence, has opened up, has stopped pushing people away out of fear and lets herself love again. shes a leader. a fighter. a protector. and those are all things a blinded violet loses
neither vi losing her eyes or louis losing his tongue is supposed to add anything to their characters. its about what theyve lost. both of them have important parts of their identity stripped away from them after being taken by the delta. its supposed to be sad. heartbreaking. regrettable. unfortunate. they have not gained anything by their time at the delta, only lost important parts of themselves to it
#twdg#like idk to me kennys eyepatch symbolizes his descent into madness. its the impact carver had on him#hes 'lost his sight' hes losing his way. becoming a danger to the people he says he cares about#kenny gets waaaay too much forgiveness in the fandom and i cant take it honestly. his motivations dont justify his actions#i dont hate him but god do i hate the way the fandom talks about him#esp when certain kenny stans ignore all the protagonists and hate all the women/anyone who opposes a protagonists views/actions#EXCEPT for kenny for some reason???? like when he opposes lee its fine but no one else can do it#you cannot deny hes a scary man by the end of s2 regardless of his motivations and people loooooove to handwave it away#i hate that 'family is family' crap#have none of you ever had a family member do something so horrible that you cut them out of your life completely?#HES NOT EVEN BLOOD FAMILY like that idea doesnt even apply here!!#the whole point of that phrase is that you cant choose who youre related to. twdg is LITERALLY about choosing your family#s3 is the one that makes a point to address blood relations and what worth they have#ok unexpected kenny rant over sorry but boy does the overwhelming kenny love get to me sometimes. there are other characters#sorry i hope this doesnt sound directed at you personally its just the overwhelming fan opinion i see and it drives me mad#where is the NUANCE??#replies with lexi#plamglam
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I'm gonna have to wait out a few weeks to be able to complain about jjk's ending bc rn half the ppl are bashing everyone who expected more as ppl who just wanted gojo back
#jjk 271#like no I can read I understood that gojo was gone for good from 236 bUT we can still talk about#how a grown ass man and his grown ass friends deciding how they were at 16 was their perfect forms.#before they made all the important life changing decisions. is a regression right#like can we talk about how the narrative just glosses over geto's whole entire life after hs WHERE HE WAS A GENOCIDAL MANIAC#and pretends like no one would even side eye him about that???#that's fucking regression#you're scaling his character back bc you don't want to address the root reasonwhy he went that route#and it's perfectly fine when an author doesn't want to get too political in their work it's their right I get it#but it does make me upset where the whole entire story up until here the author has been beating us over the head with leftist messaging-#- only to throw it away and settle for a 'oh I didn't mean ACTUAL revolution or changes that would rock the boat for REAL'#bc let's face it. the conditions that made people like geto and sukuna happen are still fucking there they just skipped this generation#these kids are still going to be sent out when a special grade curse shows up and some of them are still gonna die tragically early#to put yuuji as the leader of gojo's dream is isolating and a burden on JUST YUUJI (WHY WERE THE OTHER STUDENTS NOT THERE)#to make yuuji the sole messenger of gojo's will is frankly WEIRD gojo wanted these kids to look out for one another#he had nothing to say to anyone else???#yuuji's been accidentally burdened with the weight of gojo's dream now ON HIS OWN#HE IS A KID#literally nothing's changed at the end#also see how I didn't talk about gojo on his own here bc the problems are so glaring that they shine through even side characters#WHY IS NANAMI A KID IN THE AIRPORT IS THAT THE VERSION OF HIMSELF HE WAS CONTENT WITH???#or did they all have to be aged down to match haibara even though making the choice to show the ones that lived as grown would've made it-#-more impactful#A twenty seven yr old nanami sitting next to the fifteen yr old haibara would've been soul crushing right?#also why have nanami be the only one that talks like he remembers his adulthood BUT NOT GETO#WHY TAKE AWAY SUCH A HUGE PART OF GETO#YOU COULD'VE HAD THAT BE A CONVERSATION AND HAVE PEOPLE FORGIVE HIM#the more I think about the ending the more things I find to nitpick further back too#gege I love you but please I hope you negotiate a more flexible time in your next contract I hope they don't burn you out again#bc jjk is going to be an ending which I will frankly ignore and just go with 'sukuna won and it was terrible' in my head instead
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mmm essay about sally and kid gort in the tags (cw for child abuse, mentions of suicide, animal cruelty and a murder attempt. i always hope i don’t have to say this but just in case: i don’t excuse or condone any of her or gort’s behaviour at all.) this is literally not even touching upon everything i have to say because i hit the fucking tag limit lmao. NOBODY READ IT’S BAD BRAINSTORMING I JUST NEEDED TO GET IT OUT SOMEHOW
#thinkin too much about gortie side characters again.#sally this time and why she specifically talks about him the way she does#like dravo is obviously still shitty but to me he was. ‘just ‘neglectful#while sally actively hated and even felt terrorised by her own child#like. it’s not like i don’t understand her at all.#imagine you and your love don’t have much besides each other and your shop and you get pregnant and ready to raise a child#only for it to not be a child he didn’t and doesn’t cry ever and he learns everything so much sooner than most but then he never calls you#his parents and it’s not just a petty thing kids do sometimes you feel that he doesn’t see you as family and the worst part is that you#agree deep down#and as he gets older he doesn’t have any friends and actively rejects the notion of the entire concept#but then as time passes you hear about how he has entire groups of children following him and then several of them commit suicide#and that thing coming to sit with you and dravo at the dinner table says that he did what you did last week when the axe to chop wood broke#and you discarded it and got a new one#and he has these habits of ripping out flowers and making sure that they don’t regrow#and then you hear rumours about a friend’s daughter’s cat disappearing and think nothing of it#until you visit his tree house a month later and find a declawed cat and birds with clipped wings and crushed bugs that he keeps fondly#and then you see him with other children and they don’t know and his face is different and body language is entirely different#and were it not for the fact that you know better you would never see anything but a normal child#and you know that you are one who painstakingly brought this thing that should not be into the world and so you decide to end it all one da#and go to him as he’s asleep with the knife shaking in your hand#but he cries when you’re above him! screams at the top of his lungs!#so you beg for forgiveness even though you don’t deserve it through tears but as soon as the knife is put away you see the act drop and fee#his clever fingers having twisted your brain inside and out and you know that you can do nothing#and so the opportunity arises to at least remove him out of your life if not everyone’s lives and you take it immediately.#but you heard him talk. how he will close his fist around the world one day. and you know that it is not a matter of if but when.#like. imagine that. jesus dude.#like i hc her as someone that is messy and does not know a lot about life and she certainly wouldn’t have been a good mother but the love#or at least desire to love is there somewhere. and believing that having a child is really the only somewhat meaningful thing she can do#with her life. she’s not some hero or rich or anything of note. so there’s a lot obligation and not genuine desire for family here.#but she never really got the chance to be an actual mother in the first place so. who knows what that might have looked like
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this week on I DONT THINK HE WOULD FUCKING DO THAT: house ramming a car into cuddys house while she has guests
#house spoilers#house s7#house md#WHERE THE FUCK DO WE GO FROM HERE#like unLESS the eriters are pulling another 'teehee vicadin hallucinations' on us#which je sus chri st .#HOW TF DO THEY PULL THIS SHIT BACK#we've got a whole nother season left so unless house is just one the run & wilson just joins him bc obviously hes gonna forgive him#like WH. believe me i can forgive fictional characters of A L O T but this shit just does not make any damn sense#ofc he's in a bad spot (<-UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE CENTURY)#and he already maxed out his self destruction meter for the week. like thats his one coping mechanism spent.#but to RAM his car into cuddys whole ass dining room just cause he saw her with some and so he thought shed lied to him .#bro am i insane if i say thats too much even for house.of all damn people#like if this was a SERIES finale with stronger more obvious buildup and not just like.#½ a season of cuddy and house actually happy together and then ½ a season of whoops theyll never work out i guess#and instead something like s7 minus the CAR RAMMING and s8 is just house boiling and stewing and eventually he rams his car#with intention to kill and intnetion to die#then SURE i think that would be something i could see his character becoming#but this is so damn out of the blue.#house would not do impulse attempted murder no matter how fucked up he was on rage or pain or vicadin#m#live
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John Petty, Out of the Furnace (2013)
#oh here's a john i accidently forgot about#forgive me#i really don't know how i could forget#but my point still stands#he really likes playing characters named john#lol#he's pretty#i love his hair#so nice and silky#john petty#out of the furnace#willem dafoe
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more unfinished cookie drawings from the year this time featuring odyssey squad and drama and also romance ‘cause i cannot be stopped
#cookie run#cookie run kingdom#espresso cookie#madeleine cookie#clotted cream cookie#financier cookie#clottcier#financeleine#clottespresso#not me out here shipping espresseleine but not having it in this oops#all four of these characters own me good lord send help#i still havent finished the odyssey story crunchy chip is made out of soggy paper towels and keeps dying#anyway i love clotted cream cookie and will never forgive the fandom for shitting on him so hard#hes such a fun character omfg#rattles the bars of my cage over him oops#also financier cookie i love you you're wonderful omfg 10 stars#anyway the last two doodles are form an au my brain came up with#that they allowed me to get my grubby little hands on#financier tries to occupy madeleines time so clotted cream can hang with espresso#cause hes got the honey nut feeleos for the coffee mage#and then she accidentally falls for madeleine despite him being him#a series of events that clotted cream did not see coming#anyway blah blah drama blah blah everyone ends up holding hands#unfinished 2022
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Sorry for being shippy but… does dabi like, like-like hawks in imaginary? Or is it a “i pity you moderately good looking bird” situation?
ill be fr, i've never gotten to the part in the anime/manga where dabi and hawks interact. i might joke around with them and if i ever catch up on the series, we'll see how it goes from there
#... actually i never got to the part.. when hawks shows up#i honestly am flying with hawks by the seat of my pants and his wiki page and my friend ro's characterization of him#and 'every time hawks shows up in the anime' and 'hawks analysis' youtube videos#if hawks is ooc let it be known that i didnt intend for him to steal a spotlight in imaginary he just kind of casually demanded it#my asks#imaginary#in fact. about to put myself on blast here#the whole reason i 'changed' canon and Hawks attended UA was bc. Hawks was a brand new character at the time i was writing the fic.#and little ol me just fucking. assumed he'd gone to UA for some reason#so i wrote it that way#that was not like a deep intentional change that was me fucking around with a character and finding out#i think i read another fic where he was at UA. thats why#but anyway#hes still roped into the commission's shit dont get me wrong. but for whatever reason i thought the commission enrolled him into hero schoo#on top of their conditioning#youll have to forgive my four-years-ago self. i did my best lmfao#again: whoopsie!#hawks doesnt repeatedly show up in imaginary because of plot (though it works out in the recent arcs). he shows up because of vibes#and a repeated middle finger in my face
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ueeugghh I love informant sooo much
#Got an influx of quests with him in it yesterday and I genuinely got nauseous for a bit#NAUSEOUS IN A /POS WAY I LOVE HIM SO MUCH#“Forgive me for being so frank but you’re my only friend”#II IIII UEEUGGHHH UEEE WHAT THE HELL#And here I thought he would honestly consider anna his friend#WHICH IS LIKE. SO INTERESTING#CAUSE HE GENUINELY CARES FOR HER RIGHT LIKE HE WOULD GO OUT OF HIS WAY TO DO THINGS TO PUT HER AT EASE#and like they would do investigations together#And he did make that quill talisman for her to protect her#Don’t tell me he did all that just to push her away in a sense#Because she still did accuse him of being the bad guy (but then again idk character development since that was a long time ago)#CRAZY. THE IMPLICATION IN THAT SINGULAR LINE.#arsene-blogging#Informant Under A Microscope
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seen both episodes of horizons now and holy fuck
#i was so used to being bored w jn tbh but this series already has me really hooked???#liko is a really well realized character and no scene feels wasted everything feels carefully set up#the tone is also so good like liko and am’s silent conversation when he finds her hiding on the ship???????#it was SO good and i like what theyre setting up with the new pokemon and i love the airship setting#i was nervous when eve told me it was another ‘’travel the world hub’’ deal but unlike jn#theres like an even spread of pokemon from other regions#and not only that but pokemon that havent gotten too much love in general like alolan muk snorunt and carkoal#speaking of which THIS WAS CARKOALS FIRST APPEARANCE???#its also still being good w all of the starters too like so far fuecoco’s been the latest to show up#and it still has adequate screentime and personality to it#literally the only thing im hmmm abt is more charizard favoritism but like. i can forgive it with how even everything is#and i love that pikachu is their boss AND IT HAS VOLT TACKLE. BABYGIRL I MISSED YOU#what i was also worried abt was that theyd try to make it as close to ash and pikachus journey as possible#like same dynamic same setup same pikachu character (not really but same personality)#but no!! its all totally shaken up and the stuff that DOES evoke the original is still clever#and stands on its own!! like oh my god i cannot say enough how pleasantly surprised i am with horizons#i wasn’t pessimistic but i was like ‘’ill like it bc its pokemon regardless but wont be going crazy over it’’#but im like. SO anxious for the next episode now bc SPRIG :(#but like oh my god it all stands out. the character design the characters themselves the pokemon the animation the artstyle the music#the story the tone the setup like EVERYTHING is so good here#echoed voice
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maybe there are more options when you romance him but theres so much i have to say to wyll that the game does not even give me the option to say like im mad on his behalf
#bg3 spoilers#like please tell me there's SOMETHING in the dialogue leading into act 3 that explains why wyll is so ready and able to forgive his father#like i can conceive of why he would choose forgiveness but it feels so... jarring in this run#like it is clearly within his character to do this but i need to know more#how did you get here?#how long did it take you?#surely there must have been SOME raw feelings about this#like there's no way he's just that well adjusted emotionally#especially not when he was seemingly cast out as an adolescent#i want more!!!!#and my dialogue options are limited! and almost completely unrelated at times!!
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just finished s6 of elementary (finished s5 on sunday. lol) and i’m trying to get my friends to watch it also so unfortunately i can’t drown them in my spoilery rantings so instead everything is going in the tags here so uh. abandon all hope ye who enter these tags, spoilers abound
#im gonna pad these tags a bit actually#so the spoilers go behind a 'read more' or whatever#youre welcome <3#have i mentioned you should watch this show#anyways we're probably safe now su#HOOOOOOOOOLY SHIIIIIIT#that is not at ALL where i expected that to go#gregson was really warming up to me this season. he had never really stood out as a characted before but i think he really shown in s5&6#but man. that finale. honestly idk if i can forgive his character for that. i know he was just trying to protect his daughter but she had to#take responsibility for killing michael because it was not fair for joan to take the fall for that even unintentionally. im definitely gonna#miss him tho. and marcus too. i mean i knew his presence was coming to an end anyways with the marshalls but this finale has really dissolve#d the core cast here. now its jsut sherlock and joan. back in london too; thats quite the move#and in the last season. i guess the total shift is setting and cast didnt do well with ratings? or maybe it was always going to end at 221b#idk. but i think my favorite part of this season was sherlock completely devoting himself to the idea of joan getting a kid#personally idk how i feel about the narrative making her a mother in the end. i could say it has come problematic implications about women's#roles but honestly within the context on the narrative? i dont think thats entirely true. anyways i jsut thought it was super cure how much#sherlock just wanted joan to be happy and fulfilled. 'i would make adjustments for you watson always.' 'we're two people who love each other#they way he develops through her. the way he learns how to love and be loved. the way he becomes kinder and he lets down his walls to laugh#with her and smile with her. the way that they understand each other in ways nobody else ever has. it makes me som emotinal#HE NAMED A BEE AFTER HER#im never going to get over that#anyways 'uncle detective' is maybe the cutest thing ever. he cleaned up his murder dollhouse for a kid she didnt even have yet :)#ok i think im done. for now. its 1am and i have class at 8:30 so uh i guess i'll just die about it but oh well. i was gonna watch one more#and then i realized the one after that one was the season finale so you see how i did what i had to#anyways. good night#:')#will tags this far in even get registered? oh well#elementary#cbs elementary#please someone talk to me about them
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