#her materials are stuff i either already had a whole lot of or are very easy to find/get

[pcktknife]

fully leveling up xinyan despite her having that stupid hard to find bane of my existence flower as her level up material......and then they give it to baizhu as WELL

[justlemmeadoreyou]

rain-kissed* (footballer!harry x

nerd!y/n)

summary: y/n and harry, former rivals turned reluctant partners, find unexpected chemistry. heated glances, playful banter ignite a spark. a near-tragedy makes y/n confront feelings, and...will they be reciprocated? ft. lots of mutual pining

words: 6.1k

warnings: Angst, fluff, mentions of a major injury, cursing, kissing, hints of smut, mutual pining.

Y/N groaned as she walked into the lecture hall for her literature class. "Are you kidding me?"

There in the very front row sat Harry Styles - captain of the football team, president of one of the biggest frats on campus, and certified douchebag extraordinaire. His feet were obnoxiously propped up on the desk in front of him as he laughed loudly with his friends. 

"This class is gonna be a nightmare," Y/N muttered, taking a seat as far away from Harry's circle as possible. She couldn't stand arrogant jocks like him.

Class started and the professor cleared her throat loudly, shooting Harry a pointed look until he dropped his feet to the floor with an eye roll. "Alright, since this is an upper-level lit course, we're going to kick things off with a big group project."

A collective groan went through the class. Group projects were the worst, especially when half the group didn't pull their weight. Harry raised his hand lazily.

"What's the project, Millers?"

The prof narrowed her eyes at Harry's casual address but proceeded. "You'll be analyzing the themes and formatting an anthology of poems, plays, and short stories from a particular era or movement. I'll be assigning the groups and topics."

Y/N mentally prepared herself to get stuck doing all the work as usual for her group when Millers started listing off the pairings. 

"Styles and Y/L/N - you'll be covering the Romantic period."

Y/N's head whipped up in horror as Harry scoffed loudly. Of course they'd get partnered up. This was quite literally her worst nightmare.

"Fucking kill me," Harry grumbled, slumping back in his seat rudely.

"I'd rather work alone," Y/N couldn't stop herself from retorting. Immediately, Millers zeroed in on her with a stern look.

"I don't recall there being a choice, Ms. Y/L/N. Unless either of you plans to drop this course, I suggest you learn to work together effectively."

Gritting her teeth, Y/N forced out a tight, "Yes, Professor."

Harry was already texting rapidly on his phone, not paying any attention. This project was going to be utter hell.

The rest of the semester only proved Y/N right about what a nightmare it would be to work with Harry. Their first meeting to divide up the work went about as well as could be expected - which is to say it was a total disaster.

"Look, I don't have a bunch of time for this bullshit poetry stuff," Harry kicked back in a creaky chair, looking entirely too at home in the empty classroom they'd claimed for their work session. "How about you just do the whole thing and I'll, like, proofread it at the end or whatever?"

Y/N stared at him incredulously. "Absolutely not! This is a hugely weighted project, Styles. I'm not doing all the work myself."

He shrugged impatiently. "Why not? You seem like a big ol' nerd who'd be into this."

Biting back a retort, Y/N forced herself to remain calm and reasonable. If he was going to act like a damn child,she had to be the adult in the relationship–or whatever this was.

 "Forget it. We're going to split everything 50/50 whether you like it or not. I'll take the poetry analysis and you can have the plays. We'll swap sections to proofread before compiling the final thing."

Harry made a face like she'd asked him to perform surgery. "Do I have to? Plays are so boring."

"Don't care," Y/N said flatly. "You're pulling your weight on this one way or another."

With a melodramatic huff, Harry finally agreed and they were able to separate the reading materials and due dates before parting ways, both dreading the long weeks ahead.

Except...after trading several heated email chains and a couple disastrous coffee shop meetups, something shifted. Maybe it was the punctuality that struck after virtually living in the library for a week straight. Maybe it was how they both surprised each other by not being complete idiots about the subject matter. But at some point, the bickering and resentful silences turned to a bearable truce and even - dare Y/N think it - a hint of reluctant respect between them.

Y/N had assumed Harry was just another brainless party bro who skated by on his looks and family money. But to her surprise, he actually had intelligent insights into the Romantic poets and playwrights - even if he still whined about having to read "this dramalogy crap." 

And Harry, who had fully expected Y/N to be an uptight, pretentious book nerd, found himself caught off guard by her whip-smart analysis...and her unexpected sarcastic quips that had him stifling laughs more than once during their study sessions. He called her nerd instead of her usual name, but was now slipping back to using Y/n more often.

"Oh my god, you did not just say that about Lord Byron!" Harry snickered as Y/N made another scalding comment about the poet's arrogant womanizing. 

"What? The man was an infamous manwhore by all accounts," Y/N shrugged unapologetically. "Self-important dickhead thought his brooding and philandering made him a genius."

Harry gasped in mock offense. "How very unromantic of you, love! Have you no poetic soul?"

Without missing a beat, Y/N deadpanned, "I prefer to admire poets who didn't give the clap to half of London."

The startled laugh that burst from Harry's lips was so warm and uninhibited that Y/N felt an unexpected little flip in her stomach at the sight. Whoa, what was that?

Shaking it off, she hid her face behind her book again, tamping down an oddly giddy–sort of feeling. Just because she'd managed to find Harry slightly less insufferable lately didn't mean anything.

And so it went, their bickering gradually becoming more lighthearted and playful rather than biting. The weeks ticked by as they somehow formed an unlikely...friendship? Bros? Sure, they'd go with that for simplicity's sake.

At some point, they started expanding their hangouts beyond just study sessions too. Grabbing food after class turned into actually sitting together, Harry regaling Y/N with stories from his frat's latest shenanigans as she pretended not to be entertained. 

On the rare nights Y/N wasn't holed up writing papers, she started joining Harry and his boys at their favorite dive bar, quickly becoming the calm voice of reason trying in vain to talk them out of their next boneheaded plan.

"Come on, PlainJane! Live a little!" Harry teased, throwing an arm around her shoulders at the bar. 

The rowdy group cackled at Harry's horrible attempt at a literary-themed nickname for Y/N, as per tradition when any new face got absorbed into their friend circle. Personally, Y/N thought it was a lame pun, but she secretly loved how easily she'd slotted into their bizarre fratty family...and maybe especially how Harry always seemed to plaster himself to her side whenever they went out.

The camaraderie and effortless banter flowing between them should've been a huge red flag that something was shifting. But Y/N was quite stubbornly oblivious, as was Harry in his own way.

At least, that was until their big group presentation day rolled around. They'd been prepping and quizzing each other for weeks, reviewing notes and analysis essays till they were cross-eyed. Harry had really stepped up, much to Y/N's surprise, retaining way more than she'd expected about the playwrights and their major works.

The whole lit class was spread out in the lecture hall, with bullet-pointed notecards and thick anthologies ready as the first group took the floor. When it was finally Harry and Y/N's turn, they moved to the front in sync, Harry shooting her a subtle wink as he grabbed the microphone first.

"Buckle up, kids - this is how you do a proper literary presentation," he drawled cockily.

Y/N rolled her eyes on reflex, biting her lip and bumping his hip with hers in playful admonishment. "Shut up and just start already."

Neither of them noticed the amused looks being swapped by their classmates at their easy rapport. Or Millers leaning back with a knowing smirk, clearly recognizing the chemistry flying between her formerly antagonistic partners.

For the next hour, Harry and Y/N launched into their meticulously prepared overview of the key figures and works emerging from the Romantic period. Their back-and-forth was flawless yet casual, almost playful at times with little ad-libs and jokes only they were in on.

At one point, Harry lightly mocked Lord Byron's arrogance with a pompous impression that had Y/N doubled over giggling into the mic, barely choking out the next lines through her laughter. When she managed to catch her breath, she shot him a look that was equal parts fond exasperation and...something more heated.

There was a noticeable spark between them that had clearly evolved far beyond the adversarial classmates they'd started as. And if anyone could miss that subtext, it became blindingly obvious at the end when they seamlessly transitioned into their concluding remarks, standing shoulder to shoulder.

"So in summary, while the Romantics may have been a pretentious bunch of melancholic lads-" Harry began.

"-their pioneering works cemented their place as quintessential figures in literary history," Y/N picked up without missing a beat. 

They shared a grin before finishing in unison, "And that's the tea, no cap."

A surprised burst of laughter rang out from their classmates at their cheeky sign-off, even the prof hiding a smile behind her hand. Everyone could see it - the easy chemistry, the almost electric undercurrent between the former rivals.

Everyone, that is, except Harry and Y/N themselves. 

As they moved to return to their seats amid the applause, neither seemed to register the weighted looks and muffled whispers following them. Harry just ducked his head with an almost bashful smile, still riding the high of how flawlessly they'd worked together. While Y/N felt her cheeks flushing under the weight of what she convinced herself was just residual adrenaline.

In the weeks after their wildly successful presentation, that same strain of electrifying connection only grew stronger between them. You'd never know they'd spent the first half of the semester low-key loathing each other based on their current vibe.

Now, when Harry's frat brothers tried to rib him about his "study buddy" at their typical dive bar hangout, he just threw an arm around Y/N's shoulders and proudly declared, "More like my brain twin!"

Y/N would just duck her head with a bashful grin, pointedly ignoring how her heart did a little somersault at both the affectionate nickname and Harry's easy touch.

Or like when they sprawled out on the quad between classes, passing a bag of chips back and forth as Harry ranted about his coach riding his ass over the big rivalry game next week. Without even thinking about it, Y/N would reach out to squeeze his knee consolingly as he huffed out his frustrations. It was such a simple, natural gesture between them now that she didn't even register the slightly stunned look Harry shot her before clearing his throat gruffly.

Even their friends couldn't resist commenting on their respective obliviousness at this point.

"Bruh, Y/N literally lets you call her 'love' without punching you in the dick," Niall pointed out bluntly one night when Harry claimed, once again, he and Y/N were "just friends." His Irish buddy arched a skeptical eyebrow. "Pretty sure she wants to ride your lancer if you know what I mean."

Harry smacked him hard while trying not to get flustered. "Shut the fuck up, asshole."

While on Y/N's end...

"Sooooo, when are you gonna admit you have a huge crush on Styles?" Her friend Riley asked point blank over brunch, making Y/N nearly choke on her mimosa.

"What? No I don't!" She insisted a little too quickly, refusing to meet Riley's all-knowing gaze. "We're just...really good friends."

Riley hummed disbelievingly. "Right. And I'm the Queen of England."

Y/N opened her mouth to protest further before clamping it shut as her mind started helplessly rehashing all her favourite little moments with Harry over the past few weeks. His warm, anthracite eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed at her jokes. The proud grin he'd get whenever she successfully understood something he'd tried explaining. The way she felt this inexplicable magnetic pull to stay pressed into his side for as long as possible whenever they hung out...

"Oh my god," she breathed out, smile slipping as the enormity of her revelation dawned. "I'm in love with Harry fucking Styles."

That's not to say the smitten epiphany immediately changed anything between the two. Well, maybe it made their lingering hugs and casual touches go on for a few beats too long. Or had them both shyly stealing glances when the other's back was turned.

***

Mostly though, they just continued their cozy, obliviously pining routine of late night FaceTimes and weekends holed up studying together for finals. All while Harry's team prepared for their annual football rivalry game - the biggest matchup of the season that would make or break their championship chances.

The night before the game, Y/N found herself inexplicably anxious as she sat in the stands amid a drunk, raucous crowd. Harry kept shooting cheesy grins and double finger-gunged winks her way whenever he trotted past her section, clearly buzzed on adrenaline.

"Go get 'em, superstar!" She shouted at one point, laughing as Harry blew her an obnoxious kiss before getting back in the huddle.

The energy in the stadium was electric and infectious, Y/N finding herself caught up in the cheers and chants despite not being a huge football fan normally. Something about watching her...Harry out there gave her swirling butterflies low in her belly though.

As the intense game raged on, Y/N was on the edge of her seat, nails digging into her palms whenever Harry took a brutal hit or made a heart-stoppingly risky play. At one point he got absolutely leveled by a linebacker twice his size, his helmet bouncing sickeningly off the turf.The roar of the crowd faded into the background as Y/N watched in horror as Harry's body slammed violently into the turf. She felt her heart stop as he didn't immediately get back up after the brutal hit.

"Harry!" she screamed, her voice drowned out by the gasps of the other spectators. 

The medical team rushed out onto the field as Harry lay unmoving. Y/N's hands shook with fear as she watched them carefully roll him onto a backboard and load him into the ambulance. She felt tears streaking down her cheeks as the ambulance pulled away, sirens blaring.

After what felt like an eternity, she finally received word that Harry was going to be okay. The doctors said he had suffered a severe concussion and possible spinal injury from the whiplash of the hit. He would need weeks of rest and recovery.

Y/N rushed to the hospital, desperate to see him. When she entered his room, her heart broke at the sight of Harry's battered body hooked up to various machines, a cervical collar immobilizing his neck.

"Harry..." she whispered, taking his hand gently in hers. "I'm so sorry."

Harry's eyes fluttered open at the sound of her voice. "Y/N? You're here..."

"Of course I'm here, you idiot," she tried to joke, blinking back more tears. "I was so worried about you."

A small smile tugged at his bruised lips. "I'll be okay, love. Harry is a thick skull, remember?"

Y/N rolled her eyes but couldn't help grinning at his terrible joke. "Don't scare me like that again, Styles. I don't know what I'd do without you."

A look of tenderness crossed Harry's face that made Y/N's breath catch in her throat. But before either could say anything further, the doctor entered to check on Harry's condition.

***

Over the next week, Y/N diligently stayed by Harry's side in the hospital. She helped feed him, kept him company, and supported him through the difficult early recovery stages. Harry quickly grew restless being cooped up, but every time he tried to get out of bed against doctor's orders, Y/N was there to scold him.

"You heard what the doctor said, Harry. You need to rest and let your body heal properly," she chastised him one day as he tried to get up.

Harry groaned in frustration. "But I'm going stir crazy in this damn bed! I feel fine, Y/N, honestly."

"No, you don't," Y/N said firmly. "You could have had a serious spinal injury. You're lucky it wasn't worse. Now lie back down before I get the nurses to strap you in."

Grumbling, Harry reluctantly complied, though he continued to hate being so confined and immobile. Little did Y/N know, he was already hatching a plan.

A few days later, Y/N arrived at the hospital only to find Harry's bed empty. Her heart leapt into her throat as she rushed to the nurses' station in a panic.

"Where is he? Where's Harry Styles?" she demanded.

The nurse gave her an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, he checked himself out against medical advice earlier today."

"What? No, he can't have!" Y/N cried. She knew immediately where he would have gone.

Sure enough, when she ran across campus to the football practice field, she found Harry standing on the sidelines in his gear, acting as if nothing had happened. White hot fury blazed through her veins.

"Harry!" she yelled, storming toward him as the first raindrops began to fall. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Harry turned with a cocky grin as he saw her approach. "There's my favourite nerd. What's got your panties in a twist, love?"

"You insufferable asshole!" Y/N exploded, not caring that they had an audience of his confused teammates. "The doctor said you needed weeks of rest and recovery! You could have permanently injured your spine!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Relax, babe, I feel great. Probably just overreacted with that whole backboard and neck brace nonsense."

"Are you kidding me right now?" Y/N seethed, hands balling into fists at her sides. Rain began pouring down around them, quickly soaking them both, but she didn't care. "You're incredible, you know that? You have zero self-preservation! No regard for your own safety and well-being!"

"That's a bit dramatic, don't you think?" Harry scoffed, though his casual demeanor faltered slightly under her furious glare.

"Dramatic? You could've been paralyzed, Harry! Doesn't that mean anything to you?" Her voice broke with frustrated tears. "Don't you understand how terrified I was watching you lying there, not moving? I thought...I thought I might lose you."

Something flickered across Harry's features then. His cavalier mask slipped for just a moment, allowing a flash of guilt and tenderness to shine through that sent Y/N's heart lurching treacherously. Then it was gone, the wall snapping back into place.

"Well, I'm right as rain now, so you can quit your worrying," he said gruffly, turning his back on her.

That was the final straw for Y/N. She grabbed his arm and whirled him around to face her, not caring that they were getting drenched by the downpour.

"You're so fucking reckless with yourself, Harry! Like you have zero self-preservation or even an ounce of common sense! Do you have any idea how scary that was to see you lying there, not moving? How I thought..." Her voice hitched, throat growing too tight to continue as burning tears pricked the corners of her eyes.

Through the rapidly blurring vision, Y/N registered Harry staring, chest heaving like she'd actually winded him with her outburst. His hands hung frozen at his sides, knuckles going white as he watched her come completely unraveled. And still she wasn't finished.

"You can't just keep putting yourself in danger like that! Pulling stupid fucking stunts and flipping off your own safety like it doesn't matter! Because it does, Harry. It matters so much to...to me," she finished in a thick whisper, finally allowing a tear to escape and streak down her flushed cheek.  

A weighted silence stretched between them, Y/N struggling to regain her ragged breathing as Harry continued gaping at her, utterly shocked by her reaction. Waves of tension rippled through the small space separating them.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity but was probably only seconds, Harry seemed to recalibrate. His expression went utterly blank for a beat before, out of nowhere, his eyes hardened into flashing jade. When he spoke, his tone was laced with a chilling detachment.  

"Why?"

Y/N blinked owlishly. "W-What?"

"Why the fuck do you care so much, huh?" Harry exploded, eyes flashing as he aimed his scathing hostility directly at Y/N. "Last I checked, I'm not your boyfriend or your family. I'm just some dumb jock you study with, right?"

Y/N flinched at the biting sarcasm, feeling tears prick her eyes anew at his harsh dismissal. But Harry was on a roll, fists clenching and unclenching as he visibly wrestled with...what? Anger? Fear? She couldn't tell, but his next words sliced deep regardless.

"So why do you get to flip out and pass judgment every time I take a hit, huh? You think I don't know how to handle myself out on that field?"

"That's not what I-"

"No, clearly you don't think I have any sense of self-preservation or whatever psychobabble bullshit diagnosis you want to armchair next!" Harry barreled over her attempted protest, voice rising in a sharp crescendo. 

He took a menacing step closer, using his full height to loom over her in a move that likely would've been intimidating...if his eyes didn't look so pained and conflicted behind that mask of bitter anger. "Tell me, Y/N - what gives you the right to freak out like that, huh? To look at me with those scared eyes like you have any claim over whether I live or die or-"

"Because I love you, dammit!" The confession exploded from Y/N with the force of a meteor strike.

A stunned silence fell over the field as Harry gaped at her, mouth hanging open in shock. Even the rain seemed to pause in the heavy tension between them.

After several moments where Y/N felt her panic rising, Harry finally found his voice again. "You...you what?"

Y/N took a shuddering breath, bracing herself. She had come too far to back down now.  

"I love you, Harry," she repeated, slower and more sure this time. "I have for a long time, you idiot. But you're always so reckless and careless 'bout your own safety. You take stupid risks and shrug it off like getting hurt is no big deal!"

She stepped closer, feeling tears mingling with the raindrops on her cheeks. "Don't you understand? The thought of you being seriously injured, or worse...it terrifies me. Because I couldn't handle losing you. You mean everything to me."

Harry continued staring at her, eyes blown wide and lips parted as if her confession had utterly short-circuited his brain. Y/N pressed on, needing to finally unleash all the feelings she had kept bottled up for far too long.

"I love your stupid jokes and your kind heart. I love how passionate you are about football, even if it drives me mental sometimes. I love the way you always smell like sandalwood and make me feel so safe when I'm with you. I'm in love with every obnoxious, laddish, reckless part of you and I can't keep ignoring it anymore."

She let out a wet chuckle, wiping futilely at her drenched face, her hands still shaking. "So yeah, that's why I care, you absolute wanker. That's why seeing you get hurt destroys me every single time, because the thought of being in a world without Harry Styles in it is just too much for me to bear!"

The words hung heavy in the rain-soaked air between them. Y/N watched Harry open and close his mouth a few times, clearly struggling to find a response. For once, his swagger and cockiness had completely deserted him as her feelings poured over him in an unstoppable tide.

Just when the silence was becoming too much for Y/N to bear, Harry finally seemed to find his voice again.

"You...you love me?" he rasped out, the disbelief and wonder evident in his tone. "Like, you're in love with me?"

Y/N felt her cheeks flush hot despite the cold rain. She gave a small nod, unable to meet his intense gaze. Her heart was thundering so loudly in her ears, she barely registered the shouts and hoots coming from Harry's teammates who had witnessed the whole emotional outburst.

"Shut it, you wankers!" Harry barked over his shoulder, never taking his eyes off Y/N.

In two long strides, he closed the distance between them until they were mere inches apart. Y/N's breath caught in her throat as Harry reached up with one hand to gently cup her jaw, tilting her face up toward his.

"Y/N..." he murmured, emerald eyes searching hers intently. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

She let out a shaky laugh, leaning into his touch despite herself. "And ruin our friendship if you didn't feel the same way? I couldn't risk that, Harry. You mean too much to me."

Something blazing and tender flickered across Harry's face at her confession. Slowly, giving her every chance to pull away, he leaned in until their foreheads were resting together. Y/N shivered at the intimate proximity, at the way his familiar woodsy scent surrounded her completely.

"You daft woman," he murmured, the words fanning warmly across her lips and making her shiver for an entirely different reason. "Don't you know there's nothing I want more than for you to be my girlfriend? To be able to love you the way you deserve?"

Y/N's eyes fluttered closed at that, her heart feeling fit to burst from her chest. She had spent so long forcing herself not to hope, not to read into the heated glances and lingering touches she shared with Harry. Could he truly feel the same earth-shattering connection she did?

Her eyes blinked open again at the feeling of Harry's calloused thumb brushing reverently across her rain-soaked cheek. He was staring at her with such naked adoration and longing that it stole the breath from her lungs.

"I'm so bloody gone for you, Y/N," he confessed roughly. "Have been for ages now, if I'm being honest. Thought maybe I was imagining things between us or reading too much into it since I couldn't fathom someone as incredible as you wanting a mug like me."

Y/N opened her mouth to protest, to reassure him that she wanted every infuriatingly charming part of him, but Harry pressed on before she could get the words out.

"Then today, hearing how scared you were when I got laid out...how you thought you could lose me?" He shook his head slowly, curls dripping rivulets of rainwater down the sharp planes of his face and throat. "Don't know how I didn't see it before, love. The way you care about me, put up with all my shite...it's because you love me. Isn't it?"

It wasn't really a question, more like Harry was testing the words out for the first time and savoring the way they sounded. A thrill went through Y/N at getting to be the one to put that Look of rare, hushed awe on his handsome face for once.

"Yes, Harry," she answered anyway, both hands coming up to cradle his beloved face. "I'm desperately in love with you. The good, the bad, the reckless...all of it."

A crinkly-eyed grin stretched across Harry's lips then, brighter and more vibrant than Y/N had ever seen before. He wasted no more time closing that minuscule distance between them, capturing her mouth in a searing, all-consuming kiss.

Y/N gasped against his lips as the dam finally broke, months of too-long denied want and need bubbling over in heated waves. Harry's hands slid into her soaked hair, angling her head to deepen the embrace as he licked hungrily into her mouth. Y/N clung to him just as fiercely, fingernails scraping against his scalp and shoulders as if trying to physically pull him closer.

They were both panting harshly by the time they wrenched apart, sharing the same air in the infinitesimal space between their swollen mouths. Y/N felt drugged by the glazed, predatory darkness swimming in Harry's blown pupils,by the intimate glide of their rain-drenched bodies.

"Fucking finally," he growled against her lips before diving back in, one large hand splaying possessively across the small of her back.

Y/N hummed in ardent agreement, getting lost in his dizzying taste and scent and touch once more.  It felt like a cosmic star had been reborn between them, the force of their crashing inevitability obliterating all the hurt and confusion from before.

Neither was sure how long they stayed like that, trading desperate, drugging kisses amongst the pouring rain. But eventually, Harry pulled away just enough to nose his way along Y/N's jaw, lips dragging hotly up to her ear.

"Let's get out of this downpour, hmm?" he husked, teeth grazing her shell and making her shudder. "Got some making up to do for being such a blind tosser."

Y/N pulled back just enough to catch the incandescent fire blazing in his darkened gaze. Her breath hitched at the onceiled promise flickering there, at the tips of his wicked fingers already slipping beneath the drenched hem of her top.

It seemed she wasn't the only one who had been harboring some pent-up longing and hunger.

Still, there was one loose end she couldn't resist tugging before allowing Harry to whisk them away...  "Does this mean you're finally going to start taking better care of yourself?" she asked archly, arching one pointed brow. "No more stupid, reckless stunts for my idiotically brave footballer?"

Harry audibly groaned, dropping his forehead dramatically against her clavicle as his hands flexed with bruising force against her hips.

"Whatever you want, love," he conceded gruffly. "No more injuries or shite, I swear it. Now can we please get the fuck out of here before I embarrass myself further by ravishing you in the mud right in front of my teammates?"

Y/N gave a squeak of surprise as Harry abruptly ducked to gather her up in his arms, hitching her legs around his waist in one fluid movement. He sealed his wicked promise with another lingering, molten kiss that left her head spinning.

"Now, where were we..." he growled darkly before striding determinedly off the field, Y/N clinging just as fiercely in his embrace.

The teammates' raucous catcalls and laughter faded into the rainy background as Y/N tucked her face into the curve of Harry's neck, savoring his familiar sandalwood and smoke and the feeling of being wrapped in his arms at last.

She was never letting him go again. Not if she had any say in it.

♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡

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[rustedleopard]

(gaymeatcore) how aware do you think other characters were of Chujins treatment of his family? like ceroba sort of covers it up but do you think Starlo for example could tell him hiding so much was bothering her? That she felt a bit unloved? I think if he did he'd be so hyped for her if they divorced like he doesn't even mind if he's not the one who gets to be her new partner so long as she gets someone who loves her like she deserves. I just want to see her get what she deserved why would he do all that why did he not trust and adore her....Her unhealthy devotion is just so sad because she gets barely anything in return. like sure he gives her some stuff (most of it material) but he can't even tell her he loves her on his deathbed....

You may not like my answer, but I'd say that others aren't very aware of how Chujin treats his family.

The thing is, not even Ceroba is aware of how taken advantage of she is. She still follows through with Chujin's plan despite how much she personally doesn't want to go through with it/the amount of stress it's added onto her life. She still sees him as flawless and perfect despite all the evidence otherwise. She was wholly content with the life that she made for herself; she CHOSE to become a housewife and the breadwinner of the family so Chujin can keep doing the things that he wanted to. So it's really hard to tell how bad the familial situation is if the person/people most affected by it aren't even aware of how bad it is. Blind admiration and devotion is one hell of a drug.

The closest I can see Ceroba comes to realizing how bad her situation is (in a canon-conforming way) is her coming home from a very bad shift at Cafe Dune; it's one of those days where your feet hurt and you're in a bad mood and once you lay down, you know you won't want to get back up again, and as she's changing out her work clothes she thinks to herself "I miss when Chujin was working at the Steamworks and I didn't have to do all this." But then Kanako asks what's for dinner or Chujin comes home or something happens and she has to pull herself together because her family needs her and Chujin is doing good things for the Underground, she shouldn't complain. She's strong, she's independent, she's mature, she's capable, she's an adult. She can handle it! So if Ceroba isn't all that aware, I can't see others being aware either.

Plus, the Ketsukanes are already pretty private people: their estate is locked behind an ornate gate, Chujin has his whole "hiding my basement study/SOUL experiments/Axis/the reason why I got fired from the Steamworks from my wife" thing going on, nobody else knows about Kanako's Falling Down besides Starlo and the Feisty Four (though I imagine what happened was that Ceroba told Starlo and Starlo told the Feisty Four instead of her telling all of them at once, and even then none of them knew the specifics), nobody knew about the plans that Ceroba had for Clover until the Five were cleaning out her house. And I can go on. The Ketsukanes have a good reputation among the Dunes residents, you can most directly see that with the rock-monster in Oasis Valley that stands next to the oasis after Clover explores their estate. They call the Ketsukanes something along the lines of "Good folks." So I can't see others being all that aware of the dynamic that's happening behind closed doors.

But let's hone in on a few key characters:

Martlet never even saw Chujin's house, so she wouldn't know much about what's going on in her mentor's domestic life. She calls Ceroba an acquaintance, which means they've likely only really met each other a handful of times. Martlet really admires/looks up to Chujin and sees him as a guiding figure in her life and that image only sours when she sees the tapes. If she knew what his home life was like and all the specifics, that would've changed her perspective on him a lot sooner.

Dina doesn't even know that Kanako fell down, so she wouldn't know anything too personal about Ceroba's life. Chujin also only came by Dina's Saloon once, and that was when he came to drink because he "saw a ghost" so she doesn't know him all that well either.

As I stated earlier with the Feisty Four, I feel like the only reason why they knew that Kanako fell down was because Starlo broke the news to them. They are entitled to know why Ceroba is bunking with them for weeks on end all of a sudden but I can't see Ceroba telling them because she isn't part of the posse. Starlo also probably roped them into helping cheer her up by going along with more of his antics (to a limit, of course).

And Starlo. I don't see Starlo knowing what exactly is happening. He's not going to go snooping around into her life and her circumstances for a myriad of reasons: He is busy running the Wild East. Ceroba seems content with her life so why go looking into her business if everything looks fine on the surface? Whether he got over his feelings or not, it's still weird to look into his (former?) crush's love life. He's the sort to need things spelled out more directly in order to understand what's going on. And I don't think he understands how deeply and unhealthily her devotion to Chujin runs. Sure, he might find it a bit odd that Ceroba is working and taking care of the house and Kanako, but he also knows Ceroba wouldn't take shit from other people. So if she's not complaining about her circumstances then this must be something that she and Chujin worked out together. It's not his business. The least he can do for her is let her unwind whenever she swings by the Wild East and entertain Kanako so she can get a break from what he would probably see as the usual stresses of motherhood (this likely helped Ceroba far more than she realizes). Also, Starlo does have some respect for Chujin despite not liking him as a person. In post-Pacifist, when Ceroba comes out with what happened and what Chujin put her up to, I can see Starlo admonishing himself for not realizing how bad their relationship was sooner and would lose that respect for Chujin (even if Ceroba is still at a point where she sees Chujin as perfect). Hindsight is 20/20 after all.

Now, if Ceroba started to realize how much her life sucks and the cracks showed earlier, of course he'd pull her aside and try to sort out what's going on and see if he can help. He'd support her in any path that she chooses for herself, whether it be couple's counseling (massive doubt) or divorce (yeah, that's what would happen). Starlo isn't a petty person and respects Ceroba so when that divorce inevitably happens, he might be like "You lost your chance with a wonderful person" to Chujin, not "Ha, you lost your wife!!! Lmao, I win!!!" Even if Ceroba chooses to get into a relationship with someone else or doesn't choose anyone at all, what matters most to Starlo is that she's happy.

It's fortunate for Cerojin that Chujin died when he did because if he were still alive, at some point the fuse on the powder keg that was their relationship would've reached its end, and when that happened their relationship would've blown up with the messiest fallout. To everybody else (except those in the know), it would've looked like the lovely and happy couple of Oasis Valley spontaneously fell apart in a matter of days/weeks.

[koheletgirl]

would you have the time/energy/interest to post a review of the wicked movie? i would be very interested to hear your thoughts! i wasn't thinking i wanted to see it but a lot of people are gushing about it now. . .so im open to being persuaded

yes absolutely!!!

this got long. take a shot every time i say musical

ok the first thing you need to know is i hate movie adaptations of musicals as a concept. i think a piece of media is created within a medium for a reason, and there have been so few occasions where adapting it into a different medium has not only been a good idea but also had some sort of value to add to the art itself. and with musicals it's more evident to me than with anything else, because to me an essential part of any musical is some fucking whimsy. musicals are at least somewhat camp, by virtue of being musicals. and with stuff like the les mis musical—which is very serious in every way except the fact that it is a musical—you can't really adapt it into a movie without either making it seem ridiculous or stripping it off of it's fucking whimsy. aaaand movie directors simply don't seem to get that musicals are the way they are because they're *supposed* to be that way, so the result is usually a movie that feels like it's ashamed of being a musical. the les mis musical is a musical because it *wants* to he a musical, otherwise it would have been something else. and tom hooper my bestie tom hooper. you could have just made a movie adaptation of the book.

ANYWAY. bringing us back to wicked, i think it's so rare to see a movie adaptation of a musical that doesn't seem to want to distract you from the fact that it's a musical. that doesn't seem like it's ashamed of it. that *loves* being a musical.

(in the heights is a good example, but they for some reason felt the need to change the entire plot. chicago is another good one imo)

wicked is THAT. it feels like it was created by people who genuinely love musical theater, and who genuinely love wicked. (and the wizard of oz, and cinema as a medium, and music as a medium). wicked has a heart. almost no movies have hearts nowadays. it leans into being a musical, it leans into being a movie musical, it leans into being an adaptation, and has so much love and respect for every piece of art it builds on. it changes almost nothing about the musical, because it knows that's not its place; it exists to bring this piece that already exists into a new medium, and to examine what that new medium can add to it in a meaningful way.

which is why, as far as i could tell, what makes the movie so much longer than the play is simply the introduction of cinema into the existing material. close ups, interesting angles, establishing shots—things you can do because you're making a movie, rather than meaningless attempts to add material to an already existing narrative. the only new song the film introduces is an addition they wrote into an existing song, and it's not there under the pretense of "adding" anything—it's there as a nod to the original play and a fun moment for the audience.

the acting is good. the singing is mostly good, and i can forgive michelle yeoh because she's a goddess. people say the casting was perfect, and i agree to an extent, but where i think this movie truly excels is the directing. ariana was great, but what made her so great imo is how *glinda* she was, and i think that credit goes to the director. she has clearly done her research on this character, but so has jon m. chu and that is *noticeable*. cynthia erivo is perfection i have nothing to say.

to put it simply, jon m. chu put his whole pussy into wicked. he understood the assignment, and he executed it nearly perfectly. and i do have more to say but i don't want this to get too long and spoilery so i'll leave it at that.

wicked is good because it feels like everyone who made it loves musical theater, and more importantly, they love wicked. go see it

[cy-cyborg-draws]

It's been a very long time since I gave Kiesse some proper love!

I've been hyperfixating on the setting she's from and her story lately, so I wanted to redo her design since I'd been unhappy with for a while.

One of the biggest issues I had with it, was the prosthetics she used. I think I actually had an anonymous ask on my main account about how to make wing prosthetics work, so consider this an answer to that, if you're still out there anon lol.

In the past, I had hand-waved how her prosthetics worked because there are no functional wing prosthetics irl to reference. The previous solution was basically "magic robot wings" - which folks from my main page might recognise, is an example of the "perfect magic prosthetic" trope, a trope that I, as an amputee myself, absolutely hate lol, but I just couldn't think of another way to do it without giving her wing-elbows back. It didn't really fit the technology level of the setting either, so I got to work trying to think of something better.

I ended up digging up my old animation stuff from university, modelling a very basic dragon and spent a few days animating a flight cycle (and watching a bunch of slow-mo footage of birds and bats) to see what would be needed for the full range of motion in a wing-flap, and what could feasibly be altered, as a mechanical wing prosthetic will require some alteration to the way the whole wing moves, especially since the only natural joint Kiesse has on her wings is the shoulder.

The system I came up is a wing using a pretty simple pulley system anchored to her sides. There is a wire (which is mostly hidden) pulling the wing's elbow closed by default when the wing is back, but when the shoulder is rotated forward (which it would need to be during the majority of the wing-beat) a different set of wires an pulleys pull the elbow and hand/finger open again. This allows a pretty decent (if a bit awkward) range of motion for a wing-beat, and allows the wings to fold when she's not actively flying (though the tension line attached to her side can be unhooked to prevent accidental wings-to-the-face if she was to move around a lot on the ground).

I also wanted to make the prosthetics so that Kiesse could put them on herself. With this design, the harness would be placed on her back first and done up around her stomach using her front claws or tail with some kind of reinforced zipper. Next would be the sockets, which could be slid on with the assistance of some kind of frame to hold the wing when she's not wearing it (these are not common but do already exist for prosthetic legs to help elderly people/people with other mobility problems get them on). The membane can then be pulled into a track with a locking mechanism on the harness using her tail with the loops, and finally the tension wire can be pulled down and hooked onto the harness, most likely using her tail (the hook is, admittedly, not a great design since it wouldn't be very secure, but Kiesse would lack the dexterity for much else, so I'm still figuring that part out as of right now).

As much as Kiesse herself would hate it, I also had to dim the colours of the prosthetic, since the materials they have access to wouldn't allow for the bright colours I was using before. I feel like Kiesse will probably end up painting something on it instead during her story though lol.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my little nerd-out lol. This took me a lot of attempts to get something that could *potentially* work without a heavy reliance on magic/tech, and I feel like a lot of the issues I couldn't solve are pretty reflective of actual mechanical prosthetics, which I have used in the past (being convoluted to get on, requiring weird alterations to how the limb naturally works to get a functional result, being a bit finicky to actually use) so I'm pretty content with it for now!

[horizon-verizon]

I think people don’t realise what a nightmare Fire & Blood is to adapt compared to ASOIAF. Often, characters are named and placed in situations in order to flesh out the family trees and marriage alliances, and then many of them are left waiting around during all of the actual interesting stuff. This can’t happen in a TV show, and frankly this is (unfortunately perhaps?) the most logical thing to do with Rhaena.

Fans understandably want everything in the source material to be faithfully adapted but visual mediums are not the same as literary works. Storylines have to be consolidated and streamlined to save costs for ensemble casts and to provide faster-paced storylines that don’t bore audiences, unlike books which can take their time with a story and gradually develop their characters over hundreds of pages.

Characters like Nettles and Rhaena simply don’t work in visual medium, because both characters would just not have enough to do that would warrant investment by the audience. Combining elements of both into one character, if done right, can strengthen the overall character and subsequent story.

Besides, the jealous lover trope for Rhaenyra in the book being the source of her and Daemon’s fallout is uninspiring. Daemon being forced to choose between Rhaena and Rhaenyra is a far more compelling angle, and would provide a stronger perspective on Daemon as a whole, especially with how lacking of a father he was in S1.

Anon responds to several recent posts about the likely merging of Nettles and Rhaena of Pentos's storylines that starts HERE or HERE.

I understand that HotD might be very entertaining to some people...but implying that the writers couldn't have done better bc F&B is supposedly incoherent (when it's far from so) AND thus it is as good as any adaptation could get--thereby seemingly to admit that it's not great and then seemingly simultaneously saying that it is actually pretty good...

is not the vibe.

In all, a lot of the issues you bring up are ordinary issues with adaptations (and seem to make as excuse for these writers who point blank already said/showed they were intent on creating a totally different story with Rhaenicent replacing the original storyline) but the mess of storylines we get in HotD can't be excused by this idea of how "difficult" it is to adapt what does have pretty clear characters, events, etc. Also, good planning and foresight and integrity couldn't hurt.

A)

unlike books which can take their time with a story and gradually develop their characters over hundreds of pages.

vs

I think people don’t realise what a nightmare Fire & Blood is to adapt compared to ASOIAF. Often, characters are named and placed in situations in order to flesh out the family trees and marriage alliances, and then many of them are left waiting around during all of the actual interesting stuff.

A contradiction. So F&B is very detailed and a rich text with solid characterizations and definite events now?

B)

Characters like Nettles and Rhaena simply don’t work in visual medium, because both characters would just not have enough to do that would warrant investment by the audience. Combining elements of both into one character, if done right, can strengthen the overall character and subsequent story.

...So Gwayne Hightower, who was given a lot more material than he ever actually had...that made sense to you? Hugh the Hammer becoming a family man when he already had the Caltrops deal with Ulf the White? You can't show an increasing amount of frustration from Ulf and Hugh without trying to make us sympathize with either of them and make either underdogs? We can't follow Nettles as a young street "urchin"? We can't do the same for two separate girls, make up stories and backgrounds?! HUH?! We can't have flashbacks to Marilda of Hull and the Hull boys? No?

We did it for those irrelevant nutjobs, but not for Rhaena or Nettles? Anon, please. Address the misgynoir or at least this major discrepancy.

Besides, the jealous lover trope for Rhaenyra in the book being the source of her and Daemon’s fallout is uninspiring. Daemon being forced to choose between Rhaena and Rhaenyra is a far more compelling angle, and would provide a stronger perspective on Daemon as a whole, especially with how lacking of a father he was in S1.

You assumed two things: that Rhaenyra believed Daemon x Nettles was real AND that I believe they happened romantically. The first one, that's more than understandable since that is the prevailing impression the fandom has had for years and a lot of people don't really like F&B for how differently it's written from ASoIaF (I think it would have been improved just with some female voices put to paper, like Daemon and Otto in Rogue Prince and some of F&B...esp Rhaenyra or her ladies and a few history-loving septas).

I even am rethinking the whole "Rhaenyra thought Nettles seduced Daemon with magic and stole him from her" bc....SEPTON EUSTACE SAYS THIS HAPPENED THIS WAY, after he already describes Mysaria a "witch" who manipulates Rhaenyra as if casting a spell. The guy who speculated that she and Daemon were sleeping together as Rhaenyra gorged herself while a war was going on. Like the true religious sexist that he is.

Aside from that, I still think that Nettles being revealed as being Daemon's bio daughter is FAR more compelling AND sensical than Rhaenyra willing to kill her husband's daughter who she partially raised...or was supposed to and not treat as if she serves her like some servant....which, again, is very misogynoirist. For some reason, people keep ignoring this particular point I'm making...

Anyway, once again, like I said HERE about Rhaena at the Vale, you could have her flourish in diplomacy and meeting certain characters who will be important later in the overall storyline...plus imagine what we could have had as how Rhaena manages to finally hatch Morning?! The process and tension--from the suggestion of those different "experiments" she tries that are all different from what she did when she was just a child--that's built up to that by some specific egg-interaction scenes...some epiphany she could have had...something to tie her into actual magic! And this is just one way you could have written Rhaena at the Vale!

I don't think you guys understand what you've lost.

C)

A lot of the weird shit that happens on the show!blacks' side in terms of why Daemon kills at Harrenhal when he canonically doesn't and why it's made out to be as if he's paid for a bad prize in winning the castle is because they have Rhaenyra acting like there isn't a war already happening whether she likes it or not (their argument back in e2). If they hadn't made the woman who was canonically "tempermental" and just as willing to assert her rights as some people Robb Stark or Stannis Baratheon were more a reality-denying doormat as she was who only fights bc he dad said stuff abt the ASoIaF prophecy instead of having any ambition for herself (in the attempt to make her more "moral" or whatever)...we wouldn't have had the mess of a storyline we got now.

Daemon's magic plotline, I'm not that angry about. More how he got there and the taking reframed as him trying to prove a point to his wife after a nonsensical argument and not being very successful in getting allies for her. And him doing so without thinking of how his leaving the way he does could impact Rhaenyra's hold even further, and for real this time (no, B&C would and canonically does nothing to dissuade anyone from supporting Rhaenyra). Rather than him "requesting" or being sent to Harrenhal, an argument there or not but likely after an actually sensical argument.

A point that he instantly invalidates by again going off without first establishing plans they are both aware of. This is war, not sitcom TV suburbia where the father leaves the house for a bit and there's low stakes for that to make sense. A much different sort of war from the Stepstones as well. All their lives are on the line, not just soldiers...which they didn't have (or as much) at the moment. And Dameon (book-wise) was not that petty as to cross into dum-dum territory.

D) Other Stuff

"compared"....not "impossible", and the way they have for several characters were very unnecessary, so...I can't agree with this sentiment that these characters are so, so difficult to have adapted as they are, esp since if you read well, you find a lot of evidence that shows who some important characters are and a few of their critical motivations. Now if you didn't don't want to do that, all the power to you. Doesn't mean that it was impossible or valueless to do so in the first place, since that is what we were supposed to do with this FICTIONAL historical document.

Often, characters are named and placed in situations in order to flesh out the family trees and marriage alliances, and then many of them are left waiting around during all of the actual interesting stuff. This can’t happen in a TV show, and frankly this is (unfortunately perhaps?) the most logical thing to do with Rhaena.

...funny you say that, since there was a lot that could have been done for Jacaerys' diplomacy arc to the Vale, then to the Manderlys, then to Cregan Stark where he stays and becomes great friends. I don't think you realize how much we lost here. Jeyne Arryn's words to Jace abt women sticking close and the reveal of her female lover; Wyman Manderly and the court that they didn't show in GoT, here is where they could have showcased the Merman's court; flashbacks to Cregan's times of getting his regent greedy uncle out so he can reclaim his own seat as his father intended as well as showing us their Jacegan(?) bromance's development. Like, this is at least 3 episodes alone!

You act like specific words, events, and actions are not told or narrated and done so with good enough detail (and reliably) in F&B for us to understand the and glean truth from fiction. As if the entire project is a haphazard collection of just names...when those marriage alliances (one of Joffrey to Desmond Manderly's youngest daughter) was made fully within the larger, variously-detailed and overlapping-storied context of the current Dance/war.

Jacaerys was not "waiting around". He went to the North to get alliances for his mother and in one of them, he meets with a Manderly and that is how he gets Manderly's promise--Joffrey's betrothal to his daughter. This is not even the most well known accomplishment Jace had in his particular mission, he'd go on to meet with two other, more famed, leaders with pretty badass moments DETAILED in the book that even could have been depicted/expanded more live.

These writers simply didn't think his diplomacy arc was important enough to expound and show in their time crunch...meanwhile, we got one-liner Gwayne Hightower speaking nonsense to Criston Cole, Alicole sex scenes, Alicent bathing as if she wants to ice her entire head to block out the world up the wazoo. And NONE of the Daemyra-Dragonstone family scenes that the time jump of last season's epi 8 came from. We're told, canonically, more about this unit than we are about Gwayne, yet here we are.

Perhaps I'm just assuming, but like I said in this post, it appears that people think the Dance portion of F&B was just the Dance...no, it started with "Heirs of the Dragon, who were Jaehaerys' children/grandkids towards the GC of 101. Which means that with as much context and history F&B actually gets into a lot of detail for a historical document, these writers had a lot of material for bringing Princess Rhaenys properly to life, for example. Even if you don't include how she wanted to go fight the Myrmen with her father Aemon while pregnant, this fact from the book should be enough to let you know what sort of person she was. Which is supplemented by her plans for how to defeat the greens in the first black council. Also, how we hear her response to Jaehaerys choosing Baelon and the lords choosing Viserys over her and her kids. And we have her protest angrily and freely how Jaehaerys was taking away her and her kid's birthrights...That's at least 3 incidents showing the true, real and solid "Rhaenys" of the orig story. It is consistent.

There was so much from Jace, Daemon, Rhaenyra-Mysaria they could have done (note how I keep talking about the blacks...bc the green characters actually have some notable plot action going on from their characterizations aside from the Alicole nonsense...not Helaena, though, but she was always meant to further Alicent and be an accessory, not her own person to these writers, so....)

Apart from that, F&B has Gyldayn castigate Rhaenyra from going to war herself...while Aegon was burnt into useless pork at Rook's Rest. You can have Rhaneyra do shit without going to war at Dragonstone with Daemon and Mysaria planning shit out as a sort of "good" change from the canon. You could even try to argue that since...

Gyldayn was looking to rebuke Rhaenyra for being a woman and going to war at all for nay inheritance like a man and thus paoint her as incompetent, that she didn't actually fall into a graceless heap and have the men around her do everything in her mental absence...

that she/Emma was simply sequestered to collect herself and work behind smaller spaces while calling this and that person to her to make plans, etc. Instead, we have her impersonate a septa and go on endangering herself thinking Alicent of all people not only would but could do anything with or without her to prevent a war that's already happening...This is called working with the original to make something "new".

...............................................................................

I've seen too many logical inconsistencies or places where they could have improved some's scenes if they had just....though ahead or read F&B more than twice in total good faith.

Deliberate giving black-specific stuff to the greens as well, which they also didn't have to do but did...willingly and BEFORE S2.

The writers, I mean. This book may have been created like a historical book...doesn't mean that we nor actual historians manage to find truths in said documents...otherwise we wouldn't know anything of certain events and wittle some more ambiguous events down to a few LIKELIEST possibilities. And we still have made pretty great movies from ambiguously told historical-legendary events (Vikings, hello?!)

I don't see this as a proper excuse.

[pileofsith]

Hello there (no pun intended),

I do not have any questions regarding the Grand Inquisitor/Nameless comic per se (which reminds me of the fact that I still need to leave a comment on Ao3), but I just wanted to say that you rewired my brain with the page on which Tion Medon talks about a young Grand Inquisitor being taken in by the Jedi without him knowing that the guy in front of him is actually the person in question (and the Grand Inquisitor looking kinda like a kicked puppy). I'm especially obsessed with the line "Very polite child, very sweet, but so very timid." due to the sharp contrast to who and what the Grand Inquisitor has become. 

On another note: I also love that one piece of yours that depicts the Grand Inquisitor scrambling on the floor, all bloodied up, after Darth Vader backhanded him as punishment for his failure on Lothal, because it just makes so much sense, especially after reading Charles Soule's Darth Vader series (2017). The way the Inquisitors are depicted as both abuser and abused in it is really fascinating, which makes me wonder whether Vader ever maimed the Grand Inquisitor like he did with the other Inquisitors. Do you have any thoughts on that? Also sorry if I'm assuming too much! You referenced the Grand Inquisitor's strained relationship with Jocasta Nu very early into the Grand Inquisitor/Nameless comic and since it was a bigger plot point in the Darth Vader series (2017), it felt like a natural conclusion. I'm currently trying to finish a little character study on the Grand Inquisitor, which is mainly based on that source, and your comic was a very big inspiration for me to even try writing down the first draft.

Either way, have a nice rest of the day! Can't wait to see more from you!

Hello! Huge thanks for your awesome ask and your kind words, made my day! Thank you for reading the comic!

And please do share what you'll create for your character study, I'd love to read it! :)

So: I have only read a few snippets from the comic series, but have definitely used them as a basis to expand on the Inquisitor's character - I'd love to read the whole thing, however, I don't know where to find it!

"The way the Inquisitors are depicted as both abuser and abused is really fascinating" <- This is 100% my opinion, too! I have a lot of thoughts about them that I have a hard time putting into words, but this really sums it up, thank you!

For my comic, I admit I am definitely woobifying him a bit, but I can't really help that when I write stuff about villains, I just tend to make everything three shades nicer than in the source material. :-/

But I do try to keep his main personality intact, I just glaze it over with a more sympathetic view than I expect a canon explanation could offer.

This is the pic you referred to, if anyone's wondering (it's super old but still checks out, lol):

I do not think Vader ever maimed him like the others, but I think he would have opportunities to casually injure or torture him, if he ever feels like it the Grand Inquisitor goes out of line. Having said that, I do think the Pau'an seems to be perpetually aware of the risks in working with Vader, as he does carefully defy some of Vader's decisions with a verbal objection, but he never tries to contradict him further if his input is dismissed.

My pet theory is that neither Reva nor the Grand Inquisitor were ever maimed as a lesson in loss because they had both already survived loss events that filled them with enough rage: for Reva, it's the massacre of her Temple friends. For the Grand Inquisitor, it's the end (betrayal?) of the Jedi Temple Guards he was dedicated to.

I also find it interesting how Vader reframes his own greatest "weakness" in Jedi terms - dealing healthily with loss - into a template for how to teach others how to turn into darksiders.

I generally think Vader treats imperial inquisitors similar to imperial officers - useful if competent, but ultimately expendable, and free to use as a squeaky toy to vent frustrations. For the Grand Inquisitor, since the Pau'an is really arrogant and thinks so highly of his own intellect, the most efficient way to put him in his place would be for Vader to flaunt his own Sith powers against the Pau'an's humble dependence on him, to deny him some knowledge or to humiliate/humble him in some way...

About "Very polite child, very sweet, but so very timid":

When Jocasta and the Grand Inquisitor fight in that comic, he says something along the lines of how he never felt he belonged among the Jedi. I thought that was a really good starting point to imagine his life decisions. What brought him from being wholly dedicated to protecting Jedi, to becoming a hunter of the very group he vowed to protect? It's such a contrast! There has to be some nice, meaty psychology there to dig into and explore.

I imagined him as a subconsciously lonely sort of child, being from a much longer-lived species than anyone else (and in an Order that values detachment, perhaps one would diagnose that as a problem), so that when he grew into a detached, bookish individual, he sought to gain belonging in the Temple Guard as a permanent fixture around which to base his whole life. But then the Jedi Order starts shaking at its foundations, and he wants to escape, but his particular ~*°special-secret-Force-magic°*~ vows to the Temple do not make it possible to just walk away like Ahsoka or Dooku did. And that leads to inner tensions and a pull to the Dark Side, eventually.

[raindropren]

I have not posted for awhile(The way I look at tumblr means I have to sign in everytime and I couldn't find my password for abit, oops) but here's a couple of C!Pearlo headcanons I've either made, in the last week, or not in the last week... at all.

DemiRomantic!! Might be slight projection but with the way I've set up the world and timeline, her being demiromantic is in my mind a surprising amount.

She and Sausage meet for eachothers birthdays! Sometimes Gem comes but normally it's just them :3

Speaking of those two, My personal headcanon is that they met when they were like, preteens? before highschool and such. and before they had really met anyone else in canon.

My Pearl has her being born in the Worlds Australia but living most of her childhood in England, then going back to live in Australia in Highschool! Her family would visit Australia alot even when they lived in England. (my mcyt au's Earth is very complicated cause I couldn't have pearl just, not be Australian, it's brought up alot, I can't ignore it, but that'd mean Earth and it's continents exists so, IT'S BECOME MORE COMPLEX THEN I WANTED OKAY. LOL)

Empires is a exchange program first. the whole thing is like, kinda an investment? for the future??? but the Kingdoms are still certain empires members birthright, so some were stolen from them and the program was the only way to get it back(Gem, Fwhip, Scott), and some were just happenstance(Shubble, Joey, Lizzie, Sausage), and some were random,(Jimmy, Katherine, Pixl) but Glided Helianthia was already a "Fight to be ruler" type of kingdom. So Pearl's highschool experience was ALOT of fighting and learning/training to fight(Along with normal highschool stuff of course) and she had farming courses and stuff, but the fighting bit is what drew her into going. THEY HAD DORMS AND HER AND SHUBBLE WERE DORMMATES And everything I have about it was inspired by EmpiresSMP Highschool au chatfics :') None of it is canon but it helps me with thinking about characters in a "They actually were kids at some point" way instead of only thinking about them as the characters they are now! Helps with the timeline too.

Did any of the last one make sense. no. not at all, shhh.

Keeps Journals, Alot of them, She has a Journal for each server and many of them are not fully filled out because despite having the Journals, She hardly writes in them enough to fill them out. She's scared of running out of pages and having to get a new one, only to have her time on the server end and be left with a mostly blank book she will never write in again. obviously the Life Games(Series) don't have her writing a journal WHILE it happens, but She does after it. other then double life, she did not even think about writing that one down. Reliving those memories, for a journal. no.

Doodles on scrap paper, I think she likes drawings bugs and fish :]

Has a big cardboard box that has every piece of bought or homemade jewelry anyones given her, mostly her friends but also a (un)surprising amount of offering. They are all organized into what type and material the jewelry is/is made out of. Many of them are from Grian, back when they were children. and a ton are from Gem and Sausage. lots of kandi bracelets with weird sayings or words, lots of names, hers and her friends. Moons and Sunflowers are very common in the fancier jewelry, as well as wolfs and wolf symbolism. Her most recent is a Kandi bracelet from Gem, it says "Pickles" teehe. She loves it.

Always has a secret bedroom in her home of the season, normally very underground and through a surprising amount of traps. She keeps extremely important things in there, normally keepsakes. but also her bed for when she doesn't want to be bothered, whether cause she's overwhelmed or just sorta sick. :p

I'll leave it at 10! Hehe. if there's any spelling mistakes, no there isn't shhh

I love making worldbuilding to go with headcanons. my au is fun to me and that's all that matters(no it isn't, alot else matters but it's silly so,, ya.) I hope my fellow pearlo fans liked hearing my headcanons(and au stuff), i like writing bout it :3

btw If u wanna know anything about my au, please ask i will answer, I am indeed obsessed.

[fakecrfan]

TMAGP 30 Thoughts - Overall

This episode was pretty good-- but it was also just "pretty good" to me, which in itself is disappointing. I attribute this to the pacing.

Every single individual element of the episode is entertaining. The fed up custodian, his statement, Alice freaking out, the bored cabby, Gwen's triumph and smugness, Celia's betrayal--all of it was excellent individually. But the way it came together left me feeling a bit miffed.

Again, this is because the pacing sucked.

Instead of the frenetic, climatic pace of the season finales in TMA, this one was very slow and had a lot of unnecessary elements. For example, Alice arguing with the cabby was fun, but a mistake. It slowed the whole pace down, and added no information that we didn't already have. We already knew that she was chasing after them, did we really need to see every individual step of her journey along the way? Did we need to hear her questioning the cab guy?

It would have been much more effective for her to have the phonecall with Colin where she decides to go after Sam instead, and then to cut to her finding the custodian melted into the concrete. Seriously, are we supposed to be frightened at any point during this horror show, or aren't we? Cut to the scary bits already!

This underlines a greater tendency to waste Alice's screen time on stuff that is repetitive and unnecessary.

Another problem was--for once!--the GWEN bits! I did love to see her triumph and to see her utterly cold and smug reaction to it. But the stuff with her absolutely slowed the whole episode down. Especially since we cut from Colin's almost certain doom and Alice unknowingly making a Sophie choice between him and Sam--to Gwen.... getting what she wants, and laughing about it.

And then we cut from Alice finding a guy melted into the concrete--to Gwen having a conversation that doesn't give us any new information and only reinforces what we already learned from her convo with Lena.

All of these choices underline a more fundamental problem I have had with the way TMAGP has set itself up. Every time something exciting happens, it undercuts the building tension with 1) something boring 2) something slightly funny but unnecessary or 3) something that we already heard before. Usually Alice's plotlines have gotten the short end of the stick from this writing method, but in this one Gwen's plotline was actually the drag. We DO need to see the culmination of Gwen's season plotline, but it was in entirely the wrong place.

Here is I would have done it: Have Gwen's moment first. We don't need both Trevor and Lena to confirm that she both got the power she wanted and now is mega fucked, either. We only need one scene for this. One. Stop. Repeating. Information.

Then we can cut between Alice and Sam + Celia for the rest of the episode. Cut down the unnecessary transitional scenes. The cabby conversation was funny, but cut it. This is a finale. It's not time to add a bunch of cute banter if it doesn't naturally fit in to the action.

This episode was good, but it did not need to be 40 minutes and was not served by being 40 minutes. The TMA season finales were much more exciting with much less material because they knew to only give you the most important and most adrenaline pumping moments. That serves horror much better.

....but since this is how the entire series has been thus far, I don't have high hopes that this is going to change. I'll resign myself to what the show actually is. It's not bad, like I said. And I like enough individual elements to keep listening.

This also might sound overly critical, but this isn't because I dislike the series. It's more that I like the series, but not as much as I could have, and I am making note of why so that I can use it to improve my own writing in the future. Maybe if you're reading this, you really liked the slower pacing that is padded with tangential incidents! If so, feel free to share your own breakdown.

[kerubimcrepin]

Episode 20 - My Friend Bashi (Part 1)

We had reached the milestone of 20 episodes, and I want to sincerely thank the readers for sticking with me so far. :)

I also have a small announcement: after finishing liveblogging this episode, I will take a very small break from the show to do some reading of articles and comics instead.

It's starting to feel awkward - constantly referencing some canon materials without reviewing them on this blog proper, y'know? I originally planned to do this all at once, before the movie, but I think it'll be more fun to do it in multiple reading breaks, during the show.

So many kids in this city, and Joris is friends with none of them. Except for Tatak.

All analysis and plot leaves my body as I think about how much Kerubim cares about Joris.

He's really not perfect, but no matter how much I joke about his failures, he really does care and try his best.

He's too nice for me to actually make fun of in any serious manner.

It's very nice to see the more down-low, bittersweet moments of parenting and childhood portrayed. It's also nice that it's just between the two of them, without Simone.

I love her, but it's very cute to see just Joris and Kerubim, and how they act when they're alone together.

I think that it's interesting, that even at 7yo, Joris is already at the... "this one social interaction was a disaster, and it's over, just irredeemably over"-level overthinking about relationships.

Perhaps it's knowing that for Kerubim it, often times, was like that. Kerubim did inspire very many people to either hate him with passion, or leave him.

Perhaps it's the fact that, besides Kerubim, Kerubim's friends, and Simone, he doesn't have a family; and besides Tatak, he doesn't seem to have any friends: and that makes him struggle with the idea of losing relationships.

Keke I will be real, I think Tatak is his only friend in general.

...Man. I am making myself sad by writing these things.

I don't think Joris ever had good social skills in his life. Just issues after issues.

As I've said in the previous posts, both Keke and Joris have an issue with needing to be liked always all the time, and the way it makes them do things to seem Cool and Awesome. Even if Joris has this issue in a very introverted way.

It might just be normal kids stuff, but it does add a certain flair to the things we see him do as an adult, if one accepts the idea he's always been like this.

Kerubim's way of connecting to others is to draw from his own experiences, and compare them. It's a more... mature way of cheering up people, than just saying "it gets easier!" like he used to.

For all his faults, Kerubim has grown emotionally from his youth. But it can be a thin line between making everything about yourself, and trying to say that it gets better from experience.

Even so, Joris cares a lot about his experiences and life (cough cough. the Lore), so it works for them, both as a way to distract him and to cheer him up. Kerubim knows this, it's his go-to technique.

Anyway.

I think Kerubim either vastly overestimates the depth of what happened here (I highly doubt Ecaflip is giving him tasks because he's "the best"), or he is lying to Joris, because "I spent my whole childhood afraid that my father, who is a living god, would eat me Zeus-style, because of shit like cleaning the toilets badly or not delivering the fish on time." isn't a nice story.

This is exactly what I'm talking about.

A small aside: according to The Wheel Of Destiny #8 Kerubim Crepin (which will be one of the things I liveblog during the Reading Break), Bashi and Kerubim became friends before the events of episode 3, Strich Hunt.

It makes a lot of sense, because before the events of that episode, Ecaflip had... a very rough way of treating and speaking to Kerubim. Even if he had a soft spot for him, enough to save him (and then manipulate him) during said Wheel of Destiny article, I think Kerubim only truly cemented himself as Ecaflip's most favourite in the Strich Hunt episode.

Also, considering the fact that in Wheel of Destiny, little Bashi reports to knowing and strongly disliking Atcham, it's safe to say that in this episode we have a confirmed instance of Atcham being canonically present and simply not mentioned.

...keke sure is the guy who says "im the last living crepin. laugh" while having a brother. insane.

I yet again want to gush about the portrayal of relationships in this show.

I think all of us can relate to meeting someone, and not thinking much, — not yet knowing that they will turn out to be one of the coolest people you've ever met.

Anyway, tangent incoming.

One thing that's interesting to me, is that Kerubim is never depicted as having friends in the temple. From what we see, he spends most of the time alone, or with Ecaflip.

The reasons may be:

He is Ecaflip's favorite. He had important tasks from the moment he joined the temple. It alienated people.

He was Atcham's brother. Kids are judgemental, and Atcham is a perfect bullying target. Chances are, they didn't like him due to the association.

He came in very mentally ill and unsociable, due to, y'know, being orphaned, and never managed to make friends because the impression that he's "the sad mentally ill kid" stayed.

No wonder that he got anxious around three people, and then immediately trusted them when they were nice to him.

He probably hadn't had anyone be nice to him in ages. Or, like, acknowledge him too much, at the very least.

I won't elaborate on how I think Atcham was treated in the temple lest I fucking scare you, (Something-something, literally catboy Rule of Rose,) but I will say that, just like Atcham is still violently mentally ill due to whatever happened to him, Kerubim's experiences with loneliness and alienation as a child most likely fueled his dishonesty and attention-seeking behaviours as an adult.

So I understand why, even though Bashi kinda sucks, Kerubim is so broken up about losing him. There's a lot more tragedy to this than one can first see.

It was a very important moment for Kerubim to finally have a person in his life that wasn't his father (who constantly threatened to fucking eat him), one of the kids who either disliked him or were too intimidated to talk to him, one of the random monks, or his severely mentally ill brother (who fucking hated him.)

He was his first friend.

[thedawningofthehour]

6, 14, 17, 18, and 29 for the fic writer asks (or however many of those you want to answer!! I know thats a lot sorry lol)

6. Are there any fics from others you reread all the time?

@spectralsleuth's Little Scraps of Wisdom. It's the perfect blend of just fluffy enough to not require tons of mental energy, but also serious and angsty enough to keep my attention. Also the format makes it really easy to pick a section and just dip in-perfect for my ADHD ass.

14. If you could see one of your fics adapted into a visual medium, such as comic or film, which fan fic would you pick?

Doth, at least parts of it. The whole thing wouldn't translate well to visual media-there's tons of introspection, conversations that wouldn't be all that interesting visually. (at least not animated-you don't really get Cersei Lannister-esque performances from animated characters) Stuff like the actions scenes, big scenes with multiple people speaking, those would probably translate the best.

My Dishonored fic, god no. It's video game media and it's very obvious that that's the source material. It would be incredibly boring if you weren't in Daud's head the whole time.

17. What’s something you’ve learned about while doing research for a fic?

Uhh. Like. So much stuff?

For doth, it's been insanely broad. On any given day, my writing window might be filled with Wikipedia pages on scientific topics, cultural, history, law. Right now I have a bunch of pages open about military tactics and technology, a Google Maps of NYC, and then some articles on nobility and royal titles.

For The Red Queen, I had to learn a lot of architecture terms when writing Daud running around doing backflips off rooftops. I don't even think half of them even made it into the text, but I had to know what he was perched on top of like a daddy seagull. I also did a whole dive into the Black Death for that one. Oh, if you want an interesting fact, did you know the plague was actually carried by fleas and not rats like many assumed? That's partially why it was so bad in cities. Poland actually had a much lower death toll than the rest of Europe in part because of its high Jewish population (mostly refugees because many cities blamed them for the plague-because of fucking course they did) who washed more frequently than the average peasant at the time and their neighbors decided to get in on that too. Milan survived relatively unscathed because whenever someone showed signs of plague, they and their family members were walled up in their homes and set on fire.

18. What’s one of your favorite lines you’ve written in a fic?

I like the entire exchange between Leo and Draxum on the roof. There were a lot of details written into those lines that gave extra information or conveyed something about their mental states.

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

I've played around with writing out Cass's consensual kidnapping and walking in on Gale being brainwashed, with some blurbs about her adjusting to life in the Hidden City. They never really got past scraps, but I can post this scrap.

She’s just getting back from school, last week before winter break, her head swarming with final this and final that. Tom says hello to her from where he’s working at the dining room table. Casey says hello back and promptly excuses herself to go work on her final paper for English.

He should be happy about that. She’s actually doing her homework.

Tom’s not bad, she supposes. He’s nice enough and doesn’t try to catch her coming out of the shower. He and Cindy offered to pay the fee if she rejoined the hockey team this year. But he gets on her every last nerve. She’s their first foster and they are absolutely trying too hard. At least Cindy isn’t home enough to annoy her.

She shuts her bedroom door and drops her backpack on the floor. Ugh. She could kill whoever invented academic papers. Well, the Odyssey isn’t going to write about itself.

“I have to say, this wasn’t-”

Casey whirls around, grabbing the first thing she registers-some Hello Kitty knick-knack she keeps on her dresser, in this case-and hurls it at the intruder.

Draxum bats it away, barely raising an eyebrow.

[frillyfacefins]

One Hell, Two Falls, Many Snakes (Hazbin Hotel Lucifer Meta)

So recently somebody replied to me on youtube, in the context of Hazbin Hotel, with this:

"According to most lore (other than the generic "Lucifer is evil" stuff) Lucifer was expelled from heaven because he loved humanity too much and didn't like the way God treated them, so he was condemned to try and reform sinners. His punishment was that no matter what he did, it wasn't enough."

First of all: The "according to most lore" immediately had my heckles up re: Citation fucking needed. But even if that were something that was widely known (which I have never heard before and sounds very 21st century to me), I think we can assume that this is not the case with Hazbin Hotel's Lucifer.

Let me explain.

Humanity didn't start out with the concept of 'sin'. Even in a world where Lilith exists, she wasn't really a sinner as much as a failed experiment - a prototype that didn't work the way it was intended to. 'Sin' only came into existence with the Fall of Man, aka the apple incident.

A Snake by any other name

So. In the bible and in sources up to the 19th century, the snake was not really assumed to be the same person as Lucifer. In the biblical canon, I'm pretty sure the snake was just a snake. We are all familiar with the whole "'Satan' in the bible just means an enemy, but not all of these enemies are meant to be the same entity" thing.

Later, we find interpretations of the snake as a demonic creature - I'm thinking specifically of Goethe's Faust, where the snake is the "aunt" of Mephistopheles.

I do believe, though, that in Hazbin Hotel, Lucifer was the snake in the Garden of Eden. Mainly because of the apple-and-snake imagery. So if we take this as granted and go with the most straightforward explanation, Lucifer must have fallen before the Fall of Man.

So Hell predates Sin, which means Hell can't have been constructed for the purpose of 'rehabilitating' sinners.

So what about Charlie?

I feel like there is also a seed in this that would explain why Charlie, only daughter of Lucifer, seems to be so young in the show. Eve's punishment in the bible was to labor like a beast, so my current assumption is that having babies wasn't really in the original blueprint of humans. We can also assume that Lilith underwent a metamorphosis when she came into Hell, so that might have made the whole baby-having even more difficult for her.

So I basically think that having Charlie at all was pretty damn hard for Lucifer and Lilith.

(Maybe that's one reason why other demons of the fallen-angel-variety (Paimon, Asmodeus) are more animal-like - because when they fell, animals were already able to procreate, while humans maybe weren't. But that's a tangent for another day.)

I've gone into detail on my own imagination of the early days of Hell in my fanfic "The Spark that made Heaven burn", and I'm going to write a sequel to that fic from Lilith's perspective soon. I just felt kinda bothered by that reply, and wanted to get this off my chest.

Hell is Other People

I think one thing we need to remember when we talk about demons and Lucifer and Hell is that a lot of this stuff was never in the bible and doesn't have a single, "canonical" source. Most of what we are talking about in relation to 'hazbin hotel lore' (outside of the series or helluva boss) is stuff that was written by medieval or renaissance mystics who were either reworking material that had been reworked dozens and dozens of times over a thousand years, or who were making things up wholecloth.

There is no such thing as 'accepted lore' when it comes to this, only things like "according to Johann Weyer" or "according to the Testament of Solomon" and then you have to deal with the whole pseudepigrapha issue... And then of course we get 19th century occultism and new age stuff mixed into all of this, which makes everything even more messy.

Basically, if anybody tries to tell you something about demons or angels is "accepted lore" or something like that, maybe be careful. And don't get angry at artists who take a part of this whole patchwork rug of ideas and use it in a way that doesn't jive with what people say is "correct according to most sources". None of this is codified. Just relax and let people have fun.

[doggirlhen]

i just finished spiritfarer, actually properly finished. its impossible for me to talk about this game purely subjective bc its so. close to me. and my lived experience. putting this big long thing under a keep reading, warnings for discussion of death and whatnot as thats the prominent theme of the game, and spoilers for the game probably

please excuse the messy, rambly writing, im very tired and very very emotional about this sad boat game and just need to get my thoughts about it down before i go crazy

impossible to not cry at the end. i bought this game around 2019 on my switch, fresh after two or three big familial deaths. picked it up here and there but could never get myself to the end, either being to busy or it being too much for me. i finally found some time now, after owning it on PC for a year or two, to sit down and let myself experience it.

this game treats the passing of loved ones with such respect and care and the grief that follows so beautifully. even the characters i didnt much care for i felt heavily about when it was their turn through the everdoor. it blends this grief with gameplay mechanics so well, and doesnt ever let you forget those close to you. almost every character either has a resource you can collect because of them, their spirit still there when you need more of it, or theyre the ones who had you build the crafting station to make materials and youre reminded of them when you step in the door. i found myself making sure i had everyones favorite foods stocked in my inventory well past their exit. and to really hammer it in, everyone gets their profile marked in the stars when theyre gone.

stella's job is to take care of people, but shes always felt like a vessel-type character to me, as ive had my dealings with the loss of loved ones and those around me and found it incredibly easy to wear her shoes.

moments that really stood out to me were atul not letting you take him through, you just find his flower on its own. so heavily touched me, a man whos only ever cared for you not letting you see his struggles because he knew thats all youd devote yourself too. stanley, letting the weird kid take it the only way a kid could, curious but scared but you were holding his hand. i cant even begin to talk about daria, shes new to me and i can only hope no one can relate to her story but feel for her just the same. gwen, god i could go on about gwen. all the characters feel so lively, so real, all dealing with whats ending them as best they can.

the one that got me the most, though, was astrid. my grandmother on my moms side passed in 2019, so already getting me with a grandmother character but astrids story and motivations remind me so much of her and one of her lines at the everdoor, "dont forget me or i'll haunt you" sounds exactly like somehting my grandmother would say. tears pouring out of my eyes only beat by the end of the game as a whole. such a beautiful story

and beautiful game, too. breaking from the sad stuff for a bit to say the art and music are so beautfully crafted and touching, every character design and choice of animal so perfectly selected. look at darias profile how can you not fall in love immediately. look at her :3

just. please play this game if you have any sort of feelings about grief and loss. its touched my heart several times in the years since 2016 after lots of familial death and covid. its a bunch of different games at once, largely a resource management and crafting game but the story is so well written and the visuals are beautiful and im soon to buy the soundtrack because i always need it with me

this game means so much to me and will forever be on my mind, one million thank yous and tears to thunder lotus games and everyone involved.

[beck-nightengale]

Summer Reading/Writing/Arting Tag

Yo, I was tagged by @chennnington over here to do this thing and it does look like fun, so why not!

But I'm also going to be boring since idk who to tag, so anyone is free to fill this thing out if it hits your dashboard. ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ Go knock yourselves out.

1) Describe one creative WIP project you’re planning to work on over the summer.

Thanks to Enderal kicking my creative nuts into gear and being recently liberated from certain "game-master" obligations (long, long ass story that'd probably go over most Tumblr folks' heads, anyway), I finally started diving back into a sapphic-flavored dark fantasy book series that I'd been planning since like around 2016 or so. It was mostly born out of some frustrations with the lack of WLW in general, and while I have some WLW elements in my existing works, I wanted to write something that was more overtly WLW with a leading lady who was outgoing about her sexuality than my previous protagonists (who are either repressed as fuck or too dead to hold a relationship that would function) and wouldn't take her four dang novels to finally kiss a girl.

Anyway, Morane Soraya was created from a whole mess of complicated feelings about women in media. I describe her as a combination of Julie D'aubigny and Anne Lister, with a bit of Christina of Sweden (all of who were badass women in history. Look 'em up!). I wrote a lot about the basics of who she is/what she's all about here.

Morane is a good bean:

Book 1, Bloodtithes, will go into her venturing into a scarcely-visited icy continent to investigate a possible cure or effective treatment to the painful condition she had been forced to live with, which gives her the proficiency she has in Blood Magick (which isn't inherently evil in her world, but very often misunderstood because of its side effects). She's from a mercenary group who all share the same condition and propensity for Blood Magick, so they're interested in this so-called "cure" as well, but not many make it to this country and survive, so Morane is sent alone instead. Along the way, she meets a horned jackal-man named Darius ka Dir, and gets entangled in a plot with a strigoika named Viorica Avanas who has a whole buttload of inner demons of her own (side note: I once played Vio in Skyrim to mess around with Kaidan and they got into some... Situations).

A friend drew Darius and he has a single giant and glorious curl that he is very serious about.

I've also talked a lot about Jade for my Enderal stuff, who was already based on an existing character, and I've figured out how to work her into Morane's world. She won't factor in until Book 2, Cloverleaf, because she's essentially gonna tear down a wall and break freaking everything.

You know. Like she do.

It's still in the planning stages but I'm feeling pretty good about it.

2) Rec a book!

I just started reading Dreams of the Dying by Nicolas Lietzau, which I'm enjoying a lot, but haven't read enough yet to form a coherent recommendation on it. I just got the audiobook though so I'm looking forward to that!

Otherwise, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski is one of my favorite novels of all time and was a major writing inspiration for me. It's creative in how it gets you to feel uneasy while you're reading the book itself, a huge mindfuck, and one of the few novels that actually made me feel a sense of dread while I was reading it.

If you'd like some seriously bonkers reading material, I'd suggest giving it a looksee.

3) Rec a fic! (outside your character tag)

Iiii don't actually read fanfiction that much, so I'm not sure if I can rec one!

On the flipside, feel free to rec me some Enderal fics (or your own, if you have any). I'll read the shit out of it.

4) Rec music!

I can't recommend Murder by Death to people enough. They're my all-time favorite band, one of the few I've ever made an effort to go see live when they were playing in my city (just before lockdown hit, no less), and deserve more love. I've been listening to them since I discovered them high school and their albums just keep getting better and better.

Also it's not hard for me to find some character-centric songs from them because the topics they write about is very versatile. I tend to think of Lost River for Jade's story, and Ditch Lilly and Rumbrave for Rey's.

5) Share one piece of advice!

Writing women! Because I guess this one needs telling as there are people who still find writing female characters daunting or somehow more difficult than it is to write men. Which, fair, I was the same way. Despite having mostly female protagonists in the novels I'd written, the dudes in my earlier stuff somehow ended up taking the spotlight and stealing most of the development. I really struggled to work through some of my own internalized misogyny and "there are no good female characters in media" mindset, and it took a lot of opening my mind up before it got easier. Now I predominately focus on writing women to be that change I want to see - this includes not killing certain ones off to enhance manpain like I used to, which I learned was called "fridging", lol.

My advice for writing them is to just write them as characters. It sounds simple and stupid, but I'm surprised how much people get wrapped up in the "she must be a strong girlboss" brainrot that they end up with a very flat, boring character that literally no one can relate to, so she still gets outshined by the dudes because the writer tried to overcompensate her badass womanliness without giving her actually compelling character traits.

I feel like one of the main reasons why I absolutely adored Ellen Ripley when I was a kid was because she was written to be a man in the first Alien movie, but they changed the character into a woman without changing the script and it just worked. I didn't know that when I was young, but finding that out just made me appreciate Ripley so much more, because the writers didn't treat her like a "strong female character" but as just a character. I think if writers approached this mindset more, we wouldn't have the "no good female characters in media issue" that doesn't need to be an issue in the first place.

These days I approach character-building by not restricting certain traits by gender, and finding a balance between strengths and weaknesses. Just shut off your critical analysis brain to create a "strong female character" and just write "strong character" instead.

I could word vomit more about my own ladies and how much I love them now than I used to but I feel like this has gone on long enough. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[timptoe]

The Longest Night

Tonight is the longest night of the year, and this has been a very, very long year for me. For lots of reasons, I haven't been able to write for the last six months. And then suddenly, last week, it came back. So I have two pieces. This first one has taken me an entire year to write. Kaidan holds vigil after Virmire on the longest night.

Because sometimes you don't know if the light's going to come back, and all you can do is wait.

Read it on Ao3.

---

When the sun is nearly blinding May you by it see everything As it was meant to be A wonder extraordinary Made to wander free and fearlessly Unto all eternity

Because death has lost already  - The Arcadian Wild, “A Benediction”

—

The candle flickers alone on the table.

He knows that this is against regulations. Alliance Naval Code 1493.4B, Kaidan thinks. Open flames are a safety hazard onboard all Alliance craft and are restricted to engineering purposes only with supervision. He knows the book back-to-front, committed the whole thing to memory before basic ended. He knows he shouldn’t be doing this. 

He just can’t bring himself to care.

It’s only been a few days since Virmire, but it feels like a lifetime since the last time he saw her. The cocky smirk on her face as she rushed off to report to Kirrahe and his squad, as if she’d won a prize and he’d lost. The click as she secured her helmet in place, now seeming all too ominous in its finality. Her lazy wave as he boarded the Normandy to secure the bomb, her fingers curling slightly as she disappeared from sight.

He wonders what Ashley would think about him using her candle like this. If she had been saving it for a special reason, or maybe had been a memento from her civilian days. He wonders if it had had any particular significance, why it had even been in her locker in the first place. He wishes he could ask her.

But he can’t.

Kaidan stares into the candle’s flame, turning those last moments over and over and over in his mind for the hundredth time in the last two days. Setting the timer on the bomb. Making peace with his imminent death. His stomach dropping as Ashley radios, “Screw that! We can handle ourselves. Go back and get Alenko.” Falling to the geth as they swarm the dropsite. Feeling his heart beat quicker when Shepard picks him up. Realizing that Shepard is saving him.

His eyes flick up to the door of the CO’s quarters on the far side of the mess, then quickly back down. The guilt at that last is almost as strong as the grief. He stares deep into the candle, searching for something. Answers. Absolution, maybe. 

Nothing comes.

The candle gutters for a moment, the slight hiss of the medbay door changing the air pressure in the mess. Soft footsteps approach, stopping a few meters away.

“Lieutenant.”

He scrubs his eyes before turning and acknowledging the asari with a nod. “Dr. T’Soni. You’re up late.”

She gives him a half smile. He’s still not familiar with asari physiology, but he suspects he knows what the slight discoloration around her eyes means. “I am finding it difficult to sleep.” The smile fades as she glances at the candle. “I do not wish to disturb you, though.”

Kaidan shakes his head and gestures to a chair. “Not at all. I couldn’t sleep either.”

Liara has a seat, and they sit in a soft silence for a while.

“It’s hers,” he murmurs into the stillness after a time. Liara doesn’t say anything, just looks his way. “The candle. It’s Ashley’s. I found it this morning when I was packing up her locker to send her stuff home. It was…” He trails off.

“You took it?”

He shifts in his seat. “It wasn’t on the manifest. Everything we bring onboard is supposed to be declared and written down. Alliance Naval Code 3120.32D, part 5.1.40b,” he recites from memory, “The division officer maintains a permanent file of itemized, descriptive inventory sheets for any personally owned tools, materials or equipment authorized to be brought on board.”

“Impressive,” Liara says with a slight curl to her lips.

Kaidan half-bows in his chair. “I do have a reputation to uphold.”

She gives him a sidelong glance. “Ashley told me once that you sleep with your regulation book under your pillow.”

“Those books are softer than our pillows,” he replies, the ghost of a smile pulling around his lips at the memory of a well-worn argument. “I just can’t believe she actually had contraband in her locker all this time.”

“Really?” Liara smiles softly. “Because that’s entirely in keeping with what I know about her.”

Kaidan chuckles. It feels good to laugh a little, but the sound dies quickly, swallowed by the darkness in the empty room. After a moment, in a small voice, he says, “I miss her.”

“I do, too.” She pauses, then tilts her head. “Then why burn her contraband, instead of keeping it?”

He sighs again, carding a hand through his hair. “It’s silly, really. I…” He stops, not sure how to explain.

“I apologize, Lieutenant, I did not mean to—“

“It’s the longest night,” he says abruptly. “Tonight. Back home, I mean.” Liara gives him an encouraging nod that seems only slightly baffled. “It’s a tradition of sorts. Religious, kind of, but not really, I guess.” He falls silent, unsure how to continue.

Liara gazes thoughtfully at him. “Tell me about it.”

He looks back at the candle, the tips of his ears feeling hot. The words come, unbidden. “My family aren’t religious, not like Ashley’s,” he begins. “Just not something my parents ever really cared about. Except once a year. There was this little chapel down the road from our cabin in the Canadian interior. We’d go to the cabin for school break every winter. December in the interior is…beautiful. High drifts of soft snow, evergreen trees dusted with the stuff. And at night, the stars mix with the aurora the create this sight that just…takes your breath away. Magical, to a kid.”

His head thrums with the memory. “Anyway, this chapel we’d go to was always decorated for Christmas. Ah, uh, old Earth holiday. Weirdly, we never went for Christmas Eve service, or any other service. But Mom always insisted we go to the one held for longest night.

“The chapel always started out dark, and quiet. Never a lot of people, maybe because it was rural, maybe because it was sort of depressing. The choir would sing quiet songs, and the pastor would say a few words, but he’d always end with some verse that says, the people walking in darkness have seen a great light. And then…”

He closes his eyes briefly, the sense memory intimately overwhelming. “People would start getting up, one by one, and lighting the candles around the walls. In memory of loved ones. In hopes for others. I just liked the act of lighting them when I was a kid, watching the fire, you know? And little by little, the whole chapel would just be…filled with light. Blazing, reflecting off the stained-glass, warming up the whole space. It was incredible. Always made my mom cry,” he chuckles, scrubbing at his face again. “And the pastor would send us out with the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.”

Liara sits with that for a long moment, staring into the candle. Kaidan doesn’t say anything more.

After a while, she says softly, “It is a beautiful ritual.”

Kaidan ducks his head.

“Would it surprise you to learn that the asari have a similar ritual?”

He raises an eyebrow. “It would.”

She gives him a small smile. “The siarists tell a story gleaned from one of the older religions about the goddess Athame. The ritual involves the lighting first of one flame, then dozens, and finally hundreds as an echo of the goddess’ words in the story.”

“What did she say?” he asks.

She pauses for a moment, collecting herself. Then, in a soft voice, she says, “Once, when the world was new and the asari were still young, there was a time when the days grew shorter and the nights grew longer, until there was nothing but night.

“Then, the goddess Athame descended from the heavens. She brought with her all the tools for civilization: knowledge, wisdom, empathy, courage. But strangely, she did not bring with her the light.

“The people asked her, ‘Athame, goddess of all that is—why have you gifted us with so much, and yet not given us the light?’

“And Athame answered, ‘My children, I have done better than return to you the light. I have gifted you the tools to beat back the darkness. For the light comes and goes, but the darkness is everpresent. So grow, my children, and learn what you must so that you might one day push back the darkness and herald light’s return.’”

Liara falls silent. After a moment, Kaidan says in a voice thick with emotion, “That, um. That certainly…resonates.”

Liara gives a soft chuckle. “Early in my studies, I encountered a Prothean story tablet—fragments really, so much had been lost to the Reapers. But the tablet fragments together told a tale quite similar to the one the asari tell about Athame.”

“How is that possible?” Kaidan says, furrowing his brow.

Liara shrugs. “I asked something similar of the Matriarch advising me, Dr. P’Ropp. She said, every culture across species recognizes that darkness is inescapable. We do not know if the light is coming back when the night falls. We hope for it, we might even pray for it, but we do not know. We cannot. All we can do is wait.”

She sighs heavily. “And so…we wait for the light.”

His eyes flick up to Shepard’s door again, and then back down.

“You should go to him,” Liara says quietly.

Kaidan is instantly tense, his eyes going wide as he looks over to meet her gaze. 

“I am sure he would appreciate the comfort, too. And the company.” The smile she gives him makes his heart beat quicker again. Another rush of guilt follows.

Kaidan shakes his head, blowing out a shuddering breath. The candle gutters. “Not…um, not from me.”

“Kaidan—“

“I’m the reason she died.”

He cuts her off quietly, but his words echo in the nearly-empty mess like a shout.

“I forced the choice. I forced him to choose. I armed the bomb, I set the timer. I— I forced him.” He takes a breath, trying to keep his voice steady. “He thinks her death is her fault, because of course he does. That’s who he is. He doesn’t fail, but she—“ His breath hitches. “She died. He thinks it was his fault, but it’s not. It’s mine. It’s mine.” His voice breaks, any words that might’ve come next dying in his throttled throat.

“Ashley’s death is not your fault,” Liara says firmly. She takes his hand in hers and squeezes gently. “It is not.”

He doesn’t deserve the kindness in that simple touch. He hates himself that he can’t bear to take his hand away.

Liara doesn’t let go, squeezing his hand more insistently. “I have not known the Commander as long as you have, but I do not get the sense he is one who blames his friends unfairly. Ashley’s death was not your fault. Any more than Benezia’s was mine.” She says this last with less conviction, as if she’s said it to herself before, as if it in the repetition it might become true.

“It’s not,” he says shakily. He clears his throat, then says again, more emphatically, “It’s not.”

“No,” she replies, “it is Saren’s. And I know he knows that.” She glances back at the door across the way. “Shepard knows that.”

Kaidan turns back to watch the flicker of the candle’s flame. “I can’t face him. Not…not yet.” There’s a wealth of meaning buried in those spare, halting words. 

“So then…we wait,” she says quietly.

“‘We’?”

She nods. “We.”

He takes another shuddering breath, then nods back. She just squeezes his hand once more.

They sit in companionable silence for a long while, lost in their own thoughts and memories, bathed in the warm glow of a friend’s contraband candle.

Waiting for the light.

[tuiyla]

Sometimes I wonder if the actors knew how offensive some of the stuff they said/did on the show was. I mean I know it was their characters but still.

There was a lot of biphobia from Kurt, Blaine, Santana and even Brittany. There was the line Blaine said in the script read in 5x20 where he said "I'm gay and you're mostly lesbian" to Brittany!!!

Also the Britney 2.0 episode was super offensive and basically just spent 40 minutes mocking someone's mental health which is a huge problem and something a lot of people struggle with.

I know it's not the actors decision but do you think they knew how offensive some of this stuff was.

Also the whole IKAG episode was pretty bad and when Brittany and Sam got together and she said something about "lesbian bloggers" I have to see that as a dig about the Brittana fans!

I know that Naya, Heather and Darren were straight so it may just be that they are uneducated on these things.

I appreciate things like Kevin talking about the Lights Out mess in the Q&A episode of the podcast, but it’s ultimately not the cast’s responsibility. Am I curious what they thought of certain things, sure. Am I desperate for someone to cover IKAG with a critical eye, very. But I think fans already put way too much on actors and expect them to represent characters and their stories way beyond the constraints of the media itself, and that doesn’t feel fair. I’m general on the side of protecting actors’ privacy and right to do their job and not owe anyone anything more.

With things like Britney 2.0 especially I feel like we shouldn’t expect anything from the actors. Sure I like it when they’re self-aware and Jenna and Kevin are at times critical of the show in their podcast (old and new) but this is a typical example of, like, what are we expecting of them? It has been a decade now but particularly when the show was on, I’m sure it would have felt like biting the feeding hand to call out the biphobia or something. If I were an actor on a major network show and given Problematic material I wouldn’t be happy about it but man, it’s my job to say it. And we’ve heard how volatile things sometimes were on the set despite the general alleged good working relationship. I don’t blame people for not wanting to risk RM’s wrath with a public condemning.

I don’t know if they even stopped to consider this kind of stuff. With something like Artie’s offensive lines, Kevin clearly has. And again I’d kill to know how everyone truly felt about IKAG. I don’t know, maybe they knew. I’m sure there were certain things on Glee that raised eyebrows even then. Kevin, Jenna and Harry talk a lot about things not aging well in the Throwdown episode of the Showmance pod. But again, at the time no one was gonna risk a job. I don’t think anything was that egregious on Glee, it’s more like things adding up. But I mean for sure things like mocking Britney Spears and the consistent biphobia were cringe at best and cruel at worst. So no one get me wrong, the biphobia and the SA stuff and all these poorly handled, poorly framed things were bad, it just wasn’t SO bad that it would absolutely warrant an actor having to apologize for it.

Going back to actors’ privacy and all, I don’t like to a) assume their identities and b) make assumptions based on those assumptions. It especially feels strange to say they might have been uneducated just because they wouldn’t have those first-hand experiences e.g. with queer issues. A leap too big for me. And this is a can of worms of its own, but I think we shouldn’t assume with Naya in particular - in terms of identity, that is. There was that View interview that some take as her confirming she was bi; me, I don’t know and I don’t think we need to know. We never will know. Was Naya Rivera straight, was she queer? I say let the dead rest. Either way she was clearly a fierce ally who fought for that lesbian storyline to exist in the first place so whether she personally considered e.g. the biphobic things they had her say messed up or not, that’s really not for me to know or judge. I don’t really feel comfortable shifting that responsibility onto actors, which I understand is not what you’re doing but it’s dancing too close to that edge for me. Even if Darren, Naya and Heather were all Super Woke™ even back then it’s not like they could have done much to fight the biphobic lines. Actors have some say in these discussions, sure, but no one wants to push their luck.

Heather in particular has said some things in the past, iirc during season 4′s run especially that pissed people off but even still I don’t think being a little tone deaf or not living up to fan entitlement should warrant that much criticism. For other things too, I think she gets too much shit because people expect her to be this Representative when she’s just a person. They’re all just people. They’re actors and they get paid to say the words as they’re written. There’s some creative freedom with that but it’s up to the director/producer’s discretion. So again, maybe they were aware of how messed up the more iffy things were, maybe not. My bottom line on questions like these is that it’s not our business and not their responsibility.