#i am working on a number of things that should hopefully be done soon

[pan-magi]

Titus: I've never lost a magic battle.

Me: You are a little baby, I'm sure this is your first magic battle.

[scrumptiousstuffs]

This is my first time sending an ask and I promise it will be the last one of this kind. I just want to say that I've read all the other asks and the responses to them, and for me the thing is that people can't bring up First without including Khaotung somehow. But Khaotung gets brought up and talked about on his own or relation to people not First all the time. When his friends do lives he's the one the fans always ask about. And on the few occasions where First is brought up alone people tend to ignore it. It's just how it is. It's cold hard numbers - look how much engagement posts about Khaotung alone or with others get compared to the ones about First alone or with others. And a crowd full of fans screaming when Khaotung asked if they like First isn't really the same thing. What are they going to do, remain silent? I don't think anyone is that rude. But their SM engagement speaks a lot. I can point to several times when someone has started talking about First and the discussion has almost immediately swerved to Khaotung and how amazing he is. I can't do the same the other way. Now I am only on tumblr so maybe it's different elsewhere. I wouldn't know. I do know that Twitter was particularly nasty about First during OF though. Not Sand. First. And there's nothing to be done about it. People are going to like who they like regardless. Maybe the tide will turn at some point, I doubt it, but maybe. But I can't say I don't understand the frustration that is boiling over when I am in the First tag and see more of/know more about what *Khaotung* is doing. It just seems really obvious to me that there's a clear, strong bias. And it's not just the fandom - I can't tell you how many BTS clips I've watched that are all about how amazing Khaotung is, yet First is rarely praised. And I'm not saying Khaotung isn't good. He is. I'm just saying so is First. But the fact that I feel like I can't say First deserves more recognition without someone thinking that I am slagging Khaotung off is also part of the problem, because I have the strong impression that it wouldn't be the same in reverse.

I do think people will stop complaining about it soon, if it helps. It's just letting off a bit of steam in a way that doesn't get them labeled as an anti Khaotung blog. Eventually they'll either move on or accept, and your inbox will be back to being mostly cheerful. And I do want to say that I appreciate reading your answers to them. It must be frustrating to keep getting them when you don't see things that way, and I imagine it feels like an attack of sorts. I don't think it is. Or at least I hope not. You seem lovely and like way more patient a person than I could ever be. Thank you for lending an ear.

Well anons, then you (and I) know what to do. We should all keep hyping First up as well.

I still stand by what I say - I don’t think the majority of the fandom is Khaotung-focus. And what I have seen interviews from directors, they all seem to love FK equally.

But rather than honing on these facts, in the wisdom of my mutual @fadeawayaway - we should keep talking about how great First is as well.

Write those analysis that you want about his acting! I personally still read analysis of his roles in Not Me/TE/MLC/ OF even after these series have finished. I can guarantee you, there will be people like me who wants to read about it. And with hopefully THK bringing in new fans, them engaging about Kant/First when they read your analysis or thoughts about his other characters will put more positive focus on him as well.

Tweet about how you think his acting abilities and his performance against his co-stars (and not just Khaotung), cause I am very very looking forward to his interactions with Babe, Style and Fadel!

I am looking forward to everyone thoughts about Kant when THK comes out (and you will see me become insufferable by retweeting every single gifs and analysis of all four boys).

Hype his singing abilities (he worked hard on this! And it definitely has paid off with the recent meets/concerts). He is a great entertainer on stage and while I jest about his dancing ability (to be fair, I don’t think his bestie is that great either), I have always thought both boys as charasmatic - and I mentioned previously in a different asks, I am always captivated when they are on stage cause they just look so joyful when they performed.

Talk about his host capability and bring attention to it on Twitter - keep his engagement up. So that gmmtv and more fans are aware of his beautiful personality and eloquence when he speaks (because he certainly is! Out of the boys, First is definitely the more natural host and the way he can make guests/the host relax - top notch 🙌)

[etirabys]

on email

I put off wedding planning with the expectation that I would do a terrible but functional job once deadline urgency kicked in. This has started to happen. One consequence is that I have (probably but hopefully not temporarily) had to become a timely emailer.

The impetus was procrastinating on clicking a link in an email that it turned out I should have read ideally acted upon immediately. This is an embarrassing but characteristic mistake – my habit with emails is to open them, get a fast (and sometimes wrong) impression of the contents, have the emotion of not wanting to deal with it, and marking it as unread. I do this with a lot of non-email messages across all platforms, too, with the result that I drop a lot of messages that I forget to or can't mark as unread again.

I knew perfectly well what a loathsome creature I am to do this, but Willpower did not work.

I've been much faster with all messages in the past week and will describe what I understand of the change, so that it will hopefully persist.

(A prerequisite: for many years I have unsubscribed from, filtered, or blocked unwelcome senders. I try not to give out my email address for any reward greater than $20.)

i. I had to radically accept that I am tired and stupid most of the time.

Radical acceptance is a concept from mindfulness / dialectical behavioral therapy, and mostly means the opposite of "trying to believe something that isn't true". It means understanding and accepting your actual circumstances without flinching from them, and acting in a way that actually achieves your goals in those circumstances.

So it turns out – in some part because my expectations for myself haven't adjusted from my pre-burnout days when I had more energy and a better memory – that I put off things because "I can tell I'm dumb right now, and if I try to book this flight I'll probably double-book myself even if I check my calendar three times, and I should do this when I'm more awake." Or "I shouldn't resume this conversation about an art commission, because I don't feel all here today and I'm probably going to mess up the conversation". Or, of course, "I shouldn't make this decision the wedding planner is asking me about right now, because I'll make the wrong one."

While there is variance in my mental abilities depending sleep and time of day and so forth, I almost never pass the bar of cognitive competence I implicitly set for making these decisions. So if I keep the bar where it is, I'm never going to get anything done.

I have to radically accept that I am (compared to when I was younger) tired and stupid all the time, and I still need to live my life. I need to double-book myself and then pay $20 to reschedule my flight, arrange for a tasting with a caterer that doesn't meet a desideratum my spouse told me about, join a reading group I'm too busy for and then leave, get on a call that I forgot to do research for beforehand... etc.

And: I have to respond to emails and messages approximately as soon as I see them, because "my future self who will make informed decisions about things I cannot" is an illusion.

ii. Conversely, I should never check messages when I'm not prepared to make respond to arbitrary textual stimuli.

I used to check my email or messages when I was bored. This makes no sense! The contents of my email inbox are determined by the decisions of a large number of other people, and could contain anything. It is this variance that makes this addictive, and it is also this variance that makes it important to read it when I have the wherewithal to react appropriately.

I don't want to keep training myself into being the kind of person who repeatedly clicks and unreads a scary medical bill email. To stop that behavior, I want to have a mindset of "if one of my emails is a scary medical bill email, I am willing to read the whole thing, think about it, and take the appropriate next action" whenever I am about to navigate to my inbox.

The same goes for clicking into Discord or Messenger, because I need a similar presence of mind to react to invitations to high-effort social events, requests for help I may not be able to give, requests for information I need to think about before providing, etc.

The important thing is to not mix actionables with entertainment. I need mental separation between those two, because perceiving personal pings as a subset of social media notifications made me treat them more passively. "Oh, huh, a decision to join a Paradise Lost reading group is on TV. Interesting. Now an ad..."

---

I expect to backslide on my improved response rate/quality once I'm done with the wedding, but hopefully writing the above will act as the strut of a dam.

[thenovelartist]

Ikemen Prince boys as fathers - Yves, Chevalier, Leon

I've done the twins, and Jin, Luke, & Clavis. As previously mentioned, I am finally getting around to the last three princes.

(At which point, I'll do Sariel and Rio together when Rio's route is released... hopefully soon. I am prepared to blow all saved resources on that dog—er... man. XD )

Yves

When Yves discovers Emma is pregnant, he has very mixed feelings.

Yes, he’s excited and overwhelmed, which is why he’s misty eyed (not teary-eyed, he insists, thank you VERY much!) when Emma tells him.

But this soon devolves into many darker fears.

Fear number one: he is half Obsidian and fell in love with a commoner. Meaning his child will be quarter royalty, quarter foreign royalty that is still hated by most of Rhodolite, and half commoner. (they may have given her a cover story, but that was the truth of it.)

His child is going to have more societal shackles than he did. And Yves is so angry at himself because there is nothing he can do for his child to protect them from that.

Meaning he has to work even harder to prove himself among those who still doubt him and learn how to protect his child from this unfair hardship best he can.

Emma knows her husband, so she catches on to this upon watching Yves overwork himself more regularly. She's the one having to take care of him throughout her pregnancy to make sure he's not working himself to death.

Which makes him feel more guilty. He should be caring for her, not the other way around!

But she's always there to reassure him that she loves him no matter what.

Fear number two: his mother passed when he was born.

He is terrified that something might go wrong and he'll lose the love of his life.

You better believe he’s got an eye on Emma ALWAYS.

So many doctors appointments to ensure she’s healthy.

She has to pick her battles with this fickle cat, and this is not one worth the fight. She deals with them, allowing doctors to carefully monitor her progress. If it calms her husband down, she'll relent.

Besides, she knows this is his way of showing how deeply he loves her. Which makes them easier to bear.

There was a time where she accidentally gave him a heart attack when the baby kicked out suddenly.

She gasped, clutching at her belly, and Yves went about as white a sheet in panic.

The fact the baby was just moving did not settle him down at all.

He proceeded to stalk her like a cat the rest of the day. Emma warns the baby never to scare daddy like that again.

In general, Yves escorts her around everywhere to protect her from Clavis's traps.

With his luck, he will trigger any trap before Emma gets the chance to walk into it.

Emma understands where her husband is coming from, and she won’t judge him for being a little over protective. It’s just him being sweet.

Speaking of sweets…

Whatever Emma is craving, he drops everything to make for her.

Although, he is frequently torn between making her whatever she wants and the knowledge that a healthy diet is best for pregnant women.

But he’s too weak and ends up making her anything she wants anyway. The way he limits her sweet intake is portioning out what he makes for her and then giving the rest to the domestic faction.

Seeing as they are getting more sweets than normal out of the deal, they all dote on Emma, who is the reason for their sugar fix.

When she goes into labor, Yves is a mess.

He is pacing the castle so intensely that people would swear they could see a cat's tail agitatedly swishing around behind him.

No one could hold a conversation with him; he is in fine form (AKA, his tongue is sharper than usual.)

Even Licht stays away knowing Yves is inconsolable.

When he's informed that he's allowed in the room, he need not be told twice. He's already running.

When he bursts into the room, the first thing he has to do is check over Emma and make sure she's okay.

Although exhausted, she's smiling as she assures him she's fine.

He's already crying in relief before he turns his attention to the swaddled baby in her arms.

At which point, he breaks down completely. He has a family. A wife who loves him and a son born from their love.

Not out of duty. Out of love.

There are many words he wants to say, but in the end, he's too much a mess to say any of them. Instead, he settles for cradling his son against his chest, hoping that he can prove to him that he will always be loved in this world, no matter what.

Growing Up

Yves had a plan when he became a father: he would do everything he could to prove himself capable so as not to place a burden on his children.

Plan goes out the window when actually faced with raising them.

Instead of working hard to prove his worth to others, he does what he can to be involved in his children's life.

He himself had been alone in the world ever since he was born. He would not allow his children to know that loneliness.

Hence, Yves is a very attentive father to his son and two daughters.

And the domestic faction are very attentive uncles.

They all protect Yves' son from Sariel, whom he is terrified of. (Yves' two daughters had a little better introduction that helped curb that fear.)

Sariel had expected it. Henceforth, he'll be patient. He's sure Yves' son will grow out of it as he gets older.

This boy has an affinity for the kitchen, so baking with his son becomes Yves' new favorite past time.

Nighttime cookies, milk, and a story told by Emma is a whole magical experience.

Yves' son invites the domestic faction once to such a party. Yves loves him so much he begs Emma to humor him this once.

(So yes, Emma did in fact read a story book to one little boy and four grown men all wrapped in blankets and eating fresh cookies.)

For as much fun as they have, Yves does not slack on his work. Occasionally, his son will be by his side as he's completing it.

Which inspires that same work ethic in his son growing up.

While his son (or any of his kids, really) isn't well accepted by the noble houses, the boy is not perturbed by it.

On the contrary, he's had his parents love and acceptance for so long that he's unfazed if nobles don't accept him. He understands why.

However, that also means that, ironically, Yves' son becomes even more of a capricious cat than his father was.

He's like a mystery, this ethereal prince of the palace that appears and vanishes on a whim that he'll make you believe in ghosts.

Now, he's developed such a talent for it, he scares Sariel. Despite what you'd believe, the devil minister is actually quite amused by this turning of tables.

Chevalier

Chevalier always knew he would have an heir with a woman of good standing for political purposes. That was his duty as king.

However, things are very different with Emma.

When she announces she's pregnant, Chevalier finds himself... far more affected by this revelation than he would have ever thought.

They were a man and woman having relations, so logically speaking, this would be the eventual result of their actions.

Furthermore, it was their duty to produce heirs, so this success was good news.

But why was he... excited about this fact?

The woman he loved was carrying his child, and somehow, that set his nerves on edge.

He'd read about this in novels, where men grew protective over their families as they produced offspring. And the logical conclusion was that they would protect what they had produced, the next generation who would replace them when they passed.

But Chevalier felt his previous assumption was now off the mark. And that confused him.

However, looking at Emma now with her bright smile, a lovely rosy hue on her cheeks as her eyes sparkled with excitement, Chevalier ultimately chalked this up to the elusive emotion of love.

He reached forward, resting his hand lightly over Emma's still flat abdomen. For her part, she laid her own hands over his. And in that still moment, Chevalier felt warm.

As Emma progressed, Chevalier found himself keeping a closer eye upon Emma. He began being hyperaware of little indications that she was tired or in pain.

And if she was sick, he'd force her to cease whatever she was doing and go lay down. Occasionally, he would leave his work to monitor her.

The one thing he did love about Emma being pregnant was her reluctance to get out of bed in the morning. While he hated that it was brought on by her not feeling well, Chevalier had no issue sleeping in with her in the mornings, her comfortably wrapped up in his arms.

However, the hardest thing for him to navigate was her mood swings.

He's a very logical thinker compared to her more emotive thought process, but they'd invested enough time into communications to understand each other. However, when Emma would react in ways he didn't expect or flip between emotions out of the blue, he became very lost.

Clavis found it extremely amusing to watch Chevalier fumble as he awkwardly navigated those situations.

Speak of the devil, Clavis had to be very careful around soon-to-be-father Chev.

The man had much on his plate and was also affected with new emotions brought on by the fact a child—his child—was on the way. So Chevalier's patience for dealing with Clavis's eccentricities became razor thin.

Clavis only learned his lesson when a very testy Chevalier held his sword at his throat. The hellcat would consider himself lucky he walked away with only a scratch.

When Emma goes into labor, Chevalier plants himself in his office chair and gets work done.

He is of no use to Emma sitting and waiting, and he has work to do.

But do not mistake him for being indifferent. Clavis and Sariel are the only ones who dare walk into that office, and they only come with business then leave straight away. The others, quite frankly, all fear too much for their lives to go within a 10 foot radius.

Sariel is the one to deliver the news that Chevalier's daughter had been born, that Emma is fine, and that Chevalier was now allowed to go see them.

At which point, Chev wastes no time abandoning his work. Not a soul dared stood in the king's way as he strode up to the room.

Upon entering the bedchambers, he's greeted with the sight of his wife holding a baby swaddled in a blanket, and Chevalier actually stops in his tracks to take in the sight.

A strong emotion flares in his chest, and he's overcome by awe over the realization that that child is his child, born from his wife whom he can genuinely say he loves.

With a soft smile, he walks over to the bed and sits down on the edge of it.

Softly, Chevalier gazes down at the tiny child in his wife's arms. Hesitating for a second, he reaches out to rub a finger over it's chubby little cheek.

They stay like that for a while, Chevalier watching over his daughter in his wife's arms with a tightness in his chest he cannot explain.

"Would you like to hold her?" Emma eventually asks him.

Her words surprise him, and he pauses as he fights for words to answer. "How do I hold her?"

With a sweet, reassuring grin, Emma walks him through how to properly hold the baby.

And when he cradles his daughter in his arms, Chevalier smiles.

He thought his wife had already taught him all there was to know about love. But he was wrong. Seems his daughter had yet more to teach him.

Growing up

Y'all may feel differently (this is not a hill I'll die on.) But I feel Chevalier and Emma are a "one and done" couple. Not for lack of trying, mind you.

From a royalty standpoint, Chevalier is disappointed, as it is his duty to bear heirs. Specifically sons.

From a personal standpoint, Chevalier does not care. Competency to rule is not limited to his own bloodline. Furthermore, he could bear sons who would be incompetent, and that would cause just as many issues.

That said, he is of the firm belief his daughter could take after him.

And he does not say that because she's his daughter... mostly. Chev can't help but dote on her a bit.

She's proof of the saying "first born daughters are female versions of their fathers."

Unlike most girls, she's extremely logical. Emotions are slightly more difficult for her to grasp, but she learns to understand them logically.

To the point she struggles to get along with her peers. As a female, she becomes singled out for her logical way of processing emotions.

It actually connects her to her father. And Chevalier, in turn, feels connected to his daughter as they share that mindset.

However, it comes as a relief to Chev that Emma loves their daughter anyway, despite her very logical mind.

He himself had always insisted he was fine on his own, and if no one understood him, so be it. But knowing his daughter would always have the support of both parents was a comfort to him.

I don't need to say this, but there was no way for their daughter to escape a love of books when she was born of two bookworms.

And it was only further ingrained when Chevalier read to her all while growing up. He read her bedtime stories only slightly less frequently than Emma did, and that was only because he was busy.

Chev is so attached to his daughter that he decides to specifically take time to teach her self-defense.

As a princess, he realizes it would be wholly inappropriate for her to walk around with a sword strapped to her waist.

But teaching her defensive maneuvers and how to wield a knife she could hide in the folds of her clothes would not be unproductive, as she is a princess of a not fully adored king.

She's terrifying as is, but to her, it's not enough.

She realizes that as a female, she is biologically weaker than males. And while she has some training, she's not foolish enough to believe she can out-power men in the way her father can.

This is why Clavis becomes her favorite uncle. He's skilled in avoiding fighting and instead using trickery, knowledge she believes would be of great benefit for her.

But that's not all. His mind just... fascinates her.

"Father... he's an idiot. A brilliant idiot, but an idiot."

"I know, my dear," he'll always say while patting her head affectionately.

In the end, Chevalier does what he can to ensure his daughter is in the running to be selected for the next king, along with his nephews who get pulled into the running.

And just as her father before her, she's determined to prove that it will be inevitable for her to ascend the throne.

Leon

When Emma tells Leon she's pregnant, Leon goes quiet.

Because he has a child on the way. He... he has a family of his own.

Not that he doesn't consider brothers his own family. He loves them like his own blood. But this is different.

He actually has blood family now.

And in the most ironic way, too. Here he was, born a slave married to a woman born a commoner. But their child—his flesh and blood—would be royalty.

When that hits him like a storm, he actually starts laughing. And he's still laughing as he swoops Emma up and spins her around.

This is truly one of the best days of his life. Not even becoming king could come close to this.

He's always wanted to help Emma with anything before. Now, it is ten times worse.

He's like a little puppy, following her around asking if she needs anything. To the point this man put Rio to shame. (Rio is torn between being embarrassed for Leon and being jealous. Waiting on Emma hand and foot was still his job!)

For the first time, Leon is genuinely thankful for being a royal. Simply because if he was a slave, he couldn't have provided for Emma and his child anywhere near as much as he could now.

His habit of slipping out of the castle becomes less common since Emma announced her pregnancy. Sariel is thrilled.

However, this is because Leon can't just whisk her away like he used to. He feels a need to be more careful with her now.

Though Emma doesn't appreciate being treated like a doll, she doesn't speak up because she's actually happy Leon has settled down a bit.

Leon only grows more excited the more Emma progresses. He loves being able to hold a hand over her swollen stomach and talk to his baby.

He tells them often how excited he is for them to come into the world. How he'll protect them and love them dearly.

When she goes into labor, he's of course very anxious.

He plays it off, pretending that he's not worried and she'll be fine.

Which, he knows she likely will be, but he can't help but worry, anyway.

Jin is there to help calm him down and take his mind off things. As is Yves and Licht.

They hold a little party in the office, trying to distract Leon as long as they can.

But that only goes on for so long before Jin catches on that Leon isn't enjoying himself.

From there, it's the job of the oldest brother to reassure him.

When Leon is informed he's allowed to go see his son, he gets pats on the back from his three brothers as he leaves the room.

And then runs up the stairs, cape flying behind him like a thief in the night.

When he enters the room in a hurry, he doesn't stop until he's right by Emma's side.

"No need to hurry," she teases him.

"Of course there is," he returns, crawling beside her on the bed. "I don't want to miss a second with my son."

Emma is happy to hand over the baby to Leon, because her heart melts with the beyond tender expression Leon bestows on him.

"How do you outrank both daddy and mommy, huh?" he quietly jokes to his son when the room is empty.

Although he and Emma both share a chuckle, she reaches up to swipe the tear out of his eye.

He lets her. After all, he now has a reason to be a leader that has nothing to do with a heavy burden forcefully thrust upon him.

No, now he has to be a leader because he wishes to make his son proud.

Growing up

All boys, this man has. All. Boys.

Emma wishes she could have caught a break and just had one girl. She is not that blessed.

Leon loves his kids. Adores them. They have him wrapped around their fingers.

Of course, Leon's deep love for his kids is returned ten fold. They love their dad.

But that said, this family is chaos.

Leon already is like a large child. You think his literal children are going to be any better?

And their habit of sneaking out of the palace for kicks and giggles?

Emma just takes tea into Sariel's office. "Listen. The boys are out. You can get mad all you want. I want a moment's peace."

Sariel has given up by this point, simply accepting the tea. "No. Far be it from me to allow a moment's peace to slip through my grasp."

They do get a scolding from Emma if they are out for too long, but that's it. So Leon does his best to watch the time.

He's a busy man after all. But he loves making time for his kids like this.

That said, while he's the fun dad, he's actually quite strict in his teaching.

He wants to push them, to make them grow. He's not giving them any cushy, plush prince lifestyle.

And that's not because he wants them to suffer. He wants them to become better men than he was.

He debated for a long time about if he'd tell his sons about his past.

Only after talking with his lovely, incredibly encouraging and inspiring wife did he make a decision.

Each son is told privately as they become teenagers. But Leon tells them with the purpose of both inspiring and warning them.

"A slave can become a prince, but that requires both luck and work to get there. Do not doubt a prince could become a slave should his actions allow it. So, work to become a man you can be proud of."

None of them want to disappoint their father, so they all strive to prove that Leon's ceiling was their floor.

Military commanders, ministers, king. They all want to give their lives to protecting this kingdom of roses and proving their father proud.

They also make the next Belle's job incredibly difficult, choosing between eight very capable, extremely handsome princes. (Look. Leon is canon boy, right? It's only fair that's how this goes. XD)

[goldenavenger02]

Hello! I have a prompt idea I hope it's not too gory or something:

Kai accidentally harms Lloyd horribly (maybe burned him...?) and Lloyd is traumatised.

Angst with a happy ending

I am so sorry this took so long and I am so sorry if this does not meet what you were looking for. I have been working on this for months.

Ao3 Link:

“I…I kinda need your help and I know I should probably just go back to the monastery and that I’ll probably regret coming to you later but-”

“What is it?” He cut him off with a raised eyebrow and his hand pressed against the doorframe, only to wince when he moved his hand to reveal a significant red, blistering burn that covered most of his arm.

“Kai and I got into a fight.”

After they had rebuilt the walls of the monastery and the many, many allies aligned with his son made their way back into their city to rebuild the destruction to their own homes, he found himself lingering outside of the walls.

“Master Wu said you could stay here, since the wall of your apartment is kinda, well, gone.”

Even the way he approached the conversation, neutral to the fact that he had caused so much destruction and nearly ruined his life many times, just proved to Garmadon that even if the memories didn’t feel like his own, he had missed vital years of the boy he vaguely remembered growing into the man that stood beside him.

“And you would be okay with that?”

“Well, no, but he’s your brother-”

“Then I refuse to impose,” Garmadon interrupted as he turned to face the young Oni, “after all, it is your home as well. Tell my brother “thank you”, but I will find a place to stay on my own.”

“Fine, do what you want.” 

And yet, even though he clearly did not want him to stay, something about the huff of his voice as he turned on his heel reminded Garmadon of their conversation deep in the library of the Serpentine.

“That’s my greatest fear, is that I’ll end up like you! Because you don’t care about anything or anyone!”

“That is not true!”

“Tell me one thing you care about! One thing!” He didn’t have to speak, he simply pulled out the soda can, the one harboring the fern that Vinny had given him, to teach him how to care, to hopefully, one day, repair this very relationship.

But as soon as Lloyd registered what he was trying to say, his eyebrows furrowed and his voice came out in some sort of choked sadness around the yell.

“Plants don’t count! Plants aren’t people! They don’t have feelings! It doesn’t care that you abandoned it, or that you never sent it a birthday card or…or…oh, what’s the point? You’ll never understand.”

“Wait, Lloyd,” he spoke up, waiting until he turned back around with an unreadable expression on his face except for the questioning indicative by his raised eyebrow, “I know that rebuilding will be disorderly to say the least, but when you get a chance, I…I would like to continue speaking to you.”

“You’ve known where I was the whole time.”

“Right,” he let out a breath of air, “then I will try not to disappear again.”

Even when the teenager turned away and closed the door behind him, Garmadon knew that he had done the most he could until someone, probably Vinny, taught him how to actually use a cellphone. 

But the door did not slam, so he couldn’t help but consider it a baby step in the right direction.

…

Even when he moved apartments to one with a nicer interior but noisier neighbors and he finally did get the cellphone number for his son, the last thing Garmadon expected was for Lloyd to come to him first.

It seemed as though every time Lloyd Garmadon had come into his life, the world looked like it was ending if it wasn’t actually in the middle of collapsing around him; this time wasn’t an exception with the violent thunder ringing out across the nearly black sky every few minutes.

And standing in his doorway, with wet blonde hair falling into his eyes and his left hand wrapped loosely around his right wrist, was his teenage son with red-rimmed eyes.

“I…I kinda need your help and I know I should probably just go back to the monastery and that I’ll probably regret coming to you later but-”

“What is it?” He cut him off with a raised eyebrow and his hand pressed against the doorframe, only to wince when he moved his hand to reveal a significant red, blistering burn that covered most of his arm.

“Kai and I got into a fight.”

“Well, that is evident,” he remarked, only to remember exactly who he was talking to and the vague memories of how bad a fight with the overly protective fire ninja had to be for Lloyd to come to him with a burn, but come to him at all, “Vinny has a first aid kit in the bathroom, although I’m not sure how helpful it will be for…this.”

“Thanks.” Lloyd seemingly slumped with a sigh of relief before walking in and giving Garmadon the chance to shut the door, only to realize that Lloyd was already walking into the small bathroom and pulling the first aid kit out from under the cabinet.

“Do you need any help?”

“No, I…I patch myself up a lot.”

“Then you should know that taking the heat out of a burn is the first step.” Garmadon sighed as he took one step into the bathroom and flicked on the cold water before stepping back out to give Lloyd the room to properly treat himself.

They stayed silent for awhile, even though the relentless storm filled the quiet without their help; it wasn’t until the burn had been slathered in ointment and had a strip of gauze taped over it that Lloyd finally sat down on the closed toilet seat and rubbed a hand over his eyes.

“Sorry, about this, I just…” he pulled in a long breath, trying to conceal the tears that were building in his already red eyes, “Kai gets mad and blows up, and I know he’s just worried about me but I can handle myse-”

“You are welcome to stay as long as you need to.”

“I can’t, your roommate-”

“Vinny and I had this conversation after I helped rebuild your monastery, that if you ever needed to stay here and you were comfortable with that idea, the couch is yours. It’s no mattress, but it’s an option-”

“Why are you being nice to me?” Lloyd cut him off this time, and the silence it sent him into made him realize that he had to stop cutting off the teenager whose face matched his when he was much, much younger, “all I’ve done for the last month is yell at you.”

And he so desperately wanted to explain himself, that he remembered a time when he would burn the world down for Lloyd even if that version of himself felt forever out of reach, but he found himself straightening his spine and chalking it up to, “I am working on having compassion.”

“I don’t know how long I’m going to stay.”

“I’ll let Vinny know,” Garmadon insisted before waving a hand to beckon the teenager closer, “let me show you where the linen closet is.”

…

He was bewildered as he watched the famed Green Ninja, who he could only vaguely remember before he received the moniker below deck in an old pirate ship, carefully and thoroughly pull everything that could begin to resemble a mushroom off of every single piece of pizza he was offered from the box.

“You’re letting it get cold.”

“Cold pizza is better than eating mushrooms.” He shrugged as he moved on to pulling off the onions, making it impossible for Garmadon to stop himself from adding.

“But you are letting the stuffed crust pizza get cold.”

…

When the fire ninja did show up at his door two days later, his hair damp from the now light rain that was still plaguing Ninjago, Garmadon couldn’t stop himself from glaring at him as he opened the door, unable to stop himself from demanding after he asked if Lloyd was there.

“Who gave you the right, after you burned him?”

“”Who gave me the right?!” The elemental fire in the young adult’s eyes shone brightly with anger as he continued to shout, “it was an accident! I wasn’t the one who abandoned him, or threw him through multiple walls, or told him that he wasn’t my son-!”

“Kai?”

The shouting was instantly quelled and the fire ninja ran in, without any sign of permission, and instantly pulled Lloyd into one of the tightest hugs Garmadon had ever beared witness to; he had to pretend it didn’t send a pang of sadness into his heart when Lloyd wordlessly squeezed just as tight.

“Fuck, Lloyd, I’m so, so sorry.”

“I pissed you off while you were training and was in your line of fire-”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“But it’s an explanation,” Garmadon couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what Lloyd had been telling himself since they had started making an effort to repair their shattered relationship, “I’ll get my stuff real quick and meet you outside.”

Even though he could only see the back of Kai’s head when he nodded, the way he turned on his heel proved that his mouth was fixed in a tight, straight line and waited until Lloyd was out of earshot when he allowed himself to speak again in the form of a threat, “if you fuck this up again, you won’t ever be given another chance from any of us.”

And as the young adult left, it dawned on him as to what had angered him so much that he had accidently hurt his son. ‘He’s worried that I’ll hurt him again.’ The worst part was that Garmadon couldn’t even blame him when he was constantly worried that he was one misstep away from ruining the last chance Lloyd was willing to give him.

But when the boy returned with his freshly washed gi on and his sword strapped to his back, he stopped to look up at him as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

“Thank you for letting me stay here, and tell Vinny thanks for letting me borrow his clothes. I really appreciate it.”

“You shouldn’t keep Kai waiting.” 

“Right, right, I just…thanks, again.”

But as he turned toward the door, Garmadon couldn’t stop himself from reaching forward and resting a hand on the teenager’s shoulder, receiving a raised eyebrow as he turned which had him pulling back his hand quickly.

“Sorry, I just…do you want pizza next time?”

And the soft chuckle in his words allowed Garmadon to let the tension ease from his shoulders as he spoke, “only if you leave the mushrooms off.”

“Pepperoni pizza it is.”

[commenter2]

"Overture" review

After so many years, Hazbin Hotel is finally out. As of making this, I was a bit surprised that Vivzie (and Prime) posted the first episode on YouTube with the series coming out soon but I’m not complaining, as I had a recent conversation with someone about if Vivzie would post the episodes on her YouTube channel over time and I think it could happen but SLOWLY, like months after season 1 is done and with months in between postings.

Now let’s begin this review/reaction literature. Along with obvious spoilers, this will be a long review (sorry in advance) but I would really appreciate if you could read the whole thing.

Being the premiere, it makes sense to start with exposition from Charlie. It’s also fitting that she tells it like a fairy tale as I see it reflecting how Charlie sees the world, though I bet it will change a bit later on. Hopefully she can still keep that POV a bit at the end of the series, maybe like a kind of modern day fairytale view of the world.

Insert “accurate angels” joke here.

So 2 women are representing good and evil. I’m making a note for that as that is definitely going to lead to something.

I do like how the story is keeping the fact that Lucifer was good, like how some versions say Lucifer was God’s number 1 angel. Also in the scene with the angels working on Earth, one of the angels is shaped like that angel we saw in the season 1 trailer, meaning she and Lucifer likely go way back and confirming that she is really powerful/high ranking angel. Some say she is a refence to an old character of Vivzie’s of an angle who LOVED torturing sinners so who knows.

LILITH! Also this confirms that she WAS human. Hopefully this means Lucifer is okay with other humans/sinners, especially Vaggie (hint hint writers) and Lilith being the “queen of succubus” is an honorary title like I brought up in the past.

I am curious about what “pre apple Adam” was like and if he was any different than his modern age self. There definitely should be a prequel episode showing more details of how Lucifer and Lilith met and leading to everything else.

Lucifer X Lilith is soo cute, I really hope nothing bad happened between them before the events of the series, as for some reason people have been theorizing and headcanoning that.

I’m hoping that Charlie’s happy tone at that part of the story confirms that they are still together.

Charlie’s story quickly goes from Lilith and Lucifer falling in love to them interacting with Eve. I feel like later on we will learn that something big happened in between these events, another reason for why a prequel episode should happen one day.

The apple makes the figure of Eve glow a bit like that woman from the beginning representing evil, I knew that’d come in handy. This and the fact that the apple is supposed to represent the knowledge of BOTH good and evil but isn’t here makes me wonder if Eve will be a villain in the show? I mean Adam is and after seeing how he ended up, I could see Eve being much worse. Plus Vivzie did say that the female characters will have more focus in Hazbin Hotel so I’ll keep an extra eye out with them. I also want to point out that this scene of Eve looks a lot like the early released trading card of Lilith! There is this theory floating around related to that but I’ll save that when we get more info.

The stuff about evil coming to be is a bit interesting/confusing. I just find it a little hard to believe that both good and evil can both existed at the same time here but it only took Lucifer’s actions to release it. Where was it before then and what was it doing? Could this possibly be hinting that elements of other religions/mythologies exist in this series, and whatever was left over became Hell/evilness? I do recall Stolas mentioning a creature from one such mythology in “Seeing Stars”. Could the “epilogue” of the Norse Ragnarök story be canon in this world? I do like the idea of God being Baldur. This also reminds me of an old idea of mind for a pic so stay tune for that.

Since this is from Charlie’s/Hell’s POV I do think that some of these events aren’t 100% true, like I don’t picture Lucifer wanting to give humans free will BUT it’s not impossible, as maybe he was so prideful and truly through it would be a good idea. Maybe he did it for Lilith, as she thought it will help Eve not go through the kind of things she went through with Adam that made her miserable. The story also does make Lucifer more sympathetic, considering the fact that he and Lilith were just tossed to Hell and no mentions of a fan popular idea of a war between Heaven and Hell along with that odd line about Lucifer never seeing/wanted to see the good in humanity and gave up on it and dreaming, considering how prideful he is supposed to be and how to me Lucifer looks like the kind of guy who wouldn’t give up that easily. Maybe Charlie will discover that Lucifer liked the evil and decided to make more things to hurt humanity, which as a bonus hurt those that ignored him for so long. This also does make me think this could be another idea/reason for why Lucifer is against Charlie’s plan, as he knows Heaven will say no to her redemption idea every time and doesn’t want Charlie to go through that pain, which could also again relate to another idea I’ve mentioned before of Lucifer not wanting Charlie to be constantly under threat from Heaven and its forces like he is.

It JUST occurred to me that Lilith could have singing powers, like a bard or maybe even a sonic scream but I rather see that last thing happen with Stella first :3

Again that female angel from the trailer is show but this time she is sad, implying she doesn’t like the Exterminations while Adam is happy with the idea. I wonder if this means that the female angel, while she seems to be okay with the Exterminations during the events of the show COULD eventually be remined that she wasn’t always like this and at the end of the season could become an angelic ally of Charlie and helps her get her redemption plan in motion on the Heaven side of things.

So there is another reason for the exterminations instead of just population control. This could mean that the popular idea of Lucifer and Lilith making the deal so they could have Charlie could be true as well.

The scene of sad Charlie having her eyes open when her heart beats must be symbolic of the day she came up with her redemption plan.

I think that line about “Lilith’s hope passing down to Charlie” could be much darker than it sounds. Yeah Lilith and Charlie want Hell to thrive, but what if while Charlie thinks working with Heaven to solve the population problem would be best for everyone, Lilith hoped Charlie would destroy Heaven and thinks peace is too submissive in her eyes? Just a random idea but it could be a reason if there is tension between the mother and daughter.

I wonder if that book Charlie is reading was actually made by her, like her POV of everything, or made by her parents? Sure maybe they altered some things but maybe this is how she or they really think about things? If not then I bet the author got an earful from Lucifer about making him a quitter though after seeing Ozzie and Bee, Lucifer could be less prideful than we think he is.

So just like in the pilot, it seems like Charlie has a stronger connection to her mother and wants to make her proud, even if my idea of them having different wants to make Hell thrive is different. Again going back to the trailer maybe they will both get what they want and realize that there are other options, causing the two to bond and spend more time in the next season.

Thinking back I personally think it would have been interesting if the scene of Charlie reading the story and saying she would make her mom proud had been a flashfoward situation, taking place before the season finale. It has been implied in the trailer that a big battle between Hell and the Exorcist will happen, so I would have liked the idea of Charlie reading the book to remind her that what she is doing is the right thing in the end, and if the book HAD been made by her it would have been something to inspire future demons and sinners in case she doesn’t make it. That would be awesome and again fits with what I said about her altering things in the story if she is the writer.

Still funny to hear Charlie curse.

I know I’m late on the VA thing but I’m still going to post my thoughts about them when they come up, like right now as Vaggie’s new voice strangely reminds me of Harley Quinn’s Poison Ivy and It doesn’t help that those two characters are a lot alike. At least it leads to fun fanart as I love both shows.

“person doesn’t know someone is in the room with them” cliché

This episode is confirmed to take place shortly after the pilot. Specifically a week according to Vaggie later on.

Lilith’s 7 year gap is concerning but given how Charlie and her family are immortal, it probably isn’t that bad to them. It actually fits with this funny headcanon idea of mine about how when Lucifer and Lilith have big fights, they won’t see each other for decades or centuries before apologizing, but to them it is the equivalent of a day or two. I am a bit concerned that while her parents think this isn’t that long, it IS to Charlie, who is technically still “young” seemingly being only a few centuries old. This also goes back to that theory I was going to save for later, but it’s implied that Lilith is on a mission to stop something or someone but could be disguised as someone we know or could appear later on. I think we should play it safe when we see a modern day Lilith and assume that it could be someone else pretending to be Lilith.

Charlie X Vaggie are so CUTE!

I mentioned this in my HH S1 trailer breakdown but I still find the part of the commercial of the one guy stabbing the other funny cause the guy being stabbed doesn’t seem to mind XD.

That pic in Al’s commercial of Charlie and Lucifer better be overexaggerating, or I say we riot!

Also Al’s new voice is okay, though I do hear the difference. Can’t say the same thing for Angel as it sounds really odd like an accent is trying to get through his voice.

Charlie having a rubber duck to represent her dad. WAIT HER DAD! Viv was right we did get him fatheAWWW. Touché Vivzie.

Husk and Niffty’s voices sound fine, Niffty’s being the most perfect so far.

I once brought up the idea of Charlie basing her teachings on Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, I just want to bring that up as a possible thing they will do for rehabilitation since they don’t have any ideas how to at this moment.

Was the scene of Charlie with wild eyes a meme or refence to something? It was still pretty funny.

So Lucifer wants Charlie to meet Adam for him. On one hand this could just be him being lazy OR maybe he is trying to help Charlie in his own way. That or like I said before, maybe he thinks if Charlie realizes what she is up against, it could make her want to quit her redemption goal.

Despite her father being an angel/fallen angel, Charlie doesn’t know if angels have hearts. I wonder how much of Lucifer did change when he became a fallen angel.

Ought to bring this up now but since she was born and raised in Hell, though she sees the flaws, I feel like it might be a little bit hard for Charlie to see why Heaven wouldn’t want to make it better or bring the people there into Heaven.

Charlie’s song, while nice, has reminded me about this old fan idea people had about a possible future scene where Charlie sadly realizes that not EVERYONE could/should be redeemed. I thought I bring it up because I could see that coming up soon.

I think that is Blitzo in the scene where Charlie hitches a ride on the delivery truck. Speaking of which (looking at logo) :)

I didn’t bring this up in my HH S1 trailer breakdown because I didn’t think it was need, but now it is. TLDR I wonder if Pentagram City is now more like a “country” or all of the Pride Ring with towns and named areas acting more like states. Until we get an episode outside of it and into another circle of Pride (something referenced in Helluva Boss and the HH pilot trailer WAY back by Katie Killjoy) I’ll likely treat Pentagram City as the whole Pride Ring.

I think I brought this up before, but if there is a Heavenly emissary in Hell, then I wonder if there is one for Hell in the outskirts of Heaven? Could this building allow sinners to talk to people, like loved ones in Heaven? Something like this would be perfect for my OC Ratchet, as one of his goals is to talk to his deceased/murdered little brother again.

It’s funny seeing Adam eat, considering his mouth doesn’t look real and thus should work. Also yes I see Adam eating ribs, but I’m not making a joke about it because it is a bit cheesy.

Honestly we should have seen the hologram thing coming, since I bet no angel in Heaven (as of now) wants to be in Hell unless it’s during an Extermination.

IS ADAM FLIRTING WITH CHARLIE!!!! SOMEONE DO SOMETHING TO MAKE IT STOP!!!

Adam’s behavior here is making my “pre apple Adam being an immature child” theory look canon, don’t you agree?

I think we’re seeing the Lilith side of Charlie when she is pretend laughing.

Adam and Eve aren’t a thing anymore. I knew that was coming, but it is still a bummer to hear as it is predictable. No surprise but I wonder if they split after the Cain incident, as I’m starting to wonder if in this world, Cain was a lot like his father as he is now.

Though as 1D as he is, at least this makes Adam a good antagonist, unlike with Stella but that is getting WAY off topic. I do hope that Adam is just going to be the antagonist of this season, and after that he is either written off or given the Emperor Pilaf treatment and be demoted to a very, VERY minor threat. This way other antagonist could arrive leading to new challenges for Charlie and the others.

AGAIN SOMEONE DO SOMETHING, GET LUCIFER OR LILITH!!!

Charlie seems to be thinking like her dad when she tries to use Adam’s ego to get her project started.

Though mainly for laughs, I’m still going to guess that cameras, being on camera, or being watched/the focus of is going to have a connection to Niffty’s backstory. One really sad theory is that an older guy she liked was a stalker who eventually abducted her and showed her off to his friends and though Niffty eventually escaped and killed him, their struggle caused a fire to break out which would kill her too. This obviously messed her up and likely resulted in her obtaining something like Stockholm syndrome and having her mind regress to that of a child, explaining some of her personality quirks.

Just a personal thought, but I hope later on the writers will stop calling sinners as demons and just call them sinners or humans, as I feel like it is going to lead to problems later on. I mean what if one day we get a character that looks like a Hellborn demon but is actually a sinner… OMG LIKE BAXTER!

Al just being Al, which is still concerning. Heck even his “deal’ with Vaggie sounds like there is more to it, and I don’t mean that thing about how deals make people stronger. Then there is the way he said ‘your choice” though that could be the acting.

Some things here. The O on the Director’s chair is shaped like an eye which could be referencing Al’s cane or something else, Niffty refencing Marilyn Monroe, and the return of the characters outfits from “Alastor’s Reprise”.

Insert “Lute being prideful for not accounting that Lucifer is an angel” comment here.

So how would having a former sinner in Heaven be any different then how Adam acts? I bet it will be more complicated than that. I once brought up the idea of demons being scared of sinners because of their potential, so maybe Heaven has a similar thing? Maybe Heaven doesn’t know HOW to loosen restrictions to get more people or sinners into Heaven, as when they made the rules they didn’t have the foresight to make sure things could change with the times. I do recall a quote from the Bible that was about how souls couldn’t get into Heaven for a time until Jesus arrived and opened the gates. Heck there is another saying where Jesus DID get some people out of Hell which caused some quakes, maybe he coined the term Hellquakes. I wonder if a great sacrifice will have to be made in order to get worthy souls out of Hell? The Jesus thing also adds more to my idea of Jesus and Charlie being allies later in the series.

Though short, you can see during Adam’s song that Zhu Li, I mean Lute, does have a bit of a fun side deep down in that serious soldier personality.

Charlie is asking questions before I can type them down.

How high ranking is Adam in Heaven’s hierarchy if he can change the date of Exterminations? You think he would have to run that with other people like the archangels or seraphim.

After what she went through, it was nice to see Charlie happCOME ON!

This was going to come up eventually but I have mix feelings about Brandon Rogers being the new VA for Katie Killjoy. One main reason is that I personally see too many similarities between Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss (especially with the characters) and now having a VA from HB be in HH makes that list bigger. I also wonder if this decision was made as a kind of “damage control” since last time the character of Katie Killjoy was on screen she said something homophobic which got people angry, even though the series is in Hell and there are logically going to be people like that there. HOWEVER I understand why he was chosen, one being that he has played Katie Killjoy like characters already and I do like that they got someone that is easy to contact and has experience in such a role to do it then someone new. This has also strangely started making me connect Katie Killjoy to the Monarchs from the Venture Bros., like the daughter they never had who never went into costumed villainy (the news world can be evil though) which makes no sense but I LOVE IT anyway. I mean she acts like The Monarch but with a joke voice like Dr. Mrs. the Monarch, and the fact that she smokes and is insect themed just adds more to it XD.

AGAIN how did Adam get this through so fast? I wonder if Charlie will be blamed for this next episode? Eventually it will be revealed but I hope they do it sooner than later, as I do recall a screenshot of the Overlords talking about the Exorcist.

Also I feel like a line should have been added explaining that the upcoming Extermination will be worse than usual. I mean we the viewers know that but if it wasn’t for that Lute and Adam scene in the end, it would have looked like everyone is just panicking about something common happening earlier than usual. Maybe they do offscreen, going back to that Overlord meeting.

An angel drone? Is this a Sumerian mythology refence?

A dead Exorcist! Though not a surprise given it was spoiled via the trading cards along with it appearing MUCH earlier than I thought it would, it’s still interesting as now we have a mystery.

I find hard to believe that no one took down an Exorcist until now given how powerful sinners can be, but then again the writers seem to be making the forces of good/Heaven really OP which I’m not like that much. I don’t it would have hurt the story if it was revealed that while there are a few angelic casualties in every Extermination, the number has risen over the past several years which has now made the Exorcist army (not Adam because he probably sucks at his job and never noticed it) worried leading to the earlier Extermination plan.

It also seems that angels have golden blood, like the ichor in Greek myth. Looks like my headcanon of Heaven/Hell inspiring the various other myths of this world is canon!

This episode was a good starter for the season and series. While it feels a lot like another pilot at times, that is fine since it’s been years since the actual pilot, and the episode does add more new info to the series (a benefit of having a short season) like another glimpse at what Heaven is like and how they feel about Hell, along with adding in a situation that now effects everyone and can lead to future situations/interactions.

We also now have an interesting mystery going on about who could have killed that Exorcist. I think it’s likely going to be someone in Heaven wanting an excuse to attack Hell, I mean Lute really hates them so she could be the one or others suspects are that angel from the S1 trailer/was seen at the beginning of the episode and an old character of Vivzie’s named Roo who apparently represents all evil, and who people have been thinking is coming up soon. Heck maybe an actual demon like a goetia did it while trying to escape, or this was a result of accidental friendly fire? This is going to be fun.

The only negatives things about this episode are that I do agree that some of the new VAs, though talented, are kind of out of place for the characters especially Angels. I bet we will get use to them over time though. Then there are the very small things like how Adam has so much power to do things, and either changing a few scenes or adding a line.

I have one more theory I have to say before I end this. I think this whole season is going to be some kind of Heavenly challenge/test for Charlie. I wouldn’t be surprised if Heaven IS tired of Adam’s attitude especially when compared to how nice the daughter of Lucifer and Lilith of all people is, but they can’t discipline him given he is the leader of their army. This doesn’t help that they also see signs of a potential future threat coming up (likely why Lilith has been gone for so long) and think that Adam won’t be able to handle it, so some angels think Charlie should be the one trained to deal with this force while others think they should stick with Adam and just prepare for when he messes up. This is why the higher ups are allowing Adam’s early extermination to happen because they want to see if Charlie can handle this situation, along with seeing her skills at being a leader and most importantly see if she will still be her nice self in the process. If she fails then thing stay as they are, but if she passes then the angelic forces will give Charlie the chance to try and convince the forces of Heaven to go with her redemption plan, and demote/get rid of Adam as karma. Again it would be a way to get rid of Adam as a villain and have someone else fill in the role next season. Same for how the writers could use this to lead this to a bigger story like a GOW Ragnarök like reveal where Charlie finds out the generic “end of days” prophecy is a lie and the real prophecy says something big will come to destroy everything in Heaven, Hell, and Earth and it’s debated on if she could be the one destined to fight it and save everything.

This was a big review and there a still 3 episodes left so you want to keep up to date, give me a follow.

What were your thoughts on the episode? Though there are a lot, do you agree with any of my thoughts/ideas here? Was there anything I missed that you would want to hear my thoughts on?

[i3utterflyeffect]

The Pearl Problem

ITERATION 2: THE REBEL

All That Beckons tries again with some new friends, and finds that not everyone is willing to go along with what he wants. And that isn't just these animals, either. He also discovers that creatures without glass bones are much, MUCH more dangerous. - chosen time. :] [AO3 Link]

"Log four! I've gotten some help from other iterators who go by Aberrant Creation and Programmed Interference. Me and Programmed Interference go a while back, but we haven't talked in a while. Glad that they're helping me with this. We've gotten a chance to catch up a little, but it's a bit awkward since it's been... Uh... I can't remember the exact number of cycles, but it's been a long time since we've talked."

"I'm making some progress now. I've gotten a plan together for a creature that will hopefully NOT self-destruct, and one that's going to be able to efficiently create the bone I need for a pearl. They should be pretty sturdy, too, which means they can survive the extraction and regrow the bone! Man, this is cool."

"Hopefully this'll actually work. I'm trying it right now; Hopefully in about 50 cycles or so it'll be ready. Feels like a long time, but I can wait. This has to work, right?"

---

"Log five. The creature is complete."

"I think I followed everything right. I, um... I tried to play it safe since I don't want to give myself rot by screwing this up worse than before. I'm feeling pretty good about the result, though. It's been wandering around for a few minutes-- doesn't look like it's limping or anything, and I'm pretty sure that's a good sign. Let me just... poke it with an inspector and make sure it doesn't die as soon as I touch it."

"Just gonna..."

"Oh. That's-- what is it doing? What is that?"

"Is something on fi-- THAT'S THE CREATURE THE CREATURE IS ON FIRE WHY IS I-"

---

"Log five, continued!"

"I am very fortunate that genetic engineering uses a lot of water... because that thing tried to set me on fire."

"I genuinely don't know where it got the ability to do that-- I mean, I put in some lizard genes just to make the bones more sturdy. That shouldn't have given it the ability to set fires! Much less be immune to it! And-- honestly, I'm kind of regretting not keeping the first one in general! That thing was a thousand times less likely to kill me than whatever this is!"

"As for what happened... I contained it. For now. But I need to figure out how to neutralize that thing. I think I have an idea, but I need to contact the others first."

"Hopefully I can get it done before it wakes back up."

---

"Log six."

"I've got it under control, I think. It's not exploding now, at least. I made something that I can trigger on command to release a biological coolant in their blood, because! It looks like lowering its body temperature prevents it from sparking any fires."

"...however... Aberrant Creation has stopped talking with us, because apparently keeping a creature from killing me is 'immoral'. It's not like I'm killing it, though."

"Actually, I don't think I could even if I was brave enough to. It killed, like, two of my inspectors. I didn't even know a creature could do that."

"It's kind of sluggish right now, but I'm hesitant to extract the bone pearl while my equipment is still damaged. And also while I'm down two inspectors. And while there's... structural damage... and..."

"I need to go repair things. I need to fix... all of this. Saints below. I'll update on the situation when I'm in better shape."

---

"Log seven."

"It's been a few cycles since I created... The creature. The slugcat. Should I have a name for that thing? I'll... I'll think about it."

"But it's going well. Seems like the coolant method's working to keep it controlled. I'm still wary to let it around any important components, but at least I don't feel like it's going to immediately try to blow a hole in my can."

"I also managed to extract the pearl, and even if it's not the best material, it's better than nothing. It's kind of porous but it'll work for art, I think. It's also shockingly colorful for bone; it's colored the same way any pearl would be. That was an accident, but they're nice to look at. I kind of wonder if their skeletons are colorful, too."

"Anyway... I've been trying to encourage it to cooperate with me, but I don't see anything behind those eyes. Completely vacant except for apparently the thought of killing me."

"...I'm sure it'll come around eventually."

"Log eight. Discordant Joy said I should name them, and we came up with a great name... The Chosen One!"

"Heheh... Pretty sure the Ancients would NOT be happy with that name, but screw them; I like it. They've been pretty cooperative lately, by the way. I've gotten them to do a bit of pest control after a couple of white lizards crawled inside. They got chomped once or twice, but I think they enjoyed killing those things. Maybe I just need to get The Chosen One things to kill that aren't me?"

---

"Log nine..."

"...Programmed Interference has gone silent. They won't respond to any messages."

"I'm starting to get a bit worried. They've been having issues for a while, but suddenly they just seemed to disappear."

"...These slugcats are meant to be messengers, right?"

"...I wonder..."

There's a long pause in the audio. All That Beckons is clearly deep in thought.

"...This might be a bad idea. I shouldn't be doing this."

"I think... I'm going to see about making one for its intended purpose. And this time, I'm not going to screw it up."

[arty-ffxiv]

💖Just a gentle nudge to remind you that you're not just existing—you're thriving, even on days when it doesn't feel that way. You're a one-of-a-kind force in this world, bringing light and love in ways you might not even realize. You've overcome so much, and you should be proud of every step you've taken, no matter how small. The world is better with you in it, and you've already made such a difference just by being you. Keep going, keep growing, and never forget how important you are💖

Thank you, who ever you are. This message warmed my heart and has been a well needed reminder ♥

I've not advertised it much, but I've been on a FFXIV/ Tumblr hiatus for the past ~5ish weeks; this blog has been running on old, queued content since then. I'm feeling quite drained and burned out, and frustrated as I'd just gotten back into my creative outlets again.

It's the longest time I've taken away from the game, and I didn't want to step away so soon from the FFXIV Tumblr community again after returning from another long hiatus.

Putting more under the cut, for those interested in IRL stuff. Otherwise, please know that I'm ok, just taking a break.

I've been in a bit of a strange place mentally, since before Dawntrail dropped.

In the week leading up to the expac's early access release, I was made redundant from a job role that I really loved. I'd been in limbo regarding my role for a number of months, and hadn't anticipated any movement or news for at least another few months- things move slowly in the community services world.

I had a week of annual leave booked for the expansion release- I was keen for the break, and excited to be going into the new adventure with the new friends I'd made within the Tumblr FFXIV community.

2 days before I was due to go on leave, I was told I was having a meeting with HR and my line manager. I was advised to bring a support person.

My anxiety sky rocketed, and the next day I was given the news of my redundancy. I was given some options to mull over for the next few days- redeployment to another site, putting in an application for a more senior role with no guarantee I'd be successful, or to leave the organization.

As you can imagine, this put a big dampener on my excitement for Dawntrail. I'm grateful that the news came when it did, so at least my leave was spent with something to focus on instead of just moping about, but it just fucking sucked.

I was spending most of my time on leave in game, trying to keep my mind off work and the mess of emotions and confusion I knew I'd be coming back to. I enjoyed the expac- at least the first half. I wasn't emotionally prepared, or ready, for the second half.

I won't be going into details for those who have yet to finish the MSQ, nor to upset myself further.

The second half of the story was just too much; I spent my time in the last zone consumed with the thoughts of I'm not having fun anymore, I'm not enjoying this, let's just rip this fucking bandaid off and get through it, we can process all the feelings this is dredging up for us later.

Since finishing the MSQ, I've not really done much else in-game or really logged in again. I've been reflecting on it, and I think the ending of the expac triggered some deep-seated traumas for me. This, coupled with the grief and mixed emotions of moving into a new work environment, has really exhausted me.

I'm 5 weeks into my new workplace, and I'm enjoying it but am just so exhausted. While I'm still in the same organization, my workload is more than it was previously and I've lost the motivation I'd only recently gotten back for FFXIV and creating.

Hopefully now that I've gone through the motions of resettling and learning the ropes in this new space, my creativity will begin to come back. I can only hope.

[serenescribe]

POLL RESULTS! (+ updates)

After a week of intense campaigning, along with a whopping 340 votes (!!!), I am pleased to announce the results of the longfic poll, along with what the plan is from now on!

With a whopping 42.1% of the votes, "PMMM AU: Lilia Longfic" is the winner! It started in the lead, and despite having fierce competition from "Starchild," it maintained its first place position till the very end \o/

I must shoutout @hanafubukki in particular for making the poll competition as intense as it was! Without all the "Starchild" campaigning she did, it would have been a walk in the park for the PMMM AU.

So what's next?

Well... I'm still drowning in a sea of uni responsibilities, going into the second half of the semester. (Essays, projects, and exams galore!) With that in mind, I don't have much energy to work on longfics at the moment. Nevertheless, I hope I can get the PMMM AU longfic to you all by the end of the year; I will be considerably freer by December! (In the meantime, I'm gonna try to plot things out with Mica...)

As for "Starchild," given the number of votes it received, I'll be sure to make it my secondary focus and work on it after the PMMM AU fic is done. Like I said previously, it's already 1/3 done, so it should not take too much time to finish the rest. Hopefully I can get the both of these done before my next semester of uni commences in January!

With regards to fic and ficlet requests... I'm still not going to open up longer fic requests since I feel bad that there's still about six of them left in my inbox. However, I've done a lot of catch up on the ficlets, so once I find the time to finish the remaining two ficlet requests, I'll open them up again! They're relatively less strenuous since they're below 1000 words, and I'd still like to write a bit if I can.

Okay, that's about all I can think of. I'll probably be queueing my small stockpile of pre-written ficlets sometime soon, once I get around to editing them. Proper blog management (creating a masterlist for Tumblr fics, possibly crossposting them to AO3, finally doing a fucking write-up on that Dæmon AU I've had for months...) will likely only come after I escape the sea of agony that is uni.

(Thanks for being so patient with me, everyone! c:)

[bvannn]

Weekly update March 22, 2024

I’m still exhausted beyond words. I’m also on a bit of a spiral where I’m worried about the quality of my art and about my output, but it’s okay because I’m chipping away at old big projects still and as soon as classwork is subsided I’m going to try to learn a new skill, because any time I feel insufficient I learn a new skill so I can be better. Classes have been kicking my ass mostly but hopefully big things will be coming sooner rather than later.

I’ve been doing a number of drawings to time myself and update my comms. Turns out I’m a lot less consistent than I thought so it’ll be a bit longer till I get prices sorted out but it’s coming along. Also good chance I’ll add more on to it later once I sort out more things I can offer. My usual drawing style will be the main one, but I’m hoping I can also add the epithet erased style, the chibi dnd mini style I do sometimes, options for backgrounds, and eventually also music.

Problem with music though has been my exhaustion. The only music stuff I’ve really been drilling at has been bigger projects, but I’d like to just sit down and do a small beat as well at some point. Once I catch up with classwork I might try. I have been chipping away at a couple instrumental pieces, as well as the larger vocal cover and I did some lyric writing today for the two ‘finished mostly’ ones I’ve been sitting on. I did have to scrap and redo a character theme for the second time this week but once I have some time with a clear mind I can reroute that one and use the melody I wrote for the last draft. In development right now are an ambient character theme, a 16bit-ish instrumental theme, a Zelda medley, a song cover with Kyo, a small gabber song with no affiliation to anything, the two original vocal songs, one symphonic rock and one EDM, and a handful of others that I haven’t been actively working on. As soon as I have significant time I’m going to try to finish off some of them.

Once the music is finished I’ll have to throw visuals together for them too. I really want to put in effort to make animation rigs again but I don’t have the time or energy. I might do one for the vocal cover song since I could be reusing the character but I’m not sure it’ll be necessary. Once the cover is done I’ll storyboard something and decide then.

Comic is also still going, I haven’t had a ton of time to do thumbnailing/writing, but I should be down to the last scene. No guarantee I won’t have to add more after editing, but it’s getting there. Once that’s done I’ll try to post roughs of specific panels so it’s a bit easier to keep track of where it’s at. The thumbnailing is a big bottleneck right now because it takes a lot of brain power but it’s almost done. If I get myself together this next week it should be done by the next update. No promises though, I have a lot of classwork.

Last couple things, a good amount of my exhaustion is the result of insomnia, but I’ve been using that time to plan out TTRPG campaign stuff. I think I have some really fun creative encounters. I think I probably will try to write it out and find a way to release it, just in the interest of getting more people to play the anime campaign system (or whatever they end up renaming it to when the epithet erased version of the rules drops… eventually). I might throw together art for that too, but that’ll be a ways off, after the writing and encounters are done. Plus ideally I’d want the module to be available for free, so I don’t need to add too much anyway.

Last thing, as I mentioned I’m a bit unsatisfied with where I am with art stuff. I want to thank everyone who has been sticking around, I am trying to make it worthwhile for you too. But whenever I am unsatisfied with myself I need to learn a new skill, so I may be dipping my toes into pixel art soon. I do have that 16bit ish instrumental song I mentioned, that’s been on the back burner since January but I’ve finally been hit with the inspiration to finish it, and a little pixel animation would be nice to go with it, but that would require me to learn pixel art itself first, so I’ll try to do that in the coming weeks. Idk how soon though.

This next week will be primarily dedicated to clearing up schoolwork and fixing my sleep problem. After that I’ll try finishing up that cover song, finishing up comic thumbnailing, and finishing up that instrumental song, in that order. Anything else is a bonus. Will class work and insomnia get in the way? Probably, but I’m still doing my best.

[darkmermaidao3]

Clarity Chapter Five (Bonten Sanzu)

Minors do not interact (18+ fic)

Warnings: Not very many things going on this chapter, we've got profanity, sexual thoughts, manipulation if you squint really hard, unprofessionalism.

Words in blue are text/email

Doctor Ikeda,

I was so very happy to get such a quick response from you and I apologize for not getting back to you sooner, the holiday has put me significantly behind on a number of things, I’m sure you’re going through something similar at your clinic. I can’t express how thankful I am that you agreed to work alongside me for this case, it’s quite the tough one and I truly believe that with our combined efforts, we should manage to find some answers and come to conclusions about it by putting our heads together. I’ve attached copies of all the information relevant to the case, some of it is repetitive as they’re from the various doctors that had a go at it before us. I have pages worth of notes I’ve compiled concerning my thoughts about it and once you’ve done the same, I would love to get together with you to discuss them. I know of a wonderful restaurant in Ebisu where we could-

“Could you be any more insufferable?” the woman muttered to herself, irritation in her voice; she rubbed at her temples, willing the approaching headache to go away, Shimizu had put it in motion with this ridiculous email and she already knew that playing nice with him was going to be a trying time for her.

Yuki wasn’t so sure what she would rather deal with at this point nor which side of him was any less of a pain, his over-the-top fake politeness or his argumentative and demeaning attitude. It was obvious just how hard he was trying to pull the wool over her eyes, but she wasn’t an idiot. He’d only reached out to her because he couldn’t solve this case himself, he didn’t want to admit defeat, so he’d rather team up with her and get partial shared credit than none at all; she was sure his family had something to do with it, the Shimizu’s had never once given up on a case and he was expected to do whatever it took to keep that record going strong. Regardless of how unbearable being around the man would be, especially considering she’d chosen to do so of her own freewill, she’d have to suck it up because saving a life was far more important than her ego. As great as the money was, she hadn’t become a doctor for a high pay day, watching her grandmother wither away to nothing had been the start of it all. The doctors hadn’t had the answers, they hadn’t been capable of doing anything for her except managing her pain and when she finally passed on after years of torment, the white-headed woman started working on her thesis about that disease; she was going to find the answers one day.

Moving on, she needed to save all those files he’d sent over before she replied to his irritating email, make physical copies of them after, and get to work on studying them at her earliest convenience. She already had so much on her plate and more only continued adding to it since she’d gotten herself caught up in too much at once, she didn’t know how she was going to manage. She had this current situation with the shared case, she’d had to push back her visit to the orphanage so now she had to find another day soon this month where she’d be capable of going, she had to make time to continue her research and work on her thesis so she could (hopefully) have it done by the next conference like she’d been trying to do for years, she’d spent the whole of today on phone call after phone call as she rescheduled every single one of her appointments for the rest of the week herself since she’d closed the clinic, so much for a vacation.

‘…coffee.’

Not only had that new coffee brewer for the staff room come in right on schedule but she’d ordered one to keep in her office with hopes that it would keep her from being interrupted nearly as often, she felt like she’d made a mistake though seeing as now she was drinking coffee practically the whole day to keep herself awake with how exhausted she was; she was going to wind up with a caffeine high before the end of it all. There was so much that she needed to see to, and she couldn’t give any of those things her entire focus or all of her attention as it were, they may have been priorities but none of them were at the tiptop of the list; that spot was taken.

‘Don’t look, you’re being a creep.’

Yuki bit into her lower lip, rolling it between her teeth with thoughts of why it was best that she did not look for a little while longer, she couldn’t continue on like this and had to find a way to stop the slightly obsessive behavior so she could actually get things done. There was absolutely no reason for her to behave this way, she had to focus on the things that mattered and although her patient certainly did matter more so than anything else going on right now, it wasn’t an excuse to hover around him. He needed to continue resting without her distracting him, the incisions were healing and showing no signs of infection, it was looking like he was almost in a good place where she’d be able to stop the morphine and swap it out for a painkiller in the form of a pill. She had plenty of those in stock and she’d certainly be sending him on his way with a prescription once he was at a place where he could leave, that was the goal after all, to get him healed up so he could go back to his regular life. He wouldn’t be staying at her clinic forever and she had to come to terms with the reality that she’d more than likely never see him again, she had to be okay with it because there was honestly zero reason why she should be antsy about it. Yes, she would naturally worry because she did so towards all her patients but with him…

‘It’s different.’

As cliché as it sounded, it was different with him, and the young doctor was aware that it made her seem desperate but what else was she supposed to think after he’d touched her in what was very obviously meant to be an intimate way? She bit harder into her lip at the memory of his hand brushing strands of white from her eyes, his featherlight touch ghosting along her cheek, his aquamarine pools hadn’t pulled away from her once during that time and her heart was readying itself to give out simply from that alone. The female needed to remind herself that he hadn’t been sober since before she had to perform surgery, morphine was a strong opiate and half the time, people didn’t remember much of anything with how floaty it made their head feel, disrupting their cognitive function and the like. There wasn’t much of a chance that he’d remembered doing so considering he hadn’t made attempts to do it again, she couldn’t answer why he’d done so to begin with taking into account that he still hadn’t spoken a word to her, and it’d been days since he'd first woken up after the procedure; he was high with how strong that stuff was and she couldn’t take anything he did in that state as being meaningful.

‘There’s no reason for this.’

There wasn’t one, as a medical professional, she was supposed to have been maintaining said professionalism this entire time and instead, she was doing things that were entirely leftfield from her normal, she almost didn’t know who she was. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d gotten lost in her head daydreaming about him when she was supposed to be focusing on her work, she’d embarrassed herself probably well over a hundred times when he’d catch her gazing at him and during the moments that he’d be staring at her, it’d take everything she had not to shift around because of the sticky sin pooling in her panties. As beautiful as he was, that wasn’t an excuse to lose her wits, she was a doctor and she’d already seen her fair share of attractive men, so she should’ve had no problem keeping herself held together.

‘But they weren’t him.’

Her lavender orbs flicked away from her laptop at the thought and flittered in the direction of the hospital bed, trying to be as subtle as possible when they locked onto the pink-haired man, the tension in her body melting away at the sight. He was still sleeping, as he’d been for a couple hours now since she’d given him that last dose of morphine so she needed to keep her butt parked in this chair until he came to on his own, rest was the most important part, and it was almost as though he could sense her presence during the moments that she approached him when he was asleep. She didn’t need to compulsively check his vitals anymore once an hour as she’d done before, he was entirely stable now and she couldn’t continue to disturb him as she’d wound up doing more than a few times since she couldn’t seem to keep her distance. The internal struggle had only gotten worse since he’d touched her and she’d never been intimately touched by a man, he’d caressed her cheek as though she was as fragile as glass and would shatter under his touch. Her emotions were in a frenzy during the moment, her pulse racing and heart pounding so hard that it was a wonder that he didn’t hear it, she couldn’t recall what had been going on in her head as she’d practically blanked simply out of how flustered she felt.

The woman couldn’t count the number of times her friends had pestered her about dating over the years since she’d become an adult, even before then when she was a teenager, but they hadn’t been nearly as adamant about it since there weren’t very many teenagers on campus at university. Kaori had been so defensive that most men hadn’t been willing to even attempt to approach her and as much as she still backed her up when Choyo and Akari started on her about it, even she would make comments about how there wasn’t anything wrong with casual dating. Akari was a social butterfly and friends with an abundance of people, she’d made so many attempts to introduce her to someone she felt would be good for her and as much as Yuki appreciated the thought, she’d always been more focused on her career. Choyo was always starting the argument that she didn’t have to be in a serious relationship to date, there was no reason why she shouldn’t go out once a week or so, how nice it was to get to know someone, and her career shouldn’t have impeded on her social life. As right as all her friends were, dating was something she had zero experience in and didn’t know the first thing about, she wouldn’t know what to talk about or what to do; she’d been a frazzled mess when her cheek was touched so how was she supposed to get through a kiss, let alone sex?

Just the thought alone was enough to cause her face to flush and thighs squeeze together, the silent embarrassment of what his intense stare did to her, the way his aquamarine pools would zero in on her and watch every move she made, studying everything about her. She was anxious every time she noticed his unrelenting gaze and trying to ignore the ever-present arousal was a challenge, thoughts swimming with scenarios that she’d gotten lost in a multitude of times. Her pulse would race at the thought of him being close enough that his lips would brush hers, her heart would pound at the idea of his hands slipping under her dress, her face would burn over the imaginings of him between her legs…which only continued to get worse the longer she was around her PATIENT!

‘Stop it!’

It was too late, her face had to of resembled a tomato from how hot it felt and ignoring the warmth that had settled in her panties was impossible, she didn’t know how she was going to manage to get through the next few days without losing the battle against her raging hormones. There were too many factors at play, outside of the fact that she was a virgin, he was beautiful to the point that her brain quite literally turned to mush just from looking at him for too long, her dream guy didn’t even compare to how gorgeous this man was. She’d never felt so bashful in all her life and although she was managing to push her shyness off to the side to attend to her duties as a doctor in order to give him the best care, it wasn’t letting up nor fading away as the days went by. It was as though the longer they were around one another, the worse it would get, and it didn’t help anything that when she wasn’t looking at him, she could feel his eyes burning holes through her. At first, she’d been sure it was out of wariness considering he’d not only tried to shoot her in the beginning but had almost strangled her to the point of passing out, it’d become clear though that he’d moved passed feeling distrustful of her. 

His stare wasn’t out of keeping his guard up or even curiosity, he was looking at her in the very way that she was looking at him, obviously imagining the same things that she herself was with how his gaze continued raking over every inch of her and because he was on a powerful opiate, she couldn’t take it with anything but a grain of salt. He was impaired, his mind nowhere near where hers was since she was sober and it was doubtful that he’d be looking at her the same way once he was off the morphine, even more doubtful was that he’d remember the last several days which undoubtedly meant that she needed to pull herself together. She had to get him off the morphine and onto another painkiller that he could take with him when he left her clinic, maybe some muscle relaxers to take as needed, anti-inflammatories for the swelling; her mindset had to be one of a medical professional. Her train of thought hadn’t been anything close to what it should’ve been, and she’d already internally scolded herself on an infinite loop for the graphic images that continued floating in her head, she had to remind herself that the feelings she was having towards a patient was unacceptable.

What was worse, the woman didn’t know what she would even do if he wasn’t at a solid point by the time Monday rolled around, she couldn’t put off opening the clinic any longer than that because not only did her staff need their hours, her other patients certainly needed her. Her life couldn’t be on pause simply because of one person and she shouldn’t have even considered doing what she had; she should’ve gotten an ambulance transport as soon as he was stable after surgery, she should’ve called the police because even if she didn’t tell them about him trying to shoot her, he’d been shot, and the authorities would’ve needed to follow up on that. She’d made a huge mistake that she couldn’t correct with how much time had passed and getting in contact with the authorities now wouldn’t have done anything except make things a mess for her; her patient had silently made it clear he didn’t want to go to a hospital, and she didn’t want to imagine how infuriated he’d be if she made attempts to get him to one. If he wasn’t in a place where he was healed up enough to resume his daily life by Sunday evening at the latest, she’d have to figure something out, no one could know about him or what had happened last Friday, lest things become even more complicated than they already were.

A weary sigh left her in complete frustration with herself as she entered the medication room to grab a dose of morphine, she’d gotten herself into quite the huge mess and it was only getting better by the day; she didn’t know what she was going to do. She hadn’t been home in nine days now, she was sure that her cat was almost out of food and desperately needed his litter changed out, she’d thrown on her last clean dress yesterday, she’d practically cleaned out the cupboards and fridge of the breakroom, and she so badly wanted a shower. The young doctor knew that she’d run herself completely ragged by now since she was at a point of wanting to be home but there wasn’t anything that she could do about it, she couldn’t leave her patient unattended, even just popping out for an hour wasn’t plausible since she couldn’t trust him on his own. He’d come far already, he hadn’t needed fluids for a while, she’d taken him off the heart rate monitor as well, he still had the IV solely for the morphine injections and that was about to come out no later than tomorrow, all she was really doing now was managing his pain and waiting for the stitches to dissolve, that was still days away though. 

‘Maybe I could…no, don’t be stupid.’

Not only was it unprofessional but it most certainly wouldn’t send a good message to him, taking a patient to her house was out of the realm of being socially acceptable, not to mention she didn’t even know his name or a thing about him aside from his blood type. It was the furthest thing from being smart, it was highly unsafe as well, but could she even make that argument considering she’d been alone with a complete stranger since Friday? He hadn’t made a violent move against her since she made her intentions known that she wanted to help him, he’d developed some form of trust towards her since he wasn’t trying to deter her from checking his vitals and such, he may have not spoken to her yet but that hadn’t been bothersome to her. This could also be the best move that she could make, if he wasn’t at a place where she felt confident that he could manage on his own, then being tucked away at her house would keep her staff from finding out about him and it’d be more comfortable for the both of them; she was sure he wanted a shower just as much as she did and she could cook a real meal for once…or order takeout. 

‘Am I really doing this?’

Yuki didn’t know how she could even ask that, especially considering she’d already grabbed a few bottles worth of the medications she’d need for the upcoming days and for her patient to have when he left her, already having doctored all the records so no one would know they were missing from the medication room; there was no backing out and the only way was forward.

‘It’s just a few days, just like how it’s been here.’

Her hands were entirely full as she reentered her office, it almost sounded like she was starting a Mariachi band where the primary instrument was maracas with how many pill bottles were being shaken with each of her steps, keeping as secure of a hold as she could on the syringe of morphine while she dumped the contents onto her desk with a heavy sigh of relief. She’d get them tucked away into her purse and after her patient woke up then they could be on their way so long as he was comfortable with doing so, she couldn’t give him this last dose until after they made it, otherwise he’d be deadweight and there was zero chance she could move him should that happen. The woman eased her laptop shut before grabbing her purse off the hook, opening it up and tossing one bottle after another into it, the front pocket was the safest place for the opiate. She closed up the main pocket and zipped open the front one, making to tuck the syringe in, pausing her movements when she felt the warm hand pressing against her hip from behind her.

‘Breathe, you have to breathe.’

The white-headed woman warily turned to look back over her shoulder, her heart fluttering no sooner did lavender meet aquamarine, she hadn’t known he was awake upon her return but then again, she’d been so focused getting things packed to keep herself from hovering. She was pleased that he wasn’t struggling to keep himself held upright, he’d walked around a little yesterday after she’d pushed him to do so, his expression had been the furthest thing from happy with her since she’d refused to give him morphine until then. As dilated as his pupils still were, the usual impassive expression he directed at her was nonexistent, his lips pressed into a thin line and hinting at displeasure; she noticed he always did so when he was in pain, but it shouldn’t have been wearing off yet. Her lips parted to speak but she didn’t manage a single word when his hand tightened around her hip just enough that he could guide her to turn to face him, warmth building on her cheeks when it registered that she was sandwiched between him and her desk, hardly a foot of space separating them.

‘Get it together.’

She was struggling to remember how to breathe at the light squeeze of his hand, her eyes darting away from his shyly, trying to gather herself enough that she could find the right words. Her heart could’ve given out right there over the light push against her hip that had her lower back bumping the desk and his fingers hooked under her chin, urging her to meet his unrelenting stare.

‘Breathe, breathe, breathe.’

She didn’t know how she was even managing to think with how intense his gaze was this time around, she hadn’t expected whatsoever for him to get so close to her, his face had hovered so close that if she stood up on her toes then it’d be just enough that she could-

‘No, stop it!’

“I-I um…w-we’re…I mean…” the woman hesitated, trying her utmost best to steady her voice; her mouth felt thick with spit over just how deeply he was studying her, his piercing eyes leaving hers only to drop to her lips.

‘Breathe, fuck, shit.’

“W-we’re going to go-go to my house f-for a few days.” She stammered, her tone anxious; it seemed that had been the last thing he’d expected to hear, his gaze darting back to hers no sooner did she have the words out. “I-I mean…it-it’s just a precaution, in case y-you need more time. I have to reopen Monday and um…I need to feed my cat.”

‘Get it together, come on.’

“I-is that…okay?” she continued, her voice filled with worry; she wished she knew what this man was thinking, his expression hadn’t faltered whatsoever aside from swapping back to his usual neutral look and he hadn’t shown a single sign of discomfort, a simple head movement would satisfy her at this point. “I-if you’re not comfortable with that, I-I can always-”

She sealed her lips when his hand gave her hip a gentle squeeze, the pink on her cheeks darkening a shade and breaking away from his stare was impossible, not only hadn’t he released her chin, but she could’ve sworn he was hovering closer to her; he was. Strands of pink were slipping over his shoulders as he leaned closer to her, almost pressed right up against her and she’d entirely forgotten how to breathe when she felt his warm breath ghost over her lips, she didn’t know how she’d keep herself in line if he got any closer to her. He was breathtakingly beautiful and out of everything she’d admired about him, as nerve-wracking as being under his gaze was, his eyes had to be her favorite thing about him; he looked at her as though he was trying to see straight into the depths of her soul, it was no wonder she blanked practically every time she was on the receiving end of his stare.

‘So pretty.’

“Are you always so shy, Doctor?”

Yuki wasn’t sure what was more prevalent in the moment, her heart threatening to give out or the blush overtaking her face as she stared up at him in a combination of dumbfounded and total awe, her eyes as wide as saucers. He’d just spoken to her, after four days, he’d finally said something to her and the sound of his voice had done more to her than she’d ever expected, her panties were soaked. Her face was flushing furiously over the question, this man had the audacity not to speak to her for FOUR days and the first words out of his mouth were meant to tease her, she’d never felt so flustered in all her life. She was reeling in shock from just how unexpected it was, so much so that she was grasping at straws with hopes to figure out what to even say in response and she could’ve swallowed her tongue when his thumb brushed across her lips, his head just barely cocking to the side to observe her from another angle.

‘Breathe, you have to breathe!’

“I-I…umm…it-it’s just…” she responded, stumbling over her words despite how hard she was trying to pull herself together; she’d certainly made a complete fool of herself and would continue to do so unless she could reel herself in. “Y-you haven’t…”

This man had to of known the effect he had on her, between the knowing look in his eyes and the small smirk that formed on his lips from her babbling, he was already fully aware of what he did to her, she could almost feel the confidence pouring off him as his aquamarine pools held her lavender ones.

“I’m sorry, what was that; Doctor?” he pressed, his voice the definition of teasing; her face was on fire in embarrassment, her thighs shifting closer together absentmindedly in response. “Am I making you nervous?”

“N-no.” she managed timidly; the pink-haired man didn’t look convinced whatsoever, the smirk on his lips widening as he released her chin, placing his hand flat against the wood of the desk and essentially caging her in. “You-you’re still healing, you shouldn’t-”

“I can’t feel shit right now, Doctor.” He interrupted; the woman felt a shiver move through her when his hand slid away from her hip to the curve of her waist, she was positive her panties were ruined from how wet she was, and he was so close that even just a subtle shift in her weight would have him pressed up against her. “If we’re going, we should now before it wears off.”

As confused as she felt over just how much composure he had, she didn’t bother questioning it, it’d been the same when he’d been bleeding out and refusing to ask for assistance, his expression hadn’t faltered then, and it wasn’t faltering now despite that he was still impaired. Although the high wasn’t nearly what it would be had she just given him a fresh dose, his brain was still floaty, and he’d been able to express that it was still strong enough in his system that he couldn’t feel any pain. He was right about needing to get going before it wore off, she may be able to get him off the morphine starting tomorrow but he’d still need pain medication for the upcoming days, he’d been shot twelve times after all. She’d hoped he’d be in a good spot come Monday, figuring he’d want to get back to his regular life but now she found herself hoping that it’d take a little while longer just so she could get more time with him since he’d finally chosen to speak to her; she couldn’t imagine just how antsy she’d feel being at work for ten hours rather than looking after him should that be the case. She nodded in reply rather than the alternative of trying to force out words that she knew she’d struggle with, his aquamarine pools taking her in for a brief moment before he took a step back from her and she somehow managed to resist the urge to whine in protest when his hand left her waist; the upcoming days were going to be a rough time for her.

Had they not been so pressed for time, she certainly would’ve struggled to keep herself held together numerous times over the course forty minutes, everything from leaving the clinic to the drive to her house would’ve been a time and a half, and the only thing that saved her was keeping herself in that professional headspace paired with her patient keeping his hands to himself. Every bit of that composure was threatening to shatter no sooner did she lock the door behind them, her lip rolling between her teeth when his gaze found her form for what had to of been the thousandth time since he’d woken up Saturday night, she was unsure just what to do now that they were tucked away in her home. She’d never had a man over before, the last one having ever been in the house was her grandfather and he’d passed away when she’d been hardly six, she’d never imagined just how out of place she’d feel in her own home simply from a visitor. She just had to stick with what she’d been thinking about before he’d unexpectedly woken up, she could get him settled, take care of everything for her cat before she ordered some takeout for dinner, start some laundry for herself and her guest (her grandmother had never had the heart to throw out anything belonging to her grandfather and she knew for a fact any of it would fit, she’d have to return the clothes she’d found for him at the clinic on Monday), showers for both of them, get him settled into the guest room and she could finally pass out after she gave him that last dose of morphine.

‘Have to keep it together for just a little while.’

The sound of patters was enough to settle her down and pull her out of her head, her gaze pulling from his while she knelt down just enough that she could nuzzle her nose against her sweet boy’s; she was sure that her cat was furious over how long she’d been gone, she usually didn’t leave him for longer than five days and it’d put her behind on her usual routine with him. He certainly needed brushed, he was constantly shedding, and she’d find black fur quite literally all over her house every day.

“I know, you’re hungry, aren’t you?” the woman murmured, her voice apologetic; Kuro was undoubtedly upset with her, meowing and much more talkative than usual, nuzzling his head everywhere that he could reach while she turned her attention back to the man. “I um, I’m going to feed him, and I’ll order some takeout for us…is that alright?”

Yuki didn’t know why she was even asking; this was her house to begin with, so she didn’t need to ask for permission to do anything here, she must’ve still just been frazzled over how much had happened today that she hadn’t anticipated and was struggling to ground herself. Pink was streaking over her cheeks all over again as he looked at her in the same way he had been for days, giving her a short nod in reply without saying a word, she hoped they weren’t back to not being on speaking terms but pressing him wasn’t in her best interest; her cat was going to lose his mind if she didn’t feed him right now. She pulled her eyes from his bashfully, ducking her head while she scampered down the hallway towards the kitchen with her sweet boy at her heels, the heavier footsteps filling the silence by the time she’d turned the corner and she exhaled a slow breath, trying to calm her nerves with reminders that everything would be as it’d been at the clinic, the only difference being the location. It took less than three minutes for her to refill the automatic feeder, Kuro immediately buried his face in the bowl with enthusiasm while she got fresh water for him, keeping her ears open for the pink-haired man. She could hear his footsteps as he wandered around her house, the morphine seemed to still be managing his pain, so it gave her the chance to get some things done while he explored.

Laundry started, takeout ordered, fresh sheets on the bed in the guest room, her things tucked away in her bedroom along with all those pills and that last dose, she’d have to remove the IV tonight, so she gathered up everything she’d need for that and set it off to the side until later; there wasn’t much else she could do until laundry was finished or dinner arrived. She breathed a deep sigh, turning her phone off and placing it on charge for the night, her fingers pinching open the claw-clip and freeing the rest of her white locks, brushing the shorter strands away from her eyes. She needed a game plan for the upcoming days, to figure out what she was going to do for when she had to go back to work if he wasn’t ready because although she was entirely fine with him staying at her house, she would worry herself half to death since she wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on him for ten hours at a time. If she wasn’t the sole doctor at her clinic then shortening her days wouldn’t be questionable, her nurse practitioners could do quite a bit to help lighten the load on the days she absolutely had to leave early but she tried not to do that often, hiring another doctor on was an option she could consider but she felt it would be suspicious to some degree since she’d taken a ”vacation” completely out of the blue.

‘There’s nothing I can do that wouldn’t raise questions.’

There wasn’t and she’d already done so much already that had been the biggest curveball ever thrown at her, doctoring the inventory so no one would know that high class medications had been essentially stolen, she’d performed a surgery without contacting anyone afterwards, she’d cleaned up the evidence of what her staff would see as a break-in, she’d kept a total stranger in her clinic for days, only to take him to her house to hide his existence. She’d have to go into work Monday early enough that she could hide all the evidence of another person and what she’d done, clean everything out from her office, get everything back in her make-shift hospital room and lock up the door until she had the time to actually put things back the way they’d been beforehand. The young doctor was doing things that she’d never dreamed of and as optimistic as she wanted to be that things would continue on as they had after her patient was on his way, she wasn’t naïve enough to believe that as truth. Things would never go back to how they’d been before Friday unless she wound up with amnesia and had the event completely wiped from her brain, she may not have known how it was going to affect her life moving forward, but it undoubtedly would.

Regardless, Yuki knew that she’d done the right thing, she wouldn’t have been able to live with herself if she hadn’t, she’d gone into the medical field to save lives and that’s what she’d done. She’d saved someone’s life and with the precautions she’d taken, no one would know aside from her and her pink-haired patient, she didn’t need nor want recognition for doing what she felt was right. She was worrying herself for nothing, this wouldn’t drastically affect her life in any way shape or form, she was just overanalyzing things. Once they parted ways, it’d be like it never happened, she’d go back to what she’d been doing and he’d go back to his life, they’d never see each other again, and that was that. The occasional thought about one another was the extent of it, maybe see one another on the street in passing but even that was slim chances with how crowded of a place Tokyo was.

The white-headed woman paused from pulling the last box from the delivery bag when she felt the warm hand press against the curve of her waist, her cheeks flushing as she looked back over her shoulder, lavender meeting aquamarine.

‘Just a few days.’ 

[drtanner]

Well, it's 2023.

I'm hoping against everything that it is significantly better than last year (and the several years previous). I don't know why it would be but nevertheless, I am hoping, and I'm going to do what I can to make it better myself. I'm going to put in the work to love myself more and forgive myself more; I've fallen back into bad habits lately and I need to get a handle on them again, especially when it comes to things like calling myself names and insulting myself when I make mistakes and having unreasonable expectations re: making mistakes in the first place. I haven't been very kind to myself this past year and it hasn't done me any favours, so we're going to try to do better.

I want to improve in terms of my art this year. I'd really like to work on my colouring and shading because they've always been shit, and good colours will go a long way towards making my stuff look more polished and finished. I've been bitter for years about seeing people with objectively terrible lineart and anatomy skills having 80k+ followers on Twitter and making bank on Patreon just because their colours and shading are decent and go a long way towards hiding the shabby fundamentals in their work. This year, we will close the gap between our lineart and our colours/shading, or we will die trying.

(Also my Twitter followers bade me to post mpreg on main and I am a man of my word, unfortunately.)

I'd also like to work more on Farewenden if I can. We're still working on getting our ADHD meds straightened out and we're... getting closer, I think? Hopefully it'll be easier to knuckle down and write once I can get that sorted. Soon. Soon.

And! I'm having my first appointment to get the ball rolling on top surgery this year! There's been some bullshit over this because of my BMI (muscle is heavy, it turns out), but I'm optimistic that I can make this happen if I'm smart and handle the medical professionals I have to speak to to make all of this happen with the right gloves. Stupid that I should have to do that at all to be honest, but it is what it is; the NHS loves treating people like walking sets of numbers that are either Within Normal Parameters or not, and we have to work within the limitations of the system we live in, regrettably. We'll get it done one way or another.

I'm going to do my best to make 2023 comfortable and positive for myself. The world conspires against me in this endeavour, as always, but that's never been a reason not to give it my best shot.

I hope 2023 is a good year for you too, dear reader.

[so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed]

20 questions for Fic Writers

I was tagged by the ever wonderful @londonfoginacup and @reminiscingintherain thank you so much!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

94, though I think one is a collab and one is a translation. But 90+

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

I am gonna do some math here and take off the translation because that adds 220k to my wordcount and that doesn't feel fair, lol. So that leaves 1.243.681 words. Minus about 12k that I didn't write lol, that's still a lot.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently just 1D but I am talking about writing a Lestappen fic so I might branch out!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

a game that I'm destined to lose [1449 kudos, but it's from 2012] midnight doesn't last forever [1190 kudos, but it's from 2013] you've set my soul to dreaming [1162 kudos] room for your love underneath this tree [1151 kudos] some things fade (some never do) [1047 kudos]

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Um. Theoretically yes. Realistically, I haven't caught up since March and the number in my inbox is too high to look at.

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I usually write HEA but I guess the one that I remember with more of an ambiguous ending is and there's no one to blame except then Sus made me write a follow up so I guess it has a happy ending now.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

All of them? I mean, I put the characters through some serious angst, but after that, they all get their very deserved happy ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not that I know of. If I do, it's not in my face.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Occasionally. I write either quirky smut, or I write stuff for wankersday, because the only smut I write is stuff that doesn't involve other people directly apparently.

10. Do you write crossovers? What the craziest one you’ve written?

Not really, but I have a HP AU I should write at one point.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yep! Someone tried to sell TNFIF online on Amazon. With a really ugly cover. Thankfully writing Tumblr came together and sent in so many bad reviews that the seller took it down.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, a few!!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I've done a round robin a few years ago, which wasn't really my style. I've started writing an advent fic with @evilovesyou but we never got around to finishing it. I will hopefully write a fic with @chaotic-bells soon!

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

For as much Larry as I write, my first true love was Ziam.

15. What’s a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I am stubborn enough to believe I will finish all my WIPs. Eventually.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Emotions, I think. I've made people cry, so that's nice!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Mostly I think I struggle not to make everything too in depth. A 5k fic probably doesn't need 3k of worldbuilding.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I've come across it a lot in Lestappen fics and I don't mind it as long as the translation is right behind it, and as long as it's not google translated stuff (or as long as it's google translated stuff in a language I don't know).

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Possibly Gilmore Girls. I've written for a ton of fandoms, though I've been a 1D only writer since 2012.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

That's like asking me to choose between my non existent children. If I have a favourite, I can't say it out loud. (But it's this one, for all it brought me)

I'm not sure who hasn't been tagged at this point, so I am gonna tag @jacaranda-bloom and @beardyboyzx and anyone in the @1dcreatorclubhouse who wants to do it!

[bugheadchemistry]

People keep saying that BA ia endgame bc of stuff Lilly or Ras or whoever hinted but ..... If they implied anything else Barchies would throw the biggest tantrum we've ever seen lmao

They don't want to risk their current viewer base ditching them so early in the final season. They want to squeeze every Barchie tweet out of this that they can for promo. I have no idea who will be endgame but I DO know that if it's not Barchie, the last thing anyone working on the show is going to do is imply that this early lmao

I know they feel rly confident right now, but they need to remember Ras wants views, and the Barchies are easy views and promo atm. But I think they also know if they bring back older, more popular ships that could also make them BANK later lol so at the end of the day, it'll be what they think will get the most views/money I think.

I also just think with all the universe hopping and time line changing, and then choosing to do BA during that, is a BAD sign for them lol it feels like they're going to switch things up at the end and if Barchie was going to be endgame for sure, I don't think they would get this much content this soon. I could always be wrong, but I just think Ras is 100% using Barchies atm bc they're ravenous and LOUD so its good to get tweets about them going and stuff. Long story short, they probably should consider the fact that if anyone implied anything BESIDES Barchie endgame, they'd all mass exodus out of the viewer base lol they're gunna keep them on the hook but that doesn't mean they'll get what they want at the end. I don't think Ras is loyal to them in any way, and if he IS a fan of the comics at all - he knows Archie literally never chooses Betty EVER lol

Also the whole Tabitha guardian angel thing feels like an easy cop out for that relationship - she's not of this world or has a bigger purpose or whatever and won't end up with anyone from the show lol they've done a poor job incorporating her organically into the cast people had already been watching for years so I'm thinking she won't be there when things wrap up. Her being a literal angel feels far too convenient lol

Only time will tell, but they're much more confident then I think they should be. If I was them, I'd be skeptical and anxious. I think they'll likely slowly hint at other ships in hoping of luring back more of the old fan base over the season before the Barchies foam at the mouth and jump ship - so that they wont lose out on viewer numbers. Will that work? Probably not lmao but I still don't think BAs are going to get the perfect happily ever after they've invisioned

Whew! There’s a lot to unpack here. I will do my best to respond and try to make sense. 😂 I’m just going to go paragraph by paragraph.

1. It’s been said multiple times, by myself and others, that RAS never confirms anything. He’s always vague and misleading so as not to give anything away (which I’m of the opinion now that he actually doesn’t know where they are going with anything which is why the show became such a dumpster fire 🤷🏼‍♀️). It’s already been established that Lili never confirmed anything either. I’m convinced that BAs just don’t know the definition of that word.

2. I’m curious to know who the viewer base is now. They lost the BHs and VAs for sure. Casual viewers ditched because the storylines were so far out there that “jumping the shark” is too kind of a phrase to use at this point. Is it just BAs? If so, that would explain why the ratings are so low. Turns out, there are not as many BA fans as they BAs would want us to believe.

3. I am honestly baffled by how sure BAs are that they are going to get everything they have ever wanted when these writers have proven that they will screw anyone over just for drama. That overconfidence is really going to bite them in the ass one of these days (and hopefully soon!).

4. Yeah, the BA storylines in seasons 5 & 6 were nothing to write home about. I mean, yeah BA hooked up a lot but where was the romance? There wasn’t any. Didn’t they also go for a long stretch of episodes without interacting at all? And didn’t Betty kill Archie twice in the multi-verse? I just don’t get what there was to like about any of it, and if I were a BA I would be pissed.

5. Yeah, I don’t know what to say about Tabitha. By the time she joined the show, I had already stopped watching.

6. I would be absolutely shocked if they gained back any of the viewership they lost. It’s too late and too many bridges have been burned.

[shirogane-oushirou]

i was working on something else for the first half of the day, so i missed pocky day ;_; i should have it done by tomorrow lksmdfkl ;;;

i know i have messages that i need to answer, and i'm sorry to those people for the delay! i'm currently dealing with a frankly ridiculous number of health issues, so mental processes are even more slow-going than normal... i'm just spending more time offline bc i don't have the energy to interact w anyone as things are ;;;;;;; i WILL answer those messages, i just need time to get my brain back together.

i am attempting a crochet project that relates to things on this blog tho (WINK) to keep myself occupied, since screens are making me overstimulated rn kdnfvkjdng. hopefully i'll be able to post some photos at some point soon.

but! yeah! when i'm not online for long stretches of time, trust that i'm building up my energy gauge so i can get back into things!!! bc despite not being here very long, i GENUINELY love this community and i love interacting with the people i do!!!!!! 💕💕💕

[aena-blue]

Manifestation - Affirmations

Hello everyone! This is another short post to cover a simple topic under the umbrella term manifestation to hopefully shed some light on the topic.

Today we will be talking about affirmations. What are they, how are they used, do they work and what is the best way to use it?

The simplest way to explain what an affirmation is: a repeated word or phrase out loud or in your mind. That’s it really. It can be anything that you say (or think) repeatedly. This repetition can be in the same moment, or it can be something you think regularly over the days, weeks, months and years of your life. These affirmations when not used deliberately are often the expression of your own conscious and subconscious beliefs about yourself and the reality you live in.

An example of an affirmation could be something as simple as: “I suck” and “I never win”. You probably say (or think) these things because that is how you feel and that is what you believe. Now the beautiful thing about affirmations, is that you can consciously choose to change them, and with repetition, they become your new beliefs. 

As it has been said many times before, a belief is simply a thought that you keep thinking. So if you change your thoughts, you can change your beliefs, and thus change your reality accordingly. 

So do affirmations work? Absolutely. It may take some time, depending on your already existing beliefs and how persistent you are, but repeated often enough, an affirmation can change your existing beliefs and you will see evidence of it soon enough.

If you want to try it out, you can start small, say something like “I am always appreciated” 10 minutes every day for a few days and it won’t be long, less than a week probably, before someone in your life says something about how they appreciate you or something that you did, and/or you may start noticing people saying “Thank you” more often when they normally wouldn’t in the same circumstances. As an example, a colleague that never says thank you for the work that you do suddenly says thank you for the same thing you have done 1000 times before without any appreciation from them.

So what are the best ways to use affirmations? Other than just repeatedly there are a few ways to use them:

In a drowsy state - This is when you affirm for your desire (either out loud or in your mind) while you are about to fall asleep or right after you wake up. This could also be in a hypnotic or self hypnotic state. When your conscious mind is relaxed, your subconscious mind will accept your affirmations more easily, thus speeding up the process.

Robotic Affirming - This is when you simply affirm repeatedly without emotion (like a robot) as much as you can throughout the day, again, either out loud or in your mind. With ‘enough’ repetition (the amount may vary from person to person) your subconscious mind will ‘learn’ your new affirmations, accept them as ‘fact’, and your reality will change accordingly.

With Feeling - This is when you affirm while at the same time bringing forth the feeling of the wish fulfilled while affirming. Really bringing out the emotions of happiness, joy, satisfaction, whatever it may be to really give ‘weight’ to your affirmations. This is supposed to help your subconscious mind accept your affirmations as true. I don’t know if that is true or not, but feeling good feels, well, good, so adding emotions to your affirmations when you are able to can feel very pleasant.  

Recorded Affirmations - This is when you listen to a recording of affirmations, either some one else’s (plenty on YouTube!) or you making a recording yourself of your affirmations that you then listen to on repeat.

Written Affirmations - So this would be akin to scripting, but simply, write down an affirmation, or a few of them, repeatedly. Doing it via some magical number of times ‘555′ or ‘333′ really isn’t necessary, only the act of repetition, and ideally, believing it, should make it work but even belief isn’t necessary, only repetition. My favourite way of doing this in the past was to identify a single sentence that captured my desire and writing it down 15 times every day. An example of this could be “I am (your name) and I am (in a relationship with SP) or (working for - name of dream company -) or (a successful singer/writer/artist)” 

So which one is the best one? Whichever one works the best for you! Which ever method suits you and your life best. For some, robotic affirming can feel mentally exhausting and perhaps the drowsy method feels best, for others, robotic affirming feels the easiest. In essence, all ways of using affirmations should work as long as you persist with them.

The method I use is: All of the above! I don’t really use scripting anymore but I have used it in the past and I have seen results from it. I have my own recorded affirmations that I sleep to every night and I also listen to them here and there during the day (when I commute or play video games sometimes). I also affirm throughout the day here and there, not always the same affirmations as my recorded ones, but a mixture of my recorded affirmations and affirmations to bring out the best qualities in myself as well (weight loss and confidence mostly). I do robotic affirming, and sometimes I really really feel the feelings when I affirm simply because it feels really good and does make it feel very real. 

The more you use affirmations, the easier and more natural it becomes. The repetition will serve to change the way you think and perceive yourself and the world around you according to your affirmations, and your 3D reality will start to reflect your new beliefs to you. It is very common for people to hear someone else say their affirmations to them, in part or whole, this is one way you can see the effect that your affirmations are having on your reality.

So what are some key points and tips about affirmations?

1. Try to use present tense affirmations as much as possible that state that your desire is real and here right now. Don’t affirm “I will have a new shiny blue car” instead affirm “I am the owner of a new shiny blue car”. I like affirmations such as “I love my new shiny blue car” because when I do want to do affirmations with feeling, having the emotion in the affirmation is helpful to me (but you do you!) 

2. “I am” affirmations. Use “I am” affirmations because saying “I am” indicates that you are the thing you are affirming, that is you and that is your reality right here, right now. “I am beautiful” “I am successful”  “I am a winner” “I am in the most wonderful relationship” “I am always treated like a priority” “I am a millionaire” “I am so rich I can go wherever I want whenever I want”. Whatever it may be, you ARE that, thus “I am” that, whatever you wish to be and whatever life you wish to experience, make it personal, because it is personal, it is you and your life.

3. Unless needed for whatever reason, try not to change your affirmations too much. Write down a list of affirmations that are as specific as possible to your desire and only change it if you are either feeling they are written wrong for your desired outcome, or, you find that you have changed your mind about your desire, either partially or completely. This is perfectly normal. When you start, you may start small because you don’t feel capable of more, but as your confidence and belief grows, you often find yourself ‘allowing’ yourself to desire bigger and better things for yourself and thus ask for them.

4. Was covered in point 3 but, write down a list of affirmations that are as specific as possible to your desire. Some like to keep it short and sweet and use no more than 2-4 affirmations, which could be great especially if you are new to this. Me personally have a much longer list of affirmations because I am super-specific about the type of relationship I want to manifest so my affirmations cover all of the aspects of that. But again, do what feels right and what feels like would work best for you. You can always develop and change your methods along the way if you want to. There are no limitations. 

5. Be careful what you wish for. If you go down this road of changing your assumptions, and you persist, you will get what you ask for. If you ask for a relationship, you will get a relationship, but if you also have negative beliefs about relationships, those beliefs will also manifest in your new relationship as well. If you believe that nothing ever works out for you, then that will also happen, no matter how many new partners you manifest as long as you have that belief.

Point 5 leads me to this very important final part of this post, and that is, you can manifest anything you want, your beliefs create your reality. And because of that, it is vital to know and understand what those beliefs are, and I would often recommend to tackle any negative beliefs and limiting beliefs that exist within you alongside (or before) using any method and technique to manifest first. 

Doing them side by side is just fine, that’s what I do. My affirmations include statements such as “I am always treated with love, kindness and respect” and “I am the creator of my reality” and “I always get what I want” to help tackle any negative assumption that may be present in the background that would prevent me from having the most loving experience with my SP.

I hope this post was helpful and as always, if you have any questions, want any clarification or simply have a request for my next post, post a comment or leave me an Ask Me!

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You can use the “ask me” function for anything that might be on your mind, or on your heart. I am here for you all, always. Please note that the Ask Me’s are only open for dream interpretation, general questions or advice at this time.

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For anyone that feels so inclined I do have an Etsy Shop for readings.

Much love and light to you all and to the universe 💛💜

~ Lady Blue 💙