#i've got inspiration! but every time i try to WRITE for it i freeze up. no words only ideas.

[fireheartpages]

enough | b.d.

bodhi durran x reader one. two. part three. summary: everyone has their demons, you just chose to run from yours. straight to basgiath war college. and definitely not towards the grinning tall, dark, and handsome marked rider that seemed too kind to be in a hardened place like the rider's quadrant. leave it to you to catch his attention, but will it be enough to bond a dragon? word count: 2.2k notes: second person pov with she/her pronouns for the reader, as well as a dirty-dancing inspired stolen nickname and a last name (no y/n in this house). pretty sure i've just started making shit up about the empyrean universe when i needed to. i want a dragon real bad after writing this. half of this was written while wine drunk!

He owed Ané his first born after that balm. And he might just have to give it to her, because the soft smile that had bloomed on your face had been worth every coin he'd owed Ané. Every last one.

It had been two days now, and he hoped it had been enough for you. Enough to heal your hands, at least just a little bit. Enough to get you bonded to a dragon.

He looks for you on the field, but your squad isn't here. Yet. You would come. They can't be missing a while squad. Right?

Right. He felt like an idiot with the way he had panicked.

"You're acting like one," Cuir chimes in helpfully. Bodhi just sighs.

Professionalism is key right now. He can't spare a second glance at you right now. He's an acting Executive Officer, and it's an important day in formation--

You look really pretty. Your hair is braided back, and the way your flight leathers cling to your figure--

"Seriously?"

Bodhi just sighs, and settles in for a long day.

-

You rub RIdoc's back as he empties his stomach onto the roots of the tree beside you, grateful for the stomach of steel years of being tossed around on choppy waters had granted you. The warmth of the sun did nothing to bite the cold of the morning, the freshly October air sharp against your skin.

You hand Ridoc a water canteen as you try to pay attention to Kaori at the front, but maybe you're hallucinating because there is no way he just told you to listen to your heart while bonding a dragon. That cannot be enough. That cannot be real advice.

It's not long and far too soon before the professor offers you good luck and turns away, releasing you to a riot of dragons that could have every intention of eating you alive rather than bonding you. Second squad turns to one another, no more wise cracks or well wishes left to say. With a stay alive order from Ridoc, you're off. And then you're traipsing through the valley, and honestly, just hoping for the best.

You pass by a few reds and oranges--terrifying fucking things, and if there were any room for doubt, you'd be thinking you're not cut out for this. There's no way you can be allied with something that vicious.

A blue and a brown both stop in front of you, and the brown cocks its head as if you're a puzzle it needs to solve. Not that one, you realize. Neither of them. Your gaze stays glued to the floor the entire time, and it's far too long for your liking before they both meander away.

It's a few deep breaths before you're steady enough to continue on.

The only color left for you to see is a green, and you know--you just know one will be yours. Or maybe you really want it. You want a dragon with cunning. A green is your best bet.

Another brown crosses near you, and your heart picks up again. It's followed by a green, and you freeze. This is it, this--

They both pass right by you.

Oh. Okay. No problem, yeah. It's just not that green.

You've got to keep moving. There are more, and you know it, because you haven't bonded yet. You've watched dragons launch into the sky with newly minted riders on their back, counting how many are off. How many are left. It's only an hour and a half in, and already you've seen close to twenty riders emerge.

That leaves just over eighty dragons to bond. Yours is out there, you know it. Can practically sense it, feel it in--

Okay, maybe Kaori had a point.

You just had to keep going so they could find you.

Through the trees, you saw four greens, a brown, and two reds. You were about to make your way to them when he materialized on the edges of your vision.

Second- and third-years weren't supposed to interfere with Threshing, but were there any rules about interacting? From the way he was looking at you, open and expectant, you had to assume not.

You came to a stop, turning to look at him, and when your gazes locked, it felt like the world around you stilled.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi," you say.

"Hi," he repeats, and he's grinning, except one side of his mouth is just a little higher than the other, as if some invisible force had strung it up and tugged. You wanted to run your thumb over his lips and smooth it out. See just how pretty those big brown eyes were when they were focused on you all up close and personal.

Oh, no, that's not--

"You're still out here, so I assume it's not going well, but I'm gonna ask anyway." That grin widens, his eyes dancing, and you have to take a deep breath before you can respond.

"I feel it. Something. I don't know what, but--" You bring a hand to your chest, the way Kaori had. "Here."

"Yeah," Bodhi breathes. "They have their eye set on you before you even know it sometimes."

"Is that how it was for you?" you ask, and you have no idea why you do. You're wasting valuable time standing here chit-chatting. You're not even supposed to clump up. This boy is going to get you incinerated.

You eagerly wait for his reply.

"Yeah," he says. "Cuir knew before I did. I don't think I was out here more than an hour before we found each other."

You nod.

"I got lucky. Imogen was out here all day. I think Glenn wanted to fuck with her a little." He laughs, and you falter, unable to suppress the smile that weasels its way across your lips.

"That's rather unfortunate," you say on the tail of a laugh, and suddenly Bodhi's staring at you in a way you can't discern.

He rubs his palm along his jaw and you chance a step towards him.

"Having a..." You trail off, unsure if you should ask. How stupid can you sound while actively trying to bond a dragon? "If I have a feeling, it's a good sign, right?"

"Yeah," he agrees, without hesitation. "Absolutely."

You nod, unsure of what to say now. Because you don't know if the feeling in your chest is anything more than sputtering hope. If your parents fucked you by giving you the desire to do something great without the means to do it. If you inherited their cowardice.

No. You would not be a coward. Something you did would have to be enough. You were bonding a dragon today.

It was like Bodhi could read all of those thoughts on your face. Not that you'd ever been particularly good at hiding your facial expressions, but it was as if he has a secret key to all of your emotions.

He inclines his head to you. "We did it," he says hesitantly. "Marked ones. They didn't think we would, but we did."

"I'm not Marked," you say quickly.

"No, you're not," he responds, and his gaze tracks your body from head to toe, leaving shivers in its wake. "You should go. You have a dragon to bond."

You nod, not finding your tongue before he disappears back into the foliage.

And that's when you feel it--a puff of hot air at your back, and you don't know if you should turn around slowly, or just send up a prayer to Malek now. You opt for the former, spinning as slowly as possible with a downcast gaze until you see the gleam of navy scales. You chance a look up a bit, and you meet golden, keen eyes. A blue scorpiontail, and its nose is so close to you you're convinced it's about to blow a plume and end you right then and there.

There was no way you were making it out of this interaction alive. Perhaps that feeling in your chest had been your last moments os peace before doomsday.

The blue lowers its nose until it's level with you, and you suck in a breath as it goes to your gloved hand. Fuck. Of course your stupid skin is what's going to keep you from--

Did the dragon just set your hand on its nose. Holy shit.

You look down, a furrow finding home between your brows as your breath saws in and out of you, and you see that this massive dragon had placed your hand on the top of its nose. It shuts its eyes, letting out another warm puff.

"Hi," you whisper. You're really racking up these multiple syllabic interactions lately.

The dragon chuffs, bumping your hand. "You are enough."

And it feels like your chest cracks in two.

"How did you--"

"I know you."

Holy shit, you were talking to a dragon--

"What do you mean?" you ask. You needed to catch up before she changed her mind.

"You're nothing like your father. It's why I've chosen you." She straightens, extending her leg. This is probably the moment you're supposed to mount. You stumble, and it's not the most graceful thing in the world, but you make it up, figure out your way to where you're supposed to sit, a hand resting on the pommel of her scales.

"You choose me?" you ask aloud, still in disbelief.

"You're surprised?" she asks, her gentle voice filtering through your mind. You never thought you'd describe a dragon as gentle.

"Maybe," you answer. "A little bit."

"You knew." Her voice is almost chiding. Did you just get stuck with a mother hen for a dragon?

"I guess," you say. "I knew something, I just--"

"You're ging to need thicker gloves. It's colder the higher in altitude we climb, and the ones you have aren't going to have enough grip to keep you safe." She launches into the sky without warning. Something like a laugh filters through your mind as your scramble to grip the pommel, your gloved hands sliding against her scales as your brace with your thighs and hold on for dear life.

So, she doesn't even care about your hands. You swallow the rising lump in your throat.

"Obviously, I don't care about your accommodations. I know you. I also know you're about to fall off. Please, don't embarrass me on the first day."

You tighten your grip on her pommel as best you can, the wind whipping tears from your eyes and--

Oh. You were flying. On the back of a dragon.

It was more than anything you'd imagined, better than anything you could have dreamed up. It was pure adrenaline and joy, the freezing air kissing your cheeks, ripping the strands loose from your braids. You gingerly loosen a hand, slipping the glove off and tucking it away. You trace your hand along the wind, letting it dance between your fingers as she loops around. It was unlike anything you had ever, ever experienced. It was like your entire life, you'd just been waiting for this moment.

And you made it. You did it. You had proved yourself worthy.

You're a fucking dragon rider.

You'd given her name to the roll-keeper--Shocairinntinn--and turned around only to have Rhiannon barrel into you, talking excitedly about her new bond. She drags you away, demanding to see who you'd been chosen by, and when you approach Shocair, you noticed you've gathered a bit of an audience.

"A blue?" someone sneers. "She bonded a blue?"

Something in your chest sinks, and you blink hard. Shocair snaps at the boy that had said it, and when his orange starts to put up a fight, all it takes is a rumbling growl for the larger dragon to stand down. Shocair was small for her breed, smaller than most of the dragons on the field, but you had a feeling what she lacked in size, she made up for in viciousness.

"Your assumption is correct," she muses into your mind, sounding indignant. "Though I find the observation unnecessary."

You open your mouth to apologize, but she speak into your mind again.

"Don't. I chose you for your sharp mind and quick wit." You swallow, surprised. "And you better figure out how to talk back to me. I don't do discussions with others."

So, your dragon was an introvert. A warm feeling filled your chest, and you had a feeling she approved of this descriptor.

"She's beautiful," Rhiannon muses, and you shoot her a smile.

"She is," you agree. Shocair lowers her head in inclination, reaching until she's level with you. The riders around you take a step back, giving the two of you a large wake, but you just raise your hand until it rests on the tip of her nose. Something that sounds suspiciously like a sigh comes from her.

She straightens, extending a leg, and you take the hint.

"Cadet Marho," a professor calls. "Stay grounded!"

Shocair waits until you're mounted before moving to growl at the professor, and he has the wits to raise his hands in surrender and back off.

And then she takes off into the sky, and you're flying again. Tracing the clouds with your hands.

A dragon rider.

[total-drama-brainrot]

Every time I open my google docs I think to myself "this time I'll write something, at least a couple hundred words of something," and every time without fail I just chew on the bars of my enclosure and write nothing like the caged cowardly beast I am.

[inbabylontheywept]

So: You have depression.

I'm 27 now. The last time I had a major depressive episode was when I was 16. I still have depressive episodes every now and then, but the worst tend to be a month, and most I can generally get through them in about a week. It took me a while to kind of figure out how to handle depression as a recurring thing, and so I thought I'd make a little welp-I-got-diagnosed-now-what guide.

So, first part of the guide: When I first got depressed, I thought that depression was the terrible, sad hopeless feeling that I had. It isn't. That terrible sad hopeless feeling is a symptom of prolonged depression. By the time I get to that point, I'm pretty well cooked and it takes a lot longer to bounce back. Avoiding getting to that point is a vital part of living with depression.

So what does depression feel like?

I am going to hammer this point home a lot of times while writing this: Depression is an anesthetic. It is not felt as a presence, but as an absence. The first absence, for me at least, is when life stops being fun. Every movie feels boring, I can't get more than a few pages into any book, and everything just seems... bland.

This is the best point to catch it at. I have found that consumptive patterns of entertainment do not do anything to help depression. Some people have told me that producing art at this time really helps them, but personally, I can't imagine trying. Instead, I just do tasks that I know inspire physical satisfaction. Which sounds like jerking off (I don't actually reccomend that route) but really means things like: Going for a walk in the sunshine. Working out. Cleaning the house in a fairly exhaustive way. Scrub the baseboards, wash the sink, clear the fridge, etc.

I recognize that doing those is really, really hard while depressed because depression causes physical weakness and exhaustion. The best I can do is, unfortunately, encourage vigillance. If you suspect you're getting into a funk, start on this before you get really deep into the mire. People that get into the mire can get out, but it's not self-help read-a-book type shit, it takes therapy and medication and patience and it is so much easier and cheaper and faster to just avoid letting it get that bad then crawling out once it's sunk its teeth into you.

I have found that for things that work almost by exposure alone, spending time in the sun and talking to people are borderline magical, with the caveat that talking to people about being depressed tends to make things worse instead of better. Talking about anything that cuts through the anesthetic of depression is ideal, or if it's sunk in deep enough that you're having trouble finding anything, talking to someone else about what they're passionate about. Ideally, you'd find someone passionate about a thing you know you're passionate about but are struggling to enjoy right then, and then you'd just let your mirror neurons run amok. Bonus Points

So, you're already depressed. Like, pretty fucking depressed, and you fucked up, and you let it slide. What then?

This is my I-Fucked-Up-And-Got-Big-Sad, Salvage-My-Weekend, depression routine. You'll need to make one for yourself at some point, and yours will work better for you, but this is mine and I think it'll work okay-ish for you. Until you get your own, at least.

I have to get up before 10 am. Staying in bed later than that gives the depression such a huge head start on my day that I just basically can't catch up. If I can't just brute force get myself out of bed, I will throw my blankets and sit cold on my sheets until that gives me the motivation I need. If I cannot work up the guts to throw my blankets, I will actually roll off the bed, flop gracelessly onto the floor, and then stare wistfully up until I can will myself to stand. It helps that every bedroom I've had either had freezing cold tile, or itchy coarse carpet. If you have a comfy floor, maybe buy a very scratchy rug? I cannot emphasize how important this step is. It's like, half of the whole thing.

After getting up, immediately go outside and sit in the sunshine. This provides free executive function, and getting it ASAP will make everything go much smoother.

Talk to someone while outside. If you have a roommate, they work great. Face to face conversations tend to be the best, but phone calls with loved ones are like at least 80% as effective. Calls to family members tend to be better than in face conversations with acquaintances or people you're mostly ambivalent about. Don't do chat messages. Worse than nothing.

This should have scrounged up enough free energy that you can clean something. I always start by trying to clear a part of my counter off. If that's all I got, that's all I got, and I still feel good about it. If that inspires me to do more, I'll run with it until a whole room is up to snuff. I don't do more than one room while I'm this crispy: The goal is not really to clean the house, but to work through a series of tasks that require some initial level of executive function but provide a larger amount back once completed. Life has a lot of these deals that are like, give me $10 and I'll give you $12, give me $12 and I'll give you $20, on and on, and the hard part is really just getting the $10. Some people wake up with $10. Most days, you will wake up with $10. But not when you're like this. You're gonna have to earn it. I'm sorry.

I am going to reiterate: This is what I do when I feel a funk coming on. My life and my schedule are not always this regimented. Living with depression doesn't mean never sleeping until 10, or having a weekend where you don't talk to someone, or take a break from cleaning. Living with depression just means never, ever, leaning into the depression when you feel it coming on. Even when it starts out feeling cozy. Even when you want to just snuggle into it and sleep and sleep and sleep. The first day or two will feel luxurious, and the next week will feel terrible, and the longer you wait the harder it will be to get out. You are always going to have to worry about that. Again, I'm really, truly sorry.

Bonus Bonus Points

I am not a psychologist, but I do have a theory about why depression exists. Remember how I said it's anesthetizing? I think that's what it's there for - getting rid of emotional pain when it isn't being helpful. People often get depressed after a major injury. Boredom is normally nature's way of punishing you for just curling up and doing nothing, but depression can be the emergency override on boredom. It makes sense for you to sit still and do nothing while your body is healing, so maybe nature temporarily removes all your motivation with depression and then just lets you be a limp noodle until you're healthy again. Maybe?

Back to the emotional level, though, depression might also be a way to muffle pains that would otherwise be so intense that people might not remain in control of the faculties. The pain of losing a parent is notorious for driving people so mad with pain that they ruin their lives, but depression is there to at least try and keep us sedated until the nadir has passed.

It is helpful to know what the purpose of depression is, because you will eventually get it from an "intended" cause, and reflexively fighting it then probably isn't good for you. And at the very least, knowing why this stupid thing exists makes the world feel like less of a cruel place.

There are a lot of interesting studies on the physical effects of depression - things like muscle weakness, increased pain tolerance, muscle relaxation, etc. that I won't go into, but it does so many things at once that it almost doesn't feel like a fuck up, but a feature that we just kind of lost the plot on. Not gonna deep dive on it, but it is something that probably shouldn't be confined to just a mental disorder.

[hueningsloverr]

౨ৎ isn't it obvious !

pairing: soobin x reader summary: soobin was smart, just not when it came to love. and you weren't exactly the most confident. that's where taehyun comes in. word count: 0.9k extra: inspired by katherine li's 'isn't it obvious'! apart of my valentines day series

soobin always prided himself in how observant he was, at least in regards to his friends. when it came to love, he was oblivious. no matter how many times girls would confess to him, he always found himself taking their confessions the wrong way. confessions that consisted of very heartfelt words always fell short of the line of actually saying "i love you". 

and to soobins mind, those three words made a large difference. love was different from like. "i really like you!" always had an added "as a friend" in his mind. 

that is why liking soobin was pointless if you ever wanted a romantic relationship. yet, you somehow still found yourself drawn to him.

you weren't the type to confess to crushes on a whim - your friends weren't sure if you had ever confessed to anyone in your life. it would make sense that you hadn't.

you could barely talk to people you didn't know, let alone a person you were infatuated with.

you were a watcher, and you had accepted that role in your life.

it made life easier, only ever watching, never having to talk. you could observe things about people, pick and chose your actions more carefully.

somehow, soobin never managed to pick up how your gaze always landed on him - and it was pretty clear it did. soft, lovestruck eyes always finding him, even in a crowded room. 

soobin also never let it register that when you'd freeze up, it was because of him. whenever he'd enter the room, you'd momentarily go into overdrive, no matter what you were doing prior.

you'd never tell him how you felt - the fear of rejection alone was too much. let alone the idea that maybe he'd laugh at you, tell all his friends - something terrible.

naturally, you expected that if you were ever going to have a reltationship with the boy, he'd have to make the first move. yet, you couldn't even tell him that.

his friends all knew, obviously. they were able to pick up on the way you'd avoid eye contact with the teen - well really, avoid any contact. taehyun picked up on it first, and while he really didn't mean to tell anyone before he confirmed it, he blinked and all of the sudden the three other boys knew.

you tried to lie your way out of it - tell them that soobin was "just a friend!", a really good one at that. but they saw right through. unlike soobin, they weren't so oblivious to love. 

"just tell him," taehyun smiled, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to think through the best course of action. "you could even just text him! soobin is a kind person."

he was trying to be supportive. trying to help you out. but there is no helping a person who freaks out, giggling and kicking their feet, when even a mere name is brought up. so naturally, saying 'the s word' got you all discombobulated.

"tyun! i - god. his smile, oh my god did you see his smile?" you giggled, face buried in your hands as you rolled around on your bed. you really were acting like a teenager who was in love. "i could never text him! i'd type something wrong, and then the whole thing would be messed up!"

taehyun sighed. 

you were an overthinker. every scenario had at least five outcomes when it came to you.

"then… let me text him?" he offered, "you could tell me what to write, and then i'd hit send!"

you paused.

overthinker.

"fine." you huffed, moving to grab your phone from your nightstand. 

no texts from soobin.

you handed it gingerly to taehyun, already regretting your decision. what if taehyun was the one who messed it up for you?

he nodded when he was ready to type, 'soobin🩷' largely displayed on the screen.

"what do i even say, tyun?" you whined, throwing yourself back on your bed. "hey, soobin! i'm in love with you! but i've never said anything because i didn't want to mess up the friendship we had. if you even think of me as a friend! practically every night i want to just tell you how i feel, but not doing it was better off than knowing you didn't feel the same!"

taehyun laughed slightly, tossing your phone towards you.

he had written what you said.

and sent it.

"tyun!" you gasped, eyes wide as you held your phone with shaking hands. "i was joking! oh my god - you sent it!"

taehyun shrugged, stretching. "yeah, but he's already read it so there’s no going back."

you practically screamed.

there was a high chance someone thought you were being attacked.

your feelings were.

you felt your phone buzz in your hands and you instinctively tossed it to taehyun. "you open it! you got me into this mess." you pleaded, too scared to open the message yourself.

he laughed again, shaking his head. "you might want to read this yourself." he grinned, handing it back.

soobin🩷 | 'really? i thought you hated me.' soobin🩷 | 'i'm in love with you too.' soobin🩷 | '...' soobin🩷 | 'did you text me then die?'

you felt your heart stop beating. maybe you would die right then and there.

"oh," you mumbled to yourself, texting back as taehyun watched eagerly.

(y/n) | 'isn't it obvious?'

needless to say, though soobin was oblivious to most girls, something about your rambling confession opened his eyes.

authors note: part 2!!! and yes, i’m aware it’s taehyun birthday 😭 i’m posting by member age so tyun is after gyu (wednesday)

©2024 — all rights reserved to hueningsloverr , please do not plagiarise or translate any of my work

[drivelikeiido]

fallen for you

an impulsive matty admits his feelings for you

word count: 1.1k

warnings: just a lil bit of smoking and a lil bt of pining

notes: this is the first time i've written a fic in years so I'M SORRY, not my best by far but all the writing on here inspired me to try and write again <3 also i wanted to write some nervous matty because he needs humbled so here we go (i also wrote this first thing in the morning so even more apologies for my tired brain) oh! and the reader is in the support band for the 1975 because i'm self indulgent in my writing like that

The stars in the sky were all that occupied your mind as you sat outside the venue. The night was a peaceful calm, a refreshing contrast compared to the show your band had just performed on stage opening for the boys. 

However the night's quiet is disrupted as the heavy backdoor to the venue opens from behind and Matty appears to join you, already in his suit and tie ready to go onstage, only if he knew what that look did to scramble your brain every night, it was almost annoying that someone could look so effortlessly good. 

He sits down and pulls out his packet of cigarettes, inhaling deeply as he lights one up and gestures briefly to you if you want one, you silently raise your hand up in refusal, he’s enough for you right now, your legs side by side as you sit on the freezing steps. The brief contact is enough to warm your entire body.

You sit in comfortable silence for minutes, the only sounds are the slow burning of his cigarette and the tapping of his shoes on the dark ground. You appreciate him silently, wondering to yourself how you even got this opportunity and how messy it's become now that you've unfortunately grown to appreciate the frontman of the band you're touring with in a not so platonic way. Grown so accustomed to the silence and the whirling of your thoughts his sudden speech is almost startling, his confession even more so. 

“I’m totally obsessed with you,” 

“I've wanted to kiss you for ages you know,” he adds after a beat. The shock of his confession causes the breath to seem to leave your lungs but you manage to whisper out “and what’s stopping you?��

“Didn’t think you’d want me to” he states, still refusing to make eye contact and looking into the waves of smoke floating up into the air instead. Despite his steady voice you realise he's nervous and the thought alone is enough to make you smile. Seconds pass and the cold evening air no longer seems to faze you as you build up enough confidence to ask what you've wanted for months now. 

“Do it. Kiss me. Please,” your voice barely loud enough, but he seems to hear. 

Despite his nervousness he bites back the teasing comment waiting to spill from the tip of his tongue; that could wait for later, he’d been thinking of this moment for too long to screw it up, and the boys would never let him forget it if he did.

He pulls the cigarette from his lips and exhales one last cloud of grey smoke, the addictive smell that you’ve  grown to associate with him fills your chest as he throws the butt to the ground. His rough hands move to cradle your face so gently as if he fears you could pop and dissolve through his fingers at any moment, as if he was scared you would change your mind or even if this was all a dream. 

The kiss surprises you in its gentleness and as you move together you realise this is something you’ll never bore of, the feeling of needing his lips engraved into your skin is dizzying, a sentiment he seems to share as he leans further into the kiss, his hands cradling the sides of your face like lifelines.

When he pulls back, his brown eyes are twinkling brighter than the stars you're under and the purest smile you’ve ever seen him wear graces his lips as he fixes your hair and places any strand moved back to its rightful place. He steps back, takes your cold hand in his and squeezes, his voice low and affectionate when he says “Come see me after the show, yeah?” and with your nod he disappears back inside the venue, leaving your brain to catch up with what just happened.

You’re glad he’s gone inside so he can’t see the seemingly immovable blush that's taken permanent residence on your cheeks, you'd never hear the end of the teasing if he saw that. You stay in the cold of the evening for a little longer, the chill of the air circling you and helping to slow the beating of your heart, the memory of the smell of his smoke and aftershave and how it now seems to cling to your clothes still working to fluster you despite his absence.

As you head back into the halls of the venue you feel the need to confirm that the moment was real, and not just another cruel daydream after months on the road. You take out your phone and text him,

‘i’m obsessed with you too, for the record’

His reply is almost immediate,

‘i know, love’ .

“Cocky prick” you whisper to yourself, his proud reply so Matty it makes you giggle and works to calm any growing concerns you may have had. Shoving the phone into your back pocket you make your way to the greenroom with everyone else to wait while the boys perform, your heart beating that bit faster as the set gets nearer and nearer to the end, “Come see me after the show, yeah?” playing over and over in your head.

Once the show was over and most of the set taken down, your steps are embarrassingly quick as you walk to the back of the venue, once again to the boys' delegated smoking area, already smelling the intoxicating smoke that hung in the air that was undoubtedly coming from him. He turns as you round the corner, his lips raising into a smirk as he throws the burnt out butt to the ground, stamping it with his dress shoes. He waits for you to walk close to him, his eyes never once leaving yours before grabbing out at your shirt and pulling you flush to him, your arms moving to rest on his chest. Despite the chill in the air the heat between your bodies was enough to make your skin blush immediately. His eyes looked down at you mischievously as his fingers toy with your shirt absentmindedly behind your back.

“So you’re obsessed with me, huh?” 

You huff out a laugh and look up to see that smug grin plastered over his beautiful face, his skin glowing and his curls a mess after his performance onstage. 

“Don’t let it go to your head, we don’t need any more to feed your ego” you tease, poking at his forehead and watching as he momentarily closes his eyes at the motion.

His saccharine grin returns, “Too late for that darlin, you’ve confessed your undying obsession with me there’s no getting rid of me now”

You drop your head to his chest, subtly revelling in the affection as his arms wrap around you, enveloping you in comfort, making it impossible to ever imagine leaving them.

“You’re insufferable, you know that,” you laugh and despite your teasing he drops a kiss to your head, 

“Yeah but I’m yours now, and that’s all that matters”

[hoboblaidd]

REPOST AND LIST 6 SONGS THAT INSPIRE YOU TO WRITE YOUR MUSE:

just a man by EPIC the Musical

Every man I've slain is the price I pay, endless pain. Close your eyes and spare yourself the view. How could I hurt you? / But when does the comet become a meteor? When does a candle become a blaze? When does a man become a monster? When does a ripple become a tidal wave? When does the reason become the blame? When does a man become a monster? / (forgive me)

what could have been by Sting, Ray Chen

I am the monster you created, you ripped out all my parts. And worst of all, for me to live, I gotta kill the part of me that saw that I needed you more / I hope you know we had everything and you broke me and left these pieces. I want you to hurt like you hurt me today and I want you to lose like I lose when I play what could have been

saturn by Sleeping at Last, Tim Fain

You taught me the courage of stars before you left, how light carries on endlessly, even after death / With shortness of breath, I'll try to explain the infinite and how rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist

when it's cold i'd like to die by Moby

Where were you when I was lonesome? Locked away with freezing cold. Someone flying, only stolen. I can't tell, this night's so old / What was that, my sweet, sweet nothing? I can't hear you through the fog. If I holler, let me go. If I falter, let me know / I don't wanna swim the ocean. I don't wanna fight the tide. I don't wanna swim forever

your world will fail by Les Friction

Your world has got you controlled and silent. You can't fill a whole with a billion empty souls. Your world has got you alone and silent / Your world will fail my love, it's far beyond repair. Your world will fail my love, it's already there. Calm before the rage, hostage in a cage. Now it's too late to wake up this place and bring you all back to life

the man who can't forget by the Bardbells

The colors of his morning, the darkness of his night, little graves that gave no warning, a sun that brought no light / he saw his whole world breaking, that tortured soul I met in a prison of his making / I can still hear the way that he cried for the ones he was missing. I can still hear the way that he cried for the ones he had lost / He caused the whole world’s breaking, the tortured soul I met, in a prison of his making. the man who can’t forget

& LIST 6 QUOTES THAT INSPIRE YOU TO WRITE YOUR MUSE:

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me? - Paradise Lost

When you’re too tired or too afraid to defend yourself, defend others. - Peter S. Beagle

Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being. - Albert Camus

It is restful, tragedy, because one knows that there is no more lousy hope left. You know you’re caught, caught at last like a rat with all the world on its back. And the only thing left to do is shout. - Jean Anouilh

I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there’s only one conclusion: I’m damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they’ve set me on a path from which there is no escape. - Andor

I sought loneliness when I was young. You’ve seen me there: on my promontory, patient and unaware. But when I think of you, I want to be alone together. I want to strive against and for. I want to live in contact. I want to be a context for you, and you for me. - This is How You Lose the Time War

tagged 300 years ago by @avrorean

tagging. @extravagantliar @wepthonor @martyrmarked @theodosiani @keepslore and anyone else!

[threecheersforsuccess]

20241203

Today is my 23rd birthday! I've been reflecting a lot based on a framework I learned back in therapy, and I'm going to share it with you all today for this occasion. You can try this yourself too!

Caterpillar- Where you started

I stumbled upon the studying community partly because I love stationery, but I also wanted to improve my work ethic. Although I generally saw the results I wanted in high school and opened myself to so many new opportunities thanks to self-improvement (ex. pushing myself to get better at public speaking), the academic validation felt too good as the Model Minority Myth (I'm an Asian woman) seemed like the only way I can operate to be accepted. I adopted toxic work habits, dismissed any of my emotions as "weak," and saw much of what I enjoyed with a layer of shame just to blend in with the status quo (I might call a hobby "useless" or my asexuality as "fake"). I always kept up a mask of having everything together, even when I felt like I wanted to crash into sleep every hour.

Chrysalis- How you choose to be vulnerable

I chose to be vulnerable through broadening my horizons in college and meeting people of different identities. I found that I really envied people that expressed themselves freely regardless of status quo. I also envied people who struck a work/life balance while maintaining play and their nerdy interests. Inspired by these people, I did a lot of soul-searching into my sociological identities, my values, and my boundaries. This meant going to therapy and support groups, and later, it meant creating safe spaces for others to have these conversations too. I started off very messy because although I'm used to writing about my emotions by myself, being vulnerable means actually talking about these a loud. However, the more I did, the more I got better at it. I also received culturally competent guidance well-suited to tackle my anxiety and my bad habits.

Cocoon- What are you trying to build

Currently, I'm using my time (minus working) to really tap into my inner child. I talked a lot here about playing games, but this also means making music, drawing things I like, reading childhood books, and making my bullet journal spreads. I'm also trying to combat the feeling of guilt I get whenever I turn on a video game... there's sometimes a ghost voice telling me I'm wasting my time, which causes me to freeze up. It's not the only ghost voice out there. There's so many other voices... like ones that tell me how I am not deserving of happiness because I did not reach certain goals to the fullest in the past or ones that tell me how I'm a lost cause because I missed out on too much thanks to chasing all that academic validation. It gets pretty irrational. However, a lot of these things feel more... translucent? They're no longer as prominent as before because of all the work I've done. A lot these cognitive distortions don't feel as real as before. Then again, they weren't real to begin with... they're literally distortions lol.

Butterfly- What does it mean to be free

To approach the uncertainty of life with a learning mind. I want to accept the inevitability of challenge in life and strategize based on balance. Not on winning or losing but how much I will learn from the experience.

[thebumblingbee]

In the spirit of the impending Winter Solstice and end of the year, I figured I would share my goals for the upcoming year in case anybody is looking for inspiration. I don't consider them "resolutions", just tangible goals I'd like to achieve in the upcoming year.

Read 10,000 words - This is on my list every year, but just this past year I decided to switch from total number of books read (my goal was always 26) to total pages read. I like long books, and that works against me every time. This year, I hit about 5500 words, and that was with having a newborn over the winter/early spring. So it might be attainable this year?

Create one piece of art each month - this can be writing, painting, drawing, knitting; I don't really care. I just know that I feel better when I'm creating something.

Reduce screen time to 2 hours per day (not counting school work) - I spend FAR too much time on my phone. Even 2 hours still feels like too much, but sometimes I just need time right when I wake up and at the end of the day for my brain to unwind.

Learn and practice my witchcraft more thoroughly - I've always been one-foot-out-the-door with my practice, but I'd like to go all in this year.

Get a 3.5 GPA in my classes - I'm going back to school full time starting in January, and I'd like to maintain the academic rigor that I had almost 10 years ago. But also, I'm giving myself a bit of wiggle room because I have to do math and I'm bad at it lol

Find and maintain a sustainable skincare and makeup routine - I love to do makeup and skincare and nails, but I'm bad at keeping up with it because I try to do too much all at once. I want to create a simple routine that I'll actually stick to.

Find a sustainable house cleaning routine - Along the same lines, I'm always trying to push myself so hard that I burn out because of my chronic illnesses. I'm hoping to find a routine I can reliably keep up with.

Actually take care of my hair - I've got curly-ish hair that I absolutely neglect. It stays up in a ponytail or bun most of the time because I just cannot be bothered. I'd like to care for it so it actually looks nice enough that I don't just want to hide it.

Craft two outfits that I'm actually excited to wear - I dread getting dressed most days, but I've fallen in love with garment construction this year. I hope to build on my skills to make clothes that I actually like.

Cook two recipes per month from our cookbooks - We get stuck in meal-ruts in this house, and we have a pile of cookbooks collecting dust.

Learn how to prepare and freeze/store a variety of our most commonly eaten foods - I plan to learn one per month, which are as follows: turkey meatballs, turkey burgers, hamburger buns, sandwich bread, bagels, biscuits, chicken nuggets, fruit leather, granola bars, mayo, cinnamon rolls, and garlic bread. The kicker is that these all need to be dairy free now.

Finish my novel?? Maybe???

[evanhereonearth]

I hurt my own feelings with this fic. VEILGUARD SPOILERS!

This is the prologue of Veilguard from the POV of my Inquisitor, Ilaana Lavellan, who has spent the time since Trespasser working tirelessly to change the world. Her work with the Dalish and Rivaini seers and the Avvar augurs inspired the Veil Jumpers’ formation. She is a Dreamer and she is so endlessly tired.

Now betrayed by one of her dearest friends when it mattered the most.

I stare at the letters side by side. One from a beloved friend. One from my most trusted agent, which I have just decrypted. And one…

One I have had for a week and have been expecting. If not today, soon. It’s time. And I’m already too late to make a difference.

Varric’s letter fills me with cold. Cold like the Elfsblood River in Emprise du Lion spiked with red lyrium, its rage hot against the frigid ice that has settled over my skin.

He is too smart to think I will buy it, too canny to believe I don’t have my own methods of tracking Solas—yet still, here it is, another spun tale from the man who once told me I should have lied to the Right Hand of the Divine herself when I woke in Haven with a hole in the sky and a hole in my head and a hole in my hand that could heal all three.

I read it again, my body past reacting outwardly but my ribs screaming to hold back the fury in my heart.

Inquisitor,

Greetings from miserable, rainy Minrathous! (Don't tell Dorian I called it that.) The rotten weather here is making me nostalgic for Skyhold. The mountains were freezing, but at least the air didn't smell like wet garbage.

We'll have to get in another game of Wicked Grace soon.

Harding picked up the trail again. I'd tell you not to worry, but I know how useless that is. Instead, I'll just say: I've got a great team on this. Neve could stare down the Maker, and wait until you meet Rook. They're a natural: Smart, resourceful, completely unpredictable. You'd like them, as long as you don't try to beat them at cards. Chuckles'll never know what hit him.

I'll write again once we have something solid for you. Drinks at the Hanged Man are on me when this is over. Take care of yourself.

Varric

Then I read Charter’s. Charter is Leliana’s agent and also mine, one of the few who has come face to face with Solas since the events of the Qunari Dragon’s Breath plot. I trust Leliana implicitly—she’s earned that from me, my truest friend aside from Dorian and my most steadfast partner in all my intricate work for the past decade, by my side by choice as I walk my own din’an shiral—and until five minutes ago when I got Charter’s, I also trusted Varric Tethras.

Charter’s words are brief, using only my code name and seven others she pulsed through the sending crystal only minutes ago.

Lathi,

Our Lady of Victory. Looking glass. Haste.

I’m already too late. Haste means immediately. Even if I have an eluvian directly into the centre of Minrathous, I cannot run fast enough to beat Varric to Our Lady of Victory. Morrigan cannot fly fast enough.

Varric told me not to come to Minrathous yet.

And I know, without any doubt, that he sent his message barely an hour ago; Irelin must have been holding on to it until he told her to send it.

I am frozen like that horrid river, my own Elvhen blood a block of ice in every vein. How many times have I tried to explain to Varric the stakes here? How many hours have I spent begging him to listen to anything beyond his own narrative?

Something cracks within me, and my body begins to vibrate like a hummingbird’s wings as I force myself to reread the final letter.

Vhenan, I do not know if you will see these words. My ritual is ready and will soon be set in motion. Perhaps when you read this the world will be as it once was, and you will see why all I did was necessary. I cannot ask your forgiveness, but I hope you come to understand. That night in Crestwood, when I shared the truth about your vallaslin…you do not know how close I came to breaking. I could have shared the truth, or even put my plans aside and simply stayed with you as Solas…as I wanted.

I regret the pain I caused you.

What I feel for you will never change.

This, I have read a thousand times in the days since I found it in the Crossroads. I knew he sensed me close to his Lighthouse, knew he felt as I always do when we enter each other’s orbits.

It is the closest thing to an invitation he will ever send me; Solas once pushed me from his own din’an shiral out of fear I would come to regret loving him, that his steps would poison our love and the safety we built in each other’s hearts. He knew, when he sent this letter, that he had been wrong then about my motivations—or at least that my motivations have had the time to reveal to him my truth. He remembers how I said, “Let me help you, Solas.” And he is no fool. He knows every threat to his course, every passing breeze, and he knows every deliberate step I have taken on the journey I chose for myself these last ten years. He knows it’s not for him alone; he knows my mind is my own. He also knows I am free to choose and have chosen.

And now in my own foolish trust of an old friend, I will be too late to help him after all this time. Because Varric knows if I show up at Solas’s ritual, the Void take me, it will not be to stop my love at all costs.

I take a single steadying breath. Too late or not, I have to try. He will feel me coming to him. Perhaps that will be enough.

I summon a trio of wisps as I turn and sprint for my eluvian, whispering, begging, imbuing them with all the love in my heart and praying it is enough to stall whatever Varric has set in motion with this betrayal.

***

Varric’s letter and Charter’s, I drop into the warded message box I share with Leliana and Morrigan. Morrigan is deep in Arlathan Forest with Strife and Irelin, and Leliana—Divine Victoria—is leading the entire Chantry of Southern Thedas. They will both know soon enough.

Slipping through the mirror buzzes against the surface of my skin, enveloping me in the magic of the Fade, of the in-between place that is the Crossroads. We do not have Solas’s Vi’Revas, and our small section of the eluvian network is ours at his sufferance, unacknowledged for the sake of our plausible deniability—something we are all well aware of. The wisps I summoned are already gone, whirring through the Fade to find my love with as much haste as they can muster.

Time moves differently here. My feet pound over its ancient paths, rainbows glimmering and shimmering in the raw magic that surrounds me, but I still cannot move fast enough. With a thought, I slip into wolf form; I may not truly be faster this way, but I feel faster.

The mental boost gives me strength. It is not far to the Minrathous eluvian, but what lies on the other side is the true terror in my soul. Dorian’s manor is across the city from Our Lady of Victory. Even with all the magic in Thedas, I cannot simply appear where I want to appear.

When I reach the eluvian, I launch myself through, transforming myself back into the shape of Ilaana Lavellan that the world knows as the Inquisitor.

And what I hear makes me almost trip and sprawl out onto my face.

“Citizens of Minrathous!” The voice booms through the air from the Archon’s Palace.

I don’t hear the rest of the message, because Dorian throws open the door to the warded eluvian room, pinged by the wards that recognise my mana.

“It’s started,” he says. “Ilaana—”

“Varric lied,” I tell him shortly. “Did you know?”

I’ve never heard the razor-sharp edge to my voice that slices through the air between me and my dearest friend. He gapes at me, piecing together what I’m saying as horror twists his expression before he can answer.

“Dorian, did you know?”

My voice cracks the second time, and he flinches at my anguish.

“No, Lathi. I trust you above all else in this Maker-forsaken world. Into the Fade and Beyond.”

The weary smile he gives me is enough; Dorian cannot lie to my face.

That last bit is a joke, one I didn’t know I needed in this moment. Humans call it the Fade, elves call it the Beyond, and right now, the veil between our world and the spirit world, regardless of what anyone calls it, is about to vanish. My love is trying to heal the wound he inflicted upon this world to save it so long ago. The immense trust Dorian has in me, to believe the veil falling is survivable?

I can return that trust. I will return that trust.

“I need to get to Our Lady of Victory,” I tell him, forcing the mask back on—if I am going to survive tonight, that mask will be my lifeline.

I am too late already. But I have to try. I am too late already. But for Solas, for all of us and everyone we love on both sides of the veil, I have to try.

***

It is the quiet that tells me I’m too late.

Dorian and I burst through the eluvian into the wilds of Arlathan to find it over—but the Veil still stands. In the shellshocked broken statues, in the stink of blight that stings at my nostrils in a whiff on the wind, we are late enough that the scene has grown quiet.

Not silent. The storm of magic that fills the air with the familiar feel of the Fade—Solas’s mana, so known to me, permeating every pore—remains an echo.

An argument with Varric from last month springs back into my mind.

“Varric, the veil is already failing. It will fall whether you want it or not, and only Solas knows how to do this in a way that will not release the entire reason he created it in the first place.” My temples bloomed with the headache I was nursing at the time, circular arguments that could find no purchase on the smooth, blunted surface of Varric’s stubbornness. “It’s the Blight. The blighted Evanuris, whoever of them remains. If we find him, we cannot risk their escape.”

“We don’t know that,” Varric insisted for the hundredth time. “He’s trying to drown the world in demons—we can’t just let him because you believe his propaganda.”

“I believe the decade of my own studies! Everything I have found independently on both sides of the veil confirms it, that the Evanuris created or unleashed the Blight and weaponised it. And that the veil kept them from using it to destroy the entire world. Every living being in Thedas owes Solas their very existence.”

“And he’s taking the veil down and will let the blight out again—”

“He will do no such thing! It would defeat the purpose of everything he has done so far, and you are not listening to me. You have decided, wrongly, that you understand this better than I do, better than he does, better than the Veil Jumpers and the seers, better than Morrigan, who holds the memories of Mythal herself.”

“Look, Ilaana, I know you and Chuckles were in love, but he lied to you all that time. You’re too close to this to be objective. He’s the literal god of lies.”

“Or none of the rest of you bothered to truly know him. If you had, you might have been forced to accept that he is right. You see only the version of him you wish to see; I at least can differentiate between the man and the mask he wears.”

That was it, I realise, as Dorian and I warily pick our way towards the ritual site.

That was the moment Varric decided he would keep me from this. He has always believed me to be delusional. He has always been unable to accept that he is wrong. Wrong about Cole’s personhood, wrong about Bianca. I can see him projecting that upon me; he trusted Bianca, a woman who married someone else instead of him, a woman who leaked red lyrium into the world to Corypheus, a woman who deluded him, kept him begging for scraps for years. A woman more delighted by her own cleverness than any willingness to take responsibility for her actions. He thinks my relationship with Solas is the same.

It is not and never was.

In the past decade, much of the Inquisition has fallen away. Bull hasn’t much stayed in touch since he and Dorian ended things; Tevinter became too large for Bull to deal with. He returned to the Chargers, and as far as I know is somewhere in Antiva fighting the Antaam.

Some, I know still only to keep an eye on. Like Thom and Vivienne and Sera. Others are friends I keep close but not too close, like Cass and Josie and Cullen. Varric and Lace, I have trusted until now, if not to the degree I trust Dorian and Leliana and Merrill and Morrigan, enough to trust they would listen to me and my hard-won expertise.

Folly. The folly of my too-tender heart that gave me my nickname. Da’lath’in. Lathi.

Beside me, Dorian makes a small noise. I’m so caught up in my rampaging thoughts that I stop only when he throws out an arm across my chest

“What in the blazes is that?”

I smell the Blight before my eyes process the lumpen mass I’m seeing. My first thought is that it is a womb torn out and left pulsing on the ground, its umbilical cord winding away to attach to…something worse.

My second thought is that this impression is all too correct.

I incinerate it with a thought, Dorian’s barrier protecting us from any spray of the explosion, and fire races along the umbilical cord to the larger mass, lighting it up with a gurgling pulse that makes every pore on my body raise itself into gooseflesh.

“The veil remains, but the blight got out,” I say, my voice hollow, numb.

“Lathi, if you don’t want to see this—”

“I have to.”

It comes out almost as a gasp. I take three slow breaths, trying to build myself a cocoon of calm even as something deep within my spirit begins to shriek.

Dorian burns through the barrier, and I cast about for any threats that could remain. The blight here—this is unlike any blight I have encountered. My skin crawls like it’s trying to escape from my body.

Thom alerted me some time ago to a report from Wardens who seem to have encountered an ancient elven lab beneath a mountain that birthed horrors unlike any they’d encountered. Darkspawn twisted enough to make the usual hurlocks and genlocks and shrieks look downright friendly.

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming.

What has Varric done?

We see no actual darkspawn as we wind through the path, but that does nothing to settle my spirit. The entire place is hushed with creeping wrongness, echoes of magic like a tempest barely calmed. Or cut off abruptly.

I see footprints in the dirt. Dorian is no tracker, but I am still Dalish. Two dwarves—that’ll be Varric and Harding. One set is a boot and a hard imprint of something not a foot. Neve Gallus, most likely. She is known for having lost part of a leg much like I have lost part of an arm, though in entirely different circumstances.

One set that must be Rook’s. Grier Aldwir, a Veil Jumper who I encountered long ago in Rivain before the Veil Jumpers even existed. Not long after Dragon’s Breath, when I first ventured out to the those I thought might meet me with open minds.

Varric seems to have somehow thought I wouldn’t find out about the people he intended to take to disrupt my love’s ritual, but I admit surprise at Rook’s identity.

I would have thought Grier would have more sense.

Not that my first impression of them was anything more than passing; Grier was starstruck to be in the presence of the Inquisitor, and I noted the way they asked stupid questions that others seemed to expect of them as much as I noted the sharp intelligence behind those blue-green eyes. I recognised something of myself in that; it has often behooved me to allow others to make assumptions about my own capacity. Better people underestimate you, especially as an elf in Thedas.

The thoughts are as much distraction as anything. That shrieking part of my soul has not ceased its panicked noise.

Dorian and I pick our ways forwards still, combing the path for evidence. Some residue of demons, more blight, though the blight seems to be leading away from here, almost like tracks in and of itself. It veers off into Arlathan Forest, which is something I am likely to hear about sooner rather than later. I will get word to Irelin and Strife after we discover what happened here at this ritual.

I don’t let myself wonder about Solas. I cannot.

If I do, I will break.

We come to an old ruin, and even from where I stand, I can see the evidence of cataclysm. I have been here once before when tracking Solas, so I know that the enormous statues of the ancient Evanuris were standing not long ago.

Now only a few still stand upright; the rest have toppled like bookshelves in a library when one is pushed to fall upon the others in a cascade of destruction.

My skin grows cold even as my analytical mind puts together pieces of what must have happened.

“Surely even dwarves could not be so foolish as to drop a statue on a ritual of that magnitude of volatility,” Dorian says, his own mind making the same connection as mine. “One does not need magical acuity to understand that such a thing would—”

I waggle my prosthetic hand at him. “Have unintended consequences?”

“My dear, you are far more gracious than I.”

I am, of course, referring to my own inadvertent interruption of a ritual of a tenth this size: Corypheus sacrificing Divine Justinia to tear open the Fade. The moment I tripped and landed in the role of Herald of Andraste, later Inquisitor. The moment I fell into the Fade in the flesh and tumbled back out of it a miracle. The moment my fate became irrevocably bound to Solas’s.

“They had two mages with them, as well,” I murmur. “Dock Town’s Neve Gallus and a Veil Jumper called Grier Aldwir. Rook, as Varric calls them. Either one of them ought to have known better.”

“Neve certainly should have,” Dorian murmurs. “I don’t know her well, but enough to know she doesn’t take chances. That said, she has not had the benefit of knowing someone who lives and breathes the Fade, let alone two someones. Three if we count Cole.”

“Even so,” I say shakily. My ability to compartmentalise is cracking along its fault lines.

“Even so,” Dorian agrees.

I can feel spirits pressing against the veil, drawn to me as always. Especially when there has been enormous magic brought to bear, and there has been more enormous magic brought to bear here than any time in history since the day Solas made the veil itself.

“Dorian.”

He pulls his gaze from the toppled statues to look at me, his own demeanour showing he’s as aware of the activity in the Fade as much as I am.

“Don’t worry,” he says, a sardonic smile quirking his lips without reaching his eyes as he quotes a line he once said to me when we were torn out of time in a red lyrium nightmare of Redcliffe. “I’ll protect you.”

He knows I need to see.

We both know I may not be able to bear it.

***

A decade of practice has made slipping across the veil into the Fade as simple as lighting a candle with my magic.

It feels like home here, and that thought wrenches a yearning sob from me at my decade-long hope crushed.

“Imagine a world where the Fade is not somewhere you go, but a state of nature, like the wind. Where spirits are as common as trees or grass.”

Solas’s words to me, a lifetime ago in Haven.

My first wild glimmer of possibility.

The spirits around me reflect my sorrow, my fear, but they know me. They know me or know of me, and they do not turn into demons when my emotions are stormy; instead, they pull close around me. Compassion and Valour and Courage and Determination.

“Show me,” I whisper to my friends.

The world of now falls away.

I feel the germination of Solas’s ritual, feel his magic grow, spreading in undulating waves from where he stands atop a ritual platform raised on a flight of stone-hewn stairs.

The sight of him wrenches at my heart. Oh, I have had glimpses of him over the years; we are ghosts of the wolves I carved for him in Skyhold so long ago, always circling each other, never without each other’s scents. I have seen him echoed in memories in the Fade, regrets and tears, his and my own both, seen him in truth, from afar, gazing upon me and allowing for scattered moments of longing we both knew must be brief. Whether as a wolf or a man, I know him always, as he knows me. He has never hidden from me, nor I from him.

But seeing him in this memory, only a bare hour or two ago, is different.

His name means both Pride and One Who Stands Tall, and in this moment, it is only the latter the spirits see. Thus it is only the latter I see. The spirits are here, and they are ready, because he has prepared them for this. Pride blooms in me—pride that my love has not an army, but a tribe thousands strong of spirits ready to help—spirit self seeing self—ready to heal the wound he inflicted on the world, ready to help the bone knit back together after it has been re-broken and reset.

They know the risks. They know what lies beyond the door.

Corruption and death.

For all of us.

Still, they are here, and they are ready.

The scope of Solas’s power staggers me as it grows. It eclipses the ritual site, so much raw magic it is as if the veil already does not exist. This—this is what remained of a fragment of Mythal?

My own power is not negligible; my connection to the Fade has grown to the point that I am virtually untouchable to anyone who tries to harm me.

But this?

No wonder the Evanuris convinced the ancient Elvhen that they were gods.

I can also feel that it reaches the limits of his strength.

He has been counted among them, but he has never been their peer.

Yet he bested them anyway.

Magic, raw and awe-inspiring, pours out of the Fade, permeating the earth, the ritual site, the air, everything for miles around. It is a beacon of pure power to anything with an awareness, anything with a connection to the Fade and, I suspect, even to anything without.

I’m so caught up in the torrent of energies that I almost miss Varric’s approach.

Not all spirits have the fortitude to resist change in the face of such enormous magical shifts; some few, so desperate to reunite with the physical world the veil sundered them from, tear their way through the tattered veil, the violence of it twisting them into demons on the way. Like with the rifts I spent years closing with the Anchor. Like the Breach.

Varric and his team fight their way through. Neve is an adept ice mage, her mana elegant and efficient. Rook is electric, using the newly emerged orb-and-dagger fighting style rather than a staff like I prefer, and their attacks seem fitting to what Varric said in his letter about the eponymous chess piece: thinking in straight lines.

The observation fills me with dread.

I don’t want to see this. I do not want to witness.

I have no choice.

I owe him this, because Varric fooled me, and I was too late to stop it. If I allow myself to freeze in inaction with my own regrets now, I will never leave this place.

Even as I think it, I hear Varric’s voice.

“All right,” he says to Rook. “I’ll take it from here.”

“Are you sure?” Neve asks after blasting away a demon who ventured too close.

“Positive. You three just keep the demons off me while I talk to him.”

“Varric,” a breathless Lace Harding cuts in, “Solas isn’t going to stop just because an old friend asks nicely.”

“Solas needs someone to sell him another option, to justify him changing his mind.” Varric sounds so sure of himself, and the sheer weight of knowledge that he left me behind on purpose threatens to capsize me.

I miss what Rook says in the flash of fury that nearly blinds me, but Grier must be encouraging Varric, because Varric’s answer adds fuel to my fire.

“Thanks, Rook. Whatever else he is, he’s my friend. And if he won’t listen to me, he’ll hear from Bianca.”

No. No, no, no, no, no-no-no.

I cannot think of a worse way to approach Solas at this moment, but I cannot stop it from happening.

It has already happened. Already brought this night to ruin.

“Hey, Chuckles! Hope I’m not interrupting!”

Visions in the Fade shift perspective, and I’m suddenly between Varric and Solas, looking up at my love when he turns to face the fool of a dwarf. I have not seen Solas this close since Dragon’s Breath, and all the air leaves my lungs as his face shifts through a hundred micro expressions from one heartbeat to the next.

Weariness. Genuine surprise. A glance behind Varric—looking for me and not seeing me—turning to anger as my instincts scream that my love, my vhen’an’ara, has correctly deduced in that moment that Varric is why I am not with him.

And finally, rage, quickly pushed down.

My ears ring as their fragmented conversation continues, as Varric barrels ahead with Bianca levelled at Solas’s heart.

At my heart. My heart. My heart.

Vhenan.

Bianca shatters as Solas destroys the unique crossbow with a thought, leaving Varric untouched. Solas lifts his ritual dagger once more to the ritual.

“People are always dying, Varric,” Solas says in answer to something I did not hear, the weight of an eternity on every word, “it is what they do.”

The spirits around me wrap me in what comfort they can, soothing Compassion and stalwart Courage tethering me to my own existence so I don’t shatter like that fucking crossbow.

Worse is coming. If Varric is here, he didn’t bring down the statues.

Even as I think it, I hear Rook’s voice.

“We need a better plan.”

Then Harding: “Do you want me to take the shot?”

I cannot allow myself to feel this additional betrayal. No part of me cares that they genuinely think they are the good guys here; they are wrong, so deeply wrong and will never know it.

“Won’t work,” Neve is saying. “He’s too powerful.”

“What if we disrupt the ritual?” Rook says, pointing…at the statues.

I cannot listen to them, to this asinine stupidity, this mockery of heroism. “Please,” I beg the spirits. “Don’t make me hear them.”

I already know what they are going to do; I only don’t know how it ends.

One more message, says a spirit of Valour. Be brave.

Solas’s voice. “We shared a journey years ago. Do you think I would do this if there were some other, better option? You came a long way and made a valiant effort, but this story does not end with my downfall.”

Some part of me unclenches. A wave of gratitude encompasses Valour; the spirit would not have echoed those words except to bolster me.

Banal nadas, whispers Possibility in my ear. Banal nadas.

Nothing is inevitable. The lesson Possibility came to teach me so long ago.

I see the first statue begin to fall.

It cracks through the air, breaking stone shattering, stone that has stood for millennia. The statue crashes into the next one, then the next.

I don’t have to hear Solas to know he is screaming, “No. No, no!”

He catches the closest statue with pure will, hefting it backwards from where it is about to crash down upon him. Resolute, implacable. He raises his dagger once more—and Varric throws himself at Solas.

I watch them tussle, Varric with his mere few decades of experience against the Dread Wolf, who has commanded armies and outwitted would-be gods for ages untold.

It is only ever going to end one way, and Varric has reached the final boundary of Solas’s forbearance and patience.

The dagger plunges into Varric’s chest, above the heart but a mortal wound nonetheless.

My body is shaking, shuddering with the sight of it, but my emotions are too numb, too jumbled; this isn’t over. This isn’t the end.

Then I see it.

Behind Solas.

A tear in the veil, like that rift into the Fade at Adamant, and like that rift, horror waits on the other side.

One form I immediately recognise from his iconography, and if I didn’t recognise that, I would know the sheer force of his presence.

Elgar’nan, first of the Evanuris.

His power is a force that cannot be contained or reckoned with; the weight of it has density, the enormity of his will threaded with something I only just tasted.

Blight.

Beside him is…a monster. My first thought is that perhaps it is Andruil, whose Void-touched armour drove her insane. This gangly, long-limbed creature dangling tentacles—but no.

No.

This is Ghilan’nain.

Mother of the fucking halla, my Dalish arse. Mother of monsters. Mother of nightmares.

A cataclysmic concussion rends the air. Dimly, I am aware of Rook soaring into a pillar with the sheer force of it.

I cannot see Solas. I cannot see Solas. I cannot see Solas.

Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain are out.

The blighted gods are out.

Varric, what have you done?

I don’t realise I’m screaming myself hoarse until hands shake my shoulders. Human hands. Dorian’s hands.

He pulls me back to the present, out of the Fade. I taste blood where I have chewed through the inner flesh of my cheek.

Through the Fade, the spirits push one more message through to me. It is a message for me, from them. To tell me my love lives. I feel with it a sense of terror beyond anything I have imagined. Beyond the lair of the Nightmare at Adamant, beyond the mind-breaking horrors of seeing a blighted Solas tossed dead on the floor in a future that never came to pass, beyond the pitiful ploy for godhood that was Corypheus, beyond anything I’ve faced since.

The message comes from within the prison he built to contain the blighted gods.

It comes with the force of my love’s voice resonant with terrible calm in every word—words meant not for me, but for someone else.

For Rook.

“You have no idea what you have done.”
















[kingkatsuki]

Hi! I've been going through your blog (bc its so good?!?! Thank you so much for writing so much Bakugou content!!!!) and just got really inspired by your Dragon King Bakugou universe to write about something urging reader to leave. I hope it's okay but I wanted to share what came out of it:

---

You had to leave.

Rumours of a vengeful vagabond out for Dragon King Bakugou's blood had spread. Although this is not the first and certainly would not be the last person seeking revenge, this particular instance caught your attention. Every descriptor about him was deeply familiar to you and, beyond your wildest hopes, reminds you of your brother. And so, you had to leave. 

It was simple really, almost laughingly so. All you had to do was request for some extra furs here, a larger bag there, and oh, you were fancying some cured meats lately! No matter what you asked for, they were brought to you immediately, for you were the woman cherished by the dragon king himself. His greatest prize. You had packed all the necessities as well as some of the jewels and gold Bakugou insisted on lavishing you with.

Just take it, woman. You know we dragons love to have shiny things and you're mine so of course my woman is going to have the best jewels.

Your heart squeezes at the memory of his brash words paired with his gentle hands as he adorned you with his spools. Physically leaving was easy, yes; steeling your resolve was the hard part. 

---

Taking one last look behind you at the castle you had called home for so many moons, you take a breath.

"So you're gonna leave just like that?" You freeze, heart stopping at the sound of his voice. You had been so careful. 

And you were, spacing your requests out between other mundane ones to not let anyone draw connections. But this was Bakugou, how could he not have known when he memorizes every breath you take. When he commits all your favourite things to heart so he can bring you more to make up for everything he has taken. When he is so painfully aware that he fell for a woman who could never love him with all that she is.

"I'm sorry...my King"

He scoffs "Am I still your king even when you are leaving?" 

And though you cannot bear to look into his eyes, swirling with hurt, betrayal, and anger, you must because he deserves at least that much. "You will always have a piece of me."

"But never the entirety, right" his distain masking what he really wants to say stay, please. But how could he ask you to choose him over your family, to take yet another important thing away from you again, to ask you to choose him when you never had a choice in coming here in the first place. 

Your lips set into a thin line, holding back the lump in your throat and the comforting words you wanted to give him. Because at the end of the day he was right, he could never have you entirely, not when your brother might be out there. Your brother, who helped raise you, cherish you, and mourned you and everyone he knew when he came back to a pile of rubble. You had to go back to him, you had to let him know that he is not alone in the world and maybe you can distract him enough to stop his quest for vengeance. 

Seeing the resolve in your eyes strengthen spurns Bakugou to try even though he knows he is fighting a losing battle "Is there nothing I can do to make you stay? I would get on my knees to beg if you so wishes it, just say the word."

"Bakugou if you really loved me then let me leave. If you do not, then you can command me to stay." And that is what seals it. Dragon King Bakugou who has never lost a fight in his life, for the first time cannot fight back. Because no matter what may come to pass, if there is one truth in the world it is surely that he loves you.

And so he turns around, tears in his eyes and heart in his throat, no matter how hard he tried, it was never be enough to change how you two started. "Go," he chokes out, "before I regret it"

"Thank you," you whisper, the wind carrying your voice over "Katsuki." And you're off, running into the distance, free. The complete opposite of how you arrived, strapped to the saddle of a dragon.

That was the first time, Katsuki thinks, and the last. That you've ever called him by his name.

#and then months later when katsuki is starting to become numb to the pain #only because he keeps fighting and fighting and fighting to the point of exhaustion so he has no more energy to think about you #but he always has energy when it comes to you #especially when he fists his cock at night to the memory of his name on your lips #anyways months later you're at the doorsteps of his castle #this time of your own free will #his heart nearly stops at the sight of you #at the scent of you #he thinks its a hallucinations #until you step forward and say his name #somehow its so much sweeter than his memory of it and thats when he starts to realize that this is real #and you stay for good #and maybe that was the first time katsuki was given instead of him taking #i love reading your tags but i don't think that really works in an ask but this is me trying to emulate

Ahhh thank you so much!

I love the angst of this. Like it pains you to leave, but you’re doing it because you know what your brother is capable of and what might happen if you stay.

And I can imagine that moment where Bakugou catches you, and you want him to tell you to stay because it’s gonna physically hurt you to leave him, but you know deep down it’s what you have to do.

And you spend all the time away from him longing for him? And he’s doing the exact same— but maybe he becomes more ruthless, more cold? Because he’s lost the only thing in his life worth having. No amount of riches or kingdoms can compare— and you find out that he’s planning an attack on your brother so you have to stop it? To explain to him the real reason why you left😭

[foxgloveinspace]

@thoseeyeslikefire @absentviolet @kyloreno-911

It's another LONG w.i.p. Wednesday! Explanation for why I haven't been making these, I guess:

took a week off in October cause I didn't feel like taking pics, then we had company and I didn't have time to do it, and then I got sick, ugh. But now I'm back and I'm gonna try to do these when I can again, possibly not every week, maybe every other week, cause I want to spend more time reading and writing this month if I can. (it's gonna be my first 'real' NaNoWriMo. Where I have a goal and such).

first off, the confession. I frogged the cardigan part of the og skulls cardigan. I kept looking at it, and looking at it, and I went 'I'm never going to wear this, I'm just doing it, to do it'. It's gone through like, three other iterations that I haven't been talking about cause I was really just trying to figure it out. I've finally found something I'm excited about making, which is a pieced together cardigan of double crochets, where on the right side rows I crochet through the back loop only. I'm feeling very inspired by this, especially since I could work on this even when I was super foggy from having a cold. Sadly, it did not get done in time for Halloween, but also I didn't intend for it to be just for Halloween. Hopefully this is something I'll wear all winter. It's my main w.i.p. rn and I hope to get it finished this week, so I'll post finished pics when I get it done.

and another 'wellllll there was a goof' project, lol. I messed up the left sock of my hocus pocus socks. so I decided to frog it, since then it would be easier to make the heel flap and gusset of the right sock! so! i then paused the first sock until I can catch up on the second sock, and when they are both ready to knit the foot, I'll pick them both up to knit two at a time again. I just haven't been able to knit very much cause of the foggy head from my cold. But! I am really happy with these and hopefully I'll have them done before the end of the year.

I picked back up the pass the honey cardigan! mostly cause it was easy knitting while I was, again, foggy from the cold..... wow. Any way, I know it probably doesn't look like it, but I did get some progress done on it, I think like two or three pattern repeats? I wasn't sure I wanted to continue it, but then I had the thought of 'it looks like dragon scales, not just honey comb' and now I love it lol. It's my dragon scale armor now.

and now! my birthday shawl!! (The Gaia Shawl) I only did the first bit on my birthday cause I was DETERMINED to get it started on the right day. I am loving this yarn and how it's working up, and I am really liking the little bit of the pattern I've worked at well. I'm not worried about how long it takes me cause my birthday shawl last year was being worked well into January. It'll be there when I feel good enough to work on it again. The only problem is that the pattern website keeps freezing.....

small yarn haul time!

the multi colored yarn is from one of my mom's friends actually, she has sheep and she goes through the entire process with it, and I got it from her 'booth' at the Heritage Days festival in Warsaw (which is no where near where I live). I have no idea what I want to make with it?? I'm thinking a hat and some socks maybe? it is a fingering weight yarn. Definitely the hat first, and then if I have enough yarn left over the socks. It's so soft and squishy, and I really love it.

and then the blues are for a project for my sister in law.... she kinda volunteered me for it, but it'll only take me a couple days at most. It's for a pixie from Harry Potter. The yarn is nice and soft, and I guess I'm looking forward to the challenge, but also she's just...... It's complicated.

And that's it from me! Thanks for reading <3

[celestialevie]

Birthday surprise // Niall Horan x singer! Reader

Genre: Fluff

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: none

A/N: Since it's officially my birthday week and Niall's has just passed, I decided to write this very self-indulgent fic (even though I can't sing, but a girl can dream </3). I mostly wrote this for myself because I adore this human with my whole heart. Anyways hope someone will enjoy this fic just as much as I did writing it.

Finishing the first two songs, you chat a little with your fans. Noticing some of the signs they brought with them to get you to notice them, some of them making you laugh, while some of them made your heart clench with love. Sitting down at the piano, starting to play 'champagne problems'. While you were in the happiest relationship to date now, you still had some issues with your past relationships, where you were made the villain and them a victim when in reality it was the literal opposite. Niall was the blessing you were praying for. So what if you were fucked in the head? Niall loved you just the way you were.

Your birthday was coming up, and you were going to spend it while being in one of the cities you absolutely love touring in – Dublin. Although you were heartbroken because this will be the first birthday you were going to celebrate without your boyfriend, Niall. Ever since you've known him, you celebrated both of your birthdays with one another. His tour lead him to being in America during your birthday, which really sucked. You were both bummed out about it, he even offered to reschedule that concert, so he can be with you in Dublin, maybe even visit his family whilst already being in Ireland, you told him no. You didn't want to be selfish just because it's your birthday. Talking on the phone with him right from the moment he was awake (which was already in the afternoon for you). '' It feels weird to not be with you on your birthday, how will I survive without my birthday kisses and hugs from you? '' you ask while pouting. Niall chuckled and mimicked your put. '' I will give you your birthday kisses and hugs as soon as I see you. With extra ones for each day between your birthday and the day we see each other again. I promise. '' he gives you a smile. And you just pout harder. '' I really miss you. I can't wait to see you soon. '' checking the time, you realize it's almost time for you to start getting ready. '' Hey baby, I have to go start getting ready soon. I'll make sure Jenna calls you to FaceTime and shows you at least some concert if you're not busy. I love you and I miss you. '' as you say that, you hang up and quickly text your makeup artist, she can come over. Two minutes later, her and Jenna (your assistant and close friend) are in your dressing room, and you're getting ready. An hour later, you were done with your makeup and hair and all that was left was to put on your outfit. Ten minutes later, you were slowly making your way towards stage. Quickly texting Niall another I love you, and wishing him good luck on his own show later, you were off on the stage, the intro of your song' dress' starting to play as you were brought onto the stage. Let the fun begin.

After champagne problems, one of your favourite songs you wrote was next.

''... Don Perignon you brought it, no crowd of friends applauded

your hometown sceptics called it, champagne problems.''

'' A lot of you might not know, but this next song was inspired after I was done watching the amazing spider-man 2 for the millionth time. My love for Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield is unmatchable. Just ask my boyfriend, who's been hanging out with Tom Holland, how both of them are feeling betrayed by my love for both Amazing Spider-man's movies. This is How you get the girl. '' The intro of the song started playing and so were the screams of people.

Singing two more songs, you go get changed into a different outfit. Going back onto the stage, you're surprised that your manager Anna is standing there with a grin on her face.

'' Stand there like a ghost

Shaking from the rain

She'll open up the door and say 'are you insane?'

Say it's been long six months

And you were too afraid to tell her what you want, want...''

'' Uh-oh, manager is grinning, prepare yourselves guys, it's not going to be good. '' The crowd laughs while Anna rolls her eyes and smiles at you. '' We have a small surprise for you. '' as she says that, she points on the big screen behind you, when you turn around you are surprised to see a familiar face of one of your closest friends, Lewis Capaldi, wishing you a happy birthday and saying you guys need to go clubbing again soon. Laughing as his face fades away and the next one shows up, your very close friend and sometimes co-writer Taylor Swift, again wishing you the happiest birthday and saying how much she adores working with you and that she loves you very much. It went on for a while, all your friends and even your parents were there. Tears were falling down, and you didn't care it ruined your makeup. And then at the end there he was. My favourite face to see. Niall. '' Happiest birthday to you angel. I wish I could be there with you, just like we are always for our birthdays, but unfortunately I am not there to give you all the birthday hugs and wishes. I love you so much angel, keep rocking the world, and I will see you as soon as we can. '' At the end you were full on sobbing happy tears, hugging your manager and your band. The best surprise ever. '' I am very sorry for being a mess so publicly '' wiping your tears and thanking to whoever invented waterproof mascara for being the reason your makeup is not that ruined. '' Anyway, the show must go on, so let's go. '' picking up your acoustic guitar, adjusting it, you announce the song. ''You are in love. Let's go.''

''(...)

As the show is slowly coming to an end, and you're about to play a song that is about your boyfriend, that he inspired you to write. And Taylor helped you co-write it.

Morning, his place

Burnt toast, Sunday

You keep his shirt

He keeps his word

And for once, you let go

Of your fears and your ghosts

One step, not much

But it said enough

You kiss on side walks

You fight and you talk

One night he wakes

Strange look on his face

Pauses, then says

You're my best friend

And you knew what it was

He is in love. ''

'' Sadly, the show is slowly coming to an end. You guys were the absolute best and I adore spending my birthday with you all. This next song is literally one of the most accurate songs I've written about any of my relationship. When I got inspired by my loveliest boyfriend, I had to invite Taylor to help me write it, as we all know she is the lyrics master. Lover is one of my many nicknames I use for Niall, and I know that he's probably watching this or will watch it later, so hi Niall. '' you wave to one of the camera's while the crowd laughs. Gently, you start playing the guitar.

What you didn't know is that your boyfriend is a liar and is actually hiding with your assistant Jenna, waiting to come on the stage to surprise you. Of course, he wouldn't miss your birthday, even if he has to reschedule the concerts. You were absolutely worth it. As he waits for the part of the song he's gonna crash in, Jenna and Anna are making sure you don't accidentally notice Niall before time. The plan is for Anna to quickly distract you on one side while Niall comes out on the other side of the stage.

'' (...)

We could let our friends crash in the living room

This is our place, we make the call

And I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you

I've loved you three summers now, honey, but I want 'em all

Can I go where you go?

Can we always be this close forever and ever?

And ah, take me out, and take me home (forever and ever)

You're my, my, my, my

Lover '' as you sing that part, you notice Anna waving at you like a maniac, distracting you and mouthing something to you. As you're trying to figure out what is she saying, the crowd starts screaming, and you freeze as the familiar voice starts to sing the next part of the song

''Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand?

With every guitar string scar on my hand...''

The song soon comes to an end, and you're bringing Niall into another hug. He just smiles and wraps his arms around your waist. '' Happy birthday, angel. I hope you don't mind me crashing. '' You just shake your head while holding him as close as you can. '' You are always welcome to crash my show. The next song is your song anyway, so you might as well stay and sing with me. '' he pulls away and looks at you. '' Let's go finish this show, so I can give you all the birthday kisses and hugs you want. ''

You turn around with your hand on your mouth, as the man himself makes his way towards you. You're in absolute shock because this man is supposed to be in America. He only laughs at your reaction as he pulls you towards him in a tight hug while still singing. Hugging him back, not wanting to let go of him. Slightly pulling away, looking him directly in his beautiful blue eyes while singing.

'' I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover

My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue

All's well that ends well to end up with you

Swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover

And you'll save all your dirtiest jokes for me

And at every table, I'll save you a seat, lover ''

[renaroo123]

Daisies and Daffodils

(Not my GIF OBV, and yes its from Tick Tick! Boom, but this is Peter’s vibe within my story )

TASM!Peter ParkerX TASM MJ. Eventual NWH spoilers but this part is NWH spoiler free!

16+ is recommended due to talks of depression, anxiety and potentially (eventual) suggestive themes. but as of now this work is SFW!

Word count : 2K

Peter Parker was not ready to move on, despite Aunt May, and others in his life pushing him to do so. He'd tried once but it completely blew up in his face.

But a run in with someone from his past could throw everything off balance.  Setting him down the path that had always been meant for him.

A/N: So hi everyone. This is my first stab at writing any type of Fan fiction in years. But No way home really inspired me to write again. I won't promise any regular updates but this most likely will not be a One and done.

Also the first half of the title will be evident in a moment but the second half isn't. Daffodils are symbolic of Rebirth and new beginnings. So it's going to be very fitting

As always comments are welcome, and constructive feedback as well. Thank you all for your patience. I hope you enjoy it :)

.

####

Gripping the daisies in his hand Peter Parker walked through the trodden path of the cemetery.  He'd never been the most comfortable in Christian cemeteries but his comfort was the least important thing to him right now.

Daisies were hard to find this time of year, as it was still too cold for them to grow naturally in New York

But they were her favourite. And after all it was her birthday.

Gwendolyn Maxine Stacy.

Beloved Daughter, Sister and friend.

1996-2014

In the years since her death he must have read her name a million times. He'd memorized  every line in the marble, each weathered scratch from the harsh winters and even how the black paint in the carving of her name has started to grey over the years

Yet it never got easier.

Thankfully he never encountered anyone visiting her. It was a crowded yet quiet place where he could be alone with himself and just talk.

"Hey Gwen" he said, taking in a steading breath. "I know it's been awhile since I've come to see you, but I brought your favourites"

Brushing the snow from the small vase in front of the stone, he placed the flowers inside.

"Hopefully they'll last awhile. The last ones blew away from the wind."  

And there he sat, rambling about his life (not that it had been terribly exciting), talking about nothing. Praying that somehow, she could actually still hear him and it wasn't just for nothing.

".. and of course May is still trying to set me up with her co-workers. She had let me be perpetually single for a while. But I think she's getting antsy for Grandchildren. I swear she'll never–"

He was suddenly cut off by a familiar voice that made him freeze.

"Peter? Dear is that you? What are you doing here" the woman said, surprised.

There were only two women who had ever called him dear like that, and his mother had been gone for many years. So it had to be Mrs. Stacy.

Peter quickly looked over his shoulder, and offered a polite smile. "Hello Mrs. Stacy. It's good to see you." He stood up and brushed off his pants as he continued.

"I was just here visiting her, and giving her her favourite flowers" gesturing to the vase near his feet. "I always bring them with me when I visit"

"Peter dear, I know it's been awhile since we've seen each other but after all we've been through I've told you you can call me Helen." She gave a sad smile, yet moved closer putting a comforting hand on his arm, before continuing "I didn't expect you here. I thought I was the only one who still came. Even the boys don't come with me anymore"

That made his heart twinge. In more ways than one.

First of course in the obvious. The two of them being the only ones left to still visit Gwen Stacy.

Second because he felt bad he'd not seen Helen in so long. They'd grown close after Gwen passed it wasn't easy on either of them but especially for Helen. Having lost both her husband and daughter within two years of each other.

She'd been his rock for the first few months and years after, and Peter had been hers.Peter had truly begun to see her as more than his girlfriend's mother, really more like his own in some ways.

But just like the rest of his Peter Parker life he stopped caring, because the pain became too much.

So he'd thrown himself into working and Spiderman. Everything else stopped mattering.

Thirdly because the look of pity in her eyes cut him deep into his soul. Shuffling his feet he looked down, not able to hold her gaze any longer for fear the tears may come back again.

"I was coming myself to see her. She would have been 28 today" Helen said as she knelt down, placing her own small bouquet in the vase next to Peter's.

Peters' heightened senses told him that she was adding chrysanthemums to the vase. The smell of the mourning flower was unfortunately too familiar to the young man.

Despite his best efforts Peter could feel his eyes misting, as he saw Helen taking a moment and mouthing what he could only assume was a silent prayer for her daughter.

As she tried to rise he quickly helped her up. Offering his arm to steady her.  She'd accepted and rose to her feet, taking a step back from her daughter's head stone to admire their combined handy work.

She couldn't help but smile down, before looking over to Peter. "I hope you've been well dear, how did you do in your studies" the inquiry was genuinely placed and Peter could help but spill his every thought.

But before he could say too much, Helen interrupted. "Peter Dear, why don't we grab something to eat. Maybe some cake for her birthday. It's definitely too cold to be catching up outside"

Peter hesitated for a moment. Not wanting to fall back into caring too much again, for fear it may bring more heartache.

Hadn't he caused her enough by now?

But his gut told him to just accept. If for nothing else the (hopefully) free lunch (absolutely nothing to do with the fact he was still worried about Helen and how she had been coping these years). So the pair left Gwen behind and traveled the short distance to a cafe down the street.

###

The catching up had been something Peter hadn't known he needed. Even though it had been nearly 7 years since he'd last seen Helen or the rest of the Stacy family, he felt at ease here with her.

He was glad to hear the boys were all doing well. Phil and Howard having graduated college and Simon just starting this past fall. It was comforting. Familiar.  

He caught her up on his own life. Mostly staying on safe topics like his work, Aunt May and his grad school.

But the comforting conversation didn't last as long as he'd hoped, as the inevitable questions came up.

" … I'm glad everything has been working out well for you dear. How has Adam been? Are you still seeing him? He was such a sweet boy"

That name made Peter's blood run cold and the chocolate cake he'd been enjoying turned bitter in his mouth. Adam had been his boyfriend for a short time about 2 ½ years after Gwen had died.

But his grief had inevitably broken them up. Even though he had liked Adam a lot, he had rushed into a relationship. Mostly at May's behest, she feeling he had to get out of the house. What a disastrous time that had been. It had truly started his complete downward spiral.

And he had been the only person Peter had been with other than Gwen. Even nearly 10 years on, her loss still haunted him almost daily. But thankfully May had stopped pressuring him as much after the messy break up with Adam.

"Adam and I actually broke up. Just before we fell out of touch actually. He was lovely but looking back I wasn't ready for that type of relationship. Honestly I don't know if I'll ever be"

Normally that would have been enough to make most people drop that, but it seemed Gwen had gotten her stubborn nature from her mother.  

Peter could see that sad look in her eyes, and he had a feeling he knew what was coming. She put her fork down on the napkin before she continued.

"Peter, honey you can't truly mean that. You're a young man. You shouldn't be throwing your life away for a girl you can't follow." Peter could tell those words hurt her to say, but irregardless she kept speaking "It's not healthy, and I know you loved my Gwen. Deeply. Honestly I would have loved to have you for a son-in-law, but I know Gwen would not want you living like this"

She had kept going but Peter couldn't hear anymore. The familiar feeling of disassociation nearly pulled him completely away from the cafe. He felt his stomach turning with anxiety, the rich cake he'd just eaten feeling like a rock in his belly.

He tried his best to politely interject but he feared  he may have come across rudely. "Helen, I know you mean well, but I can't." Despite his best effort his tears had started falling. Sniffling to try and compose himself he continued "how can I move on, I loved her so much. I wanted to marry her, move to England, have kids and grow old. I'd even been planning to get your blessing. Did she ever tell you? We had jokingly said if we had a son we'd call him George after her dad. She was my whole world, and it's my fault she's dead"

Helen had started crying herself now. Reaching into her handbag she pulled out tissues for them both, handing one to Peter.

"Peter, I know it's hard. But truly I know Gwen would hate to see you like this. She loved you deeply and would want you to have all those things, even if it wasn't with her."  Helen dabbed her eyes.

They must have looked like a spectacle in the corner of that cafe. Two people sitting and crying into their chocolate cakes and coffee. But it had been a long time coming.

"Gwendolyn would not want you to blame yourself dear, despite what you may think it wasn't your fault. I know it was your idea to explore that tower but in the end it was a tragic accident. It was no one's fault"

He'd almost forgotten the official version of what happened. The official story being that the two of them had been exploring the tower for a photoshoot for his portfolio, when Spiderman and Green Goblin ,(as he'd been dubbed) had their fight. And Gwen had gotten caught in the cross hairs. Spiderman was too late to save her.

Of course she had believed the version he'd told the police when it happened. A new wave of guilt and shame washed over Peter, knowing he couldn't tell her the truth of her only daughter's death.

Secrets and lying seemed to be the only thing he was good at.

"I know Helen, but it doesn't seem fair. How can I be happy when she wasn't allowed to." He snapped, though he immediately regretted it. By now there were people staring, giving them both strange looks. "Can we step out of here? The cafe is giving us weird looks" he said defeated wiping his face with the tissues.

Helen nodded and stood up, grabbing her coffee, and Peter followed behind her out the door, and onto the sidewalk.

"Unfortunately it's not fair honey, you both should have been able to have all those things you wanted and hoped for. But Gwen was taken from us. And we have to keep going forward." Her voice was full of emotion. "I know it will be difficult but I think you should try baby steps. Why don't you come over for dinner. I'm having Phil and his fiancé over Saturday after next, I'm sure they'd love to see you again. I'll l make branzino, I remember how much you enjoyed it"

Peter let out a small laugh at her obvious attempt at easing the tension. "I think that would be a nice step. Thank you for inviting me."

"Phil will be happy to see you, all the boys ask about you even after all these years. They really looked up to you Peter. I'll call your Aunt Mays with the details. But for now I have to be going."

Peter nodded and watched her walk away down the busy sidewalk.

'What have I gotten myself into?' he thought, sneaking through an alleyway to put on his suit. The only way to clear thoughts this heavy was to swing. Maybe take down a few petty criminals.

As fast as he'd changed Spiderman was once again flying through the tall buildings of New York.

Though the city he loved had no idea the heavy weight Peter Parker had just put onto himself. On top of everything else.

A/n #2: SO yeah thats it, tell me what you think 😅

[saturatedsinset]

SPEAKING of "face reinvention", I'm going to need all the feels about the part that destroys me every time:

Wonders when exactly in Dean’s life he’s arrived. Refrains from asking, for the moment. Whatever year it is, it’ll take a lot of pain before Dean grows into Mox again. Should probably get the name thing out of the way, anyway. “‘s Mox, by the way.”

Dean freezes, cigarette halfway to his mouth. Stares, for a second, and then just glowers. Flips him off, voice sharp. “You’re fucking with me.”

“I’m not.” But Mox gets it. He remembers when he was younger, with WWE, convinced that the bad old days were behind him and that the old name represented them. Dean Ambrose had been a new leaf, and he’d clung to it no matter how bad it got, because he figured nothing could be worse than before. “It’s.” He shakes his head, takes a drag of his own cigarette, half-forgotten. “Long story. You do it— or. I did it? When I was ready.”

“We don’t go back to CZ-dub.” Dean’s voice is flat, but he’s staring at Mox with a desperation that says please say we don’t go back to CZW.

GOD i do write some shit don't i. i do write Some Things. god. i mention this in the author's note but face reinvention is heavily inspired by/almost based on night watch by terry pratchett, and the "it'll take a lot of pain before dean grows into mox again" very very closely echoes a line from that book:

“That was always the dream, wasn't it? 'I wish I'd known then what I know now'? But when you got older you found out that you NOW wasn't YOU then. You then was a twerp. You then was what you had to be to start out on the rocky road of becoming you now, and one of the rocky patches on that road was being a twerp.”

like i've read night watch seven? eight? times now and that line always really resonates with me. the idea that you're still you but there's a bunch of different iterations of you that the present you can never truly understand because you're not him. and i think it works Extremely well with mox-dean-mox, who is very clearly several different iterations of himself, with names to match.

and then dean is - dean is trying very hard, for most of this fic, to appear unaffected by anything, except the name and what it represents (to him, to 2014 dean ambrose) cuts all the way through the bravado and even the recent betrayal to this like. deep-seated fear at the very core of him that whatever he has now he's destined to lose. which isn't. all the way untrue

this passage is also suffused with the energy of most of the fic, which is mox sort of emotionally shepherding dean in a way that dean is completely clueless about. he's not asking when it is. he gets it. he's not saying anything that will be too jarring for dean to hear (yet).

tbh i think this passage is one of my favs from the whole fic, up there with the bar conversation and the "how'd you do it?" it's just so. raw. feels Scratchy. i love her

[giowritess]

minefields [tommy shelby]

MASTERLIST. | PEAKY BLINDERS.

❝ request: "Can you do fluff prompt 38. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen for Thomas Shelby at his wedding to the reader? Thank you!"

❝ pairing: Thomas Shelby x fem!reader

❝ plot: an aesthetical-y vision of how Tommy and reader got to where they are now.

❝ warnings: cursing, alcohol, age gap, mentions of war and Grace's death

❝ word-count: 837

❝ author’s note: hey guys! sorry to the anon who requested it that i took almost a year to write it lol. this is really short, i didn't put much thought into it since i wrote it while travelling. well, i reallyyyyy enjoyed this and, if you enjoy it too, i might expand it into a mini-series, following tommy and reader as they fall in love and eventually get married. so please share with me your thoughts!!! enjoy

this was beta'd by my darling ari — @amysteryspot. thank you and i love you so much! — if you're in search of a beta, you can make an order for free here at my blog: elysium editions, read the fixed post and learn how!

this was slighty inspired by the song "minefields" my faouzia and john legend.

i got inspired by @everyhowlmarksthedead's design of her posts, so credits to her <3

Happiness was thick in the air.

Everything was so perfect and in its righteous places. The blossoming flowers across the field, the soft spring breeze, the clear blue sky without a single cloud in sight. The sun was shining proudly, warming everyone up with its rays.

They couldn't have chosen a better day.

For once in Thomas's life, everything was working out.

Ever since France, he felt as if there was a dark cloud on his head and his alone. Making everything go wrong in the worst possible way. Murphy's law was always present in his life with the meaning that everything that could go wrong would go wrong.

It was no different with Grace. Tommy took so long to finally open up, to let her love seep in, so long to finally allow himself to open his heart and feel something. How good it felt to know there was someone out there who loved him despite everything.

But his small glimpse of happiness could only last for so long, and everything that could go wrong went wrong.

Tommy was trapped inside her memory. Trapped inside his anger and resentment for everything that happened that day, and the fact that he couldn't go back in time and save her. Offer his life instead of hers.

He took a vow then—Tommy wasn't risking his heart again, loving someone only to lose them all over again. It wasn't worth it because it would always end like this. He was way too old for this shit, anyway.

And then you came along, looking like nothing he'd ever seen before with your sweet floral dresses, your sharp sense of humor, and your soft giggle. You never looked at him as if he was someone bad, instead, you looked at him like the human being he was. You saw through every façade he put on, and that scared the hell out of him.

Tommy still remembered the day you met. You were lost in the betting shop, looking for Michael, standing out in your bright yellow dress. The two of you locked eyes but didn't speak. Surprisingly, you didn't look a slight bit intimidated by him—you simply didn't care. When Michael finally showed up, Tommy envied the way you hugged him.

Turned out you were an old childhood friend of his, from his life as Henry. Coincidentally or not, you were excellent with numbers as well. Better than anyone else at the betting shop, so you started sticking around more and more. Tommy always kept his distance, but also noticed the way you looked at him. Something he couldn't quite figure out glinting in your eyes:. Curiosity? Hate? Attraction?

Whenever you two had to talk, it was always as professional as ever. Thomas always had to remind himself you were sixteen years younger. You didn't deserve an old bastard like him, someone who was broken in so many ways. You deserved someone your age, someone who could give you a good, safe life he knew he couldn't. So he tried his best to look at you as just another secretary that would soon go away. But then your sweet smiles started to show up. The soft, unintentional touches that were actually full of intention from both sides. Then, he went from Mr. Shelby to Tommy in the blink of an eye, and from then on, he knew that he could try, but he would never get his heart back from you—it was entirely yours, already.

The first time you kissed was on a rainy night in his office. He couldn't sleep, so he decided to keep working with his whisky by his side and the warmth of the fireplace, hearing the lovely sounds of the raging storm outside. The sound of the lock startled him, making Tommy instantly reach for his gun.

Instead of meeting an enemy, he found you, drenched from the rain and freezing.

You were walking home from a drink with your friends when the rain surprised you. Since you were always more punctual than him, you had the key to his office, and there you found your refuge. You didn't expect to meet him, though.

Tommy made you sit by the fireplace and take off your drenched clothes, giving you his coat and handing you a glass of whisky. You caught him by surprise when you asked him to sit with you, but he surprised you more when he complied. And he surprised you, even more, when he finally kissed you.

That led to where you were now—about to get married, in front of your families in a simple ceremony on the field of flowers, your favorite place.

You caught his eye, admiring you, and smiled.

"You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Tommy said before finally sliding the ring on your finger.

He knew this could go wrong at any moment, but you were worth the risk. He would fight for you, even if he had to cross minefields. You were his, and he was yours.

author’s note: remember to tell me what u think about turning it into a mini series!

[redwood-and-maple]

Ogham Meditations: The Second Aicme

I have been writing my meditations on the ogham feda, or letters, and I've found it a very valuable experience, so I wanted to share my thoughts.

The meanings, keywords, and pronunciations of each letter is from Erynn Rowan Laurie's book Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom. Everything else is my own.

hÚath - H

(oo-uth) Meaning: Terror Keyword: Despair

Fear and despair are both things that stop movement, for me. Terror tries to activate movement through the fight or flight response, but there is also freeze. I think of when I went through my crisis in 2014-15 after a lifetime of depression. Was my body trying subconsciously to inspire action through fear? In some ways, it worked, because I finally got help. However, the fear was also so intense that I had trouble doing basic things like sleeping.

Fear is a method of protection. However, risk is inherent in many aspects of life. We must take risks. We even get dopamine from facing our fears successfully, which is why some people thrill-seek. Fear, thrill, excitement, desire... they are all so closely connected.

How do I work with fear as a partner? How do I acknowledge fear and then decide for myself if I want to move forward? How do I allow myself to fear, to scream all the way down the roller-coaster?

hÚath is the mark of the Morrigan.

May she guide me through the terrors of battle to righteous victory.

Dair - D

(dar) Meaning: Oak Keyword: Strength

Strength of the oak. Strength of the druid. Strength of the lion. Strength of the maiden.

Strength of the oak to grow tall, to grow in light, where other tree have not yet gone, to grow old, with deep roots, to grow hard and sturdy wood used only by master crafters, for doors and houses to last generations.

Strength of the druid, in touch with the spirits of the land, who has forged knowledge and lived experience into wisdom.

Strength of the maiden, master of her own mind, sovereign of her own self, beholden to no one. She who embraces the wildness of the self, lets it be wild, lets herself be wild, but also calms the wildness, the anger, the frenzy.

Compassion is strength. Gentleness is strength. Living is strength. Scars do not diminish strength.

Perhaps Dair is the mark of the Dagda to me. Perhaps Dair is the roots of the oak in my gut, supporting the fire in my heart.

Tinne - T

(CHIN-uh) Meaning: Ingot (bar of metal) Keyword: Mastery

Mastery. Could be a symbol of Lugh, Master of All Arts. The ingot. The forge. Skills that seem like magic. Skills are magic.

What does it mean to be a master? It's not perfection, which is impossible. Is it the ability to teach others? Maybe, but not necessarily. It's a level of skill, hard to measure. But it feel good. You may not know where the peak of a mountain is, but at some point you see the vista. See how far you have come.

It's something you build up to. There must be joy as well as challenge. Challenge without joy is suffering. Joy without challenge eventually loses its meaning, becomes boredom. Balanced, you feel joy in reaching higher each time, and struggles aren't crushing.

Lugh, may I find this balance. May I continue to reach ever higher.

Coll - C

(kull) Meaning: Hazel Keyword: Wisdom

Wisdom, nine rivers, nine hazel trees, the salmon in the pool. Mastery vs wisdom. Mastery of skill, earth of air, wisdom of the heart, water of air. Master of skills, wisdom of... ethics? Philosophy? Things you know, but more than know. Things one embodies, acts out every day. Experience.

Wisdom is the calm waters of the pool. Wisdom connects to the heart, the subconscious, the Otherworld. Psychology and spirituality are often linked. The human mind is a vast and mysterious place.

I can be wise and struggle to embody wisdom. That is being human.

Wisdom and inspiration are connected through the story of Taliesin and Cerridwen. Fire and water, things that should mix mixing. How are they similar and different? I'm not sure. Perhaps next time.

Ceirt - Q

(kyert) Meaning: Rag or Shrub Keyword: Misfortune

Misfortune. Sometimes bad things just happen! Sometimes things are out of our control. We tie clooties on trees, we pray, we try to blame ourselves, but sometimes it doesn't work. I think Picard once said "Sometimes you still fail, even if you do everything right."

Mental illness. Even when we are able to change ourselves, it is a slow thing, not linear. Sometimes it seems like all of our work is undone. "Brain does what it wants," I've said.

But this is only sometimes! When we ride out the storms, eventually the sun comes out again. If not, get help in what ways you can.

There are some things you can change, and some things you can't. It's against our nature, us homo sapiens, so good at thinking, but we need to let go of the things we can't change and focus on the things we can.