#it was fun but a little tricky to pull off small scale

[veresidae]

i will not inundate the tags with my little dog but heres some full bodies of his layers or something. I cannot beleive i didnt do this last time. His vest is functioning and everything. also have him grovelling over here

[kaiartz]

@coolprofessorbagelwinner replied to your post “some recent ninjago arts first one is the skulkin...”:

Whoa!! Tell me about your bikers

OK so i don't know where the idea came from here, i just wanted a biker gang, and i don't have as many lady characters as i do dudes-i hyper focus in on fictional men way too easily its a problem-so i figured i should make em all ladies(or woman adjacent) to combat that problem.

Then i designed Vlatka and fell in love LOL

So Vlatka(the long haired one) is the gangs leader, she has no special powers, shes a complete normie. But she knows the criminal underworld of Ninjago City well, and has been a thief and enforcer for years. The gang comes about as a result of her needing to pay off some debt, and a bunch of ladies she's worked with in the past-who all love her-join her to help out.

Then they get a taste for it, and keep going, then they get into a lot of trouble with a true big bad. They arent necessarily "villains" but they start off antagonistic-the ninja don't understand how a biker gang is giving them so much trouble its kind of embarrassing lol

The lady with short hair and the eyepatch is Rory, who is Vlatka's longtime girlfriend :3

She likes guns and wears a mask on the job that allows her one useable eye infrared or x-ray vision-depending on the setting. Vlatka carries a small grappling hook to get around when not on her bike, and relies on seat of her pants decisions when fighting up close.

The other members either only have an initial lego art done, or no art yet as im still working on that ;u;

Next up is Eda

Eda is a bit younger then the others-and on top of that has a very young face, and short build. She serves as the groups main Muscle-because. well. she has a huge battle arm. Eda's entire idea was "BIG ARM GO SLAM" and i think thats rather fun. You're going to notice that i have not put time yet into fleshing out all these characters oops

I feel like Eda would be fun as someone with a bodyguard dad who she hero worshipped and decided "well i can do that job too" and just. replaced an arm to make her more formidable. like a freak.

Lyn is a singer at her employers bar, her playful outside is complimented by a vicious streak of tearing other people down to make sure she keeps this job(gaslight gatekeep girlboss). The microphone trinket around her neck heightens and amplifies her voice to allow sonic screams that tear through walls and shred peoples eardrums.

Janet is where the lady adjacent part comes in, she's nonbirary and prefers she/they pronouns. They serve as the teams "guy in the chair" of sorts, staying behind to monitor Maps and how the team is handling it's missions. Her prosthetic eye allows them gps locating and searching right from in her head! They're a little no nonsense, being a corporate person herself who's actively a higher up in a tech company.

Briona, or Bri as she prefers is the expert on Breaking and Entering, Scaling buildings, and really just getting in and out of tricky spots. She wanted to be an archaeologist in her youth but wanted to keep everything she dug up and took to crime instead. She's eternally miffed to some degree and will swear up and down that she's only in this gang because she "owes" Vlatka. She's a big softy who loves all her teammates underneath.

​The last biker is Torelei, an honest to god Elemental Master from an influential family. It's her uncle the team gets into hot water with. She feels responsible and pulls away emotionally from the others in response. She's the Elemental Master of Reflection. She chooses to take this literally as a Mirror Reflection(and not the other ways it could be interpreted that she's also totally capable of), and it's because of her that the girlies are able to avoid pursuit so easily. She fights with a metal fan.

(thank you for the compliment in the other reply <3)

[kits-foragings]

So I tried to do the Janbrewary challenge by @akkator but fell off the calendar, but I’m using the prompts as general ideas, so this is the first of a few that I’ve posted. Yes I’m posting these out of order, whoops.

The Awakened Mind Barbarian was a subclass where I didn’t go into it with a solid idea aside from the psionic theming, but it ended up being what I think is a solid support/battlefield control subclass.

(Author’s Notes below the cut)

One thing I love is the idea of options within subclasses, hence the Psychic Rage; full disclosure, I pulled the name of the options from the Mystic subclasses and built options based purely on the vibes of those names. Avatar essentially sharing your Rage bonus in a small area was really the only support effect I could think of that made sense for a barbarian. Immortal might make the Barbarian a bit too tanky, but I could be wrong. And finally Nomad gives the Barbarian a cheeky bit of short-range maneuverability; gotta love movement options for melee characters, that’s the good shit.

Psionic Burst is simple enough, a bit of extra damage.

Magnetic Mind was one of my favourite ideas I’ve had conceptually, but wording it mechanically was tricky: for clarification, you push or pull the entire group of creatures one way or the other, you can’t push one person and then pull another.

Out of Your Head was a real fun one to come up with, if only because I like the of a Barbarian “No You“-ing anyone who tries to fuck with their head.

Awakened Juggernaut might be a little bit much, I honestly don’t know. I also generally don’t like putting in features that just scale previous features, but to be entirely honest I was struggling for solid higher-level features. That being said, I think they scale well without just being “your third-level feature but more“

[sour--disposition]

Promise

Part One, Part Two

-

callum airey x fem!reader

-

Once the last box was finally emptied, you flopped back onto your bed with a sigh. With starting a new job and moving house in the same week, it took longer than you’d have liked to unpack the small amount of stuff you had, but your attention was constantly being diverted elsewhere.

Speaking of. “Hi”, you smiled when you answered the FaceTime call from Cal.

“Hey, angel”, he beamed. “Have you finished unpacking yet?”, he asked.

“Yep, just got the last box emptied and folded up ready to go to the recycling”, you told him happily.

You and Cal FaceTimed every night, if not more. He had been a godsend, helping you move out of Freya and Josh’s and get the stuff that you had moved into storage when you moved out of student housing. The conversation that you’d had with Josh and Freya kept playing on your mind, especially when you realised that you and Cal had developed a sort of routine to speak to each other as often as possible.

“What are you thinking about?”, Cal asked, breaking you from your thoughts.

“Nothing”, you hummed, already feeling the blush creeping up your face to betray you.

“That’s not a ‘nothing’ blush, missy”, Cal chastised cheekily. You rolled your eyes at him, sending him a playful glare. There was no doubt in your mind that Cal had at least some idea as to what you were thinking about, he was just insistent on making you blush and splutter. “What’s up?”, he asked, voice soft but serious this time.

“Does it make me a bad person that I’m already thinking about someone else?”, you asked him.

“No”, he said bluntly. “There’s no strict time scale on that sort of thing, love. None of us are gonna think any less of you for anything that you do, as long as you are doing it because it makes you happy”.

The conversation went silent for a moment as you thought over what he had just said. “Who’s the lucky guy, then?”, Cal asked. You rolled your eyes at him again.

“I don’t know if you know him”.

-

Cal quite quickly changed the direction of the conversation after that. You were on FaceTime with him for another hour or so before you hung up, both needing to go and eat something for dinner.

You had a shower and changed into some comfier clothes before heading for the kitchen to have a rummage around in the cupboards to see what you could make. Just as you’d put some pasta on to boil, there was a knock at your door.

“Cal?”, you asked, surprised to see the tall boy outside your front door. You turned around to walk back into the kitchen and living area, indicating for him to follow you. “What are you doing here?”.

“Is it me?”, he asked, blurted out at you. He looked like he’d been running his hands through his hair ever since you finished your call, strands sticking up at weird angles compared to the smooth look it had just an hour ago. “I just - Is it me, Y/N?”, he all but pleaded this time.

You looked at him and he looked at you. You could feel and hear the blood rushing through your body, pounding around your ears in panic. Saying the wrong thing, either way, could ruin everything. You couldn’t lose Cal, not for anything.

“Yes”.

Cal’s face finally relaxed into a soft smile. He came over to you, engulfing you in his arms and holding you tight. You buried your face into his chest, wrapping your arms around his waist and clinging onto the fabric of his hoodie. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”, you asked, voice muffled by the tight space of Cal’s chest and the bunched up fabric of his jumper.

“I’d love to”, he whispered into your hair, dropping a kiss there shortly after.

That night, after you’d eaten, you and Cal sat snuggled up on the sofa. His arm was draped around your back, resting on your ribcage, and your head was pillowed on his shoulder. “I know it might be stupid to say”, Cal started, voice low, “But I won’t do what he did”. He felt you tense up and, in return, held you a little bit closer and a little bit tighter.

“I need this to go at my pace at the moment, is that okay?”, you asked, voice soft and slightly watery.

“I’ve liked you since I first met you, Y/N. I’ll do anything if it means I get to do this”, he hummed. You lifted your head to face Cal properly, your eyes darting to his lips and his to yours. You nodded your head softly, letting him know it was okay.

Cal leaned forward, using his free hand to move a piece of hair behind your ear, leaving his hand on the side of your face. The kiss was soft, gentle and said everything that both of you needed to say but couldn’t find the words for. When he pulled back slightly, Cal rested his forehead against yours, a large grin breaking across his face. You couldn’t help but let out a giggle, letting your head drop down to his shoulder.

-

Two weeks later, you were finally getting ready for the night that you had planned back when you were still living with Freya and Josh. You were a bit apprehensive about the night, because it had ended up being hosted at Harry and Cal’s place and Harry couldn’t not be invited to a party in his own house. It was inevitable that you were going to see him, but you just had to focus on seeing Cal and your friends and having fun after a tricky couple of months moving and an even harder few months before that.

You had about 20 minutes before everyone would be arriving at the party and you still had to find something to wear. You were stood in front of your wardrobe looking at the dresses you had hung up, but none of them were right. You rifled through them, hoping something, anything, would come to you.

Your hands landed on a black, v-necked mini dress with puffy sleeves. You pulled it off the hanger, smiling when you remembered Cal pulling it out of the box and sticking it on a hanger, making a comment about how good he bet you looked in it.

You wiggled it on, pairing it with some metallic gold heels and gold jewellery. By the time you’d given the floor a quick tidy and stuffed the belongings into your black clutch, you knew you would be at least 5 minutes late. 

You ordered an Uber as you walked towards the lift, firing a text off to Cal to apologise and letting him know when to expect you. You were only waiting outside for a minute or so before the silver car pulled up in front of you. You spent the short the trip replying to texts in the girls group-chat and scrolling through your various social medias.

“Thank you so much”, you smiled to the driver before sliding out of the back of the car and walking into the main reception of the apartment building. You hit the button for Cal’s floor, pulling out your phone again to let him know you were almost there.

You could hear the music all the way from the lift, the low bass filled the hallway and indiscernible lyrics bounced from the walls. The thought of knocking on the door briefly crossed your mind, before you realised how stupid it would be. You’d be surprised if people could hear each other speak in there, let alone a knock on the door.

There were already quite a few people there, despite you only being 5 or 10 minutes late. You spotted Cal with his side facing your direction, talking to a group of the guys. You walked over, a smile settling itself on your face as you approached him. Cal looked shocked when he felt you position yourself under his arm, but he quickly relaxed once he realised it was you.

“It’s the dress”, he smiled, leaning back slightly to take in your whole appearance. “You look beautiful”, he told you, shifting his arm to sit on your hip and leaning over to drop a sweet peck to your temple. You blushed, looking around at Simon, Josh and Ethan. None of them looked surprised at what they saw.

“I’m happy for you”, Josh smiled. Conversation quickly recommenced, though, Cal eager not to put too much focus on you.

You dipped away shortly after to get a drink and find the girls. You were chatting happily with them, sipping on your drink when Cal came up to you. Freya wiggled her eyebrows at you in the least subtle way possible. You rolled your eyes playfully, turning to face Cal. Before you could ask what he wanted, he took his hand in yours. “Come dance with me?”, he asked. You smiled and nodded, knocking back the rest of your drink so that you could leave your cup on the side and go and dance with Cal.

Cal held you close against his body and moved the two of you slowly side to side, neither of you not really knowing how to dance properly. You were giggling at the stupidity that Cal was whispering into you ear as his breath tickled your neck. You reached up on your tip-toes, even though that still didn’t bridge the gap between the two of you. Cal took pity on your struggle and dipped his head to press his lips to yours. Before anything could even think about progressing further, you were interrupted by a sharp shout.

“What the fuck!?”.

Harry was livid. He’d turned around from the makeshift bar to go and return to his friends when he was greeted with the sight of one of his best friends all over his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend.

You turned around in Cal’s arms to face an angry Harry. If you weren’t wrong, he was angrier now than the night that you broke up. It was written all over his face, burned into his eyes. You reached for Cal’s hand, taking a couple of steps backwards, behind Cal’s looming frame.

“Harry”, Cal warned, voice low, as he reached out behind his back to find you.

“Don’t Harry me”, he spat. “I bet you just couldn’t wait to jump into her bed, huh?”, he accused. “And you, telling me you didn’t cheat”, he scoffed. It ignited a flame inside of you, burning raw with anger.

“Outside. Now”, you instructed. You wiggled your hand out of Cal’s, despite him and the girls trying to hold you back. “Let me go, I’ll be okay”, you promised him, voice much softer.

The harsh wind ruffled the sleeves of your dress as you waited on the balcony for Harry. You noticed that the music had been turned off and even though you had left the living area, the attention was still turned to you through the glass doors of the balcony.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”, you asked Harry the minute he’d stepped outside. “Who on Earth gave you the right to comment on my life anymore?”.

“You were kissing my best friend right in front of my face!”, Harry snapped.

“And!? I’m not your girlfriend anymore, Harry!”, you exclaimed.

“Did you have to do it in front of my face? No. You chose to, selfish bitch”, he muttered. If looks could kill, Harry would be little more than dust blowing away in the wind about now.

“No, you’re the selfish bitch. I’m done taking your shit, I was done taking your shit the minute you decided we were through!”.

“You’re the one that left me, remember? Or did you forget that when you started fucking my best friend?”, Harry accused. You rolled your eyes, not bothered to correct him on his inaccuracies about you and Cal.

“No, Harry. I left, but you decided we were through when you went behind my back, shagged God knows how many other girls and then had the fucking audacity to blame me for it”, you exclaimed, voice rising with anger. You watched as Harry tried to process what you said and tried to find the words to bite back with something just as angry and just as hurtful.

“I feel like shit for what I did, Y/N”, Harry sighed, finally losing the attitude and anger. He took a step towards you, hand reaching out. “I was hoping to see you tonight, to see if we could try and make this work. I know what you said... but I was hoping you might’ve changed your mind now that you’ve had time to think about it”, Harry said, voice low but hopeful.

“Harry, I spent 3 months locked away in one of your best friends’ spare rooms because I couldn’t function on my own. You broke me. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. If it wasn’t for Josh and Freya and the girls, I don’t think I’d have seen the other side of those 3 months. I didn’t move to London so we could try this again”, you said, gesturing between the two of you. “I moved to London because some of my best friends live here. I have a job and my own flat and I’m happy now. Can you please, please try, not to ruin this? Because I won’t let you, not again”.

“But... Freezy?”, Harry asked, voice weighed down with defeat.

“I don’t owe you an explanation”, you told him firmly. “Whatever Cal wants to tell you as his best friend is between you and Cal, but...”, you trailed off. “I’ll be civil as long as you are, you know I will, but that’s the most you’re ever going to get from me, which is a hell of a lot more than you deserve”, you said, voice holding a sense of finality that Harry was sensible enough to pick up on and respect.

You heard the doors slide open and closed as Harry left you alone. You walked over to the edge of the terrace, leaning your arms against the railings as you let out a long, deep breath. You bent over to remove your shoes, sighing as your bare feet hit the cold floor. You heard the doors slide open and closed again and you prayed to anyone that would listen that it wasn’t Harry.

“You didn’t come back in”, Cal said, walking over with a hoodie of his in his hand. “Put this on, you’re shivering”, he told you. He helped you into the jumper, careful not to smudge any of your make up. “Are you okay?”.

“Yeah, I think”, you replied, bundling the excess sleeves into your hands. “Can I have a hug and just stay here for a bit?”, you asked, looking up at Cal through your eyelashes. Cal let out a soft laugh, coming closer to wrap you up in his arms.

You maneuvered yourself so that you could still see the lights and the skyline, letting your head rest against Cal’s chest once you were happy with your position. “I know you’ve said it already”, you whispered quietly. “But please, don’t do what Harry did. If things are ever bad, just speak to me, okay?”, you pleaded.

You felt Cal nod his head on top of yours, shifting to kiss your forehead and hairline.

“I promise, angel”.

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

Your Sword for a Kiss: Part 1

(Thank you so much @gods-no-longer-tread-here this one’s for you)

---

Geralt was exhausted. All he wanted was a cool drink of water and a soft place to lay down for a while. He was on his way back to Camelot to speak with the King about his next assignment and this was the last night he’d have to spend on the road. He was hoping for some decent rest.

 Destiny, of course, had other plans for the knight errant. 

Just as the sun was beginning to dip down into the horizon, Geralt saw a cluster of unusually tall and lush willow trees to the left of the roadway. The late summer breeze was cool and fragrant against his warm skin and carried the scent of water lilies. A pond, he thought with a smile. Certainly if there are water lilies then there must be a lake or pond nearby. Even a river would do. 

He ached to remove his chainmail and rest for a bit; he could make it to the castle the following afternoon with little trouble. Geralt steered his faithful steed, a thoroughbred mare he called Roach, towards the sweeping branches of the weeping willows. He ducked beneath and between them, winding his way forward until he reached the other side. There was a deep, clear blue pond and several small, flat rocky outcroppings behind the willows’ arms. A cave sat at the pond’s furthest point, half-filled with water and uninhabitable by humans. A safe place to rest. 

“Thank the gods,” he sighed.

He knelt beside the pool and cupped his hands in the water, leaning forward until he was sure he wouldn’t spill it all over his trousers. Just as he was about to take a sip, Geralt heard a soft click. The sword he always wore belted at his waist went sliding out of its leather sheath and towards the water’s edge.

Fuck. 

His reaching hand was only a second too late and he watched in dismay as the heavy steel sword disappeared beneath the surface of the water. “Damnit.”

Oh, well. At least Geralt had wanted a bath before reaching Camelot, anyway. He stripped down to his trousers and was about to dive into the pool after his weapon when he heard the sound of happy, melodious laughter coming from the left. The startled knight whipped his head to the side and his mouth fell open in shock; there was a young man sitting on a flat, rocky outcropping nearby. Dumbly, Geralt asked: “Who’re you?”

Despite its humanoid shape and dark, damp tendrils of hair, the creature was clearly not mortal in the slightest. It was too beautiful, whatever it was. Its eyes, a shade of blue so bright that they rivaled the sky, were locked on the knight as it laughed and smiled. A pearly white and sharp-toothed smile. Its body was long and slender, with gently sloping shoulders and softly curving hips. Its skin was slightly darker than Geralt’s but only barely; its legs were scattered over with small patches of deep blue scales. When it spoke, its voice rang out through the trees as clearly and sweetly as any songbird’s: “I am known amongst the others as Jaskier.”

“The others?”

“My brothers and sisters of the water. Other sprites and nymphs, of course.”

“Of course,” the knight nodded. He’d heard stories about the Fair Folk. It wasn’t the best idea to insult or ignore them. “It is lovely to meet you, Jaskier.”

“Really?” the sprite trilled, clapping his hands together excitedly. “You think I’m lovely?”

“Yes.” Geralt blushed at how quickly the word had left his mouth. He is rather pretty, the knight acknowledged. For a creature that would probably kill me for fun.

“You are lovely too, Sir Knight.”

“Geralt. Geralt of Rivia.”

“You are very handsome, Sir Geralt of Rivia,” Jaskier beamed. Then he gestured down at the item near his feet; Geralt’s lost weapon. “Is this your sword, then?”

“Yes! May I have it back, Jaskier?”

“For a price,” the sprite teased. “Since you didn’t say please.”

“May I please have it back, Jaskier?” the knight reiterated.

“As I said before,” Jaskier huffed, apparently irritated now, “For a price. Don’t try to get away with foolishness for free.”

“I have very little coin to my name, good sprite. I am a lowly knight in service to His Majesty the King,” Geralt explained. He gave a gesture-heavy and ceremonial bow to the creature, who grinned in response and grabbed up the sword to clutch against his bare chest. Geralt’s bow faltered and his hands reached out automatically, as if he could pull the sword away and check Jaskier for wounds from across the distance: “Careful! You could hurt yourself, Jaskier!”

“I will be perfectly fine.”

“Please, be careful.”

“I appreciate your concern, sir knight. I have decided that you may have your sword back once you’ve given me a kiss.”

For a moment the Geralt couldn’t believe his luck. Just a kiss? All he wants is a kiss? 

Then he remembered his knightly oath. The oath he’d sworn to uphold before Arthur and all the court; the oath every knight swore to uphold before Arthur and the court. The oath to be true and just, to care for others without the expectation of reward, and to remain chaste and untouched until such a time that the King willed you to marry. 

Geralt sighed and glanced back toward the shamelessly naked woodland creature holding his most prized possession. “Well that’s going to be a bit of a problem.”

---

The giddy young sprite (or at least Jaskier looked to be in his early twenties) couldn’t keep his hands to himself, apparently. He spent the early evening playing with Geralt’s hair and eventually allowed the blushing, anxious knight to wrestle him into a shirt and trousers (babbling all the while about how nice the knight smelled and how soft Roach’s mane was and how much he hated wearing clothes). Somehow, despite all the racket and the moving around, the crafty little fae hadn’t let his hand off the hilt of Geralt’s blade. 

“Please let me carry the weapon,” the knight pleaded. “I’m afraid that you’ll cut yourself. It’s rather sharp and I don’t want you to bleed out and die before we make it to the castle and grant your reward.”

“But if I give it to you right now then you’ll ride off without paying me,” Jaskier pouted. 

“That wouldn’t be very knightly behavior,” Geralt argued, somewhat offended. “I give you my word as a Knight of the Round Table that you shall reach Camelot safely and be granted your payment by King Arthur himself.”

“I don’t want King Arthur to kiss me,” the sprite rebutted. “I want you to kiss me, Sir Geralt of Rivia. Then I shall return the sword; but only then.”

“I can’t give you the kiss without the King’s permission,” the knight explained for perhaps the third time. “Only His Majesty can settle our debt, because I swore my life and fealty to him.”

“Hmm. If you promise not to ride off and leave me here, then I’ll give you the sword back for safekeeping.”

“I swear. Safekeeping only.”

“Agreed.” 

Jaskier handed the blade over to Geralt, who sheathed it lovingly. By the time he looked back up from fixing his sword-belt, Jaskier was rummaging around in his saddlebags. He held up a vial of potent sleeping draught and Geralt jumped to his feet. The sprite laughed and danced away, keeping just out of Geralt’s reach as he sniffed around the potion stopper.

“Oh, what’s this?!” 

“Jaskier! Be careful!”

---

“What’s fealty?” Jaskier asked, watching as the white-haired knight lit a small campfire. He’d already aided the man in laying out his bedroll (Jaskier knew where all the softest patches of moss were) and grooming his horse (Roach took an uncanny liking to the water sprite). Now that the knight had finished setting up camp, there was nothing to stop Jaskier from peppering the human with his many questions about their world.

The knight sighed and warmed his hands over the burning logs, “Fealty means that I have sworn my life and loyalty to the King because I think his cause is righteous and his ruling is just.”

“Oh.”

Geralt saw the sprite’s eyebrows furrowing in confusion and tried explaining it more simply; “I think he has good ideas, so I’ve promised to help him while he works on them some more.”

“Oh! Okay.”

“Hmm.”

“Geralt,” the sprite asked, rolling onto his back in the grass and staring up at the knight with wide, shining blue eyes. “Could I swear fealty?”

“To His Majesty? Probably. You would have to prove yourself worthy, however. You’d probably have to live in Camelot and not -” the knight gestured around the pond and surrounding wooded copse “- here. Wherever this is.”

“I don’t want to swear fealty to your silly king,” Jaskier scoffed. “I want to swear it to you.”

“You can’t swear fealty to me because I’m am merely a knight. Only Kings can call people under oath.”

Jaskier wrinkled his nose in clear distaste. “That’s stupid. You humans are just so...silly. You have rules and regulations for every little thing you do and still you insist that the Fair Folk are confusing and tricky. I’ve never had to learn so many different ways to bow before. We’re only going to be at court for a few minutes, anyway. We’ll only stay long enough for you to get permission to kiss me; then we’ll return home, yes?”

“No,” Geralt shook his head. Jaskier bounced up off the ground and curled his fingers into the knight’s white hair, surprising him. “Hey!”

“It’s so pretty,” the sprite whined, tugging a little, “Let me play with it, Geralt. Let me brush it and braid it. You’ll be the most handsome knight in all the land when I’m finished.”

Maybe if he was braiding Geralt’s hair he’d stop touching everything else and blathering on about humans and their rituals. “Fine.”

“I do have one last question.”

“Hmm?”

“What did you mean when you said you wouldn’t be returning home with me? You can’t mean to stay at Camelot once we’re married.”

“M-Married!? Who said anything about marriage!?”

“I did, my sweet and silly Geralt. What else could a kiss mean?”

[martellthemandalor]

Hiiii, could you do a Mando x reader fluff where Din is always calling the reader cute names and giving them compliments in Mando’a but they don’t know what he’s saying. Bonus if other people are around and can understand Mando so they think it’s cute. Thank you and sorry if it’s confusing!!!💜💜💜💜

Hello anon! i nearly screamed when i saw i had an ask in my inbox lmao

I had a lot of fun writing this little drabble for you, and don’t worry you weren’t confusing at all! I hope this is the sort of thing you had in mind :)

It’s All In The Nicknames

Mando still hadn’t told you where you were landing next. You were sat silently in the cockpit with him and the baby, who was sound asleep thank the maker, just watching as the steady streams of hyperspace lights shot past outside. It made you slightly uneasy that he hadn’t told you yet. It was part of your routine with him, you’d take off from whatever planet he’d had business on, he’d set the next destination, spend some time with the baby and then the three of you would settle in the cockpit and he would explain where you were heading next.

Sometimes he’d tell you what business he had there and other times, usually when the job was less than pleasant, he wouldn’t. It didn’t bother you really. After all, it wasn’t your job to know every detail of his work. Your job was to look after the baby while he was away. 

In truth when you took the job you hadn’t expected the baby to be a small green creature with adorably large black eyes and even bigger ears. Neither had you expected to catch feelings for the emotionless man of beskar and yet here you were, worrying every time he was late getting back or having your stomach drop whenever he came back with sooted armour and gashes under his clothes.

It was a little confusing that Mando had broken your routine. It was, in the end, really the only thing that kept structure to the endless ebbing time inside the Razor Crest. This however wasn’t the only thing that had changed with him the past couple months. At first you were sure you were imagining things, but by the 5th time of catching him staring at you when you were holding the baby you knew you couldn’t be mistaken. 

He’d also started finding more excuses to touch you. Things like pushing that stray hair out of your face when you had your hands full, coming up close behind you to adjust your aim when your practicing with your blaster (which Mando had given you ‘just in case’) and, most commonly, placing a hand on your back as you navigate the dodgy last step from the cockpit to the main hold. And then there was-

“Can you take the kid down to the hold and wait for me, cyar’ika.” (“Sweetheart”) Yeh. That. He’d started to refer to you in a language that you didn’t understand. It didn’t bother you. In fact whenever he did it your heart faltered in its steady beat. It was something to do with the way he said it, there was a reverence there, and a sort of tenderness behind the words.

“Yeh, no problem Mando,” You replied, scooping the sleepy child from its crib. It was tricky to manoeuvre yourself and the bundle in your arms down the ladder but you managed it. You held the slowly waking baby close to your chest, bouncing them gently in your arms as they began to stir, hoping to quell the oncoming tantrum of being woken up to soon.

It seemed to be working, until the hold jolted, throwing you drastically off balance. You tried to hold the kid as steady as you could as your other hand flew out to catch yourself on the weapons storage. No such luck. The small gasps from the baby soon turned into wails as tears fell from their black orbs.

“Shh baby it’s okay,” You said quietly in the child’s ear, wiping away the tears from their face. “Your dad just made a BAD LANDING that’s all,” You hissed in the direction of the dark figure scaling down the ladder.

“Sorry, mesh’la,” (“Beautiful”) He said, coming up beside you. He rested one hand casually on your back, while he spoke calmly to the blubbering baby. You tried to ignore the way his mere touch felt electric, the simple feeling of his hand on you spreading a restless warmth throughout your body. Instead you focused on cooing at the kid with Mando.

Now that the child had the attention of both of you turned firmly on them, it didn’t take long for the tears to stop and the wails to die down to quiet hiccups. With the baby now calm you turned to face your reflection in the beskar. He still didn’t move his hand.

“So are you going to tell me where we are or not?” You asked, teasingly poking at his fabric covered upper chest. If you’d been listening harder you would’ve heard the way his breath hitched under the helmet at the sudden contact. He turned so his visor was fixed on you.

“I think it’s better if I show you,” He simply replied.

-

You were hoping for some planet of crystal waters and hot sun, or endless rich green fields to relax in. At a push you were secretly wishing he was taking the three of you to a hotel as a surprise. He’d certainly been doing enough jobs to afford a room at one. But no, instead he’d let you to much a bigger surprise.

One you were overwhelmingly honoured he trusted you enough to share with you.

It was an underground clan on Mandalorian’s. One of the few thriving clans left in the galaxy. You were shocked he’d managed to track one down, let alone risk coming here with an outsider like you. It moved you so much that you nearly cried when you thanked him for trusting you. He responded as if it was no big deal, merely taking your hand and telling you that you can repay him by letting him teach to fight properly.

That’s how you got here, kitted out in second hand beskar armour and being guided by Xarra, a clan member you’d befriended, to one of the training rooms. The armour fitted you surprisingly well, but it didn’t stop you from worrying that you looked ridiculous. You felt as if you were just a kid playing dress up. The anxiety spiked again when you walked into the room. It had three big sparring mats, two of which being vigorously abused by pairs of fighters, the centre one however was empty, save for your Mandalorian. Mando turned to face you and just…froze.

“kandosii'la,” (“Stunning,”) He said, a little breathlessly. Xarra chuckled behind you, clearly understanding what had been said. You turned to ask what he meant, but before the question could form on your tongue Mando called you to join him on the padded ground.

You reluctantly walked to meet him in the centre. He must have noticed you nervousness, because he softened his fighting stance.

“Mando I… I don’t even know where to start,” You said, running a hand through your hair.

“That’s okay, cyare,” (“Beloved”) His voice was soft as he moved to stand in front of you. “Start by moving your left foot in front slightly, that’s it, then shuffle your right foot to be in line with your shoulder,” You followed his instructions, glancing nervously between your feet and the dark glass of his visor. “That’s good, now bend your knees a little, and ground your power into your feet, distribute your weight evenly.” He stepped back a little, and you mourned the loss of closeness. Then he mirrored your stance, but drew his fists up so his left hand was nearly in front of his face, his right drawn further towards his chest. “Now copy me,” He commanded.

You did as he asked, then watched as he drew himself up straight again. He circled you, helmet tracking up and down your frame. He did a full rotation, then stepped forward. He placed a hand on your upper chest, just under your right shoulder.

“Draw up here, cyar’ika.” He said, the proximity of the vocoder to your ear sending a cascade of shivers down your spine. He guided you to pull back a little, putting your torso on a slight twist, then moved back to admire you again. “Perfection, mesh’la.”

One of the other Mandalorian partners murmured to each other at that, looking between the two of you. Mando caught bits of what they were saying. He particularly blushed under the stifling helmet when he heard them mention how adorable it was that he called his partner such loving names in the Mandalorian mother tongue, even when they couldn’t understand what he was calling them.

He shook off their comments and went to stand opposite you. He adopted the stance himself, but left his arms braced by his sides.

“Now hit me,” He said, tapping his chest. “Hard as you can. Use your right hand.”

You steeled yourself, bracing for the pain that was sure to come from striking that beskar with all your strength. You lunged at him, throwing your fist against his chest. He rocked back, which you were proud of, but pride did nothing to quell the pain that exploded across your knuckles.

“Kriffing maker alive!” You cried out, trying to shake the pain out of your hand.

“That was good!” Mando praised. “Again. show me how hard you can really punch cyare.”

And so the hours flew by, Mando was an excellent teacher and an even better sparring partner. He showered you with praise when you made even the smallest improvements. Things like:

“That was even better dral solus!” (“Strong one”)

“Your right hook is getting good,”

“You had really good form that time round, ner me'suum'ika,” (“My Moon”)

By the time you had finished that afternoons lesson you and Mando were the only pair that remained sparring. The only other person in the room was Xarra, who was sat observing the two of you. She had chimed in every now again with helpful comments on your technique, but mainly the only sound you heard from her was a soft chuckle whenever Mando made comments in his mother tongue.

It peaked your interest that your friend could understand, so when your Mandalorian told you that he some things to sort with the armourer and he’d meet you back at the room, you made the decision to adopt a mission of your own.

Mando returned to your shared room that night to find you sat on his bed, a huge bantha-shit eating grin on your face. He shook his head at you and went to set a bag onto your bed.

“How was your meeting with the armourer, cyar’ika?” You asked, with flawless pronunciation that you were more than a little smug about it. Mando dropped the bag he was holding to the floor and slowly rotated on his heel to face you.

“How long have you-” He started in a low voice.

“Only the past hour, Xarra took me through a very thorough translation session,” You replied quickly, not wanting to make him embarrassed. He moved quickly to sit beside you, and you wasted no time in slipping your hands into his gloved ones.

“Does this mean that you… you feel the same?” His voice was quiet through the vocoder. Gloved thumbs ran across the flesh of your hands, his visor fixed upon where the two of you were joined. You gently pulled a hand from his and used it to tilt his helmet up so he could meet your gaze.

“Of course Mando, for a long time to,” You replied. There was a beat, a beat that seemed to last a lifetime, where he didn’t move. When he did move, it was with such slow precision it almost scared you.

He guided your hands to his helmet and rested them either side of his helmet, then his own moved to frame your face. He tilted his head forward and guided yours to do the same, until your warm flesh met the cold of his beskar. You closed your eyes. The raw feeling that overcame you the moment you did made the months of build up worth it. Pure trust, pure affection and pure unadulterated contentment flooded your senses. Only when you thought you’d been successful at holding back tears did he speak again.

“My name is Din Djarin,” He murmured. That was when the dam broke. A sob wracked your body, and as it did you felt his strong arms envelope your body and pull you tight to him. And then, as if on cue, the damn baby woke up with a loud cry.

(read part 2 here!)

[why-not-a-tickle-blog]

Can please do some Lee janus and ler patton? Like Janus is being suspicious, and Patton is trying to figuring out what he is doing. It's fine if you don't want to write this.

(Warning: Interrogation Tickles, Intense Tickles.)

Roman rubbed his eyes, confused. Janus was on the floor, and Patton was sitting on his waist. Janus was using all his hands to keep Patton’s hands away from him. 

“What’s going on?”

“Jan is being sneaky!” Patton said, wiggling his arms and trying to get to Janus with his hands. “And he won’t tell me what he’s doing!”

Roman raised an eyebrow. “And what are you doing?”

“I believe his intention is to tickle the information out of me,” Janus said coolly. 

“Uh huh…” Roman looked around the room, spotting several suspicious-looking items, that he actually knew the purpose of. And he only knew because Janus had told him, asked him for advice. 

It was Father’s Day soon, and Janus wanted to make Patton something. He and Roman had consulted on what to make, and Roman knew for a fact that Janus would never, ever tell. 

And then Roman remembered how Janus had wrecked him the day before so unfairly with his many hands. 

“You want some help, Pat?”

“Yes, please!”

Roman snapped, and bands shot up from the floor to circle Janus’s wrists and pull them down. Within Patton’s reach appeared a box full of tools. 

“Oh, that’s perfect!” Patton said, beaming at Roman. “Thank you!”

“Anytime, Padre,” Roman said, smirking as he left the room. 

••^*^••

Janus took in several deep breaths while Patton looked through the box. Roman was getting wrecked first thing tomorrow. 

“I won’t tell you anything.”

“Oh, good!” Patton said. “That just means I get to tickle you longer!”

Janus was very good at acting, but it took all of his skill not to show how much that had flustered him. He subtly tugged at his arms, but they were stuck. Stretched out as far as they would go, with enough gap in between them for Patton to access his armpits. 

“You can’t really think this will do you any good,” Janus said, keeping his voice steady and even. 

Patton shrugged. “Either way, I get to tickle you. You want a safe word?”

“A safe word? You’re interrogating me. Wouldn’t a safe word defeat the point?”

“Not if you’re really determined not to tell me. Sanders is a good one, but we can go by red-yellow if you want.”

“You don’t take anything seriously, do you?”

“Oh, I take tickling very seriously,” Patton said. “Hurry up and pick a safe word, I want to use some of these toys!”

Janus sighed. He really didn’t understand Patton sometimes. “I’d rather use red-yellow.”

“Great!” Patton said happily. “Then let’s see how long it takes you to break,” he said, badly imitating a noir detective accent. 

Janus’s breath hitched despite the silliness of the situation, and he looked away as Patton’s hands got closer, sneaking under his shirt and drawing small circles on his sides and stomach. 

It didn’t even really… well, it tickled, but he could ignore it pretty easily if he was trying, and he had no problem keeping his face straight. 

“Isn’t this fun?” Patton said cheerily. “Just little teeny tickles.”

Janus finally looked back at him. “What are you getting at?”

“Just making a contrast,” Patton said, before his hands suddenly darted into Janus’s armpits, scribbling ruthlessly. 

Janus was caught completely off guard and made a strangled sound, digging his heels into the ground and arching his back hard, before his brain could make sense of the sudden overwhelming sensations and sent him head over heels into laughing so hard it made him see stars. 

It only lasted a few more seconds before Patton went back to the soft, gentle circles, leaving Janus a confused, giggling mess. 

“You wanna tell me what you were doing now, sweetheart?” Patton asked sweetly. 

Janus gasped and giggled harder, trying to make it seem like he couldn’t talk yet. 

“Oh, no, munchkin, I know you better than that,” Patton said, his hands darting back up into a different pair of armpits and sending Janus into squealing, desperate laughter. 

Janus kicked and squirmed, but nothing got him free, not until Patton decided to be done and go back to drawing those soft circles again. 

Janus was all helpless giggling now, rocking his torso back and forth as much as he could. 

“So what were you doing, huh?” Patton asked, his fingers straying up. 

“Nohohoho!” Janus begged, pulling at his arms. 

“No? Are you sure that’s your answer?”

“Dohon’t!” Janus cried desperately as Patton’s fingers edged closer and closer. “Stohohop!”

“Don’t stop? Oh, you’re just eating this up, aren’t you?” Patton teased, digging into his underarms again. 

It felt like an eternity before Patton stopped. Janus was dazed, unable to do anything but laugh, and barely able to think either. 

“You wanna tell me now, darling?” Patton asked. “It’s only gonna get worse from here. I’ve got a whole box of Roman’s toys, and I haven’t gotten to use even one yet.”

Janus could barely remember what the question was, but the answer bobbed to the front of his mind, and he shook his head. He was never going to tell. 

Patton’s smile turned evil, and he started undoing buttons on Janus’s shirt. Janus just tried to get his breath back, still having phantom tickles and giggling. The cold air hit his chest and stomach, making him shiver with anticipation, and maybe…. yeah, maybe he was having as much fun as Patton was, but he was never admitting that!

••^*^••

Patton started off with just a feather. Maybe it was a touch common, but oldies were goodies, and he just hadn’t decided what tool he wanted to use next! He dragged it around Janus’s torso very, very slowly, watching him wiggle more desperately every time he crept it too close to those ticklish little hollows. 

He was a bit surprised that Janus hadn’t called yellow yet, but also more than a little proud! His Lee mood sense was never off, and there was a reason he was only just now confronting Janus when he’d known about the sneaky behavior for several days now. 

Patton shuffled through the box again, enjoying the sweet giggles, but wanting something more. There were some little fake claws, and he’d passed over them several times, but then he realized. With Janus’s scales, the claws would be perfect! 

“You get a bit of a break, my giggly, sneaky boy. You want some water?”

Janus nodded, and Patton snapped, summoning a cup of water with a very bendy straw that he put in Janus’s mouth. The claws were just a little tricky to get on, but he did it, wiggling his fingers to test them. 

A scared little giggle from Janus made him smile. “Are you excited? I guess you don’t want to tell me then, huh?”

Janus burst into more giggles and shook his head. 

Patton dragged one claw delicately over a patch of scales, and Janus wiggled all around, giggling hard and shaking his head back and forth. 

Patton moved the cup of water so it wouldn’t get knocked over, and then attacked the scales that were scattered all over Janus’s belly and sides. 

Janus shrieked with laughter, getting absolutely wild in a desperate attempt to escape, tears of mirth starting to slip down his cheeks. 

“Oh, does this tickle? Does it tickle really, really bad?” Patton teased. “The tickle, tickle, tickles on your ticklish little scales?”

Janus shook his head violently. 

“It doesn’t?” Patton asked, focusing all his attention on just one spot. “This doesn’t tickle? It doesn’t make you go absolutely crazy?”

Janus squealed, trying to shake his body to move the spot away from where Patton was tickling. But Patton just followed that tickly little place on his side wherever it went. 

“Are you gonna tell me now?” Patton asked. “Cause I can stay riiight here for a loooong time, just tickly, tickly, tickling until you break.”

Janus seemed close to breaking already, his red face cracked wide open with his crazed smile, laughing so hard he was wheezing. His laughter turned to a silent scream, and Patton only kept going for a few seconds after that, watching his lips for any attempt to safeword. He didn’t, but Patton still gave him a break, teasing him the whole time about how cute he was when he was so desperate, and how he really was truly stuck, helpless and at Patton's mercy. 

“You wanna tell me now, or should I find another fun toy? Beside you, I mean.” Patton said with a cheeky smile. 

Janus was still just getting his breathing under control, but he shook his head stubbornly. “Not— Nohot telling you anything.”

Patton grinned. “Yay! More fun for me!”

He looked in the box again. He really wanted something soft this time. Effective, of course, but soft. 

He picked up a little scrubber. Well, it was like a little round kitchen scrubber, except instead of bristles it had very many teeny shimmery feathers. And very conveniently on the top was a label. For bellies. 

“Are you ready, Jan?” Patton asked, holding up the little scrubby. 

To Patton’s surprise, Janus almost nodded before catching himself and lifting his chin stubbornly. 

Patton smiled and set the scrubby down, moving it in small circles. 

Janus went absolutely ballistic! Shocking Patton who knew his belly wasn’t his most ticklish place. But then he saw the slight glittery trail from everywhere the scrubby touched, and figured it must have something in it that tickled even more. 

Janus was screaming with laughter, and it went silent far more quickly than Patton ever could have guessed. Patton carefully watched his mouth and hands, for any sign that it was too much, and was suddenly hit with the realization that he didn’t know how to get the glitter off. 

Janus’s jaw bobbed in what was probably him trying to make a ‘Y’ sound, and Patton set the scrubby down quickly, swiping his hand across his belly, and only bursting into giggles from the intense tickling sensation on his palm. 

Patton clapped hard, willing with everything in him for the glitter to go away. He opened his eyes, and Janus was slumped against the ground, gasping for air with a doofy grin on his face. Patton’s hand didn’t tickle any longer either. He moved up to card his hand through Janus’s hair gently. 

“That one was a lot, huh?” 

Janus gave a weak nod. 

“Are you doing ok?”

Janus got a tiny bit of smirk to his smile. “Not gonna a-ask whahat I was do-ing?”

Patton smiled, more soft than evil. “Not yet, anyway. More water?”

“Lehet me catch my breath first.”

Patton carded his fingers through Janus’s hair gently while he caught his breath, only teasing a little about how much the little scrubby had tickled. 

••^*^••

Janus felt as if he were slightly drifting in a delirious daze. He was almost all tickled out. So why didn’t he just call it quits? He could say the word at any time, and knew for a fact that Patton would respect it. 

Did he really want so badly to be tickled this far past what he had thought were his limits? He didn’t dare answer that question, for fear of knowing for certain the truth of the matter. 

Patton gave him quite a long break, and more water, before settling back over his thighs and bringing out that feather to tease him with as he searched for a new tool. 

Patton’s teasing was mean, making his breath hitch every time he threatened to drag the feather down into one of his hollows, and then just the lighter tickles as if he’d only been joking all along. Janus knew better. The instant Patton decided he wanted to Janus would be laughing hard enough to see stars. 

Patton still shuffled through the box. It seemed quite full, so Janus didn’t know why it always took Patton so long to decide. Unless he was just doing it on purpose to draw out the anticipation. 

Finally Patton pulled something out of the box. “Look! It’s a little snake!”

Janus had no idea what a little toy snake was supposed to do. It was cute though, like a worm-on-a-string, but a bit bigger, and no string. 

“I wonder how it works,” Patton muttered, turning it over in his hands. “I think it does something.”

Suddenly the snake leapt out of his hand to land on Janus’s belly. 

“Oh, there we go!” Patton said happily. “You got one more chance to tell me what you were doing, or else I’m gonna come after those soft, tickly little hollows again.”

Janus froze, his eyes getting wide. 

“Is that a no?” Patton teased, his fingers coming to draw circles on Janus’s sides. 

“W-won’t tell you,” Janus forced out. 

Patton’s grin turned feral. The snake started moving, undulating, it’s soft fur tickling with every movement, and it was moving straight for his armpit. 

Janus had just enough time to gasp out a “Wahait!” before it attacked. The evil creature curled up inside, and then uncurled, tickling horribly ever second of the way. Janus couldn’t have resisted laughter anyway, but even were he not already tickled half to pieces he wouldn’t have been able to resist this. 

And then he glimpsed Patton moving, pulling out more snakes. Three more snakes. 

Patton released them upon Janus, and they each kept switching, so not only was he dying from laughter, there was no chance of getting used to it. And Patton, evil Ler that he was, somehow thought that it wasn’t enough torture, and dug in with his fingers in whichever two of Janus’s underarms were empty. The massive difference in the sensations was sending him over the edge. 

Even all of it together wasn’t as bad as that cursed feather thing, but not by much. Janus couldn’t even fight back anymore, entirely trapped beneath Patton’s fingers and helpless to his whims. 

His sanity was slipping from him, and it seemed as if the whole world were only the terrible, wonderful sensations drowning his senses. 

He couldn’t stand it anymore! It tickled so bad! And it never ended. Never would end. Patton would never have enough of his desperate laughter.

His mouth barely managed to form a “Re” before it broke into a screech as Patton managed to hit a spot somehow even more sensitive. But Patton’s head popped up, searching his face, his hands stilling, and at Janus’s next attempt to say red, he stopped the snakes immediately. 

He came back to card his hands through Janus’s hair, all gentleness and no more teasing. 

“You did so well, my sweet Lee. All done?”

Janus nodded, still giggling from a million phantom tickles racing over him. 

“Oh, you took so much, didn’t you?”

Janus nodded. 

“Well, I’d say that’s more than enough to let you keep your secrets, hmm?”

Janus nodded, glad that Patton would drop it now, and pressed his head up into the soft, gentle hand. 

Patton cooed over him a bit more, and then left his head to release his hands, and to worry over each one in case Roman had tied it down too tight. He picked Janus up, despite the fact that Janus was limp and couldn’t help at all, and set him gently on the couch. He got him more water, and a soft, sweet snack that Janus was too dazed and tired to even identify. 

Janus set aside his plate when he was done, and just tipped forward, butting his head into Patton’s shoulder in hopes that he would play with his hair. Patton went over and beyond, laying back and letting Janus lay on top of him as he rubbed his back and stroked through his hair, not one hint of tickles anywhere. 

It didn’t take long at all for Janus to fall asleep, his final thoughts determined to make the gift for Patton as grand and perfect as he could manage. 

[royallyprincesslilly]

Do you have any tips on writing angst? I want my writing to contain more of it, but I think I might be missing something?

Oh wow, what a question. This took some time because I really had to get my thoughts planned out. I'm going to try to tackle this, but keep in mind what works for me might not work for everyone. This will be long. I'm sorry if you don't want to read a long, drawn out post. Here it comes.😬 (This took a little over an hour to put together mainly cause I write too much. Smh🤦🏽‍♀️)

That being said, my background in psychology helps a lot when writing angst and characters in general. I like to think of it as my secret weapon. Lol. 😁

However, I like to think of angst as slowing it down, stretching it out, and digging deeper into details, feelings, thoughts, and emotions. It helps to have a significant understanding of how human emotions work and how it connects to the body's reaction to and display of it.

For instance, you're about to confess your love to your BFF. Typically emotions include anxiousness and nervousness (fidgeting, inability to make eye contact, rapidly beating heart, dry mouth, etc.), fear (mirrors above but add racing thoughts, physical shaking, etc.).

Now go back and stretch those feelings out in detail. Describe that anxiousness as it relates to something, talk about what is being fidgeted with, mention things the eyes land on when not making eye contact, etc.

Also, make the character's situation believable. For me, a big part of my writing, unless specified, is reality and grasping close to it. I don't over stylize and create insane situations that could never in a million years happen. Think about "Rumor Has It," this tangled web of Ana, Chris, Uriah, and Christiano. Do you see this happening in everyday life with every couple? No, not really. Probably not, and if so, not on this scale. Is it something that is possible? Yes, absolutely, because people with these issues and characteristics exist.

When writing angst, use imagery. For me, that means describing everything. I describe the physical aspects both immediate(self, person character is with),  exterior (other people around, things), emotional aspects (self unless writing in 3rd person then all), psychological elements and sometimes even social aspects. I try to keep the details down, but I will admit sometimes I get carried away in it and just write like 700 words on description and feelings, and I have to go back and trim. So do it with as much detail as possible for you. Just keep in mind to describe things in a beautiful but sorrowful way. I like to think of it as poetry. That might be weird.😬

I know descriptive writing can be a challenge for anyone. Try your best.

I also love one thing I learned long ago. Ask yourself, "what does the character(s) want"? Figure it out and throw everything at them to prevent it and them getting it while keeping in mind that the past, present, and future should have clear causes and effects on the characters and story.

Details are important. I like to think the smaller the detail, the more description. For example, imagine the button on a peacoat. You are staring at it using it as a focal point; describe that tiny detail, in greater detail. Include feelings as you're focusing on it. Why do you need a focal point? Do you feel like you're going crazy? Why? Does it remind you of anything like a spider's web with the way the thread is tightly wrapped around the button? Does that spider's web make you think of deception? Etc. The same can go for details about people. Keep in mind that old tired thing we learned in H.S English class, the 5Ws and an H. (Who, what, when, where and why then how)

Remember, the level of angst depends on your character's personality and the circumstances of the story.

Angst can be challenging, especially knowing the right level to go to and how much is enough. There's a careful balance to it that can get tricky. You want it to touch the heart, be powerful, even gut-wrenching maybe, and filled with authentic, raw, human emotion. You dont want it to be or feel forced or fake, so going overboard can quickly turn it depressive and confusing.

If possible, I would say, try to draw inspiration from your personal angsty experiences or those close to you that you have interacted with. Make the stories of others that you draw inspiration from, stories that you understand and relate to.

Remember, while angst is cool, all angst 24/7 might be a bit much unless specified from the get-go. I find it essential to give small rewards to readers throughout the process. Think of it as a tug o war game.

You are pulling all these emotions, and while pulling them, you are throwing them out too. When you feel the timing is right, slacken that rope and give some breathers, rays of sunshine, happiness, joy, other positive emotions.

Show the glimmer of hope every once in a while and the progress being made. I use angst as an intense changing factor for my characters. I can't do meaningless angst, and I don't suggest you do it either. Readers can see right through it.

A final thing I can add because I feel like this is long as hell and don't want to make this ridiculously long, you can complete it with a cliffhanger.

I looooove cliffhangers. Lmaoo

I really hope this answered your question, and I hope you found this helpful. Remember, this is what works for me and might not for others, and this is in no way meant to be the end all be all on the topic.

Don't put too much pressure on yourself, You're doing great. The important thing is having fun while writing. So, happy writing. ☺

***If the spacing is off, I apologize. I wrote this in my notes and pasted it here.

[monstersandmaw]

Embers - Male dragon shifter x reader, Chapter Six (light nsfw)

Hi folks! Here’s Chapter Six for you of our ongoing series. It starts with a couple of nsfw paragraphs, so if that’s not your thing, start reading below the wider paragraph break. Hope you like this one! As with most of the others, it’s still longer than my aimed-for 800-1000 words, at 1404, but I don’t mind because this one was cheekily fun. Our poor reader is struggling a bit in this chapter!!

Enough waffle! I hope you enjoy! Don’t forget to let me know how you think it’s going so far - I always love to hear your feedback :).

One, Two, Three, Four, Five

Thoughts and images of Mikaeïl flashed through your body as your chest heaved and heat coiled as you tipped closer to the edge. The memory of his cool skin beneath your lips was what sent you over the edge, body shaking, gasping for air as you came harder than you’d come in a long time, just from thinking of him.

“Oh gods,” you scolded yourself in a hoarse whisper, staring at the ceiling. “Now how am I going to be able to look him in the eye this afternoon…?”

In fact, it was marginally easier than you’d imagined because as you entered the house with Celia and found yourself greeted warmly by Frankie, you heard female laughter from the direction of the kitchen, and shortly afterwards came Mikaeïl’s gruff baritone.

You did your best to smile encouragingly at Celia as she trotted eagerly after the satyr, already babbling about how she’d practised the tricky bits and could now play a C-major scale and do the arpeggio. His praise was muted from your ears as he closed the door, and you steeled yourself and headed for the kitchen.

Of course Mikaeïl had a partner already. How could someone as gorgeous and articulate and intelligent as him not have a partner?

Knocking lightly on the door, you stepped inside, and drew up short when you saw the figure with him. She was stunningly beautiful, with long, purple hair, the colour of crushed blackberries, that fell in waves down her back, and brilliant green eyes. She had a crisp white shirt on that was tucked in at the waist into a pair of pressed navy slacks that made her legs look frankly… fantastic. Suddenly, amid the mulberry waves of her hair, you saw two dark horns, smaller, less obvious, and more delicate than Mikaeïl’s, curling gently towards the back of her head. She was standing with one perfectly manicured hand on Mikaeïl’s upper arm, the laughter still dancing in her eyes as she turned to face you curiously as you entered.

“Hi,” you said, glancing awkwardly from one to the other of them. A second later you began to babble very quickly, “Uh… I brought the design for you to look over. I had it printed to the size you wanted, so I can just leave it here,” and with that you shoved the clear plastic folder onto the counter top and, as if you had no more courage than a field mouse, turned and left the room.

The quiet murmur of voices resumed as the door closed behind you, and after a short scuttle down the corridor, you stood in the entrance hall for a moment. You were certain that the beating of your heart was echoing around the drum-like space. Knowing you’d panicked like a bloody teenager at the sight of him with someone else, you took a deep breath and opened the front door feeling sheepish and foolish, and a little hurt. The chill autumn air hit your lungs as you took another deep breath, and you headed over to your rusty old car, deciding that you’d rather just sit in there like a dumb idiot than go back into the kitchen now.

Perhaps four or five minutes later, the front door opened and the woman stepped out into the sunlight first, her hair gleaming and tumbling down her back as she turned to hug Mikaeïl with what was clearly intimate familiarity. She kissed his cheek, laughed affectionately at something he muttered into her ear, and then turned to go, striding away across the gravel towards the long drive that would eventually lead to the road. You were surprised that someone as well-dressed as her was walking, but it was a beautiful day, and anyway you didn’t have much time to dwell on it because Mikaeïl was approaching your car, a curious look in his golden eyes.

You knew you couldn’t be a petulant child and hide in the car, refusing to come out, you pulled on a smile and stepped out. “Didn’t want to intrude,” you blurted before he could even open his mouth.

“It’s alright,” he said. “But you really didn’t have to go. Caerelia would have liked to have met you…”

“Oh. Sorry,” you said, heat flushing your cheeks despite your best efforts.

He chuckled warmly and, as he turned back towards the house, said, “You want to come inside now? I loved the design, by the way. We both did.”

“Right.”

He scowled, pausing and half turning back to you, and then you watched the penny drop through his brain. “Oh!” he said, and then began to laugh softly again, amusement brightening his eyes still further. “I… I feel I should perhaps have mentioned earlier that Caerelia is my older sister…?”

His sister.

Idiot.

You snorted and said, “Well, I mean, she’s pretty… You can’t blame me for assuming the two of you weren’t family…”

It was Mikaeïl’s turn to blush, the colour warming his cheeks, and he shook his head slightly. His true-red hair was piled atop his head in a delightfully scruffy bun, with sections falling loose at the back, looking almost like little flames, dancing as he moved. “I’m flattered,” he said. “And…” he stared intently at you and added, “Not just for that compliment, I think. Come, let’s go inside.”

Your throat had turned dry at the look he’d given you, and that he’d registered your obvious and rather childish jealousy, and you swallowed thickly before speaking. “Sure.”

Suddenly as you approached the threshold, his hand was at the small of your back, guiding you quietly inside before him, and your knees nearly gave out at the touch. He was gentle but firm, and it brought back all your fantasies of that morning with embarrassing clarity.

“Something hot?” he asked, and you nearly tripped over the doormat.

“What?”

“To drink,” he clarified, and you practically burst out laughing. “Or something cold. I have options for both.”

You shook your head, trying to scrape together the fragments of your disintegrating composure, and said, “Uh… let’s sample another one from your hoard of teas?”

“Wonderful,” he purred from right behind you and you felt the hairs on the back of your neck prickle as his breath fanned across your skin.

The mock-up of the poster was sitting on the kitchen counter when you entered, but you ignored it and went straight to the conservatory to be among his plants and to calm the heck down. You weren’t normally this flappable, but there was something about him that just snuck under your armour and control and turned your brain to utter nonsense. You licked your lips and took a deep breath, hugging your arms across your chest as you heard his footsteps approaching on the hard tiles of the kitchen floor. Calmer, you turned around to watch him draw near.

He was so ethereally beautiful, and the autumn sunlight flooding in through the glass set the natural highlights his hair gleaming like burnished copper and his eyes glittering. He smiled, those attractive lips curling warmly, and he came to a halt at a distance that was a mite closer to you than was normal for two people just discussing business.

You had to tip your head back a bit to meet his gaze, and you smiled. “What?”

“I wanted to ask you something,” he said in a quiet voice that set your pulse racing, though you thought you hid it a bit better this time.

“Oh?”

“Mmm. You must know the date of this ridiculous dinner event by now, seeing as you’ve put it on your spectacular poster… I was wondering if you might consider coming with me as my guest?”

“You… You want…?” your brain shorted out and you kicked it back into life with considerable effort. “You mean… as a date, or…?”

“Yes,” he said. “As a date. But only if that’s something you’d like…”

Finally managing something a little better than an embarrassed blush, you smiled coyly and said, “Didn’t my little parting gift last time we met tell you that?”

Somewhere behind him, the kettle clicked off, and with a smile that bordered on a very draconic smirk, Mikaeïl said, “I thought as much. That is why I asked.”

And he stalked back across the room, leaving you staring at his very beautiful back and biting your lip with anticipation.

—

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[loveafterthefact]

Love After the Fact Chapter 23: Duct and Cover

I stand by this terrible pun

First  Previous  Next

Pidge adjusted their eyeware, inspecting the Balmeran crystals Hunk had brought them. “Yes, these should do. Thank you.”

“Of course. Shay was happy for an excuse to call her brother.”

“The brother who hates you?”

“That’s the one.”

“Mnh. I’ll never understand that man. Oh! How is Shay? She's pretty far along now, right?”

“She’s due in a few phoebs. And she’s well, thanks for asking. Chasing after Rosetta is becoming difficult. I might see if Lance wants to borrow her. Get his baby fix.”

“You people. Squirting your DNA at each other. So uncivilized. So underevolved.”

“Whatever you say, Pidge.”

“Keith agrees with me.”

“For now… So what are you gonna do with the crystals?”

Pidge rummages around their workroom, digging for their toolkit. “Well, I stumbled across some old research of Alfor’s. Before Lance was born, he’d been looking into whether Balmeran crystals are biocompatible. Things that are compatible for some other species, like coral or ceramic, are not compatible with Alteans, limiting the use of more advanced prosthetics and cosmetic modifications. Alfor suggested that due to its unique ability to absorb, store, and distribute quintessence, Balmeran crystal might be biocompatible.

“But after Lance was born, he just kind of… discarded it.”

“That’s brilliant, Pidge. Have you contacted Ryner back on Olkarion?”

“Yes. She’s fascinated by the idea. As am I.” Pidge finally found their toolkit under a pile of digital blueprints of a Galran barrow. “It’ll be tricky. There are so many variables. I’ve also requested samples from Balmera T-672 and B-43 for comparison.”

Hunk carefully clears a space at Pidge’s worktable so they can lay out the crystal samples. “It’s okay, right? To hand off Rosetta to Keith and Lance? I mean, it won’t make Keith uncomfortable or anything?”

“Pfft. No. He threw someone across the training room the other day because they asked why they should take orders from a ‘stunted little freak’. Apparently they forgot exactly who they were talking to. If you came onto him he might be uncomfortable, but other than that, I think you’ll be fine.”

“So what are we doing exactly?” Hunk asked, passing a small toolkit and a camera to Pidge. They climb up into the ducts, arranging supplies.

“I am sneaking into Alfor’s lab to eavesdrop. You are going to be my backup. I’d let you be my full partner in this, but if you get fired, your family will starve. If I get fired, I live here in the ducts and make Alfor’s life hell.”

“You say as you make me your accessory in this crime. Also, I thought you had a feed in there.”

“Eh, Lance’ll come through for you. I have faith. I did, but it’s gone now. Like, the entire unit has been removed and destroyed. He probably suspects it’s me, but I used a generic device just in case.”

“I suppose… Why specifically are you sneaking into Alfor’s lab?” Hunk passes up a coil of rope. They have more advanced toys, of course, but sometimes Pidge likes to go back to the basics.

“Because. Lance says that there’s a rumor going around that there’s still unrest between Altea and Daibazaal. He’s got his cronies, that is you, me, Adam, and Lanval, running around trying to find the truth in it. Alfor spends almost all of his time in there, but he’s in the training yard right now, so it might be our chance.”

“But…” Hunk twiddles his thumbs. “It’s just court gossip, right? Totally nothing.”

Pidge presses their long, long fingers to their forehead. “Hunk, gossip is never ‘just’ gossip. Like legends, there’s always some truth to it. Comms check.”

“Comms check,” Hunk repeats, adjusting the mic dangling from his earpiece as Pidge’s voice chimes.

“Comms are go.” Pidge gets on their belly in the duct, crawling forward with the rope slung over their shoulder, toolkit at their belt, a camera strapped to their head. They activate a tiny, holographic map set into a device on their wrist. “You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about armor lately.”

“Could you think about it later? Y'know, when we're not about to get our asses court martialed?”

“And more discreet weapons. Teleporting, returning weapons? And like, better shields? Oooh, how about- oof!” Pidge rubs the top of their head, grimacing as their feelers trembled with the duct's reverb. They’d run into the wall of the duct. Hmm… do they go left, or right? They check their map. Right.

“How about you pay attention to what you’re doing right now?” Hunk mumbles. Pidge rolls their eyes. “And we can talk about armor later, after we’ve gotten away with treason.”

“‘Kay.” Pidge crawls along. “Found it,” they whisper, carefully popping out a vent like the one they crawled through. The gripping pads of their fingers cling to the metal, making sure it doesn't clatter to the ground.

“What do you see?”

“Hm. A ton of nothing.” There’s nothing. Well, actually there’s a ton of stuff. Alembics, beakers, flasks, test tubes, burners, scales, weird stuff in jars, a suspension chamber, quintessence capsules full of glowing blue liquid… It’s just an alchemy lab, albeit an incredibly well-supplied one. “I’m going to descend.”

Reaching the floor, there’s still nothing. Pidge looks around tilting their head so that their asymmetrical ears catch more sounds. Humming emptiness. “Something’s definitely off.”

“How so?” Hunk whispers, leaning forward to eye Pidge’s feed. The young Olkari runs their spindly fingers over a table. It comes up- “Is that dust?”

“Yes,” Pidge whispers. “Why? How? Alfor enters this room every day after breakfast and doesn’t leave until it’s at least time for dinner.”

“Maybe he’s using another table?”

Pidge hums skeptically, but checks around. Everything is dusty. They study the wear patterns in the floor. Too much wear. There's dust collected under the tables, but everywhere open is clear, thanks to the stupid cloaks these royals wear. Clearly, Alfor had paced and flitted all over this lab at one point. “No good. Hmm…”

Pidge pulls up their map of the ducts, notices a large space right next to the lab. “Hunk, can you check the castle map? I want to know what’s next to the lab on the east side.”

“Sure.” Pidge waits. “Pidge? Yeah, there’s nothing. Just space.”

“Yeah, right. I’m so sure.” Pidge shimmies up the rope back into the duct, replacing the vent one they’re back in. Negative space can be tricky. There’s no telling what’s in negative space. “Scanning for surveillance… Scan complete. No surveillance equipment detected, but I am detecting electronics. Okay so if I cut here-” Pidge indicates a panel in the duct. “I should be able to see something. If not, we’ll go from there.”

They pull out a miniature blow torch, cutting a hole in the side of the duct. They love this kind of work. It’s fun playing Lance’s spy.

“Okay, friend. Please be careful. And don’t do anything that’ll make Shay a widow, okay?”

“I will. And I won’t. I promise. As soon as I’m done, you can go back to your gross domestic life.” Pidge finishes with the duct.

“Uh-huh. Speaking of my gross domestic life, are you still coming over for dinner tomorrow?”

“Absolutely! It’s been ages since I saw Rosetta! Okay.” Pidge sticks the adhesive pads of their fingers to the siding, pushing it out so they can turn it to fit through the hole they’ve made. “Woah.”

“Woah,” Hunk parrots. “That explains the electronics you detected. What are we looking at?”

Pidge stares down at a large room of holographs and screens. In the middle of the room, there’s a particularly large table with a holographic top. Hovering, glittering in the dim room, is a perfect three-dimensional replica of Daibazaal. “A war room. We’re looking at a war room.”

Holding the panel of the duct steady with their sticky fingers, Pidge carefully seals the cut out section back into place. They lay on their stomach in the duct, thinking.

“Oh mother earth, are we still at war? Has this all been for nothing? What if-”

“Most likely scenario is that Alfor doesn’t trust the Galra. The one thing he’s very good at is killing people. He’s probably planning for just in case.”

“Okay, but what if he’s not? If we go to war again, the first thing that’s going to happen is that Keith will be killed! Not to mention Allura and Romelle in the fallout. Even Keith couldn’t fight off the entire Altean Army!”

“No, he couldn’t. We don’t have time right now to go in and see what’s up, so in the meantime, we’ll make plans of our own. Lance won’t stand for this. He, Keith, Allura, Romelle, and Lotor have already given up so much for this alliance, and every time Lance reaches out to Daibazaal for advice they’ve been nothing but cordial and helpful. He’ll likely side with them. At this point, the Galra are more likely to do well by his people.”

“And we’ll side with him, right?”

“Absolutely.” It’s not even a question for Pidge.

“We have to tell him, don’t we,” hunk murmurs, saying it more as a statement than a question. “Before we figure out what’s really going on?”

“He sent us here. He’ll expect a report today and knows we can deliver.”

“Keith only just started to feel safe here.”

“Yeah.” Pidge sighs, scoots backward, working their way through the ducts until they land feet-first in their workroom. “But if Alfor can plot and scheme, then so can we.”

“Uh-huh. But… Maybe we could…” Hunk fidgets. “Scheme tomorrow?”

Pidge sighs, smiles at their friend. “Sure, Hunk. We’ll scheme tomorrow. I’ll brief Lance myself. Thanks for the crystals.”

Hunk picks Pidge up in a tight hug. “You’re welcome. Let me know if you need more. And I’ll see you tomorrow for dinner. We can put the baby to bed and scheme over alcohol that's not nunvil.”

Pidge smiles wider, waves as Hunk leaves. Once he’s gone, they let their smile drop. Had they both really agreed to betray Altea so easily?

Quiznak, this place is such a mess.

[cloudyobsession]

A VERY In-Depth Look at the Miku Watch Party 2020/2021 Schedule (week 4)

Week 4 - Hatsune Appearance: Smaller Scale and Pre-Recorded Hatsune Appearance shows aren’t technically concerts, as they lack a live band or any live instrumentation whatsoever, but Angel Project’s touring pre-recorded live shows have been popular in Japan, springing up here and there over the years but notably in 2012 and 2013 with their Hatsune Appearance shows.  These were small-venue shows held every night over a period of a few weeks in the same location. They were animated using Miku Miku Dance, a freeware 3D animation software distributed by Crypton for creating 3D Vocaloid music videos (MMD has had a HUGE impact on the development of Vocaloid media, and is still in fairly active use today, taking on quite a life of its own beyond Vocaloid as one of the most accessible 3D modeling programs available). These sorts of performances were not especially new by 2012, having been seen at various Vocaloid fan events and conventions even over here in the US here and there, they were typically put on by fan groups with permission from, but little involvement by Crypton. The Hatsune Appearance shows, however, began life as part 39′s Caravan Summer Festival, a series of promotional events in August and September 2012 supporting the launch of Project Diva ƒ for the PS Vita.

This is another series I feel is under-apprecited by fans, even moreso than Snow Miku shows. I think this is largely due to the pre-recorded nature of the shows, on top of fans generally favoring the much larger-scale concerts. I’ll admit I was skeptical before I had seen one, but trust me, you won’t want to miss these. The big draw here, aside from seeing a number of songs performed that you just won’t hear in any of the live band shows, is the animation. Hatsune Appearance puts a lot more effects on the projection screen, and make heavy use of fairly tricky stage lighting and carefully-placed screens to create a unique experience that couldn’t be done with a live music show. Having the music entirely pre-recorded lends the animation and effects a level of precision you just can’t accomplish when working with live music, and that can make for a fun change of pace if that’s what you’re used to seeing. Plus, you don’t often get to see footage of smaller Vocaloid shows like these very often (despite the fact that they do still happen pretty frequently across Japan), even the Angel Project shows to follow in the ensuing years have pretty much no available footage circulating, let alone DVD or Blu-Ray releases, so these are some of the only glimpses into these events you can get without being there!

NOTE: Hatsune Appearance 2012 is a much shorter show than usual, only about 30 minutes long. Hatsune Appearance 2012 is 1 hour and 30 minutes long.

Hatsune Appearance 2012 was held every night from September 13th to the 23rd in Yokohama. There isn’t too much more to be said about this show that wasn’t introducing the series as a whole. Since this one only clocks in about a half-hour long, in a lot of ways it’s a preview for the much longer show to come in 2013, but it’s still a really fun little show to put on, and there’s only one or two songs that overlap between 2012 and 2013 so it makes it very worth it to watch both! One interesting thing to note about this show, the MMD model used for Miku, which they would also use for the 2013 show, was made publicly available in early 2013. Officially called “Appearance Miku” but commonly abbreviated as ApiMiku, it was a very popular 3D Miku model that remains in use today!

Hatsune Appearance 2013, full title: “Hatsune Appearance Natsu Matsuri Hatsune Kagami”, is the follow-up to the 2012 Angel Project show. Very little information can be found about this show (in English anyway), I’m not even able to find where it took place or the full range of dates that it spanned. The only concrete info I can seem to find is that the footage used for the DVD and Blu-Ray was recorded on August 20th, 2013. It seems as if this concert ran in the lead-up to the very first Magical Mirai, which was held August 30th 2013. Despite this, Hatsune Appearance 2013 remains among my favourites. These shows really demonstrate how much you can do with just a projection screen, stage lighting, and a good sound system. These smaller shows also just have an intimacy you don’t get in the giant concert halls and arenas, seeing Miku and the audience so close is honestly kinda special, and the projectors used do a fantastic job of making her seem convincingly on-stage, even at a much shorter distance.

Click Here For Full Schedule

“When it came to ordering the concerts, I tried to keep things in a loose chronological order while also offering a good variety from week to week, and pairing together concerts that compliment each other. Hopefully I’ve managed to string them together in a way that lets you observe how the concerts have changed and evolved over time, while not putting too many very similar shows back-to-back.”

“This whole thing is something I’ve actually been wanting to do for a while, I’ve had the idea kicking around in my head ever since the initial postponement of Miku Expo USA & Canada, and have spent the months since mulling over how I might to about pulling it off. I’ve put a lot of thought into making these work, so I hope you’ll join me and have a good time <3″

[taww]

First Take Review: Audiovector SR 6 Avantgarde Arreté Speakers

As previously chronicled, a move to a new residence last year challenged my undying devotion to 2-way monitor speakers. Though I had two great ones at my disposal - the Silverline SR17 Supreme and Audiovector SR 1 Avantgarde Arreté - asking these relatively compact speakers to fill a large living space with the weight and scale of a symphony orchestra was unreasonable. I needed something that could move more air, but far too many big speakers I’ve heard sound slow, discombobulated or opaque vs. a quality 2-way. Enter the Audiovector SR 6 Avantgarde Arreté (USD $25,000), which confidently assured me of no such compromises during an audition at Audiovision SF. After a bit of listening to some alternatives and the requisite spousal approval, I traded in the SR 1’s and placed an order for a pair of SR 6 AA in piano black with the intention of keeping these as my long-term reference speakers. I’ve logged about 3 months with them and while they’re still taking their sweet time to break in, it’s time to gut check: are they turning out to be everything I had hoped they would be?

Related Reading

Quick Take: Audiovector R 3 Arreté & SR 6 Avantgarde Arreté

Breaking in a Big Speaker: Week 2 with the Audiovector SR 6

Acoustically Treating Side Reflections: Even Better and Not as Hard as You Think

Design & Setup

IMO this is a gorgeous speaker that looks impressive in a room without being dominating - sleek and elegant, with pleasing proportions and a beautiful finish. While our room is a good size, it is an all-purpose living space for my wife and me plus our two large-ish dogs, and there was no way audiophile speakers with a large footprint or funky aesthetics would ever set foot in our home. The Audiovector was a relatively easy sell to my wife and there have been zero groans or offhand remarks about its size or appearance, which makes it an unmitigated success. The magnetically-attached grills are wonderfully crafted, muting the technical look of the baffle during more casual listening, snapping on and off with precision and sticking together for easy storage. The sound isn't bad with them on either - fractionally less open and bright, which is actually kind of nice for background music.

Full-range speakers can be tricky to position to balance bass response with soundstaging, but in my room I’ve found the SR 6 AA to be very easygoing. Thanks to a combination of front-firing ports, bottom-firing compound woofer and careful bass alignment, they work remarkably well close to the wall. I currently have them with just 50cm (20”) of clearance behind them, and I have yet to pick up on any port noises. Yes, the soundstage would be even deeper if I pulled them out further, but it’s still quite satisfactory and the bass is nicely filled out without any boom whatsoever. As with the SR 1 Avantgarde Arretés, I find the sweet spot to be a bit narrow - sound is good off-axis, but you really need to be centered precisely for the image and soundstage to lock in. This is in contrast to traditional 2-way monitors from e.g. Silverline Audio or Role Audio that disappear in your room with little effort and are fairly forgiving of listening position.

Sensitivity is specified at 92.5dB/watt @ 8 ohms, quite good for a dynamic speaker. Sensitivity ratings can be deceiving (measurement methods are not rigorously standardized) but the SR 6 AA certainly puts out noticeably more sound per watt than the 90.5dB-rated Silverline SR17. I haven't seen an impedance plot or minimum impedance spec but it seems pretty easy to drive, with all of my amps sounding open and unstrained. With pop or orchestral material at moderately high volume levels I could get the bias meter on the Pass Labs XA30.5 to wiggle the tiniest bit, indicating the peaks were surpassing the 30-watt Class A bias range, but just barely. While the speakers can clearly take a lot more power (I would have loved to have the 300wpc Bryston 4B Cubed around), a quality amp of moderate power rating (e.g. 50 watts) but enough current to feed the 4 drivers should have no trouble. The Pass sounded great, I love the 55-watt Valvet A4 Mk.II monoblocks on them, and right now the 50-watt Gryphon Essence is singing away.

The Sound

Listening to the SR 6 AA strikes me as the audio equivalent of stepping into something like a big smooth Mercedes S-class, only to find it as lithe and responsive behind the wheel as a Lotus Elise. But step on the accelerator, and sure enough you will hear and feel the grunt of a big bi-turbo V-12. And most of all, it’s fun. Like a car that beckons you to drive it, there’s an aliveness and energy to the SR 6 that compels you to listen to as much music as possible. I could listen to record after record all day and night and never stop.

Coming back to less-fanciful analogies, I love how the SR 6 has all the coherence, focus and speed of the best 2-way monitors, then adds low-frequency power and dynamic ease without any sort of compromise that I can discern. At first I was a bit concerned with the 350Hz crossover point between midrange and woofer - right in the D to A string range of the violin - but I honestly can not hear it at all. The compound bass system also seamlessly integrates from 80Hz down, and all I hear is a very continuous presentation with consistent speed, articulation and tonality. This is extremely rare in my experience - many big, expensive and elaborate speakers have had some sort of discontinuity that bugged me. 

Coming back to the 2-way comparison, I am missing absolutely nothing about my previous monitor speakers. The SR 6 has even more midrange focus and resolving power than its excellent little sibling, the SR 1 Avantgarde Arreté, while sounding less dry and analytical. Much of this can be attributed to the fullness of the lower midrange which puts more meat on the bones of everything. It’s not overtly warm, but has just the slightest bit of extra juice to give pop tunes great bounce and string sections lovely lyricism. My wife noted that orchestral melodies sounded particularly mellifluous and alluring.

This brings me to another point: the SR 6 simultaneously strikes me as tremendously transparent, neutral and precise, but also possessing character. It's very hard for me to describe it any one way because the common sonic labels - warm, analytical, fast, full, forward, laid-back, smooth, sharp - just won't stick. Depending on the associated gear, setup and recording, any of those above descriptors could be applied to a very subtle degree, but switch up the source material and a different set of adjectives come to mind. Going to another abstract analogy, it reminds me of a delicious mineral water - so clean and crisp and pure, but not totally flavorless. The SR 6 is never bland to my ears; sure, a bad recording still won't sound great, but the presentation never falls flat. It has a fun and engaging take on music, perhaps due to just a hair of judicious boost somewhere in the midrange, that isn't dead-on neutral, but subtle and musically consonant. This is what I find most fascinating about Audiovector's tuning vs. other ultra high-end marques such as Magico or YG Acoustics, which can be breathtakingly transparent to the point of sounding flavorless, and incredibly demanding of source material. In those special moments with the right setup and recording they certainly could scale to greater heights of realism than the SR 6, but the Audiovector just sounds consistently natural and satisfying to me.

A few words on what this speaker is not. While it certainly qualifies as full-range, it does not have an overtly “big” sound. You won’t get the same sort of easy, larger-than-life presentation that a large-woofered speaker in a more classic mold (think a big old JBL with 15” woofers, or a top-end model from PBN or Legacy Audio) will give you. If you want Louis Armstrong to sound like he's sitting in your lap, or you’re trying to reproduce a club environment in your living room, there are better speakers for that. Bass extension is deep and powerful, but the quality of the bass that stands out is that it’s always focused - pitch, timing and weight are precise and balanced. It will convincingly represent a symphony orchestra, and the throbbing bass line of Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy will have you bouncing in your seat, but it’s not shake-your-walls, send-you-into-intestinal-distress kind of bass. It is easily the most detailed and revealing speaker I have had in my room, but it is never hyped-up, instead laying the music out for you to inspect at your discretion. The superb Audiovector AMT tweeter has a lot to do with this - it is free of the typical resonant modes of most dome tweeters and has resolving power well above the audible range, with none of the peakiness of metal domes that can go from vivid to fatiguing over time. There are designs with more natural warmth, that can make a female vocal sound more magically in-the-room and human - Silverline and GamuT are two superb marques that come to mind - but they might not be as neutral and versatile across many genres of music.

The Audiovector is much more precise and adaptable than speakers which blow you away with a particular aspect of their performance. It is the sort of sound that may not stand out as much in 3 minute sound bites at an audio show or dealer, but is more accurate and satisfying in the long term. And I appreciate how it effortlessly fills my open space with sound, but never overpowers it. This is a remarkably lifestyle-friendly speaker by high-end standards and I could see it working very well in a more modestly-sized room, though if you have a small room you are probably better off saving some money on the R 3 Arreté and putting the funds towards upstream gear.

The Take

As you can probably guess, I'm liking the Audiovector SR 6 Avantgarde Arreté a whole lot. A big speaker is always a risky proposition - you never know if it'll work in your room, reproducing a wider range of frequencies means more things to critique and potentially bug you, and of course there's the financial outlay. But so far, other than the need for extended break-in time, there have been zero frustrations and only delights in my experience.

As I write this, I'm listening to a lovely record of Bruckner 9 by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with Daniele Gatti (Qobuz 24/96, Tidal MQA) at moderate volume. And I honestly have nothing to observe or say about the speakers because it just sounds good and right and I'm enjoying the performance. It's a total system effort of course, with contributions from PS Audio, Furutech, Audience and the transcendental Gryphon Essence pre + power amp, but as a music lover first and foremost I can think of no higher compliment for the Audiovector SR 6 Avantgarde Arreté.

[tomhollandnet]

There's a moment in Sony and Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home” where Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) tries to convince Peter Parker (Tom Holland) to abandon his school trip to come save the world.

Peter — fresh off of the highly emotional events of “Avengers: Endgame,” and still reeling from the death of his mentor Tony Stark — is reluctant to shoulder responsibility again so soon, and struggles against his Spider-Man duties.

“In our iteration of Spider-Man, Peter Parker gets on with everyone,” Holland said over coffee. "Even with Flash, who’s his bully, there's kind of a good rapport there. But with Nick Fury, [he] just keeps butting heads ... which is quite fun for me to play. But it’s also tough arguing with Sam Jackson … it’s pretty scary. There’s a bit in the trailer where he says, ‘Bitch please, you've been to space.’ It’s kind of every actor’s dream to be called a bitch by Sam Jackson.”

At the age of 23, Holland has been living his own dream playing Spider-Man for a significant chunk of the past four years. He’s the third actor to don the superhero’s spandex in a live-action feature — following Tobey Maguire in Sam Raimi’s blockbuster trilogy and Andrew Garfield in the less fondly remembered “The Amazing Spider-Man” and its sequel — but quickly made the iconic character his own when he debuted in 2016’s “Captain America: Civil War.”

As the official Spider-Man of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Holland played a pivotal role in the epic two-part “Avengers” finale “Infinity War” and “Endgame,” and led his 2017 solo film “Spider-Man: Homecoming” to $880 million in worldwide box office. All while being the youngest actor to fill the role.

“My voice has obviously gotten deeper [since being cast], which is a little bit embarrassing because it’s something that happens when you’re 14,” said Holland. “I have to pitch my voice up a little bit now. And when you play a character five times, you run out of ideas — sometimes it’s a little tricky to find new unique things to do to keep the character growing and progressing.”

Growth is a major theme for Peter in “Far From Home,” which opens July 2 in the U.S., as the world scrambles to figure out who will step up to assume the mantle of Iron Man. For Holland, that sense of pressure mirrored his own nervousness over anchoring the first MCU release following the massive spectacle of “Endgame” — which exploded box office records to become the second-highest grossing film of all time both worldwide (behind “Avatar”) and domestically (behind “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”).

“There’s a level of pressure because people really want to know what’s next,” Holland said. “‘Endgame’ was a bit of a kick in the teeth at the end. Everyone’s fallen in love with those characters for the past 10 years, and all of a sudden people we know and love and feel we have a connection to, we’ve said goodbye to forever.”

For director Jon Watts, also returning from “Homecoming,” the intense emotional stakes of “Endgame” presented a unique challenge to explore in the Spidey sequel.

“I like to see it as an opportunity,” he said. “So many crazy things happen in that movie and so many questions are left unresolved. It really helped focus this film and create a very strong emotional jumping-off point for our story and for Peter.”

...

While all eyes will be on “Far From Home” for clues about Marvel’s future, the notoriously spoiler-prone Holland is still recovering from harboring the knowledge of Iron Man's death in "Endgame" long before audiences saw it.

“I nearly had to sew my mouth shut,” he said. “I think what people forget when it comes to these movies is that I’m a fan. Before I was even considering becoming an actor, I was obsessed with these movies. I’m as much of a fan of these movies as the fans are.

“When I find out spoilers, I want to talk to people about it because I can’t quite believe it,” he added. “I just get so excited, honestly, and I want to share the information because the term ‘break the Internet’ is a real thing. And if you know something that could break the Internet, it’s kind of a cool power to have.”

For the filming of Tony Stark’s death scene in “Endgame,” the filmmakers did not tell Holland why the cast was assembling.

“When I walked on set, it was Robert [Downey Jr.], Gwyneth [Paltrow], Don [Cheadle], myself, [co-directors] the Russos and Kevin Feige, and they [told us the truth] and I, like all the fans, felt like someone had just pulled the rug from under my feet. There was no real script, just ‘This is what’s going to happen. We know you guys are so emotionally invested in these characters that whatever you do will be truthful.’

“For me, it was just my moment to say thank you to Robert for being my mentor for the past five years and hopefully for the future of my career,” Holland added. “I think there were even moments where I improvised and said, ‘Robert, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.’ And when you say stuff like that to someone you love — even now, thinking about it, I’m getting a little choked up — the emotions kind of come through.”

Loss is a major aspect of Peter Parker’s journey throughout the comics, which was another reason director Watts was excited to tackle the “Endgame” fallout in “Far From Home.”

“Losing Uncle Ben, losing Gwen Stacy … so much of what shapes him as a character is tied into the people that he cares about being lost,” Watts said. “So the fact that he’s losing Tony as well allowed us to explore some of those iconic Spider-Man themes.”

As the world waits to discover what’s next for Marvel (also rumored to include a third Spider-Man adventure, perhaps sooner than some may expect), Holland is simultaneously plotting his acting career outside of the franchise. The actor, who initially made his name on the London stage in the musical “Billy Elliot” and delivered a critically acclaimed film debut in the 2012 disaster drama “The Impossible,” recently wrapped a pair of indies and several voice roles.

He has a whopping six films slated for release over the next 12 months, including a voiceover role in Universal’s “The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle,” starring Downey, and the lead in Netflix’s “The Devil All the Time,” produced by Holland’s “Far From Home” co-star Jake Gyllenhaal.

He’ll also reunite with “Endgame” filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo for the drama “Cherry,” about an Iraq war veteran grappling with PTSD and opioid addiction.

“He turns to drugs and becomes a bank robber,” Holland said of his character. “And for me, it’s a very exciting prospect because it’s a very different role to anything I’ve done before.”

Still, Holland admits the transition from Marvel’s massive productions to smaller-scale films has been challenging.

“You can get so spoiled when you make these big movies,” said Holland. “I felt that a little bit this year. ‘Devil All the Time’ is a really small little indie movie with a wonderful director, Antonio Campos. And I was on set like, ‘Why is this taking so long? What’s going on here?’ You get spoiled when you have a crew of 500 people and 12 cameras and anything’s possible.”

As Holland pauses to consider what else might come next, he reveals one genre he’s especially keen to try.

“Part of me would really love to do a funny movie,” he said. “I think I’m a pretty funny person, and I think it would be fun to do. I just love challenges, me. I don’t want to do the same thing twice.”

[crazyzaika]

Love on detours - Chapter 5

And here we are with the next chapter. Let me know what you think. Still unchecked.

Greets Z

Chapter 5

She was nervous, jittery and so she sat next to Levy and Gajeel. She had her first examination at her gynaecologist. She knew that Porlyusica Edo-Sensei would fall from all the clouds. She was afraid of what this otherwise so rough woman would do and swallowed. Her heart raced and she bit her lower lip. Three more weeks had passed since she had taken this test, since she was so freaked out. She hadn't wanted to give a reason why she had been registered for a routine checkup, and Levy had almost gone to the secretary's throat.

Levy and Gajeel understood her fear, although Gajeel didn't like the fact that Lucy didn't open her mouth and remained silent. He thought she had to say it because Natsu was the father and he had also told her that the longer she was silent, she made it worse. But how was she going to get on with it now? It was tricky. She had managed again and again to bypass the subject, to act. Even if it was damn hard with the morning sickness. And the absolute horror was the mood swings. One second she was the happiest person in the world, the next second she cried and then she raged worser than Natsu. Her grandfather was extremely annoyed by her and crept away as soon as he saw her, her sister and Mirajane had already made jokes about a pregnancy. Her classmates treated her all the time as if she was made of glass.

Three weeks ago, when Natsu found her and brought her home, she had talked to Igneel and Grandeeney. In confidence, mind you. She had confessed to them in tears that she had slept with Natsu, but had been too scared what would happen if he found out. When Igneel wanted to know if she was pregnant and was happy that he was going to be Grandpa, Grandeeney almost strangled him. Lucy had cried like a castle dog and didn't know what to do, and his mother had an understanding with her, took her in her arms and was more understanding than everyone else.

And now she sat here for her first examination. She was panic-stricken, because what if Porlyusica scolded her, if she didn't help her? It was still the right of medical secrecy and everything, but illegitimate children were considered misfortune and a social taboo. She didn't feel tears in her eyes until her vision blurred and Levy, sitting right beside her, took her hand, looked up, sniffed and wiped the tears away.

"Heartfilia-san!" the sister called her name, she flinched and jumped up hastily, "Room 4 is free."

Lucy nodded slightly, then she ran to the corresponding room. She glanced back at the waiting room. Levy smiled encouragingly at her. She and Gajeel would wait for her. She swallowed, then tightened her shoulders. She had to be strong. She could not become a mental wreck! The blonde reached for the door handle, then opened the door and entered. Her doctor already sat there and looked at her waiting, examined her and then smiled a little. Lucy stepped further into the bright room. The walls were painted beige and pictures of landscapes adorned the walls. The wall opposite Lucy was completely glassed and sunlight illuminated the room, making everything more harmonious. The left wall was dominated by bookshelves and in front of the window there was a modern desk with a computer screen, a picture and some books. A movable partition on the left hand bordered an area of the room so that it wasn't immediately visible, but Lucy knew there was a treatment chair.

Lucy closed the door behind her and stepped up to the two visitor chairs standing in front of the desk. She bowed slightly to her doctor, who returned the greeting.

"Ah, Heartfilia-san. Please, sit down," Edo-Sensei requested. She was older, but experienced. She was slender and the few wrinkles on her face only made her look friendlier. She had put the long pink hair together to a firm, strict knot and fixed it with a crescent-shaped clasp in gold look. Lucy immediately followed and kneaded her hands restlessly.

"So ... what brings you here", asked her doctor and looked at Lucy waiting. She swallowed slightly.

"I ... I did not give my true reason for this examination", whispered Lucy and her shoulders cramped. She stared at her hands, refusing to look at her doctor. Her heart raced and she swallowed nervously.

"And that would be?"

"I am ... am pregnant", she brought up falteringly. Silence lay over the room. Only the ticking of the clock on the right wall broke the silence. It seemed to be minutes when her doctor sighed.

"Lucy ... look at me," growled Porlyusica then. Lucy flinched. She knew her doctor well, having been a patient here since her first bleeding. Her hands trembled as she forced herself to follow her doctor's call. She stared at her with a strict gaze.

"Do you want to joke with me, young lady?" she asked. She had her elbows resting on the table, her hands crossed in front of her face and ruby eyes staring at her. Icy shivers were running down Lucys back. Her doctor looked at her as if she wanted to kill her. She shook her head and her shoulders trembled as tears came to her eyes again. The woman sighed in front of her and seemed tense.

"All right. Are you sure?"

"I did four tests three weeks ago ... and ... it was already two weeks ago ...", Lucy brought out and a brow rose jerkily in the air.

"Does the father know?" she asked now and Lucy swallowed hard. Again she shook her head and her lips trembled.

"N ... no. Natsu knows nothing", she confessed and knew herself how stupid she behaved. But she was a rabbit's foot. She was afraid to tell him and he was currently with Lisanna. What had broken her heart. He seemed happy with her, and her cousin? She rubbed it in her nose every time. Lucy didn't know how Lisanna knew, but ... her cousin knew that Lucy was in love with Natsu and she had a lot of fun making her suffer. Porlyusica pulled her lips. She knew who Natsu was. How could she not? She was the fourth degree aunt of Natsu's mother.

"Are you serious? That brat?," her doctor asked and seemed upset. Lucy swallowed hard and then nodded timidly. The woman moaned annoyed, hit her hand on the table top and rose. Lucy was almost expecting to be thrown out because her doctor could get pretty grumpy.

"Then go ahead, free your abdomen and lie down on the examination chair. I'll do an ultrasound. When you're in your fifth week, you should be able to see something," the pinquette growled. Lucy stared at her doctor as if she came from the moon. She fixed the blonde with a stern look.

"Will you soon?"

"Yes Ma'am," Lucy jumped up involuntarily and saluted. Then she took off the sweater of her uniform, opened the zipper of the red and white checkered pleated skirt, took off her tights and panties and put everything neatly together on the other visitor's chair, then she lay down on the examination chair behind the partition and pulled the shirt up so high that her abdomen was exposed. Redness lay on her cheeks. She was embarrassed to lie here so freely, even though Edo-Sensei was her doctor. She had pulled up an ultrasound device with a monitor. She pulled out a narrow device and the blush on Lucys' cheeks became deeper at the shape. The pinquette drew a condom over the stick, applied lubricant and inserted the device. Lucy stared at the monitor. Her heart was beating up to her neck. She didn't know if she should keep the child and carry it. She really didn't know.

"Ah ... here we have it. His fucking brood," growled Porlyusica. Lucy saw two little dots on the black noise and her eyes widened. She felt as if her heart was stopping. She unavoidably held her breath and stared only at those two dots.

"Oh and congratulations. They are twins."

Words that brought tears to her eyes. She trembled and then the tears overflowed. She sobbed and rubbed her eyes. Happiness flooded her heart. Those were her children. With Natsu.

"Yes, I would cry there too," Porlyusica grumbled.

"Do you want a picture of it? Even if I hope that in your case you do the right thing and abort?"

Lucy's head jerked to her doctor and stared at her with big eyes. Then she pressed her lips together. She was afraid, yes, but ... to destroy two lives because of that? Just so she had it easier?

"I ... I want to keep them", she said then and Edo-Sensei twisted annoyed the eyes, then she pressed a button and it hummed. Then Edo-Sensei did more research. She took a swab to rule out abdominal infection. Then she took her blood, while Lucy stood up, the first picture of her two children had already been printed. Lucy stood up a little shakily and then stood on the scales according to instructions to be able to note down the initial weight. Lucy was restless as she put her clothes back on. Porlyusica then handed her a small black and white picture, which took Lucy trembling and again with tears in her eyes. She smiled.

"When will you tell him," she asked and Lucy sniffed slightly.

"He's with Lisanna and he doesn't even know that ... that we ... "

"If you've fucked with him, then you must be able to pronounce it," said her gynaecologist dryly and Lucy almost dropped the picture out of her hand. She felt a burning blush on her cheeks, then she stroked the black and white picture with the fingertips of her right hand.

"I acted in panic and he thinks we were just asleep. He thinks I am still a virgin. I didn't think I'd get pregnant the first time," Lucy said and her voice was occupied.

"And you still want to give birth to two children at the age of 17? I think even Natsu isn't so stupid that he doesn't grasp what really happened when you run around with a big belly," Porlyusica replied and leaned against the edge of the table. Lucy looked up and smiled sadly.

"I know, but I have to go through that", then she shrugged her shoulders and bowed slightly.

"His parents know, but ... I ask you. Edo-Sensei. Please keep that to yourself. I don't want my parents to force me to have an abortion. I'd rather be expelled from my family than give these two up."

Sweat broke on Lucy's forehead. She was nervous and her heart was beating up to her neck. She had fallen in love with her children when she saw these two dots on the monitor. Happiness filled her and she knew it would be difficult. She knew it all, but she also knew she could do it. She firmly believed in it and refused to give up her children. If necessary she would emigrate to the states where it was not a social taboo to be a single mother.

"Well... then we'd be done here. The best thing is to put the picture in your pocket and don't run around grinning. Not that another one will kill you. In four weeks I want to see you here again, understand?", her doctor had her firmly in view and Lucy grinned at her broadly.

"Yes, Edo-Sensei," she said and put the picture in her wallet. Her heart raced and she felt so incredibly happy. She rose, took her bag and then left the consulting room. She almost seemed to jump as she entered the waiting room. A quick glance at the clock made her cut short. She had been here an hour or so? Awesome. Gajeel sat at the table with a few children and painted with them what was somehow sweet and Levy read in business journals. She wandered to the lady in the antechamber and beamed at her.

"In four weeks I'll be back at Edo-Sensei," she said and the woman stared at her as if she were from the moon. A hard, contemptible trait lay around her lips, but she said nothing else, just nodded and made her an appointment. Lucy knew the lady knew what was wrong with her, but she didn't have the right to shout it out loud and insult her or anything like that.

"There you are finally, we've waited forever," Gajeel rose and snorted slightly and Levy also ripped herself off her reading, putting back the magazine into the rack and then rose as well.

"Can we then," Levy asked and Lucy nodded with a broad smile. Nothing could ruin her life right now. She took a thin jacket from Levy, put it on, shouldered her bag and the two followed her. Lucy almost jumped along the path and cheerfully hummed a song.

"So ... you are now ...", Gajeel began and looked quite confused. Lucy was really ... annoying. Even if he liked her somewhere, but to hell with the women. She had almost collapsed mentally the last few weeks and now she was beaming with the sun? Had she thrown anything in or something? Levy was also confused. Lucy turned around on her own axis and grinned broadly, then she nodded, pulled out her wallet and proudly showed them the ultrasound picture. The two stared first at the picture and then at Lucy wordlessly.

"Are those ... "

"Yes. I'm going to be a mom," Lucy squealed with a wide smile, wrapping up the photo again and keeping her wallet safely in her pocket. There were no other passers-by who had noticed. Levy looked around uncertainly.

"Say ... are two dots in one ... normal or ... ", Gajeel began and looked a little pale around the nose. Lucy grinned even wider and unconsciously stroked her abdomen. She giggled as if she was in love.

" Dude ... you will about ... ", he began and his eyes became bigger and bigger. A Natsu Dragneel was exhausting but two children of him? Who looked the same? He looked at Levy, who stared at Lucy with big eyes.

"So ... do you want to keep them?" she asked the question of questions and when Lucy nodded radiantly, turned around again and jumped away singing Gajeel laughed in disbelief.

"Honey ... as much as I love you but ... your best friend isn't right in her mind", he growled, "like a damn rabbit on drugs."

"I can only agree with you," Levy said, confused. Even she couldn't think of anything more. She was ... confused? Shocked? She didnt know. Honestly. She had really thought that Lucy would have an abortion but apparently ... she was ready to get twins from a guy she loved but who didn't know that and who believed that she was still a virgin. How would you explain that? Either a surrogate father had to come, or Lucy pinched her ass together and finally confessed to him. But Levy also knew that it wasn't so easy at the moment. Because Natsu had come together with Lisanna to everyone's surprise.

They went after Lucy so that they could be sure that she arrived safely at home. Not knowing that someone had been watching her. Someone who had seen everything.

She clenched her hands to fists and raged inside her. She had lied to him! She knew! A broad, diabolical grin spread on her lips. Oh she would make that bitch suffer for it. A nasty giggle slipped over her lips.

[austencello]

The Longbow Hunters - Arrow Music Notes 7x02

Oliver, Felicity, and Diggle are each searching for Diaz and the Longbow Hunters in their own ways, each struggling with their desire for justice in the face of hard decisions.

This week, there were a few returning themes but a lot of new ones.  The tricky part with new themes is knowing whether they are just there for one episode or whether they will last longer with greater significance.  I guess we shall see!

Oliver

Much of the soundscape remains the same for Oliver in prison.  Darker elements with low bass, percussive beats, clanging bars.  As he leaves confinement (for beating up the guy from last week), the guard reminds him that though some people believes he is a hero, they both know better: he is a criminal like everyone else in the prison.  As the scene progresses, a new three note motif repeats in the higher electric guitar in contrast to the lower strings.  It is a bit of light in the darkness...for we know Oliver is a hero even if they do not. 

There are two moments where the soundscape returns to the Hood/Green Arrow fighting music without using his actual themes.  One of these is the WWGAD moment as Oliver takes out the lights and uses a computer for information with Stanley along as a sidekick (for his first Green Arrow mission).  Throughout the past seven years, numerous repetitive string patterns within a scale play as Oliver and the team fight, looking for intel,often in dangerous situations.  This is a new pattern but still matches within Arrow soundscape along with low brass notes, percussion, and electric guitar.  He is back doing what he does best for the sake of his family.

The second moment is when he gets rid of the guard his own way.  Brick and company want him to kill the guard but Oliver searches for alternative ways to get rid of him.  Finally, Oliver confronts the guard and then sets him up by stabbing himself, blaming the guard.  As this happens, brass (often used to indicate heroes) punctuates the scene along with the percussion.  Oliver found a way to get remove the guard without killing him.  Elements of the hero are still there, trying to do what is right while doing anything to protect his family.

Diggle and Felicity

The team reunites for food and wince now that Felicity has reemerged from Witness Protection.  They catch up, share ideas, and toast for being back together and bringing down Diaz.  As they toast, strings and a higher electronic sound plays an altered beginning of “I forgot who I was.”  This rhythmic variation was used back for Moira and Oliver in “Never Without Me” (2x20), a flashback of Moira telling Oliver that she will always be with him.  This theme is used for family in Oliver’s life as lies often pull it apart but always seeking to put it back together.  This is another instance where Oliver’s theme is being transferred to Felicity: seeking to bring her family back together. 

(little disclaimer: there is a small possibility that they are just using the same first 5 notes in a scale in the same order and there is no significance.  But I like to think that there is) 

The higher electronic sound is one used much more frequently over the past three years for Felicity and Curtis when they are working on computers both together and separately (4x03 “Not a Playing Card”).  This instrument returns as they discover the Longbow Hunters have come to Star City.  Electronics have also become much frequently used as one of  Felicity’s instruments as Overwatch especially after her stint with Helix in Season 5.  These sounds play with strings as she begs John to let her help ARGUS find the Longbow Hunters.

Almost all of her musical elements are back as she hacks Interpol to Curtis’ dismay: fun strings, electronics, waterglasses but the melody is not the same one used over the seasons: “Two Felicities” (4x12).  While Felicity feels much more herself hacking and finding information, she is still dealing with a lot of hurt and frustration being unable to find the man responsible for Oliver being in prison and attacking herself and William.

Felicity and Diggle both search the Longbow Hunters’ lair at the same time making them both very frustrated with each other.  Diggle tells Felicity that her old life is over and she needs to accept that.  Felicity is hurt and upset that John seems to have given up on Oliver and ignoring the mission Oliver asked him to take over.  As they have this painful talk, a new string melody and chords play that are unusual in its dissonant nature.  The majority of heart-felt talks throughout Arrow are often accompanied by strings (or piano with Oliver) and the majority stays within a minor scale.  Major often sounds too happy for Arrow and melodies including chromatic half-steps, or tri-tones are often saved for Nanda Parbat or villains (such as Cupid or the Suicide Squad).  To have this dissonance in a melody between two close friends show how much things have changed in their views and also emphasizes how alone Felicity is starting to feel in her need to bring Diaz down.

In their next talk, Diggle explains why he chose not to be the Green Arrow over synthesizer pads and strings.  He saw the sacrifice it required from Oliver and Felicity and their family and did not want to put his family through that.  As he shares that he believes he is still honoring Oliver’s mission without the hood, Diggle’s motif (1x20 “No show”) in the horn plays.  It plays again as Felicity answers that she respects that decision but while Diaz is still out there, Oliver’s sacrifice will have been for nothing. The Diggle theme then plays twice as he waits for the Longbow Hunters on the train and then enters the train. 

While they were able to retrieve the battery weapon, Diaz got away.  Felicity recognizes that Diggle was honoring Oliver’s mission by keeping the world safer as piano (Oliver’s instrument) begins to play.  However, she needs to find someone who can fully focus on finding Diaz and leaves Diggle and Curtis with strings, piano, and water-glasses playing in the background.

At the end, it is revealed that Felicity turns to Samanda Watson and the FBI, calling her out for the deal that Oliver made, telling her that it is her turn to hold up her side by finding Diaz while guitar harmonics (Oliver’s instrument), percussion, and string patterns build up the tension, ending with the horn hero 1 theme.  This motif and music is often used for finishing an Arrow episode but it is also very much Oliver’s theme.  Felicity is taking up her husband’s mantle, not in a Green Hood and with arrows, but in finding justice and taking down Ricardo Diaz.

William and Roy flash-forwards

Roy and William catch up over a camp-fire with William telling Roy that Oliver and Felicity had abandoned him.  As he shares this, high electronics and strings reminiscent of “Someone You Love” (3x12) and “My Whole World Exploded” (4x08) play.  It is a sound of being left behind and the cost of those not loving you enough to tell the truth, to be with you.  A cello repetitive three note pattern begins as William reveals the GPS coordinates that went off in the hozen that led him to the Island and Roy.

Later on, Roy notices William was still around after telling him to go home.  William asks what happened with Thea and Roy shuts it down not wanting to talk about the past as his horn theme plays slowly (2x02 “Try Roy Try”).  William is persistent, insisting that the hozen led him to Roy.  Roy admits that he knows where that goes and they dig up a box/grave. As they open the box, music from the Arrow themes and instruments from the pilot plays: Oliver’s hero theme 1 in the horn, hammered dulcimer, guitar harmonics and electronics for Lian Yu.  This is clearly Oliver’s bow back on Lian Yu and now his son is picking it up.

Extra Notes:

-Diaz’s low string theme returns (first heard in 6x19) as Diggle begins to fight him on the train and then again as the train car is separated. 

-The Longbow Hunters and their theme were introduced in this episode with a high electronic theme, almost distorted.  The sound effect of the Silencer was very cool making it sound like everything was under water excepting some high held notes.

- One of the first intervals for the first Canary (Sara) and Dinah is an ascending 5th.  This appeared with different notes following as Black Siren intends to find Diaz and kill him, with Dinah right next to her trying to protect her.

- This review was my attempt at keeping things short.  LOL

- The Arrow soundtrack for Season 6 did not release this past week.  I don’t know when the new release day is but I will keep my eyes and ears open.

@ah-maa-zing @smoakmonster @mel-loves-all @scu11y22 @almondblossomme @green-arrows-of-karamel @herskirtsarentthatshort @academyofshipping @withgraceandlight99 @jorahandal @pulpklatura

[nikxation]

“How did you come prepared for this exact thing to happen?” With those good good Stan twins

Two years of adventuring on the Stan O War with Ford has, ifnothing else, taught Stan one important lesson: the only way to survive travellingwith his brother is to expect the unexpected.

That, and that there are very few places to hide coffeegrounds on a 40-foot boat where his brother can’t sniff them out.

Three spots total, and all of them temporary because thatman is practically a bloodhound whenit comes to his dark roast. It’s not Stan’s fault if he has to resort tostarving his brother’s caffeine addiction just to get some shut-eye. The man’ssleep schedule is already atrocious at best, and adding coffee to the mix onlyever makes things worse.

But that’s beside the point.

Exploring with Ford has been fun, probably some of the bestyears of his life if he’s being completely honest with himself (not that he’dever say that aloud). Between Ford’s stories and the assorted creatures and happeningsthey encounter, he’s found that most anything is possible.

He doesn’t know why he’s surprised when, right in the middleof exploring the hallways of some old abandoned warehouse that Ford had draggedhim to, everything suddenly goes completely dark.

It happens in an instant and without any warning, theflickering fluorescent lights overhead not even giving a single whine or pop asthey go out, drenching them in complete darkness. Stan sighs, turning backaround to where he knows Ford is, most likely still a few paces behind andpeeking in empty doorways.

“Hey Brainiac. I think your little generator finally died onus. Pass me a flashlight.”

No response. Stan shuffles a bit to the side, blindlyfeeling for the wall he knows is just a few feet away.

“Earth to Sixer. It’s dark, and you’ve got the flashlights.Come on, I’m practically blind here.”

Still no response. Not even a huff or grunt or the shuffleof feet on the dust-covered concrete. It’s silent.

“Ford, come on. This isn’t funny.”

He’s still shuffling to the side, feeling for a wall that heshould have realistically found by now. Whatthe—

“I swear if you jump up behind me, you’re gonna end up witha bloody nose, and you know I mean it. Where are you, Ford?”

He realizes for the first time how quiet everything suddenlyfeels, his voice not carrying the way it should in the deserted hallway, almostseeming to travel and die in the darkness, his shoes not even making a sound onthe ground.

He’s sure he’s gone a few feet to the side, and he stillhasn’t hit the wall.

“Ford?” His voice is a little louder this time, maybe a bitless sure. “You still there, buddy?”

If there was a wall, he’s sure he would have found it by now.

Stan has no idea what’s going on.

He’s sure Ford hadjust been a few paces behind him. After losing each other in those caves thatone time a year back, it’s become habitual for them to periodically check eachother’s locations, always keeping track of where the other is without everacknowledging it. Little things like listening for the other’s footsteps, idly chattingon and off, glancing back from time to time.

He knows Ford wasright behind him.

He’s given up on finding the wall, instead looking around inall directions and hoping to see something in the black surrounding him. Hiseyes have to adjust at some point, right? Eventually he’ll start seeing blobsof shape, right?

It’s almost tangible, how dark it is. The black only seemsto creep closer and closer with every second, reaching in from every directionand making him feel claustrophobic in a way he hasn’t felt in almost 40 years,locked up in some trunk in the middle of a desert, the air black and stifling—

“Ford?” he calls, cupping his hands around his mouth.“Sixer? Can you hear me?”

He’s not panicking. He can’t be panicking. It’s only been acouple minutes, and it’s just a little dark and Ford was definitely rightbehind him and should have heard him calling and damnit Sixer did you wander off and get yourself lost, did I get lost,why can’t I find a damn wall and why is it so dark what the hell is going—

“Stan! There you are!”

His heart slams violently in his chest, but he’s toorelieved to really care as he spins toward the voice just in time to see aflashlight flicker on…

From somewhere a few yards above him.

“What the hell?”

“Oh,” Ford says, the backscatter of the light in his handfaintly illuminating his face as they make eye contact. He looks vaguelyconfused, but not to the same extent that Stan himself is. Is he… floating? “Hold on. I’ll come down.”

“Come down from wh—?”

Stan can’t stop his mouth from falling open. Not when Fordstarts literally walking on air, hissteps sure and confident in the empty space way above Stan’s head, looping in acircle and coming down, as if he wasdescending some sort of invisible spiral staircase hidden in the surroundingdarkness.

Definitely notfloating, then.

“I’m dreaming or something, ain’t I? That’s what this has tobe.”

“No, I’m fairly certain that we’re awake,” Ford says, finallyon the same level as Stan and coming to a stop in front of him. He’s shiningthe flashlight down at their feet, endless darkness below them, its light onlyseeming to spread in the darkness, illuminating the both of them in a soft whiteglow. “Though I’d be the last to discourage you from checking for yourself. Imyself already did the finger-count check just to be sure.”

“Time check?” Stan asks, knowing that’s the one that usuallyhelps him in the midst of dreams (or nightmares). He glances down at hiswristwatch, angling against the glare of the flashlight on the watch face.

“Six-eighteen.”

“Six-nineteen,” Ford says in the same instant. Stan’seyebrows scrunch, sure that their watches were in-sync when they left the boatthis morning, but Ford doesn’t seem bothered by it. “Which makes sense, since Idid come in a bit after you did.”

“Come in what?”Stan asks. “Sixer, what the hell is going on?”

“We’re in a pocket universe.”

“A what now?”

“A pocket universe. A literal in-fold within the fabric ofspace-time, like a bubble still within our dimension but outside our universe,an existence between existences.”

“You act like what you’re saying makes sense.”

“It does, I promise. Now hold this for a minute.” Stan staggersslightly as Ford shoves his backpack rather unceremoniously into his hands (Ishe carrying rocks in here? Actually,dumb question, he probably is), tucking the flashlight between his shoulderand ear, unzipping the bag’s main pouch, and digging around inside. “Somethingto note while we’re in here: don’t set anything down. These things are known tobe temperamental, so assume anything you let go of you’ll never see again.”

“That’s notconcerning.”

“Only if you’re not an inanimate object and you don’t setanything down,” he says, still digging down into the bag. “These places arevery open to suggestion, so sentient beings can manipulate them to an extent,like how I walked down here or how you’re standing on nothing right now andbreathing air that doesn’t technically exist—”

“Are you trying to be comforting? Because you’re doing acrap job at it.”

“Comfort isn’t necessary. We’re perfectly safe,” he says,adjusting the flashlight on his shoulder to better angle into his bag as hecontinues searching. “You asked where we are, so I’m telling you. Now, back towhat I was saying before.”

“Here we go.”

“Classical physics don’t entirely apply here, so dependingon what kind of pocket universe you’re in, any non-sentient thing you let go ofcould float off into the ether or shrink down into the Quantum Realm or ceaseto exist entirely or anything in between. The pocket universes themselves areas infinite as any universe, but on a much smaller scale of perception. They’requite fascinating, really. I ended up stuck in my fair share of them while onthe other side of the portal.” He squints into the bag, almost seeming to begrudgethe thing for hiding whatever he’s looking for, before zipping the big pouchand moving to the smaller front pouch. “The most annoying thing about them isfiguring out how to get back out of them.”

“And there’s thecatch,” Stan says, glancing sarcastically to the side because, honestly, heshould have seen that coming. Nothing’sever easy. “Care to explain?”

“The rips in space into and out of these things areinvisible to the naked eye and are quite tricky to find,” he says. “They’reconstantly moving at random, so pinning one down is nearly impossible.”

“Is this the nerd way of saying we’re stuck?”

“Not at all,” Ford says. “Because I have…” he trails off,squinting into the bag again. “Hold on. I know it’s here somewhe—Ah-ha!” Hepulls something out, holding what looks to be a small silver tube up to Stan’sface triumphantly. “This.”

“The world’s shortest drinking straw?”

“It’s a semiportable transuniv… I’m sorry did you just callit a drinking straw?”

“I mean, that’s what it looks like.”

“This is an extremely sophisticated piece of technology froma dimension thousands of years ahead of our own. It’s leaps and bounds morecomplex than either of us will ever see the likes of replicated in thisdimension in our lifetimes.”

“Looks like a metal straw.”

“It’s not a…” he trails off, rubbing the bridge of his noseand sighing with such an intense exasperation that Stan can’t help but crack asmile. He takes a breath and holds the thing back up. “This is a semiportabletransuniversal rift and wormhole stabilizer.”

“That acronym literallyspells ‘straws’, Sixer.”

“It’s not a straw!”

“Yeesh okay okay,” Stan says, holding up his handsplacatingly. “It’s not a straw. Just, how is it gonna help us get out of here?”

“It’s capable of tearing through the weaker parts of thespace-time fabric and creating a miniature rift through which matter cantravel.”

“Seriously?”

“What?”

“How did you comeprepared for this exact thing to happen?”

“You know what they say,” he shrugs, pressing his thumbagainst one of the open ends of the straw stabilizer and jabbing it intothe air beside their heads in a stab-like motion. “Better to be transported toa random pocket universe and be prepared rather than wind up trapped inoblivion for the rest of eternity.”

“I can promise you that no one says that,” Stan says.

“Not in this dimension, maybe.” Ford peeks through the endof the tube without moving his hand and, seemingly satisfied with what he sees,yanks it downward. There’s a bright streak of light, the darkness seeming to tearand split as the air prickles with electricity, tasting like burning and ozonein the back of his throat. And then, when the smooth cut of light seems to besufficiently long, Ford jerks the tear to the side, ripping it open. Stanshields his eyes from to the sudden onslaught of light that pours into thedarkness, black spots dancing in his vision when he finally manages to get themopen again against the brightness.

The tear itself looks like exactly that: a tear. Thesurrounding black gives way to a clear view of the warehouse they were inminutes ago, everything exactly as it was before, the fluorescent lights stillflickering and reflecting off the cracked tile and concrete stone walls. Theedges of the rip itself are jagged and frayed like a torn rag, seeming toripple into and out of existence as Stan watches them, a small migraine formingin the back of his head the longer he stares. It would almost be mesmerizing ifit weren’t so… weird.

Weird and unsettling.

Stan doesn’t see what he does exactly, but, with it stillpartially inside the tear, Ford very purposefully fiddles with thetube/stabilizer/not-a-straw/thing, tapping the sides and ends in a verymethodical way. Almost in response, the tube grows another few inches longer,extending further into the rift. Then, as if proving it’s finished, the entiretube flashes bright white, the light fanning out across the tear and disappearingagainst the edges, spreading out like a ripple on the surface of a lake.

“Alright. We’re good to go,” Ford says, tossing the tubethrough the rift. It clatters on the tile on the other side, the sound muffledand distorted.

“This really doesn’t seem safe,” Stan says.

“Well, the alternative is staying here for the rest ofeternity,” Ford says, gesturing around to the utter darkness. “I’d like tothink the risk is the better option. Plus, I’ve had to use these a few timesbefore. They work pretty well. Feels weird when you go through, but I’ve onlyever had something go wrong once.”

“Sweet Moses, I don’t even want to know.”

“Oh, it was nothing extreme. I hadn’t fully activated thestabilizer and the rift just closed unexpectedly and cut my backpack in half.”

“Oh man, we’re gonna die.”

“I know how to use them now,Stanley.”

“That’s what you thought before.”

“Well now I know—”Ford cuts himself off with a groan. “You know what, I’m just going to…” BeforeStan can protest further, Ford steps forward, into the tear, passing through it.His whole body distorts slightly as he moves through, his feet stumblingslightly as he hits solid ground, but otherwise he’s fine, thankfully still inone piece. He turns around and gives Stan a pointed, triumphant look from theother side.

“Coming?” His voice is a bit garbled, but stillintelligible.

“You know, if that thing had closed, you woulda gotten me stuckhere forever.”

“Oh, stop being dramatic and hurry up, you old crybaby.”

“Rude.”

Stan takes that one step forward, and he couldn’t agree morewith Ford that this feels weird. Hecan feel the moment he passes through, like goosebumps going all the way throughhim. It’s a tangible sensation, one that makes his stomach churn a bit uncomfortably.But then his shoes hit tile, the ground a bit lower than he had anticipated andmaking him trip forward. A hand on his shoulder steadies him, though, stoppinghim from actually falling.

“See? Painless,” Ford says, smiling at him.

“More like unnatural.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“So, do we have to close this thing, or will it—” Stan turnsto look, but there’s nothing there. No gaping maw of blackness waiting toswallow up its next victim, no indication of any rip or tear in the universe.There’s absolutely nothing. Just the rest of the hallway that he had beenwalking down before all this happened.

Wait.

He squints, and sure enough, there’s a shimmer to the airwhere he just stepped through, something just off that he can barely make outif he really looks, like a blurred photograph.

“Okay, yeah, it’s still there,” Stan says. “Should we, Idon’t know, fix that?”

“Like I said, it’s a tear. There’s nothing we can do to fixit,” Ford tells him. “One this small is harmless in the grand scheme of things,and it’s not like it leads anywhere dangerous, and people can’t get stuck inthere anymore. I mean, it’s independent of time, so it’s always been here, evenbefore this exact moment in time. Odds are high that what you walked intoearlier is this exact tear. Though to have the warehouse built around it withno incident during its use would be improbable with it’s location being rightin the middle of a major hallway. Also, there’s the fact that we couldn’t getback, so it’s as if the tear was only partially existent? Wait, unless it’salso paradox-inducing, only coming into existence momentarily to trap us andallow us to create it—”

“Here, don’t forget your stabilizer-thing,” Stan says,scooping up the tube and shoving it into Ford’s hands, cutting off thenerd-babble. Ford gives it a cursory glance before handing it back.

“Oh, it’s useless now. They’re one-offs. Once they’re used,they’re no longer quantumly entangled and aren’t capable of piercing throughthe barrier—"

“Yeah yeah, can I have it then?”

“Why do you want it? It’s utterly useless now.”

“I need a new straw for one of my mugs.”

“You know, on second thought, it might be safer for you backin the pocket dimension.”

“Too bad. You had that chance and you missed it. You’restuck with me now.”

“Damn.”