#maybe be i will recreate the same painting some other day

[notanodinarygirl]

Here's a throwback to one of my paintings of Sabine from the Forces Of Destiny Timeline 😅.

And here is a comparison of it with my reference picture ⬇️

[sysmedsaresexist]

I've seen this question going around a fair bit to blogs that don't really give a good answer and I don't really want to interact with, SO

Let's talk 📣

Headspaces

Did you know that there was a point in time when inner worlds were largely confined to discussions of polyfragmentation and complex MPD?

I've posted before about the experiences of older systems before the internet, and this topic falls into that same boat-- back before maladaptive daydreaming was even a named concept (Eli Somer first wrote about MaDD in 2002).

So, to anyone worried:

Not having an inner world is NORMAL

In fact, for the longest time, it was the norm.

As such, there were techniques used to HELP clients develop an inner world in an attempt to learn to communicate with their alters.

And I'd like to share one of those with you! This technique could be useful to ANYONE still struggling to speak with system members, and gives you a basis from which to build an inner world.

The Round Table Communication Exercise

When I first started my journey, I had no communication with my system. We experienced heavy emotional intrusion from each other, maybe a whisper here or there, but that was it.

My therapist taught me this technique to use during our sessions and while I was going to sleep.

Essentially, you're meditating. Find a quiet place to relax (when going to bed it perfect), close your eyes, and imagine a table.

Start simple, nothing intense. Hold the image of the table in your mind. What is it made from? How many legs does it have? What colour is it? Is there anything on it? Etch this table into your mind. Every inch of it. Commit it to memory.

And now, set chairs at the table. How many are there? Are they the same material as the table? Are they comfortable or hard? Tall backs? Arms? Can you sit in the chair and lean your forearms on the table? Is it comfortable?

Invite others to come sit with you.

Maybe they won't show up the first day, but continue to invite them, continue to imagine that table and the chairs. Note any changes that occur to the table.

Once you're comfortable with the table, familiar with it, slowly look around the room. How many walls? What colour? Is there anything on the walls? What kind of vibe is the room giving you? Is it welcoming and relaxing? If it's not, imagine yourself changing the room. Straighten pictures, paint the walls.

Continue to visit this room and invite others to come talk.

Eventually, someone came to sit at the table with me. As we sat and spoke, I could start to envision his face, his hair, his voice, his clothes, I could hear him telling me his name.

And over time, more people joined us. More chairs appeared, knickknacks were scattered around the room and across the table, doors appeared along the walls.

We created a couch and a TV, to simulate fronting and imagine our interactions together.

Because that's all an inner world is-- an imaginary recreation to represent internal interactions.

There isn't some small pocket in your brain where everyone lives, you're not born with an inner world, it doesn't come free with your first alter's Xbox. An inner world can be as simple as being able to visualize an interaction, or an entire immersive daydream city.

One of my alters is very emotionally reactive, and when he's frustrated, he "flips the table." This visualization is something everyone in the system can see, it's the same feeling each time, and the reactions of each alter can be perfectly visualized as this table flips-- exhausted groans, facepalms, shooshpaps as he's whisked away to his room through one of the doors.

When we're fighting for front, we can see ourselves sitting on the couch in front of the television, fighting over the remote, or if we're co-con we can imagine ourselves sitting together on the couch. Maybe we're cuddled and happy, or maybe we're sitting there awkwardly, a solid inch between us where we refuse to brush arms.

Over time, the couch became bigger, and more of us could sit together, everyone aware of and watching the images on the screen of our life happening in real time. We could talk to each other about choices we were making.

Eventually, we could visualize ourselves talking it out rather than fighting. We were able to slam our hands down on the table before it could be flipped.

These visualizations are our basis of communication.

This is an inner world, even if it's nothing more than a room that I created myself.

I hope this exercise can help others.

Good luck, and happy daydreaming.

[luxuki-1]

Like I said I would, I'm going to go through the details I hid in my recent FNAF painting. Not because anyone asked, but because I want to and I'm proud of everything put in

1. Michael's design is my own! I've pretty much had the same concept for the design since SB came out. I just really liked the idea of having part of his jaw missing for no particular reason other than it looks cool. But, I have since moved the jaw gap to the other side, as well as defining scars and wrinkles.

2. I've already posted Golden Freddy but here he is again. I redrew the original poster since I really didn't feel like I just should just slap the original on there. Since I had that freedom now, I decided to make references in the design to later games since it is appearing as a hallucination(?) to Michael. Obviously there are blood stains around the mouth to reference The Bite of '83 and I also added tear stains to reference Evan/CC, said victim of the bite.

3. The classic "Celebrate!" poster. The same thing with Golden Freddy, I didn't feel like I should copy and paste the original so I drew it myself, but this time I only drew the bottom half of the crew since you'd only see that part anyway. Maybe one day I'll fully recreate the poster but for now, this is it lol (You may also notice that I gave each of them different leg shapes, to make them more distinguished from each other other than just colour)

4. And again, didn't want to just copy and paste, so I re-typed all of the newspaper clippings myself in Canva. They say pretty much the same thing as the originals, but I'll still put them here anyway in case anyone wants to take a look:

5. I also recreated the children's drawings myself. Fun fact: I actually used my NON-dominant hand to draw most the basic shapes. I figured that if I drew with my dominant hand, the lines might look too clean, showing my obvious years experience. It's silly but I really wanted it to look and feel like a child drew it

6. It ends up being pretty much invisible in the final painting, but on the floor you can see old confetti and blood stains on the tiles

7. If it wasn't obvious; cup from the Security office is here too

8. Now it should it obvious by now that I chose to not draw the security office. Why you ask? I'm still new to drawing more detailed backgrounds, and I really didn't feel like drawing the office in the moment lol so I opted for the hallway, and I think it still looks pretty good with what I was going for

9. As a bonus, here's the original sketch I planned out. As you can see, I was originally planning to have more posters, some featuring the missing children. But in the end, I decided to scrap it and leave room for the wall to be more detailed since I thought it looked bare. Also, if you look closely, you can see a faint plan for a shadow over Mike. I was originally planning to put a shadow of Freddy there, but when I really started finishing up the shading, I realised that the extra shadow would be too much for an already dimly lit scene

And that's pretty much everything! I had so much fun doing all the little details and references, even though it did end up being more time consuming lol. I also tried out a bunch of different rendering techniques and I think they really helped pulled everything together. I'm definitely going to try my hand and making more paintings like this in the future ^^

If interested in seeing the full process, here's a link to the speed-paint:

[idkiwasntsupposedtobebackhere]

what i would do if i was a gilmore girls writer:

april storyline:

i feel like instead of the april storyline liz could have given birth a bit earlier and and luke and lorelai would have to step in to help raise doula a lot. first of all we’d get to see them with a baby, which is cute. but there’s also a lot of room for conflict in deciding how to handle the situation. aka conflict that makes for good TV (”should we even have kids together if we can’t even do this?”, ”we have to make these decisions together, we’re getting married!” etc.) but isn’t life altering enough to ruin the couple. it also draws parallells to the jess storyline (which was a huge part of the earlier seasons), luke’s established family issues and his earlier disagreements with lorelai which makes luke’s character arc and the show as a whole more cohesive and satisfying. i could see this drama lasting for all of season 6. in the end because these characters have grown, they would actually figure it out somehow. and then they’d have season 7 to settle down and be happy. i actually do love april but they could have made her a young sheldon type of guest character at yale and paris could have developed a soft spot for her or something.

literati in season 3:

so i feel like they wanted to show us that this is rory’s bad boy phase. they made their relationship about dean a lot and most of the episodes centered around them were like ooooh jess did this sucky thing and dean never would have. and i get that maybe they needed to try something new and didn’t want to just recreate the boyfriend storyline with a new guy (aka see how he fits into her grandparents world, saying i love you for the first time etc). they already did the good stuff with dean so they decided to make this rory’s bad decision and only came up conflict to show us. but they didn’t even fully commit bc rory didn’t change with jess the way she did with logan. that was her bad boy phase, literati was always supposed to be something more. so instead of showing how bad of a couple this was compared to dean/rory, they could have drawn different parallels. because dean/rory was not a perfect relationship and they could have shown how in some ways why this is better for rory. what does she want? not her grandparents and not her mom. after all the buildup literati was the audience’s favorite and most anticipated couple, so i really think painting it as an unexpected but positive change of direction in rory’s journey would have been worthwhile.

like show us how when they go on dates they want to do the same things (as opposed to donna reed or rory just watching dean’s games). show us how they both want their alone time and them not calling each other every day because rory wants to study and jess has to work can be an OK thing (as opposed to the infamous 14 calls a day). show us how jess maybe doesn’t fit into lorelai and rory’s flow as well as dean did BUT how that’s also ok because rory is getting older and going off to college so this makes sense. but then also show us some god damn character development and lorelai and jess actually learning to get along (pls make that an entire episode’s storyline actually. have them be funny together and make it emotional). and show us nice scenes with luke, lorelai, rory and jess. where was all of this when they were dating??? nowhere to be seen. although i would have liked for luke not to kick jess out (i will make another post of how i would handle jess and luke’s relationship in season 3) i know it had to happen because milo had to leave. and i wouldn’t change major plot points like that because i like jess’ arc too much. but if they had shown everything i wrote here, literati’s realtionship would have canonically been stronger and jess would have at least told rory about not graduating and his dad showing up and why he felt like he had to go before he went.

dean cheating on lindsay with rory:

actually i would have had lindsay push him in the lake luke pushed jess in but oops plot twist, dean can’t swim

[bluepotion85]

Expanding Bootcamp - Chapter 5 (Male Wg Story)

Summary: Will and Connor are the last men standing unchanged on base and as they try to stay separated from the rest of the team, they start to feel the repercussions of sticking to their guns. The loneliness that comes with their predicaments makes them bite more than they can chew. will they crumble to their desires in the wish of fitting in? and will they see more than they are ready for in their desire for answers?  

(The following is a male weight gain fic. This is for the most part a slow burn deal)

A few days passed and I saw Carlos walking around base. I approached to try and invite him to train with us and was a bit spooked when I realized he was having a massive burger out on the way to one of his assignments.

“Hey Will, how is the day treating you? you saw the chow hall extended its serving hours and menu to cover for the demand?” - he asks before taking a massive bite of his burger.

I just watch pretending I don't see his uniform painted to him like a second skin. Some of the meat grease and ketchup lands on his shirt but he doesn't seem to notice or care.

After swallowing he continues “It was time, people are hungry at other hours, and living off of snacks is not optimal you know.”

“Oh of course” - I say trying to keep the conversation going and not to bring up the fact that one of the skinniest men I have met now is looking like Salazar a few days after landing here.

“So you wanted to tell me something?”

“Ah yeah, I wanted to check if you wanted to tag along with me and Connor for some training later today or tomorrow?”

“Thanks Will but I’m in a bulking cycle. I want to try and build some muscle and Bradley is guiding me on this new regimen. I think it's giving results already” -he says with a big smile and an air of smugness I haven't seen in a while.

“But thanks anyways, hey maybe you and Connor could tag along with us on the routine. You could do good with some mass.”

he grabs another bite of his burger and adds

“Or we could go to the recreation room, Hill has been getting better at the fighting games”

“Thanks, I will tell Connor and see what he thinks of the idea. See you soon”

During Dinner that night I told Connor about the conversation with Carlos. While I explain the situation, Carlos and Hill show up to the chow hall with some cadets and go straight to their table with the rest of the members of the Large and up team. They have completely stopped hanging out in meals with us and twins have integrated to their table as well.

Connor looks at me like he has just seen a ghost, after finishing my story he asks.

“Do you want to finish food somewhere else?”

We go out with our plates and have food in the benches by the field.

“I don't know Will, I feel like we are drifting away from the rest of the team”

A part of me feels partially responsible for this, Daniel just started hanging out with their group because I intervened, Carlos and Hill bailed out because we enabled Daniel’s conversations about the situation. I have to make sure we don't dwell into it though, at the end of the day we made our beds and we had to lay on them.

“They are happy Connor, I miss the company but I don't think either of us is looking forward to join their games”

“I know but that's also the thing, I'm not particularly comfortable with how they have changed”

“Do you mean for the eating competitions or because you are scared of ending up like them if you let go for a while?”

“You know it's not like that, I would never. . . We wouldn't get like that. It's just after all the effort we have put through to get along and to be top of our class”

he looks at me with a sad expression “Besides you, no one else seems to care enough to try and stick to the program. They all look so happy but they are also burning their work away. And it's all been so fast, I don't understand it. Is it bad of me to think this way”

“Connor, your world revolves around this. Not everyone is going to feel the same way. Carlos' parents are loaded, Bradley has a farm waiting for him at home. You know I need this for me and my family. They can enjoy their choices freely without much of a worry compared to us” - I take a pause and look directly into his blue eyes.

For Connor, who has placed his trust in the military and its people for his whole life, the idea of them plotting against us in this experiment represents destroying his world view. I know verbalizing his concerns right now is taking a lot from him. And even though I believe there is something going on now, I can't allow myself to push him deeper than he already is in his worries or fears. There will be time for that later, for now we have to stay together.

So, I add -“Regardless of what happens, we are getting to the end of this together ok?.”

“Ok Will, thanks” -he says with a smile.

We get both plates back to the chow hall where the group is now seeing who can make the loudest belch or something like that. We squirm out and go to the barracks, in the way there Connors middle grumbles. He signs and tells me his appetite has been on overdrive lately but every time he sees everyone else going to town during meals he tries to contain himself even more.

I try to console him and let him know that maybe it's because of everyone eating around us all the time, that a hearty meal tomorrow will fix him up.

A couple of days pass and Connor mentions how the food in the chow hall seems to be improving in taste, like the machine is adding more seasoning. I don't feel that much of a difference but agree with him just to keep the conversation lighthearted.

At this point Connor and I are the only ones not taking part in the team activities that have extended out of the meals for the day. Now you can see cadets eating full meals around the base while pulling their shirts down to cover their bellies. Others have food stains as the new badges of honor.

And for the biggest guys like Salazar and Bradely putting their size on display is more a power move than anything. They will belly clash as a greeting, compete on who can belch the loudest and even after getting bigger uniforms they start to go around base with open shirts to show their torsos. They go in groups shoulder to shoulder or resting their weight on others. They used to be teasy and playful but everyone seems to be more touchy nowadays.

One day while I get out of the waste disposal unit I catch Bradley and Salazar rough housing surrounded by some of their friends, after some laughs and pushes they start resting against one another. They bask in each other's size and stay like that for a while. I think I saw Salazar getting excited at the moment so I decided to move on, whatever happens I don't have to be a witness. They seem to be growing closer by the day and while Im happy to see them get along Im a bit worried they enable one another in their less stellar tendencies.

The field and gym feel like ghost towns while Connor and I train, and dust has started to gather in some places people have stopped showing up. We kept some hopes that Carlos, Hill or the twins would come back to train but as time passed the idea abandoned our heads.

To add insult to injury, a few days later I got assigned another shift in the watchtower. When I got to the top I found Carlos sleeping on the floor, his uniform was upgraded not too long ago to match his ever growing body. And yet it looked like it needed another upgrade now, his belly was resting all the way out, his shirt rolling all the way to his moobs. There were bar wrappers and other pieces of food all over the place.

Some cadets have started to ignore their tasks or do them half ass. Carlos sleeping on the floor covered in wrappers is a new mark. I helped him wake up. As soon as he is up he yawns and finishes blasting a belch on my face and asks me what time it is.

I immediately recoil, he starts to laugh like he just told the best joke in the last year. I told him the hour and that I came to continue with the patrol.

Before he can reply, Hill comes from the elevator with his arms filled to the brim with food, and half a hot dog hanging from his mouth with a chilled face.

“Hey Will, want some grub?” -Hill barely asks between munches

They explained the shift was for Hill and Carlos just tagged along, once they ran out of food Hill went for more and Carlos fell asleep waiting.

He started to stand up and his new pants ripped in the effort, he started to laugh and slapped his gut “I guess this big boy is ready for a new upgrade haha, If you excuse me Will I need some pants and to fill the tank”

Before I can argue they are getting in the elevator down.

Not too long after that Connor showed up to accompany me. Apparently he tried to play a movie in the recreation room to ignore his stomach begging for sustenance. But he got surprised by Salazar and Bradley while setting the player.

“They told me they wanted to watch the movie along with me and sit on the couch, I didn't want to look mean so I agreed. Before I could get a stool they grabbed me by the arm and pulled me in with them on the couch.”

I wince just thinking about it .

“I couldn't tell where my body started and where their bodies ended, Will those couches are supposed to be for 4 people and I was struggling for air between the two of them. I needed a shower after that movie. They were both sweating bullets just sitting there besides me, and of course I smelled like hell afterwards”

“That sucks dude, sorry to hear that”

“Even during the movie they started to eat the food from a snack box while I was fighting not to break the diet. Their bellies gurgle and vibrate with every piece of food and then belch like I wasn't even there. By the end of it all I had bits of food everywhere”

I was shocked by the description of the situation but I was trying to be nice so I tried to focus on something good from the situation -“Well at least you all hang out! Did you end up having anything to eat?”

“Apparently someone is filling the snack boxes with more than protein bars, they had pizza, fries and such. I tried Wil really but I was so hungry, so I caved in and had some.”

“Its ok Connor you also need to eat, this is no zombie movie you wont turn by having a pizza”

“Well I hope so, the gym at least looks like a zombie town haha”

He told me they watched some Scifi movie, when the movie was over he excused himself to have some food but instead went for a shower and then here.

We spent the rest of the night talking, around midnight one of the monitors in the watchtower started to blink. Apparently someone was walking around base.

When I looked through the visors I saw a figure entering the chow hall. I told Connor and we both went there as quietly as we could in the dead of night.

Once inside the hall we saw the light of the kitchen on, what we saw was a massive figure bent down on one of the fridges eating everything on sight.

“Who do you think it is? For that size it has to be one of the biggest cadets around even Salazar himself” -whisper Connor in my ear while we watched.

the man would grunt and moan while licking his finger and taking huge bites of everything. a can of cheese falled from the fridge and rolled and when the man moved to pick it up we saw it was Commander Parish.

Connor gasped and the commander looked in our direction like a praying beast. I covered Connors mouth and duck behind the wall that divides the kitchen and the hall.

We could hear the thuds of his steps as he moved toward us, he was just in the door frame, in the dark of the hall he didn't notice us a few meters to his right. I could see the same amber colored eyes that screamed at us on the first days of the experiment now wild looking for the source of the sound. But before he could notice us his belly roared and he mumbled “Ugh It must be my imagination”

We raised out of the chow hall and back to the tower.

“Well that explains why he doesn't go out of his office”-I say trying to make sense of what just happened.

“Oh sure it will be hard to teach by example when you are the size of fort knox!” -Connor shouts and tries to compose himself.

“Jokes aside, at least we know why he hasn't intervened lately, he would be a laughing stock if he tries to put us to training in his current state” -I add while I pace around the room.

“Yes but that doesn't explain how he left himself go so badly”

“He is human Connor, stuff like that happens.” -I reply not knowing if I'm saying that to convince him or myself.

“It's still weird that everyone has gone the same way in such a short time” -he looks to the ground and he holds his stomach.

I notice his middle is starting to look fuller but I don't think it is the kind of information he needs right now.

“Still hungry?” -I ask

“Is it too obvious?”- he said, looking at me with sadness in his eyes.

“Noo” -I get cut by his stomach that roars so loud there is no way to ignore. “ok maybe just a little”

He sits down on the floor and covers his face, I know he must be stressed by this so the empty stomach won't help. I'm not sure if what I'm doing is adding fire to the flames but I open the snack box and try to give him a protein bar.

He looks at it with anger but eventually subsides and he starts to eat it with a defeated look on his face, it doesn't last long though, once food has passed his lips he looks more calm. I sit beside him and we stay quietly for a while just making each other company.

At some point we both fall asleep.

I have a nightmare where everyone in the team is a zombie and I go up to the watchtower to take refuge. when I hear Connor screaming running toward the tower followed by a horde of zombies and asking for help.

Then I woke up. Connor is sleeping beside me with his head resting on my shoulder, and I feel something wet. This idiot is drooling all over me, before I could knock him out of his sleep I notice he is talking in his sleep.

“Yes mom I can have more stuffed potatoes, It's only been a few of them.”

This man was hungry for real, he was dreaming of food for gods sake.

For a second I'm taken back by him. His black hair has grown a bit since we got here,it's a little messy brushing on my side. His muscular body now covered with a thin layer of fat, the relaxed face on top of me. Resting like this together, makes me feel like the world has stopped moving and there is nothing to worry about.

I let him sleep for a few minutes, and then I got tired of his drooling ass and shake him into the land of the living. He wakes up a bit shocked that the stuffed potatoes are gone and I can only laugh.

We decided to cut the training for the day after the long night we had, once we got down the tower we went to have breakfast. I'm feeling rather hungry as well so we both get plentiful plates and sit down.

The food today tastes divine and Connor looks so pleased to have a full plate of food after days of abstinence. Once we are out of the chow hall we get started on our assignments. Since most of the base has gone laze mode we run over all the facilities and divide cleaning for the week.

Even while we try to ignore the situation for the time being, we agree to continue our runs and weight training. I can't deny that during the runs Connor takes a few more pauses than before. He shrugs it off like nothing happens and I choose not to make too much of it. But I can't deny the shine of sweat saturating his shirt makes it stick to his body, showing how it has grown.

During our weight training he opened the snack boxes and takes protein bars here and there. I was happy to see him less stressed but I also felt like telling him about his increased intake in those wasn't a good move. But I decided to stay quiet.

During Lunch we saw the casual shenanigans of the now rest of the cadets, a full display of gluttony. People ripping through their clothes, belching like there is no tomorrow and eating everything on sight.  

We got our food and sat. Connor had a rather big plate but an even bigger smile while taking forkfuls of pasta and chicken. I was a bit spooked by the idea of him also gaining weight and getting punished like everyone else when this experiment was over.

But I couldn't bear to see him scared and stressed like the last few days. So I sipped it.

Besides, the food had a great quality improvement. I don't know what they have been doing with the ingredients but it tastes way better.

The days pass and for the first time in a while I wake up first than anyone in our barracks. At this point waking up earlier than most is expected. Most of them are a happy snoring mess during the mornings. But I woke up earlier than Connor who is soundly sleeping in his bed besides mine.

It's weird to see him not being the first to run out of the barracks for training, but besides a more relaxed outlook I tried to convince myself he is still himself and nothing is going on. Then I get interrupted by my own gut gurgling for sustenance.

After waking up Connor and I go to have breakfast, we start to eat and slowly but surely the cadets start to fill the chow hall and the rowdiness of the day starts. The size difference of some of our team members is more than obvious. Open shirts, oversized pants and missing buttons are the standard of the group. Some of the cadets are having a waddle while they find their seats and others are starting to get used to their thighs rubbing together while they walk.

“Well its official we are the only two cadets not eating with Salazar and the rest of the team” -Connor point out while he drinks some orange juice.

I look towards the table again and I see everyone laughing and shouting while they eat and a part of me craves the company, my stomach grumbles and I continue to eat ignoring the inherent loneliness of the situation. Then Connor punches me in the arm and smiles

“Hey mate, cheer up. we don't need them. We have each other” -he said.

I can feel my face warm up a bit in part because he read right through, and I must have those sad puppy eyes I get at times. And secondly because he is right, I'm ok as long as I'm with him but I didn't realize how much I needed to hear it from him.  

“Yes, we do. I'm still thinking about what's going on though. I've been thinking about something but I don't know if its a good idea”

“Sure tell me what's on your mind?”

“You remember when I went to see the doctor a while back? I saw he has our records, If anything weird is going on he would be writing it down there don't you think?"

“Yes it's possible, Most people here have gone to the infirmary at least once or twice. But we can't ask Dr. Donovan for everyone's records, that's kind of illegal”

“I know, but if what I'm thinking is right then I have a way to distract the doctor. One of us could get into his office with the files and see if there is anything wrong going on”

“I dont think thats the best idea Will, if we get caught it could be career ending” -he says while licking his fingers from the garlic bread he was eating.

I see the rest of the cadets rowdy eating at Salazar’s table and Connor in front of me licking his fingers like nobody's business. All I can think of is I need to find out what's going on and If there is a way to stop it before it's too long. Of course I have to downplay it as much as I can to convince Connor to help me, I can trust anybody else to join me on this.

“It's ok, the doctor is pretty chill. Even if he find us I don't think he would report us”

Connor thinks for a second about it and signs “Ok What's the plan, but if this gets out of hand you won't hear the end of it from me Will” -he says looking worried

“Come on Connor we are the best team in this base, we will do just great!”

His expression softens and the memory of our drills makes him smile again.

“You know what, you are right. Let's show whoever is behind this what we can do”

The next day we get our plan in action.

I wait outside the infirmary, the cubicles that surround the main space of the building have windows looking toward the main field. I crouch under an open window in the cubicle closest to his office.

Connor enters the building and knocks on the doctors office, he is supposed to pretend to be feeling bad and start to faint. Connor has grown a bit and the doctor would move him to the nearest cubicle. Once I'm sure the coast is clear I will move to his office and pick at the archive lock. Read the reports of Salazar or one of his group and get out.

They take longer than I expect but since Connor is bigger I Imagine the doctor is struggling to carry him to the cubicle. I can hear through the window when they manage to get there.

“Come on connor just a few steps there, Jesus you are heavier than I remember”

I know Connor won't be happy about the remark but it's not a lie.

Connor hits the bed and the doctor starts looking for equipment to evaluate what's going on. I get started and enter the building as quietly as I can. Once I'm in the corner of their cubicle I take out a mirror to see what's going on inside the room without entering.

What I see is a massive doctor, No wonder he was having issues carrying Connor. His hips have grown to great tree trunks rubbing against one another. His robe is open and his scrub underneath is busting on the sides as he checks Connors airways.

I realize he has his back facing me and I run for it. I enter the office and get to the archive.

The storage at the base has a lot of things useful for training sessions and individual skill development but the one thing I wanted was a key picking kit. I swiftly open the lock in the archive and open it slowly not to make noise.

The files of all bases are here and I start looking for Salazar. With his file at my hands I start to get ideas running in my head, what if we have a weird disease, or if they are trying to test chemicals in the protein bars or a super additive in the food. Any discovery could be recorded here.

Once I open it, It's mostly blank after our check up. Salazar came for an antacid at the first days of bootcamp and gained some weight but aside from that nothing.

I put his file back in place and looked for Bradley, he came looking for a pain killer after overexerting at the gym early on but nothing afterwards.

Connor, Carlos, Hill, Neil, the twins, and nothing. I look through my file and there's nothing I didn't know about by this point.

I'm getting angry and the weight of my stupid idea weighs on me. I'm putting my best friends and my livelihood in danger for the sake of a random sense of fear, in god knows what conspiracy theory.

I put everything back in order. I get out of the doctor's office and rest in the corner of the door to the cubicle where he is attending Connor. With the mirror in place to see inside, the first thing I see is the doctor reading his record walking directly towards the door and Connor looks at me with shock in his eyes.

I start to think where to run and Connor shouts “Wait!”

We both look at him and he starts to look for his bag “I brought some treats from the chow hall, take one as a thanks you gift”

While the doctor looks at Connor with delight I run for the chance and get out the building. As I get behind the window outside their cubicle I can hear the doctor ravenously eating the food Connor brough, not even waiting for him to leave.

“Thanks for the snack Connor, that really hit the spot” he said accentuated with a belch

“You seem to be in perfect condition, maybe you were just weak. Did you have a good lunch today? Not that you seem to be on a diet haha”

I could already imagine the barrating Connor will give me once he realizes this was for nothing. Putting him through this for empty papers is such a shame.

Once we reunite outside I Tell him what I found and instead of ripping my head off like I deserve he looks at me with a tender smile and says

“I'm happy in a sense that we found nothing Will. It means we are ok”

My chest heart sinks and goes all the way back to my neck in an instant, first I think how could I deserve so much understanding and then I realize I'm lucky to have him as a friend.

“Thanks for understanding Connor, I won't get us in a situation like that again”

We continue our day as usual and try to forget what happened.

Another week passes and most of the cadets have stopped doing their assignments, we first noticed when dust gathered in places we didn't clean ourselves during the day. After some consideration we both agreed to try and cover the most tasks per day, to make sure everything runned smoothly. But we start to get stretched thin so we decide to split up to cover the full camp each day.

At times I see Connor cleaning around in his side of camp and see him sneakily having protein bars and other snacks and throwing the evidence so nobody notices but the tightness in his pants is the biggest red flag so far. His belly has grown in the past few days and his uniform is not fitting as well. Everytime his shirt climbs up his belly he gets red as a tomato and he pulls it back down.

While I do my part of the work I have also noticed that people are being more than affective, I catch some cadets kissing or groping one another in the storage, people uniting beds during the day and cuddling, and during one of my cleaning sessions I saw a stain that made me realize I was cleaning a previous sex scene.

Bradley and Salazar are definitely doing something more romantic, while cleaning one of the hallways I see them entering the barracks while everyone is in the recreation room. I try to pick inside and see what they are doing and what I found is them eating each other's faces for dear life, discarding items of clothing as they continue. I get back into the hall and go as far away from them as I can.

When I tell Connor about it he is appalled by the notion of someone doing that in the barracks and wondering if they cleaned after they finished, but I was surprised that he didn't complain about sex in the middle of a military camp.

The days pass and Connor is eating more and more during meals with the excuse of training extra hard in our sessions. But we are slowly struggling with them; Connor keeps asking for a minute to catch his breath. He is obviously embarrassed, and I try to reassure him I'm also tired, at the start I was just trying to keep him comfortable but now I'm also struggling to keep my breath while running.

I start to notice that Connor is also becoming more physical, he puts his arm around me when we walk around base, puts his leg on top of mine when we sit around and over all gets closer to me wherever the opportunity arises. It's a bit uncharacteristic of him and whenever I ask he rubs it off as just being friendly. To be honest I won't complain of the extra attention, and if it helps him feel comfortable I won't make a big deal out of it.

Being so close to him has made obvious just how often he gets hungry. If I don't hear his belly rumbling, I will feel it when I'm under his arm walking around. He gets embarrassed by it but he continues to do it every other time.

I'm not faring much better myself in the food department. At the start I was trying to fight my increasing hunger like Connor, by cutting on meals but it's not showing much progress either. I'm noticing my belly also expanding and it's getting in my head. The one consolation I have is that Connor and I are still the same as always, the weight is only expected with so much food around. Or I tell myself as much to keep the anxiety to a minimum.

At the end of the week I'm finishing doing some maintenance in the energy generator, when I get out of the building I catch a glimpse of some cadets walking towards the gym. They are talking and originally I didn't pay too much attention till one of them said.

“I'm sure this week will be great. Everyone’s been working for this”

I think for a moment that they are planning something that could explain what's going on and for a moment special agent William Kent is back in the case. I follow them at a safe distance till they get in the gym. I look inside and everyone is in a massive group forming a semi circle around the gym’s scale. Leaving an opening in the center where I can see what's going on.

I wait for them to take action, and suddenly the lights turn off. Some of them light candles around the circle and Salazar and Bradley show up. They get to the center of the circle and say

“Welcome everyone, we thank you for coming for our little celebration today” -Says Salazar with so much bravado in his voice

“Today we see who is the greatest of us all. I know some of you have things to do, games to play and food to eat so, let's get this party started! ”- adds Bradley

People cheer and shout as they get ready to start what I can only assume is a ritual of some sorts. My ideas of satanic rituals go out the fucking window as soon as Salazar steps in the scale and everyone gets quiet.

After a few seconds the scale beeps and it says “Error”

Everyone goes crazy shouting error error like they found el dorado. The scales in the base have a weight limit of 400 pounds, so that means Salazar managed to gain over that mark. I'm speechless with the oddness of this situation, but before I can process what's going on Bradley gets in front of the scale.

Salazar looks at him with hungry eyes and kisses him in front of everyone, the crowd howlers while they go and with a little bite on the lips Salazar tells Bradley “Try to pass that fat boy”

He slaps his gut and moves away so Bradley can enjoy the stage. He stands on the scale and waits for a few seconds and the scale beeps. What it says is “Error”

The cadets go even louder screaming Error. They all laugh and applaud Salazar and Bradley as heroes.

“Ok everyone, let's celebrate we crashed that stupid scale, and get everyone to the same weight and beyond” -Says Bradley while I run out of there.

When I find Connor and tell him what happened his face loses all color but quickly, he looks puzzle and asks.

“Ok that means they are actively encouraging one another?” -he asks.

“I guess, it doesn't explain the speed in which everyone has tag along. I can imagine some of them been into the idea but all camp?”-I reply looking lost for words.

“It begins to explain how those who have . . .grown, or at least ignore the issue. Salazar and his team just encourage them to keep going but it doesn't explain how the twins or Carlos and Hill got into it”

“I guess we could say we have a part into that right?"

"Yeah, but even so. None of them were into this mindset before Camp Celsus, so what's making them act like this?”

We ponder ideas for hours, from hypnosis to subliminal messages to chemicals in the food but nothing sounded . . . reasonable. So, we cut our losses and went back to the original plan, trying to remain strong till this was over. Just hoping we can fit through the door before that happens.

The growth at base continues and our guys are still trying to figure out what's going on? Some of the scenes in this chapter are my favorites in the story so let me know what you think of them!

Thanks again for all the support and nice comments!

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[morningberriesao3]

MWMD- Pin Me Down

Steve Harrington X Virgin!Eddie Munson

Summary: It's Halloween. Things get heated while Eddie and Steve get ready.

Word Count: 4.7K

Chapter: 5 of 6 CHAPTER LIST

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Content Warnings: Explicit m/m sexual content including… Virgin Eddie Munson, Dry Humping, Coming Untouched, Coming in Pants, Minor Crossdressing (ahem, EDDIE WEARS A G-STRING), Oh no they’re both tops?! what will they do!!?!, Top Steve Harrington, Power Bottom Eddie Munson, Blow Jobs, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Nipple Clamps, Under-Negotiated Kink, Unsafe Sex, Creampie. Underage Drinking and Recreational Drug Use

Tags: Eddie Munson lives, 5 + 1 Things, slow burn, POV Eddie Munson, Gay Eddie Munson, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Slow Burn, Sexual Tension, Caretaking, Massages, Sharing a Bed, House Party, Play Flighting, Bros Being Bros (JK it’s very homoerotic), Halloween, Boys in Makeup, Independence Day, New Years Eve, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending

Many Ways, Many Days, to Say ‘I Love You’

A/N: things are starting to heat up ;) just guys doing guy things!! that’s all!

October 31st, 1986

Halloween has always been Eddie’s favourite holiday.

Maybe it’s a little bit predictable, given his ‘scary’ image and the rumours of him being some satanist cult leader. But it’s a holiday where everyone is kind of on the same level as him. Everyone acts a little weird, looks a little scary, dresses a little dark. It’s the one day a year that nobody is ashamed of listening to Highway to Hell or Paranoid. On Halloween, everybody is a bit of a freak.

Honestly, Eddie has never really considered himself a team player, but this year his costume seems too good to pass up.

Maybe he’s gone a bit overboard, but he always does when it comes to costumes.

He’s currently adjusting a pair of (pretty realistic) devil horns on his head. The band gets hidden by his mane of curls, which he’s teased to make sure they stay extra buoyant. He’s wearing his only pair of leather pants that are a size too small because he got them when he was sixteen. They cling to his thighs like paint, he can barely bend his knees. But they look good, he thinks.

He’s also wearing a pair of platform boots that are wrapped in silver buckles. He got them one year when he dressed up as Gene Simmons from KISS. They’re probably six inches tall, which makes him a whopping 6’4”, and it makes him feel admittedly all too powerful.

One might think that the leather pants and the boots are what makes his costume a bit too much. But no, Eddie doesn’t think so. What he thinks might make his costume too much, is what he’s chosen to wear on his top half.

It’s a fishnet shirt that took him nearly twenty minutes to put on. It kept getting caught up on his watch and his rings, which he probably should have taken off. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. It has long sleeves, because he’s modest, but one can still see all his tattoos and his ruined skin poking out from between the large holes.

That’s not even the most risqué part of his getup. Because overtop of that, he’s wearing a red corset with black embroidery. It sinches in his waist – makes him look slutty. The top sits underneath his chest, so his nipple (because he still very much only has one) peaks out from behind the mesh.

The best part is, it’s freshly pierced. A little silver bar pokes from his skin and shines in the light, and it matches the buckles on his boots. And for once Eddie actually feels hot.

Steve is currently changing in their room. Eddie is feeling all fucked up and giddy, because somehow he’s convinced Steve to dress as an angel to match him, and not to dress up as a Smurf to match Robin. Of course, considering his other option was blue body paint, it wasn’t a very hard argument, but Eddie still counts it as a win.

He doesn’t want to consider it a couple’s costume, but it feels like a couple’s costume.

Eddie’s been trying (and failing, as always) to keep his mind from wandering to things like that, ever since their little kissing thing months ago. Because they never talked about it, and they sure as Hell never did anything like it again. Even the few times they’ve gotten tipsy.

So Eddie is guessing it really was just a spin the bottle thing.

Yeah, Steve’s still been sleeping in his bed, they still wake up tanged together half the time, but it never goes further than that. He hasn’t, like, intentionally spooned with Eddie since the night of Fourth of July either. Which shouldn’t shock him because Steve’s straight, and Eddie thinks it’s ridiculous that he even has to convince himself of that.

So yeah, Steve is getting ready in their room while Eddie does his makeup in the bathroom, and he definitely isn’t thinking about couple’s costumes or kisses from three months ago.

There’s a knock at the bathroom door that was never fully closed to begin with. Steve doesn’t wait for Eddie to answer before he’s pushing it open and joining him next to the small vanity.

Steve looks – well, shit – he looks like a dessert, like something sweet that Eddie wants to lick and swallow and consume until there’s nothing left of him. His hair is perfect – it always is – but now there’s a silver tinsel halo that’s floating above it. Steve’s wearing his normal Levi’s because they really didn’t have a lot of pants to choose from, but he stole a white silk blouse from his mother’s closet that’s only half-buttoned, displaying his chest hair like it’s art or something. The arms are cut for a woman, so the shiny fabric is clinging to his biceps.

Eddie drops the eyeshadow in his hands and it clatters into the sink.

They’re both gawking at each other, and it doesn’t make sense why Steve is gawking at Eddie until he remembers he’s kinda half crossdressing, so he probably looks ridiculous to Steve.

He tries to swallow down the saliva that’s pooling under his tongue. Some sort of bodily reaction to something he wants to eat. “You look, uh, good. Real cool.”

Steve’s eyes aren’t looking at Eddie’s and are focused somewhere on his chest. His nipple, to be exact. It looks like it takes an actual force to pry them away. “Yeah. You too. Very cool. Your makeup is awesome, man.”

Eddie smiles, picks up the eyeshadow that’s still in the sink. He has some sort of grungy red and black smoky eye going on, lined in coal liner, and just a secret between you and him, a bit of mascara as well. He used the red eyeshadow as a sort of blush, blended into the hallow of his cheeks and into his temples. It makes his cheekbones look sharp.

“Thanks,” he says, eyeing up Steve like a project he wants to work on. “You know, a bit of makeup would really complete your whole getup, too.”

He expects Steve to scoff, say something like ‘forget it’ or ‘in your dreams’, but instead Steve is nodding and stepping closer to Eddie. “Sure. You have to do it, though. I don’t know how.”

Eddie has never – not once – thought that putting makeup on Steve might be a sexual fantasy of his. But as soon as he hears that, he realises very quickly that it’s going to be another thing that plagues his mind for the rest of eternity.

“Oh. Yeah, sure. Okay.” He fumbles with his makeup kit, which he might be embarrassed he has, but Steve isn’t judging him and doesn’t look like he’s about to, so he opens it and lets Steve peer inside. There are cheap eyeshadows in mostly blacks and browns, but he does have one sheer, sparkly white. He takes that one out. He also has two lipsticks – a red and a black, from previous Halloweens – but neither of them would do. One, however, came with a free pink lip gloss that he never thought he’d use, but he’s plucking it out of his case as well. “Something sweet and simple for your first time, right, angel?”

Eddie doesn’t even have to put blush on Steve’s cheeks if he flushes like that all night. “Sure. Sweet and simple. You’re the boss.”

Eddie’s stomach, and heart, and asshole, and dick(?) are doing backflips as he gets nice and close to Steve. He takes a clean(ish) brush and dips it into the eyeshadow. “Okay. Close your eyes.”

Steve listens so beautifully, his eyes flutter shut and he leans into Eddie. The brush sweeps over his eyelids and leaves a shimmering cast of pearly white that looks amazing against Steve’s olive skin. When Steve’s eyes open again, he looks impossibly more beautiful, and yeah, Eddie is going to be thinking about Steve in makeup for the rest of his life.

“How’s it look?” asks Steve, which is the dumbest question Eddie has ever heard, so he rolls his eyes.

“It looks great.” An understatement.

“What next?”

“You cool with mascara?” Eddie wants to get Steve’s eyes looking all big a doe-like. He already has long lashes, so he knows it’ll absolutely make him look gorgeous and end Eddie’s whole life all at once.

“What’s mascara?”

“Like… eyelashes.”

“Yeah. Do whatever you want to me.”

Eddie chokes on nothing, starts coughing up a storm. He holds a finger up until it calms, then blames it on his smoker’s lungs.

It’s hard getting close to Steve’s eye with the wand, but Eddie can’t blame him. It’s not like Eddie isn’t already super clumsy without the proximity. He still says, “Hold still,” and Steve keeps blinking so it takes a whole five minutes, but eventually the mascara is on. And if Eddie thought that the eyeshadow looked good…

“Cool.” Eddie stares down at where Steve is blinking up at him from sitting on the edge of the tub. He has to physically shake his head to snap himself out of his stupor. “One more thing.”

He unwraps the plastic from the new tube of lip gloss. It’s almost the colour of Steve’s lips, but it has little flecks of glitter in it. So when Eddie applies it, it makes his lips shine, which is what lip gloss is supposed to do, but still it’s almost too much.

“Well?” Steve smiles, and it’s almost enough to send Eddie into a full cardiac arrest. It’s the smile he uses when he knows he looks good, the one he usually reserves for some cute girl that stops by the video store. It’s a little crooked, it flashes his white teeth and makes his eyes crinkle.

And Eddie wants to kiss him – lick that vanilla flavoured gloss right off his lips. Make that mascara run from his eyes.

“Looks good,” he says. He gestures for Steve to stand and that’s exactly what he does, joining Eddie’s side to look at himself in his uncle’s trailer’s mirror.

“Wow.” Steve gets real close to his reflection, squinting his eyes, making them go wide, puckering his lips, poking at his eyelashes with his fingers. “This is crazy. It’s, like, barely noticeable, but it’s still so different.”

“Mhm. You look pretty.” Eddie says it before he really means to say it, which he does a lot these days. He clears the frog from his throat. “I mean, kind of like a girl? Not that you look like a girl. You? Look like a girl? Pfft, never. I mean, girls wear lip gloss and mascara… and it makes them look pretty. So it’s kind of like that.”

He definitely just made it worse.

But Steve doesn’t look mad or anything so Eddie just kind of sucks his lips between his teeth to stop himself from saying anything else.

“Yeah, I guess I get it,” Steve says, even though he still looks confused. “Hey, can I carry the lip stuff with me? I feel like it’ll rub off quick when I drink something.”

“Oh, you mean the lip gloss?” Eddie dangles it between his fingers. “Gotta get the terminology right. You might be able to impress some ladies with your knowledge of their interests.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Lip gloss. Can I have it?”

“Hmm…” Eddie starts backing out of the bathroom with the gloss still very much in his hands. “You’ll have to get it from me first.”

He turns. He sprints. Steve is already hot on his heels.

Another thing that Eddie should probably mention, is that this has become a sort of regular occurrence. Him running, Steve chasing. Sometimes the other way around. But yeah, it’s a thing that they do now, that always ends with one of them getting knocked to the ground, pinned there until they yell uncle.

Eddie really wouldn’t yell uncle, but each time he gets pressed into the ground by Steve he gets one of his commonly occurring boners. So when he starts to feel his dick filling up he taps out so Steve doesn’t notice. But that’s neither here nor there.

“Get back here, Munson!” Steve’s fingers graze the back of Eddie’s pants, but there’s no belt there for him to slip his fingers into.

So Eddie twists and gets out of Steve’s reach. He corners himself in the living room, next to the television. They’re standing across from each other with their hands facing out. “What, Harrington? You scared?”

Eddie fakes left, Steve lunges. He manages to slip past on the right as Steve flounders to get a hold of him, but Eddie is too quick. He jumps onto the couch.

Steve crouches just beyond the coffee table, waiting for Eddie’s next move. “Not fair, man. Your pants make you slippery.”

“Bullshit,” says Eddie. “That fancy lotion you put on your hands makes them slippery. Don’t blame the pants.”

Steve pretends to pounce – it makes Eddie wobble on the sinking cushions of the sofa while he simultaneously tries to balance on his platform boots. His hands flail out to steady himself, but he manages to stay firmly planted on his feet.

“Just surrender yourself, man,” Steve threatens. “I’m not playing around anymore. I will tackle you. It will hurt.”

Eddie’s grin feels feral. “Is that a promise, Steeevie?”

Steve’s eyes go wild, and his face twists into a playful sneer, and he fucking jumps one foot onto the coffee table and flies across the remaining distance onto the couch. This, for once, takes Eddie by surprise, so he has no time to do anything other than wail some sort of shriek from his lungs. His foot gets caught between two couch cushions as Steve’s arms cage around his shoulders, and they both tumble onto their sides.

Eddie thrashes against Steve’s steel grip, but Steve has both size and strength against him, so he somehow get arranged into a compromising position. He’s on his back, his wrists are pinned down on either side of his head, his knees are spread and Steve’s hips are slotted between them. Each time he shuffles, he somehow gets pressed further into the cushions, Steve’s chest somehow gets closer to his own, his hips wiggle a bit more comfortably into the space between his legs.

He's already turned on. There’s way too much friction happening right now – he can feel the slide of Steve’s jeans against him – and remember how Eddie said he often gets hard when he and Steve playfight? Well, he’s getting hard, and it’s extra uncomfortable because his pants are excruciatingly tight, and Steve’s never quite pinned him down like this. Not to mention how goddamn pretty he looks with his shiny lips and long eyelashes.

So he’s about to say uncle before he can get himself into an awkward situation. He’s about to tell Steve to fuck off, and spout something about disadvantages. But when he opens his mouth, Steve shifts so both of Eddie’s wrists are now in one of his hands, until they’re pinned between his devil horns.

Steve’s other hand finds its way between their bodies, and one of his fingers trace against the black boning at the top of Eddie’s corset, right below one of his pecs. So his mouth snaps shut and his eyes go wide, because why is Steve caressing him like that?

He really wants to know.

“Where’d you get this?” Steve asks, cocking his head sideways to look into Eddie’s shell-shocked face.

It takes a minute for him to comprehend Steve’s words. “Uh – a sex store.”

He doesn’t really realise that his answer is just adding to the awkwardness of the moment, because it’s just the simple truth. He bought the corset at a sex shop in Indianapolis. It came with a tiny black G-string, obviously meant for a woman, that he’d tried on anyway. It didn’t really fit, didn’t really contain all of him, but it was still shoved in the back of his underwear drawer anyway. It still made him feel all fluttery when he saw himself scantily clad in such a small scrap of fabric.

“Hmm. I like it.” Steve squeezes his hand around Eddie’s wrists. “Did you get anything else there?”

Eddie’s heart is racing in his chest, like it’s trying to escape. He’s trying to think, ‘did he?’ but his brain is broken. So he just shakes his head.

This is the first time that Eddie clues into their situation – really clues into it. Everything up until this point has been explainable. Weird, sure, but there was always some sort of excuse that could clear away the tension. But Steve has that fuck me look in his eyes, his body is boring down into Eddie’s, his fingers are exploring his costume and his face is fucking inches away.

“That’s too bad. Maybe you can take me there sometime, and we can change that.”

This time Eddie nods. Real words still evade him. What is English? He doesn’t know.

But Steve shifts down on him again and their crotches rub together. And Eddie whimpers. His lips pop open and the noise escapes him before he can hold it in, and he whimpers. He wants to fucking die but he also wants Steve to do that again.

And he does.

Steve drags his body against Eddie’s, this time intentionally, experimentally, and Eddie’s eyes roll into the back of his skull, and he bites down onto his lip to stop himself from making another embarrassing noise but it doesn’t really help.

He wants to say something to save the situation, just in case he’s reading it wrong. Just so he doesn’t incriminate himself. But he even more desperately wants whatever is happening to continue, so he averts his eyes from Steve’s and says nothing.

But Steve doesn’t allow that for too long. His free hand forces Eddie’s face back to his.

“You okay?” he asks. Eddie swallows, and nods once more, and still doesn’t say a word. Steve bears down on Eddie further, pressing his wrists and his back into the cushions. “Are you gonna say uncle?”

Steve thrusts against Eddie, and this time his breath hitches in his throat like he’s enjoying it, like he knows Eddie’s enjoying it, like that’s the goal. This time Eddie’s pelvis angles upwards and he chases the feeling. When Steve moves on top of him again, he can feel that Steve is hard, too. So he says, “No.”

He’s felt Steve half hard before, in the night when he’s sleeping. Those times were different. It wasn’t while they were both awake, it wasn’t while they were both aware. It wasn’t while they were rutting against each other like animals in heat. And Eddie was so wildly confused, but even more than that he was ravenous with desire.

Steve’s grip loosens around his wrists, his hands trail lower on Eddie’s body until they squeeze into his hips and shove him into the couch. His hips begin to circle into Eddie’s. This absolutely cannot be construed as anything other than what it is: Steve is also turned on and he knows Eddie is turned on, and they’re very much humping against each other.

“Say uncle and I’ll stop,” Steve says lowly into Eddie’s ear, and Eddie has never shut his mouth so quickly, because there was no way he was going to say uncle, there was no way he wanted this to end.

Steve takes Eddie’s silence the way he means it.

The most arousing sound Eddie has ever heard rumbles from Steve’s chest, and his hands are adjusting again, this time shoving into the limited space behind Eddie’s lower back. His arms wrap behind Eddie and he pulls him into his chest, and his face buries itself into the crook of his neck. Eddie can feel hot puffs of air from Steve’s mouth.

Their hips start circling together.

It’s a timid thing at first, because what the fuck is actually happening? It’s all new – nothing like this has ever happened between them. Something like this has rarely happened to Eddie at all. So no, he doesn’t really dive right in, and neither does Steve because he’s probably having the same thoughts.

But he hears Steve in his ear. He hears these raunchy little sounds bubbling from his throat that are so obviously involuntary because Eddie’s making them, too. And Steve has a death grip around his middle, pulling him hard into his movements, twisting him exactly where he wants him.

They eventually get it right. As right as it can be with a thick layer of denim and an even thicker layer of leather between them. Their cocks slot next to each other, even through those barriers, and the drag has Eddie panting. He’s leaking into his underwear and everything feels so fucking wet because his pants don’t breathe or absorb. So his underwear is doing all of the heavy lifting, which really isn’t enough because everything is getting slick in there.

Maybe it’s a good thing.

“Oh, fuck.” Eddie finally speaks, he finally gives clue to how much he’s enjoying this. He finally moves his arms from above his head and grabs at Steve’s hips. He pulls them against him even though they’re already grinding against each other to the point of near pain, but he pulls Steve into him anyway. And then he shoves his hands into the back pocket of his Levi’s where there’s a lighter and a pack of camels. He tosses them into the living room. He puts his hands back and that’s where they stay, kneading into the muscle of Steve’s perfect ass.

They rock together in deep waves with Steve’s face hidden in Eddie’s neck and Eddie’s eyes squeezed shut. Eddie’s perpetually horny so it really only takes a few minutes until each stroke of denim on leather sends a shock into his guts. That’s when he realises just how close he is to coming and he’s suddenly ashamed again, because he just doesn’t know if that’s the goal to whatever is going on.

He tries to rein himself in, he tries to slow the coil that’s rapidly building in his core, but that mind over matter crap has never really worked with Eddie. He’s hurtling towards the finish line and he has to warn Steve, but he’s terrified of ruining the moment.

If there even is a moment.

As much as he knows that Steve grinding his dick into Eddie’s is anything but platonic, he can’t help but notice that Steve isn’t kissing him. So maybe it’s not a passion thing, but more like a… favour thing? And if that were the case, would it be a favour for Steve or for Eddie? Maybe if Eddie speaks it’ll ruin whatever is happening inside of Steve’s head, whatever he’s thinking about, and it’ll make him… deflate or something.

Eddie gasps as Steve’s fly digs against the underside of his cock, drawing to the tip where he’s sensitive and drooling precum that is not just going to be precum very, very soon.

“Shit! Uh – uh, Steve?”

“Mmm?”

Steve does the thing again, and pleasure zaps through Eddie. His thighs twitch against Steve’s hips that are still moving against his.

“It’s just – I think – If you keep… I don’t know, I don’t know,” he babbles, because he just can’t say ‘I’m about to blow my load’ to Steve. Because he’d hear him.

Steve finally lifts his head from Eddies neck and he looks down on him with heavy eyes so blown out they almost look black. His thrusts become shallower which is so frustrating because Eddie was so close, and now Steve’s movements are keeping him right on the edge, not enough to actually get him there.

“You good?” asks Steve. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No!” Eddie barks, and that’s probably the most embarrassing thing that’s happened yet. He tries to hide his face, but Steve just turns along with him – waiting. He deepens the roll of his hips once more and Eddie is building right back up to where he was a few seconds ago, so he tries again. “I just… Steve. I’m about to… I’m gonna…”

Steve tucks back into Eddie. His lips press against his throat but he doesn’t move them, he doesn’t kiss him. He just presses his lips there and speaks muffled against Eddie’s skin.

“Do it.”

He bites down.

A strangled wail rips from Eddie, and he’s coming inside his pants like a punishment, or a reward, he’s not sure which. He just knows that it hits him like a fucking brick, strong and hard, and he’s shuddering through waves of the most outrageous pleasure he’s ever felt (which is sad, really, because Steve didn’t even technically touch him). He’s convulsing against Steve, and his boxers fill with his cum which is hot and wet and slicks against his skin while Steve still ruts himself against him.

It doesn’t seem to stop either, it just keeps going. His orgasm and his cum, like he hadn’t just jerked himself off that morning. It felt like the first time he came after healing. Dirty and raw and pent up, but better because it wasn’t his own hand that got him there.

Steve’s teeth snap harder into Eddie’s skin and his hips lose their rhythm. A filthy groan rattles Eddie’s eardrums, and from that alone Eddie feels like he could get hard again. Hearing the noise that Steve just made, coming in his jeans like he just did.

Everything goes still – Steve’s body goes slack and his teeth release from Eddie’s skin, and they lay there panting like they ran some kind of marathon instead of just dry humping against each other.

It immediately feels like a fever dream.

Steve is still laying on top of Eddie, and he’s already asking himself if that actually just happened, or if he made it all up. Even as the cum in his boxers is cooling uncomfortably against his softening dick and matting into his pubes like glue.

When Steve’s head finally lifts, Eddie gets a good look at him. His mascara has smudged under his eyes, and there’s red on the tip of his nose where it rubbed against Eddie’s cheek. His lip gloss has smeared sparkles around the border of his lips. He looks completely fucked out. So Eddie laughs.

“What?” Steve says, rolling from Eddie’s body. They scramble up until they’re seated normally in the couch. Steve gropes at his crotch like it’s uncomfortable, which it is. Eddie would know. “Why are you laughing?”

Eddie holds his hand up. “Nothing! Your makeup… it just needs a bit of a touch up.”

“Oh, shit.” Steve wipes under his eyes, just making everything worse.

“No, no, no!” Eddie says, smacking Steve’s hand away from his face. “You’re ruining it. I’ll fix it, just leave it alone for a few minutes, okay?”

“’Kay. Where are you going?” Steve crinkles his brows at Eddie as he stands up.

“I’m gonna change my pants. They’re, uh… too tight.”

“Sure, yeah. Me too.” Steve stands. “Sweats or something?”

“Huh?”

“Sweatpants?” Steve says again. “Are you gonna change into something comfy, or…?”

“Nooo…” Eddie drawls. “Jeans probably. We’re going to that party, right? That’s why we got all dressed up?”

“Oh, yeah. The party,” Steve says, and if Eddie could read people easily, he might think he looks disappointed. But Eddie doesn’t really get social cues, so he’s probably got it all wrong.

Eddie nods and he changes in the bathroom. He examines himself, finds the purple bruise forming on his neck in the shape of Steve’s teeth. He decides not to cover it up, but instead wear it with pride. As a reminder, mostly to himself, that he did not in fact lose his mind and make everything that happened up.

They do go to the party after Eddie fixes their makeup, and it’s fun. They spend the night drinking, and laughing, and dancing.

What they don’t do, is talk about what they did. Steve’s good at acting normal – pretending that nothing happened.

And as confusing as it is, as much as Eddie just doesn’t get it – days passing by without acknowledgment – he takes it that he should probably do the same.

NEXT CHAPTER

MASTERLIST

SOCIALS

[qwertycake]

more qpr fluffy squishy platonic writing prompts! wahoo!! part two!!! :)

Same disclaimer applies as my first post - these are aro- and ace-spec centric, may only work for shortform fiction, and feel free to tweak them to be less specific/more specific to specific characters.

Specific is a weird word lol

Anyways…

“We both get caught out in the rain and wait out the weather under the same shelter, and either we’re meeting for the first time or we have a nice excuse to hang out together” AU

“You annotate a book for me and I annotate it right back for you, and we keep passing the book back and forth until its a mess of affectionate scribbles that we keep on the coffee table” AU

"It's hot outside and you love the heat but I hate it and you're being stupidly nice and sweet to me while I'm a grouchy mess" AU

"I can teach you how to play this instrument if you stop DISTRACTING ME by looking so ENDEARING AND INFATUATED" AU

"Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes" AU

"We're both too tired to take care of ourselves because of sickness/work/school/whatever but we immediately find the energy to take care of one another via making tea and grabbing blankets" AU

"We trade clothes for Halloween and do terrible impersonations of one another" AU

"We have a bunch of unfinished craft projects between the two of us and decide to just... finish them all in one day... 24 itty-bitty hours... oh boy..." AU

"We recreate a terrible low-budget movie together" AU

"On Valentine's Day, we decide to make a bunch of garlic bread and cake, and buy each other flowers in the colours of our respective aro-/ace-spec flags... and then the day after, we buy all the chocolate that's finally gone on sale" AU

“I teach you how to do make-up because for one reason or another you’re unfamiliar with it” AU

“Fake dating and having dramatic break ups over silly things in public for shits and giggles” AU

“So, the world might have just ended… so guess who has two thumbs and a bunker that desperately could use a roommate?” AU

“We’re made to play seven minutes in heaven at a party and after a few awkward minutes of silence we both decide to just order a pizza or something while we wait out the seven minutes” AU

“Hey, you can dance, and I can’t, teach me— no, I don’t care that I’ve got two left feet, teach me!” AU

“We’re both artists, maybe of different skill levels, and we decide to draw/paint/make art of each other” AU

“I’m a night owl and you’re more of a day person, so whenever we stop texting because you have to go to bed, I’m stuck laying awake thinking about you Please Enjoy Waking Up To A Bunch Of Messages” AU

“I’m a day person and you’re more of a night owl but I struggle to fall asleep because I’m stuck thinking about how lucky I am to be your friend Hey I Think I Could Stay Up For An Extra Ten Minutes” AU

“We’re both nervous about going to the gym alone so we try going together… but neither of us have the guts to get out of the car so we just go for a walk or something instead” AU

“You’re super into sports and exercise and I’m just getting into it but you hype me up so I’m less nervous about getting started” AU

“I bake a whole bunch, you cook big meals… at the same time of day - our kitchen is chaos” AU

“It’s New Year’s Eve and we’re hanging out at a party and everyone’s speculating that we’re gonna have our New Year’s Kiss together but the New Year comes and we just do a weird handshake” AU

“Non-Fatal Hanahaki Disease AU where we’re some of the few people who don’t experience it because we’re content with whatever non-romantic thing we have together… but we both have hay fever and are very annoyed by the constant barrage of flower petals around us and have to tell our friends to Please Stop Crushing On The Random Barista At Starbucks It’s The Third Time This Week You Are KILLING US” AU

“We’re both alien test subjects who’ve never met before and have to try and plan our escape - bonus points if the aliens are specifically testing for something like amatonormative like All Humans Fall In Love and we’re the black swans of the research since they apparently abducted Only Romantic Allosexuals Aside From Us Somehow” AU

“It’s midnight and you show up on my doorstep unannounced after a long while of us drifting apart, what on earth happened?” AU

“We’re both capable of granting wishes - you’re the monkey’s paw and I’m the guy who’s stuck remedying all the messed up things you have happen to people What Is Wrong With You” AU

And finally…

“I’m laying on the couch at a party drunk/high/exhausted/whatever and you’re looking after me, having only met me that night - I proceed to ramble about how embarrassed I’ll be when I’m older and think back to how I made a fool of myself in front of someone I wanted to be friends with really badly… but luckily for me, you’re flattered that I think you’re super cool” AU

[sleeplesssmoll]

Vertin might have a hobby for painting, right?

What if she used it as a way to cope with her trauma? As if Madam Z introduced the idea to her as a way to quiet her mind a little when she's overthinking or such. She might've grown to have a habit of painting people she's met. Which might include the people she's lost to the Storm or other ways. But she's slowly forgetting.

The more she paints the picture the more distorted and wrong each face looks to her. Everyone says its fine, but, there's always something different when recreating their faces. Like the eyes might look bigger or the face shape is not what it seems to be. Maybe some little details are left out, though she can't tell and she hates that.

The thought of it is slowly eating her alive every day. The Timekeeper does not forget, but even as much as she tries to, every face becomes another blur among the sea of distorted loss.

I had a very similar idea as well! I originally thought psychubes were Vertin's creations like literal paintings, but it turns out I was half right and they are a reflection of her psyche. That being said, here is the description for the Cheering Psychube.

Cheering

"Memory wears out in the wandering life, gaining only obscure colors and shapes. What is the figure of the shadow in the shadow? The close friend of the close friend’s strolls over the delightful music."

It sounds exactly like what you're describing. The struggle to remember and losing that familiarity despite your efforts. If you're interested, the original theory has a lot of character analysis in it and relevant lore you might find interesting. Perhaps Vertin isn't creating the Psychubes themselves, but I'm sure she is coping through art and music and the same logic I applied to the Psychubes can apply to her actual creations.

https://www.tumblr.com/sleeplesssmoll/734536738262892544/theory-psychubes-are-vertins-creations

I considered deleting this post after learning Psychube aren't art but I'm kinda glad I didn't now since it seems we have the same idea :)

[tangledbea]

Some time ago you mentioned you have a ton of Rapunzel art, and I remember seeing a New Dream wall painting too. Do you have some other New Dream or maybe Eugene art?? I need some inspiration XD

Also, thanks for the kind words about my URL on my last ask! <3

Oh man, I have So Much New Dream art (and a tiny bit of Eugene solo art). XD Some of it's official, some of it's fanart, a lot of it isn't even on my walls, because I don't have space, but I have every intention of putting it up someday. Prepare for a lot of art with brief explanations:

Bought at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, CA:

The top one was bought at Off the Page in California Adventure. It's actually got dimension, since Rapunzel and Eugene are cut out and raised on some thick foamboard. The bottom two were bought at Wonderground Gallery in Downtown Disney.

From Walt Disney World:

While I have not been to WDW since 1989, I have friends who go frequently, and over the years, they've picked me up stuff. Top left: a wet paint sign they used to use regularly (I'm sure they've change it by now). If the painters were working, and you asked nice, they'd often just give you one or more. I painted the frame, and my sister made the bead garland. Top right: A card handed out at a Valentine's Day event. The other side says "True Love". Bottom left: A parks map and guide. Bottom right: Tangled cards from the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom TCG that they no longer do.

Official art from various sources:

Top row: I don't remember the artist, I'm sorry. I've had it for years, though. 2nd row left: a lithograph print of the official art for the Disney Fairytale collection. 2nd row right: two (of five) lithographs that came with the pre-order of the blue-ray at the Disney Store. 3rd row left: a lithograph print of the official art for the Disney Fairytale Designer collection. 3rd row right: LE lithograph of concept art. I don't know what the lithograph was for, but I literally just bought it the other day off eBay. Bottom left (left): wedding silhouettes. Fanart, and unfortunately the artist closed their shop. Bottom left (right): The certificate of authenticity for the 17" Rapunzel wedding doll. Bottom right: two "wedding invitations" from the Disney Store from when Tangled Ever After was going to be released to video.

Briana Garcia:

Left: she used to sell it as a print. Right: A one-of-a-kind gift that a friend got me.

Misc fanart and gifts:

Top left: from that same out-of-business silhouettes artist (I glued them to the sparkly paper myself XD). Top right: a completely black-market print of the first Thomas Kinkade Tangled painting. Middle: This is actually highlighting the wanted poster, which I meticulously recreated. But hey! Life-size standee! Bottom left: a card from a friend. Bottom right: a sticker my boyfriend got me a few Christmases ago.

[primelight]

WNM: Time Loop Ethics and Keira (Mild Spoilers)

Uh, yep, long time no write. Bad Lightpoint. Basically I got smacked with the 'WHAT IF THE DLC NUKES MY LORE' thing (and the fact that there are a lot of moving pieces) so I had to take a step back for my own peace of mind. So into the DLC waiting room I went. I got hit by the Baldur's Gate 3 bug, like many Soulsborne people lol. I have 1 fic simmering for BG3 (and the dove is so, so dead in it), but while I DO love that game, it's not 'I'm going to write a 200k word fic' love.

I also haven't abandoned 'Maidens.' My brain keeps turning it over and over. ER's sucking me back into its majesty too, ironically via miniature painting...I got my hands on fan-made Malenia, Morgott, and Mohg models (and 5 Crucible Knights), and dammit the rabbit hole is still very much open for business. I'll post pics, maybe, when I'm satisfied with the final products.

Now, on to the point of this post. Like I said, 'Who Needs Maidens' keeps simmering in the back of my mind, and boss music keeps playing in my head whenever I paint Malenia and Morgott (Mohg's coming out of his bubble wrap when I finish his siblings lol). So when I stumbled over a fic with a time loop as the primary problem, I started thinking. And thinking. And THINKING.

You see, time loop ethical considerations are a CRITICAL driving force behind Keira's activities and relationships. More beneath the cut. Minor spoilers, and in a follow-on post I'll do a small excerpt from WAY ahead of the current chapter as an example of what's going on under the proverbial hood.

TL;DR: She's trying to save everyone while not manipulating the fuck out of everyone in the process. It's a fine ethical line to walk, especially where romance and friendships are concerned.

The musings on the TL;DR are under the cut.

By the time WNM starts, Keira's experienced several hundred loops. She started out at the absolute bottom of the barrel, and could barely lift a sword. She didn't manage to actually find all the non-mandatory NPCs and bosses for a long, long time because welp, the Lands Between are big.

Keep in mind that the Lands Between is basically a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Everyone is inches from death and madness. Safety is rare, but actual human connection is almost nonexistent. Trust has to be earned, and holy shit it's always an uphill battle. Needless to say, 'we could die tomorrow, we must seize the day' situations happen.

The above is part of why a lot of Tarnished are DTF with very little encouragement.

Eventually Keira got strong enough to kick a reasonable amount of ass, and got some actual friends along the way. The Plan became to keep as many of them alive and happy (as happy as one can be in ER) as possible.

Some attempts at a 'perfect run' have crashed and burned. Other attempts at a perfect run went beautifully, only for her to wake up once again in the Chapel of Anticipation, a stranger to everyone she loves.

None of her wins were enough to break the loop.

For a time, Keira tried her damndest to haul everyone to safety and friendship. She tried to re-create the bonds she'd forged from loop to loop to loop, because she feared she was staring down infinity alone.

The problem there is that if she tried to recreate what she had with, say, Diallos in cycle 45 with Diallos in cycle 46, they wouldn't be on an equal playing field. Not only would she (probably) have to lie about the time loop, she's got way more information about Diallos 46's loves, fears, motivations, and dreams than he has of hers. There's an emotional power gap there, and massive manipulation potential.

Also, Keira in cycle 46 isn't the same person she was in cycle 45. Diallos 45's Keira is just as gone as he is.

One of the reasons I started this fic was to consider if there was an ethical way to have that sort of relationship. This applies to both platonic and romantic relationships.

It's a fine line to walk. It's not IMPOSSIBLE to have a close relationship with someone over multiple time loops, but yeah, it's a really, really thin ethical line that could potentially be crossed by accident. Which Keira did, without malicious intent. She's not someone who relishes that kind of power.

Keira's mind...cracked a few times once the implications hit. Repeatedly losing people you care about can do that. Throw in the realization that you might have to be even MORE alone than you already are...well...

Spoiler#1, see bottom.

And thus...Keira is now trying to walk that ethical line. Despite everything, she still cares about her friends, but she knows that their relationships aren't going to be the same. Her people deserve a chance to do their thing on their own, and if it doesn't involve her, that's just the way it is.

That's why she...hovers. So far Keira's sexual encounters have been pretty emotionally superficial. She is trying to save her friends and connect with the people she cares about. She's also trying to pull it off without becoming a total puppet master. It's a fine line to walk.

And at some point, the cycles have to end.

Speaking of which, there's still a random factor in play. There are 1. simply too many variables for her to be omniscient or have complete control and Spoiler#2, see bottom.

Here's some rationale:

Patches:

It's Patches. Anything involving Patches is probably ill-advised. The knowledge gap is her being aware that he's obsessed with Tanith, but is still down for action. And will probably try to steal all her stuff if he can. He's safely at arms length.

Bernahl:

Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland Post-Battle Horniness Trope. She knows that he's from the Volcano Manor (obviously), and knows that he's been pretty fucked over by the whole Tarnished thing, too. All she does is answer his questions honestly. And flirts. And bails before he wakes up.

Side note: He was her first. That one-shot is like 75% done.

Blaidd:

The current 'canon' status of their relationship is circumstantial allies. He's starting to get some questions about her behavior, and is rather attracted to her, but it's not enough to distract him from his mission. He is ALL about Ranni, and Keira is trying her damndest to not mess that up. But what happens at the Radahn Festival stays at the Radahn Festival.

Blackguard Big Boggart:

Keira's wavering on that ethical line in Boggart's chapters, but IMHO has managed to stay upright. The knowledge gap is that she knows that flirting is effective, and that it's been awhile since he's been that close to someone who wasn't trying to kill him. This is one of those encounters that sometimes ends with nookie, and sometimes doesn't (random factor). She also knows that he's pretty down for casual, but friendly, encounters in general, so it's not going to have a huge impact on his heart.

She almost fell off the proverbial tightrope when Morgott showed up unexpectedly (that 'YOU CANNOT DIE' line). The Plan is still to keep as many of Her People alive as possible, because WHAT IF THIS IS THE LAST LOOP. Fortunately she had a lot of Jar Cannons xD

Rogier and Darian:

Keira is being really, really careful to be incidental to their relationship. Well, not incidental, exactly, but she has no plans to be the permanent filling in that sandwich. Carpe diem was VERY much involved with that episode.

Maliketh:

He's starting to remember the past loops. Blame Faram Azula timey-wimey fuckery. They also got it on in the past. Expect that shoe to drop after she gets the 'noble blood' from Varre. Which leads me to...

Varre:

She just deadass hates him at this point, for both all the Omen blood injections and the whole blood cult murder stuff. Yep, they've fucked, and there's no love lost there. This is touched on in '50 First Steps.' Expect THAT shoe to drop after the Radahn festival. I'll add the warnings/descriptions at the end of each Varre/Blood related chapter. He's a walking warning, tho.

Note that there are a few people paired with her that I haven't included on this list. That'd be big spoilers xD

TL;DR: She's trying to save everyone while not manipulating the fuck out of everyone in the process. It's a fine ethical line to walk.

Spoilers below...

...

...

Spoiler#1: The Frenzied Flame didn't work.

Spoiler#2: She's not the only person aware of the loops. I don't mean Maliketh, either.

[symphonic-scream]

🧋

Lemme see what I can do for this one

Oh! How about an au I did in December 2022?

It's for P5

So, the gang were all childhood friends. Grew up in the same apartment building, all that. This includes Joker, Ryuji, Ann, Yusuke, Makoto, Haru, Futaba, Sumire, and Kasumi But, things change

When the eldest three are 12, Kasumi passes. The group splits up, everyone moving away as tragedy after tragedy occurs. Eventually, they're all gone, off their separate ways.

12 years later, they meet again, under extraordinary circumstances. All of them end up at the same group resort for two weeks, getting snowed in by a blizzard. Some bought the ticket themselves, others won them. All that matters is, they're all back together

They're all in different places in life, all needed a change. Two weeks together, changes a lot.

Okay so here's where everyone is at when they arrive, with ages

Akira/Joker, 23; has been getting a theatre arts degree but can't afford his next semester so he's been working literally everywhere. He won the trip from an event at one of his jobs. He lives in a small apartment, has been on his own for a few years. During the trip he rediscovers his passion for caring for others, through cooking and such

Ryuji, 23; he's been struggling a lot. He's living with his mom, working physical labour, and. He's a recovering addict. When he tried school, the stress and peer pressure led him to drink and, he woke up one day and knew he couldn't become like his dad. He's been sober for 14 months, and has gained an interest in recreational work

Ann, 23; she's engaged to Shiho, both recovering from assaults in their teen years. Ann dropped modeling cold turkey, and hasn't been able to find a new purpose yet. She feels bad for being a mooch, her Shiho and parents aren't pressuring her to find work at all

Yusuke, 23; he's, pretty much doing okay. He did have a mini scandal where someone recorded him going off on someone in a gallery for not understanding his art, but if anything, that's giving him more attention. He's struggling with admitting that he needs money to live, he can't just paint for passion anymore

Makoto, 24; she dropped out of the police academy a few years ago, and returned to uni to study social work to hopefully mix that with her previous criminology degree to, lower crime rates among young people through social assistance. She's been on her own though, after a fight with her sister. She's had some other stuff going on that led to her taking this vacation

Futaba, 22; has been a shut in for ten years, and this trip was a treat for two years of going out into public. She's been spending her time taking down scammers, but she's got an offer to work as a cyber security expert for good pay. She isnt sure if she'll take it

Haru, 24; Haru's had it real rough. She was engaged to a man to help her father's company, only to find out she had the same cancer her mom did. They caught it early, but the procedure to remove it left her infertile. Which isn't a problem for her, but it means her fiance breaks the deal. This has, given her a chance to live for herself, and has spent the last year working at a small business coffee shop, trying to just, live

Sumire, 22; she's running away from her problems again. She quit gymnastics, dance, and hasn't applied to secondary schools. Her parents, concerned after her last therapist caused more damage, believe a week away from it all may help. Two weeks, maybe. Sumire just wants the guilt to go away

So. They meet up again, talk about how they've been doing, and all leave with a better idea of what they're doing, and a promise to meet up every year after

[callsign-bunnie]

Should I start paying rent in here?

Hey uh.. heard that part 3 of prof graves AleRudy love triangle was a thing.. you ever tried it? Oh you have? Any idea where it might be… no reason just uh, lil curious *dumb wink*

If you remember Kaleb has my number, cmon every one knows Kaleb. Oh how do I? We go way back man, met trying that why can’t we be more stuff! He hasn’t mentioned me? Oh yeah I used to be kinda shy but we’re good mates- what do you mean he never touched that stuff?! Course he did *sweat drop*, doubt he’d save it just for us. Maybe he just didn’t feel like sharing aye?

(I got carried away with this under cover cop thing)

I think this might be my friend, the typing style is similar and they're the only person I know who would spell Kaleb with a K. Regardless, this is my favorite bit I've ever done, please keep doing it

--

Did Rodolfo feel guilty about still going to see Professor Graves after his classes on Monday? Maybe. But… Rodolfo wasn’t sure if he felt so guilty towards Graves or Alejandro…

Maybe it was both. 

Maybe. 

But, that didn’t stop him. In fact, maybe it encouraged him, slightly, as he slowly packed his things, watching the other students leave. He’d stuck his camera in his bag, in case it was something he wanted to take a picture of, deciding to learn his lesson from Saturday.

Sunday… Sunday had been wonderful. He’d woken up to a hot breakfast and he’d woken up entirely too late. But, apparently Soap had canceled on him, so… Something to do with Ghost. Rodolfo hadn’t minded, he’d spent the day with Alejandro. 

He wondered how long this would last. He was getting so much more attention than he’d ever gotten before and he knew it wouldn’t last, but… how much longer would he have? He didn’t know. Did he want to? 

Rodolfo shook off the thought and went down to Professor Graves’ desk when everyone was gone. “You said you had something to show me?” Was he skipping his next class for this? Maybe.

“I do!” Graves grinned, looking up from his laptop. “I already talked to the teacher of your next class, so you don’t have to worry about that. You’ve been excused.”

Rodolfo relaxed and nodded. He loved the way Graves seemed to consider everything. He was so sweet and thoughtful… Alejandro was sweet, too, but he was impulsive and maybe a bit immature. Though… Alejandro was one for small details. Tiny things. Why was he comparing them? He didn’t know.

“That’s great.” Rodolfo finally said, smiling. “What is it?”

Graves stood and led him to his office where Rodolfo frowned as he saw something large and covered in a cloth. He watched his professor pull down the cloth and then he was staring at the same painting as from the book. “It’s a recreation, of course. But… I thought you’d want to see it before I had it sent to the museum.” Graves explained, turning to look at him.

“It’s…” Rodolfo was in awe. He went to the painting, looking over it, at all of the detail. He and the royal really did look so strikingly similar. Every part of them was the same, save for the royal’s hair, which was a lot wavier than Rodolfo was willing to let his get. “It’s beautiful.” He finally said.

The painting was large enough that Rodolfo and the Royal had a perfect equal scale, a 1 to 1. He jokingly posed the same, resting his left hand on his stomach and his hand on where the large ruby of the necklace would be, before turning and looking at Graves. “What do you think? Think I’m a good substitute for the real thing?”

“You’re almost a carbon copy.” Graves laughed before coming over, adjusting his pose ever so slightly. “There. Perfect. Hmm… I wish you had the jewelry on, I’d get a picture.”

“I have a polaroid camera in my bag,” Rodolfo confessed, dropping the pose and shaking his head. “I don’t really take pictures of myself.”

“Why not?” Graves frowned. “That’s a crime, you’re too beautiful for that.”

Rodolfo blushed dark red, his brain failing to work for a moment. It only got worse as Graves reached up and brushed some hair from where it had fallen in front of his eyes. “I just… never get the chance. Soap doesn’t really take pictures of me and it’s hard to take pictures of myself with that camera.”

Graves tilted his head before shrugging. “I’ll fix that.” He grabbed a chair from nearby, placing it in front of the painting and then smiling. “Sit.”

Rodolfo blushed but did as told, curious what he was doing. He frowned when he watched Graves rummage in his bag and then he was pulling the camera out and setting it on his desk. Then, he came over and helped Rodolfo pose and Rodolfo found himself blushing darker as he realized Graves was posing him like the painting.

He held the pose, keeping his face neutral like the painting, and then he looked at Graves, managing not to flinch at the flash. When it was done, Graves took the picture and held it, coming over. “Did you know that you didn’t need to shake old polaroids?” Graves asked when he came over.

Rodolfo frowned. “No, I guess I didn’t… I um… I’m only 20. I didn’t… own a polaroid camera.” He winced, waiting for the typical comments that millennials and really anyone over the age of 30 made towards anyone under the age of 25.

“Makes sense. They became pretty much obsolete by the time you would have been getting a camera. This polaroid snap is pretty good, I like the specifications.” Graves smiled and then held out the picture.

Rodolfo blinked at his words and then relaxed. Of course Graves wouldn’t make those comments, he was too mature for that. He smiled and took the picture, looking at it. The picture made him realize just how similar he looked to the royal, touching over their faces. Well, he already knew, but it was still just uncanny. “Thank you…”

“Of course.” Graves nodded and then Rodolfo was jumping at another flash. “This one will be mine.” He chuckled, taking the picture and then handing Rodolfo the camera back. “You looked too darling, I had to.”

Oh, Rodolfo’s skin turned dark red from that statement. He had to look away as he took the camera back, again thanking Graves. He went to his bag and put the camera in it, as well as tucking the picture in a pocket.

“You know… I was thinking.” Graves came over, wrapping his arms around Rodolfo’s waist from behind. Rodolfo melted as Graves kissed the back of his neck, closing his eyes. “I should take you out. The museum is great and all but… I’d really like to take you out. I know this bar…”

“I’m 20.” Rodolfo reminded, shivering as Graves lightly nipped at the back of his neck, before turning around in his arms. “My ID says I’m 20.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Graves shook his head. “They’ll let you in. As long as you’re with me… They’ll let you in.”

Rodolfo blushed. “You’re not going to be responsible and keep me from drinking?” He teased, though he didn’t care. Rodolfo had drank before. He’d drank a lot before… 

“You won’t be drinking.” Graves laughed. “Neither will I, likely. The food is good and it’s a little more classy than the typical bar. Only a little. How does that sound?”

Rodolfo paused and then smiled. Of course he’d go. “Yeah.. I like that. When?”

“Friday?” Graves asked and Rodolfo nodded. “Perfect! I’ll text you when I’ll be picking you up.” He kissed Rodolfo’s cheek before letting him go. “I look forward to it.”

“Me too…” Rodolfo melted and then waved before grabbing his bag and leaving.

-

Rodolfo was hanging out with Gaz, his other friend. Why? Well, Soap had blown him off again for Ghost. He could only imagine what they were doing. “So…” Gaz said as he took his hair down out of the towel he was using. Gaz had used Rodolfo’s shower, since his was apparently broken. “Soap told me you were with Professor Graves on Friday.”

“Of fucking course he did.” Rodolfo muttered, already irritated. “Look, if you’re here to judge me-”

“I’m not.” Gaz assured, sitting on the other side of the coffee table and taking a bite of the pizza he’d brought over for them. “Actually, I think it’s great. Gets you away from Alejandro.”

Neither Gaz nor Alex, Gaz’s boyfriend, seemed to like Alejandro much. Of course… neither would give Rodolfo a straight answer on why. Even before he and Alejandro had started to distance, they just didn’t seem to like him. It was odd, but Rodolfo had given up on trying to find out why. “Well… No. Because Alejandro and I hung out on Saturday.”

“Ah.” Gaz frowned and then went quiet, looking down at his pizza for a moment. “Well… Are you going to go fully back to Alejandro?”

Rodolfo winced. He didn’t know. “I… Have a date, I think, with Professor Graves this Friday.” He paused when his phone buzzed, blushing when he saw it was Alejandro, who’d sent him a picture of a flier for a concert on Saturday. A candlelit symphony. He melted when Alejandro sent a Want to go? And immediately sent back that he would. “And a date with Alejandro on Saturday.” He smiled and showed Gaz the picture.

“That’s sweet.” Gaz nodded and furrowed his brows. “So… You’re going to go out with both?”

“One or both will lose interest in me, eventually.” Rodolfo shrugged, not really that concerned about it, at the moment. “So… I’m enjoying it while I have it.”

“I see.” Gaz nodded, frowning again. “I… I’m happy for you. I’m glad you seem to be getting some attention. You need it, mate.” He smiled at Rodolfo and touched his hand before sighing. “Why did Soap blow you off again?”

Rodolfo hesitated before sighing. Gaz and Soap seemed to be getting along less and less. It started with Gaz getting with Alex and then Soap got with Ghost and… neither of them hung out unless Rodolfo suggested something. Even there, it was tense the whole time. “Ghost. He’s busy with, you know, being a rockstar. So… I don’t know.”

“Of course he is.” Gaz rolled his eyes. “That sucks, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Rodolfo smiled. “It means I get to hang out with you.” 

“That’s true.” Gaz nodded, grinning. “And I like hanging out with you.”

Rodolfo relaxed, nodding. “I like hanging out with you, too. How are Alex and Farah? Well, and Malika.”

“They’re great!” Gaz perked up. “Though, Farah and Malika are honestly kind of gross. Farah always has her in her lap and they are constantly touching! Not in any sexual way, but if Malika gets within five feet of Farah, Farah just has to start touching her and grabbing her.”

Rodolfo laughed, loudly, since he remembered Alex and Gaz being the exact same way when they got together the year before. Alex constantly had his hands on Gaz and Rodolfo remembered he and Soap teased Gaz about it, endlessly. “Reminds me of someone.”

“Hey, we weren’t this bad.” Gaz blushed. “Or… I don’t remember us being this bad.”

Rodolfo rolled his eyes, since they had, indeed, been that bad. “Sure.” He pat Gaz’s arm and then put his elbow on the table. “And Alex has been doing okay?”

“Yep! Better than okay.” Gaz nodded and melted. “He’s perfect. I love him so much… We’re already at a year and I feel like we still just started dating.”

“I’m glad to see those rose colored glasses still haven’t came off, then.” Rodolfo nodded, really happy for his friend. Alex was a really great guy and Gaz deserved that. “Hey, do you think you could come over and help me dress for this date on Friday?”

“Of course.” Gaz beamed. “Why not ask Soap, though?”

“He’s going to flip his shit if I tell him!” Rodolfo immediately said. “Besides, he’s busy this Friday. All week, in fact. I’ll barely see him.”

“Good.” Gaz muttered, sighing. “It’s none of his business who you date.” 

Rodolfo definitely agreed. He shook his head and looked down at his plate, tracing the edge of it. He didn’t understand why Soap was judging him so hard. “No, Rudy, look at me.” Rodolfo looked up, startled. Gaz’s expression was intense. “I mean it. It is none of his business. He, of all people, should not be judging who you choose to date. Got it?”

Rodolfo frowned but nodded. “Yeah… I got it.” He blushed, confused why Gaz was suddenly so intense. “I mean, besides Ghost-”

“Ghost is the reason.” Gaz groaned. “He… runs with a really bad crowd, is all I will say. And Soap knew before he started to date him that he did. Don’t let him tell you otherwise.”

Rodolfo blushed but nodded. “Okay…” He frowned more, now even more confused. Why hadn’t Soap ever told him that? But, he shrugged it off and got up. “Want to see what Graves gave me?”

“Sure!” Gaz smiled, seeming to relax a bit.

Rodolfo went to his wardrobe, which had been issued by the college, and opened it, looking for the blue jewelry boxes and frowning when he couldn’t find them. Odd… He’d put them in there… He looked through his drawers before suddenly getting a hunch.

Oh, he’d fucking kill him. 

Rodolfo went to Soap’s wardrobe, looking in the bottom drawer, and then making an irritated sound when he found the jewelry boxes. He took a picture of them and sent it to Soap. You’re stealing my shit, now? That’s fucking petty.

The message was read pretty much immediately, but Soap didn’t reply. Rodolfo took the boxes out of the drawer and came over, sitting down at the coffee table again and making a frustrated sound as he showed Gaz. “I can’t fucking believe him!”

“I can.” Gaz rolled his eyes. “He’s self righteous, probably thought he was doing it to protect you.”

“Fuck him.” Rodolfo shook his head but opened the jewelry boxes so Gaz could see, relaxing at seeing the jewelry pieces were still intact. “They’re a bit too fancy for Friday but… I love them.”

“But… not for Saturday…” Gaz grinned. “You should wear them that day.”

“No, that feels- No. That feels wrong.” Rodolfo’s face flamed bright red. “I wouldn’t do that to Alejandro.”

“Would Alejandro know unless you told him?” Gaz tilted his head. “Does he even know you’re seeing Professor Graves?”

Rodolfo paused and looked at the pieces, touching over the earrings and necklace. He would really like to wear them… “Fuck, I don’t have clothes for Saturday, either. I don’t… know how to dress elegant like the symphony wants.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I do. Alex takes me on those kinds of dates all the time.” Gaz waved his hand. It made sense, Gaz and Alex were both loaded from family money. Adopted family money, but family money all the same. Gaz’s father, John Price, and Alex’s moms all three co-owned several very successful businesses.

Well, Alex and Farah’s moms. It was… complicated.

“Oh. Well… I don’t think I own anything like that.” Rodolfo frowned. 

Gaz laughed. “That’s fine! I’ll take you shopping! I’ll even pay for it, as long as you let me pick what you wear!”

Rodolfo blushed dark. “But it’s a date with Alejandro…”

“You’re my friend. I’m not going to let you have a shit date, even if I maybe don’t like the partner.” Gaz shook his head. “I’m not Soap.”

“I don’t think Soap would do that, either…” Rodolfo frowned before wincing when Gaz just gestured to the jewelry. “Do you think you could keep them in your dorm? Just… for now.”

“Of course.” Gaz nodded and smiled. “They might encourage Alex to get me my own pieces.” He joked, holding the necklace up to his skin. 

“I think emerald would be better.” Rodolfo remarked, but he smiled. 

“I think you might be right.” Gaz agreed and put the necklace back, being ginger with it. “Let’s go on Thursday! I can help you find an outfit for Friday as well! Since I doubt you have much for a bar.”

“I do not.” Rodolfo agreed. Even if it was meant to be a bit classier… He didn’t think he’d have anything for it. “Alright. Thursday. I like that… Hey, maybe you can bring Malika and I can get to meet her!”

“Perfect!” Gaz smiled. “Thursday.”

-

Rodolfo’s Tuesday and Wednesday were uneventful. Graves ended up canceling class on Wednesday and while Alejandro texted him plenty, neither of them had a schedule that really allowed for them to randomly hang out. Plus, whatever had Ghost super busy apparently had Alejandro busy as well.

Whatever.

So, when Thursday rolled around, Rodolfo was very happy to go and pick up Gaz and Malika. Gaz had decided on the shopping mall, since there were some stores that he knew would have clothes. Which is where they were, now.

Malika was a sweet omega, following Gaz closely. She and Rodolfo had already had a brief conversation about their classes and Rodolfo found that she was fairly intelligent, if not a bit clueless. Gaz informed him that it was because she had had a rough childhood, so Rodolfo decided not to ask about it.

Now, he was watching Gaz look through clothing on a rack in a store that sold “Elegance Wear” for omegas. There wasn’t honestly much difference in how male omegas and female omegas dressed. It mostly had to do with their secondary sex characteristics. Seeing as female omegas had breasts and male omegas had dicks. 

Female alphas and male alphas honestly differed more. It was a bit more socially acceptable for female alphas to be feminine, so they could wear dresses, though more and more opted not to.

In this store, clothing made to fit male omegas had an M next to the size and those for females had an F. Rodolfo was a 16M, for instance, but Malika was apparently a 14F. Apparently Alpha clothing sizes were a bit more complicated, which Rodolfo didn’t get why. But, he wasn’t going to bother questioning it. 

Clothing that could be a bit more neutrally worn just dropped the M and F. Most clothes in a walmart, for instance, would just be a size and that was it. And, seeing as female omegas rarely wore the underwired bra that female alphas did, apparently their bras were a bit less complicated to size as well.

Alphas had to play games with their sizing, too, apparently. 

Well, Rodolfo did suppose it could be important to them, since size used to be a huge thing for alphas. Not so much, anymore, but it had lingered. Bigger alphas were definitely respected a bit more. Just like smaller omegas were often seen as more desirable. 

“Rodolfo-” 

Rodolfo’s head whipped up and he blushed, seeing Gaz and Malika were both looking at him. “Yeah?”

“Have you paid attention to a bloody word I was saying??” Gaz huffed, crossing his arms. 

Rodolfo winced, since he hadn’t even been aware Gaz was talking. “No…” He admitted, going over to him and seeing that Malika was holding two outfits. A blood red velvet dress, which had a black blazer over it, and a the other was an outfit with black pants, a black corset blouse, and the same black blazer. 

“Which do you prefer?” Gaz gestured between the two of them, leaning against the rack. Apparently, Gaz used to be a bit of a nerd in high school, but… well, status was everything. The name Kyle Price said a lot, and it didn’t say dorky nerd. According to Gaz. 

Rodolfo looked between the two of them, considering. “Um… I kind of like the dress.” Admittedly, he was thinking of the painting, since the Royal had been wearing a dress that looked close to red velvet in it. 

This one had the same off the shoulder neckline, which was the most common style that male omegas wore. It didn’t look weird with a flat chest. “I like it.”

“I do, too. I really think it’ll match that jewelry.” Gaz smiled. He’d had Rodolfo send him pictures of it and so he held it up, asking Malika what she thought.

“Hmm…” Malika tilted her head. “I think the gold really goes with the dress, but I’m not liking the blazer… What about cream?”

“No, cream would be too vintage.” Gaz shook his head.

Rodolfo made a face. Right. Malika’s major, which Rodolfo had yet to actually hear, apparently had something to do with fashion. Rodolfo’s major did not. 

Malika seemed to agree, looking around. “Well, he can’t go without something over it, it’s going to be 50 degrees and there is no sleeve. I mean… if he does go, Alejandro may offer his jacket.”

“Yeah, we can’t have that.” Gaz snorted, putting the jacket back on the rack. “I’m giving him Rudy in this dress, I’m not going to give him that much.”

Malika continued to look around before leaving and coming back with a white shawl. It was also velvet, though a much fluffier velvet, and it had a place that one could use a broach, though Rodolfo didn’t own a broach. “I like it.” Gaz nodded, putting it over the dress. “Very elegant.”

Rodolfo was starting to worry it was too elegant. “I’ll be overdressed.”

“The event is black tie.” Gaz waved him off, starting to walk over to the shoe section. “I’m more worried about you being underdressed.”

“How do you know that??” Rodolfo followed him over. “I doubt it’s black tie, Alejandro doesn’t like those kinds of events.” Huh, Graves was taking him to a bar and Alejandro was taking him to a symphony that was supposedly black tie… Weird. It felt like it should be the opposite.

“Because I searched for the event. Don’t worry, Alejandro planned to tell you, I yelled at him over it.” Gaz’s tone was like he was reading off a manual. “He forgot. However, he confirmed it’s black tie.”

Rodolfo was more surprised that Gaz had bothered to speak to Alejandro than he was that Alejandro was going to a black tie event. But, he didn’t say anything, watching Malika and Gaz pick over the shoe section. When they seemed to find acceptable shoes, he shook his head. “Can I see how much everything costs?” 

He wasn’t surprised when Gaz just laughed.

They went up to the counter and Gaz smiled at the cashier. “My boyfriend called up earlier. Alex Keller? He opened a tab.”

The cashier nodded. “Yes, he did, I can see it. Can you give me the last four of the card?”

Gaz gave it and then put the clothes on the counter. Rodolfo rolled his eyes. Gaz could afford everything, himself, but Alex was a bit more traditional in that he believed an alpha should spoil their partner. Granted, Rodolfo was a bit more traditional than both of them, but as such, Gaz rarely paid for anything.

Soap had always joked ‘if it’s not Daddy’s money, it’s Daddy’s money.’ Of course, he meant that joke in a mean way, but Gaz had just let it roll off himself and laughed about it. (Soap was again one to talk since Ghost paid for damn near everything for him. Ghost was paying his college tuition, Gaz was paying his own.)

Rodolfo then followed Gaz out. “Okay, that’s one outfit. What about the other?” He went to take the bag, but Gaz didn’t let him. Whatever. 

“We’re just going to go to a simple store for that one.” Gaz said. Malika caught up to them and she ended up taking the bag, dropping something inside. “Obviously, you don’t need Elegant Wear for a bar.”

Rodolfo agreed and they went into a clothing boutique that Rodolfo did not think he’d be able to afford on his own, but which seemed to have much more casual clothing. He liked the style, looking around. Already, though, it appeared Gaz and Malika were building an outfit.

Black jeans, which Rodolfo preferred, though they appeared to be skinny jeans. Then, a white button down. Black tennis shoes, too. “It’s simple, he can wear the components anywhere else, I like it.” Malika nodded.

“What do you think?” Gaz looked at Rodolfo.

Rodolfo shrugged. They were clothes. “I like them. I think I have all of the components of that in my dorm.”

“Yeah, so? New clothes.” Gaz shook the hangers. 

Rodolfo rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, new clothes.” He chuckled, amused by the two. He went over, noting that the clothing was a bit nicer than whatever he owned. The jeans had a soft, almost velvet feel and the material seemed to have a bit more give. The shirt was a lot lighter of a material and Rodolfo did finally notice that it was tied in the front. “I like it.”

“Perfect! Well, that was easier than I expected.” Gaz went up and paid for everything before coming back. “Alright, I’m starving, let’s go eat.”

--

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[lairofdragonagelore]

Tevinter Nights: The Horror of Hormak

Personal Speculation

All the non-speculative content was delivered in this [post] which only explains what the book has to offer with some screenshoots of the pages as a proof. 

The chambers in this place have a constant theme: shifting horns of a halla. The change is not sudden but progressive, as the repetition of the images suggests. The columns also speak of progressive shifting, a constant iteration of the same illustration producing small changes on the picture while humanoid and monster begin to change one another. 

Although there are “monsters” described all along those pages, the repetitive presence of the halla is undeniable, even in the carving of the columns. This temple of shifting and mutation seems to highlight the horns of the halla, and so far, the only Evanuris we were informed as related to this animal is the mother of Hallas: Ghilan'nain. In the Temple of Mythal, where the information is more accurate only because it belonged to the time these events happened, we find out her codex explaining that she is related to the creation of giants, hallas, and other monsters. This ability is what allowed Ghilan'nain to become an Evanuris, otherwise, she would have been another one of “the people” [ a standard elf=servant?]. 

In this book, there are some descriptions that brought to my mind objects and elements we saw in the games:

The third band focuses on hallas, and the shape described in them reminds me of the mural paintings we find in DAI:

the hallas are wrongly depicted: they have too many horns, they look more rounded, almost insectoid-like.

[Also include the first image of this post: the winged halla]

The structure of the last chamber, where we find the pool of grey viscous fluid [which smells like sea water] and a massive crystal of lyrium over it, reminded me immediately to Amgarrak. 

In Amgarrak we learnt that a Tevinter Mage wanted to recreate a Golem made of flesh, using a massive artefact to trap “fade spirits” into the flesh golem. The process to craft these golems was not simple since, apparently, it required of Lyrium wells filled with raw lyrium over which a massive structure with Lyrium veins hovered. These artefacts powered up the whole Thaig to produce shifts in the planes. 

If DAO content can still be held and compared to DAI content, I would imagine this chamber described in the book was the original artefact that "inspired" the Tevinter Mage [I’m not saying they are the same, but the fact that the brine pool fuse creatures, and in Amgarrak the spirits were forced on fused corpses, seems to share a link in the concept of fusing bodies in different states]. Both chambers seem to do something similar: fusion of spirits/bodies with others.

In Amgarrak the artefact catches spirits from the Fade and forces them into golems of fused corpses. In the artefact of Tevinter Nights it looks like it fuses living bodies AND souls. This grey pool feels like a corrupted, abandoned artefact that stopped doing its original purpose. If we follow what we learnt in the previous chamber narrated in the book, about shifting and progressive change, this pool, which I suppose used to produce that progressive shift between people and monsters, seems to be broken. It is progressive with humanoids, as Jovis says, while with darkspawn the procedure is instantaneous. Maybe the lack of soul has to do something in this. 

This also brings to my mind all what we learnt in the Lost Temple of Dirthamen: Dirthamen priests and disciples had a deep knowledge of bounding souls and bodies, to the point I suspect that Dirthamen and Falon’Din had this kind of relationship, hence you can never differentiate one from the other. It’s not by chance that in the Lost Temple of Dirthamen we have no mosaic of Dirthamen, several ones of Falon’Din and one in red of Ghilan’nain. The link could potentially be the “secret of bounding spirits to flesh” [in the same fashion that the disciples ended up doing with the High Priest in this place. For more details, read the post about the Lost Temple of Dirthamen] 

It’s worth noting that in the chamber of the book, the lyrium crystal glows in green-yellow-ish colours, which seems to be the usual colour of Fade-related stuff in DAI [rifts, rift magic, veilfire, possession of spirits like in Hakkon’s case].

When it comes to the interpretation of the mural with the bands, I have two possibilities: 

1) The first chamber speaks of Evanuris with their slaves cowering in terror, inserting disease in them via magical procedures, and then sending them to the mountains. A simple reading of this means that the Evanuris’ slaves lived in terror, knowing the danger of being subjects of experiments (infected) by the mages and sent to the mountains. Which is strange, purposeless even, since it is in these mountains where the transformation happens. The original disease forced via magic is a previous condition for a better result of the final transformation later? Impossible to say.

2) The other interpretation I can do is in a reverse direction, from the lower band to the top: kidnapped elves, inside aravel-prisons, are sent to the mountains where they are subjected to a procedure that turns them into chimeras. The process is slow and controlled. This disease, inserted by the mages in a way or another, can be contained by the evanuris with the use of Vallaslin [which is a design made of blood and probably, originally related to blood magic]. In this way, the Evanuris had a total control on the elves wearing a Vallaslin, since without it, the transformation continues. This gave them the power to amass countless servants who lived in terror for what they had inside, only controlled by the whims of their masters.

I have [speculative] reasons to think that part of this procedure is related to the Vallaslin, simply because the paintings in DAI. We have two in particular that show the shifted/weird halla, carrying a red colour on it. The elves in white have clear signs of vallaslin on their faces.  

Similar row of white-blank elves can be seen in another drawing, walking like zombies, faceless and chest erased, as if they have no mind nor heart, and a red  swirly mark falls over their shoulders. As usual, this red has swirls, making it related to lyrium. All this under the Golden Ring we mostly see with the elven statue of the owl.

Another interesting detail we can take from this book is that it seems that the aravels, an iconic Dalish element, was originally to be a means for transportation of slaves. It seems very Dalish to rebuild their culture by using yet another slave element: vallaslin that determined who were their owner, aravels that were prison-ships, and hallas [Ghilan’nain’s favoured animal] “leading the path” to their destiny. 

When we go to the next chamber, and we see chimerical darkspawn, plus the mosaic previously depicting unknown flowers and animals, I think this may connect with The Descent, in the codex of Ailsa’s diary, a grey warden who lives her last days of The Calling. She says the following things:

I cut through the darkspawn horde, expecting to find only more of them the deeper I traveled. But nothing has matched my expectations. "Deep Roads" brought to mind darkspawn, dwarven ruins, caverns, and death—but there's an entire underground world here. Just today, I came across plants with lyrium-streaked veins. I took a bath in a lake that held crisp, fresh water and cautious animals, large and small, that I'd never seen before. I can't be the first Warden to witness such wonders.

But then I stumbled across something horrible. I smelled it before I saw it: bodies. Hurlocks, genlocks, creatures I didn't recognize—hundreds of them, mutilated, tortured, and thrown into pits.

She points out beautiful flowers and unknown animals, which is what the Hormak’s engraving walls show. The other point is that Ailsa seems to see a pit of “failed experiments”. It’s not said explicitly, but both places state about creatures that are unrecognisable for Wardens [who have seen a lot in their lives and specially in the Deep Road]. I think it seems worthy to keep this detail in mind.

Jovis is presented as something not quite similar to a Harvester, but clearly a grotesque fusion with an insect. The Harvester in DAO and DA2 was the fusion of a spirit or a living creature with corpses; here, it’s the fusion of living creatures with different spirits, fighting for the control of their common body.

There is also something very disturbing that Jovis says: “She cannot have it. Not again.” The Again implies that she had it before. And it’s a she. With all the info we had, the straightforward conclusion seems to be the priest who used this pool to create chimeras.  Ghilan'nain’s?

If you read the art of the three bands from the bottom to the top [a direction more related to hierarchy], one can interpret that twisted hallas guided prison-ships elves into places like this one we are in. Probably these twelve temples looked like heaven: temples of elven design that we have seen as beautiful, pristine even [as the book remarks], filled with beauty, flowers and strange animals. These places were beautiful for the Evanuris, not for the slaves.  The Evanuris forced disease into their slaves, using animals, causing small shifts in them until the change make them into monsters. Only then, the Evanuris felt content with the result. This was the foundation of the power of the evanuris, who controlled the masses of elves out of terror. Or this could have been how they developed armies. 

We also know that back then the Evanuris were at war, first with the Titans, and later with themselves. This fusing process seems to be an interesting one for creating perfect armies, as the Warden Ramesh points out in the book.

As a last detail, specially related to the “shifting”, the DAI paintings may display something of the like in their mysterious paintings: We see an elf with marks on his face that are not clear if they are Vallaslin or style lines to mark shadows. In any case, both elves always display patterns on their upper body. 

The pattern in both elves is the same with only a change in the colour. The warrior one has white legs, no marks on them. The second one shows a darkening of his colours and patterns, and his legs follow the colours and patterns we see later in the lizard figure and in the halla.  At the background of the second elf we see in white the design of the Golden Ring that the owl statue always holds in its talons.

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore ]

[spectacled-renegade-writes]

An Early Start - Chapter 12 - Danny Phantom

Ao3: Here | Masterpost: Here

Ao3 Description: The accident that turns Danny half-ghost happens when he is four years old and leaves him trapped in the Ghost Zone. Clockwork finds him and takes him in to raise. But what happens when Clockwork sends Danny back to the human-world ten years later when a permanent portal appears?

Chapter 12:

Sam and Tucker were anomalies indeed. On one hand, they were very different from the other humans he’s met but on the other, they are very much alike. Part of Danny thought he should stop thinking of himself as different from them, and by that he meant humans in general. After all, he was still half-human, and he'd been a human before he became a ghost. Still, he'd spent most of his life in the Ghost Zone, as a ghost, being raised by a ghost. So, his internal struggle continued.

But Sam and Tucker, they fascinated him.

Turns out their favorite hangout was the Nasty Burger. They went there nearly every day after school.

“U-L-T-R-A R-E-C-Y-C…” Danny trailed off, his fingerspelling uncertain and his expression confused. “I don’t even know how to spell that.”

Tucker laughed, “You and me both, dude.”

“What… is it exactly?” Danny asked.

“I don’t eat anything with a face.” Sam replied proudly.

Danny nodded. Fascinating indeed.

“So,” Tucker said, eating a fry. “What kind of things do you like to do for fun?”

Danny thought about it. Explore the Ghost Zone. Learn new things about the universe from Clockwork. Hang out with his ghost friends. He realized none of these things were answers he could say. So, he shrugged. “Read, I guess. Stargaze.”

“That’s it?”

“I think those things are awesome.” Sam interjected.

“Yeah, well,” Tucker said. “I guess they’re cool and all but what about the flair? What about living?”

What about dying?

“I’m just saying,” Tucker continued. “We’ve gotta show you the ropes.”

Danny raised an eyebrow. “The ropes?”

“I guess Tucker’s right.” Sam said. “You’re from out of town. We need to show you what qualifies as fun in a place as boring as this.”

Danny smiled. “Lead the way.”

So, lead they did, and the place they took him was surprising. An abandoned town house at the edge of the city. It was decrepit, covered in moss and vines, and nearly falling apart. “Tucker and I found this place a few years back,” Sam explained. She gestured to the graffiti on the walls. “And it seems like we weren’t the only ones. But, no one’s ever been here at the same time as us. We come here when we’re bored.”

Danny looked around. The Ghost Zone had a few places like this, minus the graffiti. He’s never actually seen graffiti before. Is this the human word for art? He second guessed himself, maybe he remembered less than he thought.

“Cool, right?” Tucker said as Danny ran a hand over one of the art pieces. “Graffiti was never my preferred medium but Sam’s all about it. A few of these pieces are hers. They’re all upstairs though.”

Danny turned to Sam. “Show me?” So they did. They took Danny upstairs, to a room off the left, and showed him in. The room itself obviously used to be a nursery, a broken cradle and collapsed rocking chair, and the peeling, painted ceiling showed old drawings of clouds. Now, though, the room was covered in dust, cobwebs, and tetanus. Sam directed Danny to her wall.

“My stuff’s over here. It’s mostly just spiders and death, so, you know, everything goth.”

Danny examined it. She was very talented. Despite its gloominess, its attention to detail gave way to the fact that she put a lot of heart into it. He smiled and gravitated toward the ghosts in the corner, definitely unlike any ghost he’s ever seen. Sam’s ghosts were less corporeal and more wispy, translucent even. Danny recalled his own art lessons with Clockwork. He was still very young at the time and he remembered how frustrated he got that he couldn't make his hand recreate the thing he was looking at. “Patience.” Clockwork had said. “Some talents come naturally but others, they take time and practice. Not everything in existence comes easily but that does not mean we should quit. Practice and patience blossoms our proudest creations.”

Danny only realized years later that Clockwork was teaching him two lessons that day.

“Here.” Danny turned around and saw Sam offering him a spray can. “You make something.” She encouraged.

Danny looked down at the spray can then back up at both her and Tucker. Both of them had this half encouraging, half impish expressions on their faces. His hands fumbled uncertainly as he spoke, “I’ve never use those before.”

“It’s easy,” Sam said. “You just point and spray. Just make sure you have the nozzle pointed away from you.”

Danny looked to the wall then back to his friends, and chewed the inside of his cheek. “What should I make?”

“That’s the beauty of it,” Tucker declared. “You can make whatever you want!”

So, not seeing any other reason why he shouldn’t, Danny took the spray can. Sam crossed the room and opened the windows to let out the fumes. “Wait,” she said, walking back and digging through her backpack, she pulled out a bandana and handed it to Danny. “If you’re gonna work with spray paint, you should cover your face. Here, tie this around your head.”

At first Danny thought she meant his entire head, which confused him for obvious reasons, but when he saw Sam and Tucker tying bandanas of their own around their mouths and noses, it made a lot more sense. He did as instructed, and turned to find a blank space on the wall.

A clatter sounded next to Danny and he saw Tucker had dropped a crate with other spray paint colors next to him. Danny looked at the one in his hand, it was blue. He could work with that. His friends stood back and watched the magic happen as Danny began to paint.

It was surprising at first, using the spray cans, but he quickly figured it out, and inspiration struck. Sam had painted goth things, things on her mind, so Danny did just the same. His friends watched in awe as a picture of something fantastical and otherworldly came to life before them. When Danny was done, he took a step back.

“Wow.” Tucker said.

“Yeah.” Sam agreed.

Danny painted Clockwork’s tower. The home he grew up in. The home he longed for. A day hasn’t gone by since being in the human world that he hasn’t ached to return. He missed his room. He missed the weightlessness. He missed his father, the one who raised him, taught him everything he knows. He missed Clockwork.

“That is awesome, dude!” Tucker exclaimed. “It’s like medieval meets sci-fi or something. What do you call it?”

Danny weighed the pros and cons of telling them the truth but in the end, it’s not like they’d ever know. “C-L-O-C-K-W-O-R-K-S T-O-W-E-R.”

“Clockwork’s tower?” Sam asked.

Danny shrugged.

“That hardcore, man.” Tucker approved and Sam agreed. Danny felt a sort of warmth blossom in his chest. Even if they didn’t really know, it still felt nice, in a way, for his friends to approve of his home. Sam closed the windows and they showed him more of the house.

Back downstairs, Tucker led them to a pantry. “This is my favorite feature of the house,” he said. “And here’s why.” He shone a flashlight he’d procured from his bag and shone it in the dingy little closet, onto the far wall. “Now these are trade secrets,” he warned. “So you can’t tell anybody.” Danny zipped his lips in response. Tucker moved into the pantry and pressed a hand hard onto the back wall. A moment later a soft click sounded, and Tucker removed a secret panel. Behind it was a shelf filled with snacks, CDs, a radio and a first aid kit. “Secret compartment. Found it by accident.” He smiled smugly. Sam pushed past him and grabbed a bag of chips.

“No one else has found it,” she said. “So we made it into our little emergency supply storage, and restock it often.” Sam grabbed another bag of chips and threw it to Danny. “But we mostly just use it to hide snacks when we hang out.”

Danny smiled. Being in the human world was hard but Sam and Tucker, they made it easier. The three of them spent the rest of the afternoon snacking, listening to music, and chatting the day away.

-

When Danny came home later that evening after hanging out with Sam and Tucker, he got bombarded by his parents the moment he stepped through the threshold.

“And where were you, young man?” His mother demanded. Despite her tone of voice, she looked more frantic than angry. In fact, both of his parents looked worried. Danny didn’t understand why until Jazz appeared from the kitchen.

“Danny!” Jazz exclaimed, running toward him and hugging him tight. “Where were you? We were worried sick!” She let go but kept her hands on his shoulders. “You can’t just disappear like that.”

Ah. Disappear. Now it made sense. He’d done that ten years ago, hadn’t he? It hadn’t occurred to him that he should tell them where he was going. He never needed to tell Clockwork, Clockwork always knew he’d come home, and Danny was certain Clockwork knew where he was at all times. But Danny wasn’t with his ghost family, he was with his human one, and his human one didn’t know he’d come home. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his notebook. I’m sorry. He wrote. I didn’t know I was supposed to tell you what I was doing.

“So,” Maddie asked. “What were you doing?”

Hanging out with my new friends. Danny answered.

All three of them lit up at that, worry dissipating immediately. “Danny,” Jazz beamed. “You actually made friends!” She hugged him again and Danny felt suffocated. “I’m so proud of you!”

Danny wormed his way out of his sister’s embrace and took a step back to breathe. He loved her, as much as Clockwork, but he needed his space. Jazz seemed unaffected, she was just so happy. Danny wasn’t surprised. The past three days the last thing she said to him before splitting up for class was, “Have fun! Make some friends!” It’s his fault he hadn’t told her until now. It honestly just hadn’t crossed his mind.

“Well,” Jack said. “If you’re going to be hanging out with friends after school, we need to get you a cell phone, and teach you about ghosts!” Danny tilted his head. Jack took him by the shoulder and began to lead him to the basement. “If you’re going to be out and about, you need to learn how to protect yourself against those spectral spooks.”

“Dad!” Jazz opposed. “Danny does not need to be a part of your crazy ghost hunting ventures! He’s just a kid, not some kind of experiment, or a mentee.”

But Jack did not listen and instead took her by the shoulder as well. “Good idea, Jazz! You can both learn how to defend yourselves!” So, he led both his children to the basement, where he promptly began his ‘So, you want to be a ghost hunter’ speech. Danny and Jazz sat in chairs next to each other as Jack spoke. He introduced the Fenton Thermos, a device which captured and contained ghosts, and turned to retrieve his next weapon.

Jazz’s simmering frustration finally boiled over and she stood from her seat, and marched over to her father to give him a piece of her mind.

It was impeccable timing too because the moment she did, the ghost portal opened and two ecto-pusses exited it. Danny stared. They stared back. Jazz and Jack remained oblivious as they bickered with their backs turned. “You can’t be here,” Danny whispered, and wow. It felt so nice to speak in Ghost Speak again. He didn't mind signing, and he was fluent in it, but Ghost Speak felt more like his native language, and it was what he was most comfortable using. The ecto-pusses continued to stare. They seemed to realize they were looking at the ward of Clockwork. Danny glanced again to his sister and father, and back to them. “It’s time to go back.” The ecto-pusses gave one final glance at each other before turning to flee back into the portal. Not a moment too soon, too. The second they vanished, both Jazz and his father turned back around.

“Come on, Danny.” Jazz said, taking his hand. “Let me help you with your homework.” Danny let Jazz drag him out of the lab.

However, later that night, Danny snuck back down and stole the thermos for himself. It was only a precaution, but he knew he wouldn’t be dealing with just ghosts who would flee at the sight of “Clockwork’s ward” forever, and he’d need to use it if he couldn’t talk them down.

A ghost like that appeared the following Monday.

Danny walked in to school and met his friends by their lockers. Tucker was fuming about something and Sam seemed proud of herself. Danny zipped the book he was carrying into his backpack to free his hands before he spoke. “What’s going on?”

“Sam,” Tucker pointed an accusing finger at her. “Committed an atrocity that which mankind has never seen!”

Danny’s eyes widened and he turned to Sam. She only scoffed and said, “Oh, quit being dramatic. I only changed the lunch menu, get over it.”

“I will not,” Tucker insisted. “You took away all the meat! You can’t take away a carnivore’s meat!”

Danny’s panic quickly subsided to amusement. He still had trouble remembering to eat in the first place so what he ate didn’t really matter to him. He listened to his friends’ silly argument as he made his way to his own locker, and watched through spiteful notes passed during class, and continued to listen between classes, all the way to lunch.

As Danny held out his tray to the lunch lady, and a piece of bread with grass was dropped on it, even he had to agree with Tucker on this one. There was a lot about the human world Danny still didn’t know about but he was certain you weren’t supposed to eat grass, and judging by the looks on the other students faces, he was right. As he sat his tray down at their usual table, he looked at what was supposed to be considered food and said, “This is grass.”

“Right?!” Tucker agreed. “Grass. From the ground. Not food, Sam!”

But before Sam could argue back, Mr. Lancer appeared behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Ah, Ms. Manson. The school board wanted me to personally thank you for ushering in this welcome experiment to our cafeteria.”

Tucker, on the other hand, seemed distressed. He sniffed the air and said, “Meat. Near.”

Earlier, Tucker said that meat heightened your senses, and he proved it by correctly guessing what Danny had for dinner the night before. Danny had been impressed but he still wondered if what Tucker said was true or not. Tucker’s proclamation was seeming more and more plausible by the minute when Danny saw a fretful look cross Mr. Lancer’s face as he quickly said, “No, no, the rumors about the all-steak buffet in the teacher’s lounge are completely untrue.”

Danny couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. Maybe he’d sneak in and steal one for Tucker. It’d be nice to step out of the dreadful cafeteria anyway, he still wasn’t used to this place... honestly he didn’t know if he ever would be.

“Thanks again,” Mr. Lancer said as he walked off.

“Yeah, thanks for making us eat garbage, Sam.” Tucker pouted.

“It’s not garbage! It’s recyclable organic matter.”

Danny narrowed his eyes and Tucker said, “It’s garbage.”

Danny didn’t have much of an appetite anyway so he passed his plate to Sam and made to stand up to put his tray away. But he didn’t even manage to stand before two things happened at the same time. One: His ghost sense went off, and two: Dash stormed over to him yelling, “Hey, ghost boy!” In Danny’s week there, the term had become an insult he heard whispered behind his back daily. He mostly found it amusing. If only they knew. But Dash, for whatever reason, decided Danny would be his new favorite victim. Apparently there was something about Danny that didn’t sit quite right with people and Dash took offense to that. Dash held up his tray and said, “I ordered three mud pies and you know what I got? Three. Mud pies. With mud. From the ground!”

Danny really didn’t have time for this, not with a ghost around, so before Dash could grab him by the shirt, he took the mud off Dash’s tray and chucked it across the room. The rest of the cafeteria excitedly followed suit and began a food fight. Dash was hit in the process and successfully lost focus of Danny. Danny used the opportunity to sneak off to the kitchen.

When he entered, he recognized the ghost inside. Danny transformed and floated over to her. “Hello,” he said.

The ghost of the Lunch Lady turned around and stiffened when she was greeted with Clockwork’s ward. “Oh, hello there, dearie.” She said in a sickly, sweet voice. “I heard rumors that you were no longer in the Ghost Zone. I’m just here because it seems… well, somebody has changed the menu. Do you know who that might be?”

Danny wasn’t stupid. He knew about her short temper and what would happen if he told her the truth. So, he lied. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m sure we can work something out.”

The Lunch Lady scowled at the “Ultra-Recyclo-Vegetarian” cookbook in her hands. “Today is supposed to be meatloaf, but I don’t see any meatloaf.”

“You were the lunch lady at this school?”

“That’s right, dearie,” said the Lunch Lady. “And my balanced meal plan never changed, even after I passed. Now, it has changed, and I can’t stand for that. I’m sure you understand. Would you help me fix it?”

Danny chewed his lip. There was only one way this would end. He desperately tried to find the words to create a second way. So, he tried empathy. “I… I didn’t want to leave the Ghost Zone.” He said. “But, Clockwork told me I had a mission, so I had to. It’s been a big change and a lot of it is uncomfortable, but there are things that make it bearable, and make me realize things will get easier, that it’ll be okay.” He could see the lost look on the Lunch Lady’s face, her obvious confusion with such an abrupt change of subject. Danny pressed on. “So… with that being said, maybe it’ll be okay for you, too. I know the lunch menu changing is uncomfortable but… maybe it’ll be okay? Maybe you just need time.”

For a moment, nothing happened. For a moment, the Lunch Lady just blanched. Then, quick as a whip, she snarled, and her hair turned to flames. “No!” She cried. “The menu has been the same for fifty years! It will not be changed!” With a ferocity of a lunch lady scorned, she charged at Danny. “I will change it back and if you’re the only thing standing in my way, so be it! Clockwork can’t protect you here, boy!”

Danny quickly threw up a shield and thwarted her attack. “I don’t need Clockwork to protect me!" He yelled. "I can protect myself! I don’t want to fight, but I will if I must!”

The Lunch Lady let out a howl as she charged once again. Danny knew it was dangerous to fight in such a confined space, with so many humans near, so he went intangible and flew through the ceiling, the Lunch Lady following suit. Danny raced down the hall, Lunch Lady hot on his tail. He had an arsenal of attacks at the ready but he didn’t truly want to hurt her, so he hesitated which to use. He turned another corner and found himself greeted with a group of students. He quickly b-lined toward the floor and found himself in the school's basement, surrounded by none other than boxes of meat. “Can’t we talk this out?!” He yelled.

“No!” The Lunch Lady boomed. She raised her arms and meat came flying out of the boxes and began to assemble around her, creating a meat-based armor. “I control lunch! Lunch is sacred! Lunch has rules! No one will stand in my way!” She threw her arms out and a flurry of meat came flying towards Danny. Danny quickly threw his hands out and the moment the meat made contact, it began to freeze, starting from point of contact and traveling up, eventually engulfing the meat monster completely.

“I’m sorry.” Danny said. The Lunch Lady was completely frozen in ice so Danny soared to his locker, grabbed the thermos, and returned within seconds. “Clockwork tasked me with protecting the humans. So, I had to fight you. I’m sorry it had to be this way.” Danny popped the lid off the thermos, pointed it at the Lunch Lady, and clicked the button. The Lunch Lady yelled as she was sucked inside and Danny winced. Being half-human didn't negate the fact that he was also her kind. As he touched down and returned back to human, he felt a sick feeling in his stomach. He held the thermos close to his chest.

Danny walked silently down the hallway, back to his locker. He wanted to puke. Saving a ghost from another ghost is one thing, like the time he saved Wulf from Skulker, but despite the fact that she wanted to cause harm, it felt wrong choosing one species over the other. What was worse is that… even though he would never bring harm to humans, in his heart he still preferred ghosts. But the moment Danny felt like he was going to cry was also the moment he felt a heavy hand land on his shoulder. He looked up to see the disappointed face of Mr. Lancer. “Mr. Fenton. My office. Now.”

Danny had no choice but to follow. The adults in this school still did not scare him as they did the others, but he was trying to follow their rules. When Danny entered the office, Sam and Tucker were there too. They stared at him in a way Danny couldn’t quite explain. He took a seat next to them upon Mr. Lancer’s request.

“Now, Mr. Fenton,” Mr. Lancer sighed, taking a seat at his desk. “I am aware you have… been through a lot, but that does not absolve you from the rules. Now, this is your first offense so I will give you a chance to explain. According to Mr. Baxter, you started the food fight in the cafeteria with your friends. Now, why would you do such a thing like that?”

Danny didn’t know what to say. He glanced to his friends but they only continued to stare back with those unreadable expressions. Well, hopefully one of them would snap out of it to translate for him. “It was the only way to get Dash away from me.” He signed. Luckily, Sam did in fact snap out of it and became his translator.

Mr. Lancer clasped his hands together on his desk and leaned back. “If another student was giving you a problem, then you should have asked for help.”

“How? I can’t speak.” Danny deadpanned. He saw the way Mr. Lancer flushed at that.

“Right, well, be that as it may, actions still have consequences. So, the three of you will stay after school and clean up the cafeteria until it’s spotless. Understood?”

His two friends groaned and Danny spoke up again, but Sam didn’t translate this time and instead said, “Danny, you don’t have to do that.”

“Come on, Sam,” said Tucker, a hint of pleading and hope in his eyes. “If that’s what the man wants to do, I say let him.”

“Will someone please tell me what is going on?” Mr. Lancer demanded. Danny looked pointedly at Sam and gestured to the teacher. Sam sighed.

“He said he’s the only one at fault. Tucker and I didn’t help start the fight. He started it on his own.”

“Noble,” Lancer hummed. “Admirable. But, according to Mr. Baxter, all three of you are at fault, so all three of you will receive detention.”

“But –“ Tucker tried to argue.

“No buts,” Mr. Lancer interrupted. “I will see all three of you after school and I will be calling your parents.”

Tucker slumped in his chair and mumbled, “Figures.”

Danny felt bad. He'd had to think on the spot but he should have thought of something better. Though, he just knew if he ran, Dash would’ve followed. He stared down at the thermos in his lap. He felt even worse now. Staying after school meant that much longer the Lunch Lady would be stuck in such a tiny space. Vaguely, he wondered what it was like in there. He didn’t want to find out. So, after being excused, and given hall passes back to class, which have started back up by now, Danny decided to take a detour. “I’ll meet you back in class.” Danny told his friends.

“Where are you going?” Tucker asked.

Danny looked down at the thermos, held in the crook of his elbow, then looked back up to his friends. “I need to stop by my locker.”

“We’ll come with you,” said Sam. “Beats going back to class just yet.”

Danny chewed his lip. He counted two times now that he thought of the wrong thing on the spot today. He never had to deal with stuff like this in the Ghost Zone. “It’s fine. It won’t even be that long.” He saw the way his friends glanced at each other. Saw the way their faces changed back to that indescribable look. It left a bad taste in his mouth. Did he do something wrong? Were they mad at him for getting them detention? Not knowing what he did to upset his friends was killing him but he didn’t have time to address it yet.

“Okay, Danny,” Sam said. “We’ll see you in class.” Danny watched as they walked away, remained rooted to the spot until they turned the corner. When they were gone, he stepped in to the nearest bathroom, made sure the coast was clear, and transformed, then proceeded to turn invisible and intangible, and fly home as quick as he could to release the Lunch Lady back into the Ghost Zone.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ao3 Notes: First extra long chapter! Fun fact: The chapters where I need to do an episode rewrite are my LEAST favorite chapters to write. Even so, I hope I still did a good job for you lovely readers. There will only be a few chapters like that but they are necessary for the plot. Once again thank you so much for reading and I hope you have a wonderful day/night! :D

[cosmossystem]

🐾 and ⭐ for the ask game :)

ask game

Thanks for sending in an ask! I'll be answering this time. - Crush

🐾 Is your system mostly human or inhuman members? Somewhere in between?

Almost everyone here is some breed of therian or alterhuman. I think there's maybe only a handful of people who identify as full humans, myself being one of them. I personally make up for that fact by being a furry.

We used to have quite a few animal "NPCs" (we always called them "thoughtforms" to separate them from our tulpas, though I know most other systems use those terms interchangeably) as well, but it seems most of them dissolved for various reasons.

⭐ Do you have a headspace / inner world? What does it look like?

Good question with perfect timing, actually. We've had several headspaces over the years-- er, I should say, we had several over the course of one year, and then the same one ever since.

When we first discovered our plurality, we switched headspaces every few months because of our rampant shutdowns. Like Red said, we haven't had those in years, so it's been the same one for a while. We do have multiple headspaces, I'll try my best to explain.

Nowadays, our primary "Front" (as a noun) looks more like a giant modern white room (think of a sci-fi spaceship) with several doors, a lounge in the center for anyone not fronting, a console/roundtable behind that for fronters & everyone cocon, and to the north is a giant window that reflects the real world time. During the days, it's sunny with visible stars, and during nights, it looks like the galaxy. And at the back of the room opposite to the window is the "master door" to the Void (which is where new headmates used to show up.) We call this big room the "console room".

In each corner is a hallway (/wing) with, you guessed it, more doors to different areas.

Behind the doors in the main area are just homes, where everyone lives when they aren't fronting. Everyone decorates their area how they want to-- for instance, I live in a studio apartment.

Once upon a time, the ceiling to the console room was so tall that we had a hidden room up there like a treehouse. But then we all got sick of having to climb up to it. So we repurposed the middle area into the lounge, and moved all of the blankets and pillows and trinkets down to there instead.

Here's a shitty MS Paint recreation for you:

I say this was perfect timing because recently we've been restructuring how our headspace works. There aren't as many of us as there used to be, and like I said, most of our NPCs have vanished. The wings used to lead to one-off areas such as the aviary or the shared kitchen, but these went mostly unused, so there's no need for them anymore and we got rid of them recently, leaving just the console room.

Should note that fronting for us is not confined to one area of headspace. It's just whoever's piloting the body; the inner workings are cosmetic. So the "Front" (noun) is just a place we gather to chat with everyone. Most of the time, we all visit each other's homes behind the doors while still fronting.

And to further complicate things, we apparently have two systems running parallel at all times. I won't explain how that works because this post is long enough. But in short, the above is our main headspace. Our subsystem always resides in what we call the "medspace" (pronounced with a long E, like medium). It's literally just a pitch black void. Technically, the main system *can* visit medspace, but it's difficult and we only manage to do it when under distress.

Also, remember how I said new members used to show up in the Void first? Well, recently they've stopped doing that. Or, maybe the Void just got repurposed into medspace? It's complicated. We don't use the master door anymore and just keep it for looks.

Lastly, I'm a bit of a special case, because I have a median link, Malware. We did have our own separate headspace, but it doesn't get used anymore, and these days we both live happily in the main headspace.

Anyway TLDR: our main headspace is a cool spaceship-style room with a big ol' window and some doors to areas where individual members live.

[danbisroom]

Ep. 4 - A Message Encased in You

Hello everyone,

Welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope you’re doing well and that you had the possibility to rest during the weekend. And I also hope that, at least once, at least for a brief moment, you looked at yourself in the mirror and you felt proud. Of everything you are and you’ve ever been. And I hope that even if you felt failure within you your soul remembered that every failure is a clue that gets you closer to whatever you might want to be or do. I hope you looked at yourself like you look at a piece of art. A real piece of art. Complex, multifaceted, unique, sublime. Beauty and terror, or strength and softness…the possible combinations are infinite and ever-changing. The point is still feeling beyond our bodies. As we always say, we’re all particles of this universe, like trees and stars and drops in the ocean. Different, united and essential. Having our own singularities is not only beautiful: we would have never survived otherwise. The pack can’t survive if everybody’s the same and does the same things and behaves the same way. That’s, in short, why we should never look down on others or ourselves “just because”. We all have our reason to exist in this form and even without resorting to motives, can’t we just joyfully live and love ourselves and each other? After all, art is meant to make you feel something, to start a dialogue, to communicate. We are embodiments of thoughts. How wonderful is that? Sometimes we can’t see it. Sometimes we’re blind. Or maybe we just don’t know how to look. Everything need to be learnt and trained, sight is no exception. This means that even seeing beauty in others is something we learn. Art has many layers right? Sure, some colours and lines instantly intrigue us, but the more paintings we study the more we grasp something new, the more we appreciate something new, the more we appreciate things that didn’t even make it to cross our mind a while before. The same applies to music. I mean I grew up with classical and jazz but that didn’t prevent me from liking punk or kpop. Listening to Bach definitely made me able to comprehend metal and the complexity of be-bop let me feel the raw feelings of Nirvana’s songs even more. Of course I won’t like everything and that’s natural. We can’t like everybody and we can’t be liked by everybody. As some art and people will feel like home, others will be inspirations and role-models and more will make us sad. It is, again, all about welcoming and embracing all of the emotions, about holding space for them. What, at a first glance, might seem a flaw, can be exactly what makes that piece of art…art. What we’ve been conditioned to dislike can be what makes us fall in love. Picasso’s cubist visions are no less than the perfect symmetries of Piero Della Francesca’s paintings in the Renaissance. And they both changed the world. Dogon traditional masks tell us stories, like ancient Greek reliefs. And that slightly out-of-tune vocalisation in talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” is exactly what makes the song special. But this can only be seen if we’re willing to step down, if we’re willing to be completely open to observe art, to observe people, to love them. Because sometimes, we don’t know why, things just feel right. We just really need to love them. Because small eyes can still hold galaxies in them, thin frizzy hair can remind you of majestic clouds in the sky, an asymmetrical face can create the most charming expressions whose highlight is your beautiful “crooked and big” nose, along with your unique smile gently accompanied by your fine eyebrows.

This was a stream of consciousness I had a few days ago. I tried to recreate it and put the fragments together.

The conclusion is that it is true, the beauty we see is a reflection of the beauty within us.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you’ll have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi