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aeth-eris · 2 months ago

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★ shadow work for each rising sign: navigating the transformative transits of 2025-2026 ★

☆ pluto into aquarius:

first entry: march 23, 2023 (retrograded back into capricorn in 2023)

re-enters aquarius: november 19, 2024

fully settles in aquarius: january 20, 2025

stays in aquarius until 2043, as pluto spends about 20 years in each sign.

☆ uranus into gemini:

first entry: july 7, 2025

retrogrades back into taurus: november 8, 2025

re-enters gemini and stays: april 26, 2026

stays in gemini until 2033, with uranus spending about 7 years in each sign.

☆ neptune into aries:

first entry: march 30, 2025

retrogrades back into pisces: october 22, 2025

re-enters aries and stays: january 26, 2026

stays in aries until 2039, as neptune spends approximately 13-14 years in each sign.

☆ saturn into aries:

first entry: may 24, 2025

retrogrades back into pisces: september 1, 2025

re-enters aries and stays: february 13, 2026

stays in aries until february 15, 2028, as saturn spends about 2.5 years in each sign.

★ aries rising ★ pluto’s move into aries rising’s 11th house of friendships and goals pushes them to face insecurities around group identity and social roles. shadow work here involves examining where they may have masked self-doubt with a bold presence, fearing they might fade into the background. they may discover a tendency to lead or assert control as a way to feel valued. meanwhile, neptune and saturn in the 1st house challenge them to question if their confident self-image hides deeper vulnerabilities, asking if they’ve built a facade to protect against rejection. addressing these dynamics will allow aries rising to embrace authenticity in both social groups and personal identity, finding strength in their true self instead of external validation. ☆ prompts: “where do i feel the need to ‘prove’ myself to others? how do i feel about the idea of taking a less prominent role in group settings? am i masking insecurity with confidence, and if so, where can i soften and allow my true self to be seen?”

★ taurus rising ★ pluto’s transit through taurus rising’s 10th house of career asks them to address attachments to public success and stability. shadow work involves exploring fears of failure, especially if they’ve tied self-worth to professional achievements or status. with uranus moving through the 2nd house of values and finances, taurus rising is also called to question if material wealth has become a substitute for inner security. they may uncover scarcity mindsets or a hidden fear of instability. by confronting these shadows, taurus rising can redefine their sense of success and security, focusing on inner values over external rewards and building a career path aligned with their true needs. ☆ prompts: “how does my career affect my sense of worth? where am i relying on material wealth for a sense of security? what do i fear losing if my career or financial situation changes? what would true inner security feel like for me?”

★ gemini rising ★ as pluto transforms gemini rising’s 9th house of beliefs, they’re called to re-evaluate core philosophies that may have limited their growth. shadow work involves confronting any fear of uncertainty or “not knowing” that could lead them to cling to rigid beliefs. uranus in the 1st house encourages self-reinvention, but they may hesitate to break free from familiar identities, fearing they’ll lose themselves. they’re invited to examine any habits of hiding emotions behind wit or intellect. by releasing these fears, gemini rising can embrace a fluid, open-minded approach to life that honors both their curiosity and evolving identity, allowing them to connect authentically with others. ☆ prompts: “what beliefs or ideas do i feel resistant to let go of? where do i avoid vulnerability by intellectualizing or using humor? who am i without my established ideas and perspectives? how would embracing change deepen my self-expression?”

★ cancer rising ★ pluto in cancer rising’s 8th house of intimacy and transformation encourages them to confront fears around vulnerability and dependence on others. shadow work involves addressing any control issues in relationships that may stem from fears of betrayal or emotional pain. with neptune and saturn in the 10th house, cancer rising is also asked to question whether their career choices reflect their true self or if they’ve sought “safe” paths to avoid risk. they may find they’ve neglected personal fulfillment for security. by embracing openness in relationships and honesty in career pursuits, cancer rising can create a life that aligns with their authentic self, balancing vulnerability with resilience. ☆ prompts: “how do i respond when i feel vulnerable in relationships? what control tendencies do i rely on to avoid emotional risk? am i compromising personal fulfillment for security in my career? what would true openness look like in both my relationships and career?”

★ leo rising ★ with pluto in leo rising’s 7th house of relationships, they’re invited to explore where their self-worth is intertwined with external approval. shadow work involves examining any patterns of people-pleasing or overcompromising due to hidden fears of rejection. uranus in the 11th house prompts them to shift their social dynamics and find fulfillment beyond admiration. neptune and saturn in the 9th house further challenge leo rising to question long-held beliefs that may have propped up their public image rather than supported authentic growth. by working through these dynamics, leo rising can develop relationships based on mutual respect and self-confidence, finding satisfaction beyond external validation. ☆ prompts: “where am i seeking approval in relationships and social circles? what beliefs about myself might i have formed around admiration or validation? what would it feel like to create connections based purely on mutual respect and authenticity? how can i affirm my self-worth without external reinforcement?”

★ virgo rising ★ pluto’s influence in virgo rising’s 6th house of work and health calls them to confront perfectionism and productivity-based self-worth. shadow work here involves examining any beliefs that their value is tied to their usefulness, revealing a fear of inadequacy. with uranus transiting the 10th house, they’re encouraged to redefine career goals and embrace innovative paths, shedding rigid ideals of success. they may uncover where they’ve sacrificed personal joy for others’ approval. by releasing control over outcomes, virgo rising can foster a healthier relationship with work, recognizing that self-worth isn’t defined by accomplishment, and embracing balance over perfection. ☆ prompts: “in what areas of my life do i feel driven by the need to be ‘perfect’? how does being useful contribute to my sense of worth? what would embracing imperfection allow me to experience in my daily life? where am i putting others’ needs before my own joy, and how can i shift this?”

★ libra rising ★ pluto’s energy in libra rising’s 5th house of creativity and romance brings up insecurities around self-expression, inviting them to confront fears of rejection or failure in love and creativity. shadow work involves exploring where they’ve stifled individuality to gain admiration. with neptune and saturn transiting the 7th house of relationships, libra rising is also asked to address dependency patterns, particularly where they’ve put their own needs aside to maintain peace. they’ll need to confront any fear of being alone, understanding that harmony begins with self-acceptance. through this process, libra rising can cultivate self-worth, finding freedom to express their true self in love and creativity. ☆ prompts: “where have i held back my true self in creative or romantic expressions? what am i afraid others will see if i show my full self? how do i compromise my needs to keep the peace, and what would happen if i didn’t? how can i practice self-acceptance in relationships, so my needs are honored?”

★ scorpio rising ★ with pluto in scorpio rising’s 4th house of home and family, they’re prompted to confront emotional security and past patterns that may limit intimacy. shadow work involves addressing fears of vulnerability and abandonment, particularly where family dynamics may have shaped emotional defense mechanisms. with uranus in the 8th house of intimacy, they’ll feel challenged to release control issues that limit trust, uncovering fears of betrayal. this period encourages scorpio rising to establish security within, understanding that true strength comes from embracing emotions fully. by confronting these fears, they can build a foundation rooted in openness and trust, fostering deeper connections and self-acceptance. ☆ prompts: “what fears come up when i consider being vulnerable with those close to me? how have family dynamics influenced my current relationships? where do i exert control in intimate situations out of fear of betrayal? what would building security within myself, rather than relying on external stability, look like?”

★ sagittarius rising ★ sagittarius rising’s 3rd house of communication is transformed by pluto, pushing them to address insecurities around self-expression and social dynamics. shadow work here involves examining fears of judgment or appearing vulnerable, which may lead to overconfidence or projecting a confident facade. with neptune and saturn in the 5th house, they’re also encouraged to explore where they’ve avoided commitment or depth in relationships, fearing vulnerability. they may realize escapist habits have kept them from genuine connections. by embracing authenticity and communicating openly, sagittarius rising can cultivate deeper bonds, finding self-worth beyond surface interactions and discovering the joy of meaningful connections. ☆ prompts: “where do i hold back in conversations to avoid vulnerability? how do i use confidence as a shield against deeper connection? what would it look like to truly engage in depth with those i care about? where have i avoided commitment in relationships, and how has this limited my sense of connection?”

★ capricorn rising ★ pluto’s shift into capricorn rising’s 2nd house of values and finances invites them to confront deep-seated fears around scarcity and self-worth, especially where they’ve linked value to financial stability. shadow work involves addressing attachments to success and control, particularly if they equate worth with income or status. uranus’s influence in the 6th house challenges them to release rigid routines and embrace a more balanced approach to work. by confronting fears that tie self-worth to external achievements, capricorn rising can embrace a sense of value that transcends professional image, fostering a life that prioritizes both accomplishment and inner peace. ☆ prompts: “where have i connected my self-worth to my financial or career success? what beliefs do i hold about success and control, and how have they shaped my life choices? how would my daily life change if i released my need for financial validation? what does a balanced approach to work and self-care look like for me?”

★ aquarius rising ★ with pluto in aquarius rising’s 1st house, they face intense transformation of self-identity, urging them to confront fears around authenticity. shadow work involves addressing any fear of rejection or being “too different,” particularly where they’ve suppressed their individuality to fit in. with uranus in their 5th house, they’re encouraged to embrace creative and romantic vulnerability, examining where detachment may have limited expression. by releasing the need for external validation, aquarius rising can redefine self on their own terms, embracing uniqueness and developing deeper, more honest connections. ☆ prompts: “where do i feel the need to conform to be accepted? what parts of myself do i hold back in creative or romantic settings? how would it feel to let my unique qualities shine without fear of judgment? where am i relying on external validation for a sense of belonging?”

★ pisces rising ★ pluto’s move into pisces rising’s 12th house of the subconscious triggers a period of deep introspection, highlighting hidden fears and self-sabotaging tendencies. shadow work here involves facing unresolved pain or traumas that may have led to escapism or martyrdom. neptune and saturn in the 2nd house of values prompt them to re-evaluate self-worth, particularly where they’ve linked it to spiritual ideals or self-sacrifice. by addressing these patterns, pisces rising can establish a healthier foundation for self-worth, discovering inner strength and grounding their spirituality in reality. ☆ prompts: “what fears or past pain am i avoiding by disconnecting from reality? where do i overextend myself, sacrificing my needs for others? how have i equated worth with self-sacrifice, and how can i separate these? what would grounded self-worth look like in my daily life?”

#astrology #astrology observations #astro observations #astrology transits #astrology shadow work

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jensthwa · 4 months ago

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mountebank chem pt. one (JYH x reader).

part of the love's an uncharted path universe ★.

SUMMARY:

* 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤: 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐲. The first time you met Yunho, you knew he was going to be part of the biggest tragedy of your life: the loss of your freedom, of your free will. You didn't know why back then but what you did figure out is that you and Jeong Yunho were going to, eventually and very publicly, date each other at some point. Is that reason enough to hate his guts? Well, of course! Now, when the time comes to fulfill the prophecy, how the hell are you going to pull it off? And, most importantly, what do you need to do to not fall in love with him in the process?

PAIRING: rich!yunho x rich!reader.

GENRE: enemies to friends to lovers.

WORD COUNT: 9,7k.

WARNINGS: eventual SMUT ☽ (MINORS DNI) attempt !!! at comedy, crying, mentions of drinking and drug usage, mature language, petty behavior, insults, yunho and reader really hate each other i fear, pet names (princess), negative mentions of body image, panic attacks/panic disorder, negative??? (or so they think) tension. no smut on this part, it's an introduction to these two characters, their families and the chaos they bring to poor yunho's and readers life.

NOTES: hi everyone! i know i posted the hwa fic ten days ago or so, but i wanted to get started with this mini series that is PART OF THE LOVE'S AN UNCHARTED PATH / SHOW & TELL UNIVERSE. there's mentions of the last installment plot so, if you're new around here, you can always find the rest of the stories on my masterist! this is 100% self indulgent, as all fics should be, and i think i've re-read it so many times that if you find a typo or something that just doesn't make sense, you can blame it on english not being my first language i guess lmao. i hope you enjoy it and if you do feel free to send to my askbox/reblog/type in any feedback or thoughts! <3

POSTED: september 14th 2024.

permanent taglist: @hotteokkay, @potatomountain, @fairylover68, @e3ellie, @alsomimi

masterlist. - part two - part three.

A trembling finger is all you can see in the still dim light of the room.

It's quiet, very quiet. You haven't heard anything but your thoughts all night. It grosses you out, so you wait for the clock to turn to six and press the button you've been hovering on for, at least, half an hour.

Park Seonghwa is your only hope right now.

The conversation doesn't go as planned.

“No, I will not go to the party with you and no, I will not pretend to be your boyfriend.”

Not even your great pitch could've turned him around to help you. Sighing, you replay the conversation in your pounding head.

“This is very inconvenient for me but I hope you and the cool girl I saw yesterday are happy together… Even if it ruins my happiness forever!”

Your happiness was probably ruined the day you were born. Sighing again, you turn to the window.

It’s raining.

You didn’t notice until you ended the call that was, if you’re being honest with yourself, your last resource.

Brain rotting away the entire night, wine drunk and edible high, you didn’t even notice the rain accompanied you through your misery.

The sound of the droplets hitting your studio window and the sun trying to break through the gloomy clouds adds insult to injury: You’re running out of time.

Any time now, your mother is going to call you up to let you know you’re possibly getting promised tonight. Not engaged, but promised and presented.

Like you’re some sort of property your parents can give away.

Nails connecting with your glass desk, the noise syncs up with the rain pattering on your window sill and, to your tired mind, it also mimics the tic-tacking an old clock would make.

You figured, if you show up with someone on your arm tonight, they might finally leave you alone.

And not marry you off to Jeong Yunho.

There’s not enough hours in the day to plan a perfect escape, there’s not enough will left inside you to reach out to someone else and make everything seem genuine, organic, like you’ve known each other for years and kept it a secret all this time.

There's not enough time to save yourself.

Because there's this… unspoken agreement you’ve known about since you were eight.

Your parents and Yunho’s parents are friends. Your mom went to school with his mom and your dad met his dad when they were teenagers and they all got married off respectively because it was what worked for their families at the time so, after hearing the superficial love story at the age of seven, you knew you were going to meet the same fate eventually.

And the next year, you met Yunho.

He was an hyperactive little kid with a lot of energy and facts about the earth you didn’t care to listen to because the second you started playing with him in his huge backyard and turned to check if your mother was watching you, you realized that was not a casual playdate.

Smiling ear to ear, both your mother and his, it signaled to you that it has started.

Your planned love story with Jeong Yunho had sailed smoothly in their eyes and there was nothing you could do about it.

Naturally, you have hated him since then. But you were taught etiquette and were media trained since you turned three and could form complete sentences, so your hatred only really showed when you two were alone.

Turns out, he didn’t really care if you liked him or not.

He’s always been good at pretending as well.

That chirpy personality, kindness and humbleness he exudes in front of everyone else? An act.

And you were proud of yourself when you saw right through his bullshit when you were both eleven and left alone so he could show you around their new, bigger house.

Gone too soon was that child who wanted to teach you about worms in his backyard and in its place there was this distant tween who’s smile disappeared as soon as your mothers were out of sight.

“Listen, I don’t know why we’re being forced to hang out but I don’t like you.”

Dumb kid.

“Good, because I don't like you either but they can’t find that out.”

He scoffed, crossing his arms and frowning at you “I’m planning on telling mommy that you… chased me around with a knife or something, so she can see how psycho you actually are and stop forcing me to be around you!”

Eyes lighting up, that was the first time you saw a possible escape from all of this “You think that would actually work?”

Annoyed and a little freaked out, Yunho pointed at the smirk on your lips “See? That’s exactly what I mean: Psycho.”

And you both only grew hostile at each other since then. Sure, saving face in front of your parents and older siblings was necessary to not get scolded and revoked of your privileges (and you actually liked to be alone with him, only if it meant you could take a break from your mother and her judging gaze), but pretending to like Yunho proved to be more difficult than what you had imagined.

Especially when you both outgrew the phase where you tried anything and everything under the sun to piss the other off. Not so harmless pranks were pulled and the petty behavior got you both in trouble with your oldest brothers a couple of times but, no matter how hard you tried, it never “accidentally” got to your mother. Or his, for that matter.

So when you two stopped trying to get your point across and grew cold towards one another, that's when it got really ugly. Vile words cut through both of your egos harshly, family vacations that include his were uncomfortable and holidays were your personal hell.

December thirty-first and January first have always felt like purgatory. Christmas was always spared because you have family living on the other side of the world who you travel to see every year but it's never truly enjoyable when you know that, in the next couple of days after that, you'll see his dumb face.

But you have always smiled brightly at him and hugged him when he comes in with his unnecessary luggage at your home. You hold his arm and bat your eyelashes when you know your mom is watching from a distance and it all but confuses him every single time.

Remembering the time you both were thirteen and you went through very sudden puberty makes you smile. The look on his face when your kitty heels helped show how tall you got over the summer was fantastic.

“Look at what the cat brought in!” Scrunching your nose and squeezing his cheeks in fake affection, you noticed it took a lot for him to not swat your hands away.

But you also remember noticing that he was blushing when you pulled away.

“You look like a very ugly giant,” he whispered with a smile, matter of factly and all “It doesn't really suit you.”

He was a pain in the ass. A manageable pain in the ass, but a pain nonetheless.

It all took a wrong turn when he caught up on your mothers plans by age fifteen. By that age, you've known for a while and the mercy you had on him, on explaining everything you believed to be true, was simply a way of keeping everything at arm's length from you.

The second he put two and two together, your guesses had automatically turned into a possible reality you couldn't cope with.

A reality that's about to hit you in the face and leave a bruise that doesn't really go with your polished image.

The rain picks up and you close your eyes in hopes of coming up with a new idea.

It only makes your headache worse.

You really should get going with your day.

There's appointments you need to get to, meetings you have to fill the space in because your brother is going to fail to show up as usual and you have to get your hair and make-up done for tonight.

You really shouldn't be crying right now.

Are you even allowed to cry?

Your fate was probably decided the day you were born, five months and a few days after Yunho.

“Shit.”

Sobbing is useless, so you get in the shower. You do your skincare routine and plan the outfit you're going to wear to the office while you cover your eyebags and try to make it look seamless, natural even.

If the struggle shows up in your face, you're going to get yelled at downstairs.

Living with your parents might be a bigger nightmare than getting presented with Yunho tonight but there's really nothing you can do about that, either.

Working in their company, gaining connections through them and being praised by simply having your last name attached to your first makes you completely useless when faced with a situation where you simply want to tell your mom to fuck off.

“Y/N, I hope you already weighed down the options for the dress you're wearing tonight,” is what greets you when you enter the dining room, breakfast laid out perfectly across the table both your parents sit at. She's glancing at you in warning “And I hope you know that the navy blue dress is the best option. It's on theme and it's classy, it shows your figure too.”

Fuck off.

You might've been taught a bunch of things while growing up in this tinsel bubble but never ever were you taught how to stand up for yourself.

It shows in the way you nod and smile and sit down on your designated spot next to your dad and in front of your mom.

“Navy dress it is, ma'am.”

The nod she gives in approval makes you nauseous. At least she's not saying anything about Yunho.

“Excellent choice, dear.”

You swallow the food on your pre-portioned plate with a tight throat and, after sipping your black coffee, you turn to your dad.

Feeling a little delirious on lack of sleep and a little bold, especially when it comes to work related matters, you take the opportunity to press on the other thing that kept bothering you the entire night.

“Father—”

He sees right through you.

“No, Y/N. It's not an open discussion, the deal is signed and sealed.”

“It's not a smart choice.”

“Kim Y/N!” slamming her utensils down on the table and making everything shake in the process, you barely flinch at your mothers warning “Are you calling your father dumb?”

“No, of course I'm not,” you defend yourself immediately, the softness in your voice hanging by a thread because all you want to do is scream at her to stop putting words in your mouth “All I'm saying is that he's too generous. That company is not profitable and he gave them half a floor in the building and an initial investment that's going to backfire,” you calmly explain to her what you told him the day before “There’s not really a market for physical media anymore.”

“And they're trying to bring it back,” your father returns, his eyes never straining from his food “I think it's a great idea. You said a couple of months ago that eighties and nineties style is coming back.”

“As a trend,” you remind him with a tight smile “And trends tend to die down rather quickly.”

“Soohyun approved it,” he finally looks up and his next words have you biting your tongue bitterly “You don't have a say on the final decision and you know it.”

Damn right you fucking know it.

“Are we clear on that?”

Glancing at your mother, you notice how she's picking on her food to try and avoid sticking up for you. Not that she normally would but you think, as the years pass, the mistreatment must give her some sort of guilty feeling she can only escape if she avoids your eyes.

Straightening your spine, you fix your face and smile with fake acceptance “Yes, sir.”

The tinsel bubble brings in unnecessary amounts of money and privilege, but it doesn't really save you from tradition and misogyny.

Soohyun is the firstborn, after all.

He's also a complete fucking idiot.

You love him a lot, but he's completely useless when it comes to this business.

Although trained separately and for completely different positions, you always paid close attention to the company.

You studied hard, you graduated early at the top of your class and went to business school as soon as you were able to. You even got to be valedictorian last year at your graduation and even then you knew you weren't getting your father's role once he took a step back from being the face of the company.

But you couldn't help but wish.

Wishing and imagining was your way of coping with it. What if you were born a boy instead? You surely wouldn't be in this predicament.

What if your brother wasn't pampered the way he was growing up? You surely didn't have to step in to save appearances with your employees.

Your day to day would probably flow so much smoothly if he actually wanted to do his job like he should.

Heels clacking on the marble floor, you strut the hallway into his office to aggravate your headache just a bit more: The space is a mess and when you glance at the tree you started to paint on his wall when he asked you to help him quietly turn the space around but never got to finish it brings your mind to the man who declined your offer this morning.

And the clock in your mind starts ticking again, faster and louder this time.

Soohyun’s voice comes out of a corner in the big office, behind some piled up boxes “Well that's not good.”

Snapping out of it and turning to him, you cock your head to the side “What is it?”

“You,” he comes out of his hiding spot, suit barely ironed and hair a little messy which makes you cringe “Usually, you complain as soon as you close that door,” he points at it with a tiny and concerned smile “So now I'm worried they cloned and replaced you, sis.”

“Well, you made a mistake yesterday and there's nothing I can do now to cover it up so,” raising your arms before tossing your purse on the free loveseat that serves as his lounging area, you sigh “Nothing to complaint about today, except—” you squint your eyes, making a show of pretending to be thinking about it “Oh! I'm probably getting married off tonight.”

The fake happiness laced in your tone makes your brother scoff. He walks to his desk, sitting down on his chair and shaking his head in disapproval.

“It's not an engagement, Y/N. It's more of a… Public relations matter.”

“Oh, so you agree with it?” Blood pressure skyrocketing, you quickly make your way across the space until you stand in front of him “You're fine with it?!”

“Don't act like you didn't already know this was going to happen eventually,” leaning back, he gives you an apologetic look. That's how you know there's nothing he can do about it either “Jeong Tech is the largest investor, or primary partner and basically the first big successful business we helped to launch here.”

The explanation is unnecessary. You know. You know he knows you know.

“And after the stocks falling over that little… Hiccup they had last year—”

“The selling clients information hiccup.” You recall with a tight smile.

Soohyun gulps.

“Yes, that, they need to rekindle their image with the press and, in the process, we gain a few reputation points in the market by association. You know how this works,” looking away for a moment, he bites the inside of his cheek before pressing on “And you two are loved and shipped by everyone online already. Grandmas swoon at the potential TVN drama they could make about your love story.”

What fucking love story?

It's more like a gruesome, slashy horror movie to you.

“Okay, is that why they don't marry me to Gunho instead?”

“No, Y/N, they don't marry you off to Gunho because he's in love and soon to be engaged to a complete nobody,” he responds right away with a shrug “Besides, you and Yunho—”

“We hate each other. We—”

“Now, I wouldn't say that—”

“—Completely and utterly despise one another. He's the unwanted dirt under my Louis Vuitton heel, he's the bee I want to kill but can't because they are needed for the environment,” you continue without taking a breath “He's somehow needed to this environment,” meaning the company “Although he's attending a public university and detaches himself from his responsibilities because he already has a brother who actually takes care of it all, unlike me!”

Soohyun doesn't seem hurt at that and you're annoyed he's not. That he knows you well enough to know you're trying to sink your claws into his pride because yours is flat lining as the minutes pass.

That does nothing but fuel your anger.

“Unlike me,” you repeat “Who has to take care of your responsibilities because you are too busy playing renovation simulator in your stupid office to attend your meetings! Because if you did attend them you would know yesterday’s decision was a mistake and—”

“There it is!”

“—You're going to cost us millions of won for nothing.”

Soohyun sighs and the way he scowls at the scattered papers on his desk lets you know he's not about to entertain this conversation any longer.

For the third time today, you are about to lose. And you're a sore loser.

“You're not getting engaged,” he reminds you, standing up and fixing his hair with his hand, his expression kind and sweet like you didn't just yell at him “You don't have to marry Yunho.”

You scoff “For now.”

“Or never, if you don't want to,” rounding his desk, Soohyun pats your head softly like you're a child “Just pretend for a bit and then let him break your heart publicly so that the media doesn't treat you like a stoned hearted bitch.”

“I am a stoned hearted bitch.”

He shakes his head “You're not but even if you were no one has the right to call you that,” your expression softens and you kind of want to cry at that, but you don't “Except me. Now, we have a meeting to go to, don't we?”

Duty calls, like it always does. Your brother steps away and rushes to the door.

Grabbing your purse and following him out, you fix your own hair in the reflection of the glass separating the cubicles from the hall “Do you even know what it is about?”

He smiles back at you “Nope but you're going to tell me on the way there anyway.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don't.”

The call comes after the meeting, when the sun is finally breaking fully through the clouds and your headache is starting to go away.

Only to come back in full force once you see Yunho’s face as soon as you make your way to your own living room.

Wearing a formal black blazer with matching trousers and a white shirt, the asshole doesn't even spare a glance at you even when you're sure he knows you just walked in.

The room started to fill with negative energy. He must have felt it, right? But he doesn't show it.

He's on the phone, eyebrows almost melting together as he pays attention to what the person on the line is saying.

“What do you mean he met this girl two days ago?”

Oh, he's gossiping. Your eyes almost meet the back of your skull when you roll them and, with a sigh, you throw your purse at him.

He catches it without making that much of an effort.

Asshole.

“End the call.”

“Wait, wait,” he covers the microphone with his hand and frowns at you instead “Shut it up, princess, this is an important call.”

“Princess? Who are you calling princess?” It's not hard to hear the person on the other line, a poor confused guy, talking back.

“My mother's friend’s daughter,” he shoots back and gives you a tired look, putting the phone to his ear again and signaling you to close your mouth “Anyways, is Seonghwa sure he wants to introduce us to her? Isn't it too soon?”

At the name, you perk up. Gears turn in your head, one by one because you're tired and your machinery probably needs another coffee to oil everything up there, but then it hits you.

That's where you knew Park Seonghwa from.

You were not proud of yourself for letting curiosity tickle you enough to check Yunho’s instagram page merely six months ago. On your burner account, of course, the one with a fake name and fake pictures so that people don't know you stalk them when you're bored.

There's this picture on his finsta where they're all sitting around a bonfire. It looked cozy, like they actually love each other which is a crazy concept for you.

All your friends are fake. Also, the concept of a bonfire is insane. Bugs? Acoustic guitars and careless laughter?

Insane.

But it seemed genuine the first time you saw it and it made you burn with jealousy of a life you could never have.

And in that picture, Yunho was hugging Park Seonghwa.

Huh. You wonder what would've happened if he accepted your proposal earlier today.

“Well, okay, uhm… I probably can't tonight. I know I said— Yes, Wooyoung, I know,” he sighs deeply as you sit down right in front of him, one leg over the other with rehearsed poise “I’ll see you all at Hongjoong's gig this weekend, yeah? Okay, bye… I love you too, oh my god,” he giggles and you frown, disgusted “Bye.”

You immediately go for it.

“Your boyfriend?”

“My husband,” his smile is fake and tight and it makes you want to punch him in the face “That's what I'm telling our mothers in fifteen minutes, by the way.”

Rolling your eyes again, you let out a tired breath “As if that would ever stop them.”

“So I reckon you know what's going on?”

“You don't?” eyebrow rising inquisitively and expression turning into a pitiful one, you wonder if that's why he seems so laid back at the moment “Please, indulge me and tell me you do.”

“Of course I know what's going to happen,” scoffing, he crosses his arms and looks at the living room double doors “Just trying to figure out if you're out of the loop so I can put you up to speed on our escape.”

“Oh, please,” you huff out a bitter laugh “If you really wanted to escape you would have been out of the country by now. Don't pretend you're not a people pleaser, Yunho,” looking back at you, that familiar wrath burns in his brown eyes and it makes you smirk “Passing the opportunity to hang out with Park Seonghwa and the rest of your public university crew is not usually what you do. You were probably given an ultimatum by your mother and that's why you're here, isn't it?”

Watching his expression shift from annoyance to confusion to anger in the span of seconds gives you the satisfaction your lost fights of the day took away from you.

“She's really pretty, by the way. His new girlfriend, the mechanic,” you smile, moving your eyes to the ceiling like you're trying to remember something “Didn't catch her name, though. Tell her I say hi when you see her. Oh, and tell Mr. Park I say hi as well. You don't really have to explain to anyone how you know me after tonight anyway.”

“How the hell do you know them?” he's full on frowning now and the corners of your lips twitch in amusement “Are you stalking me, Y/N?”

“Wouldn't you like that, hm?” clicking your tongue in disappointment of his guess, you rest your arms over your knees and lean your weight on them, like you're about to share your secret “I always know everything, Yunho. It's my superpower.”

He imitates your movements, jaw clenched and chest heaving “And here I thought it was being spoiled and annoying.”

Shaking your head, you lean a little further now “You're so silly, Yun, you know that's yours… When will you stop projecting your shit on me?”

“When you stop ruining my fucking life.”

Oh, he's so easy to mess with.

“Glad to know you think I have that much power over you,” you bite the inside of your cheek for a second and then sigh loudly and dramatically “Sadly, I can't control what my parents want me to do. Or do you really think I would choose you, the hypocrite who pretends to run away from his responsibilities, out of all the men in the industry?”

That cuts deep. His face lets you know it does, you also know it's hypocritical on your side to criticize him for getting the treatment you wanted to get to begin with.

He leans in a bit more “As if I would ever choose you, the most cold hearted snake out of the elite.”

Fuck him.

You lean in more, chin up “Mama’s boy.”

Doing the same, he griths out: “Spoiled brat.”

“Rakehell.”

“Psychopath.”

Laughing, you dismiss the fact that your noses are almost touching to shoot back “I hope you enjoy the way the media is going to tear you apart when it comes out that you cheated on me, asshole.”

“And I hope you enjoy when Dispatch digs up what you did at that party four years ago, princess. Falling off a table for mixing your drinks and your drugs and yelling at the staff as they tried to helped you out is quite embarrassing, isn't it?” he returns immediately and it fails to intimidate you but the fact that he knows about that angers you and it sparks in your eyes, so he smirks “Not that I would ever leak that information, of course.”

“You stupid fucking—”

“Ah, good! You're both here already.”

Pulling apart and standing up, you both try to regulate your breathing and conceal your flustered state as your mom and his walk straight towards you.

They're here early, you think. You couldn't possibly have argued with Yunho for fifteen minutes straight.

“I beg you save the public displays of affection for later, though,” his mom says and with a hand on your back she directs you to sit on the sofa Yunho was occupying before. You sit and he does too and you both make sure to leave enough space for the holy spirit and all deities in between you “We're going to need them for the cameras.”

Uncomfortable, you fidget on your seat until the warning look from your mother forces you to stop. Yunho gulps beside you, probably just as uncomfortable as you.

Both women smile brightly like they're not about to lay on you the saddest news of your life.

“As you both know, tonight's gala is a celebration of the twenty years Jeong Tech and Kim’s Innovation have joined creative forces and built the empire we have the pleasure to see unfold today…”

Is your mother reciting your dads speech? It sounds robotic, rehearsed, fake and forced and it's not something new from her but you hate it either way.

“And in celebration of our families friendship, loyalty and alliance,” Yunho’s mom continues and you take in a breath “We're finally making your relationship public!”

Finally?

“Finally?” Yunho asks and you lick your lips “Mom, Auntie… We don't have a relationship.” He tells them plain and simple and you don't look at him when you nod in compliance with the statement.

“Oh, you two have been in love since forever!” His mother dismisses what she just heard “It's only fair to finally let everyone confirm it. This way, you can actually be seen together without our public relations team having to rush to cover everything up.”

That has never happened. You prefer to stay as far away from Yunho as possible when your free will is actually yours to live with.

“Mom, we—”

“We are friends, obviously,” you interrupt Yunho before he dives head first into the depths of hell and his head snaps to you, eyebrows creasing a bit “But it's very much platonic. I don't feel—”

“Yes you do,” your mother interferes, tone stern and fake smile falling for a second as a result before she composes herself “You have loved him since you both were kids and he saved you from falling in the pool at you tenth birthday,” that never happened and slowly but surely you realize they have a whole story planned out for you “And you, Yunho, realized you loved her when she stayed by your side when you had the flu at age thirteen. When she cried over your high fever and came over everyday until you got better. Right?”

The question floats in the air for what feels like eons and she has successfully shut you up for good.

You knew, when you first met Jeong Yunho, there was no way of escaping this.

And he, ever so hopeful and foolish, can't seem to accept it the way you do.

Standing up, he looks at his mother with so much hurt you wonder if you still have that amount of delusion inside of you “You can't do this to us!”

“Dear, do not raise your voice at me—”

“This is the stupidest idea you had yet! I don't care how many years you've been planning this, it's not fair!” He paces around the space and you sigh, looking down at your lap. His voice echoes around the living room and you can practically feel your mom scowl with annoyance at the recklessness “You can't marry me off to someone like it's the eighteenth century! This is ridiculous, I—”

“You'll do it,” his mother stands up as well, voice firmer than you have ever heard. She's a soft spoken woman, a sweet woman even. She's never raised her voice in your presence and you don't let it show how by surprise it takes you “And you know what happens if you don't.”

You don't know why you relate to the pained expression on his face. You really shouldn't because you two are, clearly, on two different ends when it comes to pleasing your family.

His family seems loving, the way his mother treated him growing up felt so genuine you always wished you could switch places with him. Even at times where they thought they were alone in the room and you hid to witness the cracks on the foundation of their love, it never happened.

Until now, when he storms off and she seems rather unaffected by his pain. What she gives off is annoyance, just like your mother, she's annoyed that this didn't go as smoothly as imagined. She moves to follow him.

“Jeong Yunho!”

After she leaves the room, there's screaming in the distance, probably at the end of the long hallway. And then, there's silence until your mother breaks it.

“Well that was an unfortunate mess.”

Your throat feels like it's closing up but you push through it, standing up when your mother does too.

“Mother, I don't really think this is the best way to—”

She frowns at you.

“What are you wearing? A suit?”

“W-what?”

Dumbfounded, you look down at your choice of outfit that she saw this morning and then back up at her.

“I understand there's really nothing that can be done about your body shape but wearing silhouettes like these makes you look very masculine, Y/N.”

She's doing that thing where she belittles you into submission. Vulnerable because of what you just lived and what you just witnessed, you stand there and take it.

“And are you wearing makeup? Your eyebags, darling… I can't believe you let Yunho see you in this state.”

If only she knew you stayed awake the entire night trying to sabotage her plans.

This triggers you beyond belief. It starts with your heartbeat picking up, with your inner child begging you to stand up for yourself and banging at the walls of the safe you locked her up so many years ago.

When you both hear footsteps coming down the hallway, she looks down at her watch and your chest starts heaving.

“You need to get your hair and makeup done in an hour and a half. No need to go to the salon, I arranged things and they're coming over,” she informs you calmly, putting on her fake smile when Yunho’s mom sighs at the doorway and when she turns away from you to get to her and loop her arm around hers, you catch his eye as he makes his way to you “Now, how about I show you what they did with the garden, dear.”

They walk away from the wreckage with a giggle that only raises your panic.

The fire of it burns your pride, your self image and your capability of keeping it together in front of your sworn enemy.

It doesn't help that he comes in with full vengeance, ready to take out on you what he obviously couldn't take out on his mom.

“Why didn't you say anything?!” his voice fills the room once again and you physically recoil, which makes him reconsider. He looks you over once and then takes a deep breath before pressing “Why did you tell them that we're friends? We're not friends, Y/N! You should've… You should've told them that you hated me, that y-you were in love with somebody else, anything!”

Tears cloud your vision and you can only reply in a faint whisper that sounds far away “Yunho, shut up.”

“Are you seriously letting them get away with this?” his index points at the door and he looks at you like he doesn't know you. He doesn't but he does know what your family is like, so you don't know why it surprises him “Are you seriously going along with this stupid charade?!”

Air leaves you. You can't breath but you try to and you faintly hear him say something else but it sounds bottled up, like you're underwater.

“I c-cant.” You try again but it barely comes out.

Breathing in with your mouth, you close your eyes and focus on the way your head pulses. Migraine in full force, it only aggravates the feeling of complete loss of control over your body. But your feet move before you can think, to the couch, to look through your purse because damn it if he finds out.

He follows you.

“Is this some sort of sick revenge against me or—”

They're not there. Why didn't you bring them with you today of all days?

God damn it. Yunho is, somehow, still talking.

“Because if we don't go out there and let them know that—”

“Yunho, shut the fuck up! Stop it!”

Turning around with tears streaming down your face and hyperventilating seems to shut him up for good.

“What's wrong?”

He stops, breathing hard with a confused look on his face and his eyes follow you when you quickly move around him to get out of the room.

“Y/N, wait—”

You don't wait to see if he's following you upstairs. You only know he is because when you trip midway, his hands are there to catch you.

Physical contact with him is so strange and unfamiliar that you have to push his helping hands away and, quickly and still hardly breathing, you make your way to your room.

Neatly done by the staff assigned to ready it up everyday before you get home, the order gets destroyed by your panicked state. You look through your vanity drawers messily, full on sobbing and mumbling incoherently as you do and you slam your fist down on the thing when you fail to find your pills.

“Where the fuck is it?!” You sob out, hand hurting and shaking until you fall to the ground.

You try to recenter, pressing your shaky palms into the soft material of the carpet and sinking your nails hard in it until it starts bunching up beneath your fingers. Eyes closed, you can't see when Yunho knees down next to you but you do jump in fear when his hand touches your arm.

Looking at him, you see when he removes his hand until, hesitantly, he places it firmly on your shoulder “I need you to breathe with me, Y/N,” he starts demonstrating, breathing in once, holding it in for a few seconds and letting the air go next. You choke out a sob “Breathe with me so you can tell me what I can get you.”

You want to scream at him to stop pretending to care and get out but you can't.

Instead, you listen to him. You breathe in when he does, hold the air a second longer than him and let it out afterwards. You do a few rounds of this, just staring at him with tears still falling down your cheeks until the fog in your brain starts clearing.

It's agonizingly slow and it pains you to let yourself be seen in these circumstances, especially by him.

“Now, what were you looking for?”

Coughing uncomfortably, you attempt to get up the floor but he stops you from doing so “You can leave, Yunho, I can get it myself.”

“You're shaking, Y/N,” it takes for him to say it for you to look down at your hands, which are barely grasping the carpet now and just hovering above it as they tremble “What do you need?”

“My pills,” you tell him in a murmur after a few seconds, closing your eyes because, to you, this whole thing is very embarrassing “I don't remember where I put them, m-maybe in my nightstand?”

“Drugs?” he asks with a frown and you shake your head, too panicky to get offended at the insinuation “Ah, actual pills, I see, um…” He gets up and you open your eyes to him walking over to your bed, sitting down to open up the drawer of your nightstand “You have a lot of shit here. What do they look like?”

“Prescription bottle, not a blister. Translucent, white cap.” You're taking control over your own body now, breathing starting to normalize and mind syncing up with the situation again.

Your head hurts still, but it's better than five minutes ago.

“Here it is,” you hear him say and he's on his knees next to you a second later. You take the bottle from his hand, unscrew the cap as fast as you can and shake it to get a pill out of it “It was behind a bunch of stuff. I'll get you some—” putting the pill on your mouth, you crane your head back and force yourself to swallow it “Water.” He finishes in a whisper.

When you look back at him, he looks a little freaked out.

“What?”

“N-nothing… Do you still need some—”

“No. Thank you for getting me these, you can leave now.”

Your tone is cold. The memory of him yelling at you downstairs returns so now you're pissed off and still very, very vulnerable. He's not allowed to see you this way or any way for that matter.

But he just did.

He stays still and you're about to ask him if he didn't hear you or what but then you follow his eyes and notice he's staring at the way your hands still shake a little while trying to get the cap on the bottle again. You presume he's trying to read the label on it, too.

“How long have you had them?”

“The pills? This is a new prescription, so like… A month or so.”

He sighs, closing his eyes and sitting fully on the floor next to you “You know what I'm talking about, Y/N.”

Looking away, you hate that the cat is out of the bag. If only your mother didn't comment on your appearance maybe, just maybe, you could've kept the secret to yourself and taken it to the grave with you.

You hate that Yunho, out of all people, found out.

But he helped you, so you decide to please him with an answer.

“I started getting them when I was ten, I think. I didn't know what was happening for a while and then at fourteen I learned what a panic attack was,” you recall, tone sounding breathy and tired and a little annoyed. He nods “And then I got officially diagnosed with panic disorder at twenty, so not that long ago.”

Eyes back at him, you see him frown and then nod again as if the information you just gave him is hard to digest. It's not, it's actually extremely normal for someone like you.

It makes you wonder if he has ever felt the same.

Taking another calming breath, you speak again “I would appreciate it if you keep this in between us. Not tell your brother or anything,” you clarify before he can respond “Because your brother is going to tell my brother who is going to tell my mom and that's a whole disaster I don't really want to deal with.”

“They don't know?”

“Of course they don't know,” a bitter laugh makes it past your lips “If they knew, don't you think I would be the image of a visibility campaign against anxiety or something like that?”

“They're your family, though.”

“Blood is thicker than water but I'm allowed to have my secrets,” it's pathetic, the way your vision clouds once more and tears trail their path down your face once nor3 “And you of all people know how exploitative they are, so don't tell them.”

What happens next takes your breath away again. Not for the reason you expect but it does and, for the first time in your life, Jeong Yunho is able to make your brain malfunction.

You don't really think he realizes his hand is on your cheek, thumb whipping away your tears so softly it turns to you to a puddle right away

The last time someone handled you with that much care was…

Never?

Unable to look away, you catch the second he notices what he's doing and, by the time he does, he already leaned in a fraction into your space.

Snapping out the weird, dizzy moment you two just had, he lowers his hand and you clear your throat to try and shake your feelings, all of them, off.

Off. Away. You need to get your shit together and work on depuffing your face before the makeup artist and hair stylist arrive.

“Listen, if you want to mysteriously disappear tonight and miss the gala you can totally do it and I'll cover up for you. I wouldn't blame you and I don't really care if our parents take it out on me,” your words are fast and your tone lighthearted. Like you're making a joke but, also, you're totally not “In return for you to keep your mouth shut about this,” you shake the pill bottle “I wouldn't do it out of kindness, of course, after all I am the most cold hearted snake of the elite.”

Scoffing, he closes his eyes and lets his head hang low for a few seconds “You’re so—”

“Beautiful? Smart? Outstanding?” You offer.

He looks back at you again “Insufferable.”

You squint your eyes at him before your lips turn upwards in a sardonic smile.

Yunho lets out a heavy sigh “I'll do it.”

“Run away to Timbuktu and change your identity?”

“Be there,” he corrects, clearly tired of your antics “I’ll be there tonight. We are up to our necks in this bullshit, both of us,” he reminds your “And I'm sure my mother wouldn't let me get far if I did try to run away.”

The ghost of a genuine smile curls in your lips “Pussy.”

He rolls his eyes.

“See? Annoying as fuck.”

Your smile fully widens at that. Finally, some sense of normalcy after whatever the hell happened a few minutes ago.

“What dirt does she have on you to make you bend to her will all of the sudden?”

“She—”

“I'm sorry to interrupt,” both looking up at your doorway, you try your best to hide the pills under your thighs as you eye the staff member suspiciously at his interruption “But misses Jeong is calling for Yunho downstairs. She says that you have to leave to get ready and misses Kim urges you, miss Kim, to get a shower.”

“Yeah, she smells kinda bad, doesn't she?” Yunho jokes but the staff member doesn't laugh at his quip. Instead, he earns a push from you before getting up “I'll get going then.”

The guy bows and disappears at that.

“Finally.”

You feel like you have to thank him again for what he did. With words, not actions. But he doesn't look like he's expecting it and the words hang on your tongue without making it past your lips because it's against your morals to thank Jeong Yunho for absolutely anything.

“See you tonight, Y/N,” he says and you make a face that makes him smile for some reason. He moves to the door but stalls and, as you get up, you see him turn to you one more time “Bring them with you,” he points at the bottle on your hand “Just in case.”

You huff and close the drawers of your vanity, stashing the pills in one of them “Don't tell me what to do.”

“I wouldn't dare,” mimicking the staff member, he bows dramatically and you groan “Goodbye, princess.”

You close the last drawer with a little more force than you intend to as soon as he's out of eyesight and then whisper and amused: “Asshole.”

Now that's a couple of hours later and your head allows you to lock back in, to focus on the matter at task and prepare for what's to come.

Sitting in the car, your chauffeur takes the hill up to the Jeong’s so you can pick up Yunho and show up together to the event.

Hair beautifully done and makeup beat to the gods, it irks you that your mothers have everything so planned out down to the last details. There's a tablet on your lap and you're rehearsing the backstory they put together for this made up relationship.

As they told you earlier, you have to pretend you two have been in love since childhood. There's some paragraphs narrating how you supposedly felt like you owe him your life after he “saved you” from failing into the deepest part of the pool when you didn't know how to swim.

Which is true, you didn't know how to swim at that age but Yunho never saved you from anything.

Except maybe today, only after aggravating the situation to the point you couldn't help but break down in front of him.

Pressing a finger down on your temple, you close your eyes and try to wipe the image of him helping you away. Instead, the way the washed your tears away pops into it and you groan, earning a curious look from your driver.

“Is this hill endless?” you ask in a way to cover up your true grieving and he laughs a little, which makes you smile before complaining again, as a joke. Kind of “That's why they usually come to our house, it takes a whole business day to get here.”

That seizes your driver's curiosity and you look out the window when their mansion comes in full view. It's majestic, it's modern and it looks really pretty from your balcony at night, when it's all lit up even when you know the probability of someone actually being there is scarce.

His dad and brother are always at the office, his mom is always at a meditation class or the gym or the mall with your mom and Yunho, well, you can only assume he's never actually there. He seems to have a very active social life and you don't think his mom would necessarily approve of his public university friends being there.

When the car comes to a stop in his driveway, you look back down and scroll to that part of the document: You're supposed to be supportive on his choice of avoiding a private education, call him humble and down to earth if the question gets asked but not praise the public education system because your dad endorses a really expensive school, the one he and your fake father in law graduated at.

The one you graduated at.

It was so freeing not looking at his face in the halls when you started uni and you, quite frankly, don't think about him often enough to wonder why he was allowed to attend the university of his liking and study what he pleases.

Now you're curious but, as you see him descend the stairs that lead to his massive front door, you're not sure you want to talk to him outside of business for too long.

He's all dolled up in a navy three-piece, color matching your dress and all. Hair done and out of his forehead, you hate to say it does more for him than the usual style he wears it in. You don't remember the last time his bangs didn't cover his eyebrows and now you're wondering if you pushed all the times you did to the back of your mind.

It'll be hard to pretend you don't think he looks good because he does and you don't want it to show in your face, so you stay focused on the tablet as he makes his way to the car.

The driver gets out and attempts to open the door for him but you hear Yunho telling him it's okay.

“I'll do it, thank you, thank you,” he opens the door and so you hear him more clearly now and he slides on the seat next to yours with ease, a disappointed look on his face when he notices you “Ah, you're here.”

“They didn't tell you?” sounding boring as hell, you scroll to the bottom of the document and pass the tablet to him, avoiding to look at him again “We're supposed to arrive together so the photographers waiting outside can start speculating and reporting to the media outlets that something might be going on.”

He grabs the tablet, looks at the document for five seconds in total and then hands it back to you “Oh, yeah, I didn't read that.”

Your driver gets in his seat and starts the car, maneuvering out of the driveway in seconds and so you have to brace yourself on the seat to avoid sliding down on it as you're driven down the hill.

“You didn't read it?” your head snaps back at him and he shrugs “Yunho, we're supposed to pretend we're madly in love with each other and you didn't study?!”

“We've been pretending to get along in front of our moms for over a decade, Y/N,” he deadpans “We're doing the same tonight, only at a bigger scale. It's not that complicated,” shrugging again, he looks out at the street for a second before looking at you again, a disgusted expression on his face “I hope you're not expecting me to be all over you because now that I can't fake.”

“Because you're never felt the touch of a girl in your entire life? I know that, loser,” he's about to retaliate but you stop him with your index finger “You've been away from the spotlight for way too long. You don't know how ruthless and scrutinizing the people attending are, I do. So sit pretty and study this.”

You shove the tablet back and he groans, looking through the document briefly again.

“And how do you know who's attending?”

“Page ten through twenty five. There's a detailed list with names, occupations and hobbies so you can have possible topics of conversation. I also took the time to highlight in pink the ones I want to avoid,” you point out and he moves his finger on the screen until he gets to the list, scoffing in amusement a second later “You should avoid them too. Especially the Hwang’s,” he gives you a look, asking for an explanation “They gossip too much, their friend groups are filled with snakes who can't take an NDA seriously and the girl is a little in love with you, so she'll flirt with you the entire night.”

“I don't even know her.”

“You don't have to, she's in love with the idea of you and your family's influence. Seriously, Yunho,” you let out an annoyed noise, crossing your arms over your chest “It's like amateur hour with you. You should know this.”

“I live a normal life, princess, I don't know any of this because it's not important to me,” he states as simple as that and you shake your head in disapproval “It shouldn't be important to you or to anyone, really.”

“Oh, but it is,” you return and when you look at him he's looking back. There's this electricity passing in the space in between you, something dangerous that's the tail tale of how different you both are and you start asking yourself how are you going to pull this whole thing off “And now, it is to you. You're about to enter a ballroom filled with people who admire you for simply being a Jeong, people who want to be you. It's hard and it’s pressuring but you declined my offer to not show up earlier today, so fucking own it.”

There's a pause where you see his jaw clenching, you see him shift uncomfortably and adjust his tie before presumably telling himself to relax.

“And study as much as you can, I'm not covering up your mistakes.”

The rest of the ride to the venue is silent and, when you get there, you exchange a look with your driver that's both apologetic and a request for discretion. You know your staff is discreet but you thank them every time you can because it's a lot of shit to handle.

“Here you go, honey.” The pet name almost makes you gag but you take the electronic from his hand, lock it and give it to the driver to safekeep.

“I prefer Y/N,” or even princess, because you're used to it “Don't try that inside.”

Rolling his eyes, he sarcastically lets out “Anything else your highness wants from me before we get off?”

“Yeah, for you to shut up and leave me alone forever after tonight but that's not really going to happen, hm?” You can see through the tinted windows how people gather outside to try and see who's inside the car and so you fix your hair with your fingers and then turn to fix Yunho’s tie. He makes a noise of disagreement but you shush him “Oh and for you to open the door for me?”

He levels you with his stare “Can't do it yourself?”

“Fucking do it and stop asking questions, Yunho.” You say under your breath and he smiles a little, triumphant like he just won something only for pissing you off.

Neither one of you want to lose the staring contest you suddenly have going on and it's, once again, electric. The tension is palpable and not in a positive way but you have to act quick when his brown eyes scan your face and linger where they don't need to. Hand still on his tie, it's tempting to try and choke him with it so instead you just tighten it a little more and it serves as a

“Now, Yunho.”

When he gets out of the car, you hear people gasp. He's not usually at these types of events because his mother must indulge him a lot. But also, he's usually seen with a frown whenever he does attend, so it must come to a shock to everyone he actually showed up.

It came with a shock for you too, you're not going to lie. You fully expected him to back out on his word and leave you hanging to deal with the shitshow yourself, no matter what he said this afternoon.

Rounding the car, he doesn't make the dramatic pause you were hoping for before opening the door and offering his hand to you. The gasps intensify once you elegantly get out, flashes going off and blinding you for a second before you take your surroundings in and loop your arm around Yunho’s.

There's people screaming both your names, asking questions that you don't get to answer because it's not the time for that and this is not a red carpet you have to walk through.

You wave your hand at the cameras, bow to the photographers and smile brightly when a girl behind an iphone tells you how pretty you look.

That would be the first person to compliment you today.

You don't turn to see what Yunho is doing, probably handling the attention in his own weird, detached way like he normally does and when someone signals you both to get going inside, you follow the person until the doors of the venue closing behind you drown out the paparazzi noise.

In the solitude of the initial hall, you see how Yunho lets his posture fall and lets out a breath “Well, I hated that.”

Condescendingly, you smile at him “Poor baby,” you lean in a bit into him “We’re only getting started.”

The horror on his face as he stares back brings out a nervous feeling inside you, but soon you're dragging him by his arm and following the staff member down the hall.

And when she opens the door into the ballroom, you let the feeling overcome you for a second and you gulp because of it.

Only getting started indeed.

If you read all the way down here: THANK YOU SO MUCH. This is part one of three (possibly more if the story extends that far). Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

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captainsparklefingers · 1 year ago

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One of the things I'm taking away from the second go round of Dracula Daily (and particularly from David Ault's excellent performance in Re: Dracula) is how much I like Lord Arthur Godalming.

Like. On the surface and the first time round he stands out the least of Lucy's suitors, and given how much time we hear from Jack, he can come off the most developed. Quincy, of course, gives us a heck of a lot of personality with relatively little (again, compared to how much we get from Jack). Arthur, though, doesn't have the same volume of words to develop, nor the instantly clear personality. He's just Lucy's fiancee, Jack and Quincy's friend, the heroes of light's wealthy benefactor.

But God, this poor man. He's suffered several immense losses in a very short period, been forced to see the woman he loved as a monster, and then had to put her down so she could rest in peace. Beyond the emotional burdens of such losses, he has to deal with the legal matters and the settling of affairs for three different people, probably doing whatever one needs to do to take his father's place in the House of Lords (something I know absolutely nothing about but I assume there's things to do there), AND the earth shattering revelation the supernatural is real, monsters do exist, and the one who killed Lucy is still out there.

And all of that while having to abide by the Victorian standards of manhood. Stalwart, strong, showing no emotions that could make him seem weak.

I think the scene in September 30th, where Mina comforts him and finally he has the chance to let go of all of these burdens he's felt he must carry alone, all of the grief and sorrow he's been forced to carry, he can for at least a moment put aside the mask of manliness society insist he wear and just let himself be a man who has lost his father and his fiancee within days of each other, who is dealing with situations beyond belief.

Obviously we've seen him cry and grieve before but it always felt like he was stifling it to a degree because, well. He only has his male friends to lean on now and the stupid proprieties of society mean he can only lean so much. But now he's had a chance to finally let go, made a connection with Lucy's dearest friend and a new sister of choice. He has his friends, he's finally been allowed to mourn in the way he's truly feeling...and now he's ready to help in whatever way possible to avenge Lucy.

Arthur comes off to me as a very strong character, a man driven by great love, who's emotions, as constrained as they may be, are one of his greatest strengths (and, of course, every good monster hunting group needs a financial benefactor). He's not a flat character at all, he's not forgettable character. Lucy loved him for a reason and, I think, in the moment his grief finally breaks, we get a glimpse at that.

I think that one of the good things of Dracula Daily has been making people realize how good of a character Jonathan Harker is, how pop culture has done damage to the true character of Lucy and Mina…I think we should add that its done a good job of making one care for a character as Arthur, who at first glance seems flat and boring.

Or at least it's made me appreciate him more. And I still want to know how he and Jack and Quincy became friends and what sort of shenanigans they got up to before the events of the book.

#dracula #dracula daily #dracula daily 2: vampire boogaloo #dracula spoilers #dracula daily spoilers #arthur godalming #re: dracula #seriously David Ault has done such a good job with him

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trellia · 6 months ago

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I decided to re-draw the VERY FIRST digital art I did, which was in September of 2001. (second drawing ). Back then I would draw and ink on paper, scan it, and color it with a mouse and I honestly have no clue how I had this much patience because I didn't know about layers then and worked on only one layer??? ( not sure how I got the background in there either lol)

First painting is the new piece with the updated character ( Angel/Angela in 2024). As you can see, a LOT has changed. She was a character I created for an American McGee's Alice roleplay on a forum. I think I wanted her to have a connection to the Cheshire Cat, hence the cat ears and tail. ( Listen I was 19, I loved cats too much (still do tbh lol) don't @ me lol). This is DEFINITELY not the case with the recent piece as she has little to do with Wonderland anymore, but I didn't really wanna take all of it away. She also changed nationality over time much, much later so I fixed her skin color to reflect that, as well as the jewelry and attire which uh.... yah, back then I was EXTREMELY influenced by 90's american comics ( l also knew nothing of anatomy which explains why she has no organs in the old piece >> ). I think it shows how much I have changed with time, both artistically and mentally.

However, I won't lie, I am not happy with the result... I started this piece at the beginning of June, then got extremely ill and had to work on this on and off during the month... which also means none of my interactions with the piece were the same and it shows. I feel like there's too much going on and the wing stumps are lost in there. Maybe a decade or two from now I'll repaint this again with a different perspective and better health.

However I am better now and I can paint more properly.

So apologies with this regurgitated piece lo!!

Regardless, thank you for sticking with me during these difficult times. Mucho appreciated!!! Much love!!

#oc #then vs now #old vs new #original character #digital painting #art #artist on tumblr #my art #digital illustration #artists on tumblr #digital drawing #digital art #blood tw #scopohobia tw #trelliaart #trellia-art

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scotianostra · 4 months ago

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September 2nd 1724 Maggie Dickson climbed the gallows in Edinburgh's Grassmarket, ready to take “The last drop”

Her downfall came when she got pregnant and tried to conceal the fact. Maggie’s husband had deserted her to work in the Fisheries in Newcastle in Northern England.

Consequently she had to leave Edinburgh and moved to Kelso in the south of Scotland. Whilst there she had an affair with an innkeepers son.

As the Innkeeper was her employer she felt compelled to keep the pregnancy quiet as she would lose her job. Tragically the baby died after being born prematurely and she decided to dispose of the body. She intended to cast it into the River Tweed but instead left it on the riverbank. It was soon found and the authorities quickly determined that Maggie was the mother. At that time such an action in Scotland contravened the 'Concealment of Pregnancy Act' of 1690 which made it tantamount to murder.

"Her reason for concealing the birth of the child was for fear of being made a public example in the church, and a laughing-stock to all her neighbours The legal and religious institutions were severe on women concerning matters of their pregnancy. Even the natural occurrences of miscarriage or still-born infants could incur the wrath of the law.

And so it was, Maggie was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang. The execution took place on the 2nd September 1724 in the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh. This was the favoured location for hangings at that time and normally took place on market day to ensure a sizeable crowd.

Her body was then taken in a coffin for burial to the town of Musselburgh which was east of Edinburgh. Apparently this was only after an unseemly scuffle between her family and local medical students keen for a young body to dissect. The corpses of the condemned were regularly passed to the Schools of Anatomy in the name of science in the 18th century.

The family had their way and took possession of Maggie's remains for burial. They set off on the journey and on the way stopped off at a pub for some refreshments in the Peffer Mill area. All of a sudden there came a knocking and banging on the coffin lid from the inside. Astonished, they opened up the coffin to discover that she was not dead.

Miraculously it seemed that Maggie Dickson had not succumbed to the gallows but had cheated death at the hands of the law. She was alive and well as confirmed by a local gardener on the scene who cut a vein to check for a flow of blood. After spending a night to recover Maggie actually walked back to Musselburgh the next day.

But what would happen next? As the death certificate had already been issued it was impossible to re-execute Maggie. This was because Scots Law is based on Roman Pandects and in this case it prohibited further action. Therefore the King's Advocate could not pursue the matter any further.

Instead he filed against the Edinburgh Sheriff in the High Court of Justiciary for not efficiently conducting the public execution. The ruling also meant that as Maggie was technically dead then her marriage was dissolved.

Furthermore, the prevailing opinion amongst people in Edinburgh considered her survival to be the result of divine intervention. Local people believed it had been 'God's will' that had spared her from an early grave.

Rumours persist that she actually seduced the ropemaker and convinced him to make the noose weak enough not to kill her. We will never know if that's the truth.

Whatever the facts of her hanging Maggie lived for another 40 years and had many children. Her husband remarried her despite that fact that she now sported rope burns and her neck was permanently crooked for the rest of her life. She is said to have ran an alehouse in Musselburgh for the rest of her life.

If you have ever visited Edinburgh’s Grassmarket you will have no doubt seen the names of the bars have a historical connection, The White Hart connects with King David I and his encounter with a White Stag, The Last Drop is of course a nod to the execution place and Maggie Dickson is for our erstwhile subject today, who the people of Edinburgh remember as “ Half-hangit Maggie “

#scotland #scottish #history #edinburgh #Grassmarket #Execution #Second chance

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nadas-dirthalen · 2 months ago

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A Veilguard Achievement Icon Opened My Eyes on 15 Years of Lore... but Was I Right?

PART ONE: Rambling First Impressions & Overview

[ 2 ]

Hello again, friends and travellers. Now that I've beaten Dragon Age: the Veilguard, I wanted to go through all those 30,000 words of predictions that I wrote in the ~11 days leading up to its release. I'd seen an achievement icon that pieced together a lot of Dragon Age lore for me.

But, I hadn't played Veilguard. All I had was the footage from September 19, the achievement list, and anything else BioWare had released.

So... was I right? And if so, how much was I right about?

This is your warning: This post will contain spoilers for the entirety of Dragon Age: the Veilguard, and all Dragon Age content made before Veilguard.

(no, this screenshot isn't a spoiler, I just like it.)

Welcome Back for Round Two. >:)

Stating right off the bat: I have only played Dragon Age: the Veilguard 1.5 times and so this collection is very, very incomplete. There's no way for me to learn every codex before they're even all on the wiki. If I've missed something, let me know!!

I don't know how many parts this is going to have. This has been a very fun, but very sleep-deprived week. Expect no sensible organization here; we're letting the ADHD reign!

That said, here's what I'm going to attempt to do:

A Recap of My Grand Theory: Solas was the Blight's Beginning, and Mythal was Responsible

How I Made My Predictions: A Study in Context and Pattern Recognition

What Did I Actually Get Right? (An Overview, Anyway)

Early Signs Veilguard Added to My Theories

A Recap of My Grand Theory: Solas was the Blight's Beginning, and Mythal was Responsible

I really don't have space to go in depth on what amounted to 30,000 words of theorycrafting (which still boggles my mind, how did I do that and still find time to sleep). Instead, I'll link every post and make a bullet point list of what big guesses I made in each.

Part One: Solas was created from spirit and lyrium, crafted in one of Mythal's lyrium coffins that we see both in the Temple of Solasan and Trespasser. That means that some part of him was part of a Titan, once. There were hints about this across all three preceding games, and these hints re-contextualize those games and their place in the Dragon Age narrative. The Titans are likely the Forgotten Ones, because Fen'Harel walked among both the Forgotten Ones and the Evanuris in his legends.

Part Two: The Mythal lullaby in Trespasser is the story of Solas' creation, specifically. Da'durgen'lin refers to 'little stone boy.' Solas' twice-used phrase Ar dirthan'as ir elgara, ma sula e'var vhenan is him speaking to lyrium itself, which he does both with Sera (ancient elvhen? andruil memory? people go into more depth on this than I ever do) and the Eye of Kethisca. Elven phrases and pieces of writing/song from everywhere point to Solas' backstory and are all possibly written/sung by Solas. The codices in the Temple of Solasan are also referencing his backstory. There is a larger narrative at work happening in the random elven literature we find, and it suggests a lot of things about the world.

Part Three: The Titans are definitely the Forgotten Ones—at least, part of them (more on that later). They have all been sundered. One part remains in the Abyss; the other in the Fade. The Fade, in fact, is every Titan's consciousness, all sundered by Fen'Harel. This is the "leg" that the wolf chewed off to "escape the trap": Solas' connection to ir sa tel'nal, isatunoll. This is why he loves the Fade: he's reconnecting with the consciousness he broke himself apart from. This is also why he has Titan/Stone magic. This is also why lyrium grows both in the Abyss and in the Fade.

• Oh, and spirits seem like they might be the thoughts of Titans.

Part Four: The Chant of Light tells the story of the Evanuris, from their manifestation as spirits to their mining of lyrium and war with the Titans to the Makers' creation of "everyone else." The archdemons and Magisters Sidereal are also explained in its verses. The Chant also suggests the Maker is a Titan whose mind and body are sundered, and that Andraste's hearing the "voice of the Maker" is her hearing the Titan's song.

Part Five: The tragedy of the Evanuris, part 1/3: Mythal is known to have mined people from lyrium. Elgar'nan probably sundered spirits, notably Dirthamen and Falon'Din. Falon'Din seems to have wanted to attack Titans that "belonged" to other Evanuris to gain more "worshippers" (lyrium people; slaves) for himself.

Part Six: The tragedy of the Evanuris, part 2/3: Sylaise probably made the Scaled Ones. June probably is responsible for not just lots of inventions, but the invention of the geas. Dirthamen's "secrets" are "thoughts" (spirits) forced into the bodies of his worshippers... and animals... and trees (AKA, he made a lot of abominations).

Part Seven: The tragedy of the Evanuris, part 3/3: the blight seems to be the Titans' defence against repeated attacks. Crucially, all of the Evanuris made the Titans this way... but Mythal made them that way first. The reason the Titans are "forgotten" now is because Mythal tried to erase all memory of them so that none would find the blight again. (She failed. Thanks, Andruil and Ghilan'nain).

Part Eight: The story of Solas, part 1/3: Solas came from an un-sundered world where both "mage magic" and "Stone magic" were the same thing. He was created in the Temple of Solasan, where "icy terror" became the first blighted Titan. Solas' existence was significant to the Evanuris because it suggested that one can survive the blight, and his moniker (the Dread Wolf) comes from the fact that he was a wolf (elven general) that came from the terror Titan (dread).

Part Nine: Since Solas' origin story is the start of the blight, then all of Solas' story from that point is not the story of just him, but the story of the blight. This signifies his place in Dragon Age's entire narrative, and also spells out what the overarching Point™ of the series is. Backed into a proverbial corner where none of the Evanuris would stop the things that angered the Titans, Solas' only choice was to sunder the Titans from their consciousness. He misses the Stone, also.

• He also imprisoned the Evanuris in Stone, something called "gangue" in Hissing Wastes codices.

• His ultimate goal is to return consciousness to the Titans, fixing the "wound" he made when the Veil went up.

Part Ten: The Inquisitor is special because their spirit is from the same Titan as Solas. The Breach is a threat because if the Veil comes down too soon, all the Titans will come back blighted and angry. The Veil disintegrating means all the Titans are waking anyway, little by little. The Dread Wolf shape is actually an aspect of Terror that can kill people with fear. The Evanuris who've been killed before have potentially had their spirits "recycled" and might be reincarnating into mortal people now. Oh, and a bunch of predictions on the companions, Solas/Mythal, etc, that I'll go over again down below.

How I Made My Predictions: A Study in Context and Pattern Recognition

I've had a lot of people ask how I... y'know. Did that. How one person could write 30,000 words of guesses in the week and a half before Veilguard, citing so many sources, and... not be that far off, probably.

Honestly the short version of this is, "I read the Chant of Light as it appears in World of Thedas, not with the canticles out of order like they are on the wiki, has anyone else done that?"

The longer version of this sounds even shorter, at first: I started playing Dragon Age games in March 2024, and I have ADHD.

Oh, and I'm a writer who's always been interested in game development, with dreams of maybe one day working in games or on video game IP. That helps shape my understanding of what games might need to accomplish, narratively, and the mechanisms they might use to accomplish those goals.

I was able to play all three games this summer. In fact, I finished Inquisition for the first time after Veilguard's first trailers this year, on June 26. What that means is that my first real experiences learning the finer lore of Dragon Age were all this year, and had the context of Veilguard's trailers. We knew we were getting a narrative followup to Trespasser, and so where did I center my focus? Trespasser. Everything I learned about Thedas, I tried to make sense in the context of Trespasser. Every piece of lore had to fit with Trespasser. Not just the environment of the Crossroads or the companions' banter, but what Trespasser was trying to teach us.

And most of its codices are about the Evanuris warring with the Titans. The Titans, who we'd just seen in Descent. The storytelling point of Trespasser was to make us question the nature and morality of Fen'Harel by giving us context about the Evanuris and their own history, then letting us ask for Solas' perspective on it.

That's the thing about Dragon Age. Very little of it is there pointlessly. Every level, every DLC, every codex, is there to teach you something. Even the smaller codices, which don't seem to mean anything tremendous, are there to teach you how to parse the voice of all the other codices. So even beyond the games, I asked myself: what is Tevinter Nights trying to teach me about how Thedas works? What is The Masked Empire teaching me? Is it the same? And what about World of Thedas, volumes 1 and 2, written from the perspective of Thedosian historians, deliberately written to misdirect the reader with the historians' biases?

Whatever I found had to work with what was promised in Veilguard: a controversial Solas. New understanding of the Evanuris. Harding's new magic. Regions of Thedas we never explored, and why those places would all matter.

Knowing the three act structure, as a writer, and knowing that ensemble casts all need to bring a puzzle piece of the grander theme into the main plot through their own personal quests, I had a vague skeleton of what I would need to find. The shape of the information I found would have to fit the world and the relationship dynamics advertised in the Veilguard. Origins would have to matter to the Veilguard; same with DA2; same with Inquisition. Despite the series being disconnected by featuring different leads, the worldbuilding is very much connected between instalments, and so Veilguard would have to be one logical step past everything that developed in Inquisition. (Nevermind a whole host of other criteria that honestly deserves its own post).

It's very hard to describe how the pattern recognition in some ADHD brains works. What I will say is... I noticed something. Every mistranslated elven codex where it deliberately says it has been mistranslated is an invitation for you, the player, to try and figure out what is correct. Everywhere that World of Thedas says that something must be preposterous to the historian narrating it is an invitation to ask yourself: could this be possible? How would that work?

Things like the linguistic overlaps between the elves and the dwarves are intentional. Words that are phonetically similar are far more often intentional than simple oversight. Every scrap of lore holds some significance.

Because in Thedas, every perspective is right, to some degree. Including the Chant of Light. Including ancient elvhenan. If you try and make them all reconcile with each other, and you've also done so in the context of the Veilguard, and you've also got ADHD and a near-photographic memory that is strongest with emotional memories and rules/systems? Well... You get me. You get 30,000 words of "one single picture of lyrium-spirit Solas cracked all of Thedas for me in the span of one mind-blown week while I power-read World of Thedas to check all my facts and essentially lived inside the Dragon Age wiki."

(AKA, you get Bellara in human form. Sorry, Bellara. It's rough out here. But now you, reader, know the reason that this blog was renamed nadas-dirthalen in late September—and why I, when I embraced my nonbinary identity, chose the name Lore for myself.)

And what was promised in Inquisition, as well as in Veilguard's marketing? The Evanuris, Titans, and the blight. They would all have to tie together—and they did.

What Did I Actually Get Right? (An Overview, Anyway)

I'm going to try and categorize this. Oh god. These are going to be such disorganized posts, but I want them done before much information comes out, so bear with me.

What I Got Right:

Solas and Mythal: Yep. He caused the blight; she made him do it. He created the Veil and wounded himself. They weren't romantic; they were trauma-bonded. She wasn't a paragon of good. They both tried to stop the blight anyway.

Sundered Spirits: The sweet, sweet vindication of learning that Dirthamen and Falon'Din were sundered all along. Thank you, BioWare. We also learned that this happened to the Titans (more on broader implications in the last category in this section).

Titan Stories In Elven: Bellara sang "Ir sa tel'nal Mythal las ma theneras" and my heart soared. :) My ego swelled. :) That's all the confirmation I need right now that I hit the nail on the head with the elven lullabies and Solas' backstory.

The Chant of Light Told the Story of the Evanuris: The demons that would be gods. We know now that all the Evanuris manifested physically from their original spirit forms. The Chant called it.

Mythal, Andruil, and Ghilan'nain's Roles in the Blight: Mythal created it, but wanted it sealed away; Andruil found it again; Ghilan'nain made it grow and grow.

Taash, a little? I hypothesized that fire-breathers might come from the Scaled Ones or otherwise have been engineered by an Evanuris. I know they were engineered for the purpose of war, but not by whom (I... think. Needs a replay to confirm).

Davrin: Yes! Davrin was the one who connected that Solas feels responsible for specifically the blight and conveyed that to the rest of the team. He questioned the nature of the Grey Wardens and helped to choose a path forward without any archdemons left.

Harding: Yup. Titan connection. Yup, our narrative path to finding out about angered Titans.

"Do We Win?/Do We Stop the Blight?" Well, in Solas' good ending, we do get what I thought we would: the Evanuris all gone, the Titans on a path to restoration.

What I Definitely Did Not Get Right:

VARRIC?!?! When I said, "If you know, you know. Lyrium dagger, dwarf. If you don't know, close your eyes and pretend you read nothing" — GUYS I THOUGHT VARRIC WOULD GET MAGIC HE REALLY HATED AND I CRIED LIKE A BABY WHEN I SAW WHAT HAPPENED :(

Lucanis: I really thought Spite would be a Forgotten One. However, it's stated a few times that Spite is not a run-of-the-mill demon, and Lucanis is not your average abomination. I wonder if there's banter I'm missing, or if something will happen with that in DA5. Poisoned fruit, and all that.

Emmrich: I really thought Emmrich would do world-changing "give all the spirits back to the Titans" stuff. I think my error with most of the companions is that I forgot how much information actually can feasibly fit into a game without it being 300 hours long or melting the brains of its players.

Neve: Nothin' happened with gangue mentions, or Archon mentions! I was way, way off with Neve.

The Eclipse: It did not have anything to do with the Bird Boy Evanuris™ :( But Elgar'nan moving the sun and moon was badass as hell, and I honestly loved Elgar'nan far more than even my highest expectations.

What I Haven't Gotten Right... YET:

Bellara….?????? Guys I thought there was a Dirthamen connection and they put a codex in the game that says specifically that Dirthamen held a fondness for frogs, same as Bellara. And then they gave her a brother who... ya know... was... presumed... dead... AKA, on the other side of the Veil... for a while... And then they gave that brother a sundered piece of Bellara's own vallaslin. John Epler, where are you going with this please I wanna KNOW, the Bird Boys™ occupy my mind at all hours. (But also? Surprise Forgotten One mention with Bellara, and surprise Anaris mention specifically, and I'm going to pat myself on the back for being so oddly focused on Anaris in my predictions.)

Chant of Light Confirmations: I actually have yet to see a single Chant of Light verse in Veilguard. I think they're saving that one for later, keeping it up their sleeves for the next games. The needle didn't move with confirming/denying anything in the Chant except for the Evanuris as spirits that manifested into physical shape and then sought to conquer the Titans.

Titans-as-Forgotten-Ones: For a time, I thought they disproved me on this, showing Anaris as a spirit, the "eighth" while the "sixth and seventh" roamed free. Showing Anaris craving a body to wreak his evil (?) machinations upon the world. But then I got to thinking, and I realized: they never said the Forgotten Ones are spirits, they just showed one being a spirit. What did they say about spirits in general, or the Titans' relation to the Fade in general?

Titans-and-Fade Connection: I theorized that the Titans' consciousness is the Fade, and the Veil is what keeps them all sundered. I theorized that spirits are thoughts, either floating around in the Fade or held in lyrium. For a long time in Veilguard, I thought I was being disproven. Solas' memories don't say that the Veil sundered all Titans, and they don't say that Titans' consciousness is the Fade, either. But, as I went through Veilguard, I realized... they also didn't not say it. And that's when I knew.

I have to go digging again. And after 8.5 days, here's what I think I've got. It's a start, but a promising one.

Early Signs Veilguard Has Added to My Theories

Remember how I said that there are very few in things in Thedas that are there for no reason? Well, Veilguard has given us plenty of tie-ins to previous material already, just with the stuff I remember off-hand from the past week, no wiki entries to go by yet.

(Please bear in mind that I have had this game for 8 days and this is just barely scratching the surface of its content!)

Let me re-examine some of the things I mentioned above:

Titans-as-Forgotten-Ones

The Nadas Dirthalen's very first word is Sulahn'nehn. Remember how I said many things in Thedas are there intentionally, and that World of Thedas is a book made up of invitations to solve puzzles? This is no exception. World of Thedas states that, translated literally, this common word for "rejoice" actually means "sing again."

That word might be a rallying cry for the spirits of Titans who'd, I don't know... lost their song. A promise of plot to come, made a decade ago. Why else would they include that word, instead of anything more frequently used by characters/the fandom?

I also noticed: the Nadas Dirthalen looks to be contained in a lyrium crystal, specifically. We already know that lyrium is used to store memories! It may be that the Nadas Dirthalen, the inevitability of knowledge, was Anaris storing his knowledge and memories in an attempt to pre-empt the creation of the Veil. Nadas Dirthalen might be a promise: a promise that the Forgotten Ones will return to sing again, and that their knowledge and memories will guide them to victory.

But if I was going to hazard a guess that this is the case, I couldn't base my theory on just this line of dialogue.

Titans-and-Fade-Connection

First and foremost: Neve and a couple codices say that Solas' ritual to create the Veil went wrong. We all heard Solas cry out in pain at the moment of its creation!

Second: defeating one of the revenants, whose name is something like "The Slaughtered Pillars," made my ears perk up. I noticed in the combat with the Betrayal of Felassan that the dialogue lines are supposed to be Solas' regrets, given voice.

You wanna know what it says when you fight the Slaughtered Pillars?

"Light and song, stolen."

You wanna know what the Chant of Light refers to the Fade as? Three guesses. C'mon. :)))

That's right! Light! But why would the slaughtered pillars of the earth complain about their light AND song being stolen? Well—I'm guessing that their Light is the Fade; their consciousness. And without their consciousness, their dreams, all concept of isatunoll was lost to them.

When I heard this line, I threw out what I thought I had been told about the Forgotten Ones being spirits, not Titans. Now, I have a new idea (one that still needs verifying and much codex-reading): the Forgotten Ones are those sundered spirits that Solas severed from the Titans. The entire Fade being cut off from Thedas was an unintended consequence that hurt him as badly as it did the Titans he meant to put to sleep.

(We don't even know that he was in uthenera by choice, with how often he talks about being weakened.)

Suddenly, "Sing again," makes total sense as a rallying cry for Anaris and the Titans, both. I very much look forward to digging through the minutiae of every codex to see if I can find anything else that backs this up!

Terror/Horror Mentions

I need to really examine this one, ideally with the help of a wiki that doesn't quite exist yet for this game, to get all the exact lines. But I swear that fear is mentioned almost constantly in Solas' memories, and also a lot in conjunction with Anaris and with Harding's Titan.

I'm not letting go of my "Solas was crafted from Terror/Dread" theory. Not yet. Not yet.

Bellara and the Bird Boys™

I think BioWare's favourite game, at this point, is teasing us with sneaky little mentions of Dirthamen and Falon'Din. In Veilguard, we went to Zazikel's skeleton in the Cauldron. In Arlathan, owls were just... glowing. Everywhere. Why? I don't know! Rook also doesn't seem to know! But they mention it many times over, and that is always a cue for us to pay attention and ascertain why.

I don't know what Bellara's sneaky little connection to Dirthamen and Falon'Din could mean for the two sundered Evanuris. I don't know if it means that I'm right, and that Dirthamen escaped Fade Jail when Corypheus and the Magisters Sidereal entered the Black City. I don't know if it means that, when Dirthamen and Falon'Din died, their spirits fused back together (because... Mythal's didn't?).

I just know that this has worsened how I constantly search for the Bird Boys™ in everything. Something is happening here, I just need to figure out what.

What Do I Think This Means?

I think this means that BioWare are about to make good on their promise shown in the Poisoned Fruit post-credits scene. Dragon Age 5: Something Something Something Forgotten Ones, ooohhhh, spooky, Terror Terror Malice Fear Nightmare Time, Featuring Solas (reluctantly or gladly) Helping Heal the Titans. And did we mention that the Forgotten and the Forbidden Ones have always been more closely linked than most of the fanbase thought?

But I can only guess at that for now, and I've got some serious reading to do before I say anything more specific than that.

-----

As always, if you read this far, you're one of the real ones. This has been a jumbled mess of midnight thoughts, but I promise you this: I'm only just digging into Veilguard's finer workings. I'm only just starting to put its many pieces together.

And like every Dragon Age game, I can tell that there is something big lurking between the lines of every one. I just need to read something like 135 mementos and [redacted] codices from everywhere else several times over in order to figure out what it is.

But this is just Part One. I promise: the second it clicks for me, I'll write it all in a rambling frenzy for you, too.

It's still super up in the air, but I think for the next one, I might try and tackle What Dragon Age: the Veilguard Did Narratively—and What DA5's Story Will Likely Do to Follow. We'll see what happens to me 50, 100, or 200 codices from now. :)

#dragon age #veilguard spoilers #dragon age the veilguard #dragon age: the veilguard #da:tv #da meta #da theory #dragon age meta #dragon age theory #da:tv spoilers

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mclennonlgbt · 9 months ago

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Combination of McLennon and Paul is dead

This is a post that I found on "Paul Is Dead: Examining The Life And Death of James Paul McCartney" FB group.

When this person writes "ShepLennon", they mean Billy Sheard (aka Faul) x Lennon.

They are confused but they've got a spirit lmao.

"*Bear with me a long post:

“McLennon” was not real. But SHEPLennon may well have been, and that solves a mystery…

Among Beatle fans there are some who believe that John Lennon and Paul McCartney were lovers from an early age. That they were soulmates, no one disputes, but there are many who disagree about John and Paul being the couple known as “McLennon”. Paul was extremely promiscuous with women, and seemed to put up with the fact that John seemed to be in love with him, or at least would get jealous. George Harrison famously told of a night in Hamburg where Paul was shagging some bird and John walked in, had a fit and cut up the girl’s clothes with scissors.

There are some pics of John and Paul gazing at each other with affection – as you’d expect from closely bound young men going through something unprecedented together. You can also find photos of J&P also looking with similar fondness at George and Ringo (they would practically sit on top of each other), all through 1963 and 1964, and part-ways through 1965.*** (More on this another time.)

Within the “McLennon” fandom, there is this great ‘mystery’. They all wonder why the breakup and the acrimony, etc, which makes no sense to them.

The thing is, the break up of the Beatles, the ugliness of it and the lingering distrust and resentment CAN’T make sense unless you understand that in September of 1966, Paul was assassinated and by November replaced by William Shepherd.

And that (because the Beatles initially believed that Paul had died in an accident, therefore having no reason to resent him, personally) the deeply grieving band initially had no personal issues re Billy, beyond wishing he’d not been ‘necessary’ (or ordered). It’s true that George, Paul’s OLDEST friend, never took to Billy, but John and Ringo go on fine with him.

Were Paul and John lovers? The man who sometimes comes into these forums and calls himself Liam Steen (who, like Billy and all of the MPL plants tells some truth mixed in with misinformation) said “No”. He emphatically and repeatedly said Paul McCartney was straight, and that he never did drop acid. Steen also said (emphatically) that JOHN and BILLY WERE attracted to each other, at least, and may have been lovers.

Photographs, videos, and gifs of John and Billy throughout 1967 and up through the recording of “Hey Bulldog” seem to bear this out. Lots of pictures of John and Billy walking through London with Martha the dog (likely Billy’s ‘familiar’) or driving together, and what seems to be some clear flirtatious ‘like lovers’ gazing, and touching.

Yoko told a story of Billy being called “John’s princess” by the staff at EMI, and also of hearing John calling out “for Paul” in a very needy, vulnerable way. Which sounds like she heard them having sex, but I digress.

All of that ENDS after the trip to India, where some sort of ritual was performed, connected to Paul (and using an artifact of Paul’s) that left the other three, most particularly John, completely traumatized, and for the rest of their lives.

The break was the beginning of Billy’s eventual ‘breakdown’ as the band no longer wanted to work with him (probably why he became so overcontrolling during the White Album) and John’s almost immediate attachment to Yoko. Both Linda and Yoko were alums of Sarah Lawrence College (a known ‘spook’-feeding school) and the men eventually married them within a week of each other… like lovers trying to piss each other off, or show that they were moving on. But John and Billy never did move on.

First they fought, and some of the legal wrangling that extended all of that had to do specifically with Billy being determined to continue using Paul’s name and identity (but that’s another story and “How do you sleep” was about exactly that).

But Billy and John were obsessed with each other and never stopped writing and talking about each other. There is a tape of John Lennon, at the piano, writing “Real Life” singing: “hold you in my arms/and now you’ve a baby, and another on the way…”

https://itspaulthewalrus.tumblr.com/post/651703402830708736/serenade-meow-amclennonblog-john-cries-while

And of course, now Billy won’t shut up about how much he loved John. When asked if John could return how he would spend the day with him, Billy answers, “IN BED.”

https://bewaremylove.tumblr.com/post/87659554397/q-if-john-lennon-could-come-back-for-a-day-how

The big “McLennon” mystery is not unsolvable if you begin from the premise that Paul McCartney was dead and John (for whatever reason) transferred his love to someone who was (at best) a facsimile of Paul, who made it feel like his Macca was still around, and who would both drop acid with him and be a lover.

And the break up after India makes perfect sense then, too. The McLennon people want to believe that the break up came because John wanted to be ‘out’ with “Paul” and Billy wouldn’t do it, wanted a family. And maybe that did happen. But Billy, by his own admission, is a witch and a magickian**** who tried to do something with Paul’s spirit while in India, through ritual that may well have included a blood element (ask me about Oblahdi, Obladah, sometime…) and that left John nearly psychotic".

#mclennon #paul is dead

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fullcoffeemoon-nem · 1 year ago

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Timeline Theory

New upgrade here!!

First post: 09-21-23

Second update: 11-14-23

Third update: 05-01-24 (+ S2 Theory link)

Fourth update: 06-03-24 (+ S2 Theory upload)

Last update: 04-12-24

——————————————

Hi there!

After another re-watch and the head to pay attention to the small details, perhaps I have reconstructed a possible

Timeline of Helluva Boss

It would be better to define them as hypotheses. First of all, here is an outline of the episodes and their release dates.

I also included the one whose title we know, just for the sake of general overview. The theory for the moment covers 2 seasons out of 4 announced.

Here the synthetic timeline. From the estimate version I have removed the year here, we'll get to the reason.

Here I also report some of my thoughts:

Already from the first episodes there's a strong focus on clocks and time, it is much more striking in Oops, where Asmodeus' clock marks the whole day.

I'm not sure about the year, but also from the analyzes carried out later, 2021 could be the year of the narrative arc that goes from Murder Family to Ozzie's for sure.

(*) The Verosika's tour t-shirt was official and linked to the episode, at the moment I'm undecided on its validity at the year level, althought the date could be very possible.

However, my research started with Seeing Stars because it's the first episode to feature an almost specific date: the 20th of a 30-day month.

In my opinion it could be April chronologically and it's agreed with the information in the subsequent episodes.

The only problem is that the full moon would't coincide with what was marked by Blitz.

Noteworthy:

Blitz's calendar suggests that the full moon in that month is the 14th.

Stolas wrote in the Western Energy chat that Blitz was supposed to come that evening and that therefore the full moon was the 20th.

We are certainly either in 2021 or beyond given Moxxie's coin in Seeing Stars.

From the chat we can understand that:

About a month passes between the trio Ozzie's - Queen Bee - The Circus (1 moon)

About 3 months pass between Seeing Stars and Western Energy (3 moons)

Western Energy is placed a week before Oops and among these there's Unhappy Campers

From Millie's flyer we know that her and Moxxie's mission ends on Friday July 17th. We know from Blitz that this lasted a week, so it started on Monday 13th July.

According to what Striker says to Crisom, Western Energy should be set around July 11th and Oops around July 18th.

We should be in 2022 though, but in that case July 17th was a Sunday.

In Mammon's magnificent concert Blitz says on the call with Ozzie that it's a weekend.

There are two options:

It could be set on the week parallel (July 21-22th or 28-29th) to the events of Western-Unhappy-Oops.

It could be set on the following month (August).

Here we come to the gap:

(*) The Mammon's official t-shirt is clearly linked to the episode, but the date (2023) and month (October) cause the information to conflict.

So, at this point we have this options:

The official t-shirts are tied exclusively to the release date of the episode.

They are official only at the date level.

They're official and we're actually 2 years removed from Murder Family.

I think it is more canonical to consider a connection with the month of July shown in the episode and maintain the hypothesis.

Seeing Stars -> April

Wester Energy to Oops -> July

Full Moon → September or October 29th

In Apology Tour we have confirmation from multiple characters (and from the visit to Earth) that it is October 31th.

From the argument between Blitz and Stolas, it seems that it was 1 or 2 days after Full Moon. This creates some contradictions with the canonical month of the previous episode.

There are three options:

Full Moon Calendar has an "error"

It's been longer than it seems

Earth and Hell don't have the same chronological flow

I don't know which option to prefer.

From Ghost fu**ers the only information obtained is at the beginning of the episode:

Millie claims to Loona at the beginning of the episode that Blitz's crisis has been going on for over a month.

The client says that her murder occurred the day before, a Wednesday. So the current date is a Thursday.

We should be in November, if we consider that before this episode the 3 Shorts are placed probably at the end of the month.

(link Viv post about the Shors click here)

I was hoping Mastermind would give us some more details, but it seems either we're happy with the episode or we find different lines. Incredible, an episode with so many media, chats, newspapers, live broadcasts, posts and articles and not even a shred of date. We only have the usual clock that marks everything between the afternoon and the evening.

We have to wait for Sinsmas (obviously set in December) and hope that something more will be mentioned.

So that's what we now:

——————————————

As for the analysis with the theories on the trailer shown to us at the LVL UP on April 29th, for now I'll leave the post as it is. I don't think it makes sense to correct the opinions (only Sinsmas is missing), at most I'll modify it in terms of the relationship between Blitz and Stolas.

You can read it here.

I will let you now if I change it.

——————————————

In the end, I deleted Sinstagram post analytics for two reasons:

They hadn't reached this point in the serie

The Spindlehorse she disconnected from those accounts, making everything "useless"

( @timkontheunsure thanks anyway for the suggestion)

——————————————

What a mess...

What do you think about it?

Have you noticed any other details that could clarify the mystery? Make me know it and let's solve the mystery together :}

From Nem is all,

Bye~

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milfstalin · 4 months ago

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[...]

Ultimately, this story about Pakistan is more properly understood as one about the contest between China and the U.S. that pits the rest of the world in the middle. Chinese officials, we learned, regularly told their Pakistani counterparts that Beijing doesn’t see the contest as zero sum, that it’s okay to be friendly with both major powers. The U.S. does not quite see it that way, and Pakistan knows it. The result is the story below. If you’re at all interested in foreign affairs, we think you’ll find this one enlightening.

[...]

In October of 2022, a pivotal year for Pakistan, military chief Qamar Javed Bajwa finally won what he had long been striving for: an official state trip to the United States. His mission was explicit; a document prepared for Bajwa ahead of the visit is titled, “U.S. Re-Engagement with Pakistan: Ideas for Reviving an Important Relationship.”

[...]

From New York, Munir Akram, Pakistan’s representative to the United Nations, began reporting back cables highlighting “sarcastic” comments from his Chinese counterpart, who openly tweaked Akram about Pakistan’s sudden swing toward Washington. In private conversations with their Pakistani counterparts over the past year, as reported by Pakistani diplomats, Chinese officials have expressed displeasure with Islamabad for “switching camps”—rather than merely seeking open relations with both countries.

Now, with their U.S. gamble failing to pay off, Pakistani officials have become increasingly frantic in their efforts to repair relations with China, including, asthe documents reveal, by granting China approval for a military base at the port of Gwadar—a major and longstanding strategic demand of Beijing—and authorizing joint military operations inside Pakistan.

[...]

Internal reports emphasize Pakistan’s wish that its relations with the U.S. and China not be “zero-sum.” “What the Pakistani military prefers is to be able to maintain a balance between their Chinese and U.S. military relationships,” said Adam Weinstein, deputy director of the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute and an analyst on Pakistan. “They believe that if things are balanced, both sides will have an incentive to keep relations strong.”

Despite this preference, a classified internal Pakistani intelligence assessment judges China to be a more “natural strategic ally” than the U.S., with whom Pakistan is deemed to share “limited” strategic interests.

Facing such loss of trust from a key ally, the documents also show that Pakistan’s military-backed government privately promised Beijing a long-coveted concession: a Chinese military base in the key port city of Gwadar. Gwadar is a key node in China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative—the last stop in a land corridor through Pakistan that would connect China’s economy westward, and make it less reliant on shipping transit in the South China Sea.

In return, Pakistan asked for a major upgrade in economic and military assistance from Beijing in order to insulate Islamabad from the fierce reaction from the U.S. such a deal is expected to provoke.

[...]

This August, Pakistani government sources vented frustration to the media over their failed reconciliation with the U.S., lamenting the meager benefits that mending ties had brought. Government sources told the Express Tribune that “Pakistan’s reliance on the United States to secure the IMF package was not yielding the results.” This week, the IMF announced a decision to consider Pakistan’s loan request at an upcoming meeting slated for September 25, raising hopes that a deal may still be secured.

Pakistan’s private concessions to China come as the U.S. State Department has continued to publicly defend the military regime from criticism over its role in rigging elections this February, gross human rights abuses inside the country targeting the press and civil society, and an ongoing crackdown on supporters of now-imprisoned former Prime Minister Khan. That crackdown now includes credible threats to Khan’s life, as he continues to be held in government custody despite repeated rejection by the courts of the charges against him.

“We believe good governance, long-term capacity building, and sustainable market-based approaches that let the private sector flourish are the best paths to sustained growth and development,” the State Department told Drop Site News in its post-publication statement. “Our partnership with Pakistan spans the full range of regional and bilateral issues, including increasing trade and investment, strengthening security cooperation, promoting regional security and stability, building climate resilience, supporting democracy and human rights, and expanding people-to-people ties.”

The rigging of elections this February was met with general indifference in Washington, as has the ongoing suppression of press and political activism in the country. On the economic front, Pakistan’s imploding economy has consumed Western aid with nothing to show for it but soaring inflation, blackouts, an internet slowed to a crawl, and joblessness.

18 Sept 2024

#china #pakistan #geopolitics #drop site news #us imperialism #imperialism #article

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sensualnoiree · 4 months ago

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astro notes: daily transits 9/1

Today marks a significant shift in the astrological landscape as two powerful planets—Uranus and Pluto—initiate transformative journeys. Uranus, the planet of innovation, rebellion, and sudden change, stations retrograde at 27°15' Taurus, signaling a period of introspection and reassessment in areas where we may have felt stuck or resistant to change. Simultaneously, Pluto, the planet of transformation, power, and rebirth, re-enters Capricorn, a sign associated with authority, structure, and long-term goals. This combination sets the stage for deep, systemic changes that will unfold over the coming months.

Key Influences

Uranus Stations Retrograde at 27°15' Taurus:Revolutionary Introspection: Uranus stationing retrograde in Taurus brings a powerful call to reassess and reevaluate areas of life that may have become stagnant or too routine. Taurus, a sign deeply connected to stability, values, and material security, can sometimes resist change, preferring the comfort of the familiar. However, Uranus’s energy is anything but routine—its retrograde motion invites us to look inward and question where we have become too set in our ways. This is a time to explore new possibilities, break free from outdated patterns, and innovate in areas related to our resources, self-worth, and how we create stability in our lives. The retrograde period is ideal for revisiting past ideas or projects that may now be ready for a fresh, innovative approach.

Focus on Security and Values: Taurus’s influence on Uranus retrograde highlights the need to reassess our approach to security, both financial and emotional. This transit may bring up sudden changes or disruptions in these areas, forcing us to adapt and rethink our strategies for maintaining stability. The key here is flexibility—Uranus encourages us to be open to new ways of securing our future, even if they seem unconventional or challenging at first. Embrace the opportunity to innovate and redefine what security means to you, allowing for a more dynamic and resilient approach.

Pluto Re-enters Capricorn:Deep Systemic Transformation: Pluto’s re-entry into Capricorn marks the continuation of a long-term cycle of transformation that has been reshaping structures of power, authority, and societal norms since 2008. Capricorn, ruled by Saturn, is the sign of discipline, responsibility, and long-term planning. As Pluto moves back into Capricorn from September 1 to November 19, we are called to revisit and complete the deep transformational work that began during its initial transit through this sign. This period may bring up unresolved issues related to power dynamics, governance, and the structures that underpin our personal and collective lives.

Rebuilding Foundations: Pluto in Capricorn asks us to confront where the foundations of our lives, careers, and societal structures may have become weak or corrupt. This is a time for deep introspection and a willingness to dismantle what no longer serves us, even if it involves confronting uncomfortable truths. The work of Pluto in Capricorn is about building something more enduring and sustainable—whether in our careers, personal lives, or the broader societal framework. This transit supports long-term planning and the disciplined effort required to bring about lasting change.

Integrating the Influences

Embrace Innovation and Flexibility:Navigating Uranus Retrograde in Taurus: Uranus retrograde is an invitation to innovate in areas of life where we may have become too rigid or resistant to change. This is a time to experiment with new ideas, especially those that challenge our usual approach to security and stability. Be open to revisiting past projects or ideas that may now find fertile ground for growth. Uranus encourages us to think outside the box and embrace change, even if it feels uncomfortable at first. Flexibility and adaptability will be key to navigating this retrograde period successfully.

Focus on Long-Term Transformation:Pluto’s Return to Capricorn: With Pluto re-entering Capricorn, we are reminded that true transformation is a long-term process. This period is about completing the deep work of restructuring the foundations of our lives and society. Whether it’s in your career, personal life, or broader societal roles, this is a time to focus on the big picture and the long-term goals that require patience, discipline, and a willingness to confront difficult truths. Use this time to build something that will endure, even if it means letting go of what is no longer viable.

Prepare for Deep, Systemic Change:Anticipating the Shifts: Both Uranus and Pluto are outer planets associated with deep, systemic change. As they begin their retrograde and re-entry phases, we are called to prepare for significant shifts in our lives. This may involve reassessing our values, security, and long-term goals, as well as confronting and transforming the structures that govern our lives. Embrace the opportunity to innovate and rebuild, knowing that the changes you make now will have a lasting impact on your future.

follow for more astro insights like this and head on over to @quenysefields or my etsy --> sensualnoiree to grab my new astrology guidebook on reading your own natal chart :)

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herejusttosufferalong · 6 months ago

Note

(Re: About Joe Alwyn, Similarities with Nic, and Acquaintance with Luke Thompson)

Response to your shock about Ratty Healy : Hahaha as a swiftie myself I SIDE-EYED tay so hard when she had her rebound with him, like gurl he's nasty and disgusting with all of his past troubling behaviors no matter how sweet he might appear to you.

If you wanna know a glimpse of JoeTay relationship, it was officially started in September 2016 and ended in early April 2023.

They first met at Gigi's bday party (April 29th 2016, References: High Infidelity-Midnights, Gorgeous-Reputation, Dress-Reputation), then met gala (May 1st). She previously and was still dating Calvin Harris- long story short he was a D, she wanted to leave him. I didn't know what prevented things to go further between her and Joe but in met gala she also met Tom Hiddleston and danced together. They had a brief getaway car moment or rebound (Getaway car-Reputation), officially known to public from June to September.

Then Joe and Tay started their relationship on September 28th (Ref: September - Cover by TSwift).

2016-2017 was the hell of year for Tay because of the whole Kanye Kim drama and lies. The whole world turned their back on her and she was at the lowest point of her life. She disappeared for a year then came back with a new album Reputation released in 2017.

Albums that give us many insights about her life and love story with Joe are : Reputation 2017, Lover 2019, Folklore 2020, Evermore 2020, Midnights 2022, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology 2024.

He had part of writing and producing some songs with Tay in Folklore, Evermore, and Midnights in the pseudonym of William Bowery.

In TTPD, songs about Joe are So long London, I Can Do It With a Broken Heart, loml, The Black Dog, How Did it End, and Peter.

I'm sad when people have to refer Joe only as Taylor Swift's Ex. He's a talented, low profile, and private actor. He's rarely active in SM. (Alwyn keeps his personal life private, which he described as a "knee-jerk response to the culture we live in". GQ labelled Alwyn a "notoriously low-key actor".)

Alongside with Paul Mescal, he is one the male leads of Sally Rooney Novel Adaptations. Paul in Normal People and Joe in Conversation with Friends. (I really would like Nic to have a project with him. Maybe another Sally Rooney adaptation would be great😭 *manifesting*)

Some of his projects are The Favourite (2018), Boy Erased (2018), Mary Queen of Scots (2018), Harriet (2019), The Last Letter from Your Lover (2021), Stars at Noon (2022), Catherine Called Birdy (2022), Conversation with Friends (2022), Kind of Kindness (2024), TBA projects: The Brutalist and Hamlet.

He is also friends with Lukey T. He ever talked about him in interview.

Similar with Nic, he is very vocal about activist/social movements and always stood on the right side of history. Nic came from her background as an Irish people and her late Dad with his humanity and military works to keep peace in middle east. Joe family also has deep connection to activism, particularly in Palestine, his late great uncle is a peace activist and patron of the Palestinian solidarity campaign. And both are private about their personal lives. But Joe is really silent and not chronically online as Nic.

I just love when Nic has so many connections and fully booked. She deserves it. And I would like the same things to happen to Luke too. They both deserve the best to not put their talent in waste. I wish my parents all the best.

DAMN ANON

Are you on his payroll????

No but seriously thank you for sharing 💜

I know nothing about the guy but I have seen multiple movies listed above with him in it

Will have to rewatch and check out some of his other work 🥃

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mxmajor · 2 years ago

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Cool things i learned abt the Dora Milaje from the dora milaje training manual

this is canon to the 616 and comics, not the MCU, but it was cool to learn about and definitely impacts my canon compliant AU fic. So it might be useful to others. Its not the full book, not even a chapters worth of info, but if you were considering getting it, do so. It made me look at wakanda forever differently, too.

Joining

they accept women from all 5 tribes (17 in the comics) between the ages of 15-20 to become Dora

They have to bring a gift and be accepted by Bast to begin training

If accepted they are called Kanwata and the process takes 4 years to complete.

Upon initiation they go through an ori ceremony where their heads are shaved and they received their first ritual tattoo. They receive another tattoo each year, an ink with vibranium, until the second and final ori ceremony where they receive the final tattoo after their acceptance from Bast.

Training

They have to learn 7 of 10 languages: Wakandan, Xhosa, Hausa, Arabic, Yoruba, English, Igbo, Mandarin, Swahili, and Korean. They have 9 additional elective languages they can learn, especially to connect to the diaspora and blend in: cantonese, Hebrew, Japanese, French, Farsi, Spanish, Amharic, and Portuguese. They get to conversation and translation in the following years.

In the first year they must learn hand to hand combat in the forms of Ngolo, Laamb, Silat, Muay Thai, Musangwe, and Krav Maga. Once the required mastery has been met they add weapons in the second year. The Dora are considered "living weapons".

In the comic verse, they have a mystical and supernatural combat section. The kanwata training is in 3 pillars: physical, mental, and spiritual/herbal. They study vibranium application and properties as well as herbal practices like identifying plants for food and medicinal purposes.

Essentially, Dora are super smart and well trained so it takes a unique situation for them to be unprepared lol. There is even more that goes into what was listed above.

Structure

The DM have 3 major units: Guard Units, Airborne Units, and Support Staff Units. This includes Domestic, international, and Off world teams in the comics.

Dora can be broken into units, squads, or teams (helpful when trying to name group that they might be on a mission in)

They are all trained in combat and munitions (weapons) but some units are researchers, mechanics, pilots, healers, or apart of a secret division (like the cia) but no one knows who is in that secret division

Kanwata are the trainees, the 3rd and 4th years apprentice with Iya Dora and/or train younger Kanwata.

Ile Dora Milaje is what the group of active, graduated, and fully initiated Dora are called.

Iya Dora is the council that confers with wakandan leadership (Taifa Ngao, the council of elders), determines the graduation passage of kanwata, and governs the active duty, dismissal or removal from Dora ranks. There are Dora that have been re-instated after dismissal.

There are some cool excerpts if you clicked the link below. I am tired of typing lol.

#the dora milaje #dora milaje #black panther #black panther wakanda forever #protectors of wakanda #general okoye #Aneka #captain ayo

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lovegalor333 · 2 months ago

Text

fresh start

part four (chapter 10-12) previous part • next part

word count: 6.9k

content warnings: vomit

Lily

Time was moving fast in my first semester in Connecticut. August had flown by in a whirlwind of classes, new friends, finding my feet at work and navigating mine and Paiges clandestine meetings.

As September dwindled on we debated telling our nearest and dearest hoping to be able to spend more time together outside of our cars and closed bedroom doors. We ultimately decided to keep things under wraps a little longer, the reason going unspoken but the truth was, how could we explain us to others when we hadn't even defined us to us?

I could confidently say that Paige was the only person I was entertaining and I intended to keep it that way. I couldn't speak for the blue eyed girl but I was equally confident that I was the only person she was entertaining. I mean it would be hard for her to have anyone else in her life, between training, classes and work commitments she barely had time to just be and when she did, she was tucked away in a corner of Storrs with me.

We spent most evenings buckled in our cars, taking turns to be the passenger and driver. Paige enjoyed being behind the wheel so I took the role of passenger princess most of the time but I didn't mind. Getting to watch Paige do the simplest of tasks like driving brought me so much contentment.

We frequented the Fro-Yo store we went to on our first date - which Paige now refused to call a date because of its simplicity and spontaneity.

"I want a re-do." She had said when I mentioned our first date on our first return to the store. "Why?" I questioned, not seeing an issue with the frozen yogurt store being part of our history. "Because you deserve more." She told me and promised a 'proper' first date.

I didn't care where I was with Paige just being with her was more than enough.

While our roommates were out, we bunkered down in our apartments watching movies and sharing our favourite TV shows, silently slipping out before anyone returned home and caught us tangled together.

Kelsey was definitely getting suspicious of my actions but I'd been able to play it off, blaming work and an ungodly amount of 'library sessions'. Lucky for me, she had picked up a job which meant more of her time was occupied meaning she was less focused on my whereabouts.

Paige and I still managed to spend time with each other around our friends, it just meant no PDA but that didn't stop the stolen glances and covert touches shared.

"Do you have to leave?" Paige dramatically wined, her bottom lip poking out and eyes hooded making her look like a sad puppy.

"Yes, P." I say peeling myself off the girl that was spread out on her bed, me tucked perfectly into her side like we were two pieces of a puzzle that were made to be connected.

"The girls will be back any second and I have dinner plans with Hannah and Kels." I remind her.

"Fine." She says feigning annoyance.

Paige had texted me to come over after Azzi, Nika, Ice, KK and Ines had left for late Friday classes and I immediately complied. Time with Paige, after a long week of studying and writing up notes for Marcus to turn into articles, was just what I had needed to shut off.

"But I'll see you tomorrow right? You're coming to the party?" Paige asks and I nod my head as I stretch out my hands for Paige to take and I pull her up from her bed.

There was a party on campus tomorrow in one of the frat houses and apparently it wasn't to be missed.

"We're having pre drinks here, come with the girls." She tells me referring to my roommates.

"Sure." I say melting into Paiges arms as she hugged me goodbye.

Before I had the chance to make my escape, the apartment door clicked open and a series of voices filled the once quiet space.

Paige and I quickly released each other from our grips and sent one another a panicked look, the girls were home and what excuse did we have for being together?

Paiges bedroom door was open and anyone in the living room could see directly in and that's exactly what Azzi did.

"Oh hey Lily! What are you doing here?" She greeted, joining me and Paige in her room.

"Hey Azzi!" I replied racking my brain for an answer to her question.

Paige stayed awkwardly silent by my side, thanks P.

We both watched as Azzi looked between us and then to Paiges bed which was a bundle of blankets with a clear mould of where our bodies laid just minutes ago. Her eyebrows raised in a knowing way and she smiled before turning and walking out, back to the living room.

"Well if she didn't already, I think Azzi knows." I laugh turning to Paige.

She pulls me out of the view of the door, "I trust Azzi." She says pressing a short quick kiss to my lips, neither of us daring to deepen it incase another one of her roommates walked in.

I managed to leave Paiges apartment with no more questions asked and left her to explain to Azzi what she'd interpreted.

Saturday slipped quietly away in a mix of alone time and relaxed small talk with my roommates. We were all lounging around our living room, each occupying a corner of the couch, phones in hand.

Kelsey was playing TikToks out loud occasionally turning her phone to the rest of us when there was a video we 'needed to see'.

I was texting Paige, us both excited about seeing each other later on that night. After a talk with her best friend, it was concluded that Azzi did in fact know that there was something going on between us. She had noticed Paige slipping out of the apartment at random times, not returning for hours and her sudden uninsterest to do things she would usually never say no to. Paige reiterated that she trusted Azzi and if she did, I did too.

are you going to tell kelsey?

idk

i feel pretty bad, with our pact and all

kelseys cool

im sure she'd understand

im just too irresistible to keep a promise like that

ha ha.

im not sure what id even tell her

wdym?

well the pact was to stay single

im not your girlfriend?

dont be like that

like what?

dont make me feel bad for questioning what we are

we're getting to know each other like we said

you suggested it

i know, im enjoying it

you also agreed

me too

like a lot

lets talk about this when we're together

I felt bad saying that I wasn't Paiges girlfriend so bluntly but it was the truth and it didn't mean I wasn't committed to her and only her because I was. Clarity on the situation would be nice but Paige was right, we were still getting to know each other at my suggestion to do so.

Yesterday marked one month since we'd met so it made sense that we were still taking things slow but something in me deep down felt like I'd known Paige longer than four weeks.

I was pulled from my thoughts as Madison asked everyone what they planned on wearing to the party and the discussion quickly escalated into a full blown planning session. Outfits, hair and makeup all being a topic.

Paige

"Well she's right. She's not your girlfriend." Azzi said matter-of-factly from her place at the end of my bed.

I had shown my best friend the texts between me and Lily hoping for some good ol' Azzi wisdom.

"I know that but it still hurt to read it. Do you think she's talking to other people?" I ask propping myself up on my elbow so I could look at my friend properly.

"From what you've told me, I don't think she has the time! Y'all spend all your free time together." She pointed out and she was right, if Lily wasn't with me she was either in class or at work and I knew that for a fact because I frequently drove her there wanting to spent as much time with the girl as possible.

"Do you want her to be your girlfriend?"

I hadn't thought about it but I supposed I did, I was just extremely aware what it would come with. Not just a million questions from our friends but also the media and I had a college career to think about it. I knew being with Lily officially wouldn't jeopardise my basketball in anyway but the pressure of a public relationship was something I'd never dealt with before and if I was honest, it scared me.

"Eventually, yes." I admit now fully sitting up on my bed.

"OK, so if you know where it's headed, don't stress the journey Paige."

"I want her to know I'm serious though."

"Then tell her, it's that simple."

Azzi was right, she always was, unfortunately.

Azzi and I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing the apartment for our arranged pre drinks. We did a Target run for supplies and picked up a crazy amount of liquor.

"A party on campus means no DD." Azzi triumphed as we packed several crates of beer and bottles of spirits into my trunk.

If we were ever out drinking off campus, a few of the team always stayed sober to ensure we would make it home safe but that didn't need to happen tonight, the party was in walking distance.

"Music to my ears." I say as we climb back into the car.

"So you're going to let loose for once?"

I almost always volunteered to be a DD, mainly to save myself from deathly hangovers the next morning but also because drunk Paige got very messy, very quickly especially when cameras were around and my teammates had a love of livestreaming.

"Dirty Shirleys all night." I smirked beginning our short drive back to campus to begin getting ready.

I also think a little dutch courage wouldn't go amiss when it came to telling Lily that I was locked in when it came to us.

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊✧˚ · .

Lily

For the first time since meeting her, I was nervous to see Paige. Our text conversation earlier in the day weighed heavy on my mind. She wanted to talk about us when we saw each other but I'm not sure a frat house party was the best setting for such a loaded topic. Even though she had reassured me that she was enjoying what we had going on - whatever it was - there was still a voice in the back of my mind that told me I wasn't good enough for Paige.

"Lils, are you ready?" Madison asked peeking her head into my bedroom as I spritzed my favourite perfume on my wrists and collarbones.

"Yep! Coming now." I replied, grabbing my bag and slinging it over my shoulder, my phone, wallet and keys nestled perfectly inside.

I checked my outfit one last time in my full length mirror, I had gone for a simple black mini skirt and white baby tee with some black boots and an oversized leather jacket, before joining my roommates in the living room.

"You guys look amazing!" I complemented seeing my friends fully ready for tonight's party.

"Says you!" Hannah responds, "Paige is going to be like a dog with a bone!"

I look to Kelsey as she says this to gauge her reaction. I had told Paige I would tell her about us but hadn't had the chance to yet. I didn't want to disappoint her at my lack of loyalty to our pact, our friendship meant a lot to me.

"I'm sure Paige has lots of bones." I say trying to play off Hannahs comment but just voicing that made me recoil. The thought of Paige with anyone else the way I'd been with her made me want to hurl.

"And she'd be crazy to not choose you. You're for sure the juiciest." Kelsey quips playfully smacking my ass and we all laugh.

My friends relaxed demeanour about the topic of me and Paige put my anxious thoughts at ease.

"OK, enough with the bone metaphors, lets go!" Madison piped up, leading us out of the door.

Kelsey and I walked together behind Hannah and Madison as we made our way across campus to the girls' apartment for pre drinks.

"What's up?" She asks, nudging me gently. I'd not said a word so far, trying to work out the right ones.

"So..." I begin, "I've kinda been hanging out with Paige a lot recently."

She gasps dramatically, hands over her chest, "Really? I would have never guessed."

I look at her seriously, has it been that obvious?

"Are you mad?"

"Mad? About how long it's taken you to tell me? Yes."

"But our pact...our bracelets...I don't want you to think-"

"Girl, those bracelets cost me like $2, don't sweat it." She says placing a reassuring hand on my arm.

"Really?"

"Really. Besides, I don't know who I was fooling telling myself I'd be single an entire semester. I'm already so bored, I got a job!" She laughs.

"This wasn't my intention, it just kind of happened naturally and the more time we spend together, the more I'm realising how much I actually like Paige." I confess.

"OK lover girl, you've got a lot to catch me up on tomorrow!" She says as we reach our destination.

We take the elevator to Paiges floor, my roommates following behind me as I navigate us to the front door brandishing a number 9 and open it, letting us into the apartment.

"You can tell shes done this before." Kelsey comments and I turn around giving her a cheeky smirk.

"Hey girly pops!" KK greets us as we step inside, taking her time to hug us all.

Azzi and Ice are soon at our sides too, shot glasses in there hands, extended in our direction, "Shots on entry!" Ice announces and I take the small glass and swallow its content.

My eyes scan the room seeing the rest of the team. Jana, Caroline and Kayla are pouring drinks in the kitchen. Ines, Amari, Nika, Aubrey and Aaliyah are huddled around the table focused on some sort of drinking game that involved guessing what number one of them was thinking of. The others were scattered around engrossed in conversation. Everyone was in the living room apart from Paige.

"She's in her room." KK says into my ear as if reading my mind, "You know where that is."

"Thanks KK." I say to the girl as I make my way to Paiges bedroom.

It seems like Paige and I had been quite naive in thinking our movements had gone unnoticed.

"Hello, little miss unsocial." I smile leaning against the door frame.

Paiges head flicks up from her phone in a swift movement at the sound of my voice.

"Hello, little miss..." She looks me up and down and I blush under her gaze. "...hottie. Come here." She motions for me to join her as she stands up from the edge of her bed and I do.

She pulls me into a hug, both her arms slipping around my waist and mine going around her neck, her lips press to my neck and I melt at the sensation.

Suddenly any nerves I had about seeing Paige had disappeared and I don't know why they were there in first place because she has this way of making me feel like nothing bad exists in the world.

"Who are you looking so good for?" She asks, her voice low and husky.

"Oh, I don't know. There's this girl I'm getting to know." I say referencing our earlier texts, hoping to probe Paige into a conversation.

My hopes are answered with her response.

"Lily, I want to tell you that you're the only girl I'm getting to know. You're the only girl I want to know." She tells me, her hands moving from my waist to hold both of mine. Her words were rushed but no less clear and her signature, intense eye contact told me it was genuine.

A smile spread on my face as I processed what Paige had just said.

"P-"

"If you're talking to other people, that's fine." She cuts me off.

"P, you're the only girl I want to know too. Since you shook my hand in the gym, that first day we met, you've been the only girl."

"So you're not talking to anyone else?"

I laugh, "No, I'm not."

"Good because I lied, it wouldn't be fine." She says truthfully and I laugh again at her serious expression.

"How many drinks have you had?" I ask her smiling, now that I'm looking in her eyes, it's clear she's had a few.

"Two, maybe three. I was kinda nervous." She admits, breaking her eyes away from mine and looking down.

"You don't have to be nervous with me." I say lifting her face, my hand staying on her jaw, "I'm all in." I declare before leaning in and connecting our lips. She kisses me back passionately, her hands finding my hips and digging in pulling me closer to her, our bodies pressing against each other.

"All in." She says breathlessly as we break away and we both take each other in for a moment, big smiles of both our faces.

"Ever had a Dirty Shirley?" She asks smirking.

"Never."

"Oh, let me introduce you."

She grabs my hand and leads me out of her bedroom.

Our moment alone made me forget that everyone was just a room away and multiple sets of eyes fell on us as we emerged hand in hand in the living room. Paige didn't seem to notice or care as she continued to lead me to the kitchen.

I locked eyes with Kelsey who was stood beside Azzi, both girls grinning cheesily, and she shot me an exaggerated wink.

Gone were the days of sneaking around.

An ungodly amount of alcohol was consumed in the girls apartment in preparation for the party and it was safe to say we were beginning to feel the effects.

"Can you walk straight and stop bumping into me!" Ice barged KK away from her as we made our way to the frat house.

"I am walking straight!" KK argued but from my view from behind the girls, it was clear she was not at all walking straight.

"OK kids, stop arguing." Kayla fake scolds, pushing herself in between Ice and KK in a attempt to stop them bickering.

I laugh at the girls and the seemingly mundane moment but being here, with them, means the world to me after losing my old friends in the worst way possible.

"You good?" Paige asks me, her arm rested comfortably over my shoulders.

I hum in response and nod my head.

"Why you so quiet then pretty girl?"

"Trying to make sure I can walk in a straight line! Those Dirty Shirleys got me good!" I laughed.

"You know I've got the best taste!" Paige bragged and the once distant sound of music grew closer as we turned a corner.

"Well, I mean yeah, you do have the best taste." I joke motioning down at myself cockily.

"Damn right." Paige agrees, removing her arm from my shoulder and slipping her hand into mine as we enter the frat house.

The house was absolutely packed with people in every room and the music was so loud I could feel the bass in my chest.

"Drinks!" Jana ordered pointing over to the makeshift bar - a kitchen island laden with various different glass bottles, stacks of red solo cups and buckets of ice.

Paige poured us what she called 'Dirty Shirleys on the go' because they didn't have her usual ingredients but she refused to drink anything else.

Most of the girls dispersed in different directions once we each had drinks in our hands but I stayed with Paige, Azzi and Aubrey and we found ourselves next in line to play beer pong.

Paige

Lily and I had taken the L in beer pong and were being forced to drink a concoction of everyones drink mixed together as our forfeit.

"Ugh! That tastes like shit!" She exclaimed, her words slurred as she swallowed down the cocktail, her face screwed up in disgust.

"I'm not doing it." I prostest, my words equally as slurred as Lilys and I cross my arms over my chest refusing to take the cup from Azzi.

"Stop being a sore loser Bueckers!" Aubrey chimed in.

"I'm not! I just don't want to throw up." The mix of shots, multiple Dirty Shirleys and now beer was already enough to make my stomach churn.

"P, there's no way I just did that and you're not going to." Lily chimes in now, hands on her hips, staring me down.

"You're really going to let your girl do that by herself?" Azzi smirks knowing that will get the better of me.

"No...hand it over." I say defeated, taking the cup from Azzi and downing the liquid inside.

"That's fucking nasty!"

"Here, wash it down with that." Lily says handing me my original cup containing my favourite drink.

The sweetness of the Shirley Temple counteracted the harshness of the alcohol mix.

"This is my favourite song!" Lily did a small jump on the spot before disappearing off into the crowd of college kids to make her way closer to the booming speakers.

I followed after the petite girl, knowing how drunk she was and not wanting her to be alone in a frat house full of random people.

It didn't take me long to catch up with her and I admired the girl from afar - who somehow already had another drink in her hand. She moved effortlessly, her hips swaying to the rhythm of the music, her hands held above her head as she sang along to the lyrics.

"Come here!" She called over the music beckoning me to come closer.

I take the few steps needed to close the space between us and Lily latches onto my waist, still dancing until our bodies are moving as one.

We stayed dancing, our hands all over each other as if we're not surrounded by a fuck tonne of other people. People that probably know who I am. People that definitely have social media and could post about what they were witnessing, but I didn't care. Lily was mine and I was hers and I didn't care who knew.

Our moment came to an abrupt halt when Lily stopped moving and shot me a panicked look, "What's wrong?" I ask confused.

"I think I'm going to be sick."

I grab her hand and quickly manoeuvre us out of the crowded room and into the front yard. There's a trash can on the lawn and Lily rushes to it, bending over the barrel and throwing up. I hold back her hair to keep it out of the firing line.

She looks up at me with watery eyes, "I think I had one too many Dirty Shirleys." She murmurs, hands resting of the edge of the trash can to steady herself.

"And the rest." I joke still holding her hair back, out of her face.

"Home?" I sympathetically ask the defeated girl and she nods.

I sit Lily on the porch steps while I go back into the party to let everyone know we're leaving. Kelsey was preoccupied with someone I recognised from the soccer team and Ice reassured me that her and the other girls would make sure she made it home safely.

I get back to Lily and she's exactly where I left her, her head rested on the porch beam, eyes closed. Even though she was extremely drunk and had just thrown up she still looked angelic as ever with the moonlight reflecting on her face, lighting up her features.

I felt bad disturbing her but we had to get home, my apartment was closest so we headed there. I kept my hand securely round her waist as I lead us away from the party.

"Do you feel like you're going to be sick again?" I ask Lily as we enter my apartment, the remnants of our pre drinks still scattered across the living room.

"No, I think I'm good now." She says softly.

I take her into my bathroom, "Stay there." I tell her and she salutes me.

I go into my bedroom and find a t-shirt and shorts for her to wear.

When I return to the bathroom, Lily's perched on the vanity attempting to remove her makeup with whatever she found, her mascara is smudged around her eyes making her resemble a panda and I laugh.

"Some help would be nice." She says handing me the cotton pad soaked in makeup remover.

I take it and she opens her legs, giving me space to move into so I can reach her. Her hands rest on my shoulders as I drag the cotton round across her face removing the last of her makeup.

"There, all done." I say placing the dirty cotton rounds down.

"Thank you Paigey." Lily coos, her hands moving from my shoulders to cup my face, "You're so pretty." She says, her eyes locked onto mine, "Have I ever told you that?"

"You've mentioned it." I smile at the drunk girl from the space inbetween her legs.

"And I mean it, you're like the prettiest girl I've ever seen."

"You're the prettiest girl I've ever seen, Lily Kent." I tell her, my hands now rested on her thighs.

"Even when I'm throwing up?" She pouts.

"Even when you're throwing up." I assure her.

I leave Lily to change into my clothes and I undress myself before getting into bed.

"I think you're just a little bit taller than me." She says emerging from the bathroom my clothes, that fit me perfectly, hanging oversized on her small frame.

"You look cute, now come get in bed." I tell her opening my arms for her to fit into like she has done so many times before.

"At least take me on a date first, Bueckers." She jokes climbing into bed next to me, her head instinctively finding my chest and arm falling over my stomach.

"Oh, I plan on." I say before pressing a kiss to Lily's head, "I'm all in."

"All in." She replies sleepily.

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊✧˚ · .

Paige

Basketball season was fast approaching. The one month countdown to our first game was on so it was safe to say my schedule was busy. Between training, workouts, classes and work, I barely had time to do anything else. But I wasn't complaining.

I had worked hard over the summer getting as fit and healthy as possible to ensure I'd have an injury free junior year and I felt positive about it as it neared.

Now that everyone knew about me and Lily, it was easy for us to spend time with each other. If she wasn't at my apartment, I was at hers. She'd often sit in on the end of sessions so we could grab lunch together afterwards. I'd meet her after classes and we'd walk home or to the library. Sleepovers we a regular occurrence too, in fact it felt more normal when Lily was snuggled into me than when she wasn't.

Everyone in real life had grown accustomed to me and Lily but we kept things pretty lowkey on social media, never addressing the situation. We'd post a random Instagram story together here and there and we'd both appeared in each others photo dumps over the past few weeks. Lily and I decided this was best for now, she had made it clear that she didn't want to be at the mercy of my one million plus followers and I understood that perfectly. The internet had a funny way of jumping to conclusions and creating rumours and drama out of nothing and I would do everything I could to protect Lily from that.

Of course people had figured something was going on between us pretty quickly, between the minimal photos posted, Instagram comments and infamous Tiktok lives, it was hard to conceal what was really going on. But ultimately, we had nothing to hide, just our peace to protect. Our relationship was private, not a secret and that suited us.

It was Wednesday evening, I had just finished training and checked my phone before leaving the facilities to head home, Lily had text me letting me know that she was wrapping up her day working with the soccer team. They had played a match today and Lily was needed for post match interviews and behind the scenes content during the game.

Selfishly, I was jealous that Lily worked with other teams and not just mine but I knew how much she loved soccer and there was nothing better than seeing Lily happy.

I texted Lily back telling her I'd pick her up from the soccer field and I got in my car and drove the few minutes it took to get there.

"Hi pretty girl." I beamed as Lily climbed into my passenger seat. Any tiredness or irritability that had built up throughout the day completely diminished at the site of the brown haired girl.

"Hi P." She smiled back leaning her body over the centre console and kissing me.

I will never get bored of that.

"How was your day?" I asked as I began the short drive back to the apartments.

"It was good! I've missed watching soccer so it was fun to be with the team today - they're all so nice too. I like them a lot!" Lily said clearly happy at how her day had gone.

"Not as much as you like me, I hope." I joke with her and quickly glance in her direction to find her brown eyes already focused on me.

"Paige Bueckers, there isn't anyone in the entire state of Connecticut that I like as much as you." She says extending her arm to rest her hand on my thigh.

I smile at the simple sign of affection and switch to driving with one hand so I can link my other with Lilys.

"So who have I got to worry about in other states?"

"Oh I don't know, Billie Eilish is walking around somewhere in LA just waiting for me to step foot in California." She jokes.

"Is she your celebrity crush?" I ask realising we've never had this conversation.

"She was." She says simply.

"What happened?"

"I met you." She replies shooting me a small smile, eyes hooded as she looks up from her slouched position.

"Lily Kent, are you flirting with me?" I ask smirking, bringing the car to a halt outside my apartment block.

"It doesn't work when you point it out Paige." She huffs, rolling her eyes at me.

"Oh my bad, my bad!" I say in exaggerated apology, "Go again." I encourage.

She looks as if she about to argue but she doesn't.

"I met you." She repeats, the same hooded eyes looking up at me and this time instead of saying anything, I grab her face with both hands and press my lips to hers.

Lily giggles into the kiss before deepening it, her hand finding the back of my neck.

My phone, still connected to my cars bluetooth, abruptly brought us back to reality as my ringtone blasted through the speakers. Glancing at my car's display screen, I could see it was KK calling.

"Hey whats up?"

"Where are you?"

"Outside the apartment, in my car."

"Perfect! Stay there, I'm coming and we're going to Target to get Tru Fru!"

Before I could even argue with KK, I heard the door close letting me know she had already left the apartment.

"Looks like we're going to Target." I say to Lily and she seemed pretty content with our impromptu trip.

We had nothing planned for the evening, like most nights, we were just going to watch TV and have dinner together and maybe (almost definitely), Lily would end up staying over.

KK bundled into the back seat of my car and proceeded to rant the whole way to Target about how much she craved Trü Frü and how she needed every flavour and how once we got back into the car with our haul she is going to livestream a tatsetest.

Lily

KK, Paige and I had enough Trü Frü in our hands to feed the entirety of UConn.

"This has got to be enough!" Paige exclaimed as she struggled to balance the multiple tubs and packets making me laugh and then in turn I also stuggled to balance my load.

We should have got a cart.

"This is for sure enough, KK." I agreed with Paige.

"Wait, one more Piña Colada packet! Ice will like those." She says opening the large freezer with one hand and grabbing yet another pack of the frozen, chocolate covered fruit.

We carefully made out way to the checkouts each of us doing our best not to drop anything. KK paid, of course, and we left the store with three bags full of the frozen treats.

Getting back into the car, we took our respective seats, Paige in the drivers seat, me in the passenger and KK in the back.

"Y'all cool if we do some taste tests on live?" KK asked peeking her face between me and Paige, elbows rested on the console.

Paige looked to me with raised brows as if to say 'your call' and I nodded, I didn't mind.

I had been in a few of the girls' livestreams since becoming friends with them but I'd always remained pretty silent, almost like a background character. There had of course been questions about me and Paige but as a group, we ignored them and let everyone wonder.

"Here." KK hands me her phone, the live button waiting to be pressed and I prop it up on Paiges dashboard.

Paige leans over and starts the livestream and it doesn't take long for the viewer count to reach the hundreds and comments to come flying in.

The camera pointed slightly more in Paiges direction with her being almost centre of the frame and KK over her left shoulder, I sat half out of the shot, leaning in.

KK addressed her live and introduced me, "This is Lily y'all. You've seen her before." She says and I send a small wave to the camera, "Hi." And I watch as comment after comment comes in.

"Be nice." Paige interjects pointing her finger at the screen.

'hi lily!'

'how do you know the team?'

'so pretty'

'PAIGE'

'ok boom'

'her and paige for sure dating'

KK starts of her taste test and hands us each a piece of the chocolate covered fruit. We start with strawberry - my personal favourite - before making our way through five different flavours. We rank them from best to worst, bickering every now and then when we didn't agree with each other.

"Theres no way you're putting raspberry above blueberry." Paige shook her head in disbelief and I looked at KK in shock, "Yes we are."

"We already allowed you to put peach at number three when it should have been four." KK continues defending our opinion.

"I can't believe you're not backing me here, you love blueberries!" Paige says looking at me.

I hold my hands up in defence, I do love blueberries, "But raspberries are better."

"Unbelievable." She huffs knowing shes outnumbered.

I laugh and reach out a sympathetic hand and place it on Paiges shoulder, "It's OK to be wrong babe." I say and as the words leave my mouth, realisation hits and all three of our heads snap towards the propped up phone.

As if we're frozen, we all stare at the live stream and the influx of comments.

'OMG'

'yall heard that too?'

'BABE?'

'i knew it!'

'damn lily is lucky'

KK is the first to speak, "Alright..." She says bringing herself forward to be inline with me and Paige, "not too much on my girls now." She reaches out and grabs her phone bringing it close to her face so its just her in the frame, "Love y'all! Bye live!" And she ends the stream.

"I'm so sorry!" I blurt slapping a hand over my mouth. I look at Paige and her expression is hard to read until she breaks a smile and bursts out laughing, "It's fine, Lily." She says pulling me into a hug over the console.

"It's just force of habit." I say referring to the pet name.

"It's fine," She says again, this time looking into my eyes, "everyone's going to find out eventually, you're just...speeding up the process." She jokes, squeezing my hand in reassurance.

"Y'all sorry to break it you but you are not slick. You didn't fool anyone with your sneaking around so I doubt you're fooling anyone else, especially with those IG comments." KK remarks from the backseat and Paige and I laugh.

The devil works hard but fan pages work harder. By the time we're back at the girls' apartment, not only had all of my roommates sent me screen recordings of my slip up but Azzi and Nika had practically knocked us over as we walked through the door.

"Y'all couldn't be lowkey if you tried." Nika laughed as we all sat on the couches, KK proudly packing her Trü Frü into the freezer.

"We're starting to realise that." I say looking towards Paige who sat slouched behind me.

"I don't think there'll be much backlash," Azzi says, "people want you together at this point!" She continues to scroll through her phone, "Look." She turns her screen towards me and Paige and an edit of us to Taylor Swift - False God played.

Clips had been taken from livestreams, including tonight's, videos from our stories and even a few moments from the open training when Marcus and I interviewed Paige and they had been edited together with a screenshot of mine or Paiges comments on each other posts appearing every few seconds.

I blushed watching the short video and turned to Paige with red cheeks. Her hand had been toying with the hem of my shirt and her fingers gently grazing across the bottom of my back, she extended her arm out and wrapped it around my waist pulling me to her. My back was flush with her chest and I was completely encased in her arms now, "Looks like they love you already." She says into my ear before pressing a kiss to my temple.

"I hope so." I say back genuinely wanting to be liked by Paige's fans.

"They'll see how happy you make me and they'll have no choice to love you." She says pushing us up off the couch so we're standing.

We both had had long days and it was getting late and I could tell Paige was tired so it came as no surprise to me when she asked if I wanted to order Chipotle and watch Greys Anatomy.

"What are you doing on Saturday?" Paige asks as we brush our teeth, getting ready for bed.

With a mouthful of toothpaste, I shrug my shoulders.

"Well don't make any plans." I look at her confused, "I'm taking you on a date." She says proudly.

I spit the toothpaste out of my mouth and grin up at the blonde haired girl, "Really?"

"Yes, really and its a surprise so no questions." She tells me and I pout.

"Don't give me that face pretty girl." She says as she takes my hand and leads me back to her bedroom.

"But how will I know what to wear." I protest.

"You always look good, it doesn't matter." She says far to casually for my liking.

"How about a clue?" I prod giving Paige my best pout and fluttering eyelashes combo.

"How about you come lay down and watch Greys with me? This is one of my favourite episodes." She says from her place on her bed where she was laying, one hand behind her head and the other outstretched to me.

I give in and shuffle myself over to Paige and lay next to her. Her arm instinctively wraps around me and pulls me closer, so close I can smell the minty toothpaste she just used.

As we watch the episode I can see why it's one of Paiges favourites.

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