#rendering is the bane of my existence guys

[kitshomeforwaywardsouls]

It’s finally done😭 My piece of Angel and Jacyn has been completed.

This bitch had the audacity to take me 8 hours to finish. >:/ Click on the picture for better quality.

Don’t mind her, she’s just helping her son patient out of a depressive slump.

For anyone following the weird tumblr canon there are a few easter eggs hidden around 😉

[silkmorii]

doodle I made bc I wanted to render in the middle of drawing images to theme my ipad around Quirrel (im not rendering those so I drew hornet experiencing my current emotional state)

[plugnuts]

UPDATE: I've added bust shots, halfbody and fullbody comm options to the roster <3

(btw I forgot to mention but I'm totally happy to draw characters that are not OCs (ex. fandom and other fictional characters) and also if Ko-Fi isn't an option for you my DMs are open for inquiries)

Emergency Comms

Okay, so, my family is getting evicted from our home and our mum and two of my siblings have found a place elsewhere which just leaves my other sibling and I to find a new place for ourselves. Unfortunately,, we do NOT have the funds to support ourselves very well right now and are in the process of applying for benefits and god knows what else to try and save our souls

BUT in the mean time I've opened up comms on my Ko-Fi for a mystery comm, for a two frame animation halfbody AND for simple fullbody ref sheets!!

HOWEVER I can EASILY do fullbodies, head shots, bust shots & halfbodies, I just don't have them listed,, so if you want one of those PLEASE ask I'm kind of,, freaking out and desperate right now

My sibling and I are both neurodivergent, trans and are both currently unemployed, so any help would be appreciated!! I will draw anything for anything rn honestly haha,, thank you for readin ^^;

(i hate to ask but please boost this if possible)

[slowd1ving]

TALES OF A DISGRUNTLED CORVID ⁺ 　 . MOZE

Quite frankly, you've been assigned an absolute loser (unaffectionate) to work with after your dramatic exit from the Intelligentsia Guild. Whoever said this guy was too silent was wrong, as he verily proves himself as the bane of your existence with his ceaseless yapping. art credits to @code_tesseract on x!! and tagging @ilovechuuy4 as requested :3 pairings: moze + male cryptologist reader (will be part of a series methinks) warnings: male reader, mentions of assassination? may be a touch ooc since this is pre-release writing unfortunately, lowkey crack fic, pre relationship, business partnership of hating each other wc: 1.9k

HONKAI STAR RAIL MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION

There’s never a dull day when a certain Shadow Guard is your partner for an assignment. Truly, your life always sparkles brilliantly when the information pings on your Jade Abacus; without fail, everything gains just a bit more colour, a bit more vivaciousness. Pathetically fallacious, you might’ve described it as had you taken literature classes: mood hued with such dynamic chromaticity that you fear you might explode into little prismic rainbows. Always such a bundle of joy to be geminate with him. 

“Must you be so… disorganised?”

Oh, who are you kidding.

It’s always a dull day when you’re paired with Moze.

“Get out.” A particularly rude gesture materialises in your open hand as you stare at the door he practically kicked down. Apartments in this particular sector of the Xianzhou Yaoqing do not come cheap, and you half-wonder whether he’d eke out coin to console your landlord. Then, with an especially sour, lemon-like expression, you realise he would fork out his own money just to make your life more difficult. 

When you first got assigned work in the Yaoqing (read: kicked to the curb by the Intelligentsia Guild to gain real world experience), you really did expect your tenure to be plain office work. Letters, forms, public relations—these mundanities you anticipated. In fact, you would’ve relished such tedium; after decrypting endless scientific formulae and pondering your mysterious tomes, engaging in bureaucratic matters would be a piece of cake! A little treat for your weary eyes—if you closed them, you could still see faint imprints of equations in the theatre of your mind. 

But what you hadn’t factored into your (ahem) calculations was just how sharp the Arbiter-General Feixiao was: just how passionate she was about pursuing Abominations and ruthlessly eliminating them, just how frank and swift the Madam General was. You also forgot that out of all the flagships, the Yaoqing were one of the most militarily driven. A blunder most fatal. 

“Thy talents would be wasted in the mere administrative wing,” Feixiao gesticulated. “Come, child, put thy brain and brawn to use and track down these villainous curs most evil.”

“Goodness, Madam General!” you’d cried out pitifully. “My heart is thine for the keeping!”

Or something like that. Actually, it may have not all been like that. 

After all, you were kicked out (temporarily! temporarily!) partly due to your penchant for delivering heart-rendering performances to your professors to avoid taking on their extra work. Such moving renditions, that they had to let you go lest you broke their bleeding hearts. Had you known you’d be working in the shady corners of intelligence and decryption, you would’ve kowtowed to the Guild for utmost forgiveness. Probably. 

When your path first overlapped with the Shadow Guards’, you honestly couldn’t give two hoots about the rumours that followed silently behind their own noiseless steps. Your ears had perked somewhat at the gossip your colleagues threw back and forth—though, who could blame you. The job was no fun!

Weirdo with the crow feathers, they’d murmured. He’s so quiet. What a reticent chap. 

Of course, you’d disagree, and perhaps tack on a loser to the descriptions of Moze. You’d disagree not with the ‘weirdo’, but rather with the quiet and reticent adjectives—partly because he really does need to shut up more. 

And he needs to stick to his rumours more. If this loner’s made it a point to not work with people, then why oh why did the honourable Madam General decide your ancient science and study complemented his shady skillset? And why oh why does he never refuse her request? (You’ve conveniently forgotten how you always fold when it comes to her.) You’ve always worked alone too, for as long as you can remember; decoding the ancient equations in ruins and solving their gimmicky puzzles using your boundless wits is a job for one. 

As it stands, the people he investigates, the work he takes care of, sometimes intrudes into the realm of questionable rituals and summonings the Abominations and their ilk oft partake in. Thus do you find your career verging into some gruesome form of forensics as you stare down what would commonly be considered a murder scene: sigils and ancient alchemical algebra staring right back at you. He deals with the human aspect of intelligence: the psychology, the crime, the covert espionage. You deal with the technical fallout: the analysis of antique sciences is your specialty, after all. This has culminated in a begrudging partnership where both parties wish nothing more than to leave it. 

A business relationship, of sorts, founded on the mutual dislike (a weak description) of each other. 

“No.” He doesn’t budge from where he leans against the doorframe, but he does have the decency to swing the door closed behind him. Yet, it’s not out of any respect for the hallowed sanctity of your abode, but more because he’s sooo Mysterious and Aloof that none of your neighbours are allowed to view his visage. 

“You are—” a quick glance at your watch proves your point. For someone obsessed with keeping tidy, he sure does have messy time management. “—eighteen minutes too early.”

“And you still aren’t ready,” he counters, pointedly eyeing the loose shirt and comfortable cotton trousers slung over your hips. You yawn, tired already from his yapping. He’s been compared to a crow for as long as you’ve been here—and perhaps far longer—but to you he’s always been more like a little dog. Yap. Yap. Yap. 

This is precisely why I don’t work with others, you can almost taste his words—his thoughts. 

“You are currently the biggest hindrance to my getting ready,” you grimace. Casting a quick glance over his intricate garb, it’s no wonder he feels getting ready is such a lengthy endeavour: all straps and buckles and tough layers that makes him the walking fortress he is. “I’ll be on time.”

He doesn’t reply: laconic only when he acknowledges your point as unequivocally right, which is seldom. 

“Are you going to keep staring?” you snap as you sling the worn shirt from your body. Beneath the soft clothes is muscle hard-won through your frequent collaborations with the Armed Archaeologists in the Guild: days filled with more sparring and their stupid callisthenics than actually finding ruins. 

“Do you have to dress right here?” he counters, but it’s a futile argument—this apartment is barely big enough for you as it stands. Currently, he’s situated by the doorway, but you’re on the unseen boundaries of the living room and the tiny kitchen. Beyond is your bedroom and miniscule bathroom, of which neither have enough space to move comfortably to change. And you certainly aren’t going to sacrifice your comfort to appease his poor eyes; he’s seen worse for sure. Though, you doubt he’s ever seen a naked body that wasn’t in the context of assassination and the anatomy classes you know he’s meticulously attended for his shady work. Surreptitiously, you snicker at the thought: that there aren’t any lovers lined up for this weirdo. 

You toss the garment onto your couch, precisely because you know he’s grinding teeth over it; and there’s that tell-tale click of molar against molar. You even whistle a bit as you untie the neat bow holding your trousers to your hips; the fabric pools on the floor, and you don’t make any move to pick it up. 

There it is. His glower—red-hot and piercing through the flesh and sinew of your back—is heavy in this small space. What you don’t see, however, is how his eyes flicker briefly across your body, down the firm step of your legs as you step out of the trousers. Out of context, watching muscle ripple and twist as you strip forces crimson to seep into his face. This is an implication he’s absolutely disgusted with—with you. 

“If you have any more input as to what I do in my home, you’re welcome to pay my rent first,” you finally deign to reply, rummaging in the dresser in your hallway—which he knows has never been neat with all the clothes spilling from the edges. His eye twitches. 

“You’re an incorrigible man,” he retorts, carmine flush now from irritation rather than anything else. Irritation from the beginning, because it was never anything else. 

“Wow,” you blink, weighing your options between shirt A and shirt B. The cherry-red with straps, or the Prussian blue with straps, you muse, holding the shirts against your beloved grey cargoes. “You sound exactly like my professor. Same adjective and everything.”

When it comes to shameless people, there comes the very real risk of insults being nullified by the insulted through them simply agreeing. 

“No wonder the Guild kicked you out.” As you’re pulling the scarlet fabric over your head, you pause—it seems he’s finally hit a nerve. There’s a rare smile toying with his lips at the victory: one he doesn’t notice, but ghosts across his face nonetheless.

Now, there are many things you could reply to that with. Such as, did your parents give you a reason when they abandoned you? Nay, that is too low of a blow. No wonder you don’t have any friends. But he probably grapples with that bitter reality each morning, gnashing his teeth and beating his chest. 

“Bold of you to speak of being unwanted,” you comment matter-of-factly. Both insults it is then, wrapped neatly into an ambiguous tale of these eight words. His smile fades. 

With a slight gasp, you finally wrangle the tight material on—it’s armour, after all, a specific textile development by the Yaoqing for the protection of civilians and tourists alike, though you aren’t considered a tourist by your special work-abacus-plaque. It fits snugly against you: straps for knives sit tight against your forearms, while the harness that provides extra support for your torso rests neatly beneath your chest. The garb’s almost like a compression shirt from your home planet, except the Yaoqing has far more violent uses for it. 

“Didn’t Guard Zhí reject you?” He bites out, and it takes a minute for you to realise he’s talking about Zhí Hua, the best friend you’d made on the flagship—and your Shadow Guard drinking buddy. 

“Huh?” Dumbfoundedly, you pause in doing the buckles on your trousers, losing far more time than you’d bargained for. “A-hua is my friend.”

The diminutive doesn’t go unnoticed, which rankles him far more than falling prey to the rumour about you and his fellow Guard. No, both rankle him—likely because hearing about a workplace romance about you just disgusts him in general. 

“Pfft,” you snort out, finally done with the laborious task of adjusting the materiel and various other gadgets attached to your body. “I have got to tell her about this. Who knew your ability to gather information would be stopped by a rumour?”

The tightness in his chest lessens somewhat. 

“Besides, everyone already knows my heart belongs to the Madam General,” you sigh, clasping your hands to your chest in a dreamy gesture. It’s an ongoing joke: you professing your deep adoration of Feixiao after she gives you a pay raise for putting up with the so-called ‘reticent’ Moze. “Woah, what’s with the sour look?”

“Gross,” he mutters. 

As you step near the doorway to grab your boots, you lean into his space mockingly: and he recoils back in even more revulsion. 

“Of course, you wouldn’t know.” You pat his shoulder once, condescendingly, then promptly slip your heavy boots off the shelf. “Since there’s no one who loves you.”

And his glare as you shuffle your shoes on is poignant. 

 ₊  ⋆   ☾

[karm4tic]

“Thank you, Saint Basin. Tonight im footing the bill—let’s make history with a smile!”

‘Heinrich Goya, the newly minted chancellor of Saint Basin, shines as the city’s beacon of hope! Turning the aftermath of the Orkney subway bombing into a chance for renewal right from the start of his career as a young man, he’s promised to breathe new life into every corner of the metropolis. Can our beloved chancellor deliver on his grand promises? Only time will tell!’

god i hate politics. anyways look at this funny pigeon guy. i probably wont render like this again but it was fun to try something new im really happy with this piece despite crowds being the bane of my existence, its also been awhile since i’ve done a rizer piece so i’ll probably do a bunch more rizer solo pieces. the dentist needs some tender love and care (not really)

[shubloe-din]

3, 13 and 18 for an Art ask pls! :3

3. Your favorite piece(s)

Of the ones I’ve posted here, it’s gotta be this one

But in general it’s probably this piece of one of my Star Wars ocs

13. Talk about a WIP you like

I have,, so many “wips” (I put quotations cuz I’m not gonna finish them) but I adore this one

It’s a couple of my Star Wars ocs, the girl is a togruta named Mara and the guy is her adoptive dad Wade. There’s no special reason for the pose, I just think it’s super cute

18. Something you feel you need to work on

Rendering clothiiiiiing, it’s the bane of my existence. Every time I’m rendering a piece and I get to the clothes, a little part of my soul dies. Literally I just need to buckle down and do studies and I’m sure I’d get it in no time 😅

[crusherthedoctor]

Top 5 Fandom Enraging Misconceptions of your choice.

All of them. That's it, goodnight.

...alriiiiight, I'll try to think of five major ones that irk me especially. But rest assured, it's far from easy to narrow them down to a mere five. I'm also going to stick with game-based ones, because the comics and cartoons could have top fives of their own, for obvious reasons.

5. "Rouge is a villain". How can you call yourself a fan of SA2 and completely ignore her true role in the overall story?

4. "You must have a super form to be worth a damn, otherwise you're a cheerleader and your moments to shine will pale and be forgotten about". Few will say this outright, but despite all their praise for the underdogs, they always fawn over the Super Hedgehog Brigade moments most of all. And now it's been amplified thanks to Frontiers milking the absolute shit out of Super Sonic, basically rendering regular Sonic useless in the process. As a Tails fan, this has been one bane of my existence.

3. The suggestion that wanting famously restrained characters (ie: Shadow, and to a lesser extent Sonic himself) to stay true to their emotional subtlety somehow translates to not believing they should emote at all. Who the fuck has ever said that. Blatant bad faith argument right out the gate.

2. "_____ is actually good because uhhhhh Sonic has always been inconsistent". Thank you for not actually countering my point, person who usually turns out to hate the games for not being SatAM/Archie.

1. Any take on Eggman that involves him being an incompetent fool who exists just to get usurped, or not such a bad guy. I love watching Eggman for the brilliant and ruthless egotist with legit credibility he truly is, not a harmless buffoon or Sonic's """frenemy""". The minute I see any of that shit, I'm outta there.

[thefandomcassandra]

And we are done :D

These are the last few images in the PMV (although I will go back and render some of my favorite images with the text on them because wowie I popped off with the caption decisions I made and my handwriting and so on)

Director's cut commentary:

the perspective shots I did for a lot of the ones with Ken and Shinji were really complicated but I genuinely feel proud when I look at them. The program I use (Medibang Paint) has a bunch of line snap tools and one of them is actually a vanishing point perspective tool so...yknow...country girls make do and I don't mind cheating (using resources I have on hand). Made some of this easier frfr.

the decision to only have blood as the color in the last few frames is because I'm Mean (: (No but it's more about like...the trauma and like how Ken is Not Doing Okay and how all he can focus on is the blood and Shinji dying and is this what revenge should feel like?)

Takaya's tattoos are the bane of my existence. Also I had to darken his hair because if I left it white like I had it originally (and like how Aki is) then it'd blend in really badly. Thankfully his hair is a little darker than Aki's so I could get away with it.

drawing hands gently grabbing someone's face from behind their head is hard and difficult and I couldn't find fucking references and I couldn't do them myself so I had to IMAGINE it and boy that was...bad. I did it, but it was bad.

not to belabor the point about me being a huge fucking whump/angst gremlin, but I LOVED drawing Ken wailing in agony. 10/10 sorry buddy but you had a whole revenge plan that ended in you committing suicide and you are TEN YEARS OLD so like...yeah, this is a better alternative. Sorrynotsorry.

Shinji's color (his menu icon color) being the burgundy/maroon of his coat is so much to me. Ominous fucker (said with love).

the revolver was the easiest part of the Takaya shot, no lie. Turns out I hate drawing the Jesus part of Revolver Jesus the most lmaooo. Fuck this guy.

I added the ribbons to the vases to break up the colors and it worked really well.

Happy October 4th. I fucking love Persona 3 so so much (as one does).

(This was like a month of work and I think I won't be doing art again for a week minimum but I did the damn thing, fucked up a single frame, had to RE-RENDER THE VIDEO and then had to RE-UPLOAD IT so I'm feeling some kind of way.)

[isawthisangel]

Sunday (Steven Grant x reader)

word count -> 4.2k

plot summary -> your date night takes an unexpected turn, and Steven doesn't know what day it is

a/n -> this is my first moonknight fic that i've written, i hope you enjoy it ! feel free to send me prompts, and comment to be added to a tag list! happy reading !

You arrive early, and he’s sat waiting.

The sight of him sends a familiar thrill through you, despite the fact that you’ve barely ever spoken to him. Steven with a v, the guy working in the gift shop; the bane of Donna’s existence. You’ve heard your boss complain about Steven more than all of your other co-workers at the museum combined.

Given your dislike of Donna, this has only served to make you like him more.

Steven looks tired, as per usual, and his knee is bouncing at a rapid pace underneath the tablecloth, his fingers tapping out a nervous beat on the table.

You hover several feet away, uncertain. Two thoughts coexist in your head: one, why is he here? And more importantly, two, can you go over? Because he’s waiting, yes, but definitely not for you.

Only this week had you finally managed to pluck up the courage to decide that you were going to ask him out. Or at least talk to him. There had been less of a plan, more of a whim borne of the several glasses of wine you’d consumed with your chinese takeaway the night before.

Upon waking up the morning after, you’d swiftly decided that no, you would not be asking anyone out, until you crossed paths with Steven as he was rushing into work.

‘Late again, Stevie,’ Donna reprimanded him from across the room as he’d hurried through the door. He’d turned to the sound of her voice, and subsequently hadn’t seen you walking towards him, also looking over your shoulder.

‘It’s Steven,’ he’d replied. ‘Ste-’

You’d gasped as the two of you collided, turning just in time to catch the flask of coffee which Steven had been about to dump all over your chest.

‘Oh, bollocks, I’m so sorry,’ he’d apologised hastily, looking at you with genuine worry in his eyes. Genuine worry which you did not see, preoccupied as you were with finding yourself at such close proximity to his chest.

‘It’s okay,’ you’d smiled, recovering quickly, before looking up at him and having the breath inadvertently knocked out of you again. He was inexplicably better looking up close, his eyes a richer shade of brown than you could have possibly imagined, which you had. The unfairness of it had jolted you back to reality.

‘Here,’ you’d said, pushing his flask back into his hands and taking a step back.

‘Thanks,’ he’d replied, and with another smile you’d carried on walking. Fuck, you’d thought to yourself as you walked away to the dulcet tones of Donna complaining to someone how Steven couldn’t even walk in a straight line properly.

How were you supposed to ask him out if you couldn’t even look at him without being rendered totally useless?

The rest of your day was spent giving tours on autopilot and trying to supress the adrenaline that insisted upon aggressively coursing through your veins every time you saw Steven out of the corner of your eye, stronger and more intense than it had been in previous weeks. You had to do something about it. He would say yes, or he would say no, and that would be the end of it.

As it turned out, you wouldn’t even have to ask him to get your answer. You’d just finished up your penultimate tour for the day and were hanging around by the gift shop bidding people goodbye when one of the other tour guides walked past you, her heels clicking on the marble floor, and went straight up to Steven, who was doing something behind the counter.

‘Hello,’ she had said, and you’d heard the smile in her voice.

‘Hello,’ Steven replied.

‘How’s the sugar trade?’

It was at this moment that you’d recognised that eavesdropping like this might be considered less than normal, and started to walk away. Before you could leave however, you were waylaid by some of the visitors from your tour, wanting to thank you. It was for this reason that you’d heard the woman at the counter say: ‘We still on for seven tomorrow?’

Long story short, you’d left work that day in the most awful of moods, and when a guy from the post office had asked you on a date the day after you’d practically bitten his hand off.

Which is why you’re stood outside this restaurant at seven pm on a Sunday, wondering what Steven is doing here with flowers and chocolate when his date was scheduled for two days ago.

Before you’ve even had time to think about deciding whether to approach him or not, his eyes glance sideways and meet yours. His eyebrows shoot up, and you freeze, feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline shoot through you, followed by embarrassment as you catch his gaze skimming from your face to your shoes and back up again.

Then he’s waving, and you should not be finding it at all endearing because he isn’t your date, but you can’t help it. You can’t not go to him now. Autopilot kicks in, and you let your legs carry you forward and your lips tug upwards into a smile, which grows wider as Steven bumps the table when he stands up and has to grab at it to stop everything from falling to the ground.

‘Hi,’ you say as you reach him, glancing at the table. God fucking damnit. He’s bought Belgian chocolates. You love Belgian chocolate.

‘Hi,’ he replies, and you look back up at him and his sheepish smile. ‘I’m not always knockin’ into things, I promise.’

You laugh, and then realise that you’re not thinking of anything to say back to him.

‘What are you doing here?’ you ask him hastily. Nice. Real smooth.

You’re inwardly cursing yourself as Steven frowns slightly before giving half a laugh and gesturing at the flowers and chocolates on the table.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

You can’t ask him what you want to (‘Why are you two days late to a date?’) without him probably filing a restraining order against you, so instead you smile and incline your head.

‘Sorry, yes. You look nice,’ you tell him, resisting the urge to reach out and straighten the collar of his jacket.

‘Not as nice as you,’ he says quickly, before proceeding to look mortified. You’re smiling as he briefly closes his eyes, you can’t help it.

‘Sorry. That was weird, I just meant -’

‘No, it’s fine. Thank you,’ you smile, struggling to resist the grin which is fighting to plaster itself across your face. He’s biting his lip and shaking his head at the ground as though it’s personally wronged him, and then he looks back up at you apologetically, and all you want in the world is to sit down across from him and have this date for yourself.

‘Y/N?’

You turn, and the spell is broken, because here’s your date. You smile at him before turning back to Steven, who is looking past you now, towards the man behind you.

‘I’ve gotta go. Good luck,’ you smile, and it’s selfish but you’ve never meant anything less in your life.

‘Yeah. Yeah, thanks. You too,’ he says sincerely, moving his gaze back to you. It’s almost physically painful to turn and walk away.

…

Half an hour later you’re already a bottle of wine deep, and it’s shaping up to be one of the worst dates ever. You’ve been asked exactly one question about yourself (‘What are you having to eat?’), and have for the rest of the time been subjected to listening to tales from the life of a man who works in a post office.

The only saving grace has been the sight of Steven, who incidentally is still sat alone, behind your date about forty feet away.

‘Excuse me, can we get another bottle of the red please? Thanks,’ your date asks a passing waiter. Bold of him to assume you’ll be sticking around for another bottle of wine.

He launches back into his anecdote about one of his work colleagues who sounds just about as boring as him, and your eyes drift slightly left to find Steven again. He looks utterly fed up, and something white-hot starts simmering deep in your chest when you think about the woman who has clearly stood him up.

‘Am I boring you?’

Shit.

‘No, no. Sorry,’ you apologise, looking quickly back to your date. His eyes narrow, and he smiles.

‘Tell me about yourself,’ he says, leaning forward on his elbows. Ah. Maybe he’s not a lost cause after all.

It takes him twenty minutes and half a bottle of wine to prove you wrong.

‘Sorry, just need to use the bog. Won’t be a sec,’ he says eventually, hauling himself to his feet and walking away. Without him sat opposite you, you have a clearer view of Steven, who is now on the phone, still waiting. You have to give him credit, it’s been almost one hour. You’d have left ages ago.

The wine you’ve consumed has been fuelling that boiling, simmering feeling in your chest which you can’t quite place, and it’s grown so strong that you simply can’t sit here and ignore it anymore. Just as you think this, Steven looks up and meets your gaze.

You stand up abruptly and grab your bag with one hand, and the bottle of wine from the table with the other. This is happening. Slinging your bag over your shoulder, you walk swiftly over to Steven’s table and hold your hand out.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ you say, acutely aware that if you didn’t currently have that lovely, heady feeling that wine gives you, this wouldn’t be happening.

‘What?’ he asks, looking from your face to your hand and back again.

‘Please. Before he comes back,’ you say desperately, already walking backwards, motioning for him to follow you. He stares at you for a second longer, and for an awful moment you think he’s going to say no, but then he’s grabbing your hand and standing up.

The feel of his palm against yours sends electricity zipping up your arm, and a laugh bubbles in your throat.

‘Bring the chocolate,’ you tell him, and he seizes them and then you’re pulling him down the steps to the restaurant, out towards the road, scanning for a cab.

‘There,’ Steven says, and then he’s pulling you along instead and you’re letting him, lightheaded with more than just wine. He flags down a cab with the hand holding the box of chocolates, your hand still clasped in his other one, and when it stops lets you go and holds the door open for you.

You slide across so that he can follow you in, heart banging against your rib cage as if you’ve just run the hundred metre sprint. Steven pulls the door shut and you give the driver your address, before sitting back in your seat heavily. Exhilarated isn’t the word.

‘I’ve never ditched a date before,’ you say, before turning to look at him. He’s staring at the back of the headrest in front of him, looking vaguely horrified. Your smile fades when he doesn’t reply.

‘Hey, you okay?’ you ask, reaching out to touch his arm. He just shakes his head. The simmering feeling in your chest makes itself more apparent as the adrenaline fades.

‘Getting stood up is horrible. I’m sorry,’ you sympathise, letting your head fall back against the headrest. He just shakes his head again, and you frown.

‘Are you-’

‘What day is it?’

Your expression is one of confusion as he finally turns to look at you. You search his features, looking for a joke, but can’t find one. There’s genuine panic flickering behind his eyes.

‘It – it’s Sunday, right?’ you say, and apparently that was the wrong answer because Steven buries his head in his hands and makes a noise low in his throat. You’re at a complete loss, suddenly feeling very out of your depth.

Where before you’d been glad of the haziness which comes with drinking wine, you wish now that your head was clear so that you might be of more use.

You sit in silence for a while, cradling your stolen wine in your lap and sobering up by the second as you slowly make your way through London traffic, fighting to think of something to say.

Steven finally mumbles something into his hands, and you jump on it.

‘What?’ you ask immediately. He removes his hands from his face and blinks.

‘She didn’t stand me up. I stood her up,’ he tells you quietly.

‘Wait, you thought today was Friday?’ you ask incredulously. He nods, and then frowns and looks over at you.

‘How’d you know the date was on Friday?’

You open your mouth and then close it again. Guilty.

‘I just – I overheard her asking you the other day. It wasn’t weird or anything…’ you trail off as he presses the palms of his hands into his eyes.

‘Are you sure? Are you sure it’s not Friday?’ Steven asks you, letting his hands drop into his lap and looking at you with something like desperation. You can only nod.

You’re so busy wondering what the hell is going on that you don’t realise you’ve stopped outside your place until the driver asks you for the fare. You pay it, and then open your door.

‘Come on,’ you say to Steven.

‘What?’

‘I’m not letting you go home on your own like this. Come on,’ you repeat. He looks like he wants to argue, but apparently he doesn’t have it in him. He follows you out of the cab to the door of the apartment complex, then up two flights of stairs to your front door, and then Steven Grant is in your apartment.

It’s not messy, but you hadn’t exactly left it tidy before you’d left for your date, and you have to stop yourself from apologising for the mess.

‘Here, sit down,’ you say, putting the wine down to pick a pile of books up off of your sofa so that he can sit. He looks as though he’s in a trance, his eyes sliding over things instead of seeing them as he sits, dropping the chocolates beside him.

You discard your bag on the coffee table next to the wine and kick your shoes off before sitting down next to him gingerly.

‘I’m gonna order food, you want anything?’ you ask tentatively, opening your phone.

‘I- yeah, actually. Cheers,’ he nods, and it’s not much but at least he’s speaking.

‘I was gonna get pizza, what do you want?’ you ask.

‘Whatever you want.’

‘Margherita?’

‘Oh, I’m vegan.’

You frown, and he turns to look at you when you don’t reply.

‘What?’

‘We just – why were you going on a date to a steak house if you’re vegan?’

He laughs, and you’re really worried about him now. He brings a hand up to his forehead and rubs, hard.

‘I – I dunno,’ he replies, his voice cracking.

You can’t think of a response, so you order two pizzas, one vegan, one margherita, and then drop your phone in your lap, sitting back and slinging your arm over the back of the sofa. If you can’t feel confident managing a practical stranger having what you’re pretty sure is a mental breakdown in your living room, at least you can look it.

‘You wanna talk about it?’ you ask, and Steven sighs heavily.

‘I think – I think I’m goin’ mental,’ he says, staring at something you can’t see in the middle distance.

‘Why do you think that?’

He exhales sharply and then turns to smile ruefully at you, and you have to remind yourself that you are confident and that the way he’s looking at you isn’t making your chest go tight.

‘I keep havin’ these periods where I just… I black out. And I can’t remember anythin’ afterwards, where I was or what I was doin’. It’s exhaustin’. And scary,’ he tells you, pulling at the ends of his sleeves so that they cover his hands.

‘So you – you blacked out on Thursday, and woke up today? And didn’t even realise?’ you ask him incredulously.

‘I… yeah,’ he nods, shifting in his seat. You try and shake the feeling that he’s not telling you something.

‘Have you talked to anyone about it? Like a doctor, I mean?’ you ask, concern creeping its way into your voice. Steven shakes his head.

‘It’s not like that, I’m not ill,’ he says, and his tone is so firm that any thoughts you’d had about arguing with him vanish instantly.

‘What do you think it is, then?’

He just shakes his head, bringing his shoulders up towards his ears. His hair falls forward on to his forehead and he reaches up to push it back before it’s fully settled there: a reflex, just like the way your fingers curl in on themselves in an attempt to stop the obtrusive thoughts which enter your head as you watch him.

‘I’m really sorry, about this. I shouldn’t be draggin’ you into my problems,’ he says abruptly, turning to look at you again as your gaze falls from his hair with his hand.

‘No, don’t be silly. It’s fine; it’s not like I’ve got anything better to be doing,’ you smile, hoping he hadn’t seen you staring at his hair. He definitely had.

‘I’m sorry your date didn’t go well,’ he tells you, and you’re stunned because he’s going through this huge, terrifying thing and still finding the time to care about other people. To care about you.

‘Yeah, well,’ you say, and it’s your turn to shrug as you bring your hand hanging behind the sofa up to lean your head on it. ‘Next time, maybe.’

‘What happened? If you don’t mind me askin’,’ he says, shifting his weight so that he’s facing you.

‘Ah, he was just self-centred, you know? He asked me two questions in an hour, and one of them was about what I wanted to eat.’ And the other was because he was trying to distract me from you.

You push the thought down, deep. ‘I could literally see him spacing out when I told him about my job.’

Steven pulls a face. ‘His loss. You have the best job in the world.’

You raise your eyebrows. ‘Is that so?’

He stares at you, incredulous. ‘Uh, yeah! Museum tour guide? I’d do anything for that job.’

‘Really? You’re into Egyptology?’

Something shifts in him; his eyes light up as though a fire has been lit behind them and he comes to life, words spilling out of him like water from a dam which you’ve unintentionally opened.

He talks and he talks, but not in the way your date had, this is different. He’s not trying to impress you; there’s no personal gain to be had from telling you any of it, he just genuinely wants to share his information with you.

Information that, yes, you mostly already know, but you’d rather climb out of the window and jump than tell him that.

As he talks, his sleeves which he’d pulled down over his hands are pulled back to his wrists by his hand gestures, and you’re trying to listen to what he’s telling you, you are, but he’s just so distracting like this. Animated. Happy. You couldn’t look away from him if you tried.

He’s broken from his flow only by the sound of someone buzzing up from the front door.

‘Pizza,’ you say, getting to your feet and grabbing the bottle of wine. ‘Come on, we’ll go up to the roof.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ Steven blinks, standing up and grabbing the chocolates before following you to your front door.

‘What were you saying?’

‘Oh-’

He talks all the way down to the door, and then all the way up to the top floor in the elevator. He’s on to Egyptian mythology now, which you actually don’t know all that much about, so you listen avidly the whole time.

Steven stops talking when you exit the elevator on the top floor as you hand him your pizza box and start climbing up a ladder leading to a trap door, which is very clearly labelled ‘Do Not Use’.

‘Uh, is this… safe?’ he asks you as you fiddle with the latch on the trapdoor.

‘Sure,’ you say, heaving the door open upwards with one hand. ‘We’re not technically supposed to come up here, but everyone does.’

You hold out your hand for the pizza boxes. He passes them to you and you lift them through the trapdoor, before pulling yourself up on to the roof. It’s grown dark since you got home and there are no lights on the roof, but you’re in central London and it’s a cloudless night; the roof is bathed in moonlight.

‘Are you sure this is okay? I don’t want you gettin’ evicted ‘cause of me,’ Steven asks again as he emerges from the trapdoor.

‘I come up here all the time, I promise. And look, proof that other people come up here too,’ you say, pointing to the old chairs scattered at various intervals around the roof top.

‘Fine,’ he concedes, and you smile and make your way towards two of the comfier looking chairs.

‘Voila. The best view in London,’ you proclaim, handing him his pizza back and placing the wine on the floor as he sits down next to you.

‘Yeah. It’s not bad,’ he agrees, and hunger hits you like a truck as you open your pizza box and inhale, eyes closed, not seeing Steven grin as he watches you.

‘Best pizza in London,’ you say, almost subconsciously, before taking your first bite.

‘Wow, best view, and best pizza? All in one evenin’?’ he teases, and you shrug, eyebrows raised. What can I say?

You reach for the wine and then groan when you realise you didn’t think to bring glasses with you.

‘What?’

‘I forgot wine glasses.’

‘We could just drink from the bottle,’ Steven suggests, and you turn to him with a wide smile. He’s wearing a lop-sided grin which makes your heart stutter for a second.

‘Cheers to that,’ you say happily.

You eat and talk and finish the wine, inviting that heady feeling back again as the moon drifts slowly higher into the sky above you.

When the pizza boxes are empty and discarded behind you, along with the bottle of wine, Steven turns to you and says, ‘Do you like Belgian chocolate?’ and all you can do is smile and nod and hope that he can’t see in your eyes how much you adore him in this moment.

It’s getting late, and cold, but you’re reluctant to say anything. You feel like you’re in your own little safe bubble up here, where it seems as though you’re closer to the sky than the ground, and sharing it with Steven has only served to make it better.

‘Aren’t you cold?’ he asks you, and you’re truly not, the wine you’d drunk seeming to heat you from the inside out, but he’s already shrugging off his jacket before you’ve even started to shake your head.

‘No, really, I’m fine-’

‘Take it,’ he insists sincerely, holding it out to you.

So you find yourself sat in the sky, wrapped in Steven’s jacket, drunk on wine and the moonlit air and the way it illuminates the man sat next to you.

‘I don’t remember askin’ her out.’

You turn your head to look at him, and he’s watching something in the sky which you can’t see.

‘Your date?’ you frown, and he nods. Oh. He’d blacked out before he’d asked her. Which meant…

‘I kinda had my eye on someone else at work, to tell the truth,’ he admits, and your heart flies upwards to lodge itself in your throat. You swallow hard in an attempt to push it back down.

‘Yeah?’ you ask, but it comes out as a sort of hoarse whisper.

‘Yeah,’ he replies, turning to look at you with a small smile gracing his features. You’ve not yet met this Steven: self-assured, forth coming, even if he is blushing. You like him a lot. Heat blossoms in your face and you have to look away, smiling.

‘Turns out I didn’t even have to ask you on a date to get one,’ he chuckles. You look back to him, eyebrows raised.

‘A date?’

‘What do you call this?’ he asks you, gesturing around.

Wine, chocolate. Moonlight. His jacket around your shoulders. He has a point. You tell him so.

‘Maybe that ‘next time’ you were talkin’ about could be with me? On a real date. Not an accidental one,’ he asks you, his eyes searching your face for an answer nervously as though you’re going to reply with anything other than yes.

‘I would love that.’

His shoulders drop and he exhales swiftly, a grin replacing the hopeful look on his face.

‘Really?’

‘Yeah,’ you nod, not even attempting to rid your face of the smile which has occupied it. You’re truly doubtful it will ever leave, after tonight.

Tag list 💌

@hhaydenn

[forthetherapyy]

Fav Larry Fics I Read in Sept 21

Run Away Home - hattalove 

Louis is a successful jockey down on his luck, struggling to get his life back on track after an injury. harry has a horse, a house fit for a prince, and a broken heart. It takes them a while to figure out that they need each other. (106k) [This fic ahhh okay slow burn and so much pining it’s delicious.]

Whether Clouds or Clear Skies - onewasturning @onewasturning

“You, young Harold, are a baker among curry houses and vintage clothing stores,” Louis says, and it forces a bark of surprised laughter out of Harry. “I’m a— sorry, what?” “Harry,” Louis says, “last night I had an experience bordering on profound.” “You’re making it sound like you did something sexual with my muffin,” Harry says. Or, Louis gets into the habit of stealing baked goods while Harry’s busy keeping tabs on the weather. (25k) [Beautifully written and just super soft.]

But If This Ends - nonsensedarling @absoloutenonsense

Harry’s life as a vampire is routine. He spends his years moving around from place to place, learning as much as he can, and falling in love whenever the universe sees fit. When he tries to move his casual relationship with Louis to something more, it all gets turned on its head. As they navigate confusing thoughts and complex emotions, Harry finds himself torn between the love he feels for Louis and everything he thought he knew. (106k) [friends with benefits! just loved reading about them and being part of their relationship. also Harry calls Lou ‘sunshine’!]

This Charade (Was Never Going To Last) - scrunchyharry  @scrunchyharry

On the surface, CitizenX, an international caritative nonprofit, looked like any other nonprofit, funding humanitarian missions worldwide and striving to make the world a better place, one donation at a time. At least, that was what Harry thought, until he was hired as a computer specialist for a spinoff agency called carish, whose true purpose was to reveal CitizenX’s tangled web of lies. As if the whole ‘industrial spy’ business was not stressful enough, Harry found himself in a hatred-at-first-sight relationship with one of his new coworkers, Louis, a man intent on detesting Harry. When the worst happened and Harry and Louis found themselves thrown together in hiding, with only each other to rely on, Harry never could have predicted the turn their relationship would take. Nor could he anticipate that it would all be taken away from him and he would have to decide how far he was willing to go to get Louis back. (68k) [one of the best enemies to lovers I have read!]

No One Does It Better - nodibs @nodibs-blog

Harry's an alcoholic and Louis is a bartender. The first time they meet isn't the first time they've met. (49k) [so tragically angsty, like unbelievably so. Such a good job at handling amnesia, Lou’s feelings are so realistic, i wouldn’t know where to start.]

After Hours - velvetoscar @mizzwilde

Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson are the bane of each other's existences. Unfortunately, they're already in love--even if they aren't completely aware of this minor detail.  [A "You've Got Mail" AU] (26k) [okay tho this was based off a movie it was so incredibly original. I adored it, like their work relationship and their messages and their online names, ugh everything] 

Amsterdam With You - flamboyo @chrysopon

In Louis’ opinion Amsterdam is so overrated, and now that he moved here he can see all its flaws: it’s always raining (even more than in London), he’s lonely and everyone he meets is unfriendly and distant; but, above all, he misses his family like crazy, confined here. Not surprising how being hit by a bike by a curly, pensive guy is the best thing that happens to him in three months (or maybe even in 27 years). (182k) [I cried so much, this fic man. so sad and heartbreaking. there were times when I had to put it down just so I could breathe.]

His and Mine - glitteredcurls @kissyboystyles 

Harry legally isn't supposed to meet his soulmate-- he's rendered physically unable to recognize him even if he did-- but yet, of course, he does. (66k) [this was was an incredible world. such a clever idea, like wow. and lou and harry and the pain, like i wanted to save them]

Some Things Take Root - navigator, quitter 

AU. Louis' ex doesn't get jealous of anyone besides Harry. Harry helps Louis use that to his advantage. (50k) [Loved how head over heels Harry was for Lou and how slowly it crept up on Lou.]

Black With Autumn Rain - whimsicule @whimsicule

“Thank you,” Geoff says, taking a sip of his tea. “What did you tell him?” Louis has a sip as well, lets the tea burn down his throat too quickly, too hot, and he feels it all the way down to his stomach. “The truth. Essentially,” he replies after a moment, licking his lips, relishing the slightly bitter taste of the brew that’s never quite strong enough for Louis’ liking. At least it’s not decaf. “That my dog scented it. That I didn’t touch the body. That I came here first thing.” Geoff nods pensively. “Did he believe you?” “Probably not. There’s only so many people who can drown on dry land before it gets fishy.” or: Harry is a journalist, Louis has lots of secrets and the moors aren't exactly the ideal place to rekindle a lost romance. (93k) [this fic is everything i ever want in a fic, exs, fae and lonely louis like?!?]

Never Be - cherrystreet @cherrystreet

The one where Harry Styles moves to Connecticut from England for nine months as a part of a study abroad program, and he just so happens to move in with Louis Tomlinson and family. (117k) [my notes for this fic are just ‘amazing amazing amazing amazing’ so there you go]

The Woods Are Lovely, Dark and Deep - HelloAmHere @helloamhere

Werewolf au, but Louis is lost. (4 part series) [This series is so incredible, I pretty sure I read all four in two days, like I devoured them. and they were delicious.]

[tyunniverse]

Midnight Crisis

pairing: huening kai x reader

genre: fluff (?)

word count: 1728

synopsis: huening kai gets woken up by his neighbor's alarm every midnight and finally decides to do something about it

There it is again.

Kai lies awake in his bed, eyes heavy and dark circles evident. He stares at the ceiling, trying his best to cancel out the noise that's been plaguing his mind for countless nights but to no avail. He's grown to hate the noise with each passing day. It's been like this ever since he moved in two months ago.

The first night was bearable, he'd assumed that his neighbor had something important to do at midnight. After all, it wasn't unusual for a college student to be up that late to finish an assignment. The first week was excusable. Kai figured that they must be working on an extremely important project that couldn't wait until morning to be finish. The next few weeks were hell. He thought he'd be immune to the alarm blasting through his walls but he wasn't. It sounds off for five minutes and after that, waits another five minutes more to go off again. His suffering doesn't end until it nears 1 am, and if he's lucky, it'll end before 00:30. This became the norm for Kai.

But the alarm had been going off for more than an hour. A hundred thoughts go through Kai's mind. Should he just try to go back to sleep? At this point that seemed impossible. He'd tried a hundred times before and it never worked. Should he just stay up until it ends? He'd be tired by morning but that's the safest possible decision. But what if this goes on until sunrise? He can't risk falling asleep in class when he had a presentation first thing in the morning.

Kai bunches the his blanket in his hands. "Why me?" He groans, shifting to the side to check his phone. His classmate, Beomgyu, had left him a message a few hours ago.

Hyuka, I can't make it to class tomorrow. I'm at the hospital with my roommate. Sorry, but I think you have to do the presentation on your own tomorrow. I promise I'll make it up to you.

Great.

Given the news and the loud pinging of the alarm, Kai decides that he has had enough. He can't deal with the stupid alarm going off every night, especially when he really needed the rest.

He hops out off bed, grabbing a hoodie from his closet and putting it over his shirt before storming out of his room.

—

You were beyond tired.

The classes you had on that day had all conducted tests, leaving your brain fried by the time you got home. You immediately pass out once you reached the comfort of your bed, not even caring to change out of your clothes. Your mind peacefully drifts into sleep, remembering that you had something to look forward to at 1 am.

You never forget to set your alarm. Sometimes, it was hard waking up in the middle of the night when you're having such a good time sleeping, but you made sure that it went off every five minutes until you're forcibly awoken by it's blaring sound.

The drama your best friend, Soobin, had recommended to you had been the highlight of your day since the beginning of the semester. School has been nothing but the source of your stress and you found that watching the new episodes every night helped you get through it and prepare yourself for anything to come. Little did you know that your energy booster had become the bane of someone else's existence.

"Excuse me!"

You were woken up by the sound of loud banging on your door. Having just come to your senses, your eyes wander to you phone that had been blasting your alarm since 12 am. You reach out to it, checking the time and panicking once you saw that it was way past the time slot for your drama. It was about to finish.

"Shit." You scramble towards your laptop, hoping to at least see if there was still hope to watch it until your attention was brought back to the loud banging on your door.

"Excuse me! Is anyone in there?"

You frown. "Who the hell disturbs people in the middle of the night?"

The place was quiet for a while until the banging came back. You take one last glance at your laptop before treading towards the door. You grab anything heavy along the way in case things get a little weird with your unexpected visitor.

Kai rubs his eyes as he waits for his neighbor's door to swing open. His ears perk up when he hears shuffling behind the door. It opens for about an inch wide, raising a few questions in Kai's mind.

"Do you need something?" You speak out from behind the door.

Kai's brows knit as he leaned a little closer. "It's me, Huening Kai, from room 208. I need to talk to you about something but isn't refusing to open your door a little rude?"

"Oh, sorry." You relax once you realize that the visitor wasn't a threat. You'd seen him a lot on your way to your room but you've never interacted before. All you know was that he seemed like a pretty nice guy. "Ah," You look up at him. He looked kinda cute despite his tired look. His messy hair had almost entirely covered his eyes and his hoodie had a molang print on the side. "But isn't it also a little rude to bang at your neighbor's door at 1 am?" You ask him, brows raised.

Kai purses his lips, trying his best to hold off on snapping at you. He was truly at his limit. "Not when that neighbor has kept me up for the past two months with their stupid alarm?"

"What are you— oh." You cut yourself off upon realizing the entirety of the situation. Maximum volume. You had set your alarm at maximum volume to make sure you never missed an episode. It had barely been effective on you but it sure did its work on your neighbor. In hindsight, you should've seen this coming.

Kai watches as you space out and decides to just tell you then and there instead of waiting for you to invite him inside. "Uh, listen." His hands fidget, trying to get through the awkwardness. "You must have something important to do but please be responsible with your alarm. It's ringing has kept me awake since the start of the semester and I haven't gotten a good night's sleep since. I have a presentation later and I really need to get some sleep before that, so can you please tone the alarm down or just shut if off? I don't think I can survive another night like this."

There he had it.

Kai felt a bit better. He should've done this sooner. His problems would've been solved by then. He figured that you'd apologize and stop your alarms since by now, the two of you have probably reached an understanding.

"I understand your side, I really do." You tell him, looking up at his now smiling form. "But I can't lower the volume." His smile disappears.

"What?"

"I can't wake up if it's not at maximum volume. Please understand, I need this in order to wake up." You insist.

Kai didn't know how to react. He'd been so sure that you'd cooperate that any other responses would have rendered his mind blank. "What?" He repeats. "Then, can you at least tell me why it's so important for you to be awake at this hour?"

You cant. You can't tell him.

The moment he finds out that you were willing to sacrifice his sleep for the drama you've been watching, he'd never let you hear the end of it. "I have a project and it needs to be finished by tomorrow."

Kai crosses his arms, frowning. "So you're saying you have an important project every single night?"

You hold your breath. "Yes?"

"Yes?" Kai scoffs. "Please tell me you're joking."

"I'm serious!" You wage him off. "I really do have one!"

Kai takes a peek at your room and sighs. "Then bring it here. The least you can do is prove that you're telling the truth. I can't keep suffering like this, Y/N."

Hearing your name made you nervous. Of course he'd known your name, he had delivered your packages a few times when it ended up in front of his doorstep by mistake. What's worse, he wanted you to show him the project you made up on the spot to hopefully escape the situation. Your mind goes blank, and there's only one thng that passes through it despite being fully aware that this solution was only temporary.

"I'm sorry!"

"Huh?"

Kai freezes in his spot as the door slams shut in his face. He hears you run back imto the safety of your room and he's left standing there, speechless. It takes him a few seconds to register what had just happened.

"Hey!" He reaches out for your door knob, twisting it a few times before giving up and knocking on the door. "Y/N? Y/N! Open up! We're still not done talking!" He knocks a few more times. "Hey!"

You snicker, hellbent on ignoring him and focusing on what's left of your show. Even if it's just the ending of the episode, it was enough to at least get you through tomorrow.

The episodes starts loading after a few clicks and you move to get your headphones. That's when you realize that Kai had finally stopped bothering you for the night. A smile creeps in your face as you feel a mixture of relief and guilt. "I'm sorry, Kai, but I need this."

You plug your headphones in and was about to focus on the episode when a loud alarm starts blasting through the walls of your room. Eyes wide, you check your phone to see if your alarm had beem turned off. It had been dead ever since you got up, which meant that the sound could only be coming from the room next door.

You jump when you hear a rather loud laugh coming from Kai's room, followed by him banging on your shared wall. Your phone buzzes with a notification and you check it.

Hey there, neighbor! If I'm not gonna get any sleep then so are you. Suffer with me >3<

[cherry-moonlight]

Life Could Be A Dream - Chapter Four

{NOS4A2 - Charlie Manx x Reader}

{A/N} He’s hereeeeeeeeeeeeee! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and what's to come! Thank you for being so supportive <3

Warnings: A bout of depressive thoughts.

Chapter Four - Christmasland

“Did they ask for me?” Vic’s voice was low and rough as I put the phone back in its place.

If looks could kill, I might’ve died right there in my shoes. Still, I nodded reluctantly. Before I had time speak again, she spun around on her heel and stormed out, grabbing her helmet once more.

“Wayne?” She called out.

Silence.

“Wayne!” She shouted then, fear gripping the tone of her voice in a way that almost frightened me.

I watched as Lou followed her out, looking exasperated the moment she’d gotten on her bike in a huff. He threw his hands up in the air and she was gone.

Approaching him carefully, I kept a polite enough distance. Having no idea as to what was going on, I tried not to make anything worse. Was a random phone call really that menacing? Pushing away the fact that the cord was still dangling from the pole, usually rendering any other phone useless, was proving to be harder than I expected.

“Where’s she going?” I asked gently.

He took a moment to respond, his gaze seemingly stuck down the road as he stared after her, but Victoria wasn’t anywhere in sight anymore. His face was clearly pained when he finally turned to face me.

“She just.. went to go look for Wayne,” he sighed, padding to the shop again and grabbing his keys off of a caddy on the wall. “I’ll be back.”

And with that, he was gone, too. I guessed they’d trusted me enough to leave me alone with the shop, even if it was supposed to be closed a few moments ago. Sitting alone, it didn’t take long before I felt absolutely gutted that Wayne was missing and I hadn’t even noticed that he wandered off. A strong urge to help them in their search for him plagued me. They’d been so kind and welcoming to me, and I owed it to them.

The garage door closed with a bang when I locked it. I had no car or really any means of transportation, but I noticed keys to a truck that had been dangling on the wall as well. While I had no idea who they belonged to, I didn’t care. Before I locked the shop up, I’d swiped them from their spot. The air was crisp as I ran over to the vehicle, helping myself and hoping the owner would never figure out I used it.

Not having a car had been the bane of my existence as a teenager. I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything. The only reason I was even able to get my license was because my mother wanted me to run errands for her. The engine roared to a start and the radio kicked on, the haunting song from the shop and my dream suddenly playing through it. This struck a slight pang of uneasiness within me. The song sounded just as sorrowful as it had in my dream. With a hard swallow, I reached for the knob and pushed the power button carelessly as I began to drive off the lot.

The song still played.

I pushed again, then again and again.

The radio was off, but the song still played. I could’ve killed the engine in the middle of the road, just to be sure, but I decided against it.

“Must be broken..” I tried to convince myself aloud instead, as though it might go away if it heard me.

Something was clearly wrong with me, I thought.

Hearing songs that don’t exist when no one else could hear them.. Lovely. I’d always heard trauma did strange things to the brain. Maybe it was something like th—

It was then that something large behind the treeline beside me caught my eye. I wasn’t too far from Carmody’s yet, making me even more compelled to examine it.

From what I could see it was large and wooden and resembled something of a tunnel or a bridge. There was no peeling my thoughts from the sight, forcing me to keep glancing over at it. I couldn’t not investigate what I was seeing, and a part of me wondered if it was truly there thanks to the incidents with the ghostly song I kept having.

But I couldn’t resist. I pulled over immediately and stared at it from the car, blinking a few times just to be sure.

It was definitely there..

Maybe I’d just overlooked it like I had overlooked Carmody’s all of this time.

Shrugging into the jacket I wore, I hopped out of the truck and closed the door before standing still for a moment-- just listening.

Nope. No song.

But it had already gotten stuck in my head.

Not wanting to work on that crisis before figuring out what was hiding behind the trees, I decided there was no harm in humming it to myself. The sensation of mystery ran thick while I made my way down into the wooded area, pushing my way through dry branches and prickly pine needles. The air grew even chillier and the gray sky turned just a bit darker the further I went, making me wonder if going into the woods was a good idea at all. But I owed it to Vic and Lou to help them look for their son, who had been nothing but sweet to me since I’d met him.

“Wayne…!” I called, though not as loudly as I probably should have as I approached the large structure.

My brow knit together. That tunnel was not there before, of that I was certain. It seemed to lead to nowhere, which was intriguing and eerie at the same time. The lyricless song in my head seemed to swell with passion, making me sing along to the notes that hung in the air just like it had in my dream.

My dream.

Maybe the tunnel had something to do with the dream I had, I thought, walking towards the entrance. My feet continued to carry me forward, still not close enough to see inside. It almost seemed as though no matter how far I walked, I could never get close enough to even begin to close the distance. Snow began to fall from the sky then, something the weather forecast hadn’t called for at all in the week, and as I continued on, the colorless flurry grew heavier and heavier— the melody in my head and on my lips almost taking the place of any other noise I might’ve heard.

“Wayne?” I cried out in between singing, huddling into myself from what was turning into bitter coldness.

I ducked as a few black bats that stood out against the vastness of white flew out from the slowly disappearing structure and towards me. The snow had picked up so much I wasn’t sure I would even be able to get close enough to it to take cover. The sudden whiteout was disorienting, not only because of the blankets of snow clouding my vision, but because it just didn’t feel possible to happen all at once. It came out of thin air, making me feel as though I were detached from reality.

My better judgement told me I had to get back to the truck as I was surely losing sight of my surroundings with every moment passed. I knew I hadn’t wandered far, yet I felt as though I were isolated from everyone and everything I’d ever known in the place I stood, the feeling hanging heavily around me, pulling me down until it was a chore just to breathe.

The air whipped around my trembling frame, stinging my cheeks and chilling my bones as I continued my singing, trying to keep myself from a full blown panic attack. Singing had always soothed me. Even though my voice was weak from competing with the sound and force of the wind, it kept me from losing my mind despite the fear that filled my heart and seeped into every fiber of my being.

The song continued on strong through what felt like chaos surrounding me, causing me to feel it on a level much deeper than before. A stark realization settled in that I was truly alone in the world, and it was being shown all around me in some kind of sick, wintery metaphor. I couldn’t carry on anymore. I felt my body go limp and my mind go blank, the lack of control in my life revealing itself to me. My voice fell silent as I stopped singing and fell forward into the freezing abyss that consumed me, a soft sob escaping my cherry red lips as I came to terms with my situation more than I ever thought I would.

My heart screamed, pumping beat after beat with nothing but pain.

My blood boiled, burning my insides through the numbing cold.

All I’d ever wanted was to be loved.

Appreciated.

All I’d ever wanted my whole life was to be cared about.

Why wasn’t I deserving of that?

And it was in that moment of silence that everything else in the world came to an unforeseen halt as well.

A beat passed, maybe two, and I opened my eyes from being squeezed shut in anger and hurt. Mascara-filled tears left streaks down my cheeks as I kept my gaze down at the shining white ground, tiny black droplets melting the patches of snow beneath my face where each drop fell like blood. It was considerably darker than it had been before the storm, but the light was different, too. Almost scared to lift my head, my eyes trailed from their spot on the ground cautiously, my {H/C} hair falling in front of my face.

The sudden silence was utterly deafening as I tried to listen for any sign of life. No sounds of nature; no song. But it was then that I noticed each and every delicate snowflake hanging in its place in the air like crystal droplets hanging from a chandelier. It was as though time and space had stopped around me.

Am I dead?

My eyes widened in astonishment, taking in my new environment as I scanned the small area I found myself in.

Where am I?

I exhaled, a small white cloud hanging off my lips. I’d been holding my breath without my knowing. All around me were tall walls of white and blue ice, casting glacial shadows across what looked like hallways within their confines. The snowflakes that hung around me began to disappear like fireflies into the night while I stumbled to my feet again.

Ice.

It was all ice surrounding me, and the song that haunted me everywhere I went had not returned. Shuddering gently, the cold touched me here, but it didn’t chill me the way it had in the woods. In fact, despite the snow, there was a sense of warmth that radiated from every corner. I didn’t feel as hopeless and alone as I had on the ground just minutes before, the grave shift in emotions so quickly almost throwing me into a mild form of shock as I found my bearings again.

The familiarity of the place hit me like a ton of bricks as I began to walk. It was like my feet knew exactly where to take me; running my fingers along the ice that stood tall enough to keep anything that might’ve come across the place out — or in. Parts of the enclosure arched over me with large icicles that made everything feel like a dreamscape; the cold of the crystalline walls on my sensitive fingertips began to hurt. But in the moment, there was no care to be had about the pain.

The grin that tugged slowly at my snow kissed lips couldn’t be helped as I began to run, letting my heart carry me through what I quickly remembered to be a maze. Sure, I couldn’t remember how I knew, but somehow, I knew exactly where I was going. Something in my mind told me I was going to be the victor if I reached the entrance, keeping my focus on nothing but chasing my own intuition through the labyrinth’s twisting and turning glacial halls.

From my head to my toes I was awash with giddiness, a giggle escaping from my lips at every new turn, a childlike wonderment becoming me, replacing the sorrow that I was sure wouldn’t leave me alone only moments before. The snow kicked up around my feet, and I could see the light in the distance, indicating the entrance I was so after. Shifting into a sprint, it was as though I knew I had something to get to at the end, but couldn’t place exactly what.

But when I finally reached my destination, I was met with a world of fragmented memories that came flooding into my mind all at once, the familiarity delving deeper than just a passing wonder. I could’ve sworn there was an impact on me physically as I caught myself, leaning back against the large wall that made up the entrance with strength I didn’t know I would need to keep myself up as I sorted through my thoughts.

Sprawled out before my curious eyes was the most wondrous thing I’d ever seen. Christmas trees and houses that looked like life sized gingerbread cottages. Blinking lights were everywhere, complete with a large Ferris Wheel and a rollercoaster that wound its way around the entire parameter. There wasn’t a patch of ground that snow didn’t cover, and I could hear laughter in the distance. My heart suddenly ached with fervor, and I clutched at my chest as though that might stop the gnawing that radiated deeper than I would’ve liked. I was thrilled and pained all at the same time. But how could I feel as though I so deeply missed something I couldn’t even remember properly?

There was a certain romance to everything I set my eyes on as it shined in the lights, casting technicolor shadows over my face. I didn’t want to look away, in fact, I was sure I couldn’t as I let myself linger on the sights before me. I wanted to explore, to find myself in every nook and cranny this place of wonder offered.

Emotions began to overwhelm me as I finally came to the conclusion that I’d been here before long ago. It wasn’t something I’d simply made up or only dreamt about. The lights in my dream, they were leading to this. My brow furrowed as I tried to remember; tried to search the depths of my mind for any memory that would give me more than just a fuzzy clue.

My feet pounded against the ground as I ran again.

I ran and ran and ran; through the carnival games and rides that offered more flashes of hazy memories and past the houses that did just the same. When I reached the edge of what looked like a Christmassy plaza, I saw two people standing across from each other, both in defensive stances as though they were in the middle of an intense row. As I peered in for a closer look, I gasped.

What was Vic doing here?

She was in a stand-off with a tall man in a navy blue jacket and a deep red cravat. His dark brown hair matched the darkness of his trousers and shoes, and I noticed all too quickly that he had a face no one should ever forget.

When my eyes set on him, I was terribly wounded that I had forgotten his face at all when I immediately recognized him-- even if I couldn’t remember how, exactly.

Charlie Manx.

Father Christmas.

Whatever anyone called him, that was who my entire being was being pulled towards through the maze and down the snowy pathways. I knew it when my gaze found him, the ache in my chest dulling, but not completely gone.

But why? Who is he to me? There were more questions than I had words.

No one noticed my appearance as I made my way towards them with reckless abandon, interrupting whatever was happening before me. My heart pounded in my chest as I opened my mouth to speak, but when they both turned to look at me, I couldn’t say a word.

Their facial expressions were that of shock. But Charlie looked at me with a hint of surprise and wonderment that made every nerve ending in my body sizzle with fear and tension.

Everyone fell silent, words escaping us at the strange situation we found ourselves in until Charlie finally stood a bit taller, speaking loudly into the open air.

“Well… If it isn’t little {Y/N}.. Not so little anymore, are we?”

Wait...

“You know each other?” Vic questioned, anger and adrenaline thick in her vocal chords, her face turning to stone as though I’d committed treason in the highest degree.

I recognized him, but how did he know me? I wanted to ask what was going on, to explain myself to Vic - or what I could figure out of myself - and ask why I was back here again, or what I had done here in the first place. I wanted to scream at my splintered memories that only let me remember where I was and that I’d been here before, but not much of what happened or for how long. They were all a hazy blur of lights and games, children and sweets.

Everyday was Christmas Day.

Every night was Christmas Eve.

But I couldn’t— I physically couldn’t make a sound.

My hand clutched my neck as I realized my voice was completely missing from my throat like some Brothers' Grimm tale in a Disney-esque wonderland.

Charlie made a noise, as though delighting in the fact that I couldn’t speak.

“I see your voice has brought you here once again,” he continued, his velvet voice dripping with honey tones. “Rightfully so.. As you find yourself, technically orphaned, don’t you, {Y/N}?”

My focus was on Charlie Manx, and his focus was on nothing but me as my line of sight drifted towards the deep night sky, peppered with stars and a moon that seemed to welcome me warmly. My gaze met his again, and for a moment, it was as though no one else and nothing else existed but the two of us. His chocolate eyes pierced through me with an intensity that made me feel as though he could pull my soul from my body and do what he wanted with what remained. The spectral sensation forced me to avert my eyes towards the sparkling lights that hung from every object one could perceive instead.

Children began to poke their heads out from behind snow covered trees and bushes then, holding large things like scissors and knives in their hands with menacing, but apprehensive expressions that rested on their features. It looked all too familiar to me.

“Do you remember me? All of your brothers and sisters here at Christmasland?” he asked, a gloved hand reaching out to gesture towards the hiding children.

But all that rang through my mind was:

Christmasland.

A flash of large candy cane and iron gates topped with a sign that read “Christmasland” stood out in my mind, but I shook my head a bit, an attempt at shaking the thought and bringing myself back to his brief line of questioning. To nod would have been a lie, so I gave it my best shrug, lifting my shoulders and teetering my faintly trembling hand from side to side.

“Pity” was all he said with a solemn expression, his deep register soothing and unnerving all at once.

He then turned to face Vic, who was now missing from her place on the other end of the odd triangle positioning we’d all been a part of.

His countenance turned to a scowl, clearly vexed by the fact that she’d disappeared, and then frustrated by his own careless mistake of letting it happen. I watched as his hands balled into tightly knit fists, frightening me on the inside as I tried to keep myself together. I couldn’t remember much, but from what I saw, there was a darkness about the entire situation. Between Charlie Manx and Christmasland, to the children with weapons and the ominous atmosphere that seemed to linger in the air, I wasn’t sure what would become of me if I made a sudden movement to run.

Charlie immediately ordered the children to begin a game through gritted teeth, one that I couldn’t recall, but felt as though I should. They all scattered at the shouted command, leaving us both truly alone in the wintery plaza. All that could be heard were the sounds of faint sinister giggles and crunchy footsteps as they drifted further into the distance until I began to hear my heart beat in my own ears thanks to adrenaline laced with dread.

It seemed as though he pushed away his anger for my sake, causing me to wonder why I was suddenly so important. His entire demeanor changed as soon as his smoldering eyes set on mine again, and he approached me slowly, every footfall cautious, as though he felt like if he came too close too quickly, I’d disappear.

Staying in place before him, the closer he drew to me, the more I felt as though I just might.

“Never mind her,” he assured me as he caught me glancing around for Vic in a slight panic.

What were they going to do to her?

He seemed to relax, as if this was going to make me feel any better. His features softened, like when one recalled fond memories before he lifted a leather clad finger into the air for just a second.

“You were such a fantastic addition to the family, {Y/N} Manx.”

The name caught me off guard. He must’ve been able to tell.

“Oh..” he drawled. “Now, you should remember that. You signed it in my book yourself.”

And then he smiled.

Oh god— did he smile.

There was nothing like it. When he smiled, it was as though the whole world around me lit up with the same delight. The act was infectious, and I felt myself smiling right back at him in a vague stupor. That was, until I wiped it off my face the moment I caught my lips curving, which proved to be more complicated than I would’ve liked.

What was wrong with me?

I had to remember that Vic was here too somehow, clearly in the middle of a scuffle with this man. No matter what kind of spell it seemed like he could put anyone under with his undeniable charm, there had to be a reason for Vic’s visit. Moreover, he’d sent children who carried objects that could be used as weapons after her.

Being disarmed so easily wasn’t like me at all, especially in such a strange place with such a strange person that I really barely knew. I had to get out. There was more at work than I could’ve even begun to wrap my head around.

Everything was so new to me— there were no answers, only more things to question, including how either Vic or myself got to Christmasland. But I couldn’t conceal the fact that I was worried for her and if only a little, myself. I was unsure if he would take the same approach with me should I fight him or try to run, and I felt far too weak from what I was sure could only be the past several minutes that felt like a whirlwind. Up to this point, I’d barely had reason to fear him myself anyway, and all I wanted to do was find out why I remembered the man, but nothing about him or how we were connected.

I tried to speak again but couldn’t. His expression turned quizzical before the damned smile eased its way back onto his lips. Albeit briefly, I had to look away if I didn’t want to be caught up in it again.

“I didn’t realize you hadn’t used your gift since we last found you here..” he voiced in realization. “It comes at a cost, my dear. Once you use your voice, you lose it for a while. But that’s nothing a hot cup of peppermint tea with lobs of sugar can’t fix, can it?”

His smile this time was small, but still enough to disarm me all over again.

Peppermint tea -overly sweetened- was my favorite. My brow furrowed as I tried to pull the memories from my brain. How long had I been here before? He’d sure made it sound like a while between dubbing me an addition to whatever “family” this was with his last name and knowing the way I liked my tea.

There were still a multitude of questions bouncing around in my mind. But without a voice, I had no other option than to go along with what he was saying. It wasn’t only that I couldn’t remember how to leave, but I was also deeply intrigued by everything I saw— from Christmasland to Father Christmas himself. It surely couldn’t hurt to spend a little time, and while I did, maybe I’d get my voice back enough to finally figure out what was going on. If my voice brought me here, surely it’d be able to take me out. I just had to discover how.

And besides, maybe he was onto something with the tea. It had been a while since I’d indulged in a simple pleasure like that for myself. The feeling of being out of touch with reality drifted through my body and in my thoughts again. It was like I was slipping into a kind of contentment I’d never felt before. Not wanting to give into that, I fought the feeling off. I didn’t deserve it, I thought.

Slightly defeated by not being able to counter his offer, I nodded meekly, stepping closer to him. He hastily stepped backwards, keeping the same distance as his intense stare held mine for - to anyone else - what might’ve been a little too long. Deep down, I wondered if I should’ve figured out how to get away to find Vic instead.

“Come,” was all he said then, turning around and leading me to a house just behind him, the outside decorated just as to the nines as the rest of the area and the small cottages that resided within it.

A warm yellow light flowed out across the snow as he opened the door, enticing me even more to follow before he disappeared inside. The door swung closed behind him, and as I approached it myself, my inner dialogue was still fixated on just how I knew Christmasland, and why Victoria was here being what seemed like taunted by Charlie. It wasn’t until my fingertips grazed the icy doorknob that I was being pulled backwards, a hand -I assumed instinctively- being cupped over my mouth to keep my already silenced voice even quieter. Trying to fight back proved to be useless as I tried to dig in my heels into the snow to no avail. I was being dragged backwards against my will as I tried to wriggle free, quickly giving up the fight once I heard my captor speak.

“Don’t say a word, I’m gonna get you out of here,” Vic whispered in my ear gruffly.  

[princeescaluswords]

In canon, even Tyler Hoechlin acknowledges how frequently Derek loses fights yet fan works overwhelmingly portray him as the powerful, fierce noble wolf who's a great combatant. Because it fulfills the white supremacist norms in these types of media. He's a white man! Of course he's strong and rarely loses! Brute force prevails, though the show argues against that

Oh, my friend, it’s even worse than you might imagine.  Derek actually doesn’t lose that many fights in the first two seasons, but the message of Teen Wolf is that winning violent fights doesn’t mean anything when you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.  Let’s take a look at the fights in which Derek was a participant in Season 1:

Episode 3 - Pack Mentality:  Scott attacks Derek because he believes he attacked and caused the death of Garrison Myers.  Derek wins.  

Episode 6 - Heart Monitor: Derek beats up and kidnaps Deaton when Deaton doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear.

Episode 8 - Lunatic: Derek beats up a feral Scott to keep Scott from hurting Jackson and Allison.

Episode 9 - Wolf’s Bane: Derek gets obliterated by Peter in the long-term care facility.

Episode 10 - Co-Captain: Derek gets captured by Kate and her hunters because he brought claws to a gun fight.  

Episode 12 - Code Breaker: Derek joins Scott, Allison, Jackson and Stiles in bringing down Peter.

That’s Derek winning four out of six fights – not a bad record.  I don’t include Derek��s meeting with Scott in the woods in Episode 1, Kate shooting Derek in Episode 4, and Peter gutting Derek in Episode 7, because, to me, a fight requires both sides to throw a punch. 

Fandom, of course, expected their broody, leather-clad, masculine, white anti-hero to win fights, but where they were disappointed is that they expected those wins to mean something.   It’s part of what you suggested when you referred to white supremacist norms in these type of media, the concept that violence is the solution.  

It’s why they so often cite Scott’s “black-and-white and naive” reluctance to kill (even though it’s not a blanket reluctance to kill, it’s not black and white, and it’s not naive) as one of the reasons they don’t like him.   They want to believe that the only thing that kept things going wrong in Beacon Hills was the fact that Scott didn’t execute people.   

It only seems like Derek doesn’t win any fights, because Derek often fought for the wrong reasons – for dominance, to assuage the guilt for the death of his family, out of distrust – and that rendered his fights meaningless.   It only seemed that he won more fights in Season 4 because he was finally fighting for the right reasons – to save people’s lives from assassins.

One of Teen Wolf’s most powerful arguments was always that violence is not the solution.  It happens; it’s necessary; but it’s not the answer to the problems between people.  It’s one of the reasons, for all its flaws, I love the show.

This is so very different than many shows, where the question of the hour is what form of violence will be necessary to defeat the bad guys.  I’ve always believed that fandom and entertainment culture don’t exist in a pocket dimension separate from the things that happen on the news, and I can’t help but wonder if our acceptance of the idea that violence – and especially white violence – is the most effective and efficient means of restoring order has led to our tolerance of police violence against minorities, protesters, and even other countries. 

[doubleddenden]

So I know inevitably after Let's Go comes out the genwunners are going to shit talk Alola, so I wanna take a bit to go over some of the cool stuff it did before it becomes the bane of existence like Black and White did when X and Y came out, and X and Y when ORAS came out.

Regional variants which hopefully will continue to be a thing in the future. A concept that brings fresh light to underappreciated pokemon in clever ways. Alolan Raichu is such a fav my niece used to make me let her play with it in Refreh.

A whole slough of incredible new pokemon. Sure some are really slow but they're all so unique and colorful with entrancing abilities. Mudsdale is a tank, Whishiwashi is so unique and powerful, and of course our dear Nebby for becoming one of the first legendaries to evolve. Also Incineroar for becoming number 69 in smash, the absolute LEGEND

Getting rid of HM's at long last. Like it's such a creative twist that benefits everyone and virtually no moves are hard locked, rendering move forgetters no longer needed.

Showing us an alternative to gyms. Totem pokemon were such a creative idea and legit challenging, and unnerving in the water trial's case. Sure in USUM the captains effectively numbered out to 8 but overall it was such a unique and creative change.

Effectively giving us proof of AU's with ultra wormholes. I wish that we could have expanded on some of it, but unique worlds like Ultra Megalopolis and the apocalyptic world where Guzzlord is found were so creative, even if they were one time deals.

A better Pokemon Amie with Refresh. Curing status ailments, feeding, and petting is much better than gen 6 and honestly I loved letting my niece feed Guzzlord and A. Raichu with it.

A creative PC space with the bean daddy. Honestly it relieved me when my pokemon weren't just stuck in the PC all day but had things they could do and explore or relax to their hearts content, plus you got some useful stuff out of it.

Such an expansive pokedex and even ways to obtain pokemon not in the dex via island scan. You could grab a Cyndaquil on the first island if you wanted, or catch a fully evolved Samurott on Poni Island.

You were the first champion! You got to defend your title against so many people like Hau, Gladion, Prof. Kukui, that rocker dude with the dragons from some random place, even that one youngster for whatever reason. It certainly beats the "oh you're champion but I'm REALLY the champion" every other game does.

Z moves, while debatable, are really cool, especially the signature ones. Sure I could do without the dances but it adds a fun extra option to the game! Having trouble with a fee? Just nuke them with a Z Move, or Z Splash to gain like 3 stages of attack!

Although quite often overlooked, Sun and Moon added two Chinese languages to the game! That's incredibly important and allowed so many people to play in their native language!

A glimpse of Red and Blue as adults! Not just these two but returning characters like Colress, Anabel and a MUCH more interesting backstory for her, even Grimsley for whatever reason.

Such a colorful array of characters. Even minor characters had a bit of limelight, and you know we all loved watching our girl Lillie become braver and stand up to her mom. Our boi Guzma also got the SICKEST bad guy theme song.

Sure the beginning held your hand but the difficulty was REAL. The Elite 4 was challenging, and you KNOW we ain't getting another rush like Ultra Necrozma powered up any time soon. The challenge is so appreciated after how easy X and Y were and I genuinely hope we get harder games in the future.

And I have to mention it because a lot of my friends bash on it for a similar reason I loved 5th gen: it set a new bar for story. So many twists and turns! So many dark moments that went beyond what should be E for everyone (child abuse? Frozen pokemon corpses?). Seriously, so much heart went into this story and making our characters so beloved, I can't imagine another game that tries to simplify things again. I know it'll happen eventually, but you know?

I know people will rip these games to shreds in the future for changing the formula so much or for packing in so much story and dialogue (to be fair a skip button would be nice for the tutorial) or for railing you to set paths but you know? These games truly celebrated the 20th anniversary in ways even the next Kanto remake refuses to do. I pray that gen 8 will be as good as these games, and I hope people remember them positively in the long run.

[sowhenisnow]

^From the early stages of learning blender to the end of my project.

Bidding Adieu!

How nice it feels to be finished! This studio has been such an enjoyable class, thanks to Andy, Karen and my friendly classmates. Especially amidst a pandemic, it’s a real spirit lifter to be in this humorous, yet driven and passionate environment. (Fun fact: I sit across from my sister Jessie at a table where we both do work, and often listen in to each other’s classes. She’s also studying communication design but at Monash, and she’s absolutely loved listening in to this class and genuinely gets very excited when I tell her I have an AR class. She said it makes her really happy and is a big fan!)

As much as I loved attending class, there was a fair bit of frustrated grumbling and hair pulling whilst making the work for this class, thanks to learning Blender and Unity. Unity especially was the bane of my existence. Though of course, in the end, I would 100% do it again. The knowledge and skills I’ve learnt are worth the hours of distress, I suppose.

Finally being able to use 3D software is really exciting for me. I’m looking forward to making 3D renders for graphic design and illustration purposes as well as future AR projects. The capabilities of Blender truly extended beyond my initial preconceptions, and consequently, I feel really driven to continue learning and discovering its potential.

If I’m honest, I feel a little disappointed knowing I won’t be able to easily let friends and family experience the work I’ve made in this class for themselves, other than through a video. So I do hope that soon, we won’t have to download applications to access AR experiences. I am eagerly awaiting the growth of Augmented Reality. I want to see whether it will fulfil its potential, whether it will take another 10 years to be incorporated into everyday social platforms, whether it finally won’t be so difficult to experience AR creations. 

Anyway, I always write too much. Thank you Andy and Karen for being a part of design education and helping us be a part of pioneering this young medium, not only through teaching us the skills, but ways of observing, thinking and expressing. Jessie and I will miss this class! See you guys around.

[lord-of-isengard]

#1.9 Emotions

I want to understand something, for this thing like all the other things have been weighing on me. But it, as everything that I have said, starts with a story. Firstly, you have to know that I am not your regular, emotion showing dude. If I feel emotional, I punch myself and then let that pain abate or fucking swallow the emotion that I am feeling. It’s not something that I am proud of, but I think there are lot of problems in the entire world already to add me being emotional on it. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against people showing their emotions; as a matter of fact, I am happy if people are okay expressing their emotional aspect to other people. If you came in front of me and became sad or happy or angry, I would definitely hear you out without rolling my eyes on you or judging you. (I think angry is something that happens a lot and is more realistic as I am a massive pain in the ass. I am that uncomfortable feeling to people as a hemorrhoid in your butt. But I think you already know that.) The point here that I am trying to make is, I have nothing against people who want to be emotional or share their emotions out. I could be your best buddy to help you when you go through an emotional crisis. But the main problem here would be if you expected me to be emotional with you because you were vulnerable with me once, then that is something that would never happen. You can ask anything to me and I would answer you without the tiniest bit of shame, but if you asked me to tell you how I feel, I would never answer you. Never.

Now you have to understand people have their own traits, for some people their sex-life is a topic that they don’t want to discuss, to some people it’s their age while to other people it may be their annual income and for me, it’s my emotions. I am pessimist concerning my emotions because, I feel even if I expressed it to people about it, in excruciating details, I feel people would still not understand it. As a matter of fact, I know for sure that they will not be able to understand what it is that I am feeling because I myself, the author of those emotions doesn’t understand whatever the fuck they mean. My emotions are treacherous things, they are my bane because they always get the best of me. Take this for example, I just got out of a really long and good relationship. I thought the girl that I was in relationship was (and I still think she is) the best person for me. I was deeply and massively in love with her, but alas she wasn’t! And to make matters extremely worse, I caught her fucking some guy who still gives me nightmares. In my dreams, the guy comes, puts me in the corner and fucking rapes me, and I wake up with helplessness, humiliation and despair every fucking time. She never said that she was sorry but instead she blamed me for it. She said that, ‘I was not there for her when she need me’ and that caused her to suck a stranger’s dick. I couldn’t understand any of it and I was angry and disappointed. Because I had always believed that of all the people in the world, she wouldn’t hurt me. Turned out I was wrong, so fucking wrong. The thing is after all the damage she had done to me or she is doing to me, I still asked her forgiveness and begged her to stay with me. I loved her, you see and my emotions couldn’t bear me waking up to an empty, cold and uncomfortable bed after seeing me being raped. She laughed at me and my emotions and unhinged as they were, made me sink even lower.

See that is the main reason I don’t want to share my emotions with other people because I know for the fact that they will shit on me. I know I am not perfect, I am as damaged and deranged as every other person you see walking down the busy street in a busy Friday night. I have my flaws and I can talk about that, but please don’t ask me how or what is it that I am feeling because I don’t know how to articulate my emotions into valid words or sentences. That brings me to the point that I was trying to make. It may sound crazy but I think I am not alone in this world who feels like this. We are so cooped up with our own emotions that we need something that we can reflect and assure ourselves that we are not going insane. We need a release, we need something that satisfies us, controls us and pacifies us. Things like that, we get emotionally attached to. I think that is how some of us work, we find something and make it reflect our pain and pleasure so that it could save us from the insanity of emotions. For people who don’t understand it, it’s silly, but for people like us, it’s everything. It’s our passion, our healthy obsession and our pleasing addiction.

I think that is the main reason why people follow certain songs and certain celebrities is because of that. Why do we idealize a mediocre person and claim that we love them? I think that is due to the fact that they, apart from the hundreds and hundreds of people around us, manage to speak and resonate with our emotions. Their songs or their work of art, makes us feel that they are talking, personally talking to us, rather than millions and millions of other people. We get emotionally attached to them, because everything they say makes a lot more fucking sense than the people that we meet every day. They may not know that we even exist, but their work of art manages to touch us and compliment our emotions in just the right way. The way we want it to be complimented. Being inspired by someone also is another thing. We all have a vision of what we aspire to be, and if we see someone living the life we have always dreamed of, we would want to do things the way that person has done. So that sooner or later, we could reach the place that we think could make us happy. In that sense, people we idolize have a lot more power than they or we think we know. For they were the people who shared our lonely nights, restless days, fearful mornings and romantic evenings with us without even being there with us. To have that level of emotional connection, indubitably will have an effect. Most of us, we aren’t lucky. We need help and if you are a person like me, we need help more than ever. And if we got that help by listening to Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, then that is a problem solved for us, right? The pain goes away and her voice is there with me all night consoling my broken heart.

Now I don’t know much about you people, but for me, when my girlfriend cheated on me and fucking had the audacity to blame me for the fact that she was sucking a stranger’s dick as if I forced her to swallow it, I got emotionally influenced by a lot of celebrities who I frankly think, don’t know for the fact that I even exist. Their influence had managed to ease my pain. On lonely nights, the singer would come and calm me, console me and tell me that everything would be okay. My friends, family and even colleagues did that but it didn’t matter. But when a heavenly voice sang, ‘Don’t worry!’ I believed that voice and the speaker that was giving out the voice. I chose to believe that voice, because I was vulnerable to it. Inside a dark room, I was crying with my broken and scattered heart, my fragmented thoughts and my boiling emotions and whatever that voice said, made more sense to me than the people that I regularly met. I guess that is the ultimate reason when people like me idolizes someone out of the ordinary, because they have helped us or shape our emotional castle inside. I used to make fun of people who were obsessed with someone, because that didn’t make sense to me then. I used to laugh at them, but now I have realized that they were just like me, emotionally dumb. That is the only way for unlucky bastards like us. I look at old movies and see people who lived their lives as lavishly as possible both on screen and off screen, I see singers singing about their problems and some singing about our problems, I see scientists going through tough times to make something that could be common after a decade or two, and thinking about them, their times and their lives, just makes me less miserable. I might be nostalgic to the era that I didn’t even see or live, but just thinking about them makes me immensely happy. It fills me in, it makes me warm and it makes me smile in cold and lonely nights like these. I know that I will not meet them personally, and I know that they will not come to my bedroom and serenade me with their magical voices, nor put me in awe with their convincing acting or even render me speechless with their latest invention; but whatever they do makes me emotionally well and fit.

That brings me to our reaction to them. If you talk to me about my favorite author, singer or actor/actress, you can see me beaming with happiness. And the way I talk about them, might fascinate you. It might even make you feel awkward. The vivacity of my emotions would be a bit difficult for people to accept. Hell, sometimes it is difficult to my mom, dad, brother and wife to accept. It is even difficult for my kid to accept it. She rolls her eyes whenever I start to talk about my favorite people as if she has heard that story a thousand times. On the hindsight, that might be true, I might have repeated the same fucking story more than a 1000 time to the kid. But then, if you try and think it from my point of view, you will feel that it is not a big deal. After all, every person has impacted me and managed to add or remove something to make me the person I am. And I cannot stop myself from talking about them with love and affection. There was a time when I shed a drop of tear when the captain of my club bid his farewell to his fans, people like me. That was something unusual for me and I realized, it was not because my love for the person, it was way beyond that. It was that, he and I, we both shared the same dream, the success of the club. So, the more he tried, the more fans like us supported. Because his goal and our dream were the same, we had the common destiny to reach. Hence, seeing him play from my small tv, he managed to have a lot more influence on me and I admired him more. Now, when I come to think of him, I brim form pride and happiness, not having ever met the player in person or even talked to him, he and I had an emotional connection. So, there are times, once you are emotionally connected and invested on something, the whole experience becomes magical. It doesn’t really matter where you are from or the language you speak or your skin color or your status in society or even the religion you follow. If something touches you emotionally, even talking about it makes you feel better. That is the way of things that I have realized with us humans.

At the end of the day, we are humans after all. We humans, I believe, have the ability to bring the best of ourselves or the worst of ourselves, with the help of each other. That is the main reason why we idolize people, because it helps us forget, for a brief of time, about our miserable lives and get along with something said or done by a stranger. I don’t think there is anything wrong with it as long as we are not doing shitty things. Had it not been those people, I would still have been hung up on that cheating partner and my life would have been an absolute mess. We all need someone to lean on, someone like me who is unable to emotionally open up to people, talk about my emotions and have peace. You might think it is crazy but I understand while people believe famous people more than themselves. Because at times, you need to have faith and believe on the words of stranger who doesn’t know about your existence.

I just hope, I could be one of those people who could help other people at time of their need like I had people helping me. That I think, would be the fairest thing of it all. I have been helped, now it seems only fair that I help someone going through the same fuckery that I had been through; ease the pain of people whose pain was the same as once it was mine.

Makes sense, doesn’t it?