#so sorry about the long post LMAO (i am not)

[apostaterevolutionary]

I am so sorry, apparently it’s 2024 and I’m arguing about dragon age again lmao. How did I get here! Why is this happening!! Time is a flat circle!!!

Anyway. People can feel how they want about the past games not mattering in this game. If you’re cool with it, I’m happy for you. But there’s one particular argument in defence of this choice that is really, really bothering me and I have to rant

The thing I keep seeing is “well all this other stuff has nothing to do with the main plot or Rook, so it should be cut” and that’s. Not a good way to tell stories in my opinion. Because here’s the thing: it’s not about the Big Overall Plot. It’s about the characters that live in this world, big and small

I’m going to use the example of Varric and Hawke cause I think it’s the easiest to explain quickly. Varric is a storyteller. That’s the defining trait of his character. He tells stories, and sometimes they’re true and sometimes they’re not and sometimes it’s something in between. In DA2 he tells you about his brother. In inquisition, he talks about hawke and there’s banter about several of the companions. Most of these are just little one liners that don’t “serve the overall plot” but they serve Varric’s character

And that matters

So if we take this character known for telling stories about people that have been in his life, well, he largely can’t do that now. How can he talk about Hawke, someone who can be a very close friend of his, without even their gender being a choice you can select? Or whether Varric should be saying ‘is’ or ‘was’ about them? How can he talk about the companions in DA2 or inquisition when a lot of them don’t have to be recruited or can die? Will he limit himself to only characters that are guaranteed to be a part of it and alive? Or is it that he and Rook will have such a shallow relationship that Varric, of all characters, never talks about his life and past exploits?

Or has Varric as a character changed so much that he doesn’t even want to tell stories anymore? That Hawke living or dying means nothing to him? That the friendships he built with people in 2 games mean nothing to him? That he’s become literally unrecognizable?

This is where the problem is. Sure, Rook maybe doesn’t care about these people they’ve never met. But do they care about Varric? What about if a companion mentions an old friend of theirs, talks about an experience they had that made them who they are - is that only okay if that experience isn’t from a previous game? Or are all the characters so flat that we never learn anything about their connections to others outside of Rook? Is this story SO focused on this player character and this plot that NOTHING else matters, even within the world, and there’s no depth to be found in any of the characters that feature in it?

Writing characters so that they only ever talk about things that “directly serve the plot” is how you get flat, unremarkable, boring, forgettable characters. And that’s not something I would have accused bioware of doing even if some instalments are stronger in this area than others. But it sounds like that’s what they’re doing here, at least with the past characters. Cause sure, maybe Morrigan is so closed off she’ll never mention her son and partner. That’s believable, even if iffy given that they’ve said she’s going to be more involved than we think. But Varric? VARRIC??? Never mentioning ANY of the people he used to spend time with and care about except Solas and maybe some of the inquisition characters that can’t die or not be recruited but also carefully skirting around what happened to them in the game? That’s literally not the same character

And I would expand this to like. A letter mentioning this or a codex mentioning that, or ambient dialogue about so and so - that makes the world feel deep and those random, unimportant NPCs feel richer by connecting them to the larger world. It’s not about “serving the plot”, it’s about making your world and characters deep enough that they feel real, lived in, and like something we can actually care about

[thisisntreaver]

Theres something about the idea of Sparrow and Logan's birth thats really hitting me.

Sparrow has been fighting their entire life, even in their childhood we see them having to resort to violence. They've spent their entire adult life stuck in the past, fighting entirely for the goal of avenging Rose. The future has never mattered as much as the past does, no matter how much Theresa whispered about it.

But now theres Logan.

For the first time, they do have a future that matters, Logans future.

Not the future Theresa tells her of, not the violence they've always known, not the weight of the world of the world on his shoulders.

Violence is an integral part of them thats so intimately woven into who they are as a person.

They don't want it to be like that for Logan.

I think thats clear in the way that Logan seems to idolize them, the fact that he chose to go on expeditions outside of Albion as opposed to being forced to. The fact that he seemingly was unaware of the darkness and the destiny laid for him and the hobw to try and stop it before meeting it.

According to Theresa one of their children is meant to save the world, but Sparrow has their first child, sees their son, innocent and yet to be hurt like they have, and chooses a different path, even if only temporarily.

In a way its finally avenging themselves, the child in them that was killed with Rose and replaced with a hero tormented by all thats happened. As long as they're alive, they'll keep their children safe from that same fate. They allow them to have a life outside of being a hero, unlike them. They allow them to have a childhood. They free them from the expectations that were held on them.

Logans birth is a huge moment for Sparrow for so many reasons, it's not just the birth of the first child, the one they get to be with the longest, but its arguably the birth of a new Sparrow.

[deoidesign]

Hello! I just discovered your blog and I immediately became captivated by your webcomic, but I'm unsure where to read all of it. I know it's on Webtoons, but I can see it hasn't been updated for a while, and you still post about it.

Are your physical novels just prints of the webcomic? Are they a continuation? Is the story complete? Thanks in advance!

Hi there!

Glad you found me and are enjoying my comic!

It's only on webtoons, and the story is not complete yet! We're 2/3 of the way through right now. It's currently on hiatus, and it's scheduled to come back in about 2 months!

I'll explain why it's been so long if you're curious, but also for my followers who might also be wondering about it under the cut. Sorry, it's pretty much just me complaining haha

I took a month off I took 2 months to get the books printed I took a month to prepare my next comic and I took 2 months to write the rest of the series (I knew the character arcs I wanted, but not the time periods or mysteries!!!) I've been working on actual episodes since then

I had to take some time off because of some pretty extreme burnout due to the sheer amount of work it was to draw over 800 pages and write 6 complete stories in a year and a half... I was getting sick almost weekly due to the overwork, it was really really bad honestly. I was having to work 60+ hours every week just to keep up...

The nature of the comic itself is also difficult... Each of the arcs is a complete, self contained story which can be read (ideally) without context, and my arcs need to be about 10-13 episodes each... And since I have an exact number of episodes to work with, it's even harder.

It takes a ton of planning and a ton of refinement, and working week to week with no breaks I was forced to put out second or even first drafts, so I just wasn't happy with the work I was doing... And to do that for the rest of the series? I wouldn't be proud of the work I did.

Plus... To be entirely honest, webtoon has treated me quite badly IN MY OPINION... They deprioritized me before I launched (I had to beg for more promotion, I'm not exaggerating), they outright denied me the opportunity to even ask for a raise, I don't make any money on fast pass and they pay me less than my partner makes working at trader joes. My first editor left me completely hanging, my second editor (who I loved) was fired... And they told me I wouldn't get a third season before my first season even finished. So it was just repeatedly completely demoralizing.

I'm sorry it has taken so long, it'll have been 10 months by the time I come back. But I realized... I won't get promotion either way. I won't get more episodes either way. I won't get more money either way. So to finish everything, to make it feel good, to make it something I'm proud of, I chose to take longer to make it better.

I am fully aware I will lose a significant amount of my readership for this and it might genuinely affect my career moving forward. But it's what I had to do! So I'm sticking to my guns on it, and I'm confident long term it'll be worth it. It never could have been this good if I didn't take this much time.

[shadyvoidhologram]

I was laying in bed overthinking, as you do, and started to go on a depressive doom spiral. And then, to distract myself I started thinking about the things I like.

[Spoilers and some gross details incoming, you know what Mouthwashing is about]

So, eventually I started thinking about Curly being in a similar headspace as I was, laying down, incapable of doing anything, constantly in pain and hearing time and time again how quickly things are going to shit and that it's all your fault.

Him replaying his mistakes over and over on his head, imagining the many ways things could've gone a different way if only he had done something instead of ignoring the issues to "keep the peace".

Remembering every interaction that led to the accident, Anya's confession, his friends poorly disguised resentment, him ignoring and filtering details of his crew's mental state, her taking the gun, the notice, Jimmy.

Him being a coward and disguising his hate of confrontation with the guise of being a good friend.

And then comming back to reality, to is burning flesh. To the blood, shit and bile staining the bandages, robe and bed, to watching and hearing his friends suffer and die, unable to do anything.

When the kid dies, in the midst of all the emotional chaos, he feels some sick sense of relief knowing that probably Swansea will deal with both of them quickly and it'll be over at last.

Then Jimmy finds the gun.

And he can't help but laugh. He remembers the conversation they had and he cackles bitterly because not even in death can her wishes be respected. She trusted him and he failed her even after she was gone.

Soon enough it's just the two of them left.

Through muffled ears he hears Jimmy rambling, talking to himself, asking questions and answering right after, he sees him moving the bodies around. When Jimmy carries him from the infirmary to the common room table he's still as stone, not a sound leaves his mouth, he doesn't look at the bodies thrown on the chairs around the table, he doesn't even breathe.

But all of Jimmy's attention, hatred, idolatry, and envy are on him only. Eyes glossy, cut pieces of a one sided conversation and a tentative smile on his lips when he reaches for the slightly dented knife.

He screams until his lungs close and his throat burns. When he's fed parts of himself he cries and throws up until he is forced to swallow and keep it down.

He's dehidrated, half delirious from the blood loss and emotionally checked out when Jimmy picks him up and tells him they can still fix this, he knows what to do. That he's going home.

Sure, he thinks, he wants to go home.

When he's placed on the cryopod he just stares at Jimmy talk to himself at him some more, about being heroes and everything being all right now. Then he steps out of sight.

It's on the silence after the loud bang when his brain starts working again, he's completely and utterly alone on a crashed ship of a company that's closing it's doors, with a now depleted shipment that wasn't even important enough to guarantee a search party, and no way of fending for himself in the case of 20 years passing and no one coming, even less if the power gave out before that.

As the cryopod finally starts to cool, the few tears he has left fall from his remaining eye.

He hopes he doesn't wake up to see what happens next.

..ok see y'all when I wake up-

[crossbackpoke-check]

Why I Am Not Coming In To Work Today [abridged], Jess Zimmerman

part one | part two

[rotisseries]

rick riordan dickriders on here will be like "why are you complaining about the pjo tv show, go watch the movies and see what a bad adaptation really looks like" ok well listen to the musical watch it on youtube and see what a good adaptation looks like bitch. it can be done. as a fucking stage musical. what did that 15 million per episode do for disney that chris mccarell couldn't

[safyresky]

"work wife"???? But not actual wife??

LOL no not actual wife! Both the work wife and I have actual husbands instead 🤭🤭 And my husband is JUST as crazy as I am and WILL do farther daytrips like the absolute insane mans he is! Which is one of the MANY reasons I married him--his weirdness matches my weirdness 💖💖💖💖💖

As a fun fact, the craziest day trip/road trip we have done: we went to IKEA about two ish hours away. Came home, realized upon unloading new bedframe that he had misplaced his wallet somewhere. So what did we do?

WELL IKEA was closed but you bet your ass we got BACK in the car and drove BACK to the pit stop (an hour?? ish?? away??) that VERY night and checked the trash there and asked the people inside (who were sups friendly! They checked the tapes for us and everything!) if they'd seen it. They hadn't! So, we drove BACK home and the next day, after work, we yeeted ourselves into the car and drove BACK to ikea to see if they had it

AND THEY DID!

He was so relieved and then we had IKEA hot dogs for dinner, his treat bc he had his wallet again 🤭🤭🤭 (they are pretty good but costco ones I think deffs are better!)

BUT YEAH. My actual spouse is just as unhinged as I am and I love him about it 😍😍😍😍😍😍

[pollen]

gooooooood morning everyone :) happy thursday!!

[xxplastic-cubexx]

sorry if you've already mentioned but what (re?)ignited your love of comics/x-men/cherik? curious because there are so many different adaptations of them

i think im gonna speak for a few (or a lot of) people when i say that TL;DR the wolverine x deadpool movie that came out this summer is what pulled me back into comics and i COULD leave it there but i will go into excruciating and unnecessary detail instead because i love an origin story and i love oversharing.

under the cut tho because im nice sometimes (there's also wxdp doodles in here. if you want to see that)

ironically (and probably commonly), growing up i was more of an avengers kid. Kinda. Loosely <- binge watched the cartoons and movies and read copious amounts of comics and fics and i am hoarding fanart in my old dresser as we speak ok 'loosely' is a modest lie.

embarrassingly i remember getting into discus cause of captain america LMAO so yeah needless to say i was a Humble Fan- me joining my school's comic class/club didnt help either (shoutout to my teach from that she was the realest one out there for. A Multitude of reasons). she definitely is was inspires me to even draw still and make comics and i often think bout the tips i learned from her class tbh she was great

back to the movies t and comics tho, i got into em because my brother would offer to take me and that's how we'd hang out (i rarely saw movies in theaters and i even more rarely went anywhere as a teenager. still kinda like that today tbh ooops) and yk. it just snowballed after that.

my brother and i have always liked comics- he just more than me for a while (though he still very much loves comics and As We Know From My Posts we still talk about them whenever i see him To An Exhausting Degree)

durin then i was really into stony and i have a few surviving doodles i made but those are between me and god. and anyone who asks tbh LOL

'snap can you make this related to x-men again this is long' ok so fast forward to This Summer again I Still Don't Really See Movies but my brother offered to take me and this was the first time i'd actually seen an x-men movie in full

as a kid i only remember seeing the 'perfection' scene between erik and raven in first class while i was channel surfing. pretty sure i changed the channel after seeing mystique naked cause i was scared my parents would get mad at me if they caught me watching it LOL

BUT MOVING ON As A Kid i think it's also natural you'll sometimes watch 92 if it's on And I Did though evidently it didn't stick too hard (i do remember really liking beast and gambit though.... still do really): my knowledge of x-men was. INCREDIBLY sparse. like diabolically so so i didnt have too much expectations (aside from the fact i vaguely liked deadpool beforehand).

tbh i dont know why my bro never took me to see any of the x-men movies. it's not like he doesn't Also like x-men (90% sure nightcrawler's his favorite but my brother will be caught dead saying he has absolute favorites like that)- he owns a bitch load of deadpool comics/omnibus sets too (of which ive read over the years and reread this year) but Shrug moving on

Much Like Most Of The Internet i fell down the rabbit hole that way. i have some doodles i made a couple days after seeing WxDP that i now have an excuse to throw at all of you Look And Perceive

and so. As I Do. i got curious and told myself i'd binge watch all the x-men movies the week before i went back to school And Then I Did ft. My Brother Sometimes and then i said i'd binge watch all of '92 and And I Did That ft. My Brother Sometimes But Less So and now we're here. currently watching Evolution...

once i got to school i realized i lived near a comic shop and started getting into the comics that way (the first ones i got since going down this rabbit hole was Magneto Was Right!, The Resurrection of Magneto, and The Trial of Magneto. if you were curious !!!!! clearly i didnt care too much about context i just needed to see My Guy jelvejlkvj i have no regrets and Evidently ive read more since)

i'm pretty sure what dragged me into cherik specifically was the fact i saw a clip of The Famous ending to 92 where erik's aghast at the notion jean even has to question his love for charles. i think that was what officially had me refocus my lens on them: not a single poolverine thought after that LOL (all the cherik posting i saw on twitter definitely helped too but that was the nail in the coffin for any other interests i had: i was locked into cherik and x-men in general now)

that clip specifically, i was surprised at the fact they- frequently even- have the x-men franchise say erik loves charles and vice versa so bluntly. even if it's not meant to be romantic, i fear im just a fan of how casually the word's thrown around with them two and i got tender bout it all. Then Yk. i just live for the drama. the hilarity even. the sincerity .... they make me sick if i think of them too long so im gonna end it here

before i go tho ironically enough, the first x-men issue i owned was This one (story a this is that while stuck in some wacko dimension charles accidentally gets himself trapped in logan's mind while utilizing his astral projection. if you were curious). pretty sure i got it for free with another comic set i got years ago since our old comic shop loved to do that, but it's poetic aint it. maybe ill doodle something referencing it..

i should probably look into finishing this arc someday im Dummy curious to even know how it started and how it ends.....

[alchemiclee]

i know this has been said 473773474833 times by the kavetham/haikaveh shippers and probably even nonshippers, but i'll say it again. I finally finished the genshin summer event and did the little after quest in sumeru and.....every time kaveh is sneaking around trying not to be noticed coming out of alhaithams house it's just such a gay vibe. he's basically screaming "I can't be caught being gay in a homophobic society!" even if that's not what the game writers are *actually* saying. that's just how it comes off and they can't make it come off any other way. with hoyo's gay history, it makes me wonder if it's on purpose and all a cover-up to have a technically different reason for it so they can get away with it lmao but we will never know.

[seventh-district]

Could've left me just the way you found me, but you came and put your wings around me. You went out of your way, to fix what you didn't break.

This song is so incredibly Sam & Darlin' coded and no one can tell me otherwise.

[lots of lyrical analysis below the cut] [there's also a short little fanfic blurb of them stargazing down there too (this post got really out of hand lmao)]

For those not fully caught up, note that the following commentary contains various spoilers for Sam and Darlin's stories.

Note: Unfortunately this song is gendered, using the word 'girl' several times. Which sucks a little bit for immersion purposes, not only for keeping Darlin' gender-neutral, but also because I see this song as a duet between them, and Darlin' obviously wouldn't be addressing Sam with the word 'girl' either. So! As with most songs on their playlist, we're just gonna mentally omit any gendered terms we come across.

Side note: Frustratingly, this is one of those songs that didn't really even need to gender the subject in the first place. No part of the story or message is lost without it. But alas, many songs are like that, and so the playlist-makers of the world shall continue to suffer. [/lh]

Anyways, preamble's over. It's lyric time now yay!

Sam's Part

I was a ten-year train wreck

Technically for Sam I suppose it was 13 years, but ten is close enough (and 'ten' admittedly flows a lot better in the rhythm of the song than 'thirteen' would.) Anyways, we're not here to split hairs, (I have to remind myself), we're just here to point out similarities.

In Sam's Dec. '22 HBW, he says "For the last 13 years or so I haven't had to care too much about how I look. Seemed a little redundant after turnin', considerin' I didn't wanna be around much'a anybody anyway."

I think he's mentioned or alluded to that roughly 13 year period of time more than once, but that's the one I remember best so it's the example I'm using. There's still about 4 Sam audios I've yet to listen to as of making this post, so if I'm missing some Key Lore I'll edit this later. But for now, I don't think Sam has given many specifics on exactly how bad things got during that time. Luckily, 'train wreck' is a pretty broad and subjective term, so it easily covers any degree to which he may have fallen apart during those years.

It also feels like a very 'him' way of quickly brushing over the details of his past/his hurt, as he seems to tend to do with Darlin', (not all the time ofc but it's still something I've noticed) putting his own hurt on the backburner to prioritize and attend to theirs. Even outside of his dynamic with them, I think as a healer, it's something he learned to do. And now he does it with everyone. Put on a brave face, compartmentalize things and unpack them later, etc. I could go on and on but there'll be time for that in other posts I'm sure. For now, lets get back to the song at hand.

With a last-call longneck

Due to personal reasons, I've yet to decide if I want to HC him as having used alcohol as a coping mechanism during that time. I don't recall him having mentioned alcohol much, if at all, (maybe one mention of whiskey that I don't have time to find right now) so I don't think it's necessarily canon that he did, but it's certainly possible. My personal preferences aside, I'll admit it makes for some good additional angst. (And- self-indulgently- it makes some other songs on my playlist for them more fitting.) So, for the sake of this song, let's imagine that he did.

I was searchin', I'd been hurt real bad

This one feels pretty self-explanatory given what Alexis did, (and, if you wanna get even angstier with it, whatever his family did earlier on in his life) so there isn't much commentary to add on my end.

I HC that in spite of 'not wanting to be around anybody', he- like Darlin- still had a tiny part of himself buried deep down that was, in a way, 'searching' for someone to find solace in. (No this isn't me projecting onto them both haha what are you talking about-)

Movin' on, gettin' sidetracked One step forward and five back

This is generally applicable enough that I don't feel the need to give too much of a specific example. Anyone who's recovered or is recovering from trauma knows this non-linear, back-and-forth struggle well already, and I'm sure he was no stranger to it.

If I were to give some examples though, I could point to Darlin's (and subsequently, Sam's) encounter with Alexis at the summit, or the shit that Quinn dredged up about Fredrick and threw at Sam in the interrogation room. Those are both more recent examples and I imagine these lines of the song to be coming from a place of him prior to meeting Darlin', but still, they're some instances where I'm sure he felt like the past was pulling him back in. I'm sure that there's been many throughout those 13 years that we were never witness to.

Not your fault, I was scared to fall

This line reminds me of their 'Cuddles and Confessions' audio. I don't think he ever explicitly said he was 'scared' per se, so afaik there's no specific line I can quote, but in that and every audio prior, he was obviously hesitant to admit, perhaps even to himself, that he was gradually falling for them. Even after the initial confession, there's certain limits of his (e.g. biting) that he carries for far longer, and some that I (and others) HC that he'll carry forever. So this line feels to me like him reassuring Darlin' that his reluctance isn't the fault of them, but his past.

Darlin's Part

You were the star in the pitch black Shine the way on the way back

We don't have any canon instances of them comparing Sam to a star, but I can see it being something they'd say (perhaps less poetically, but the sentiment would be there) one night while laying up on their roof watching the stars with him. Maybe they're dead-tired, talking nonsense with lidded eyes at the end of a long day, fighting sleep in favor of more time spent with him.

"What- what're you pointin' at Darlin'?"

Their hazy focus is trained on the brightest star visible in their line of sight, arm stretched out to the sky above them. "That really bright one, to the... to the left."

Sam does his best to follow their less-than-specific directions of 'to the left', their pointed finger doing little to help given the difference in perspective. Luckily, after all these years, he knows this stretch of night sky like the back of his hand, so it isn't hard to locate the brightest one. Ghosting his fingers up along their arm, he takes their hand in his and brings it back down to earth. "Okay, yeah, I see it now. What about it though?"

"That's you." They say, matter-of-factly.

"That's me?" He questions, humor in his tone.

"Mhm." They nod with finality, blinking slow.

Sam considers the odd statement for a moment before gently correcting them. "I'm uh, I'm pretty sure that's Sirius, actually."

They scoff. "I am being serious."

Sam stifles a laugh into their hair. "No- no I mean- like... what's another name for it... Oh! It's also called the Dog Star."

"C'mon Sam, at least call it the Wolf Star if you're trying to turn this around on me..."

He shakes his head and readies himself to explain further, but they cut him off before he can start. "But no- no, this one isn't about me. That's you."

He decides to play along, finding something endearing in their overtired nonsense. "Okay... then would'ja be so kind as to explain to this confused old man just how, or why that star is me?"

Their frown is audible in their voice as they latch onto the wrong part of his sentence. "You're not old, Sam. ...Do I need to tell Asher to kick the jokes down a notch?"

He smiles at their over-protectivity. "There'll be no need for that, now. Was just a joke, darlin', I promise."

They huff, but thankfully shift focus back to the prior topic. "It's... I dunno. It's just you, Sam. It's... bright. Light. Something warm, out there in the cold dark. Standing out amongst all the rest. Calling to me, stealing my attention. I... I didn't come out here looking for it, but there it is. ...There you were. In the dark. The only bright thing I'd seen in... fuck, in years. Years of chasing fleeting warmth, tripping over myself in the pitch black, falling into... places 'n people I shouldn't have. You were the light in that darkness. Even there, surrounded by the ghost of him. You outshone it. Your warmth didn't hurt. I didn't have to squint when I looked at you. You weren't the blinding sun. You were the brightest star I'd ever seen. You guided me back home."

In the back of their mind, they recall something they once heard, something about light, and time, and distance. Space. Something about... how you can see a star that's already burnt out, because it's light hasn't reached earth yet. The ghost of a star that's already died. Only still perceptible thanks to time, and distance.

They remember Sam's words, once whispered to them on this very roof.

"Whatever your choice is... I'm not gonna live forever. I made that decision a long time ago."

They think about dead stars.

They think about time.

"...-lin'? Darlin'?" Sam's calloused hand slides up their forearm, pulling them out of their thoughts. "There you are. Think I lost ya' for a minute there... you good?"

They look up at Sam, concern creasing his features, shadows cast across his face from the light of the dying stars above him.

They reach out, pulling him down into them. Burying their face into his collar, Sam's concern grows when he feels it saturate with tears. A human might struggle to hear their words, muffled against the thick fabric, but his hearing catches it just fine.

"Don't burn out too quick. Please. I still need you here. I don't- I don't wanna be left in the dark again. Please, please Sam. Don't leave me here. I'm not selfish enough to ask you for forever, but please. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet."

.......Whoopsies! Really, genuinely didn't mean to improv an entire scene there, good god. Also didn't mean to swerve hard into angst at the end but uh. that's what came out! so I'm rolling with it lmao. Aaanyways let's move on, it's getting late and this is a song analysis post, not a fic.

Out of nowhere, answered all my prayers

'Out of nowhere' reminds me of Sam's words from the same HBW video I referenced earlier. "You came into my life like a damn wreckin' ball. There was no preparing for that, clothing or otherwise." While those were Sam's words, not Darlin's, I still feel like they feel similarly to how suddenly Sam came into their life as well. (Not in a bad way, mind you!)

[the significance of 'answered all my prayers' edges into my own personal more headcanon-y/personal/OC-ified Darlin' territory, so we can just gloss over this one for the sake of at least attempting to keep this more universally applicable]

Picked up the towel that I threw in Took in a heart that was ruined

Again, largely self-explanatory I feel. (*proceeds to explain anyways*) I imagine that Darlin' was at the point of throwing in the towel, hellbent on a solo-mission to find Quinn regardless of the danger it posed to them. I doubt they were looking toward the future anymore, (to reference Sam,) fully willing to throw themself at their problems until they really did break.

The specific use of 'ruined' hits hard here, because after everything they went through with Quinn, and especially after he recounted it all to Sam in that interrogation room, I imagine that they really, truly did feel ruined.

Showed me the past ain't a tattoo Loved me even when you didn't have to

These lines in particular make me sick with emotion every time I hear this song, because I feel like they hit the nail on the head for how Darlin' feels.

I'll be here citing various quotes all night that I feel showcase that sentiment, but we don't have time for that! So instead I'm just pointing to the entirety of 'Quinn's Aftermath' video, and leaving you with this single quote from it.

"Everything that he said reflects nothin' on you, and everything on him."

Equally Applicable Lines

And I don't know why Why you saw something in me, baby But you saw right through All the pain, and you came and saved me Yeah, I know you didn't leave me lonely Weren't the one that put the heartbreak on me Picked up the pieces It wasn't the mess that you made Could've left me just the way you found me But you came and put your wings around me You went out of your way To fix what you didn't break

Again, I think these lines are all pretty self-explanatory, and are just as accurate coming from either one of them. To me, at least, their entire dynamic is that they saved each other, in their own ways.

(But I will admit, the final verses about 'going out of your way to fix what you didn't break' are definitely conjuring up memories of Sam in the early days, literally going out of his way to visit and heal Darlin' after their fight with the two vamps. In general, his continued/repeated healing of them after they once again hurt themselves is the very literal definition of fixing what he didn't break.

But! While we may have more blatant examples of Sam being 'the fixer' so to speak, I think he'd argue that Darlin' has done plenty fixing of their own. Physical wounds aren't the only things that need healing, after all.)

-------

[shameless self-promo of my Sam & Darlin' playlist for those few of u interested enough to make it to the very end of this wall of text. if u liked this then u might like some of the other songs on there soooo maybe go check it out and maybe perhaps give it a follow so i can get a little serotonin boost or dopamine or whatever the chemical is that's released when Number Go Up. ...okay that's it i hope u enjoyed my fixation-induced ramblings! thank u and goodnight]

[theclearblue]

I'm gonna get into a brawl with my mother one day don't be surprised when I get on the news

[deepseawave]

obsessed w the tags on ur last reblog

Omgg, thank you haha, it was a quality post so I just had to appreciate it in full force 😂❤️

Can‘t believe someone would actually enjoy my yapping :,D

[lordisitmine]

THOUGH THE NIGHT BE DARK, CHAPTER 14: LIES OF OMISSION

AO3 | FicFan

Summary:

It was then that Lizzy became fully aware of the ill-advised impulsivity of what she had done. Somehow, she had not fully expected to be believed, and now that she was, there was no way out of saying what she had ostensibly wanted so badly to say. And now, she realised with some dismay, she had not decided just what she wanted to say in the first place.

Chapter Warnings: Explicit Sexual Content Chapter Word Count: approx. 13,700 words

[bananasofthorns]

tell me about your worst guy

ok a summary of the campaign and what has happened so far, as quick as I can. the campaign is based on the life series started by Grian Minecraft (the irl guy) - tldr all the PCs plus a handful of NPCs are in a death game (kind of think the hunger games in terms of how much space they have. but add minecraft mechanics) and they each have a limited amount of lives; once they reach their last life (red), they get to/have to start killing people. last person standing is the winner. to make things more silly goofy, there is also the boogeyman mechanic, where at least one person per session is chosen to be the "boogeyman" and they have to kill another player or else lose all but their last life at the end of the session.

there are also these beings called the watchers. if you don't know what they are, think angels who love watching people Go Through It in these life games. Aphim is a watcher, but a disgraced one - this game is his last chance to redeem himself. so he NEEDS to win. additionally, he has been told that he has to kill Beau, an NPC who has been in the games previously, was formerly a watcher (which Aphim. dubiously knows in canon? I don't remember), and is currently trying to stop the games from continuing. also he and Aphim are uh. how do I say this. homosexual. Beau is trying to seduce Aphim away from the watchers and Aphim has no fucking clue how to feel about it because he has never been flirted with before. especially not by a hot man. anyway

something you need to know about Aphim is that his normal form, his watcher form, is nowhere near human. he is towering and winged and has far too many eyes and a few too many joints and when he does not need a contained physical form he does not really have one. imagine a desolate, snowy forest of birch. he is the trees and their eye-like knots and the blanket of snow and the spaces between and the void above and the distant stars. that is Who He Is. but for the game he has to be contained in a human form and he Hates It. there is nothing he loathes more. it's like gender dysphoria but for what kind of thing he is. the only thing he loathes nearly as much is the thought of losing his power and autonomy, which is what will happen if he fails the watchers.

and every time he fails to kill Beau, even though he's not red yet and so by the rules of the watchers' game can't yet kill Beau, the watchers threaten his wings. which he obviously is not a huge fan of. so even though he is very intrigued by Beau and what Beau's trying to tell him, the selfishness will always win out.

cut to the most recent session. boogeyman is rolled. the gang [Aphim, Beau, Orla (NPC), Carwyn (Mura's PC), and Apate (Laurie's PC) wakes up to find Synne (NPC who is someone from the real world isekaied into the game. funny as hell) gone. they go to look for Synne. Synne comes out of the bushes trying to attack Beau; Apate and Aphim (who, by the way, hate each other so bad - Apate has a lot of watcher trauma to work through and Aphim just finds her annoying) notice first. Apate (who has also latched onto Beau as a way out of her Literal Trauma Cycle) goes straight to trying to attack Synne. Aphim disarms Synne.

meanwhile, halfway across the map, Arsené (Ophelia's PC) and Achlys (Chrys's PC) both notice a Very Bad Vibe Shift in, like, the fabric of the universe. something is about to go so horribly wrong.

Synne lunges for Beau's throat but Orla blocks Synne; Beau briefly restrains Synne. the moment they touch, Aphim is hit with a wash of pain so bad his entire body just goes numb. it's the feeling he gets when the watchers summon him from the game to talk to him but far, far worse.

which is the bigger threat right now? Synne or Beau?

who is the subject every time the watchers summon him?

he attacks Beau.

obviously, Orla and Apate do not take kindly to this. in fact, they end up killing him about it LMAO (also, side note. all Beau did was push the axe further in. which was INSANE) (he didn't die; Arsené, Achlys, and their allies showed up and helped him). so he's on his second to last life right now

before he respawned, he had a vision where aforementioned Grian Minecraft (the character, this time) (he is also a former watcher) went hey bud. maybe think about what you really want. the watchers will fuck you up. and Aphim (digging his teeth into his monstrousness so hard it'll hurt) basically went hm. no 💛

and then he was also briefly back in the white space where the watchers summon him to talk. and all he felt was their towering presences and disappointment. and then he respawned. so obviously he is going to be so normal about all of this next session,

[kinnbig]

oh my god, tell us more (about the arm tankhun fake dating fic in your head), please! :D

OKAY so the concept is. about 6 months post-canon, the main and minor families are invited to the destination wedding of one of their allies from a hugely powerful mafia family - it's a few nights staying on a private tropical island, and as a respect/trust/hospitality thing, it would be considered really inappropriate for guests to bring more than one or two bodyguards per group.

so Tankhun is like “well then obviously I can’t go?” because while he is now much better at leaving the house, he’s not quite ‘get on a plane and fly to a random island for several days of intense socialisation with incredibly dangerous near-strangers without a single Trusted Bodyguard’ levels of better.

he’s talking to Chay about it and Chay's like “yeah, it's kind of fucked up that everyone gets a +1 but not a bodyguard. how would anyone even know if your +1 was your bodyguard?!” and Tankhun's like “.....Chay you're a genius. Arm, I need you to be my wedding date.”

commence the fake dating shenanigans! they ‘reveal’ their secret, long-term relationship to the entire family, and then they’ve got to pretend to be a couple in front of everyone while Arm actually works as Tankhun’s bodyguard. as the only other person who knows their relationship isn’t real, Chay is helping to mastermind the entire operation. what Chay also knows is that Khun does actually have very real and Not Fake feelings for Arm - and you can be sure he’s going to be a menace about it.

luckily, Khun is being just as much of a menace in return - the wedding is the first time Kim and Chay have been in the same room since… well, everything, and Tankhun has watched them both silently pine for each other for long enough. background KimChay reconciliation era my beloved!

and so the usual fake dating antics ensue! lots of pining… plenty of acting out intimacy while wishing it was genuine… Chay putting them in so many Situations… lines slowly blurring between what is part of the act and what is real… and. obviously. there was only one bed.

🥰 thank u so much for indulging me, i love talking about blorbos from my shows and my silly story ideas for them! i came up with this with @aikinn and @thewholedamnboulangerie during some kind of group astral plane projection, which makes it especially delicious as they always have the best and most objectively correct Tankhun takes 💪

my brain is currently on 24/7 armtankhun lockdown soooo if u have thoughts about Them… pls… i would like to eat them…