#this post can take you through a whole range of COMPLETELY different emotions and make you laugh hard at the end

[maireyart]

Sakumo and Obito's Parents* Live AU (7 artworks + drabble)

Team Minato Week Day 3: Any AU. It's not one of the suggested ones, but something I've been thinking about too much :3 @teamminatoweek

Kakashi and Obito prevent the terrible thing (they've noticed something has been really wrong with Sakumo). Sakumo, having seen Kakashi's horrified face, gets horrified himself at what he was about to do — not to himself — but to his son, and feels remorse about having almost abandoned his son.

2. After the Kannabi mission, Minato writes one of the most difficult reports in his career. He has to face the parents: Obito's dad and Sakumo. Imagine the moment team Minato returns to the village, but without Obito. Obito's parents, as well as Sakumo, meet them and realize that their son has not returned. Kakashi looks them in the eye and stretches a trembling hand with the goggles in it; they take them, shocked, and feel the sudden dark urge to throw them into something. Or at somebody. The panic. They feel like they're on the edge of a precipice, but a tiny hope that Obito might still be alive — just... lost... just... still breathing — is still there. But then it gets crushed by a detailed report from the team. The eye. Obito's eye. Their son's eye is looking at them from Kakashi's eyesocket, and they don't know what to think. Sakumo doesn't, either. They aren't allowed to look for the body immediately because of secret military operations still going on in the area. They grieve and wait. Soon they get the permission to start their search; grimly, they crush a rock after a rock to get to the bottom, and find… the blood… ninja weapons… pieces of his clothing... Obito's headband… But! NO BODY. And again Obito's parents feel shattered. Did the enemy ninja steal his body? Plucked out the remaining eye? Dissected him? What did they do to the corpse of their poor boy? Obito's parents are too late! Too late… And more weeks of grief and pain ensue. Until Kakashi starts seeing something with his eye. Some cave… After it’s happened a few times, he tells Rin, and she persuades him to talk to Obito's parents.

3. Thanks to Rin, Kakashi approaches Obito's mom and asks her a few questions about the Sharingan. He has to retell her everything again, but in more detail. Kakashi says that he's been seeing something from time to time, but doesn't know what it is... Obito's mom is puzzled, but suddenly a new tiny flicker of hope springs up in the darkness they've been living in for the past few months.

4. Eventually, Obito's parents, Sakumo, and Kakashi find Obito in barely-alive Madara's lair. Black Zetsu escapes, but there is somebody who can capture him and seal him off: Kushina.

5. Kushina loves her secret mission.

6. Jounin Obito, with his parents. Way later :3 *** And if you've read till this point, I have a little drabble for you for dessert about kid Obito getting to know Sakumo. Big thank you to @professor-of-naruto for fixing my mistakes & all the amazing support!!! 💕 💕 💕 

***

On warm days like this, Obito loved wandering around in the village and enjoying the lulling buzz of life. Quite often, these walks resulted in curious encounters and even adventures, and today seemed to be the case too. On the hill near the edge of Konoha park sat a man, staring somewhat sadly at the erratic mess of Konoha rooftops and low afternoon clouds, speckled with gold and pink. It was a man Obito had seen from a distance multiple times, but had never had the guts to approach.

Hatake Sakumo had somehow always looked both rugged and elven at the same time. He was tall and wiry, face sun-tanned, vigor emanating from his broad shoulders and spiky silver ponytail, but his eyes were jaded and thoughtful – too many shadows hiding there. There was a certain sternness about the lines on either side of his mouth, but the most gentle and peaceful smile Obito had ever seen offset the rough look of his face. And now, this very smile and a small nod of acknowledgement worked like a magnetic pull on the boy. Enchanted, he came up to the man and sat down nearby.

Kakashi’s father returned to silent contemplation, and Obito bent his eyes to the ground. That man wasn’t a talkative one, pretty much like his son, but did Obito want to know more about him! Sakumo was probably the only person in the whole world who could elicit a huge, brilliant smile from Kakashi. Not that Obito had actually seen that smile (damn mask!), only the crinkled eyes, but more than once, he’d heard their jolly voices and laughter when the pair of them were chatting about the events of the day.

“Hatake-san, nice to meet you. I’m Uchiha Obito,” he began formally, heart pounding in his chest.

Having pulled himself out of his thoughts, Sakumo cocked his head and gave him another serene and endearing smile. “Obito-kun, huh? You’re Kakashi’s friend, right? I’ve seen you playing together.”

“Um... More like a classmate, I guess?” A classmate who wanted to be his friend. Deep down. Probably.

“I’ve heard a lot about you from my son.”

“You have?” Obito’s eyes grew wide, radiating shock and wonder. Of all the things Kakashi and Sakumo could be discussing... Him? Oh, wait. Kakashi had probably been describing to his dad all those stupid situations that involved Obito, or something... They could be funny. In hindsight. Mortified, he hung his head, digging his fingers into the soft grass. So he knows... knows I’m a disaster... knows that I’m nothing like Kakashi…

“He often grumbles about a certain obstinate Uchiha boy who won’t ever leave him in peace. But I can also see how excited he is, looking forward to the fun that every day with you brings.” Suddenly Sakumo laughed, voice deep and resonant. “But around you my little hedgehog is a little standoffish, isn’t he?” (Obito’s ears perked up: A diminutive? For Kakashi? Outlandish). “I can be your friend instead.”

“Is it... Is it okay?” Obito mumbled, still feeling awkward.

“Of course.”

“Hatake-san… Why is Kakashi such a ‘hedgehog’?”

“Sometimes people treat trivial things seriously, and brush serious things off...” he said distantly. “I wish he saw that someday...”

“What are the serious things?” Obito was puzzled. “Just so that I won’t brush them off.”

“I have a feeling you already know,” he said with a playful twinkle in his eyes and ruffled Obito’s hair. “Maybe one day you’ll teach Kakashi a thing or two. If I fail.”

“What do you mean if you fail?!” Obito almost choked. “He listens to no one but you, Hatake-san! And I – I feel like I’m just always getting in the way. He doesn’t care about whatever I say!”

“I don’t think so, Obito-kun.”

“How do you know?”

“If he doesn’t care, then why is he watching us right now and listening to our conversation?”

“What?” Obito looked around nervously. He might have spied on Kakashi… but the other way around? What?!

“Sorry, Kakashi, but you have to come out,” Sakumo called. “I know you’re there.”

And indeed, Kakashi jumped off one of the trees, looking grumpy. “I have to make it clear that I am not a hedgehog,” was all he managed in his red-eared embarrassment. ***

@cool-thymus and I have more Sakumo and the kids art content (Hedgehog Special) 🦔

And if you're STILL here, feast your eyes on the wacky spin-off of the grimdark Kannabi report art (@poetrywise, you absolutely killed me with the description xD):

DJ Minato's psychedelic tunes 😁 *Obito's parents are referenced from the sole photo Obito had on his board both in the manga and anime.

*Obidad's earring is @quintilli0n's headcanon that I genuinely love with all my heart 😁

[aadmelioraa]

Hi! I was just wondering, what is the difference for you between the Scrivener categories you use? What makes a certain section redrafted vs revised vs punched up vs polished? Thank you!

Hey!! I am more than happy to elaborate on that post. Here are the scene (or chapter) draft categories I use via the "Label" function in Scrivener, and what each category means to me:

To Write. Any scene that I haven't fully drafted, ranging from an idea in my head to a few bullet points to a scene that doesn't yet have a beginning, middle, and end. Lots of ellipses and all caps notes to myself [ADD CONVERSATION WHERE X AND Y ARGUE ABOUT DINNER PLANS] at this stage. I am a planner-pantser hybrid—I usually start writing without a real outline, and then create and reshape my outline as I continue writing new scenes, the outline evolves as my draft evolves and vice versa. 

Drafted. I have written a full version of the scene. It has a beginning, middle, and end. I have hit all the major points I want to hit. It's messy, but it's on the page. These scenes comprise the Rough Draft.

Redrafted. At this stage, I follow Matt Bell's "Rewrite Don't Revise" advice in Refuse to Be Done (highly recommend this craft book!). Once I have a Rough Draft version of the project (the entire book has a beginning, middle, end, and enough essential connective tissue scenes to prop it up), I print that off* and open a fresh Scrivener file. I hold myself to Matt Bell's no copying and pasting rule, and it's honestly been a game changer mentality for me. I refer to my Rough Draft and my Revision Plan Outline as I create a new draft that is both leaner and more fleshed out as needed. The Revision Plan Outline is the roadmap of the book I wrote (the Rough Draft) spliced with a roadmap of the book I want to write, including new scenes, stronger versions of the scenes I already have, and notes about what needs to be cut. *This is probably obvious, but you don't need to work from a printed copy, you can open your Rough Draft doc side by side with a blank doc if that is more your speed. The important thing is to start with a blank document rather than making revisions to your Rough Draft. It might sound insane, but I've found that it allows me to let go of what I would otherwise struggle to cut, and opens me up creatively to write new material.

Revised. Once I have the fresh, stronger, more intentional version of my scene, I go through and check that it's doing what I need it to do in terms of character work and plot points. It's not only a complete scene in that it begins and ends where I want it to, it's also functioning as part of a whole. 

Punched Up. This is my favorite draft stage in most ways, I just find it really fun and satisfying. My goals are to make sure that the tension is properly threaded, that the emotional beats are landing how and where they need to, that the humor is working, that each character's voice is coming through, that my language is vivid and interesting. 

Polished. Here I am making final cuts and changes, taking things at a line level and evaluating individual word choice. Nitpick city, but ideally in a productive way.

Right now in my current WIP I have an array of scenes at every level in a single Scrivener file. Most of them are Redrafted or above (I already completed a Rough Draft, printed it off, and am working from that and my Revision Plan Outline to create a new version of the book) but there are plenty of scenes in my Revision Plan that didn't exist in the Rough Draft. I will once again shout out @bettsfic and her invaluable developmental insights, you can check out her substack here and read more about her services here.

Anyway, this is what works for me, it definitely won't work for everyone, but hopefully you find something useful here! I will note that you can use the Scrivener "Draft Status" category to function in a similar way as the "Label" category, allowing you to use "Label" to denote POV or something else. Labels are visible in the sidebar (you can find options under "View," and Draft Status shows up in the corkboard view (it's stamped over the notecard for each scene if you select that option).

[noivoom]

AAAAA couldn’t stop thinking about yesterday’s episode. There was a lot to unpack and others went over the Big Main Things better than I can so I just wanted to share some of my thoughts on a couple of other things

incoherent ramble time

First of all, I think we all noticed the Computer’s sudden change of attitude. What it said to Sun at the end about the Old Moon being gone and needing to accept that was SO INTERESTING. Just… the WAY it spoke, slowly and almost hesitantly, as if it was just coming to those realisations itself. It’s constantly been comparing Moon to his old self, behaving like they’re still the same, treating him with more and more snark as if actively trying to get him to act “correctly”. Forcing him to work under pressure, treating taking Sun off the “subject list” like a joke, ramping up its attitude... surely it’ll work eventually, right? He’ll start acting like his old self in no time, they just have to keep pushing. It almost seemed frustrated that Moon constantly refused to. Because Moon isn’t the same person anymore. He hasn’t been the same person since the day he woke up.

All of the Old Moon’s actions, his anger and distance and defensiveness, it all stemmed from the fear and trauma of spending most of his life trapped in someone else’s body while also dealing with the kill code (has anyone else ever thought about how terrifying the first moments of his existence would’ve been?? Stuck helplessly in the head of someone who doesn’t even know he’s there, he doesn’t know why and all he can do is lash out in anger because it’s not fair and I have A LOT of feelings about this but that’s for a different post entirely).

New Moon didn’t have that. Sure things were far from perfect with Eclipse and everything, but he had a family. Sun was there to tell him what’s going on, and Earth to teach him good habits. Sure, he has a similar personality, same sense of humour, similar reactions when mad (meeting Banban in VRchat and that one Roblox maze, anyone?), but his base personality only goes so far. He hasn’t learned the same behaviours. He’s a different person now.

(… where was I going with this? RIGHT THE COMPUTER.)

I always thought that maybe the Computer was suddenly being an ass because it didn’t know how to deal with Moon’s reset. It wasn’t really created with that kind of emotional range in mind, and it’s never had to deal with something like this before. This whole time the Computer’s been clinging to the Old Moon, whether in some kind of grief or denial it’s been refusing to process. But I think what Moon said to Sun, “you refuse to think I can be different,” made it FINALLY realise that Old Moon and New Moon aren’t the same, and only when talking to Sun did it start to actually accept the fact. Again, the way it spoke then... it really felt like just as significant a moment character-wise for the Computer as it was for Moon.

Maybe it’s going to be more empathetic from now on. OR I’m completely wrong about all this and it goes back to it’s regularly scheduled dickishness in a few episodes, that’s possible too lol—

I can’t help but wonder how long Moon’s been sitting on this, though? He cares about Sun so much, he’s been trying so hard to help and prove he’s different, but it must still hurt that he’s receiving the fallout of actions he doesn’t even remember. He only knows what happened second-hand through what little Sun tells him and a freaking youtube channel of all things; he doesn’t understand why the Old Moon did the things he did. They’re quite literally different people at this point. And he knows Sun’s struggling, knows Sun has every right to feel this way, but he can’t help if Sun doesn’t let him. He’s been trying so hard to prove that he won’t treat Sun like the Old Moon did, he doesn’t WANT to hurt him like that, ever, but after finding out Sun lied to him, it must feel like he’s been making no progress at all. How long has this been festering in his mind? An outburst like that doesn’t just happen. It wouldn’t help that Earth is the only one who never knew the Old Moon, and thus doesn’t have any expectations of how he should act outside of how he is now. Not to mention the Star still affecting the rest of the Pizzaplex. How long has he felt trapped by the shadow of his predecessor?

Another thing I’ve noticed is the whole… “giving more attention to Moon’s problems” thing. For most of the show, Sun’s issues have been largely ignored, brushed off, or relegated to a “one-time issue that’s been resolved”. Because this is Sun, he’s the happy one, he always bounces back, he’s always fine in the end! Right? I’m so glad he’s been having the spotlight recently, he absolutely deserves it and needs to have his issues addressed. But something that occurred to me after this episode is that that same issue has been threatening to repeat itself, just in the opposite direction. Because Moon’s fine now, he doesn’t remember any of his trauma, he’s all relaxed and goofy so there’s no need to worry! Something that’s been rather prevalent in this show is cycles. Moon hurting Sun and apologising, only to slowly start falling back into the same behaviours that caused the issue in the first place. Sun screws up, Moon fixes it, Sun wants to be useful and does something else that results in more problems. One brother starts spiralling, the other spirals because of it. THE TRUCK LOAD OF MISCOMMUNICATION. Sun’s mental issues certainly are more immediately concerning (for obvious reasons), but the last thing we need is yet another cycle of one brother’s issues overshadowing the others. If anything, this is actually the perfect opportunity for them to break out of this particular cycle before it can even get started, as well as the communication issues everyone’s been talking about. They both have their own issues, and sometimes they clash in the worst ways (as we saw frequently in the past), but neither of them should invalidate the other. This is their chance for both of them to start putting things right.

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

Hi. I'm just curious. Maybe You can explain it or telle.how it works!? I have no idea...

There is a thing with new blogs or blogs that are not 100% arcana related that make really nice fan arts or headcanons or memes that are totally lacking in likes and reblogs and then some posts just randomly hit 200 hearts in one day. Does it have something to do withcreator past on Tumblr or there are some unwritten rules or it's just magic of followers and users not checking the arcana tag in main searching bar ? Because sometimes I see good content (or something that looks nice for me) and I don't know if I should like or reblog it because there moght be a secret thing a untold story of person x being problematic in past or something and no one tell others or it's just accidental lottery of what will be enjoyed by mass or what will stay in shadows? Please I'm sometimes literally afraid of liking something if main popular blogs don't attest it before me as nice or safe.

An Arcana Brainrot Essay

Hiya friend!

I get where you're coming from, and to be completely honest, this is something I struggle with a lot in fandom spaces too. I'm going to go ahead and write my little (700 word) essay response in hopes that you find something useful here. I don't have all the answers, but I do have a few tips that have helped me. :)

(You can skip straight to the bold part for my older sibling thoughts on toxic fandom spaces)

About the random posts blowing up, tumblr as a platform works differently from other social medias in that it doesn't really have an algorithm. You encounter new content mostly through what the blogs you follow post/reblog and through the tags you follow. Don't feel weird about checking the tags too often, I scroll through the Arcana's tag at least four times a day because I like to obsess like that. ^.^

Newer blogs also won't have their posts show up until they've been posting regularly for some time (I think it took mine two weeks), and then there's factors like blaze and different posting times to consider. It's not weird to engage with something that has very few likes. It most probably just means that other people haven't had the chance to see it.

About problematic creators and the toxic side of fandoms:

One of the special things about being part of a fandom is sharing an emotional investment in the same content with a whole group of people. Fictional characters, situations, and stories have a capacity to speak to us from inside our imaginations and emotions in a way that most real people can't. It's what fuels such a deep attachment to the content we enjoy together.

It's also why seeing content that you find problematic or maybe just don't vibe with can feel so upsetting. It's easy for creators to say "if you don't like it, scroll past," but that can be hard to do when it concerns a character you're deeply invested in. It takes a decent amount of emotional maturity to agree to disagree with someone's opinions or viewpoints when it's about something that's personally impactful.

The way people follow through on that really ranges. Some people like characters that make them feel safe or comforted, so they stick to the parts of the fandom that focus on canon-typical things and don't delve too much into personal opinions and interpretations. Other people really benefit from using characters and dynamics they relate to to unpack certain things, and that's where you'll find a lot more opinionated discourse. And where you find opinions, you'll find disagreement, and when that disagreement concerns emotionally charged subjects, things can get heated and hurtful.

My point is that different types of content engage different types of conversations. Feeling fear or anxiety around which conversations you find yourself in is completely valid, especially when you're not sure who you're listening or talking to. I have two pieces of advice for this:

First, choose wisdom over fear. Make wise choices. If you see something you really like, don't engage with it mindlessly. Think about what you're looking at and recognize what it means to you, and then any engagement that comes of that is a decision you can grow from. If someone asks you later, "why did you like this?" you'll have a good reason, even if it wasn't well informed.

Second, know what you're looking for. All fandoms have toxic and problematic sides, just like how all people have toxic and problematic sides. What makes a difference is what you choose to do with it.

When you want to know if something is good but you're not in a position to judge it, take a look at the space around it. Take a look at the effect it has on other people. Who would feel welcome on this page? Who wouldn't? Who would feel respected by this creator? Who wouldn't? Why is that?

This sounds like a lot of work to do when all you want is to enjoy something you love with other people who love it too. For what it's worth, it gets easier as your brain builds these thought habits. You'll find your space and your people in good time. That's what fandom is really all about in the first place!

If you can't find a logical reason but something or someone just gives you the ick, trust your gut.

Even when you see something that hurts your connection to a character or story you're invested in, learn how to step away.

If you find something new and you're not sure what to think, keep your mind open and engaged.

And finally, be ready to make mistakes. Be ready for the creators you admire to make mistakes. Learn how to forgive yourself, and you'll find that forgiving others comes a little bit more easily too.

Cheers friend, and may you find every good thing you're looking for!

- brainrot

[mylittleredgirl]

i just had a thought about why the internet is, for me personally, eroding my capacity to disagree with people.

i recently had a longterm mutual post a few things about how much they personally hate a character i love, and while that's cool and i support it and whatever, my instant emotional response was something i would translate as "i shouldn't have to see this."

without fully realizing it, i'm sitting there evaluating our whole association based on their totally non-rude, from-their-own-perspective opinion about one of many different interests we have in common.

i grew up in a small town (where i now live again). my schools growing up ranged from a one-room-schoolhouse with 1-3 kids per grade up to 60 kids per grade in high school. to have any friends or social interaction at all, i had to ferret out things in common with kids who hated most of what i liked (and hated most things i am, but that's another story). if someone watched the same tv show as i did, even if they hated my favorite character, i would be over the moon. i didn't stay in touch with most of those people when i moved away, but i valued those friends while i had them, and ignoring things i didn't like about people and still hanging out when we had nothing in common is a pretty useful skill to have.

but the internet is the opposite of that school. some of it is that people are essentially or literally faceless, and there are no real consequences for vanishing from their follower list, but i think there's something about how there are effectively infinite people to interact with.

on any given topic, there will be someone on the world wide web who completely agrees with me. if that person changes their mind, there will be someone else. obviously i will put in some effort to overlook differences when it comes to people who i already have personal relationships with, but the big big sea of the internet makes acquaintances replaceable.

and in the real world, most of our human interactions are acquaintances. (i'm american, so i call them "friends" as soon as i learn their last names and have one single positive interaction with them, but you know what i mean.) most friendships start as casual acquaintances, and end up that way again if you don't put effort into nurturing them.

and like, sure, i could ask this blogger "can you tag your dislike of this fictional character so i never have to see it," and that's great for tumblr, but it's kind of a weird thing that we have that ability. it's weird that i would have the desire to curate an illusion that everyone i interact with completely agrees with me on such a granular level, about anything that's emotionally important to me, because seeing evidence that they don't upsets me.

i wonder what that's doing to me on a broader level. i think i'm less willing to put effort into forging and maintaining three-dimensional friendships when they involve compromise (like, i don't like going to movies, but that's my coworker's main hobby and she invites me. and i always say thank you but no, because i don't like going to movies, but if i went, it would help build a friendship with a nice person, and we could still be friends who go to the movies whenever we stop working at the same place). i have a harder time overlooking differences of opinion than i used to and am more likely to avoid people and let friendships die rather than negotiate a way through those differences. i have less tolerance all around for awkward conversations.

and i don't always feel the immediate consequences of any of that, because in the short term, i can replace some of those in-person social interactions with the zillion people on the internet who agree with me about things like television characters, for as long as they do agree with me.

(i want to add, in case anyone for some reason takes this as public-facing advice: you should unfollow and block blogs that upset you, because literally everyone's life on here is better for it. tumblr fandom is a hobby space that hopefully is not the only center of your life, and it should be fun and non-stressful! i am in no way encouraging personal growth through reading anti tags. you should definitely not practice having challenging conversations by arguing about a stranger's opinion on their own post. especially if you reblog that person's post from me.)

it's just a new awareness for me personally about how what's normal and good on here might be affecting my personal relationships off tumblr, and how i should probably suck it up and go to the movies.

[ephemeral-phosphorescence]

I got the motivation for this post from seeing a couple of Tiktoks that really annoyed me, although the sentiment is shared on this site as well. Basically just a rant post. 

This is specifically in reference to two situations; complaints about the lack of body paint for Ryan Potter’s Beast Boy on the set of Titans, and the translated costumes for the New Monster High movie coming out soon. However, I’m sure it’s applicable to a wide range of other media. I’m not annoyed that people feel let down or disappointed by these costumes. That’s a valid emotion and a natural reaction. What annoys me, is when people turn immediately to the nearest cosplayer page and go “they did so much better :( on such lower expectations :( the studio had a low budget :( but theirs was lower :( 

So I’m gonna say this loud and clear

COSPLAY AND COSTUMING FOR TV AND FILM ARE TWO. DIFFERENT. SKILL SETS. 

First of all. A cosplayer only needs to worry about costuming one person. Generally themselves, and depending on how experienced they are, they already know their own size, what’s gonna look good on it and how it’s gonna fit. They’re only obliged to make one costume per event and how intricate or impressive it looks is up to them.

A costume designer for a movie or tv show has to make costumes for a cast of people they’ve likely never worked with before, take their sizes, do multiple fittings and then make sure those costumes are durable enough to last the entire shooting time and look good consistently.

 A cosplayer’s costume only needs to look good for about a day, and it’s completely within their means to shed bulkier items like wings, high-heeled shoes, crowns or wigs if they want to rest before a big photo shoot. A costume for filming needs to last for an entire shooting day, and then guess what? That actor needs to wake up the next morning and put it on, again. For a couple of weeks at least. It’s important that they’re comfortable. They can’t just take it off halfway through the convention. Adding to that, the costumer will likely need to make quite a few replicas of the costume in question, for different shooting days, and in different sizes for stunt doubles or stand-ins. 

Body paint rant: Yes I’m upset that Beast Boy isn’t green. You can be upset that Lagoona isn’t blue. But body paint is a whole different circus in an official workplace. I’ve done body paint for cosplay and seen body paint done for cosplay. It was irritable, caused horrific acne and my partner’s pink body paint for Mina started cracking halfway through the day, so we scrubbed it off. Cosplayers only deal with body paint for a day or two, not needing to worry about the back of their neck or up the arms because it only needs to look good for certain photograph angles.

Actors wake up early so they can sit in make-up for two hours to make sure it looks good from every camera angle and under heavy studio lights, which is then reapplied between every shot so it looks consistent. There’s a reason Jennifer Lawrence quit the Xmen films. I’m not surprised they didn’t have Lagoona be blue. That’s a horrible thing to do to a little girl, especially if you’re setting up to do that through her adolescence every couple of years for a huge franchise. I’m not surprised that Beast Boy isn’t green. If Ryan Potter’s skin is sensitive to the paint they used, it’d break out in massive acne or rashes that will plunge his chances of success in an industry that hinges on good looks. 

(Also; Many documented instances of actors having to quit films and tv shows because certain paints used, made them physically unwell and unable to perform). 

Cosplayers with more intricate cosplays do better, because it looks more impressive. Costumes in film and tv look better simpler, with a coherent sense throughout the whole production. Think of iconic film and TV looks. Leia’s white dress. Bella’s grey jacket. Cinderella’s ball dress. Less is more, because that translates better visually in a space where all of the different elements are competing for attention. Also, cosplayers are only accountable for what they buy and use. If they lose a prop, or a bead, or a piece of jewellery, they can be disappointed, but move on with their lives. Costumers have to be accountable for every little bit of intricate costume-dressing, and if they lose something or break something, that has to be reported to their boss and possibly come out of their paycheck, or worse, their reputation. 

The last thing I’ll say specifically refers to the Monster High costumes. I hold that costumer in high regard. It a perfect translation of cartoony, outlandish outfits the characters wear, made to suit, fit and be wearable by actual little girls. The cropped shirts, tightly-fitted pants and fish-net stockings the characters wore in the cartoon looked stylish and wonderful as a cartoon. But for the actual teen actors playing them, I think those outfits would have been inappropriate. It makes me sad when i see drawn redesigns of the live-action costumes and they just make the outfits skimpy again. Yeah, the costumes look a little cheap. Yeah, the grown-ass cosplayers look more cartoon accurate. But I could see a little girl being able to replicate live-action Clawdeen Wolf’s outfit so easily and she’s the actual target audience. 

(The production also has bigger problems than underwhelming costumes re; problematic director)

I’m not undermining cosplayers. They do a fantastic job of dedicating time, money and skills to look as good as they do. But they’re not costumers. They shouldn’t be lauded as costumers (unless they have TV and Film experience) and please acknowledge there’s a lot more that goes into making an outfit for film than just looking impressive visually. 

[wolvesandvibrancyrecords]

OUT NOW: ALDRIG DEBUT ALBUM & FAWN LIMBS / NADJA ALBUM

ALDRIG 'YAGMUR' (WVR 058)

Aldrig (BE) is a group that was formed by ex-Soul Grip members Gert Stals & Joren De Roeck. Musically unifying sounds from black metal, sludge & post metal; combined with visceral, layered vocals, Aldrig creates an avant-garde sonic landscape that reigns cathartic. Both anointing and abrasive, their first record “Yağmur” is a vessel for grief.

Lyrically the record encapsulates a character falling through time and space, awakening in different urban dimensions over and over again, chasing something it cannot ever find. Like a blinding light in the night sky, there is an unabsolved longing in Aldrig’s music, a lament for liberation, but there is no liberation, only further confinement.

⛓️ Vinyl facts: ⛓️ Limited to 300 copies: ⛓️ 200 copies white black marbled vinyl ⛓️ 100 copies gold black split vinyl ⛓️ 180 g vinyl ⛓️ 350 gsm outer sleeve ⛓️ incl. downloadcode ⛓️ mixed by Magnus Lindberg (Cult Of Luna) ⛓️ mastered by Jack Shirley ⛓️ Front cover artwork by Julio Camacho-Vicente ⛓️ Back cover images by Lore Horré

⛓️ Shirt facts: ⛓️ ⛓️ artwork by Julio Camacho-Vicente ⛓️ printed by Fabric in Gent on Stanley x Stella Blaster shirt (oversized)

FAWN LIMBS & NADJA 'VESTIGIAL SPECTRA' (WVR 057)

“Even though both bands have their own signature tones and pace, both have wandered off to the other end of the spectrum occasionally, and while the match up might seem strange upon first glance, the composition process was rather quick and smooth, maybe to everyone’s surprise. Done via file sharing in the middle of the plague, the results of these two worlds colliding are nothing short of lush and fluent; most of the time you can’t tell anymore where the other begins and where the other ends, thus the collaborational aspect clearly flourishes as it should. What started out as a few messages sent back and forth, resulted in a genreless, mind-bending monolith of an album that Vestigial Spectra is. Vestigial Spectra carries both Fawn Limbs and Nadja’s own signatures, but burns bright to exist as an entity completely of its own. The songs and the album as a whole ebbs and flows between unestablished parameters that are as surprising as they are anticipated. Taking influence from a variety of styles ranging from grindcore to doom and from noise to ambient, Vestigial Spectra blends its components seamlessly to produce an entirely novel aural field that simultaneously is both a dynamic and thought-out craft and a wall of noise-esque seemingly directionless leviathan. Whether slow, fast, or free of pulse and time, every single second on the album is as important as the ones preceding and following it, making Vestigial Spectra first and foremost a cohesive and consistent entirety.

Thematically, Vestigial Spectra studies astronomical spectroscopy – in which scientists use a spectograph to determine the make-up of stellar bodies and planets amongst other things – and its inherent relation to human nature. Mirroring these practices and standards from one another makes up for layered lyrical approach that can read as scientific pathos as easily as a metaphorically charged burst of emotion. There are three types of spectra – absorption, continuous, and emission – which corresponds to the album’s structure and sonic being.”

This is the EU version - Limited to 300 copies:

⛓️ 200 copies ghost marbled teal vinyl ⛓️ 100 copies marine froth blue vinyl ⛓️ gatefold sleeve ⛓️ fully printed inner sleeve ⛓️ incl. downloadcode

⛓️ mixed & mastered by Samuel Vaney (Lead & Sulfur Studio)

⛓️ Front cover photography by Eeli Helin ⛓️ Painting by Aidan Baker ⛓️ Design by Paul Pavlovich

[adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy]

A/N: If there’s anything I learned from doing this, it’s that vampirerry is an utter WHORE. Good for him!!!! As for myself, I’m done with the semester and my term projects and finals left my singular brain cell fried, so this was a nice way to get back into writing again. I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thank you to the anon that suggested it, this was super fun to do! :D

read you’re someone i just want around here

word count: 6k

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Harry is very attentive when it comes to aftercare with Y/N. The sex they have is often rough and includes toys, degradation, and multiple rounds, so he believes aftercare is non-negotiable. Rough sex can be fun, but if it’s not followed by a lot of communication and post-performance support, it can take a hard emotional toll on a person. Even when intimacy isn’t meant to be inherently sentimental, there has to be a certain level of connection and etiquette surrounding it, or it could end badly for both parties involved. He always checks on her immediately after they finish, simply to gauge her headspace and how her body is responding, and after he’s made sure she’s alright, he goes into his usual routine of skin-to-skin contact and gentle coddling. Reassurance and praise is just as important afterwards as it is during, because it’s good to let a partner know that your appreciation runs deeper than just the physical need felt in the heat of the moment; everyone deserves to feel valued beyond their body. 

Harry proceeds to clean Y/N up after every session, because it’s the least he can do since she’s usually the one getting the brunt of the work. He’ll fetch a clean towel dampened under warm water to wipe her clean, or he’ll offer to help give her a bath or a shower— whichever route she prefers. Harry dresses her, and changes the sheets if need be, and tucks her into bed to ensure she’s nice and comfortable. If it’s been a particularly intense session, he’ll go the kitchen and bring back a snack and a drink— a granola bar and a Gatorade, or some chips and her favorite juice, or if she’s feeling especially hungry, he’ll happily go out of his way to prepare her an actual meal— and he insists on feeding it to her bit by bit until she’s come to enough to handle it on her own. If she’s not hungry, he at least brings her a glass of water and urges her to drink it; better to be safe than sorry. After that, more cuddling is the status quo, which normally ends in Y/N falling asleep in his arms, and Harry has absolutely no problem with that at all.  

B = Body Part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Harry’s favorite body part of Y/N’s is probably her chest. Yes, he likes it for sexual reasons— obviously— but there are innocent reasons for his fascination, as well. He likes how responsive she gets when he touches her there— how he can get her going just by groping her the way she likes it, or by using his mouth to tongue across her nipples until she’s writhing in pleasure and whining for more. He loves leaving hickies all over her tits, probably more than she likes receiving them. It’s just so fucking hot seeing himself marked all over her, especially when she’s putting on a bra and he can see all of the dark bruises scattered across the cleavage spilling from the undergarment. Filth aside, he also enjoys loving all over her chest. Absentmindedly cupping them while they’re snuggling, nuzzling his head between them while they’re watching television, massaging them under her shirt with his large palms as she sits back against his chest, sipping a glass of wine and chatting away, unwinding after a long day. It’s a form of intimacy; it provides a type of closeness nothing else can. 

As for his own favorite body part, it’s a tie between two different areas. He loves his thighs— they’re one of his most prominent features. They’re thick and meaty and sensitive, so they’re the perfect sweet spot to touch when he wants to get riled up. Given his previous response, it can be easily deduced that he likes to get hickies there, as well. The marks look great peeking out from under his briefs (for the short amount of time they last, anyways) and they make a great accessory to the large tigerhead tattoo along his left thigh. It’s artwork, really; a proper Picasso. 

His other favorite body part...well, take a lucky guess. It’s likely not that far off— literally, considering it hangs right between his thighs. 

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Harry’s personal preference is cumming inside. He adores feeling the way Y/N tightens around him when he finally orgasms (she’s just so warm and soft and unbelievably tight; it’s like she was made for him), almost as much as he loves seeing her reaction. Her body will immediately start to wriggle and her back will arch as she releases broken little whimpers, clinging to his shoulders with her nails and begging him to fill her until he’s milked his worth. Hearing her ragged breathing and feeling her sweaty chest stutter against his is enough to do him in, but when she goes as far as to gnaw on his ear and whine a soft little, “Want it all, baby. Want you dripping out of me when we’re done.” Well, that’s enough to kill him all over again. 

Of course, there are times when Harry likes seeing himself all over her, too. On her outstretched tongue, or smeared across her pretty face and plush lips (she looks particularly cute when it ends up all over her eyelashes), or streaked over the valley of her tits, or pooled at the center of her tummy. If he’d been taking her from behind, then he likes seeing it run down the backs of her thighs, or splattered across the dip of her spine. And if she’d been giving him a handjob, then seeing himself dribbling down her fingers is just as good. Why? Because those fingers usually end up in her mouth, which means he ends up all over her tongue, and so the cycle comes full circle. How poetic. 

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Did Harry suggest wearing a matching set of a vibrating cock ring and buzzing bullet to do grocery shopping once? Yes. Did he drop three glass jars of peach preserves by accident as a result, causing them to have to book it out of the bread aisle while trying to look as unsuspicious as possible, which failed horribly because they were literally hobbling like a crippled elderly couple? Also yes. Did they end up fucking in a Target fitting room? Definitely. 

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

A lot of experience. Tons. Immense amounts. Insane amounts. Two hundred years of the same seven continents just means two hundred years worth of sex across every single one. And it gives you plenty of time to find the clitoris, as well as giving you a chance to learn the female anatomy like the back of your hand. That being said, Harry doesn’t doubt he could make Y/N cum with his wrists tied behind his back and a blindfold strapped to his face. In fact, he’s made her cum just by using his thigh, so that in itself is enough credibility to last him several more lifetimes. The toy chest in his closet and the fact that he’s well-endowed are bonuses— he knows more than enough tricks to keep her satisfied with just his tongue. Not to mention his fingers— they’re long for a reason.

F = Favorite position  

Funny enough, Harry doesn’t have one. He’s spent so many decades cycling through every possible position in existence, it’s gotten to where he can’t pin-point a preference; all positions are unique, and they each have their own appeal. Reverse cowgirl is nice because he likes watching the way he stretches Y/N open with every plunge of her hips, and it also gives him the luxury of marking his rings across her ass in the process. Regular cowgirl is nice, too— having her chest bouncing in his face is nothing short of a divine miracle, in his opinion. Doggy style is a staple, and there’s always different add-ons he can apply to spice it up; for example, taking her from behind with her wrists tied to her ankles, or bending her over the kitchen counter with her face pressed into the marble, or fucking her against his glass wall with her hands and chest flushed to the cool surface as their breaths fog the floor-to-ceiling window. 

Missionary is a tried and true option, and just like it’s prior counterpart, it can be enhanced with a variety of extra tricks. Bondage is a good condiment, against the wall is always a nice touch, spread-eagle never goes wrong, and just having her legs wrapped around his lower back is more than enough. However, he does have two favorite variations of the position. The first is when he mounts her legs onto his shoulders or along the inside of his elbows to open her up more, and then just ramming his hips down at a very specific angle that hits her g-spot just right, pounding her into the bed so hard she tears the sheets off the mattress. The second is a cowgirl-missionary hybrid: he sits back on his heels and uses the steep downward slope created by his thighs as elevation, pulling her ass onto his tilted lap and swinging her legs over either side of his hips. He gropes her waist with his palms and yanks her forward, bouncing her against his cock and watching her completely dismantle as he nudges all the right places with as much speed and force as she deems fit. 

And then there’s fucking from the side, but that’s a whole other extensive conversation he doesn’t have time for. 

Actually, maybe Harry will entertain it for a minute or so. He usually throws one of Y/N’s legs over his neck to get a deeper range, manhandling her roughly onto her side and yanking her closer to his body by her waist, grasping it with stern vigor and holding her down against the mattress, grunting out a gravelly, strict command along the lines of, “Stay fucking still.” He’ll drill into her at a brutal, consistent pace, staining his fingerprints along the curves of her torso and sponging damp kisses onto her ankle, smirking into her skin as he watches her fist at the duvet in a futile attempt at maintaining her bearings. It’s pretty evident that she can’t, though; the way her eyes lull around their sockets from his harsh stride does a terrible job at hiding her lack of self-control, alongside the fragmented curses she gasps out whenever he nudges her g-spot with the head of his cock. 

“Oh, that was such a pretty noise. Did I hit that little spot you like?”

Her response will be begrudging, as always, which he thinks is ridiculously useless considering he can see her burying her face into the pillow to hide how her jaw drops open in sheer rapture. “No.”

“No?” The vampire leans forward, stretching her leg towards the headboard and preening at the garbled squeak that escapes her gritted teeth, plunging deeper as he lowers himself to her level. He knots her hair around his knuckles, tugging sharply until her face is tilted back enough to meet his fiery gaze. “Then why are you starting to shake?

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

It depends on the mood, honestly. There are definitely serious moments, but Harry enjoys the humorous ones just as much. He already adores making Y/N laugh and smile on a regular basis, and that desire only grows when he’s buried between her thighs, simply because she just looks so fucking cute laughing with her hair splayed around the pillows in a messy halo, her sounds of glee stuttering due to how sharply she’s jolting against the bed. He loves feeling her giggle into his mouth as he cracks sarcastic jokes and makes stupid witty comments that break the intensity in the air, especially because she’s usually clever enough to return them with some of her own. Then they both end up snickering like idiots as he tries to keep a solid pace, which eventually tapers to a messy, haphazard stride as their laughter drowns out their goal to the point where he has to take a genuine break to collect himself. There’s tons of examples— how could there not be? Sex is hardly ever perfect, so awkward moments are not only expected, but guaranteed. What better way to handle them than with a bit of humor?

There was an incident once where Harry accidentally knocked their foreheads together so hard, they both bruised (which he responded to with, “I’m pretty sure this isn’t what Cosmopolitan meant when they suggested matching couples tattoos.”). Another time, he got so into the moment he didn’t realize he was jack-hammering the top of her head into the backboard until she brought it to his attention (and made a comment saying it sounded like a sped up version of the beat to We Will Rock You). A bad case of the hiccups. Y/N burping right in his face halfway through his orgasm. A random leg cramp that made him think he was going to need amputation to survive. Accidentally rolling off the bed or couch onto the ground and nearly dislocating both of their spines in the process, getting his cross earring tangled in her hair and nearly ripping off his ear trying to get it out, and the unfortunate collapse of a pillow fort he’d spent over an hour building. He even sneezed in her face once, and when she instinctively went to shove him back, she wound up slamming her palm into his nose so hard he nearly passed out. Nose bleeds aren’t necessarily sexy, per se, but he just dug blindly through her nightstand until he found two new tampons somewhere in that black hole she calls a drawer, shoved them in his nostrils, and kept going. No one can ever accuse him of being unresourceful. 

Queefing. Lots and lots of queefing, which he usually starts mimicking with his mouth, and then she responds to that by whining and telling him to cut it out, and then he takes to mocking her whining instead. It normally finishes with them laughing so hard that Harry’s cheeks hurt from smiling so big, but it’s a good type of pain. The best type of pain. 

H = Hair (how do they groom?)

Harry likes keeping himself neat and orderly, but he doesn’t enjoy going bare, so trimming is his grooming preference. There’s just something so unappealing about a completely smooth dick— it looks like raw chicken and it’s fucking disgusting. He doesn’t have anything against a good bush, but it tends to get unruly and he’d rather not have to overcomplicate his shower routine. And honestly, he can’t trust himself because last time he had a full front yard going, he got shitfaced and tried to braid it on a dare. Keeping the hedges trimmed is the ideal landscaping option, and it just looks way hotter— a uniform dusting of hair is a good accessory and it just makes everything look more cohesive, given that he also fancies keeping his happy trail thick. It’s all about aesthetics, isn’t it? 

I = Intimacy (the romantic aspect)

It’s no secret that Harry’s been somewhat detached from intimacy for the last two hundred years or so. Intimacy is reserved for genuine romance, and that’s something he hadn’t entertained since before the lightbulb was invented. But now that he has Y/N, intimacy has crawled its way back out from the deepest recesses of his subconscious, where it had been shoved into a bottomless pit with the rest of his trauma. He likes it— he likes opening up to her in any way he can, because sharing those obsolete parts of himself with someone again is more fulfilling than he ever imagined. He likes kissing her randomly when she’s halfway through a sentence, just to feel her words die off abruptly in her throat as she gives into his gentle gesture, a delicate smile spreading across her satin lips. He likes whispering sweet phrases of encouragement into her hair when they’re tangled amidst sweaty limbs and rumpled sheets, reminding her of how much he cares for her and how beautiful she looks when she’s so far gone and how she makes him feel like his entire body has been set alight. He likes sponging soft pecks across the stretch marks along her thighs and across the dimples on her belly, her skin candy and velvet on his tongue as she releases a watery sigh that lets him know he’s doing all the right things in all the right places. He just likes letting her know she's special to him, in any and every way he can. 

Intimacy forges timeless bonds, and he reckons that assumption is unarguable, considering he knows a thing or two about eternity. 

J = Jack Off (masturbation headcanon)

Harry likes to jack off, obviously. Who doesn’t? It’s why he has an entire section of his toy chest dedicated to self-pleasuring tools. Vibrating cock rings, an array of lubes that range from temperature-changing to sensation sensitivity, and a few pocket vags that get the job done whenever Y/N is out of commission (usually because of work). His favorite one is an electronic sleek black model that is made of a premium silicone material and has a variety of massage settings, suction strengths, and internal textures. It’s designed to make the session feel more real, and yes, it was expensive, but self-love is always worth the splurge. 

The beauty of living on his own is that he can get off wherever and whenever he wants, without having to stress about someone interrupting an important step in his pampering routine. He usually does it in his room and on his bed, simply because Y/N’s pillow is close by and the experience is heightened when her scent is swimming around his hazy, bliss-drunken mind. If Harry is feeling particularly needy, he’ll ditch the toy all together and just hump one out against the mattress or cushion. If it’s a particularly restless day, he’ll take a toy downstairs and lazily play within himself on the couch while browsing through Netflix. Those instances usually average a few tamer orgasms rather than a single large one, but he’s not complaining; his stamina comes in unapologetic waves that stem from a never-ending supply, and he certainly has the time to kill. If Harry gets the sudden urge in the shower or while he’s relaxing in his jacuzzi, he won’t bother fetching a trinket; he’ll just stroke one out with his hand, using the cool metal of his trusty lionhead ring to tease the tip until he brings himself to orgasm. It turns out daylight crystals have more than one use. 

There is one common factor amongst all these different choices, though: Y/N is present in every fantasy. And if the vampire is feeling especially bold, he’ll grab his phone and take a video of whatever he’s doing to himself, and then she’ll have a nice little gift waiting for her once she gets out of the café for the day. That usually leads to him receiving a present in return later that evening, and then he’s dialing her contact before the clip is even done playing, and then what he does during his alone time doesn’t require him being so alone anymore. 

K = Kinks 

Harry has tons— in fact, he has so many, he can’t really keep track. And he also has the sneaking suspicion that if he were to ever jot all of them down, he’d end up locked in some type of sex addict rehabilitation center. Bondage is a big one, so he’ll start there. He’s great with ropes, given that he learned his way around them ages ago. Chains are nice, but they can be a pain to set up without the right equipment; he’s thinking of getting a reinforced metal hook installed into his ceiling, like the one in his storage closet, which he uses to keep his punching bag secure. Handcuffs, obviously— velvet-lined, straight metal, fuzzy coverings, he’s got it all. Dominance, degradation, Daddy, Sir, choking, brat-taming, spanking, flogging, slapping— impact play in general, to be honest— spitting, wax, praise, begging, masochism, branding (mild stuff, no molten metal shit), collaring, discipline, dirty talk, edging, exhibitionism, face-fucking, face-sitting (with him on the receiving end), giving oral (is that a kink? It is now.) gagging (both the action and using the actual object itself), breeding (he hates that term but that’s the official name, unfortunately), teasing, voyeurism, role play, and… he thinks that’s it. Oh, and blood, but that doesn’t really count for apparent reasons. 

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Y/N’s couch is sacred, at this point. Their entire relationship started on that lumpy, worn excuse of a sofa, and it’s seen them through their progression from strangers to friends with benefits to lovers to more. It’s comfortable enough, the dark color hides any explicit stains, and the cushions always smell of her signature mixture of honey and lavender combined with Snuggle fabric softener. It’s finicky, but irreplaceable. His kitchen counter is a close second. It’s provided a lot, taken a lot, been through a lot— through a lot of Lysol wipes, to be specific. If it wasn’t marble, it likely would have been reduced to chunks and rubble by now, courtesy of his enhanced strength gripping the edges as he slams her against the smooth surface. The backseat of his Cadillac is consecrated, as well; there’s just so much erotic appeal to fucking in a car with rock music blaring in the background, muffling the obscene sounds of bodies connecting and a mixture of fever-pitch moans. The couch, the counter, and the Cadillac— the Unholy Trinity. 

The jacuzzi is nice, too, but for the sake of his clever little “c” alliteration, he’ll leave that one as an implied token. 

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

As much as Harry claims he likes full submission in bed, he can’t deny that he loves being challenged. Delivering punishment and coaxing out an orgasm is so much more satisfying when he has to fight for it; it’s so fucking hot watching his girlfriend try to best him in a power struggle, especially when she finally— and undeniably, since he always wins— caves under his will and winds up begging him for what he otherwise would have gifted her freely. That’s where the brat-taming kink comes into play. He likes it when she mouths off and makes snarky digs, and he enjoys it even more when he tries to set her in place and she amps her disobedience as a result. There’s nothing more attractive than a battle of wits with someone who is a perfect match in every way. And when she channels her attitude into physical gestures, it riles him up beyond compare. For example, when she smirks and rolls her eyes, despite the fact that there’s trails of tears staining her cheeks and mascara smeared all over her waterline? Christ, he could go feral. 

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

No feet, no feces, no beastiality. There’s probably more, but those are the ones off the top of his head.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Receiving oral is great— he highly recommends it, solid ten out of ten— but giving it is so much better. Harry’s always been a giver, even when he was young and barely knew his way around a woman’s undergarments. The stereotypical expectation for a person who is beginning to explore their sexuality is that everything they do, they do for their own gain. It’s a selfish realization, yes, but it’s a primal type of selfishness that no one can truly be blamed for. It’s a simple concept: when you start having sex, you want as much personal benefit as possible. It’s only natural. But from the second Harry became sexually active, he came to find that providing release to his partner outweighed the bliss he could get from letting them pleasure him instead. It’s not direct pleasure, but rather cognitive, which more often than not translates itself physically. And when it comes to Y/N, that euphoria manifests tenfold. 

Nothing compares to having his face buried between her legs as she tugs and yanks at his hair desperately, her chest heaving and jaw falling open as he uses his tongue to unravel her from the inside out. Spitting sloppily onto her folds and hearing the raw gasp of aroused shock that escapes her sore throat, which causes his swollen lips to spread into a dirty grin as he latches onto the sensitive bud at the thick of her core, fiddling with it until her legs are trembling uncontrollably around his sturdy shoulders. Watching her features go slack as he bobs his neck fervently between her thighs, swiping the bridge of his nose across her clit over and over until the entire bottom half of his face is drenched in her excitement. Fucking his tongue into her and feeling her buck against his jaw as she holds him in place with her fingers tangled in his curls, whimpering his name repeatedly in a voice so shattered, he could probably build a mosaic with the fractures. Feeling her drip down his chin and into the collar of his shirt, savoring how sweet she tastes as he pins her hips down against the bed and groans feverishly into her cunt, his ego idolizing the image of her so disheveled under his influence. 

A measly blowjob is hardly any competition to that. Harry could very well cum just from eating Y/N out. In fact, he has, and that in itself is all the proof he needs. 

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

This is one of those other factors that depends on the mood. If Harry has been waiting all day for it, his impatience bleeds into his rhythm, which means he settles for fast and hard. It means he settles for bending her over the back of his couch with one palm around her throat and his other fingers in her mouth, pounding into her with so much force, the sofa starts shifting across the ground. If Y/N has been teasing him endlessly for a decent amount of time, it’ll be rough and deep, but not fast; he’ll drag it out for as long as possible, just to make her regret acting like such a spoiled brat. That’s when he brings out the paddle, or the crop, or just manhandles her across his lap and spanks her until she’s apologizing profusely through her whines. If he’s in a soft, romantic headspace, it’ll be slow and sensual, with lots of gentle caresses, giggly kisses dusted across eager lips and droopy eyelids, and penetrating strokes that make his toes curl and tummy clench. 

Pace is relative, but the message behind it is all the same: I want you more than anything, and I’m going to show you just how deeply I mean it. 

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Quickies are fun, Harry will admit. They’re filthy and messy, and they show just how far gone two people are for each other to the point where they can’t wait to feel one another at a later time; that they need to be together now, or they’ll go absolutely insane. Quickies are saved for when the urge strikes at random times. For when he’s out with Y/N at a park, sitting under the shade with his head in her lap as she combs his curls out of his eyes and thumbs over his chin affectionately, and the sun filters through the tree canopy just right to where it illuminates her lashes and the suppleness of her cheeks in a manner he deems ethereal. For when they’re at the mall, walking hand in hand and licking at ice cream cones as they survey the shops, and she reaches over to wipe a bit of Rocky Road off the corner of his mouth, replacing the stain with a soft stipple of her lips instead. For when they’re out eating dinner and playing footsie under the table like immature teenagers, and she’s trying to steal a French fry from his plate but he keeps fighting her off with his fork because, “I told you to order your own, but you wanted those disgusting potato skins instead!” And she’s laughing so brightly and unapologetically, giving him a look that so obviously tells him she can’t wait to get him alone, and nothing seems quite as flawless as that fraction in time, then and there and nowhere else.

These simple but memorable moments cause him to get love boners, which he jokingly refers to as “sniffy stiffies,” where “sniffy” has to do with being sentimental, and “stiffy”...well, that one is pretty self-explanatory, no? It always ends with them shagging in the car, or in the family bathroom of a diner, and in the case of the park, in an obscure area of the forest that lines the jogging trail. 

Quickies are just that— fast, but meaningful nonetheless, because they come from a place of genuine emotion. They’re fleeting, but unforgettable. Sniffy stiffy quickies, if you will. 

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Taking risks is the norm in Harry’s life, especially when it comes to his sex habits. He’s proven time and time again that he has no problem riding along the seams of a dare and just barely making it out unscathed, so experimenting outside of the bedroom is just another day in the life. Fingering Y/N in a music room in an antique shop, getting road head during a two hour drive back to Los Angeles, ripping his girlfriend’s panties out from beneath her dress at one of California’s most prestigious restaurants— the list is endless, really. Harry likes to think he has a gift for coming up with inspirational quotes on the spot, so he’ll lend his expertise here and now: “A life without risks is a life that isn’t worth shit.” It even rhymes, so he knows sorority pledges will have a ball putting it in their Instagram bios. A bit of charity work for the bird-brained. 

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Endless stamina. Literally. Vampires don’t stay tired for long, so he could be ready to go again within seconds. And he can last long, as well; his stubbornness and pride depend on it, and he likes making his partner cum first as an ego boost. He can go as many rounds as Y/N can and more, though he won’t push it. He doesn’t want her to end up in the ER with a bruised cervix. 

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Harry could run a sex shop from his closet; Y/N doesn’t take the piss by calling him “Fifty Shades” for no reason. He uses them on himself, he uses them on her, and he got high once and tried to sword fight Y/N with a dildo, so it’s safe to say he definitely uses them quite a bit. If his Lovesense Lush 3 vibrator could talk, he’d be drawn and quartered for excessive debauchery. 

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Harry loves teasing, that’s no mystery. Winding people up is one of his most practiced skills, so of course that would channel into his intimate life. He’s mastered it, though it’s not like it’s hard. A drawn out blink here, or a feathery touch there. An inch of space between his and Y/N’s lips to establish some tension, or squeezing her inner thigh with his palm hard enough to draw a tiny squeak from her chest. Touching her through her clothes, or leaving a trail of wet kisses down her throat and stopping right at her cleavage. Biting the sensitive skin along the inside of her knee, or dragging the tip of his cold nose down the center of her twitching tummy. Lapping slowly at her nipples until they perk up, or sinking a single long digit inside her and keeping it there just to feel her clench around it needily. And once he gets a pattern going, teasing molds into edging, edging molds into begging, begging molds into praise, and before he knows it, he’s hit four of his kinks with one roll of the dice. 

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Harry is very vocal in bed, and he’s not ashamed of it. He knows for a fact that Y/N loves it, and if him being loud gets her worked up, then he’ll let his throat go out in the process. He’s noticed that in different situations, he has an arsenal of sounds for each. If he’s being rough and dominant, he tends to groan, grunt, and growl. If he’s being desperate and needy, he turns to whines and whimpers to communicate how he feels. If he’s too zoned into the moment to distinguish all his emotions, broken moans and stuttered mewls are his default. No matter the circumstance, they all take the same route: they start low and soft, and escalate in volume proportional to the intensity of the moment. So what if half the building is hearing him orgasm for the third time as he mocks his girlfriends sobbing pleads and calls her his “dirty fucking whore”? Let’s be honest, it’s probably the highlight of their week. He has a great voice— a sultry, deep baritone that compliments his English accent nicely— and anyone would be lucky to hear it spew the filth it does. He’s yet to get many complaints, so he doesn’t intend on stopping. 

W = Wildcard (random headcanon)

An honesty hour moment seems interesting, so he’ll confess a few tales from his past. The first time Harry ever went down on a girl, it was against a tree in a garden and he nearly asphyxiated under all the layers of her gown. A couple of years later, he ended up getting oral from a reverend’s daughter against a tree, too, for the morbid irony and associated religious revenge. And to drive the point home, oral was only the beginning of what she gave him. His first decade as a vampire was definitely his pettiest. 

X = X-Ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

It’s not uncommon knowledge that Harry’s well-endowed. He remembers how insecure he was the first time he had sex— a shocker, he knows; he was insecure?— and how he knew barely anything regarding sizing and how to use his assets accordingly. But it’s been ages since then, and now he definitely knows his way around his own body (let alone his partner’s), and he most certainly knows that he’s above average not only as a person in general, but when it comes to what’s in his trousers, as well. Harry won’t specify inches— he loves how speculation drives others mad— but it was big enough to give Y/N a decent pause the first time she pulled down his pants, and it’s big enough to leave her absolutely fucked every single time, without a single miss. If that’s not credibility at its finest, then he doesn’t know what is.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Harry’s sex drive is insatiable, to say the least. His vampirism combined with his narcissistic tendencies makes the ideal cocktail— cocktail— for the constant fuse that’s always burning under his skin. He’s ready to go at all times; Y/N just has to say the word and he’s pulling on a pair of sweatpants as he grabs his keys, hopping down his complex’s corridor toward the elevator on one foot as he tries to get his last shoe on the other. Lazy morning sex is probably his favorite; he’s come to find it’s when he’s most pent up, usually after a sleepless night of feeling Y/N’s body heat radiating through all of his cold limbs. It also sets a great tone for the rest of the day, and he just loves seeing Y/N wake up to him lying on his side with his temple resting on his fist, his elbow propped against the mattress as he poses the other on his hip in a theatrical diva stance. He’ll smile at her giddily with all his pearly teeth, dimples twitching as his lashes flutter dramatically, dirty intentions written clear all over his face (“Good morning, hon—” “Wanna have sex?” “Harry, it’s ten in the morning.” “Is that a yes? Because it’s not a no.” “I haven’t even brushed my teeth!” “That’s fine, I’m gonna stick my dick in there anyways.”) 

All in all, his libido is insane, and he’s lucky that Y/N’s is up to par or else he would have worked her into an exhaustion-induced coma by now. 

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Harry just...doesn't. Maybe once every few weeks, but definitely more often now than before he had his girlfriend. Sleeping just comes way easier when he has someone he cares about resting beside him, their inherent warmth thawing the stiffness from his muscles and putting his racing mind at ease. He feels safe enough around Y/N to let his guard down— both literally and metaphorically— and that seems to help with his supernatural insomnia; it sedates that nocturnal hyper-instinct in his brain that demands he be aware at all times, muffling the animalistic part of him that has been manning the reins for the better half of the last two hundred years. He doesn’t need to be so on edge anymore when everything he needs is just an arm-length away. Especially when she’s usually willing to lend her chest as a pillow, and who is he to neglect her wishes.   

[blackstarising]

coming back to this post i made again to elaborate - especially as the ted lasso fandom is discussing sam/rebecca and fandom racism in general. there are takes that are important to make that i had failed to previously, but there's also a growing amount of takes that i have to, As A Black Person™, respectfully disagree with.

tl;dr for the essay below sam being infantilized and the sam/rebecca relationship are not the same issue and discussing the former one doesn't mean excusing the latter. and we've reached the glen of the Dark Forest where we sit down and talk about fandom racism.

i should have elaborated this in my last post about sam/rebecca, but i didn't. i'll say it now - i personally don't support sam and rebecca getting together for real. i believe what people are saying is entirely correct, even though sam is an adult legally, he and rebecca are, at the very least, two wildly different stages of life. for americans, he's at the equivalent of being a junior in college. there are things he hasn't gotten the chance to experience and there are areas he needs to grow in. when i was younger, i didn't understand the significance of these age gaps, i just thought it would be fine if it was legal, but as someone who is now a little older than sam in universe, i understand fully. we can't downplay this. whether or not you think sam works for rebecca or not, even despite the gender inversion of the Older Man Younger Woman trope, whether or not he is a legal adult, i don't think at this point in time, their relationship would work. i think it's an interesting narrative device, but i don't want to see it play out in reality.

that being said!

what's worrying me is that two discussions are being conflated here that shouldn't be. sam having agency and being a little more grown™ than he's perceived to be does not suddenly make his relationship with rebecca justified. i had decided to bring it up because sam was being brought into the spotlight again and i was starting to realizing that his infantilization was more common than i felt comfortable with.

sam's infantilization (and i will continue to call it that), is a microaggression. it's is in the range of microaggressions that i would categorize as 'fandom overcompensation'. we have a prominent character of color that exhibits traits that aren't stereotypical, and we don't want to appear racist or stereotypical, so we lean hard in the other direction. they're not aggressive, they're a Sweet Baby, they're not world weary, they're now a little naive. they're not cold and distant, they're so nice and sweet that there's no one that wouldn't want approach them, and yeah, on their face, these new traits are a departure and, on their face, they seem they look really good.

but at a certain point, it reaches an inflection point, and, like the aftertaste of a diet coke, that alleged sweetness veers into something a lot less sweet. it veers into a lack of agency for the character. it veers into an innocence that appears to indicate that the person can't even take care of themselves. it veers into a one-dimensional characterization that doesn't allow for any depth or negative emotion.

it's not kind anymore. it's not a nice departure from negative stereotypes. it's not compensating for anything.

it's patronizing.

it is important that we emphasize that characters of color are more than the toxic stereotypes we lay on them, yes, but we make a mistake in thinking that the solution is overcorrection. for one thing, people of color can usually tell. don't get it twisted, it's actually pretty obvious. for another, it just shifts from one dimension to another. people of color are still supposed to be Only One Character Trait while white people can contain multitudes. ted, who is pretty much as pollyanna as they come, can be at once innocent and naive and deep and troubled and funny and scared. jamie can be a prick and sexy and also lonely and also a victim of abuse. sam, however, even though he was bullied (by jamie, no less), is thousands of miles away from home, and has led a protest on his team, is usually just characterized as human sunshine with much less acknowledgement of any other traits beyond that.

and that's why i cringe when fandom calls sam a Sweet Baby Boy without any sense of irony. is that all we're taking away? after all this time? even for a comedy, sam has received a substantive of screen time over two whole seasons, and we've seen a range of emotions from him. so as a black person it's hurtful that it's boiled down to Sweet Baby Boy.

that's the problem. we need to subvert stereotypes, but more importantly, we need to understand that people of color are not props, or pieces of cardboard for their white counterparts. they are full and actualized and have agency in their own right and they can have other emotions than Angry and Mean or Sweet and Bubbly without any nuance between the two. i think the show actually does a relatively good job of giving sam depth (relatively, always room for improvement, mind you), especially holding it in tension with his youth, but the fandom, i worry, does not.

it's the same reason why finn from star wars started out as the next male protagonist in the sequel trilogy but by the third movie was just running around yelling for REY!! it's the same reason why when people make Phase 4 Is the Phase For Therapy gifsets for the mcu and show wanda maximoff, loki, and bucky barnes crying and being sad but purposefully exclude sam wilson who had an entire show to tell us how difficult his life is, because people find out if pee oh sees are also complex, they'll tell the church.

and the reason why i picked up on this very early on is because i am an organic, certified fresh, 100% homegrown, non-gmo, a little ashy, indigenous sub saharan African black person. the ghanaian tribes i'm descended from have told me so, my black ass parents have told me so, and the nurses at the hospital in [insert asian country here] that started freaking out about how curly my hair was as my mother was mid pushing me out told me so!

and this stuff has real life implications. listen: being patronized as a black person sucks. do you know how many times i was patted on the back for doing quite honestly, the bare minimum in school? do you know how many times i was told how 'well spoken' or 'eloquent' i was because i just happen to have a white accent or use three syllable words? do you know how many times i've been cooed over by white women who couldn't get over how sweet i was just because i wasn't confrontational or rude like they wrongly expected me to be?

that's why they're called microaggressions. it's not a cross on your lawn or having the n-word spat in your face, but it cuts you down little by little until you're completely drained.

so that's the nuance. that's the subversion. the overcompensation is not a good thing. and people of color (and i suspect, even white people) have picked up on, in general, the different ways fandom treats sam and dani and even nate. what all of these discussions are converging on is fandom racism, which is not the diet form of racism, but another place for racism to reveal itself. and yeah, it's uncomfortable. it can seem out of left field. you may want to defend yourself. you may want to explain it away. but let me tap the sign on the proverbial bus:

if you are a white person, or a person of color who is not part of that racial group, even, you do not get to decide what is not racist for someone. full stop. there are no exceptions. there is no exit clause for you. there is no 'but, actually-'. that right wasn't even yours to cede or waive.

(it's also important to note that people of color also have the right to disagree on whether something is racist, but that doesn't necessarily negate the racism - it just means there's more to discuss and they can still leave with different interpretations)

people don't just whip out accusations of racism like a blue eyes white dragon in a yu-gi-oh duel. it's not fun for us. it's not something we like to do to muzzle people we don't want to engage with. and we're not concerned with making someone feel bad or ashamed. we're exposing something painful that we have to live with and, even worse, process literally everything we experience through. we can't turn it off. we can't be 'less sensitive' or 'less nitpicky'. we are literally the primary resources, we are the proverbial wikipedia articles with 3,000 sources when it comes to racism. who else would know more than us?

what 2020 has shown us very clearly is that racism is systemic. it's not always a bunch of Evil White Men rubbing their hands together in a dark room wondering how they're going to use the 'n-word' today. it's systemic. it's the way you call that one neighborhood 'sketchy'. it's how you use 'ratchet' and 'ghetto' when describing something bad. it's how you implicitly the assume the intelligence of your friend of color. it's the way you turned up your nose and your friend's food and bullied them for it in middle school but go to restaurants run by white people who have 'uplifted' it with inauthentic ingredients. it's telling someone how Well Spoken and Eloquent they are even though you've both gone to the same schools and work at the same workplace. it's the way you look down at some people of color for having a different body type than you because they've been redlined to neighborhoods where certain foods and resources are inaccessible, and yet mock up the racial features that appeal to you either through makeup or plastic surgery.

it's how when a person of color behaves badly, they're irredeemable, but a white person performing the same act or something similar is 'having a bad day' or 'isn't normally like this' or 'has room to grow' and we can't 'wait for their redemption arc', and yes, i'm not going to cover it in detail in this post but yes this is very much about nate. other people have also brought up the nuances in his arc and compared them to other white characters so i won't do it here.

these behaviors and reactions aren't planned. they aren't orchestrated. they're quite literally unconscious because they've been lovingly baked into western society for centuries. you can't wake up and be rid of it. whether you intended it or not, it can still be racist.

and it's actually quite hurtful and unfair to imply that concerns about racism in the TL fandom are unfounded or lacking any depth or simply meant to be sensational because you simply don't agree with it. i wish it was different, but it doesn't work that way. i'm not raising this up to 'call out' or shame people, but i'm adding to this discussion because, through how we talk about sam, and even dani and nate, i'm yet again seeing a pattern that has shortchanged people of color and made them feel unwelcome in fandom for far too long.

coach beard said it best: we need to do better.

[beauty-and-passion]

Time to talk about the flower shirt

You read the title. Time to talk about this.

This is the infamous flower shirt Thomas put on in his store and, since the fandom is the fandom, everyone started to speculate about those flowers.

At first, I didn’t want to do it. They’re just flowers and other people already talked about them, so what could I possibly add to the conversation?

But while I was writing about Orange, I had to talk a moment about the orange flower. It was supposed to be a small parenthesis, just a couple of words about that.

But then I looked at the other flowers and what other people told/not told about them and how some didn’t find Patton’s flower... so here I am, adding my two cents to this theme.

You needed it? Probably not. Well, I’m writing it anyway.

So let’s take a closer look at those flowers and see each one in detail:

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Roman: Red rose

Should I really explain why it’s perfect for Roman? Red roses are the universal symbol of love. Basically in all cultures red roses symbolize passion, true love, romance and desire. Also, according to this website, even the shade has a meaning! In fact, the deeper the red shade is, the stronger is the passion.

And even the number of red roses has a meaning! In this case, we have only one single red rose and that "represents love at first sight, or if it’s coming from a long-term partner, they are saying “you are still the one”.”

You know what that made me think? About Thomas telling Roman “You’re my hero”. A perfect symbol that he was “still the one” for Thomas.

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Orange: Lantana camara

This is an incredibly peculiar flower.

Lantana Camara symbolizes severity and rigour. And this alone can be analyzed in all possible ways, but there are other interesting details about this plant I think it's worth mentioning.

Lantana is toxic for livestock, such as cattle, sheep, horses, dogs and goats. According to Wikipedia, previous studies suggested it could be toxic for humans too, especially the green unripe berries. However "other studies have found evidence which suggests that its fruit poses no risk to humans".

Lantana is a freaking invasive plant. In some areas, it's so predominant, to reduce biodiversity, because its presence "can significantly slow down the regeneration of forests, by preventing the growth of new trees". Also, as if this isn't enough, this plant can also produce toxic chemicals which inhibit other plant species.

Lantana has also a great adaptability, that helped it to be so invasive: it can live in a wide range of different environmental conditions, it can survive long periods without water, heck it's even resistant to fire. It's not a plant you can underestimate. Like Orange, I assume.

But Lantana isn't just an invasive plant. Lantana has always been used for medical purposes, because it showed good antimicrobial, fungicidal and insecticidal properties and its extract helps against respiratory infections and ulcers.

Also, since it doesn't have many pests or diseases, lantana became a common ornamental plant. It even attracts butterflies!

In other words: isn't that the perfect plant to symbolize the double nature of a dark side? It can be a threat, change the environment, destroy and even kill. But it can also be a medicine, something useful, something beautiful.

Whoever Orange is, Lantana camara tells us that, whithout a doubt, he’s a dark side.

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Janus: Sunflower

Do you think Janus isn't perfect enough as he is? Do you think there's not enough husband material in the snek?

Well, you’re wrong and the sunflower is here to prove it.

Sunflower symbolizes loyalty, adoration, longevity, vitality, worship. Now add this up to the sunflower’s behaviour and how it follows the sun... and you’ll get Janus. Janus literally acts like a sunflower: Thomas is his sun and everything Janus does is for him. His whole existence is centered around Thomas.

But we already knew that, because it's the same message that shone through his playlist. Everything about Janus tells us how much he adores Thomas, from his canonical behavior in the series, to his playlist, to this flower.

Oh, do you need another proof that this is flower is perfect for Janus? Some societies use sunflowers as religious symbols. Ah, some good ol' reference to religion: it’s like being in his playlist all over again.

And, of course, sunflowers are used for a variety of reasons, like cooking oils, skin care and so on. Even the flower says self care.

This man is perfect.

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Remus: Green chrysanthemum

Here's another interesting flower.

Chrysanthemum symbolizes death and it’s the typical flower used for funerals. And I thought this was its universal meaning. It was perfect for Remus just like that.

But then I found out that Europeans use chrysanthemums for funerals and to honor the dead. This flower actually has a whole lot of meanings, some completely different from this.

In China, for example, chrysanthemums are associated with wealth, prosperity and long life. Also they're symbols of new life and reincarnations, so they're the perfect gift for old people or newborns.

While in Japan chrysanthemums are symbols of power and royalty. And that's even more fitting for Remus, because he's a Duke, so he is royalty.

But chrysanthemum also symbolizes friendship - and not just "a friendship", but a meaningful one. It's a symbol of loyalty, devotion, romantic/platonic love and, in general, positive energy. It's a flower with an incredibly strong meaning, so it can't be given too lightly.

And this makes it even more perfect for Remus. It's a flower with a huge plurality of meanings, it's both associated with life and death, it's powerful and it's royalty.

Also, you can eat it. Isn't that the perfect Remus flower?

(On a side note: please notice how chrysanthemums and sunflowers are both associated with joy, loyalty and devotion. I would have never considered "joy" a common trait between Janus and Remus while loyalty and devotion... well, they both care about Thomas and his career and they both work for him despite not being accepted, so I can see why those are common traits.)

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Patton: Nemophila

Surprise surprise, this flower wasn't easy to find. I’ve never heard of it, so I had to search among endless lists of blue flowers, hoping to find one that would perfectly match the one on the shirt.

And that’s how I found nemophila.

First of all: nemophila is also known as "Baby Blue Eyes" and it's an extremely rare color to find in nature. It’s very famous in Japan, thanks to the Hitachi Seaside Park. Open this link: it’s a literal sea of blue and it’s absolutely gorgeous. Of course, it attracts people every year.

Nemophila represents prosperity, congratulations on success and victory. Not the first things you would associate with Patton, right?

Well, while I was searching more informations about this flower, I found out this website about the essence of Baby Blue Eyes and the passage I quoted down below has the exact same words you can find on that link:

With its pronounced affinity for water, the Baby Blue Eyes flower essences addresses qualities of tender sensitivity, innocence and trust associated one’s early childhood relationship to the father, or other significant masculine figures that are in some way disturbed.

Very often the father was absent, or there was a lack of support or genuine presence. The Baby Blue Eyes type attempts over time to cover this wound of vulnerability with a false “hardening,” such as emotional distancing, mistrust, cynicism or spiritual alienation. It is a flower that can be equally helpful for men or women, although it is especially needed for many men who struggle to become strong, by disowning their pain.

So nemophilia’s essence has qualities associated with childhood, to the father figure and attempts to “repress” and hide emotions.

That’s Patton. That’s him, period. The childhood-related emotions, that are linked to Patton’s longing for “a simpler time”. The mentions of a father figure - who migh be absent or showing lack of support (like, idk, suggesting you should die so your friends live?). And the attempt to “cover the vulnerability” doesn’t remind you anything? Like the Nostalgia episodes?

This flower is Patton.

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Logan: Blue petunia

I would like to say, from the bottom of my heart, a huge "FUCK YOU" to this flower, because I spent TWO DAYS searching all the blue flowers in the world and all possible variants, asking myself why this goddamn flower looked so familiar and why it was so hard to find. Blue isn't even a common color in nature, so why couldn't I find it?

I've learned more about blue flowers in these two days than in my entire life. I've searched among flowers I never saw before, like glandora diffusa, leschenaultia and omphalodes verna. I was so desperate to consider this flower a new species, with the petals of a bellflower and the corolla of a morning glory. I even found a goddamn chinese variant of the morning glory that was somehow similar but not that much and why, WHY this was so hard to find?!

And then, after two days and a lot more desperation, I remembered: my dear friend @reptilianwithscallions​ told me about a post they made, regarding this shirt and the flowers. Maybe they had some idea about Logan's flower?

Well, let's all thank my saviour and this post, because otherwise I would've kept searching until the end of my days.

Long story short, Logan's flower is a fucking blue petunia.

And it's a very peculiar choice, because petunias have multiple meanings, several of which can be contradictory.

In general, petunia symbolizes anger and resentment. It reminds someone that you're still angry or disappointed by their actions and you haven’t gotten over the things that caused these feelings.

Oh my, I didn't know we were back in Logan's playlist. It's basically what he kept expressing towards Thomas with his songs: that he was angry at Thomas for his decision, that he doesn't approve that Thomas hasn't "a real job" and so on. Petunia is a flower that screams passive-aggressive, so it's perfect for Logan.

But petunia's meaning deeply changes, depending on the color of the flower. And while petunia in general symbolizes anger, a blue petunia is a symbol of peacefulness, intimacy and deep trust, shared between two or more people. It's so wholesome, because the deep trust reminds me - again - of Logan's playlist and how it ended: no matter what, he and Thomas are always best friends.

Also, petunia flowers have even a secret meaning behind. Since they’re also gifted to new neighbors or to people who have just moved into a new home, they represent a perfect welcome and a way to express affection and kindness to others.

You’re lucky to be so wholesome, you tricky flower.

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Virgil: Perennial Geranium

Geranium is a confused flower.

Some of the other flowers have conflicted meanings, but not as much as this flower. These are the most common meanings I found:

Folly or Stupidity

Gentility and kind nature

Clever minds

Ingenuity

Melancholy

Perfect gift for a bride

You can gift it to someone with whom you have planned a meeting 

You can gift it to someone with whom you haven't planned a meeting, just to make them feel welcomed

True Friendship

See? It’s confused.

Aside from jokes, this variety of meanings is due to its great diffusion: since geraniums grow everywhere, every culture gave them a different meaning. And sometimes these meanings depend on the situation too.

Awww, isn't it perfect for Virgil? He can be good and bad at the same time. Anxiety can be bad for Thomas and detrimental for his life, but it can also be the alarm Thomas needs. It depends on the situation.

And, just like geraniums in general symbolize positive emotions, happiness and friendship, so Virgil is in general a good guy. All he does is for Thomas' wellbeing, not against him.

And this is confirmed by the vast use of geranium's essential oil. It's one of the most popular and it has a ton of properties: anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-depressant, decongestant, relaxing and so on. Just like our Virge boy can be incredibly useful under the right circumstances. (Did someone say "Flirting with social Anxiety"?)

Also, geraniums are simple, humble flowers that usually grow outside, but then we take them and make them part of our homes. Once again, it’s Virgil: he's an outsider, he's humble, he talks bad about himself - but Thomas and the others took him and made him part of the famILY anyway.

__________________________________

Thomas: Cherry blossom

I searched this flower everywhere and the only one that looks like the one on the shirt is the cherry blossom. Why did Thomas make a cherry blossom with eight petals, when they all have five? I have no idea. Is this a different flower, maybe? Maybe, but I’m done: I've looked at enough flowers and I don’t have any strength left.

As you probably already know, cherry blossoms are extremely important in Japan. They're beautiful, they're everywhere and they're meaningful.

Why? Because cherry blossoms are considered the perfect metaphor for human existence. When they blossom it's a pink ocean, a party, people go to admire them - but they’re short lived, because in two weeks, the blossoms start to fall. It's just like human life: a small, rich, glorious parenthesis in the void. Something little and precious that ends soon.

But cherry blossoms also symbolize rebirth, optimism, hopes and dreams. When they bloom, it means springtime is coming and spring has always been associated with renewal.

That’s a very good choice for character Thomas. He’s basically a cherry blossom, the whole series is: something that reminds us how beautiful life is, how multi-faceted, how important. Just like Thomas' single being encompasses seven different sides of himself, so life presents a wide range of choices, of aspects, of flavours. All beautiful, all worthy of appreciation, no matter how different they can be from you and your experience.

And this becomes even more important, in relation to the passage of time and the transience of life. Because life is short and, after that, there won't be any more time to appreciate anything.

In addition to that, I would like to point out how the theme of passage of time is something we already saw in the series. And not just one time, but several. Since the first season, we have episodes all around the concept of growing up, growing old, not being a child anymore, becoming an adult. And the last Aside keeps going in this direction. It's clear this is a big theme and its connection with the cherry blossoms proves it.

But why is the flower so different on the shirt? Because Thomas wanted to mess up with us? Probably. Almost certainly. Once again, thank you Mr. Sanders for making me question everything.

The floor is (figuratively) yours now: if you have any other information, thoughts or opinions, feel free to share them.

_______________________________

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[anarmorofwords]

Hi! You're probably not going to like this ask, but before getting into it I'd just like to say that this isn't meant as Kamala hate or anything, and I don't really want to offend.

Having said that, wouldn't it make sense that we get to see how Kamala treated Anna after she came out? It's in all likelihood one of the things that's weighing on Anna the most.

Obviously Kamala had her valid reasons: her parents aren't as liberal as the Lightwoods, she believes (knows?) their love is conditional as she's adopted, she's not white and not being heterosexual could further any treatment she's suffered from being different... Her reasons have already been listed multiple times by multiple people. Kamala has the right to stay in the closet and fear coming out. And while that shouldn't be villianised, we can't forget that closeted people can harm those around them.

If Kamala had kept treating Anna like a good friend, rumour would've sparked, and even if it was denied, she'd have been harmed by merely associating with Anna. Especially with the life Anna began leading; she could have been labelled as one of Anna's 'conquests' by the Clave. That, as we've established, is detrimental for her safety.

But at the same time, it would create a breach between Anna and Kamala. And Anna had the right to be hurt by it and weary of it when Kamala said she wanted a relationship.

If we look at it from that perspective, Anna's actions (though inexcusable in how they treated Kamala --who was also at fault for not accepting a negative for four months) make sense. Kamala wasn't only a fling of a week*, but also the girl she lost her virginity with, who asked her to be her secret (until she married Charles, after which Anna's affections would be discarded), who hid her sexuality for two years and sat back while Anna suffered from homophobic commentary, and who now wants a relationship hidden from most of the people that know her.

Kamala shouldn't be forced to come out; but the harm that can do to the women she may engage with is reflective of what happens nowadays. I can mostly think of examples with gay men, so my apologies in advance. But how many women have seen their marriages ruined by their husband having affairs with men?

Creating characters that reflect a toxic part of the 'hidden' LGBT community shouldn't be seen as hating or villinifying. Thomas isn't out and he isn't labelled a villain by the narrative --because his actions don't harm anyone. The hate Alastair gets in-universe is because of his past as a bully, not because he's gay. Matthew's not fully out and he isn't villianised --like Thomas, because the decisions he makes to keep his sexuality hidden don't impact anyone negatively.

I'll even go as far as saying that not even the narrative villianises characters like Kamala and Charles. If it were, they'd be seen more like Grace in Chain of Gold. We'd see how Kamala's actions are affecting Anna's in more ways than anger (that in itself put the fandom against Anna), and the characters would note so. We wouldn't see scenes were Cordelia empathised with Charles, nor Matthew said he loved him.

Be it as it may, Kamala and Charles represent ugly parts of being closeted that can naturally occur when someone is in their position. LGBT people are human. Humans, when put into very difficult situations (and Charles risks his career; Kamala her safety), can make decisions that harm those around them. Consequently, the people they're harming have a right to feel, well, harmed in whatever range of ways --this goes mostly for Alastair, and very partly for Anna, whose treatment of Kamala was horrible.

Readers need to understand what is pushing these 'villianised' characters to harm (again, mostly for Alastair) the more prominent characters and go beyond how they are instantly depicted. Because these are complex characters based on complex real people influenced by very ugly realities we will move on from someday, but sadly not yet.

By the way, Charles and Kamala's situations aren't that similar beyond the closeted thing, but I crammed them together because of a post I saw you reblog.

Please understand I'm not justifying Charles's actions; that I understand the pain he's put Alastair through, and know that he shouldn't ever be near Alastair. Nor am I trying to justify Anna's actions nor hate on Kamala.

I'll just finish my pointless rant by adding that I do think cc has sensitivity readers. I think she asked a gay man to go through tec (I don't know if he still revised her other books, though), and know she asked POC's input when writing someone for their culture. I don't know much beyond that, but I doubt who revises her stuff is up to her. Wouldn't that be something the publisher is responsible for (honest question)?

*I've also noticed people using the argument that they didn't know each other long enough for Anna to harbour such ugly emotions towards Kamala, but Kamala also remembered Anna pretty deeply and is 'in love' with her. I just wanted to say that considering cc writes (fantastical) romance where someone can ask a woman they met two months ago marriage, stressing over time spaces doesn't make much sense. Just my take.

hi!!

alright, where do I start? probably would be best with stating that while I can analyse Kamala's situation with what I know/see/read about racism and discrimination and reasonably apply things I've read/heard from PoC to the discussion, as well as try to be as sensitive about it as possible, I'm still a white woman, so not a person that's best qualified to talk about this.

that being said - if someone wants to add something to this conversation, you're obviously more than welcome to, and if there's something in my answer that you don't agree with or find in some way insensitive or offensive - please don't hesitate to call me out on that.

back to your points though: (this turned into a whole ass essay, so under the cut)

I don't think Anna shouldn't be able to reminiscent on Kamala's behaviour/reaction to her coming out, or be hurt by it. what bothers me is the way CC talks about it - I can't remember the exact phrasing, but the post where she mentioned this suggested something along the lines of "you'll see how Kamala sided with the Clave and didn't defend Anna after her coming out", therefore putting the blame on Kamala and completely disregarding the fact that Kamala wasn't in position to do much at all. It suggest that their situation was "poor Anna being mistreated by Kamala". therefore I'm afraid Kamanna's main problem/conflict will remain to be portrayed as "Anna having to allow themselves to love again and forgive Kamala", while Anna's shortcomings - and Kamala's vulnerable position - are never discussed. I think it would be possible to acknowledge both Kamala's difficult situation and the possible hurt her behaviour caused Anna without being insensitive towards Kamala's character, but it would take a really skilled - and caring - author to do both of the perspectives justice. CC would have to find a balance between being aware of the racism/prejudice Kamala faced/ writing her with lots of awareness and empathy, and still allowing her to make mistakes and acknowledging them. As it is however, I'm under impression that she's just treating it as a plot device, a relationship drama.

I'd say no one expects characters of color to be written as flawless or never making mistakes, it's mostly the way these mistakes are written and what things these characters are judged/shamed/

And that's - at least in my understanding and opinion - where the problem is. it's that the narrative never even addresses Anna's faults, and portrays Kamala as the one that caused all - or most of - the pain, without ever even acknowledging her problems and background.

White characters in TLH make mistakes and fuck up - because they're human and they're absolutely allowed to - but the thing is, non-white characters aren't afforded that privilege. Anna's behaviour is never questioned - none of it, shaming Kamala for not being able to come out, dismissing her desire to be a mother, or any of the questionable things she did in ChoI. Same with Matthew, James, Thomas. Alastair and Kamala however? they're constantly viewed through their past mistakes, and forced to apologize for them over and over, forced to almost beg for forgiveness. Moreover, those past mistakes are used as a justification of all and any shitty behaviour the other characters exhibit towards them now, which is simply unfair and cruel. They're held to a much higher standard.

So I'd like to say that yes, Kamala was in the wrong to keep nagging Anna after numerous rejections, and she was in the wrong to not inform Anna about Charles prior to them having sex - but that doesn't give Anna a free pass to constantly mistreat Kamala. And let's be real, Anna isn't stupid - while at 17 she could be naive and uninformed, I can't imagine how after years of hanging out with the Downworlders and numerous affairs and being out and judged by the Clave she's still so ignorant about Kamala's situation. I definitely think she's allowed to be hurt, but to still not understand why Kamala did what she did? Anna isn't blaming her for not telling her about Charles earlier - which would be fair - but instead for refusing to engage in an outright romance with her. She's being ignorant - and consciously so, I think.

Overall, I think you're definitely right about how coming out - or staying closeted - can be messy and hurt people in the process, especially in unaccepting environments/time periods, and I've seen enough discourse online to know there will never be a verdict/stance on this that will satisfy everyone. I, for one, would really like to refrain from putting all the blame on a single person - but, at least the way I see it, CC is pointing fingers. maybe not directly, but she is. Kamala, Alastair and Charles have no friends or support systems, and the only people in the narrative that defend them are themselves (ok, Cordelia does defend Alastair from Charles, but not from shitty takes about him and his "sins"). Also, sorry, but I don't like how you say "hid her sexuality for two years and sat back while Anna experienced homophobic comments" - it sounds very much judgemental. Kamala had every right to do that? The fact that she slept with Anna doesn't means she owed her something, and certainly not coming out and most probably destroying her life, or even defending her at the - again - expense of her own reputation, or more possibly safety.

As for Charles - it's a different issue here, at least imo - I fear that it'll be implied that his refusing to come out will is his main "sin", and therefore not something he can be judged for, which ironically, will be villainizing, but mostly will mean his actual sins are dismissed. This is where the scene with Cordelia feeling a pang of sympathy for him comes into play, and it worries me. I've never hated Charles for not wanting to come out, but rather for, let's see - grooming Alastair, disregarding Alastair's needs and feelings, disrespecting his mother, being a sexist prick, being low-key far-right coded "make Shadowhunters great again" etc.

As for sensitivity readers - I'm no expert, so I don't think my input is worth much. From what I've gathered from multiple threads/discussions on twitter, tho it is probably consulted/approved by the publisher, many authors push for that - and authors less famous and "powerful" than her. I'm not a hater, but seeing fandoms' opinions on much of her rep, I think she could do better. Because if she does have sensitivity readers, then they don't seem to be doing a great job - maybe they're friends who don't wanna hurt her feelings? Or maybe she thinks a gay guy's feedback will be enough for any queer content - which, judging by the opinions I've seen from the fans, doesn't seem to be true.

Again, these are mostly my thoughts and I'm more than open to reading other opinions, because *sigh* I really don't know how to handle this.

Bottom line - I really really don't want to be hating on the characters in general, playing God in regards to judging the struggles of minorities, or even criticising the characters too harshly for being human, flawed etc. What my main issue is is how CC handles those complex and heavy topics.

I hope I make sense and this answer satisfies you somehow - I also hope someone better equipped to answer might wanna join this conversation.

* I desperately need a reread of TLH before I engage in any more conversations like this, but I didn't wanna leave you hanging. So yeah, I might be remembering things wrong. Again, let me know, I'm very much open to being corrected as well as to further discussion.

* I use she/her pronouns for Anna because that's what she uses in canon

[shihalyfie]

A guide to the 02 kids’ personalities and overall demeanors

I’ve already covered the deeper details of each 02 kid’s character arc and development throughout the series, but I figured I might dedicate a more specific post about the complexities of their outer personalities, and their behavior patterns on a day-to-day basis. 02 is the kind of series that doesn’t really spell out what the characters tend to do or don’t tend to do, or what boundaries they will and won’t cross, which means it can be a bit of a challenging task to track their behavior over fifty episodes and figure out the patterns. Fortunately, these characters are written remarkably consistently over said episodes, so we have a lot to work with!

Disclaimer before we continue: In general, all of my 02-based meta is specifically written for the Japanese version in mind, but this especially applies to this one, because the majority of the nuances of the demeanor and personality traits described below were not retained in the American English dub at all (please see this post for more detail). As a result, please understand that if you’re working from the perspective of having only seen that dub, and the contents of the below post sound completely different, that would be why.

Daisuke and V-mon

Believe it or not, I would say that Daisuke is actually the most difficult to nail the nuances of out of this entire cast. This is probably a really weird thing to hear when the usual fandom mantra is that he’s “flat” or “lacking in development”, but I think the deceptive part is that while he’s simple-minded and himself doesn’t think in complex terms, analyzing his behavior as a whole and how he approaches things actually involves a lot of very delicate balances, and getting that exactly right can be very easy to mess up. Daisuke’s not a rude jerk who looks down on anyone, not in the slightest -- but he’s also not a saint who can do no wrong, either!

I think the easiest analogy (which I’ve brought up several times on this blog already) is that Daisuke is like a puppy, but not just any puppy -- a tiny puppy that barks very loudly at anything it perceives as threatening (regardless of whether it’s actually threatening), makes its feelings very clear with obvious likes and dislikes, and can do some phenomenally stupid things in a bid to please others, but in the end means no malice and only wants you to be happy.

This is to the point where I’m just going to have to bullet-point this, because there’s so much going on at once:

Excessively emotional: One of Daisuke’s earliest profiles refers to him as having “an excessively large range of human emotions”, and really, a lot of the humor surrounding him has to do with the fact he has incredibly dramatic, overblown reactions to nearly everything around him. So if he gets a little annoyed or suspicious of people making fun of him, he tends to get really dramatic about being upset, and when he experiences only a minor setback, he acts like it’s the end of the world, and when he’s emotionally hurt, he sometimes even gets set on the verge of crying (you can especially hear this in Kiuchi Reiko’s delivery). Even Daisuke himself doesn’t tend to get caught up in it for too long and gets over things surprisingly quickly, so you can take it as him just constantly being too wrapped up in the mood -- but when it really is a serious situation, he gets truly emotionally invested in it, too.

Too easy to read: Because Daisuke wears his heart on his sleeve and is dramatic about everything, he’s awful at hiding anything. Any attempt at trickery or trying to disguise his intentions quickly blows up in his face because he’s too simple-minded and too transparent.

Not malicious: Daisuke only ever lashes out or gets angry at others when he thinks others are doing something he disapproves of, or when he thinks he’s being attacked; he’s very warm and kind to everyone otherwise (even in the earliest parts of the series, when he’s at his roughest, you might notice he’s very soft around Chibimon, as if understanding that his partner is now in a very small and delicate form and needs to be treated accordingly). In other words, Daisuke is very quick to get defensive, but he has no malice or reason to be condescending towards anyone otherwise, and he’s perfectly friendly with people even when they’d provoked him earlier (because he doesn’t really hold grudges). He doesn’t attack people without reason; even when he voices dissent against what someone is doing, he very rarely, if ever, insults a person or their character directly. Even when he’s trying to state his opinions (such as when he bids for the others to accept Ken), he never forces them down others’ throats and accepts that they disagree with him, even if he’s clearly not happy with their disagreement.

Easily critical and suspicious: Daisuke is a very bluntly straightforward and honest person, and he seems to get most set off by people who act suspicious; note how his early-series outbursts towards Takeru tend to be when Takeru’s acting evasive, and in Hurricane Touchdown, he catches onto Wallace’s shady behavior even before he starts flirting with Miyako (Daisuke’s own method of trying to seem attractive to others involves just “doing something cool and hoping it’ll impress others”, so he seems to dislike the concept of flirting as a whole). Because of that, he catches easily onto “things looking off”, so he tends to call it out (even if sometimes he’s overdoing it and there isn’t actually anything significant to be upset about).

Supportive and adoring of others: Other than the moments when he gets set off, fundamentally speaking, Daisuke likes other people, is perfectly willing to acknowledge them or heap praise on them when they do something awesome, and generally cares for their well-being. He’s easily defers to others when he understands they’re better than him at something, and he even has a decently realistic scope of his limits (see how he’s perfectly aware he’s likely to lose the soccer game in 02 episode 8, and figures he might as well enjoy the experience). This is even taken to its logical conclusion in the Kizuna drama CD when he “credits” his friends for giving him amazing and insightful advice when all of it was actually pretty ordinary stuff they’d done offhandedly. It also means that, given his penchant for getting emotionally invested in everything, he has a huge emotional stake in making sure his friends are doing okay, and supports them accordingly.

Deferential to seniors/elders: Tying into the above, you may notice that Daisuke takes a properly respectful and soft tone towards his elders and seniors in nearly all occasions, even to the point of occasionally using proper polite-form language around them. All things considered, Daisuke is a pretty well-behaved kid.

Constantly getting strung around: As much as Daisuke looks like he’s aggressive, in actuality, it’s very easy to get him to back down if you argue against him strongly enough, and since he has such a “the heck is that?!” attitude all of the time, you can see him constantly getting strung around and at the mercy of things happening around him. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have enough will to put his foot down when it becomes a really important subject (especially in the second half of the series), but it’s very often when he’ll be talked down by others around him and shrink with an “oh...okay...” In fact, this is why a lot of his actions aren’t nearly as reckless as they might be otherwise; as much as he’s a bit hot-headed and likes to lead the attack, he also has a sense of self-preservation and intimidation when things look a bit too dangerous, and will only push forward in such a case when there’s something he really believes in at the other side of it.

Lacking in self-awareness and insecure as a result: While Daisuke doesn’t have any signs of persistent self-hatred (on the contrary, there are times he arguably comes off as overconfident), it also seems that he has practically zero awareness of how he himself is doing -- which means that he ends up rolling over like an idiot trying to get others’ approval and trying to impress them, even when it’d be clear to anyone else that he already has that approval. This also likely ties into the fact that he’s perfectly capable of acknowledging others’ accomplishments and skills (see above), so you might even think that the problem isn’t so much that he thinks he’s bad as much as he keeps comparing himself to people he perceives as being that much more awesome. (Perhaps symbolic of this, he apparently has a complex over being shorter than Takeru and Ken, despite the fact that he seems to be of perfectly average height for a kid his age.) It seems that his only bar for how he’s doing is dependent on everyone’s reactions around him, hence why his ridiculous antics are significantly less pronounced when he has proper emotional support and friends to keep him in check. It’s also important to consider that this applies to his apparent crush on Hikari as well; his crush mainly manifests in wanting her approval very badly, and it’s mostly visible in terms of him losing a ton of brain cells in her presence and bending over backwards to please her or impress her. He never actually says in words that he’s interested in her, nor does he ever show signs of intending to seriously ask her out, so it’s something that’s only apparent because of this behavior, and it’s very likely he hasn’t even seriously thought through what would happen if she actually accepted him in return. You can basically see this as an extreme version of the way Daisuke tries to get approval from everyone else, and this trait of his noticeably dies down whenever there’s more important things at hand, or when he seems to be in the midst of getting proper validation from those around him.

Simple-minded and pragmatic: What’s usually referred to as Daisuke being an “idiot” comes from the fact he doesn’t play well with complex thinking, tends to settle for very simple explanations or answers, and more thoughtful types like Ken or Iori will often have to fill that part in for him. However, because Daisuke is so simple-minded, he’s sometimes the most pragmatic person in the group, because he doesn’t overthink things or get principles of theory caught up into everything. So if Ken is clearly not showing any indication of doing bad things anymore and is actively working to help, Daisuke believes he should be allowed to help regardless of what he’d done in the past, and if they’re dealing with the situation of potentially having to kill a living enemy, Daisuke points out that hesitation would have resulted in even more casualties. In essence, in a situation where everyone’s running mental loop-de-loops, Daisuke will usually be the first one to snap them all out of it and go “uh? Guys?” Moreover, this trait of his makes him very good at spotting glaring threads or asking questions about the elephant in the room, because since he works best with things that are right in front of him, he can’t not notice it.

Enjoys the little things: Because Daisuke is so simple-minded, it’s very easy to please him (this is why his chosen career path is something as simple as ramen making). Daisuke likes his friends, and appreciates even simple things around him, so he’s happy with even simple pieces of happiness -- hence, why he’s fine with potentially losing the soccer game in 02 episode 8, because he’s ready to simply just savor the experience of getting to play against a respectable and formidable opponent.

Note that the main reason Daisuke never seems to bring up any of these issues with himself within the series proper is simply that he doesn’t seem to be aware of them -- he’s too simple-minded to understand what’s going on with his own behavior in depth, and hence, this is how he can say he’s not worried about too much by the time of 02′s finale, especially since by that point he has a proper support group that’s already helping him deal with most of his issues anyway.

Daisuke also has the roughest speech pattern out of any of the 02 group (similar to Taichi and Yamato in Adventure); he has a tendency to shorten words a lot and use “rough” variants of words (for example “-nee” instead of “-nai”).

Mischievous, friendly, and playful, V-mon is pointed out even by official sources to be much like his partner (far more so than usual), and it’s likely a byproduct of the fact that Daisuke himself is very honest and straightforward about his emotions and thoughts, and so since he has nothing to hide, V-mon is pretty much exactly like him -- with the major difference being that he’s a little more outwardly friendly and less likely to lash out angrily. So he’s effectively Daisuke without that very thin abrasive exterior, and because both of them are so like-minded and friendly, they get along extremely well (albeit with quite a bit of comfortable bantering on the way there).

Ken and Wormmon

Ken is the more intellectual type that Daisuke isn’t, and even after his stint as the Kaiser, it’s clear that he’s still quite studious and naturally interested in studying things. Looking closely at his style of dress and way of carrying himself (note how he lays down his chopsticks in 02 episode 36) indicates he’s also a rather tidy person in general. Being someone who’s capable of thinking things thoroughly, this makes him able to have a lot of deep insight into both intellectual and emotional issues, but because he takes things too seriously sometimes, he can sometimes come off as a bit overly stickler or insistent (note Daisuke and Ken’s Shopping Carol, where he subjects Daisuke to a long-winded lecture about the history of Christmas, because, really, he’s a nerd), or lead himself down the wrong direction when he’s having a hard time being straightforward (such as when he comes up with some very flimsy theories about why Jogress might be dangerous in 02 episode 28).

In fact, Ken’s disposition could be considered to be the opposite of Daisuke’s in many ways; while Ken is much softer and more conciliatory on the surface, he’s actually much more assertive and strong-willed by default, and it’s made clear that, even after his reformation from the Kaiser persona, he could still be vicious if he wanted to, he just doesn’t enjoy it because he doesn’t like it and it goes against his belief system (note that he even offered to "dirty his own hands" in lieu of the other kids if push came to shove and Archnemon had to be killed in 02 episode 29, even though he clearly wasn't enthusiastic about the idea). In fact, he has a very strong sense of responsibility and believes heavily in making up for what he’s done -- recall that 02 episodes 26 and 49 involved snapping him out of it by reminding him that there were things that needed to be done, and that he himself still had many things he wanted to do that wouldn’t be addressed if he’d stayed fixated on his past. Thus, Ken doesn’t deny nor avoid anything he’d done, and he isn’t even all that prone to self-pity -- it’s just that his tendency to put too much responsibility on himself means that he also takes a while to accept everyone’s support, too, because he doesn’t like the idea of putting burdens on others.

Because Ken is actually one of the more straightforward people in this group and a fairly honest person (at least, as long as he’s not lying to himself), he might hold himself back a little bit in order to not be rude, but he doesn’t do it nearly to the same degree Takeru or Hikari would and is much more willing to speak his mind when he has an opinion he wants to voice or needs to sort out his thoughts on something. Conversely, he’s not nearly as cold as Iori can get when criticizing things (he’ll certainly be firm, but not as incisive). Most post-02 materials also indicate that he’s not above being a tease or even a little mischievous (see Armor Evolution to the Unknown, Diablomon Strikes Back, Daisuke and Ken’s Shopping Carol).

Ken uses a speech pattern that’s slightly more casual than Takeru’s, but not nearly as rough as Daisuke’s. While anime will often have speech patterns substantially change between different personas of a character, other than Park Romi’s delivery of a more condescending tone for the Kaiser and a significantly softer one for Ken, nothing about his speech pattern is substantially different between the two personas (not even the first-person pronoun), indicating that, in the end, they’re really the same person after all, just manifesting the same personality traits in different ways.

Wormmon is affectionate and clingy, unfailingly loyal to Ken, and his biggest advocate during a time when Ken is trying to relearn how to love and accept himself -- meaning that he ends up very important to providing Ken the initial support he needed before Ken allowed other friends into his life. Wormmon isn’t all nothing but clinginess, though -- he has some insight about the weight of his experiences when prompted (02 episode 46), and in fact is more than capable of calling out Ken’s behavior when he’s being unreasonable or throwing himself into denial (see 02 episodes 27, 30, and 49).

Miyako and Hawkmon

Miyako approaches everything she likes with an attitude that makes her come off as constantly having bubbles and hearts around her. When she likes something, she says so. When she doesn’t like something, she says so (and she will go off when she’s on a roll; see 02 episode 14). In fact, part of the reason she so infamously voices her opinion on people being cute is, quite simply, that it’s her honest opinion. (Note that she never actually tries to ask them out or anything -- she just wants to make it very clear that they’re attractive.)

For the most part, she adores the people around her, and, like the others in the 02 group, she’s perfectly respectful towards elders.  She also loves poking her nose in others’ business and trying to be as helpful as possible, which is good in that she ends up being a huge help to others, but also not good in that sometimes she overdoes it a bit (when Hikari calls her out for being a “handful” in 02 episode 31, the word she uses is one that literally means "a little too overly involved in others' business").

Miyako is the one who gets everyone up in high spirits by being cheerful, and whose cheer rubs off on everyone else around her (see her cheerfully leading the charge into the Digital World with her “Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let’s roll!” catchphrase). This is something the rest of the group catches onto very quickly, asking her to supply the “usual cheer”, and the later episodes of the series especially drive home the fact that her presence and antics bring happiness to those around her.

Miyako has a similar “chaotic, sloppy, and straightforward” demeanor to Daisuke, but there are some key differences. Unlike Daisuke, who’s bluntly honest about his opinions mainly because he doesn’t really hide things in general, Miyako’s opinions will be out of her mouth before she can control it. In other words, she has a nasty case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. In addition, while Daisuke tends to have a very thin skin and lashes out defensively out of instinct, Miyako takes things much more at face value and doesn’t blow a fuse nearly as easily, but because she’s significantly more assertive and aggressive, she’s much more prone to doing what she wants on her own whims instead of backing down to anyone. In fact, Miyako is significantly more emotionally sensitive in the long run, so while Daisuke tends to blow a fuse more easily, he’s also able to shrug it off and move on more quickly, whereas Miyako has a thicker skin, but when she does take emotional pain, she takes it much more deeply and harshly. She also tends to get overwhelmed easily by stress and panic, which makes her one of the more prone to running around in circles and doing frantic things in the midst of it.

One thing you might notice about Miyako is that she’s actually more critical of herself than anyone else in the group is; most of the time they act with mild exasperation at her antics but don’t tend to criticize her directly, whereas Miyako is very aware of her own shortcomings and is constantly either criticizing herself or comparing herself negatively to others (see: 02 episodes 10, 14, 18, and 31 especially). If she slips up and does something that stepped on someone else’s toes, it doesn’t take her long to realize that she’s messed up and want to do better. So while she generally tends to act the most in-your-face and aggressive, she also doesn’t necessarily want to be this way, and suffers from self-confidence issues and a poor opinion of herself.

Miyako uses a feminine speech pattern that’s a bit more casual than Hikari’s (she noticeably is willing to use the word anta for “you”, which has a bit of a connotation of being abrupt and in-your-face, especially with Daisuke). She’s also the most likely to physically manhandle things, both in the affectionate (hugging people) and aggressive (grabbing things and jumping on them in order to attack) senses.

Hawkmon is repeatedly referred to as being like Miyako’s “knight”, since he has absolute loyalty to her (in spite of her ridiculous antics often meaning he gets strung around by her) and is effectively in charge of minding her so she doesn’t get too out of control. While his overly polite and gentlemanly demeanor initially seems like a sharp contrast to Miyako’s aggressive and messy personality, you might also notice that, at their cores, the two aren’t all that different -- both are unfailingly loyal to others, and both also have a penchant for dramatic theatrics and being a bit overly proud of themselves.

Iori and Armadimon

The key thing to know about Iori is that he’s not stoic because he’s not feeling fervent emotions, but rather because he’s constantly holding them back (this is especially apparent if you look carefully at his facial expressions and Urawa Megumi’s delivery, where you can tell his facade is often “slipping” even when his words would indicate otherwise). Since Iori is trying to live by the ideal of being a model citizen, especially under the very formal environment he was raised in, he comes off as mature for his age, but it’s very important to not forget that, underneath all that, he’s still an impressionable nine-year-old child with the wide range of emotions and immaturity of one, and when he does emotionally fall apart, everything tends to burst out (see 02 episodes 16, 44, 47, 50). In addition, Iori is never condescending about the fact he usually acts more mature than the others; the impression is that he’s much more strict with himself than he is with others, and in fact still does look up to his elders in the 02 group even when they’re obviously a lot messier than he is.

The “need to be a model citizen” is something looming over Iori’s head at almost every moment, and it’s the easiest way to understand the way he acts in a nutshell. Iori is focused on the idea of “becoming a proper adult”, which means that he’s adhering to all of these principles because he feels they’re necessary to live a proper and honest life as per the formal manners that his family background trained him into. But like a young child who insists “you have to do this because those are the rules!” all of the time, Iori is over-applying all of this, and even his own grandfather advises him that he really needs to chill (02 episodes 5, 24). In short, he struggles with thinking flexibly and understanding that life isn’t all that clear-cut, because he’s a young child. Since he also tends to bring out these things in relation to “what my father would do/say”, it’s implied that he’s basing all of this off of having only hearsay to work off of in regards to what his father was actually like, to the point of aspiring to an impossible, saintlike version of him he’d created in his head.

Note that Iori’s “rules” have less to do with institutional rules (that would be more of a Jou thing) and more to do with self-imposed personal rules; for instance, he doesn’t mind sneaking into school during a holiday when it’s obviously not hurting anyone (02 episode 6), but he struggles with things like wasting food (02 episode 3) or not formally introducing himself to an elder (02 episode 5). So in other words, his adherence to principles has heavily to do with “the right and proper way to live” more than anything, and what he believes is the right thing to do in a given situation.

Iori’s journey in 02 is largely fueled by the fact that, as an inheritor of sorts of the Crest of Knowledge, he has a sense of “I want to know and understand more” whenever he sees something that makes him curious, but unlike Koushirou’s desire to learn more about the world around him in terms of its technical workings, Iori mainly wants to know more about people. The reason he begins to let go of his inflexible mindset is that he has the humility to understand that he still has a lot more to learn and understand, and when he sees behavior from others that doesn’t make sense, he does his best to learn more about it -- hence how his aggressive probing into learning more about Takeru allows them to reach an understanding and eventual Jogress, and how he’s able to eventually reassess his own view of human morality and emotions.

Iori sticks out in that he almost always uses the formal variant of Japanese in most situations (nobody else in the 02 group does this). However, formal in this situation doesn’t necessarily mean polite; Iori doesn’t believe in flattery and will bluntly state his opinion in said formal tone, and will be very cold towards something he sufficiently disapproves of or doesn’t have any respect for, which can make him even come off as passive-aggressive at times. (Noticeably, while he still asserts his own opinion, he does refrain from criticizing the others in the 02 group too much, presumably because he respects and looks up to them a lot as his elders, regardless of how chaotic they can sometimes get.) In addition, because a lot of his demeanor comes from him restraining himself, when his emotions are sufficiently pushed over the edge, he loses grip on the polite form and starts “lapsing” back into the casual one.

Because Iori was so young during 02, and because the events of its story ended up really upending his view of the world, the huge eight-year gap between 02 and Kizuna makes it difficult to predict certain things about his demeanor at the time of Kizuna (especially since his own voice actor commented on the difficulty of conveying the nuances of Iori’s character, thanks to only being able to work with the limited time frame of a movie that doesn’t put him in the kinds of emotionally drastic situations that push him to his limit). That said, everything we’ve seen of him in the movie itself and the drama CD makes reasonable sense; now that he’s much older, he comes off as having much better restraint on his emotions and coming off as genuinely calm, but he’s still not one for flattery, and you can still see very minor slips in his facade every so often.

Armadimon also initially seems like a sharp contrast to Iori in terms of demeanor, in that he’s much more casual and laid-back, and he’s indeed a huge factor in reminding Iori to chill once in a while -- but, much like Iori, he prods and asks questions about anything he’s curious about. This initially seems to be out of simple-mindedness because, being a Digimon, he doesn’t understand human society that well, but his very basic questions often end up snapping Iori back to reality in realizing that he’s getting hung up on things that don’t actually make practical sense. Urawa also felt that Armadimon fills in some of the void that Iori’s late father left behind, in that he provides Iori with unconditional love and helps guide him.

Takeru and Patamon

Takeru is the kind of person who seems to dislike major disruptions to the status quo, so he doesn’t say anything inflammatory that’ll rock the boat. It’s very difficult to get him to talk about serious topics related to his deeper personal feelings (02 episode 17, 35, Spring 2003), and even when it’s clear he might have more misgivings on the situation, unless it’s an urgent situation where it needs to be brought up, he won’t voice his misgivings too clearly for the sake of not causing trouble (hence why Daisuke is so unsure what to make of him in the early episodes of the series, because Takeru constantly fails to clarify his own position in favor of a “good for you” or “sure, you keep believing that if you want” attitude). This also makes him the most likely to awkwardly change the subject or try to distract with small talk, and it means that, even when he’s saying cheerful, pleasant things, it’s very likely there’s pain or uncertainty under that initial facade. (Note that while his suspicions of Ken during 02 episodes 25 and 27 aren't nearly as vicious as Iori's turn out to be, we learn that he's still willing to quietly accuse Ken of working for his own self-satisfaction in the latter episode, but he never brings this up to anyone but himself.)

Because Takeru isn’t  necessarily doing this to be consciously dishonest, it does mean that he also has positive applications of this tendency to take everything in stride and keep the peace, because he ends up keeping the more extreme personalities in the rest of the group in line and acts as an effective mediator. You could say that he has a pretty high amount of tolerance and a capacity for taking everyone’s points of view in mind. However, since it’s also very difficult to tell what he himself is thinking, his use of this as a poor coping mechanism for his personal trauma leads to a tendency for him to suddenly explode in a mess of emotions whenever something gets too personal, leading to sudden conflict, and with others at a loss in terms of how to deal with him (the most extreme example being 02 episode 19, but also present in 13, 11, and 34). This “two-sidedness” is why it ends up having to be the more consciously methodical Iori who steps up to try and understand him better as his Jogress partner.

Fortunately, Takeru shows signs of becoming more straightforward in the aftermath, although you can see that he still has a penchant for mild flattery and “trying to hold back for the sake of not being rude” all the way up to Kizuna (but, again, this can’t be said to necessarily be a bad thing when it means he has a valuable skill as a mediator).

Takeru has a fairly neutral speech pattern that comes off as casual but not too aggressive or assertive (not as absurdly polite as Iori’s, but slightly less assertive than Ken’s).

Patamon initially still seems to be “immature” in the same way he was in Adventure, which initially seems to widen the gap in personality between him and Takeru, but looking closer reveals that the differences aren’t as big as they seem; Patamon seems to have gained a capability for slyness and active trolling behind his playfulness (see 02 episode 7), not entirely like Takeru starting to use his evasiveness in a teasing-like manner. Moreover, Patamon does actually seem to have gained a bit of proper maturity in the meantime; see how he instructs the Baby Digimon on convenience store food in 02 episode 3, and in general seems much more willing to take independent action in ways he didn’t always in Adventure. Noticeably, Takeru’s difficulty with his own convoluted feelings means that he can’t even have a proper heart-to-heart with him about it on the situation (most glaring in 02 episode 34, where it’s implied that Takeru would rather leave Patamon to be happy right now instead of bothering him about it), especially because he’s clearly having difficulty even working it out with himself. However, despite their ostensible differences in mentality, Takeru and Patamon have no difficulty getting along at all in 02, and, other than Takeru pampering Patamon a bit, there isn’t all that strong of an impression of them being so mismatched -- perhaps because, in the end, they really aren’t all that different.

Hikari and Tailmon

Taichi stated in Adventure episode 48 that Hikari has a problem where she's so selfless and thinking of others that she'll never speak up about her own problems. Hikari states in 02 episode 31 that she compulsively cannot speak out about her own feelings even if she wanted to, to the point she’s jealous of Miyako for being able to be more open (even if it means being overkill at times). As a result: if Hikari’s talking about “the right thing to do”, or something for everyone’s sake, or something that’s relevant to other people and what’s best for them, she will be extremely vocal and quick to act, and she’s not above even chipping in with criticisms (see: 02 episodes 19, 32, 44). In fact, she’s fully capable of being playful or toying with others if she really wants to (see how she casually manipulates Daisuke into calling a lunch break for everyone in 02 episode 6).

The moment the issue at hand is about herself, though -- her own feelings or pain, or something that might hurt others’ feelings (hence the presumable reason she dodges Daisuke’s affections rather than proactively doing anything about it), or something that would put a burden on others for her own sake -- she completely clams up and refuses to do or say anything, and when bad things start happening to her, she resigns herself to her own fate and concludes she can’t do anything about it. Hence, why she takes such a defeatist attitude towards the Dark Ocean swallowing her up in 02 episodes 13 and 31, and why it’s such a big deal if she even so much as asks for help. 02 episode 31 indicates that Miyako reaching out to her is an important step in breaking her out of her shell, and the Kizuna drama CD -- which has Hikari assertively declare something she personally wants -- heavily implies further that Miyako was instrumental to this becoming possible.

Hikari is compassionate for others to the very end, expresses pity for BlackWarGreymon as early as 02 episode 31, and catches on quickly to Ken’s feelings on himself in 02 episode 37 (and even back when she’d been more skeptical about him in 02 episode 25, she never seemed to have real personal distaste against him as much as she still wanted to make sure he was trustworthy first). But although she’s one of the most compassionate in the group, she’s also one of the most assertive in the group. This leads to something that initially seems like a paradox: she’s actually more fervent about the need to fight than the more aggressive Miyako is. Miyako is, ultimately, emotionally caught up in everything and briefly falls apart at having killed LadyDevimon in 02 episode 44 (even despite knowing how horrible of a person she’d been), but Hikari is the one who points out that there would have been more victims if they hadn’t. 02 episodes 25 and 43 had made it abundantly clear that Hikari didn’t like it at all, but she states in 02 episode 37 repeatedly that they need to prevent there from being victims -- meaning that she values the importance of protecting all lives, including those who would be hurt in the process, and thus has some of the more resilient guts when it comes to the prospect of fighting to save others. Again, her hesitation only comes into play at its worst when it has to do with herself; working to save others is a no-brainer.

Hikari uses a casual feminine speech pattern that’s less in-your-face than Miyako’s, but she’s still a bit more casual than she was in Adventure, when she used the more polite watashi instead of atashi. Interestingly, Tailmon herself seems to have mirrored this as well, presumably because now that she’s had more time to recover from her miserable life under Vamdemon, she’s able to enjoy her life a bit more freely. This means that, while Tailmon is still the most mature and put-together of the Digimon partners in the 02 group, she sometimes acts a little more casual and playful in a similar way to Hikari, and while she has a certain degree of stuffy personal pride (see how she wasn’t very amused at how frivolously the other Digimon were playing around in 02 episode 3), she’s still open to enjoying herself a little more freely. Hikari, for her part, becomes surprisingly like-minded with her during those times -- see them in 02 episode 12 -- and, as stated earlier, it’s not like Hikari isn’t up for making tough decisions when they’re needed, either.

[andreafmn]

Running In Circles - Chapter 2

Word Count: 2,663

Characters: Female Reader Rossi Character, Aaron Hotchner, David Rossi, Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid, Jennifer “JJ”Jareau, Emily Prentiss, Penelope Garcia

Story Description: (Y/N) Rossi is following in her father’s footsteps by joining the BAU team as a profiler. The girl genius knew almost everything but she could have never predicted falling for Aaron Hotchner, her boss and her father’s friend. in their world mutual feelings are not enough to push them together. Will all the adversities and obstacles they face pull them together or push them apart forever?

*DISCLAIMER* I do not own in any way Criminal Minds, all credits of the pre-established characters, script, and storyline belong to Jeff Davis and CBS Network. The only thing I own is Arden Rossi, any upcoming characters, and her storyline, as well as her effects in the others’ story line.

Chapter: 2/?

Chapter Description: The team goes back to work as Aaron Hotchner considers retiring from the team and spend time with his son. (Y/n) can’t help but provide emotional support for the Hotchner boys.

A/N: I enjoy angst and slow burns way too much XD. If you enjoy my writing I’ll also be posting them in AO3 and Wattpad along with other stories (I also hope to start taking requests if ya’ll want) Hope you enjoy and all constructive criticism is encouraged.

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Chapter 2

Once it was over, the interviews came. We knew the story. We lived it. The case was open and shut. They could try and make us pint it all on Hotch, the easy way out, but we knew better. And we would stand next to our unit chief whatever the price.

Haley’s funeral was no easier than being at the scene. It was a somber day and the sadness was imprinted in us. We all walked with dropped shoulders and a tight chest. I stood between Derek and Reid, using Morgan as support because I felt that my legs would give out at any moment. My father stood behind me rubbing circles on my back to comfort me. As we laid the roses on top of the casket, we laid to rest the life of Haley, a woman I only knew through the loving words Hotch spoke of.

The group did not know what to do to help the heartbroken man. It would take time to heal even just the smallest bit of his heart. All we could hope for was that he would come back to the team.

At the worst possible moment, the phone rings. No other team available and someone in need, we had to go to work. We all rolled our eyes or shook our heads; this was the job. But would it be the same without him?

I went to Hotch before we left and gave him a hug.

“Call me if you guys need anything,” he said.

“Just take care of your son,” I smiled, and he softly returned one of his own. I squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and left to join the team.

On the plane, we were caught up with the case. We stored all our feelings and got the machines running. We needed to finish this quickly and perfectly.

Two women, both brunettes and young, high-powered executives, murdered in their own homes, the floor around them decorated with flower petals. After Emily and Derek visited the crime scene, we had another part of the puzzle, the unsub was stalking his victims. Everything just seemed so perfect and staged, there was no way he was not prepared.

I stayed with JJ in the station working on the announcement and trying to figure something else from the details provided and the crime scene photos, but JJ could see my head wasn’t in it completely for the first time.

“Hey,” she said, taking my attention from the piece of paper I had been eyeing for the past five minutes. “What’s on your mind? Talk to me.”

“Is it wrong that I feel bad for being here?” I sighed. “Working like nothing’s happened.”

“Of course not, we all feel a bit guilty,” she smiled. “I know you most of all.”

My eyes opened in shock.

“Oh, come on, (Y/N). Everyone knows you have a not-so-secret crush on Hotch,” she laughed. “The only one that can’t see it is him. And probably your dad. Parents can be quite oblivious to their children’s feelings in this way.”

My head flew into my hands to cover the embarrassment that was flooding my cheeks. It was one thing to assume the whole team knew, another was to have it confirmed.

“It’s okay, (Y/N), we’ll see what comes of it. What I can say is that you can’t let this stop you from doing your job.”

She smiled one last time and it was all I needed to push Aaron Hotchner to the back of my mind and bring the case forward.

“Find anything?” My father asked entering the small room at the police station, Reid following behind.

“Several people had access to each home,” I said rubbing my temple. “Housekeeper, gardener, pool cleaner, dog walker…”

“Each with their own key and an alibi to match,” JJ added, an annoyed tone rolling off her tongue.

“Any crossover?”

“None. We even vetted delivery people and utility workers.” I sighed.

“Garcia, do you have anything?” Reid said, sitting down.

“There’s no hits at the prints at all. But I did what Sir Derek there asked, and I created a paper trail,” Penny explained. “There’s no cross-over between the two victims themselves in the weeks leading up to their murders, but they did run in similar circles.”

Penelope continued to explain how both victims lived quite a lavish and high-class lifestyle as Emily and Derek joined us. We figured this man would fit right in this crowd. Educated, intelligent, a gentleman. What we had yet to pinpoint was how the unsub entered the homes with no signs of forced entry. It was clear we were not going to make any headway tonight and Derek knew it too. So, he decided we should be done for the day and we would come back tomorrow well-rested and with fresh eyes.

That night I laid in the bed of my hotel room staring at the ceiling. All I could think of was Hotch and everything he was going through. I could only imagine.

And as if by fate, my phone rang. Aaron Hotchner.

“Hello?”

“Oh,” Hotch said surprised. “Did I wake you?”

“No, I haven’t been able to sleep.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I guess I’m just worried about you.”

He chuckled softly. “You really shouldn’t.”

“But I do, Hotch.”

He stayed silent, only his slow breathing was heard through the phone.

“Did I fail her?” He asked after some minutes of comfortable silence.

“Absolutely not.”

“I promised her that I would catch Foyet and spend the rest of my life making it up to her.”

“And you still can.”

“But” he exhaled loudly. “How?”

“By being the best father you can be to Jack and continue living your life in the best way you can.”

“You know, Dave told me that I had to figure out what kind of father I wanted to be and then I’d know what to do. But I have no idea what that is.”

“Hotch…”

“I’m serious,” he interrupted. “I don’t know what kind of father I am. I catch killers. I save lives. I’m a hero until my key hits the front door, and then I’m just the father who’s never there. Haley was raising Jack all by herself and that was my support blanket. I was able to do my job because I knew he was cared for by another parent. A better parent.”

He sobbed softly as the last words escaped his mouth.

“I’m going to stop you right there,” I said, trying my best not to sound angry. “To that little boy, you are the only real hero that exists. He knows that when you’re not home it’s because you’re out here catching the bad guys like Foyet and making the world better for his sake. He knows that everything you do is out of love for him.

You know, when I was little my dad was absent quite a lot because of this job, but there was one thing that I knew for sure, that he loved me more than anything and that he worked better and faster because he wanted to come back home to me. And never ever have I resented him for leaving and catching the bad guys. He’s the reason I became an FBI agent.

You are an amazing father and anything you choose will be the right thing for Jack.”

After a minute of sobs, Hotch started to calm down.

“Thank you, (Y/N). You have no idea how much I needed that right now,” he cleared his throat. “How’s the case going?”

“Nope,” I laughed. “Not going to talk about the case.”

“Really?” He chuckled.

“Yes, Hotch. Take a breather. You deserve it.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, and I could hear his smile through the phone.

We had been talking for about an hour when I heard him yawn.

“Seems you’re getting sleepy there, Hotchner.” I laughed. “We should both get some rest. If it’s 3 am over here it must be 2 am in Washington. So, good night and see you soon.”

“Good night, (Y/N). Again, thank you. Sweet dreams.” And he hung up.

And finally, I drifted to sleep.

The next morning, we were up and ready for business.

“We believe our unsub is already with his next victim,” my father started. “If he matches the patter, she’ll be a successful woman, probably brunette, early 30s to mid-40s. She’ll be at home in Nashville’s upper echelon.”

“This means that he fits in,” I explained. “He drives the right car, he wears the right clothes, he’s highly intelligent. He probably comes from a place of status.”

“This guy’s sociable and he’s endearing,” said Morgan. “You would never suspect that this man is capable of murder. But he will do whatever it takes to protect the fantasy that he’s trying to relive.”

“It’s this fantasy which fuels his drive. He’s reliving a romantic evening and recreating it with each of his victims.”

“He most likely had a relationship taken away from him,” Derek crossed his arms. “So, look at men who have lost loved ones or have gone through a messy divorce.”

After finishing with the profile, we set out to establishments that fit the criteria to possibly get a suspect. As we worked, we got a call. Another crime scene, but this one was different.

A male victim. Overkill on the female. Something made him change his M.O.

Out in the garage, Reid and I looked for any sort of clues and I noticed his sight direct to the car. There may be another way we could connect the victims and how the unsub made their way into their homes.

Finally, Garcia had something with the hunch Spencer had figured. She overlaid all the geographical routes the victims had taken against the geo profile to show what we were missing with any paper trail. Although it was not a clear answer, Erika Silverman was the only one that did not fit the extravagant lifestyle and she only went and came from her work or her home. Except on Tuesday, where she went to the Botanical Gardens, what was she doing there? JJ, Reid, and I left for the gardens to find out.

And just as we had suspected, there had been an event to which Erika had attended. And a puzzle piece revealed itself.

“An event up here would be a hard sell for women in heels,” JJ commented.

“Well, most of our private events hire valets to drive the cars down to the base of the park so they don’t have to hike it up the hill.”

“Who had access to your keys but goes unseen?” Reid asked.

“And to your GPS,” I added.

“Dealerships program your home address into the navigation system before your car even leaves the lot.”

“He had turn-by-turn directions straight to her front door and the keys to get him inside,” I pointed.

We now had how he got his victims and how he entered their house without force. Now, all we had to do was pinpoint his next victim and see who he was.

JJ was instructed to get dad and Prentiss to pick up the owner of the valet service used in the event, and Derek, Reid, and I stayed behind to canvass the employees. We could catch this guy in action unless he had already gotten his next victim.

Joe Belser. That was our unsub. With the profile, the owner was able to point out the suspect quickly. And off we were.

JJ, Reid, and I headed to the venue and the rest of the team went to Belser’s house. He wasn’t in the apartment, but they had found the meaning behind the roses and universal garage door openers. In the venue, Reid called Garcia to see which of the VIP guests could be the next potential victim.

Ann Herron was the next victim, and he was already at her house.

“FBI! PUT IT DOWN!” Derek screamed, blinding Joe with his flashlight. I walked in from behind Derek and kneed Belser’s stomach. He fell to the ground groaning and Emily grabbed the man by the throat to immobilize him.

“Fantasy’s over,” she spat. “Is that what you did to them? You hit them to shut them up and then forced them to play along with your sick delusion?”

 “I love them,” Joe said sinisterly.

“You’re finally gonna meet your soulmate, Joe,” I added from behind Prentiss. “In prison.”

“Only you’re not gonna be able to push him around like you did those women,” Emily continued. “And when he comes for you in the middle of the night, when you’re least expecting it, you do me a favor. Play along.” 

She stood the man up forcibly and put him in handcuffs and I went outside to check on the victim.

“How is she?” Derek asked walking out of the house with my father.

“She’s strong,” I said closing the ambulance door. “She’ll make it. But you don’t survive something like that without scars.”

“Scars remind us where we’ve been,” my father commented. “They don’t have to dictate where we’re going.”

He put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my head as we walked back to the SUVs, finally on our way home.

The next day, I called up my dad so he would accompany me to Haley’s grave. Something told me I had to go. At the cemetery, I saw what the pull was. Sitting in front of the headstone less grave was Hotch. I walked up to him first, my father close behind. Hotch lifted his head and stared into my eyes, sitting up slightly.

“I had a feeling I’d find you here,” I spoke softly. “Have you told her yet?”

“Told her what?” He mused.

“That you’re coming back to the team,” my father joined his left side. Hotch looked at him. “That fighting the bad guys is who you are.”

Hotch lowered his head and shook it. “I don’t have to tell her. She already knows.”

I squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and gave him a soft smile. My father did the same and walked to my side, so we’d retreat, giving Hotch some space.

“So, do you want me to drive you back to your house?” My father asked.

“No,” I smiled. “I’m gonna stay with Hotch for a bit and then I’ll go home.”

“Okay, darling.” He kisses the top of my head. “I’ll pick you up on Monday then. Ciao, Mia Bella.”

“Bye, dad.”

Once my dad left, I sat down on a bench and waited for Hotch.

“(Y/N), you’re still here?” Hotch questioned with a smile on his face.

“Yeah, thought you might want some company.”

“Truthfully,” he chuckled. “I do. Thank you.”

“How about this, we pick up Jack, you guys come over and I crack open a present I had for Jack.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he motioned me to his car. “Let’s go.”

We drove quietly to his apartment, only the low volume of the radio and the sound of our breathing could be heard. It didn’t take long to arrive at the complex, where he opened the car door for me and led me upstairs. Inside apartment #121, was Jessica Brooks, Haley’s sister, and Jack playing a card game.

“(Y/N)!” Jack screamed as soon as I walked through the door, running to give me a hug.

“Hey, buddy!” I hugged back.

“Hotch, you’re back,” she exclaimed. “Good to see you again, (Y/N).”

“Good to see you, too,” I smiled. “How you holding up?”

“As good as I can be.” She answered as she began to gather her things. “Well, I’ll see you soon. Bye, little guy.”

“Bye, Aunt Jessica.”

“Bye, guys.” She said as she left.

“Hey, little man,” I directed to Jack. “I’ve got an idea.”

“What is it?”

“How about you to pack a go-bag and you and dad come over so we can open a present I have for you?”

“Yes!” He exclaimed as he sped off to his room to pack.

“I think you should go help him,” I smiled at Hotch. “If I have any memory of being a kid, they’re not very good at packing.”

“Yeah,” he grinned. “Maybe I should.”

I waited for both father and son to pack for the night asking myself why I was putting myself in this position. Growing closer to a man I had a 0% chance with. But I couldn’t help it. All in all, he was my friend, and he needed all the support he could get.

<- Previous | Next->

A/N: if you wish to be tagged for the next parts, please let me know. I’d be happy to. <3

[lin-nin]

Tribulation & Tenderness - Chapter 7

Ship: Main Technoblade x Reader, some Dream x Reader

Plot:  You're a princess in a Kingdom suffering a years long famine. In a   desperate attempt to help your people, you accept one simple offer:   Marriage to the crown prince of a neighboring kingdom. Anything to help your people survive. Surely it can't be too bad, can it?

Chapter List: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Disclaimer:   Cross-posted on Wattpad (discontinued) and Ao3. This is based off of everyone's CHARACTERS. I do not write fanfic based off the actual people.

--

Chapter 7: Unmasked < | Previous Chapter

The next morning had rolled around far too quickly for your liking. Part of you ached to just stay curled up in your bed, where there wasn’t some wild unknown waiting for you. Where there was something familiar. All you would have beyond yourself that was familiar was Techno. Who wasn’t all that familiar, truth be told. Definitely not a complete stranger, but not much better.

You practically drug your feet as you got out of bed, staring longingly at your surroundings. Would you ever return to this room? Maybe if you were visiting, but this wasn’t your room anymore. It left you feeling almost hollow. Reluctancy plagued your every movement, even as you dressed. Your dagger fell comfortably against your hip once more as you tightened the belt around your waist. It was still unfamiliar, but not unwelcome. It was something safe. You needed that right now.

All too soon, your melancholic peace was interrupted by a few of the servants bustling in to collect your belongings. You softly told them to ensure that the blanket would be in the carriage with you during the ride, so it could be accessed. Another little comfort for you. Who knew how awkward the trip would be. You knew good and well you weren’t good at holding a conversation with Techno.

You had slipped out of the room, head swimming in various thoughts and scenarios. Despite Techno’s reassurances the other day that you would manage fine, and his kingdom wasn’t bad, you had your doubts. Your own fears. 

“Don’t look so down,” George’s voice called from beside you, making your head snap up. What was with people sneaking up on you first thing in the morning? You sighed, rolling your shoulders a little.

“It’s hard not to. It’s exciting, but at the same time it’s terrifying. I’m leaving everything and everyone that I know and love.” You gazed in front of you, as if trying to memorize every brick that lined the walls. How different would your new home be from your old one?

“I think you’ll be just fine. I’m sure there’s plenty of friends to make there.” George was trying his best to reassure you, and you could only offer a weak smile. You hoped he was right. Perhaps there were friends to be made in Techno’s brothers. You wouldn’t truly know until you met them, though.

“Hopefully,” You murmured. You took a deep breath as you walked into the dining hall with your brother, settling into your usual spot. For the last time. These thoughts were extremely frustrating, but there wasn’t more to be done about them. They wouldn’t be soothed. They were likely normal, but that made it hard to keep them tamped down.

Breakfast was simultaneously slow and far too fast. You were swamped with thoughts the whole time, hardly responding to anyone. It was a struggle on how to feel. You exchanged a couple greetings with Dream and Techno, but neither seemed to push you for more conversation. Which was greatly appreciated. Even as you slid out of your seat, you felt almost despondent. 

You stood on the steps of the castle, staring at the carriages that awaited you. The carriage that would take you away from home. Even though you were technically going to a new home, it hardly felt like that. Truthfully, nothing could have prepared you for the emotions that came with something like this.

“Are you ready?” Techno’s voice rang beside you, and you nodded numbly. He nodded slightly, moving towards one of the carriages to climb inside, the door propped open. You stepped down the stairs, glancing over your shoulder. Dream and George were just behind you, with the latter offering a soft and encouraging smile.

“You’ll be fine, just don’t forget to write to me,” George said. Always reminding you to not forget. You nodded, letting him hug you just as he did last night.

“Make sure you take good care of our kingdom, okay?” You murmured. You knew this wasn’t a goodbye forever, but it felt like it would be a long while before you saw him again. You weren’t even sure when the wedding would be, but you knew he would be there.

“Always. They’ll be calmer without you causing problems all the time.” He gave your hair an affectionate ruffle as he stepped away. Dream didn’t waste his time in stepping in next. He wrapped you up in a bone-crushingly tight hug, chin resting atop your head.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” He murmured quietly, voice low. You sighed, clinging onto him just a little.

“I have to, Dream. You know that,” You whispered, eyes closed. When would the next time be that you got to hug him like this? 

“I know, but I can still hope. I really don’t want you to leave. I’d do anything if it would change your mind and get you to stay.” You breathed a soft laugh, head shaking.

“If only it were that easy. You’ll see me again. It just won’t be daily.” You began to peel yourself away from him, glancing up at his face. He seemed so conflicted and upset, brow furrowed. One hand cradled your cheek for a few moments, thumb brushing your cheekbone.

“Just take care of yourself. This isn’t the end of all of this,” he reassured. You nodded and smiled, leaning briefly into his hand before it fell to his side. With that out of the way, you finally stepped back, taking a few moments to watch the two of them before turning to retreat to your carriage. 

Techno stood from where he had been sitting inside of it, holding out a hand to help hoist you up. You took it, grasping the frame of the door as you stepped up into the carriage. As you did, he looked behind you with narrowed eyes. You followed the gaze as you moved to settle into your seat. Dream was at the other end of it, returning the stare with an almost venomous glare. What was their problem? They’d been this way the entire time.

Techno closed the door to the carriage and sat down across from you, leaving you to sigh. You could still peer out of the window, though you didn’t particularly care to right now. It’d only worsen your mood, probably.

“I was beginning to wonder if you only wore dresses,” Techno finally broke the silence, causing your focus to shift from your thoughts to him instead. You glanced towards your attire, completely forgetting you had forgone a dress for today. You didn’t like traveling in them, and there was no telling how long the trip would take. It had been in your best interest to wear the pants.

“Of course. I just don’t often do things that warrant me needing to wear pants.” You shrugged a little bit. You settled back against the cushions, making a face as the carriage lurched. You rarely did travel like this, so it would definitely be interesting. Or potentially very boring.

“You were really restricted here, weren’t you? You’ll have more opportunity to wear them here. Far more convenient and useful than a dress.” You raised an eyebrow at him. Was he really criticizing you on how convenient your fashion was?

“Are you really one to criticize fashion? You walk around wearing a boar skull that you can hardly see out of.” You fired back. A huff of laughter escaped him at that, hand lifting to close the curtains to the windows.

“I don’t normally wear it. Only in foreign lands or for extremely ceremonial proceedings,” He began nonchalantly. He reached up behind his head, fiddling for a few moments with something.

“You really don’t have to-” You had begun to object, though he only laughed.

“You’re gonna be seeing me without it sooner or later. Might as well start now. Besides, it isn’t exactly comfortable.” Carefully, he pulled the skull away from his face and you couldn’t help the interest coursing through you as his face was finally revealed. There was a lot to take in, and you weren’t exactly sure where to focus first. The three jagged scars on the right side of his jaw were much easier to see now, stopping at about the middle of his cheek. The bridge of his nose had a second scar across it, heading towards his eyebrow. This one looked much cleaner. Like it was done by a sword, whereas the others appeared to be done by an animal. Those were the most distinguishing things you could see, though there were hints of bags under his eyes. Beyond that, he was normal. Attractive, but normal.

“What happened?” You murmured curiously, unable to stop yourself. It was a touch easier to read his expressions now, and you were honestly glad for that. He seemed to contemplate the question for a few moments, settling the skull beside him.

“These were from a hunting accident as a child. They’re from the same boar whose skull I wear,” he explained, fingers tapping at the jagged lines along his jaw. You couldn't help but grimace a little.

"Have you been wearing it since then?" You nodded towards the skull, and he laughed again. An actual laugh- not the muted huff that was barely audible.

"No, I didn't start wearing it until a couple years ago. For a while it was just a… revenge trophy, of sorts. This one here," he motioned towards his nose, "Is from a duel with Wilbur." You could only blink. That one looked newer, so you can only imagine it had taken place in perhaps the last 5 years. Wilbur was that brother of his, wasn't he?

"You fight your brothers?" You were full of so many different questions. There was a lot to be answered, though. With every little detail he revealed, it brought about a new perplexity to him.

"Not on a normal basis, and not usually aggressive. We'll spar every now and then, but this was a one time thing." He didn't elaborate further for several moments, as if trying to figure out how to word what he wanted to say. What had called for an actual duel between them? "Tradition has it that if two princes have strife between them on who should be next in line for the throne, they duel. The duel runs until either one dies or concedes."

You stared at him, struggling to wrap your head around the concept. "Would you… would you have killed him?" You managed out. The question made him sigh, brows furrowing as he looked to the side.

"I don't know. I didn't want to kill him, no. He conceded before we could figure out the answer, though. I'm thankful he did, though." His voice was soft, but tinged with the faintest traces of affection. Okay, he wasn't as terrifying as he had briefly seemed. He at least cared for his family. You could deal with that.

"Being king one day was important to you, then?" You arched an eyebrow. The idea of being Queen had never crossed your mind. It had never been a plan, or a possibility. Not until recently, at least. Before that you had been just content to live your life, however it was thrown at you. Life had some strange workings, though. You were quickly discovering that.

"Yes. It felt like the natural path for me." He shrugged as he spoke and you simply nodded. Silence stretched in the carriage for an amount of time, though it was hardly uncomfortable. Every now and then you glanced towards Techno’s face, still trying to adjust to the lack of skull. Without it there, it was much easier to peer at the various gold studs and chains adorning his ears. He really didn't hold back on how ostentatious he was.

"I thought you weren't allowed to have weapons? At least not where Dream was concerned." You slid your gaze to his, where he nodded towards the dagger on your hip. You had nearly forgotten it was there.

"He doesn't want me to have any. It was a gift from the smith, he couldn't deny me it." You ran your fingers over the designs on the grip, carefully tracing one of the flowers.

"Can I see it?" He leaned forwards, elbows propping onto his knees. You pulled it from its sheath, carefully giving it to him. He held it in his hands, staring at it for a few moments. He shifted it closer and further from his face a few time until a huff escaped him. He sat it beside him, reaching for a pouch against his belt. You blinked a little as he pulled out a rather delicate pair of golden glasses.

He… had to wear glasses? Yet he still wore a stupid skull that prevented him from wearing them? Sacrificing his sight for looks. How ridiculous. You watched him settle them onto his nose, picking up the dagger once more.

"It's well made," he started and flipped it over. He pressed a finger to the tip to test the sharpness, though pulled it back before you could protest to the action. "Sharp, well balanced. Very ornamental but functional. I think its a fitting first weapon for you." He praised the knife, moving the pricked finger to his mouth. The other hand held it out towards you to take back and sheath. Which you did rather carefully. The last thing you wanted was to hurt either of you.

"You'll teach me to use it?" You questioned, trying to squash the excitement in your voice.

"They're pretty straightforward, but yes." A smile curved his lips, finger leaving his mouth. Excitement sparkled in your eyes, and it took a lot to not give a victorious little squeal. You had at least won some small battle.

---

George focal point

George stood beside Dream for several moments, watching the carriages holding his sister pull off. It was a bittersweet moment, truthfully, but he was happy for her. He had full reason to believe she would be happy there. She would flourish like she was meant to, in ways she had never truly been allowed to here. Not when she was in the presence of Dream, who was ever protective of her.

Speaking of the blonde, he turned to look at him, curiosity in his gaze. "Did you ever tell her?" He questioned, making the younger turn his attention to him instead of where his sister had disappeared.

He was silent for several heartbeats, lips pursed. "No." The words were plain, and flat. It caused George to sigh, rubbing his cheek in frustration.

"Are you okay with that? Her not knowing?"

"I have to be, don't I? Next time I see her she'll be getting married." He was bitter. So bitter, yet he had done it to himself. He had no one to blame, except for himself. Not that George dared to tell him this.

"You can always tell her, if it makes you feel better. It won't change anything, but it might save you. She doesn't catch onto hints, Dream." He turned, walking back towards the castle. He didn't need to look back to know Dream was following. He always did when he was the only option he had.

"How would it make me feel better? How would anything make me feel better?" 

"Don't be so dramatic, Dream. You know getting it out in the open will help. You'll be able to move on." Even now, George couldn't help but find the irony of Dream’s reluctance to say anything flat out, even if the only company he had was him and he already knew.

"I don't need to move on. She might have to come back." Stubborn ass. George shook his head with a sigh.

"Suit yourself. I won't force your words out. I can only recommend it." Forcing Dream to admit what they had both known for years wouldn't accomplish anything. It would only upset him, and he was too volatile currently to upset.

Next Chapter | >

[felassan]

Mass Effect development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

This is the Mass Effect version of this post.

[In case you can’t read it the subtitle in the bottom left logo above is “Guardians of the Citadel”]

Note: Drug use is mentioned.

Cut for length.

Mass Effect 1

ME began its life in a vision document in fall 2003

Codenamed “SFX”

Conceived of by Casey Hudson and a core team from KotOR. Its genesis was the intention to create an epic sci-fi RPG in an original setting that BioWare owned (so they could have full creative control), and in a setting that was conceived of first and foremost as a video game

Initially players could control any squadmate, but they wanted it to be about Shep and for players to be focused on Shep being a battlefield commander, rather than on switching bodies

By the start of 2004 its story was shaping up. Initially humans landed on Mars in 2250 and discovered evidence of an ancient alien race and a powerful substance, Black Sand, which rapidly advanced tech to the point that FTL travel was possible. (My note: obviously now the Prothean artifacts on Mars & associated mass effect force tech enabled this in the final canon, but I wonder if aspects of the ‘Black Sand’ naming-type & powerful substance stuff was rolled into red sand from final canon) Humans were suddenly capable of travel to multiple star systems and made contact with a multitude of other species. At the start of the first game, these species together with humans had a fragile peace, with focus placed on the political center of the galaxy, a hub known as Star City, later renamed the Citadel

Multiplayer was a vision for the series as far back as 2003. The plan was for ME1, an Xbox exclusive at launch, to take advantage of the platform’s online components. Early designs saw players meeting in one of the central hubs to interact and trade items in their otherwise SP adventures

By 2006 it had the name ME and the story was more specific, with the theme of conflict between organic and synthetic lifeforms. The story’s scope now stretched across 3 games and included scope for full co-op MP

They tried to do MP in every game, discussing it from the get-go, but it always just fell by the wayside. “When you’re trying to build something that is a new IP, on a new platform, with a new engine, you’ve got to really focus on the core elements of the game.” 

The conversation system prototype was made in Jade Empire, and some of ME’s earliest writing was done in an old JE build. At first there was no conversation wheel. Paragon was “Friendly” and Renegade “Hostile”. In the prototype Shep was a silent unnamed Spectre. Many conversations in the prototype about the player’s choice in smuggling a weapon through Noveria made it into the game

In said prototype a merchant referred to themselves as “this one”, though the word hanar never appeared. The PC in it also had the option to end a conversation with “I should go”. In the prototype also, Harkin was voiced by Mark Meer

An early version of the Mako got used as the krogan truck in ME2

Early concepts of the Citadel were drawn in pencil by CH. A piece of concept art of its final design was painted based on a photo of a sculpture near Aswan, Egypt

As with any new IP naming it was a struggle. They put out a call to all staff for ideas, did polls, made a name generator that combined words that they liked in random ways and made pretend logos of ones they liked in Photoshop to see if they could make themselves love the name or find visual potential in it. (Some of these names are in the pic at the top of this post.) CH liked “Unearthed” as it was a reference to Prothean ruins dug up on Mars and humanity’s ascendance going away from Earth. They knew the game would have a central space station featuring prominently so some of the ideas were based on that - “The Citadel”, “The Optigon”, “The Oculon”. “Element” was another one they had in mind due to the rare substance in the game 

CH: “I was a big fan of John Harris’ book Mass, which had epic-scaled sci-fi ideas, so that was a word that came up often. Many of the names came from the idea that the IP featured a fifth fundamental physical force (in addition to the known four of gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear) so the word ‘effect’ came up pretty often.” Ultimately none of the ideas really felt right. One Monday morning they were going over the names and Greg Zeschuk said he had an idea on the weekend: “Mass Effect!” CH: “I said, ‘I don’t hate it’, which in the naming process is a high compliment. And it stuck!”

CH on Shep’s Prothean vision from the beacon: “It was hard to imagine how we would do this. CG was - and is - really expensive. Instead I wanted to try doing it through photography and video editing. So I went to a local grocery store and bought a few packages of the weirdest looking meat that I could find. Then I set up a little photoshoot in my basement, complete with some electronics parts and some red wine for juicyness.” He used these props to create a video sequence where the photos were rapidly cycled and blurred, along with production paintings, to create the scary vision an organic/machine experiment on the Protheans. These mashups were also used as inspiration for concept artists and level designers who were working on these themes

Tali used to be called Talsi

On the licensing side they often joke that they’re licensing N7 not “Mass Effect” due to N7′s popularity

There was a confidential internal guide to the IP in 2007 to help devs along and summarize/synthesize the vision etc. Some excerpts from it are shown in the book and this is the first time the public have ever seen them

Early versions of Asari had hair

Asari were designed as a nod to classic TV sci-fi (with human actors wearing obvious makeup and prosthetics to play aliens)

The turian design guideline was “we want them to be birds of prey”. They also wanted a range of alien types, some close to human like Asari, while others were to be a lot further away, like turians

BioWare patented the conversation wheel, which was a first for them. CH had been frustrated with reviews of Jade Empire that said that the actioncentric game was too wordy [with its list dialogue]. “I’m like, story is words. [...] What is it about our games that is making people feel like they’re wordy?” Then he thought “In a game you kind of need to feel like you’re continuing to play it. Maybe you should continue feeling like you’re playing it actively into the dialogue.” “[The wheel] kind of gave a new experience with dialogue when you did start to react based on emotion, and that’s ultimately what we’re trying to bring out in our games”

The original krogan concept was based on a bat “with a really wide squidgy face. We just used its face on top of this weird body and it kinda worked”

Geth musculature was based on fiber-optic cables, with flexible plates of armor attached

The vision for the IP was 80s sci-fi inspired space opera

The concept art of Saren lifting Shep by the throat inspired a similar scene in-game. The staging wasn’t planned til designers saw that art

A squadmate with Shepard on the way to meet Ash in an old storyboard was called Carter. Early name of Kaidan or Jenkins?

Bono from U2 was kinda instrumental in bringing us ME lol

Finding the right cover art for ME1 was notably tricky

Matt Rhodes got his start drawing helmets for ME1, including one which would become Shep’s “second face”. He estimates he drew between 250-270 different ones

Some of the sounds in-game were people smashing watermelons with sledgehammers and sticking fists into various goos

The audio team had fun trying to slip the iconic main theme into unexpected places throughout the MET. “We were very aware of how powerful that track was for the fans and it was tempting to overuse it for any moment we wanted to make really emotional”.

The theme was creatively repurposed in ME3: slowed down and reworked as the ambient sound for the SR-2. “If you listen to it for a really long time, just stand in the Normandy and listen, you’ll actually hear the notes change slowly. It doesn’t sound like music, it sounds like a background ambiance, but it’s there.” (My note: Well no wonder the Normandy feels so much like home?? 😭 sneaky..)

Bug report: “Mako Tornado”. There wasn’t enough friction between the tires and the ground, causing testers to lose control of the vehicle and send it spinning into the air like a tornado. “As it turns, the front end comes up, and then it starts spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning faster and faster and faster until it just flies up in the sky” (My note: Sounds like a regular day in the Mako to me)

Cerberus originally had a bigger role in this game. It was cut but they had a whole explorable outpost. “I called it Misery,” says Mac Walters, “It was this planet with a little outpost that said ‘Welcome to Misery’”. Everything on the outpost was shit - dirty worn stuff, no windows, no kitchen, the vehicle bay was open to the elements etc

The Reaper sound is literal garbage. Some audio designers went on a recording trip to a national park. One of them got fixated on a garbage can, “a metal bear-proof receptacle with a heavy lid that creaked horribly when opened”. “It was like, ominous, spooky, tonal and almost musical. I decided to throw a mic into the garbage and record it moving. I didn’t know what it was going to be until later”

They were making lots of noises to record like throwing logs and rocks around. An old couple peered at them through the window of their camper van in the woods and must have called the cops because then the cops showed up, pulled them over and told them to stop. The cops towed their car (the driver’s plates were Cali plates and expired), drove them to Edmonton outskirts and then the audio producer Shauna got a call and had to go pick them up “like three little boys”. “We got a stern talking to”. Once back they were playing around with the garbage sound, editing it etc. Casey heard it and proclaimed “That’s the sound of the Reapers”

Preston Watamaniuk: “There are things I could have done to Mass 1 to make it an infinitely better game with better UIs” and some simple cuts and changes. “But when you’re living with it, it’s very hard to see those things”

BioWare Labs

As social media and smartphone games exploded, BioWare dedicated a small team dedicated to exploring opportunities here - BioWare Labs

Mass Effect: Galaxy used a unique graphic art style and static visual presentation common in visual novels. It has the distinction of being the only iOS game BW have made during their first 25 years

Scrapped ideas were a 3rd person space shooter called Mass Effect: Corsair and 2 DA titles - a strategy game and a top-down dungeon crawler starring young Wynne. (My note: Maybe the corsairs stuff was rolled into Jacob’s backstory in 2, the Alliance Corsairs)

Corsair was a very short-lived project that never got its feet under it. It was a spin-off on Nintendo DS featuring a behind-the-ship perspective and branching dialogue. At one point it had MP. The idea behind it was basically “ME: Freelancer” - fly your ship around, do missions, get credits. It had a limited branching story but was a gameplay-centered experience intended to fill the gap between ME1 and 2. That gap ended up being filled by Galaxy

Galaxy and Corsair’s smaller screen allowed concept artists to use bold colors and a simplistic character design style to help those games stand out from Shep’s story

Nick Thornborrow did some art for Corsair but was worried his art style didn’t fit ME. He moved to DA where he feels his art style fits better

Lots of BioWare VAs and even a lead writer and the VO director are drawn from Edmonton’s local community theater scene, which is vibrant. Think this is how Mark Meer got involved

Mass Effect 2

Player choices carrying over was a first for BW

Dirty Dozen-inspired plot

Its plot is a web of conditionals (see Suicide Mission)

Was more of a shooter than anything BW had made since Shattered Steel

There was 2 camps on the team, those who wanted to push combat and systems forward and redefine the ME experience and those who wanted to make a true sequel, with the same gameplay and systems but a new story. Karin Weekes: “I think it ended up being a good push-pull. It felt like a pretty healthy creative conflict”

“ME2 was a game you could hold up to someone who argues that games aren’t a serious medium and go ‘Oh yeah, then why is Martin Sheen in this?’” Sheen was their first pick for TIM

The idea for TIM came from a mash-up of concepts CH had collected over the years. The name “Illusive” originally came from his pitch for naming DAO’s Eclipse engine, a word inspired by Obi-Wan’s line “It’s not about the mission, Master. It’s something... elsewhere. Elusive”. “I thought, what if we called our next engine 'Elusive', but used an ‘I’, and then it’s like ‘Illusion’. [...] I still really like the word with an ‘I’ and what it conjures”

When ME1 DLC was in production, CH had been watching a lot of CNN, specifically Anderson Cooper. “How is one guy travelling to all these places and never looking tired and always being able to speak with clarity?” CH says it seemed almost superhuman. “What if there was someone who is the absolute maximum of the things you would aspire to be, but also the worst of humanity?” Cooper, though not evil, became an inspiration for TIM down to the gray hair and piercing blue eyes

Inspiration for TIM’s behind-the-scenes role pulling political strings came from Jack Bauer’s brother Graem in 24. Graem “can call up the president and tell him what to do and hang up, because he’s so connected and so influential”. Sheen had played a president and his performance brought gravitas and wisdom to the role. He had quit smoking, but the character smokes. He didn’t want to fake it, but he also didn’t want to smoke, “so he actually asked for a cigarette” to hold so he could stop his words to take drags with natural cadence

Writing was still pushing to write and revise lines hours before VO started. A series of problems like injury and some writers leaving for other opportunities left it so that Karin, Lukas Kristjanson and editor Cookie Everman hand to land the story safely, with PW helping where they could. Lukas: “We took over the writing bug and task list, and I can’t stress enough how much [Karin and Cookie] did to get ME2 out the door. There’s no part of that thing we didn’t touch”. Karin: “That was the most dramatic 2 weeks of my life”

Initial fan reaction when they started promo-ing ME2 was very negative because people didn’t want to know about new chars like Jack and Mordin. “[fans were like] ‘Get them out of here. We want our characters from the first game’. But then when they played them, those became some of the most popular chars [of the series]”

Concept art of Thane has an idea annotation saying “Face can shapeshift?”

At one point when designing Thane concept artists sent multiple variations of him to the team asking them to vote on which was the most attractive

Most of the Normandy crew was written by lead level designer Dusty Everman. Lukas gave him advice in the evenings between bugs

BioWare Montreal made ME2 and 3 cinematics

CC for Shep was based on tools used by char designers to create in-game chars. Under the hood similar tools existed to create aliens

Aliens were much easier to animate than humans. When something is human it’s very difficult to make it look realistic and you can see all the mistakes and everything

Over the holiday period in 2007 CH worked out a diagram on a single piece of paper that would define the entire scope and structure of the game. The diagram is included in the book

Bug report: “I shot a krogan so hard that his textures fell off”. At one point shotgun blast damage was applied to each of the pellets fired, and shot enemies ended up with just the default checkerboard Unreal texture on them after their textures got blown off

Blasto was meant to be 1 step above an Easter egg but his fan popularity prompted them to bring him back in ME3

They rewrote chunks of Jack 2 days before she went to VO. She was the only one they could change because all the other NPCs were recorded. They redesigned her mission by juggling locked NPC lines and changing Shep’s reactions by rewriting text paraphrases to change the context of the already-recorded VO

Lukas snuck obscure nods ito ME2′s distress calls. In the general distress call for the Hugo Gernsback, there’s BW’s initial’s and Edmonton’s phone number backwards. In a fault in a beacon protocol there’s the initials and backward phone number from Tommy Tutone’s “Jenny”. In 2 other general distress calls there’s initials and numbers from Glenn Miller Orchestra’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000″ and initials and numbers from Geddy Lee and Rush’s “2112″ respectively 

Mass Effect 3

“The end of an era marks the beginning of another”

ME3 “marked the end of Shep’s story”

Saying bye to Shep was as difficult for devs as it was for players

JHale’s final VO session included Anderson’s death and romanced Garrus’ goodbye. “We were in the session and we both just started crying”, Caroline says. “I couldn’t come on the line to give her notes because I was crying, and she was crying. And so there was just this minute-long pause of like, nothing, nothing, nothing - just silence through the airwaves. And then I came on and just told her that I was crying and she said ‘I’m crying!’” They talked about these anecdotes also here on the N7 Day reunion panel

The Microsoft Kinect voice support required devs to teach Kinect hundreds of commands in a variety of accents across multiple languages. The result was useful but made for some awkward moments. Numerous players accidentally said “geth” or “quarian” while making a particular decision and accidentally killed Tali

MP chars were voiced by cops and military people

The helmet on one of the MP chars was originally designed for cancelled project Revolver

The payload device at the end needed to attach to the Citadel while essentially serving as a giant trigger. “It ended up becoming quite the engineering feet just to visualize how this thing would move and connect to the Citadel”

Concept artists explored creating an anti-team, where Kai Leng was almost an anti-Shepard essentially, with an elite squad to counteract your team. This idea never went beyond concept phase

ME3 Special Edition was released on Nintendo Wii U exclusively. This exclusive version of the game includes Genesis 2 (a sequel to the original Genesis comic) and unique gameplay features that took advantage of the touchscreen GamePad. For years Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood had had the honor of being BW’s only game made for a Nintendo console

FemShep regrettably didn’t feature in major ME marketing til ME3. Later releases like DAI, MEA and Anthem have taken increasing care not to gender their protagonists in cover art

To capture combat sounds they took a trip to CFB Wainwright, a military base southeast of Edmonton. They got a big tour of it and were allowed to record anything they could find. The tour ended with them getting to drive and shoot tanks (real shells). The force of doing that sent waves through Joel Green, he felt his whole chest compress when it went off; the perfect sound for the Black Widow! After the trip the soldiers let him keep the shell he fired and it’s been passed on like a torch to various devs since

Kakliosaurs began life as a joke in the writers’ room after John Dombrow placed a Grunt figure on a t-rex toy he had on his desk. Lore was brainstormed to justify the mash-up before someone asked, “Why don’t we put this in the game?” They loved it so much Karin had custom coffee mugs made

Bug report: For a while Tali’s final romance scene would fire when she was supposed to be dead

“Balancing combat: how designers in ME3 entered an ‘arms race’” - the solution to players feeling OP vs players feeling frustrated by really strong enemies is to find a good middle ground, but for designers Corey Gaspur and Brenon Holmes, it was war. Brenon designed enemies, Corey designed guns. Corey “was obsessed with bigger, heavier guns. We had this sort of informal competition where he’d make this crazy overturned gun that would just murder all the enemies, and then I tuned some stuff up to compensate”

Brenon had to invent new ways to “stop Corey” and this led to the Phantoms. Corey had in turn designed consumable rockets that could wipe out entire waves of enemies. He must’ve figured this would make short work of Brenon’s space ninjas, but Brenon had other plans: “I had just added the ability for her to cut rockets [when Corey was playing MP and he was watching]. She cut the rocket in half... Corey just turns and looks at me and is like: ‘Really dude? I just shot a rocket at this Phantom and she’s fine? Not even damaged? Zero damage?’” 

This friendly rivalry helped elevate ME3′s gameplay. Corey had a knack for making a gun feel so good to fire it had his fellow designers scrambling to keep up. It was his version of balancing. Before Corey sadly passed away he mentored Boldwin Li in all things weapon design and the arms race continued

Corey designed the Arc Pistol. It was causing problems for enemies because it was too powerful. It seemed hell bent on staying that way, Boldwin would tune down all its stats and it was still doing 3x the damage it should have been doing. “I was like ‘What the hell?’, and then I looked closer. It secretly fired 3 bullets for every pull of the trigger! Corey, you sneaky jerk”

The day it launched there were midnight launch parties across North America including one near the BW building. Numerous devs sat at long tables greeting fans and signing autographs as the fans picked up preorders. When midnight struck the line was long enough that it took several hours for some fans to get their game. One particular fan is remembered: “It was 3am. Some guy drove up from Calgary with his friends. He was like one of the last people in line. I think he was sort of tired-drunk. He threw himself across the tables, pulled up his shirt and shouted ‘Guys, sign my abs!’ And like I did, because he waited so long. It felt impolite not to. So I hope he enjoyed his copy of ME3″

For designing Protheans concept artists had free reign to design something that read as ancient

Before the concept art team had the story of the game to work toward, they explored wild ideas of their own including an image of the crew stealing back the Normandy to go after the Reapers

Jen Cheverie was testing scenes and was initially excited to be testing Mordin scenes, til she saw she was testing the Renegade version of his death. “This is even before like all of the audio and everything was in, so you didn’t even have the sad music. I remember sitting at my desk and my hands just went to my face when I saw that the gun Shep pulls on Mordin is the gun he gives Shep in ME2. I burst into tears and was crying for the rest of the day. People are waving to me as they walk by and I’m like, ‘It’s ok, I’m just killing my best friend’” 

There’s a segment called “Shepard’s story ends”. Casey on the ending: “There’s a whole bunch of things that come together to make it incredibly tense and emotional for players. I think the biggest one was the sense of finality, that whatever it was that happened in that very last moment... was it.” 

Wrapping up the story was a massive feat. In a way all of ME3 is an ending. Its final moments were the players’ last with a char they’d been with all the way from Eden Prime

“And while the critical reception of the game was extremely positive, many fans were unsatisfied with the ending, which became one of the most controversial in the history of games.” CH: “We were, on one hand, at the end of a marathon trying to finish the game and the series. But as devs we also knew that there would be more. We knew that we would continue to tell the story. In retrospect, we didn’t fully appreciate the tremendous sense of finality that it would have for people”. He envisioned an ending that posed new questions, something in the tradition of high sci-fi that left players dreaming about what that particular galaxy’s future could hold. “Frankly, there’s a lot more that we could have and should have done to honor the work players put in, to give them a stronger sense of reward and closure”

AAA games are massive undertakings with a million moving parts. Somehow they come together but even the best-planned projects don’t turn out quite like devs hope. From start to end video game production is a series of compromises. It’s rare if not impossible for devs to ship a game they’re entirely happy with. “I think that people imagine that when you finish a game, it’s exactly the way you wanted it to be. But whether people end up loving or hating the final result, we work hard to finish it the best we can, knowing that there’s a lot we would have wanted to do better. I think that’s true of any creative work”

As the dust settled after the initial reaction to the ending and later its epilogue, meant to show the wide-reaching ripple effects of Shep’s final choice, “players emerged mostly asking for one thing”. CH: “Now, most of what we hear, after both ME3 and MEA, is ‘Hey, just go make more Mass Effect’. And that to me is the most important thing. Knowing that players want to return to the ME universe is what inspires us to press on and imagine what comes next”

Mass Effect: Andromeda

By creating a new ME in a new galaxy the team was challenged to put their own visual stamp on the game while keeping it true to the franchise

Being the first ME game on a new gen of consoles meant for more detail

“Massive transport ships called arks populated with salarians, turians, humans, asari and quarians” made the risky jump to the Cluster

MEA was the first time BW had truly codeveloped across 3 studios: Edmonton, Montreal and Austin. The bulk of the work especially early on was done in Montreal, which was composed of a handful of Edmonton expats and heaps of experienced devs who joined from elsewhere specifically to bring a new ME experience to life. Series vets in Edmonton then came on to contribute writing, cinematics, design and QA, along with leadership from creative director Mac Walters and the core Production team. Austin writers and level designers also joined the fray

“It took a new team to take ME beyond the Milky Way”

Mac: “A lot of people in Montreal joined BW as fans of the franchise, so they just had this passion, and it felt like it was more like the days of Jade Empire, where a smaller younger team gets to do something for the first time. Even though it wasn’t necessarily a new IP for me, it felt fresh and new because of that. The team was just super excited to be working on it”

Early plans had the player exploring hundreds of worlds, procedurally generated, allowing for a nearly infinite variety of experiences. But as development wore on, it became clear that the game narrative required more specific, hand-touched level design on each world to keep the story focused and the experience engaging. “The plan was to give players numerous uncharted worlds to explore. Designers worked hard to come up with procedural elements that would make such planets special. Eventually the team made the difficult decision to abandon procedural planets in favor of more memorable hand-touched alien worlds, each with a specific story to tell”

One challenge was defining what ME meant without Shep. Care was given to include many of the MET’s key species. “Ryder recruited turian, asari, krogan and salarian followers”. Like Shep Ryder represents humanity’s hope for a peaceful coexistence among aliens who had long operated without human contact

Beginning with MEA the team decided that with few exceptions vehicles in ME have 6 wheels. Early Nomad concepts were bulkier. Later ones focused on its ability to move over its ability to protect itself from hostile fire, underlining the themes of exploration

German concept designer and auto-motive futurist Daniel Simon was contracted to create the Nomad and Tempest. The Tempest’s final design took inspo from the Concorde 

Concepts for angaran fighter ships have the following notes: “Two doors swing open, wings rotate down to function as landing struts, the landing struts split open. It has a spinning turbine engine 

Despite being set a galaxy away and some 600 years after Mordin’s death, there was a time when he had a cameo. It wasn’t cut due to running out of time however, it was cut due to drug references. John Dombrow explains: “One day I had to write a small quest for Kadara. I thought it’d be amusing if these 2 guys living way out on the fringes in a shack were growing plants for uh, medicinal purposes, and needed Ryder’s help with it. It occurred to me, wouldn’t it be amusing if Ryder had the option of actually trying ‘the medicine’ to see what would happen? And I thought, what if it turned into some hallucination that somehow involved SAM - like maybe SAM would sing? But why? How could I motivate that? Then it hit me. Who else in the ME game sings unexpectedly? MORDIN. As a nod to him I wrote SAM singing Modern Major-General. It got even better when our cine designer John Ebenger wanted to take it even further. Bless him, he came in on a Saturday to do a special hallucination showing Mordin himself. It was great. Til the fateful day we were told MEA had already been submitted to the ratings board. That’s when you declare things like drug references in your game. Mordin fell under that category which meant it was a no-go. We were too late”

Ryder’s white AI armor contrasts Shep’s iconic dark armor (intentional design)

Concept art for Ryder involved experiments with cloth (cloaks, ponchos, capes - “Pull here to release cloak”) and asymmetrical design elements

For alien design, there’s a few exceptions but humanoid figures are the ME standard and this persisted into MEA

Kett and angara concepts explored striking lines and textures 

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

[inkbyajm]

Bottled Up

pairing: C.H. x fem!reader

category: angst, fluff

warnings: yelling, crying, insecurities

word count: 2.2k

notes: apologies for the tardy post, i wrote and rewrote and re-rewrote the whole angsty scene because i didn’t know if it was written well enough, i wanted to make sure you guys could feel the emotions that i vividly visualised and tried my best to put into words  :( i did send it to a friend to check and she seemed to like it, so let me know how it goes for you, my loves. the angst for this one was inspired by 2 different songs - hold me while you wait by lewis capaldi and i will run from you by cemeteries. it’s not necessarily about the lyrics, but more about the melody and the mood you get into listening to them (they go in order). give those a listen :) also, beware of the upcoming philosophy references, i did study philosophy last year, hopefully no one gets triggered lmao

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Is a person’s scent something a normal human being picks up on before taking into account the rest of their features? Would a normal human being remember said scent and be able to recognise it in a crowd full of strangers? Corpse wasn’t too sure about the answer, but one thing he did know, is that she smelled delicately sweet, like cherry blossoms, and that ever since he had noticed it during their game night a few weeks ago, he simply couldn’t let it go. It was intoxicating, but in a calming way. 

━

Corpse and (Y/N) each lay on their beds in their own homes, going into the third hour of their call. He couldn’t exactly fall asleep, so he had decided to see what his dear friend was up to, and even though she was this close to succumbing to sleep, she said nothing and stayed up to keep his busy mind company.

“Okay, hot topic: what do you think about soulmates? More specifically the romantic type?” the girl asked, not knowing how much of a risqué question it was. How was he supposed to answer?

“I don’t really have an opinion on it. Why?”

“I read Symposium by Plato the other day and it presented an interesting concept about human beings. Basically-” Of course she fucking read philosophical books. How were they even having a conversation with each other? Why were they even friends? She was on a whole other level of smart. “-so this guy says that humans were like androgynous blobs, so they’d come in two sets of everything a normal person has. But those humans were so powerful, the gods were literally shaking in their robes, so Zeus decided to cut everyone into two to weaken them. But then humans became so miserable, they spent their entire lives searching for their other halves. In the end, Zeus kinda felt bad and said fuck it, I’ll give y’all dicks and vaginas for every time you wanna hug each other. And that’s the oldest explanation there is about the idea of soulmates.” she sighed, finished with her rant.

“That was...not at all the story I expected to hear.” she heard him mumble on the other side of the call. “Yeah, Greek philosophers were up to some reeal freaky things, you would have loved them,” he laughed at her joke, “I honestly think it’s cute. Not the whole cutting people into two thing, but like, longing for someone and then finding them because you finally feel complete. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a strong independent woman who doesn’t need a prince in shining whatever to sweep me off my feet. But it does sound nice, that ideal comfort, a person you’re just...meant to be with, I guess.”

There was a moment of silence that neither of them really minded, before it was Corpse’s turn to ask the second bold question of the night. “Have you found that person yet? Your soulmate?”

She’s never thought about it before, but she hasn’t really thought about soulmates that much either, it was a spontaneous thought she had said out loud. “I’m not sure, actually. (B/F/N) could be one, I guess.” (Y/N) shrugged in return. Wasn’t she going to ask him about it? She probably didn’t care that much. Understandable.

“My favourite quote about love is «You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.». It’s by Sam Keen, the American philosopher. It maay be the hopeless romantic in me shining through, but I do very much agree with his statement.” Did this mean anyone could have a chance with her despite their fuckups? So if he were to try, would she-?

“Obviously, there are some things that just can’t be ignored or avoided, but at that point it’s preferences and personal tolerance. Depends on the person, ya know?” she swiftly added, unaware of the effect it had on him. Sick. Some people were just meant to rot alone.

The final question was posed by (Y/N). She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t at all curious. This little crush of hers had been steadily growing with every hang out, every laugh, every hug and every glance. There are rarely ever moments where one could casually discuss a topic this personal with friends, at least there weren’t with friends one had feelings for. This was the perfect opportunity.

“Corpse?”

“Hmm?”

“Have you ever been in love?” her voice was soft, her approach gentle.

“Well, I’ve been in relationships before, so I guess, yeah? It’s been so long, I don’t even know what love feels like anymore.” he let out a breath resembling a chuckle. Lamest fucking answer ever. But it was true. He hadn’t thought about love in that way in quite a while.

“A lot of people describe it as having an intense range of overwhelming feelings. Lightheadedness, slight shakiness, heart palpitations, some people have even reported losing their appetite. Crazy how human bodies work, huh? Oh! Speaking of chemicals-”

She had continued on to ramble about...chemistry? Eyes? Corpse couldn’t really hear what she was saying anymore, let alone concentrate on her words, as he pieced everything that’s been happening for the past few months together. The nauseating feeling. The pounding of his heart so fast it felt like he was about to die. The urge to make as little eye contact with her as possible, because otherwise he’d turn into a furnace. The obsession with her perfume, like he was some fucking creep. The fool was falling in love. And it was at that moment that everything had come crumbling down.

━

(Y/N) and Corpse hadn’t talked for a couple of weeks. Or rather (Y/N) messaged the 23 year old many times, but he’d either claim to be busy or just not answer at all. There were two possible reasons for the sudden lack of contact: he was indeed busy with his musical projects and couldn’t allow himself to be distracted; or something much more serious was going on. It didn’t matter, for she was already in her car, on her way to his apartment.

Arriving at her destination, she used the spare key he gave her months ago, a sign of absolute trust, and allowed herself into his humble abode. Silence reigned in her friend’s residence. She thought maybe he had gone somewhere, and though that was unlikely, it wasn’t unprecedented. The door to his recording room was closed, and while she was tempted to check if he was in there, she refrained from doing so, knowing that specific room was not to be entered unless he was around to give permission.

“Corpse?” she called out just to make sure. There was no response for a few minutes, which made her assume she had the place for herself, until she heard a door open behind her. Turning around, she saw his figure emerge from said recording room in a white t-shirt and black sweatpants, his curly hair disheveled.

“Hey, how are you d-”

“Why are you here?” he spoke flatly, interrupting her. “Well- You weren’t, um, answering your messages or any of my calls, so I thought something had happened.” she replied, suddenly nervous, fiddling with the rings on her fingers. “Nothing happened. I told you I was busy.”

The air around them seemed colder as tensions rose. (Y/N) could tell he was irritated, but she couldn’t exactly figure out why. She had never seen this side of him before. “Okay. Tell you what, I assume you haven’t had dinner yet, so why don’t I go ahead and start cooking something up while you-”

“Get out.”

She blinked a few times, not quite registering the words that had just left his mouth. “Sorry?” Her voice was quiet. She was taken off guard.

“Are you deaf? I said get. the fuck. OUT.”

Corpse shouted the last word, making her flinch in what appeared to be fear. Good. Run away while you still can. Heart pounding, (Y/N) took a second to remind herself whom she was speaking to. “I see that you’re angry, but at least give me a reason why-”

“You want a reason? I just don’t fucking WANT you here!” Anger grew inside of him like a tumor, but it wasn’t intended for her. She had simply been caught in a storm that had been building up for years. “Do you understand that?! I can’t fucking be around you without feeling like I’m going to EXPLODE.”

His words hit her like paintballs. They were only words, plain and simple, but they dug deeper and deeper into her skin with each hit, until, eventually, it broke. Eyes burning, she felt the tears slowly welling up in them.

“Why are you doing this to me?!” her own voice grew louder with frustration, but mostly, confusion.

“Maybe because I can? Because I’m a goddamn asshole?” 

“Don’t say that.”

“How?! How can I not say it when it’s the truth!” He wanted to stop. His mind told him to cease whatever it was that he was doing. However, blinded with resentment towards himself, he only spilled words he would regret after it was too late. 

“I can’t function like a normal fucking human being. I can’t be a good friend, son, or whatever the fuck else, and I sure as hell can’t love you.”

The paintballs had turned into a singular sword. A very long, very sharp sword that had found itself plunged deep inside her chest. How did he found out? When? Had she been too obvious? Had she been pushy? Clingy? Way out of line? The woman before him was unable to conceal her shock, as tears came rushing down her hot cheeks. Her voice brittle, she tried defending herself. She couldn’t leave it at that. She had to try. Try to have him see reason. “You don’t love me, that’s fine. But you didn’t have to deliver it this way-”

“But I did.” breathless with fury, Corpse clenched his fists so tight they had turned cold, yet they were still trembling. “You can get so naïve and dumb, you won’t understand things unless they’re spelled out nice and fucking bold for you.”

He closed with (Y/N) until their noses nearly touched. He noticed the way she silently shook, her eyes which shed endless tears never leaving his gaze. Unable to make a single sound, she felt the man’s hot breath on her face, his aura domineering.

“Now get. out.”

Her body wouldn’t cooperate as she just stood there. Staring back at him, her inner brows raised. Corpse wanted to hug her. Envelop her trembling figure with his and tell her he was sorry, that he meant none of it, that he had lost his mind. But he couldn’t bring himself to do anything. And with his own tears threatening to spill, he created a distance between them. He needed her gone.

“Leave! GO!”

His yelling was enough to jolt (Y/N) out of her trance, and, in a hurry, she sprinted towards the entrance. The door closed behind her, she felt a sudden urge to fill her lungs with much needed air. She jumped at the resounding scream that emanated from deep within his soul, letting out all of his pent-up rage.

Feet carrying her all the way to her car parked outside of the building, the young woman managed to climb in, and this was the queue for her body to break down. The night was young. The street empty. No one around to hear her long-lasting wailing. She clutched the steering wheel for support, fingers wrapping around the leather in a tight grip. A headache was creeping up from the back of her skull. Her ears pulsated in response to the heavy pounding of her heart. Clumsily, (Y/N) inserted the key into the ignition, felt around for the gear stick, and drove away. She didn’t know where she was going or how long it was going to take to get there. She needed to get out.

What went wrong? When did it go wrong? She couldn’t help but feel guilty, feel at fault. She had never seen that side of him before. He had never treated her that way before.

It was the hugs, wasn’t it? He had to have noticed the way she held on for a second too long to enjoy the smell of his cologne. Her vision blurred as she resumed softly weeping, her salty tears staining her top. Or it might have been the touchiness, she would practically glue herself to him during their movie nights. Unaware of both her actions and surroundings, (Y/N)’s breathing quickened, becoming ragged. Maybe he didn’t like the way she called him three times a week. Her hands were slowly losing control over the wheel, over the vehicle she was driving. She invaded his privacy. That was definitely it. Fuck. How could she have been so damn blind, selfish, ignorant, FUCKING STUPID.

Lights. Something was moving towards her- MOVE.

With a sharp turn, she dodged the approaching car just by a hair’s breadth, but as she had avoided one accident, another came just as quickly.