#and I made my own cropped version of the questions

[inafieldofdaisies]

THIS or THAT with Calahan Skogman and Danielle Galligan | 47 seconds of Cal & Dani being adorable as hell | full video

#please this is too precious <3 #i've never gif-ed anything faster #their little exchange at enemies to lovers is my favorite #and poor Milo; I was cackling at that bit #and I made my own cropped version of the questions #calahan skogman #danielle galligan #helnik #six of crows #shadow and bone #shadow and bone cast #the crows #favorite actors #favorite scenes #friendship dynamics #cute moments #netflix shadow and bone #netflix shows #edits #mygifs #gifset #animated gif #animated gifs #favorite characters #my ships #tv ships #ships

[oakparchment]

Best Friends With Benefits

Lisa x Rosé x Male Reader

Length: 8045 words

Tags: double blowjob, double handjob, dirty talk, anal sex, strip tease, clothed sex, spit kink, hair-pulling, feet play, creampie, cum swapping

Summary: you find out that Chaelisa know each other a bit too well to just be platonic besties.

AO3

Chapter 1 - Tell me your 𝓯𝓪𝓷𝓽𝓪𝓼𝓲𝓮𝓼

"Do you ever get horny during idol work? Like what do you do when you get wet on set?" You opened up the conversation with a bold question. Worrying that you had jumped the gun and made them feel uncomfortable, you held you breath whilst waiting for a response. Your worries were waved away when Lisa glanced over at Rosé, whose lips had turned upwards on one side. Lisa stifled a giggle. "Are you kidding? We're only human. Some of the outfits I see the other members in gets me riled up and I have to rub one out in the bathroom, or if there’s no time then work is work and we just gotta wait until our schedule is over. But we always deal with it, eventually.”

Lisa sipped on her wine, her eyes never breaking contact with you as she did so. Sitting in Rosé’s apartment, you felt a little tense before the two idols. Mirroring Lisa’s actions, you drank from your glass, hoping a slight buzz might help relieve your nervousness.

Rosé offered a related experience "One time, we were at the recording studio and everyone else had clocked off. I could tell it was one of those days for Lisa, and she was desperate to go home so she could… y'know, relax. Instead, I left the mic recording, dragged us into the booth, and locked the door. I finger fucked the life out of her and that was the day where she squirted in our own recording booth." The nature of the story was already so slutty, but the way Rosé spoke it with her Aussie accent made you want to explore her mouth and hear her whisper into your ear.

Lisa sat up from where her elbow was leaning against Rosé's couch. She had a super crop top on, the ones that only cover your arms and shoulders, whilst her bralette was worn below it. This left a small window of exposed skin on her chest, including the slight curves you could see from her tits, as well as her tight abs. "We obviously weren't right up against the mic, so when we listened back to it you can mostly only hear distant moans and muffled wet sounds. Still exported the audio and took it home though."

"I'd love to hear it." You blurted out without thinking, though there was no regret.

"Maybe we can show you the recording... but the live version sounds better." From your peripherals, Rosé's coy smile turned into a wide eyed expression at what her best friend had just said. Lisa knew how to deliver lines.

You were glad you initially steered the conversation in this direction, because they had taken the reigns and driven it full force.

"Well, this TMI got way out of hand, though I don't think you're complaining." Rosé looked down at your bulge and then up at you. "Are there any fantasies you've had about us?"

"Or have you just jerked off to our pictures?" chimed in Lisa. "It's okay, you can answer honestly... Sometimes when I'm alone and porn isn't doing it for me, I scroll through my Rosie wank bank and get off to her. It usually works".

"Lisa!" Rosé's blush was accompanied by a mischievous smile. "Wait... Only usually?"

"Relax, when it's not enough I whip out one of our recordings."

You can't help but notice that Lisa said recordings, plural.

"You watch them without me? said Rosé whilst pouting her lips.

"Sorry babe, you know I can't help myself sometimes."

At this point you're at full mast and could listen to them talk about these things forever, but without wanting to fade into the background, you speak up. "Okay, the thought of that is unbelievably hot and I have so many questions.” You paused to think momentarily. “Why don't we play a little game, I'll tell you about one of my fantasies if you tell me one of yours".

Rosé raises her eyebrows. "So you do fantasize about us?"

"The secret's out, I guess." You said in a playful way, knowing full well that no one in this room thought that was a secret.

"Okay, we'll take you up on this game, since there's two of us and one of you, we'll start." Rosé looks over to Lisa after saying this.

Lisa claps her hands together. "Well seeing as you mentioned that their were three of us... I want to be eaten out and fucked at the same time."

The fact that Lisa said this with the implication being Rosé and yourself made you audibly groan. This might be a lot more wild than you initially thought.

"You really dived into the deep end huh Lili." Rosé spoke aloud the thought you had.

"Mine might seem a bit tame in comparison, but I've kinda got a thing for legs." As you say this, your eyes trail over to Rosé. Unlike Lisa, she was in full comfy mode, wearing a tight blue top that to your delight exposed her toned midriff. Below that were her slim legs, which in her high waisted sweatpants looked particularly long. Rosé was watching you scan her legs, and noticed when your focus didn't stop at her ankles but kept venturing further down to her bare feet. You quickly looked up to her face hoping she wasn't overly observant, but she returned your gaze with a knowing look.

"You like my legs? I'm sure there's something we can do about that." she said whilst shuffling closer to you on the tiled floor, stretching her legs out teasingly so that they were within arms reach of you. "I suppose it's my turn then. Hmm..." Rosé tilted her face to one side and looked up as she gave it a moment of thought. "I'd like to take a guy's load and share it with another girl."

You could barely believe the words that were coming out of their mouths. Rosé had already pointed out the bulge in your pants a few minutes ago, and had now decided to do something about it. Having already moved closer, Rosé lifted her leg and placed a foot on your hardness. It would be ignorant of you to think that idols would always have perfectly prim and pristine bodies from head to toe, but in Rosé's case this seemed to be true. 

Lisa bit her lip and crossed her legs over as she watched her friend make her advances.  Rosé simply looked at you whilst gently biting the inside of her cheek. With her arms leaning behind her on the floor for support, she started to add more pressure and move her sole up and down your crotch, giving you a footjob through your pants.

Getting impatient, Lisa, who at this point was clearly trying to tighten her legs together to get some kind of friction, quickly decided that wasn't enough and instead reached for the buttons on her shorts and started to take them off, but not in typical fashion. Lalisa stood up and turned around, her body line turning into an incredible figure that you wished you could burn into your memory. At the centre of this artistic sculpture was her luscious ass, which was only highlighted more as she bent over and looked back at you with those unmistakable fuck-me eyes. She then peeled her tight shorts down, using her hands to guide them along. She glided her hands across her legs at the same time, like she was a present you’ve always wanted unwrapping itself in front of you. Once her shorts had hit the tiles, you imagined what it would be like taking her in this position, and all the kinds of things you wanted to do to her ass.

Her little routine wasn’t over though. On the way up, in one fluid motion her hand trailed up along the inside of her thigh, leading to her panties that she rubbed from her ass all the way to her clit. She shivered at the first real physical stimulation felt since this little session started. The simple act of stripping off her own shorts was striking. She certainly lived up to her main dancer mantle.

Your cock twitched achingly at Lisa’s strip tease. In response, Rosé found the head of your manhood through the fabric and, to the best of her ability, curled her toes around it. “Whilst this is fun, there’s only so much of your cock that I can feel through your clothes, and I want it in me, not in your pants.”

“You mean in us.” said Lisa as she kneeled down next to Rosé.

“Sorry babe, you’re right” and one of your untold fantasies unfolded before your eyes, as Rosé leaned in to Lisa’s lips and pressed them across her own. Lisa met Rosé's tongue with no resistance, letting it slip into her mouth and explore within her. The realisation that this seemed so natural to them showed that it was clearly nothing new, all the while Rosé continued massaging you.

You gently caressed her foot, before begrudgingly removing it from your crotch. The strain of your cock through your pants was starting to hurt a little from how turned on you were. You stood up and closed the short distance to where they were still locked on to each other, mouth on mouth. You wondered how familiar they were with getting each other’s lips wet. Lisa was caressing her hands through Rosé's hair, who in return had her hands fondling Lisa’s cute tits. Apparently, the answer to your previous thought was, very much so.

When Rosé pinched her best friend’s nipple, Lisa let out a moan in her throat that reverberated into Rosé's mouth, letting her know that her actions were appreciated.

Rosé briefly opened her eyes, and saw your hard tent was now at eye level next to them. She pulled her tongue out of Lisa’s mouth and gave her a quick peck on the lips before turning to unzip your pants.

Lisa wrapped her arms around Rosé's waist and leant her head on her shoulders, watching as Rosé finally pulled your cock free. “Mmm, did all of our foreplay and teasing get you this hard? Just for us?” She said with a foxy little smile, knowing full well that you were hard as a rock the moment the topic of fantasies came up.

And with that she grabbed the base of your cock and started pumping up and down. The first jerk alone was enough to cause pre cum to leak out onto your head, which Rosé- observant as ever, quickly noticed and used it to start lubing up your rod. “Mmm c’mon Lisa, don’t pretend you’re shy.”

Lisa was seemingly preoccupied, as she had adjusted her head on Rosé's shoulder so that she was now sucking her neck, and the hands which were around her waist now pulled her towards her own body. Lisa was seemingly grinding her pussy against Rosé's hipbone. It wasn't a move that you had ever seen before, but it was hot nonetheless.

Rosé, who was unfazed by this, gathered her hand that was intertwined with Lisa’s and slid them both together over your cock, forming a hand cradle. What followed was a double handed jerk off, as the two girls of your dreams slid their hands together over the full length of your cock, from base to head, down and back up, their hands still laced over each other as well as over your cock. You revelled in the experience, thinking about how much more there was to come. You quickly stripped off your shirt, and looked down to the pleasing rendition before you.

Both sets of eyes were now looking up at you with hungry expressions. Rosé unclasped her hand and moved her mouth towards your balls, sucking them into the warmth of her mouth. Lisa continued pumping your cock, moving her hand down towards the lower half. You anticipated why she might do this, until your cock head was resting on the wetness of her laid out tongue.

“You know, Rosé's spit is still probably in my mouth.” She said, then quickly took in half the length of your cock inside her mouth. The thought of Blackpink’s shared fluids in each other and on your cock had you throbbing in Lisa’s mouth. Just to make sure, Rosé took a pause from sucking on your balls. After Lisa had bobbed up and down your shaft a couple times, Rosé interrupted her by placing a hand around her neck, gently choking the girl and causing her to stop the brief yet blissful blowjob. Confused as to why Rosé had pulled her best friend off of your cock, your confusion was quickly replaced with a look of awe as she pulled Lisa’s mouth open. The younger girl instinctively laid her tongue out and looked up at Rosé with puppy dog eyes. And then Rosé spat. in. her. mouth. Lisa grinned in return then returned to take the length of your cock down her throat, gagging ever so slightly when she reached the base. When her pretty pink lips pulled away from your cock, you were connected by a trail of spit and pre cum.

“There, now our spit is definitely mixed together all over your cock.”

Lisa wasn’t swimming, yet a new wave of liquid had started to leak under her from Rosé's ministrations. She moved her black panties to the side and started rubbing her clit, whilst returning to give you head.

You felt her slide her tongue along your frenulum and shaft whilst encasing you between her lips. Rosé massaged your balls with one hand and used her other to wrap it around the base of your shaft. Their teamwork and rhythm was undeniable. Whether it was through years of training and performing together, or experience in getting their partners off- each other or different people (or both), the pleasure you were feeling far succeeded your expectations. Lisa would skilfully envelop your shaft with her mouth, bobbing up and down. When she slurped down further, Rosé gave the base of your shaft two quick jerks. On Lisa’s every upwards motion, Rosé used the extra length available on your cock to give you a slower pump in a twisting motion, whilst Lisa sucked hard on your head. They continued doing this again and again, all the while Rosé continued to massage your balls with her free hand, and their eye contact fucked you on a whole other level.

Lisa moaned onto your cock, and gazing past her slutty little face, you saw she was still getting herself off. Two small pools of liquid had formed on the floor, one beneath Lisa’s pussy; her leaked juices made you wonder what she tasted like. The other was the puddle of spit below your cock and their mouths, which had transpired from the increasingly sloppy blowjob.

You felt a familiar rising wave. Wanting to prolong this dream-like situation, you stepped back to pull away, at which Lisa looked at you with pouty lips and an expression of neediness, whilst Rosé spoke up.

“You were about to cum weren’t you, I could feel it in your balls.” she said with a devious smile. “Lisa’s mouth does feel good doesn’t it.” After which she turned and licked up along Lisa’s cheek playfully, and turned back to look at you with her mouth open in a smile and her tongue lifted up to to the top of her teeth.

“That felt like heaven and then some.” You explained. “But I don’t want to cum just yet.”

“It’s all good, I’ve got an idea” Rosé grabbed Lisa’s hand again and stood up, motioning for Lisa to follow suit.

Noticing the girly mess she had made on the floor, Lisa started an apology to her best friend. “My bad Chae, I leaked on your floor a little.” Considering she hadn’t cum yet, ‘a little’ seemed like an understatement. This girl was dripping.

Rosé replied with even more fantasy fuel. “Don’t worry Lili, you get cum on my bed sheets all the time, these floors are easy to clean in comparison.” And with that you all moved into Rosé's bedroom, hopefully on your way to ruin her bed sheets anyway.

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Chapter 2 - 𝓕𝓪𝓷𝓽𝓪𝓼𝓲𝓮𝓼 fulfilled

Apart from a hoodie that was lying on the floor, Rosé's bedroom was about as photogenic as her. An observation of clean and cute was as far as your quick scan of the area allowed before the girls drew your attention again.

Amazingly, Rosé was still fully clothed. Lisa- desperate to continue, quickly undid Rosé's shorts and dropped them to the floor, but not without giving Rosé's ass cheek a playful bite. “Lisa-yah!” yelped Rosé, with her eyes wide open and mouth agape in a similarly playful expression.

“Can’t help myself Rosie, I’m just extra horny today, don’t know why.”

“Lili I think we know why.” She said, giving you a coy look. “Why’re you just standing in the doorway Y/N?” “It’s okay, you can come into my room, it’s not the only thing of mine you’re gonna be coming in anyway.” Your cock twitched at her comment, causing Rosé to smirk as she knew the effect her words had on you.

“I want to see all of you Rosé.” You looked at her shirt and panties, then at Lisa, indicating with your eyes. Lisa understood and stood behind her best friend. Returning the favour from earlier, she cupped her perky little tits through her white top and started to pinch her nipples.

“Mmm, naughty Rosie isn’t wearing a bra.” said Lisa as she placed her head over Rosé's shoulder and looked into her eyes.

Rosé returned eye contact and replied “Well yeah I’m just at home, you walk around here with far less clothes than an absent bra sometimes.” She then proceeded to reach behind her, and although Rosé's body was currently blocking you from seeing it, you could take a good guess as to what she had dipped her fingers into given the surprisingly loud wet sound that emanated.

In what is half soft purring and half actual words, Lisa responds “Me walking around your house naked? You shouldn’t say such slanderous things Rosie.” You find it both humorous and an extreme turn on that Lisa is saying this whilst her fellow group members’ fingers are buried deep in her dripping pussy.

Even though you were meant to be cooling off, you can’t help but stroke your cock to the image before you. Ever so slowly, you pumped your shaft as Lisa lifted Rosé's shirt over her head, forcing the girl to pull her fingers out so that she could hold her arms up. As she did this, you managed to catch 2 of her fingers glistening in the air against the sunlight that shimmered through the curtains. Seeing Lisa’s wetness sparkle on Rosé's fingers was not a fantasy you thought you had, but it is a memorable moment for sure. With her top now removed, you drink in the sight of Rosé's tits. They aren’t huge, but they’re shapely and match her frame well. Subconsciously, you increased the pace of your stroking in appreciation, which doesn't go unnoticed by Rosé who bites on her lip as she watches you jerk off to her. “Better than getting off to pictures of us over the internet?” She toys.

Before you can think of a good reply, Lisa spins her around so that Rosé's ass is facing you. She gives you a quick glance, then starts to peel her chingu's panties off using just her teeth. Apparently Lisa took stripping classes at YG because she sure knew how to put on a show.

Rosé bent her knees slightly and leaned forward on the bed, knowing the angles that made her ass look good. Before you is a cute bubble butt, definitely not as big as Lisa’s, but round and firm. You wonder how it’s possible for them to look so damn good, but then remember that as idols, half of their work is training, dancing, and performing, and to look visual as fuck whilst doing it. What most of the public doesn’t necessarily realise though, is how mouth drooling they look even under their clothes. With no safety shorts to impede your view, Rosé looked gorgeous. Being nude, this is the most leggy you’ve ever seen her, and in her bent over position, her pussy shined back at you. Even from this small distance, you could see that she had a very neat innie that made you want to dive in. Turning back around to face you made her clean shaven mound apparent. 

You walked forward from your spot at the doorframe. Lisa was still wearing her bralette and super crop top, and her panties were so soaked that a wet line started to drip down her thigh. Eyeing what remained of her outfit, you came to a decision: “That crop top stays on, everything else needs to go.”

“If that’s what you want, daddy.” She said in a sultry yet innocent tone that practically makes you melt.

Rosé kneeled down behind Lisa, and took off her panties. There’s no show this time, but no complaints are to be heard either, as Rosé immediately dived into her best friends pussy, enabling moans to echo through the room.

You waste no time and unhook Lisa’s bralette. With just her super crop on to shape her shoulders, it laid just over her chest without covering her tits, which jiggled pleasantly as she had taken over stroking your cock, the rest of her now butt-naked. It was like an X rated dance practice outfit. You transfer Lisa’s moans into your own mouth as you moved in for a kiss. She welcomed your tongue into herself, and once again with unbeatable rhythm, she matched the pace of her handjob with the rate at which she sucked and licked at your tongue. You could only imagine that Rosé was somehow tongue-fucking her pussy to a similar beat.

“Alright, time for that idea I had” perks up Rosé. She directed Lisa to get on the bed- face down, ass up, whilst you stood at the edge, leaving enough room for Rosé to take her place in front of you. It looked to be a king size bed, which you have a not so slight suspicion is due to the fact that Lisa spends a lot of time in here as well. Rosé kneeled on her knees, facing Lisa, and continued her oral session. Feeling a little confused as to why she wanted you here, you begin to realise what Rosé's idea was. She lifted up the lower half of her legs into the air and fluttered her toes at you, behind which rested both her thighs held tightly together, and above that thigh gap was of course the beautiful folds of her pussy.

Rosé's a queen, yet she knows how to serve. Before you was an elegant three course meal of your very own Rosé banquet.

“There’s lube in that bedside drawer, bottom shelf.” said Rosé as she lifted up her head from Lisa’s cunt, gesturing towards the mahogany drawer with pussy juice dripping deliciously around her mouth. “Or you can borrow some of Lisa.” She said with a wink and a lick of her lips before burying her face back down into her meal, allowing Lisa’s increasingly louder moans to continue.

As hot as Rosé's latter suggestion sounded, you didn't want to interrupt, as Lisa has been chasing that orgasm since the start of the night. You moved over to where the bedside table was and opened the bottom drawer. The contents were a bit more intense than you were expecting. You spotted a few dildos and vibrators, the two most noticeable of which were a rabbit vibrator (the ones that have an extra nub shaped like rabbit ears to stimulate the clit), and a long double ended dildo that was half black, half pink. Apparently even in their sex lives they remained on brand.

Other items included a roll of condoms and the bottle of lube you were initially looking for- but quickly became of less interest, as you saw a pair of handcuffs, and at the bottom, a small set of Polaroid pictures. They had the typical dreamy summer vibes that Polaroids produced, but upon looking at the images more closely you noticed they were of not just Rosé, or even just Chalisa, but all the Blackpink members. In most of the pics the subjects were framed as either nude or close to it, in a satisfyingly tasteful way, despite the fact that you could tell they were taken either pre, mid, or post sex. You suddenly felt a bit of guilt, as if you were intruding on these intimate moments that were only meant for them. But when Lisa’s squeals tuned you back in, you glanced over at Rosé who had paused to give you her trademark bedroom eyes and wiggled her butt and feet in the air despite the items you were holding. She didn’t mind you seeing her intimate drawer but she did mind that you weren’t fucking her right now.

“Do I need this?” you asked her dutifully, whilst holding up one of the condom packets.

“Nah, remember what I said earlier? I want you to finish in me, not in some latex. Don’t worry, we’re both on the pill.”

Lisa, despite her sounds of exasperation, managed to chime in “Chae loves cum too much to not be on the pill.”

Rosé didn’t even respond, and instead just returned her tongue and fingers to Lisa’s folds.

“If you think there’s a lot going on in that drawer, just wait until you see what Jennie and Jisoo have.” Lisa’s statement left a lasting impression.

Returning back to the bed, you planted yourself on the ground behind Rosé. If she’s offering everything in front of you, you weren't gonna turn her down. Already knowing in which order you’ll fuck Rosé's bits, you pour some of the lube over your cock and then some over the soles and along the insides of her feet, which she already had hovered in the air for you, squeezed together. You quickly grabbed a pillow and placed them under her knees to hopefully help alleviate some of the roughness of the floor.

With your cock lined up, you started thrusting between her soles. To add more stimulation you pushed them together, tightening the hole that formed between them. She started to move her legs slightly back and forth to match your thrusts. Like the rest of her body, her feet were pretty and clean, and it’s a unique visual to see your cock pumping between them. Further up on the bed, the rapid squelching sounds coming from between Rosé's face and Lisa’s legs announced her approaching orgasm.

“Fuck yes Rosie, fuck fuck fuck.” Screamed Lisa as her cunt trembled around Rosé's fingers and mouth. The older girl continued her movements, only slowly subsiding once Lisa stopped shaking. Lisa allowed the last waves of her orgasm to ride through her. “You eat me out so good Chae.” She said before flipping onto her back, head towards Rosé and lying still in an effort to catch her breath.

Throughout all this you continued to fuck Rosé’s feet. After a couple dozen thrusts, you realised that you were both too worked up to keep the foot job going, and that this was generally better served as foreplay or when everyone wasn't ridiculously horny.

Your thought process was reinforced when you placed her legs back down and noticed her pussy leaking some cream. Not a clear, dripping wetness like Lisa, but a small trail of creamy white. Rosé got up and pushed you down to a seated position on the edge of her bed. Straddling you, she says "I'm sorry, I know you want to fuck my legs, but my pussy is literally creaming for your cock right now so it'll have to wait for another day."

The fact that Rosé basically invited you to come fuck her again after today was more than enough reason for you to accept her apology. “Lili, guide his cock for me.”

Lisa, who had seemingly recovered enough from her orgasm, got up off the bed with her tongue between her teeth and a devilish smile. You wondered what she was thinking about. Taking her spot behind Rosé, you felt a warm hand wrap itself around the base of your cock, as it aimed your head towards her best friends opening. You were aching to be inside Rosé’s flower, and she was aching to have your stem inside of her.

Once she felt your tip teasing her entrance, Rosé allowed her weight to fall down until her pussy lips met Lisa’s hand. The top half of your cock was buried inside Blackpink’s main vocalist, whilst the main dancer had her fingers curled around the bottom half. The moment is so cathartic that you had to strain yourself from not nutting then and there. Rosé continued to push downwards against Lisa’s hand, signalling that she wanted more. Instead of letting go completely, Lisa unfurled her fingers one at a time to allow for Rosé's pussy to swallow more of your cock, until she’s only holding the very base with the O shape of her curled thumb and index finger. Rosé bottoms out, meaning Lisa’s hand is now laying flat against your pubic area, with your cock jutting out between her fingers. She flips her hand over so that her palm is facing upwards. Rosé had now taken your full length, her creamy walls feeling like bliss. You attest being able to push through her unbelievable tightness on the first thrust to her determination, and that she was visibly creamy from all the action that had happened tonight before any attention was given to her pussy.

Rosé started to lift upwards, and then down again, finding a rhythm, but her pussy was not alone in this endeavour. Every time Rosé flexed and relaxed her hips and legs to sink down on your cock and then up again, Lisa matched this by keeping her hand in the same position as before. Palm up, her middle and ring fingers encasing either side of your cock. By matching the pace of the ride, she always kept her hand just under Rosé’s pussy. In doing this, she was not only giving you a two finger handjob, but she was also curling her fingers up to rub her best friends lips and clit, all the whilst Rosé continued to ride the soul out of you.

The sounds of squelching and yours and Rosé’s moaning filled the room. The subtle bouncing of her tits every time she dropped from the summit was adorable. Seeing you eye fuck her tits, Rosé flicked her hair so that you could get better access. You moved in and took her left nipple in your mouth, whilst cupping her other boob. The hardness of her nipples became even more evident as your swirled your tongue around one and pinched the other. As her pussy continuously clamped you, up and down, You felt Rosé’s hands on the back of your head, pulling you closer. Her fingers ran through your hair and massaged your scalp as you alternated between sucking on her tits. Rosé fully took the length of your cock inside of her and switched to a back and forth grinding motion.

With her mouth free and Rosé’s ass in front of her, Lisa determined there was an obvious move to make.

“Lisa-yah!” Rosé suddenly yelped. “ I thought this was meant to be your fantasy.

Lisa pauses her ministrations to reply. "Turns out I wanted to be on the giving end as well." Curious as to what was happening, you unlatched from Rosé’s tits and looked behind her slim waist. Lisa had halted her finger work from the two of you and was instead spreading her best friends ass, tongue deep inside Rosé’s tight little asshole.

Continuing with her grinding, you yourself almost yelp as Rosé clenched her pussy walls tighter on your cock, her velvety insides hugging you closer.

“Rosé…” You groan, feeling yourself getting closer. Leaning over, she whispers into your ear. "Don’t be a stranger, you can call me by my real name.”

This was a small added intimacy that you were more than happy to abide by. "Do you like having my cock inside you... Park Chaeyoung?" You say in a deep playful tone, but it's followed quickly by a moan as she squeezes her cunt around your cock even harder upon hearing you call her by her real name.

Lisa interjects - "You just squeezed his cock didn't you Chae? Holy fuck you must be tight right now, some of your cream leaked out when you did.” From behind Chaeyoung's ass you can see Lisa eye fucking the creamy pussy in front of her, before looking up at you and saying "I love when she squeezes herself around my fingers or tongue, makes me feel like a good girl.”

“Or a bad girl, depending on how you look at it" you say, in which Lisa responds with a coy smile and sticks her tongue out playfully, which to your delight she sticks back in to her chingu's awaiting ass. "Lisa, I love you, but good girls don't tongue fuck each others assholes" she says whilst trying to hold in a moan. Lisa pulls out "well I can stop if you'd like" she says, tilting her head down and pouting her lips in a teasing way that she knew would drive Chaeyoung crazy, but without even turning around, Chaeyoung rests her hand on Lisa's head and pulls her back into her ass, "don't you dare stop, I'm close". Seeing as she looked you dead in the eyes during those words you took it she wasn't just talking to Lisa. This time you take the reigns and start bucking your hips up into her. Chaeyoung lets out the moan she was holding a moment ago, the loudest of the night so far.

Pumping with all the energy you have in you, you buck your hips up into the girl, relentlessly pounding her pussy with your rod. You keep a rigid hold of her waist, minimising her movements to allow Lisa to continue her tongue work.

“Unghf, yes, yes, keep fucking me Y/N, I’m so close, treat me like your little cum hungry slut. My pussy needs your cum. My pussy needs your cum like my asshole needs my best friends tongue. FUCK” she squeals, as you deliver the words “milk the cum out of my cock with your pussy, Chaeyoung” and with the most satisfying O face you’ve ever seen, her eyes rolls back and her pussy cinches around your cock tighter than it has all night. Her creamy walls start to ripple around your manhood, and when her facial expression alone was enough to send you over the edge, you thrust balls deep one more time and then plummet over. Her cunt milks you for load after load, as white as the flashing of your vision. The culminating overload of realising that you really are in  Rosé‘s apartment, fucking her and Lisa, and the waves of your climax has you in pure, absolute bliss.

With your cock still inside her, Chaeyoung wraps her arms around your neck, nuzzling her head into your shoulder. She’s clearly gone into a state of lazy post-sex dreamy mode, and you don’t blame her. Holding on to you tight like she doesn’t want to ever let go, you wrap one arm around her smooth waist, and explore the ridges of her spine and ribs with the other hand.

“Don’t let that cream go to waste Lili” mumbles Chaeyoung from your neck. “Remember what I said about wanting to share cum?”

“Leave it to me Rosie” and with that Lisa gently lifted Chaeyoung’s ass until your cock slipped out of her pussy, the both of you wincing slightly from the post-nut sensitivity.

The gentlest little moans emanated from Chaeyoung as Lisa started lapping up the dripping creampie, no, YOUR dripping creampie from her best friend's pussy. You didn’t have the view to see it, but the sight of Lisa’s eyes peaking over Chaeyoung’s ass as she licked up the combined cream of your cum and her fellow group member was more than enough. “I know you’re both puckered out right now, but after tasting all this cum I’m getting sopping wet again and I’m gonna have to go for round two.” Some of her words were a little unclear, as she spoke without trying to let any cum fall out. You smiled at Lisa’s request as she dived back in. Once her mouth was full of the contents of Chaeyoung’s pussy, she gathered the cum from your sensitive cock using three fingers and licked that up too. She then sat back on her knees and waited like a good girl.

Chaeyoung pushed up off of you and swayed over to Lisa. You watched as the two sloppily made out, transferring creamy white substances into each other’s mouths. Lisa stuck her tongue out, looking first at her best friend and then making direct eye contact with you. Chaeyoung’s creamy cum, your hot load, and the girls’ spit coating her mouth and smooth pink tongue, forming multiple trails between her top and bottom lips as she opened her mouth wide. 

Chaeyoung wrapped her luscious lips around Lisa's tongue, bobbing up and down like a pseudo-blowjob. Once Lisa’s jaw got tired, she pushed down on Chaeyoung’s shoulders to get her on a lower elevation. Lisa then loomed over Chaeyoung’s mouth from a distance and let what remained of her creamy  reservoir out of her mouth. Like a thick bubbling waterfall, the cum travelled through the air down into Lake Chaeyoung’s awaiting mouth.

Before today, the most you had seen of Chaeyoung and Lisa was the occasional outfit that showed off a little extra, or them twerking on stage, yet here you were watching them savour and play with your cum in each other’s holes.

It was filthy, it was slutty, and it was pure fucking fantasy fuel.

“Tur around, get on the beb with your asshup” Chaeyoung could only half enunciate the words in trying to contain all the cum in her mouth, though she wasn’t fully succeeding as some was dribbling out the corner of her mouth and down onto her perky little tits. Regardless, Lisa got the memo, as for the second time that night, she quickly planted herself face down, ass up on the bed. In this position, her ass had never looked better, and you could already feel yourself returning to hardness. You wondered just how much time Lisa spent in this position.

Just when you thought the cum tales might be over, Chaeyoung scooched over in prime position to eat her best friend’s ass. Instead of swallowing the cum, she spat some of it out and proceeded to make out with Lisa’s asshole. Cum. And. Spit. Dripped. Everywhere. Lisa was moaning into the bed sheets, and as if there wasn’t enough, her pussy started leaking out again. Chaeyoung was alternating between finger fucking and tongue fucking all the natural lube into her Lisa's asshole. Once she seemed satisfied, she wiggled under Lisa into a sixty-nine position, and sucked her pussy folds into her mouth. 

After watching the two eat each other out for a bit, Lisa turned her head around and faced you. “C’mon Y/N, you can’t tell me that after all that you’re not hard again, Chae didn’t lube up my ass with cum-lube for nothing.” She said whilst shaking her ass in the air. Suffice to say you were at full mast again, so you took your place behind Lisa’s ass. She giggled as you tapped your cock on her cheeks, admiring the shape and firmness of it.

“Oh my god Lalisa Manoban keep rubbing that, fuck yes.” You couldn’t see Chaeyoung’s pussy from here but it made you smile knowing these two knew how to get each other off so good.

Holding your cock by the base, you pushed just the head into Lisa’s asshole. “Ugh, yeah keep going deeper, I can take it all.” You didn’t doubt her, especially with how slick and wet it was, but you wanted to see if you could make her beg for it. Once your whole tip was inside her ass, you pulled out, rubbed it along the length of her pussy that Chaeyoung wasn’t occupying with her mouth, then pushed just the head back in. After repeating this a few times Lisa quipped “Y/N please I need you to pound my ass, stop teasing me.” She tried to twerk it back into you but her best friend had her arms locked around her waist, preventing Lisa from getting much movement.

Chaeyoung’s sparkling eyes from below caught your attention. You couldn’t see her mouth but could tell she was smiling. Teasing Lisa when her pussy juices were literally leaking down her leg got Chaeyoung off just as much as it did for you.

You put the tip back into her asshole. “Tell me how bad you want it Lisa.”

“I’m fucking aching for your cock Y/N. You know my ass will make you feel good, lay your pipe in me however you want, just put it in please. Please.” That last word came out like a gentle little cry. And so without remorse you thrusted the full length of your cock into Lalisa’s tight asshole. Lisa screamed in delight as you pumped away, rearranging her guts. Her ass cheeks clapped rhythmically every time your hips rammed into her from behind. You were reminded that Lisa got her wish from earlier, as loud slurping sounds came from where Chaeyoung’s mouth connected to Lisa’s pussy, which was dripping like a faulty faucet.

You took a healthy handful of Lisa’s ass cheek and squeezed, taking a moment to appreciate that you were indeed fucking the Lisa Manoban’s ass. You gave her a good couple spanks just for good measure. This was clearly up Lisa’s alley, as she said “mmm fuck yes Y/N, rough fuck me from behind like the slut I am.” With your cock filling her up, all of the cum lube from before had started to drip out of her ass and run down her cheeks, until it made its way through her pussy folds. Chaeyoung was there at the end of the stream, ready to lap it all up.

“She likes having her hair pulled whilst your inside of her.”

“Chaengie, stop exposing me!” quipped Lisa, as if she wasn’t already fully exposed, her pussy eaten and her ass spread open. 

You leaned forward and bunched up Lisa’s hair in your hand. Pulling her head back as you pounded her back end, making sure to deliver more spanks as she shivered in pleasure.

It didn’t take long before Lisa moaned between gasps of air “I’m gonna… cum… already. Don’t stop fucking that hole Y/N… keep sucking my clit… right there Cha- OH” 

Lisa came like an unhinged sprinkler, her body rippling and coiling in all the right places, and Chaeyoung had to close her eyes as Lisa started to gush and squirt all over her pretty little face.

You kept fucking Lisa throughout her orgasm, but she eventually pulled forwards slightly from over stimulation. You pulled your cock out of her ass, promising to yourself in your head that you’d return to that tight cavern one day.

Noticing your hard on floating in the air, Chaeyoung wiped her hand across her face like she had just been submerged in a pool, except instead of water it was Lisa’s squirty cum. With her hand now slick with girl juice, she reached up and started to pump your cock. Evidently, these two were fans of using cum as lube. But like fuck, you were too after tonight.

“Chaeyoung, shift down towards the edge more.” As she complied, you gently pulled Lisa along so that her pussy lined up with Chaeyoung’s mouth. Her head was now hanging off of the bed slightly, exactly where you wanted it. You placed your thumb on Chaeyoung’s lips and swiped it across them. They returned to their position with a slight bounce.  Without even needing to say the words, she opened her mouth wide, her tongue looked as inviting as ever. Using Lisa’s ass as a handhold, you bent your knees until Chaeyoung’s mouth was on fucking level, and in one thrust you glided along her tongue until you hit her throat. As expected, Chaeyoung’s throat shared similar properties with her pussy: incredibly tight and the perfect sleeve for your cock. You revelled in the feeling of her warm tongue and throat massaging your rod. Each thrust was a delight. Damn these two idols knew how to take dick.

Even though you had already cum once, you knew you wouldn’t last long throatfucking Chaeyoung like this, so after a few more savouring thrusts you pulled out. “Hey, where are you going..?” Chaeyoung asked, as if her food was being taken away mid meal.

You answered her question with an action, slowly pushing the full length of your member into Lisa’s glorious pussy, which was accompanied by a gentle moan. You continued alternating between Chaeyoung’s upside down mouth and Lisa’s cunt, one slow thrust at a time. It was hard to tell which was more slippery.

“Making it last and still fucking us both at the same time? Don’t worry Y/N, this isn’t the last time we’re doing this, I can tell you that right now.” Lisa’s words reassured you, as did her pussy wrapped around your cock.

“Where do you want my 2nd load?”

“Your call Lisa, he already came insid-“ The end of her sentence was cut short, as you had just pulled out of Lisa and stuffed Chaeyoung’s mouth full again.

“My mouth is a bit dry Y/N, why don’t you quench my thirst?”

“You’ll have to turn around then Lisa, get your sexy little mouth over here, I’ve been close for a while now.”

She quickly hopped off from on top of Chaeyoung and swivelled around to face you (but she returned to lying on top of Chaeyoung anyway). You tapped on Lisa’s open tongue with your cock, and then watched it disappear as you thrust your hips forward.

“I like watching my best friend swallow your cock Y/N. She wants your cum. Are you gonna give it to her? Please cum down her throat, she's a dirty fucking cum whore babe, let it all out babe, nut in her, please.”

Chaeyoung’s accent as she pleaded for you to cum down Lisa’s throat sent you spiralling. She was a main vocalist in more than just singing. You thrust deep into Lisa's mouth one last time before groaning loudly. Hot spurts of cum coated Lisa’s mouth pipe, who greedily swallowed it all down. She wasn’t lying when she said she was thirsty.

You pulled out of Lisa’s mouth after your cock stopped twitching, now feeling well and truly spent.

"You really swallowed it all huh?" Chaeyoung noted.

"It's only fair, you got his creampie earlier."

You collapsed onto the bed next to Chaeyoung, whilst they casually discussed  your cum and the places it went.

Lisa looked over to face you with a sly grin. "You should come over again sometime, maybe we'll give you that audio recording."

“Come over again? Does that mean you’re kicking me out now?”

Lisa shook her head apologetically. That’s not what she meant.

Chaeyoung's hand stretched out behind her to find its place interlocked with yours, as if to make sure you weren’t going anywhere. "No, stay with us… tonight. But after that you should come over again, but only for the recording, no other reason." She teased in a sleepy voice.

"Really, no other reason?" You responded.

"Hmm, none that I can think off." She gently squeezed your hand, reassuring you of all the reasons that went unspoken.

A/N: How do people churn out smuts this long whilst still retaining some level of quality? I feel like I just submitted an assignment. Grade my paper and leave me feedback! Also, writing Rosé's name with the tilde above the e every time isn't worth it.

#blackpink smut #lisa smut #rose smut #kpop smut #girl group smut #gg smut #female idol smut #kpop fanfic #kpop headcanons #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios

[rottenraccoons]

Hi!! First of all, I wanted to say how much I LOVE Obscura, I’ve played through chapter one enough to get nearly all the endings now!! You guys are doing amazing work, I’m so excited for chapter two!

My question is sort of a writing/planning one! You’ve created such an interesting and complex story that can branch out in so many ways; so what is it like to plan and write something this complex, and what was your process like while developing it? Any tips?

Thank you!! <3

Aw, thank you!

I think our story can look deceptively complex from the outside, but from the inside it's actually pretty manageable (and this would be true for any story you make, too!). I'll show a bit of my process and hopefully that'll help you.

So this is a peek at what my workspace looks like (cropped to avoid showing too much). On the right are all the variables I'm working with, on the left is the script, and that little red square poking in is the preseason testing for Formula 1, because I need background noise to work (and I like F1).

With the variable list visible like this, it's actually very easy to keep track of all the different possible choices the player has made, and so it's pretty easy to either accommodate them or write in ways that suit all possible versions. So that's cheat #1: just keep your variables on hand and you eventually get used to thinking about them as you go.

Another thing that helps is our plot structure. Sam Kabo Ashwell wrote a very helpful blog post that helps visualise the different way choice-games like interactive fiction, CYOA stories, and visual novels can structure their branches. Obscura might look like a "sorting hat" at first, but it's better to think of each route as its own "branch and bottleneck" narrative. No matter what happens in the branches, things always bottleneck to the same place. No matter how your party goes in Oleander's route, either you get a bad end or you end up dancing together. So cheat #2 is to just think about places where your narrative can converge and ensure that your branches will come together to that bottleneck again.

Which isn't to say that this doesn't take work! If you're used to writing totally linear stuff then it can take a little time to get used to thinking in terms of branches and variables. But the good news is that when you start at the beginning of the story, there's not too much to think about. As long as you don't dump a huge number of variables on yourself right away, you can build them up as you get more used to thinking about them as you write.

I hope that helps!

#obscura vn #rotten raccoons #asks #about us #(by which i mean our process)

[notknickers]

in the last few days, i have been rotating the big austrian lad in my head relentlessly and, even though i may change my mind about some of these, or have mutually exclusive headcanons cohexist in different renditions of him, i feel like he is starting to take more deifinite shape in my mind. therefore, i want to write a list of my interpretation and share it, both for personal reference, since i'm juggling two different fics, and as modest contribution to fandom. i'll try to keep things coherent, but...

in spite of the misleading banner, which portrays a silly, cartoonish version of tentakönig i had a lot of fun doodling specially to embellish this post, the following is about human!könig, military contractor. that is just to give an idea of how much he has been bouncing in my skull as if my brain were a trampoline.

♛ he is between forty-two and forty-five years of age;

♛ his untreated social anxiety only increased during his military recruitment and gradually exacerbated into full-on PTSD during his career as contractor; he is afflicted by dissociative episodes, panic attacks and night terrors, as a consequence, which he keeps hidden at any and all cost and manages covertly, sometimes through questionable means;

♛ he is very quiet, pensive and observant. as such, he loathes using more words than he needs to and uses as little as he can, trying to avoid long conversations and small talk alike;

♛ his mask is the only remnant of his pre-military life. he clings to it as a reminder of his own humanity, of the person he used, for good or ill, to be and as acknowledgement of how far he has come from the scrawny, fearful lad he was, even when sometimes, he wishes he would have made different choices;

♛ under his mask, the features on his face are slightly uneven, such as one of his ears, which hangs at a slightly different angle than the other and his left cheekbone, still crooked from a past injury that healed poorly. he also has some deeper disfigurement, the scars of which still remain, less and less visible as time passes, and his lips are ruined. these are the consequence of both maltreatment and bullying during his childhood and adolescence, from both callous peers and neglectful parents, and of injuries incurred on the job. ironically, the worst are not from his military career, however. as such, he barely ever removes his mask, chiefly when alone or on leave.

♛ his hair is light in colour, kept cropped very short as it tends to grow quickly and get matted under his mask and helmet, but beyond the slightly receding hairline typical of men his age, he is nowhere near starting to bald; ♛ his eyes are grey. not blue, nor black. grey. sometimes lighter, sometimes darker, sometimes glittery and glassy, but always grey, according to his state and the light conditions;

♛ even though he is barely average in attractiveness and the presence of keloidal scar tissue, which often ranges from being off-putting to instilling repulsion in others, he is noticeable in size. some would find the mass of packed, rounded muscles in more than 2m rather interesting. however, given that very fact, he probably has or will soon start experiencing heart issues as he ages. realistically, he will probably die younger than his peers, in spite of being in top shape;

♛ his approach is practical and detached: if he's on a rescue mission, that's what he will focus on; what happens afterwards is none of his business, as long as his job is done and he gets recognition remuneration for it. if, on the other hand, civilians or competitors are a liability, he will not hesitate to take care of the situation in the most expedient way, the way that will not impair the status of his mission;

♛ this strong preference for detachment and pragmatism is not to say that he does not take pride in his skills, even though his job is nothing more than a means towards an end, or, well, more than one. namely, a paycheque to live comfortably and never fear poverty or food insecurity again; isolation from people or controlled interactions with predictable scripts, when necessary; the rules that apply, which are different from those of society at large, in which he always struggled and still struggles to fit in;

♛ when engaging the enemy, he is not reckless, but he is beastly and brutal. he displays a sort of controlled berserk mode. he has no particular respect for life and under those specific circumstances, allows himself to delight in carnage. he otherwise appears in control of himself, even though he spends as much time as he can alone, so others only know him so much;

♛ he is not beyond torture, even the disfiguring, excruciating kind, the kind that carries long-lasting, when not permanent effects on body and spirit alike. however, he merely sees it as a means towards an end. he is not the type to waste time threatening and warning: he thinks practical demonstrations are more eloquent that any word. as such, his methods tend more towards the crude, than the sophisticated, but they are equally effective in half the time;

♛ when on leave, he lives frugally and anonymously, barely leaving his abode unless necessary; he lives below his means as a matter of habit, a consequence of his childhood poverty, even when he could afford much, much more;

♛ his modest flat is a pigsty and he likes to leave it like that to break out of the stifling rules and expectations of his job. this is also reflected on his shabby sense of fashion: better to be a practical slob than an elegant buffoon who wastes his hard-earned money on impractical peacocking attires;

♛ whilst true that his height, build and scars attract stares in public, he has become very adept at shutting such rudeness down with one of his strategic, whithering looks. out of combat, he is just some bloke and that is all he cares to be until he is called back from leave;

♛ he compartmentalises a lot his civilian persona from his military persona and, even within his military persona, there are more subdivisions to be found (coold-headed, reserved, collected and calculating vs murderous, bloody and savage in conflict.) to be clear, he is not ashamed of what he does for a living, but his profession also requires a lot of discretion on his part, which makes the compartmentalising already so natural to him an external necessity;

♛ he's a smoker and a drinker: as long as he still performs well on the field, he has no interest in denying himself the scant pleasures only vice can offer;

tentakönig rolled and bounced all the way down here to say: "if you do not wish to find out what i'm like sexually and romantically, do yourself a favour and do not read below. proceed at leisure, otherwise."

🗡 perhaps not every single time, but more often than not, he cries when he comes;

🗡 i get submissive vibes, with a dash of unpredictability. for now, let's say that, with his lovers, occasional and less so, he knows how to be both rough and rash or gentle and devoted. sometimes, even within the same session, all depending on mood and circumstances.

🗡 i'm toying with the idea of him having a specific type of mummy kink, the kind expressed by seeking the gentle, comforting touch of a willing-enough woman who he will address as mummy, in german, only to end up weeping on her tits as he greedily sucks on them... i may have already begun writing a fic along this lines... >.> i did and more are coming. this is both a promise and a threat.

🗡 when he gets desperate and/or fuckdrunk during his sexual encounters, he starts muttering nonsense in austrian german, incapable of focussing his brain enough to maintain some coherency; it's very endearing to see him lose control like that. if the sex in question is happening with a very lucky woman (lucky according to whom?!) who he trusts enough to be that vulnerable, besides giving in to his native tongue, he will probably also cry, as mentioned above;

🗡 when on leave, he occasionally pays for sex when he can't (or won't bother to) find anything on his own, or when he has something particular in mind and prefers to put himself in the hands of a professional;

🗡 even though he does not consider himself queer, when mercenary sex isn't in the cards, he frequents local gay clubs. as a tall, athletic, middle-aged and moderately hairy man, it is hardly challenging for him to find a willing man to fuck in the face or the arse, even though he never reciprocates;

🗡 though more or less settled in his reality full of idiosyncrasies and resigned to it, he occasionally allows himself to wander off his established path to seek companionship outside of the above-mentioned methods. he knows he could hardly stand a regular life with wife, children, pets and a less dangerous job. yet, there is a part of him still curious, which would like to discover whether he could get what everyone else allegedly seems to want, what he feels he should want but is not sure he actually does. as such, he occasionally tries and manages to establish a relationship in between deployments, but it often collapses or remains in the early stages. the older he gets, the harder he finds to make them happen, especially when he is very much not everyone's cup of tea;

🗡 nevertheless, i believe he would appreciate to know what it's like to see himself through the eyes of someone genuinely infatuated with him and not see them recoil in disgust or reflect back the image of the mindless killing machine with little depth left he considers himself to have become;

may add more in future. apologies for any potential mistake: it's very late and i don't have time to reread everything. thanks for reading.

#cod #call of duty #könig #konig #könig cod #konig cod #könig mw2 #konig mw2 #könig mwii #konig mwii #könig headcanons #konig headcanons #könig x reader #konig x reader

[quartersety-of-a-holsety]

I made myself a Fire Emblem theme for my solitaire game

Deets under the cut

Base theme: Fable Deck: Solitaire Celebrates Effect: Stars

PLAYING BACKGROUND:

CARD BACKING:

ACES:

Ace of Diamonds: Hoshido/Birthright

Ace of Spades: Mark of Naga/Brand of the Exalt

Ace of Hearts: Valla/Revelation

Ace of Clubs: Nohr/Conquest

KINGS:

King of Diamonds: Lewyn

King of Spades: Alm

King of Hearts: Eltshan

King of Clubs: Eliwood

QUEENS:

Queen of Diamonds: Mikoto

Queen of Spades: Edelgard

Queen of Hearts: Tiki

Queen of Clubs: Michaiah

JACKS:

Jack of Diamonds: Forde

Jack of Spades: Inigo

Jack of Hearts: Seliph

Jack of Clubs: Leo

IMAGE SOURCES:

Background: Here

Card backing: Here

Aces: The French Wikipages for Awakening and Fates

Face cards: Heroes and official art [Inigo specifically here]

FUN FACTS NOBODY ASKED FOR:

The face cards did not align this way naturally. All of them had to be zoomed in at least twice, most four, and a few had to be scooted over a little to avoid being cropped in the wrong places or to fix general alignment issues

The game doesn't properly support transparent images, so I had to give each face card a background; really all I did was colour drop the deck's base colour and use that as the background so it would match

Each face card was shrunk to the card's base dimensions [422x562] with the background being twice that size [844x1124] to allow for easier placement without running into a black background because of said transparency issues

I didn't make any changes to the playing background. I just set it and left it as is

The card backing isn't quite aligned in the center, but I have no motivation to try and fix that right now

The backing border was completely unintentional. I chose that deck to build off of simply because of the gold rim around the face-up cards. I didn't realise it would come with a backing border, but hey it works

I chose Fable as the base theme to build off of for two reasons: 1. Aesthetic™, and 2. The background music is the closest to Fire Emblem music the game has [I really wish you could choose your own in-game ambience instead of having to use a preset theme first]

The stars effect has no real impact on the theme, I just like it

I initially wanted Ferdinand to be the Jack of Diamonds, but I didn't want to use his pre-skip design, which is all Heroes had, so Forde was chosen instead

Takumi was briefly considered for Jack of Diamonds and King of Clubs before those roles went to Forde and Eliwood

Ishtar was going to be the Queen of Clubs, but I decided three Genealogy characters was enough, so Michaiah took this spot

Other candidates for Queen of Clubs were Cherche, Celica, Seiros, and Eirika

I went with the Chrom!Inigo edit instead of normal Inigo or Lazward simply because Chrom!Inigo is best Inigo and you cannot change my mind

Alm, Michaiah, and Forde are the only ones who use official art instead of Heroes art. I preferred Alm and Michaiah's official art while Forde isn't even in the game yet [get on that, IS]

I originally wanted to use Edelgard's official post-skip art as I didn't [and still don't] like how her Heroes art sharply cuts off, but it ultimately clashed badly when trying to align it, so I had to use her Legendary alt [her pre-skip and Three Hopes designs were out of the question from the get-go]. I aligned the cutoff with the edge of the card as best I could and I'm surprised it worked

The only set in stone characters from the very beginning were Eltshan, Seliph, and Inigo. The rest I decided as I went on

Tiki was completely spur of the moment. As soon as I remembered she existed, I was like "Oh yeah, adult Tiki would be a perfect Queen of Hearts". I saw her Brave alt and didn't look back

I briefly considered using Eltshan's performance alt, but decided against it

While I knew I wanted Seliph as the Jack of Hearts, I initially wasn't sure which version to use, but I ultimately went with the version I liked the most, which was his Brave alt

Lewyn was a toss-up as to which version I wanted to use, but I went with his festival alt as I liked it more than his normal version

Other characters I considered but with no solid placement were Sigurd, Arvis, Lucina, Ayra, Soleil, Dorothea, Olivia, Deirdre, Say'ri, Elincia, Ryouma, Innes, Tana, Ephraim, Felix, and Constance

Inigo and the aces required some additional editing to remove their white backgrounds before setting up the off-white backgrounds they were supposed to have for this set. I worked on Inigo's for so long trying to edit out lossy pixels around the edges of his art that the editor crashed on me. Hurray for autorecovery

#fire emblem #microsoft solitaire #i'm seriously in love with this i've looked at this for five hours now #though technically i made this theme a few days ago but who cares

[mama-qwerty]

What if we were to... you know... introduce Silver and Eclipse to Minecraft multiplayer?

Would chaos in what they want to do ensue? I can certainly imagine Eclipse going medieval and making a village his slaves and Silver trying to protect them and it conflicts hilariously XD.

It would not go well. I'm gonna use the Switch version because that's the one I'm familiar with.

~~~~~

Callie sipped her coffee, enjoying the quiet. Normally a silence like this would have been unnerving--what with two boys in the house, one of whom is more gremlin than anything--but today it was welcome.

She sat at the kitchen table, lazily scrolling through her phone. The two boys in question were in the living room, playing their new Switch game together. The occasional soft comment came to her ears as they chatted together, but other than that, they'd been mostly quiet like that for over an hour.

It was time for Murphy's Law to take effect.

"This is boring." Eclipse's tone was annoyed, and came as close to a whine as he was capable. "Let's go back into that cave."

"No, there are spiders and zombies in there and I want to keep working on my farm."

"Your farm is fine! Let the villagers take care of it."

"I like taking care of it myself." Silver, bless his heart, was still calm and controlled. His brother had a talent for getting him upset, but today it didn't seem like Silver was taking the bait. "Look at all the crops! I need them to feed my animals."

"You don't have to feed all your stupid animals, they're not really gonna die, you know."

"Go by yourself. You don't need me with you."

"You're better at marking the path so we don't get lost."

"Too bad. Maybe you should learn to do it yourself."

Eclipse uttered an annoyed grunt, and Callie could picture him gritting his sharp teeth. "Just leave your stupid farm and your stupid animals and come with me!"

"No!"

Callie sighed, and wondered if she should get involved. Maddie had told her that it was important for siblings to figure out problems on their own, to find their own dynamic and deal with issues. She supposed that made sense, and she tried to let her boys figure it out, but she was also a big supporter of things like quiet and not having her house destroyed.

Two things that were in woeful short supply with two super powered alien children.

But, since Maddie had a sister and three super powered alien children, Callie supposed she knew what she was talking about. So she monitored the situation from her seat in the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" Silver asked, and his voice hovered in that space between calm and upset. "It's getting dark, we need to go in and sleep."

"No."

"C'mon, Eclipse. If you stay out after dark the mobs will come out."

"I don't care. I wanna fight something."

"You've only got a wooden axe!"

"Then maybe we should have gone into that cave to find iron!"

"We didn't need to find iron!" Silver's voice was going higher, and indication he was getting more upset. "We were working on our farm!"

"I don't want to work on the farm anymore! I want to fight monsters!"

"LOOK OUT!"

The familiar hiss of a creeper preceded an explosion, which was followed by the loud shriek of a gray hedgehog.

"MY FARM!"

"Whoops."

"YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE!"

"MAYBE NOW YOU'LL GO INTO THE CAVE WITH ME!"

The next sound was a loud thud as two little bodies hit the floor, accompanied by growls and arguing.

Callie gave a little sigh, before putting down her coffee cup, and heading into the living room to referee.

#ask me #eclipse the darkling #silver the hedgehog #callie macpherson

[harrisonarchive]

The Beatles, February 1968; photo: CEA/Cache Agency.

“Then there was the completely unpredictable influence of George Harrison. From the mid-sixties onwards, George took Beatles music along a road that had nothing whatsoever to do with his own background or culture, or with American music for that matter: he took it east. […] [George] soon gave a different cast entirely to the Beatles’ output, composing tracks that were about a light year away from their other songs. He added a whole new range of Indian instruments to the Beatles’ equation, instruments that crop up over and over in Beatles’ tracks throughout their career, and make their sound unlike anything anyone else has done before or since. George Harrison is a dark horse all right, a one-off. He marches to the sound of a different drum.” - George Martin, With A Little Help From My Friends: The Making of Sgt. Pepper (1994)

“Despite what I’ve said about the relatively marginal position that George’s music had within the group, it would be entirely wrong to think that he himself was excluded from it. George had something stronger than power: he had influence. Witness the fact that all of the boys followed him to India to sit at the feet of the Maharishi. George tried to persuade me to ease my karma, too, but I excused myself on the grounds of extreme old age. The Beatles were all looking for something. They had achieved great fame and fortune, but that had made them wonder all the harder what it meant. They were looking for a greater faith than the half-baked versions of Eastern religion and culture circulating in the West could give them. They all wanted to experiment, to push at the envelope of their upbringing, beliefs and culture. They wanted to find out what it was all about. George was able to answer some of the questions they asked, and the Maharishi seemed to answer more. He was able to bring them a measure of inner peace, which was something they had not found before. Although they became disillusioned with it afterwards, transcendental meditation was more than a passing fad for the Beatles. […] The scales fell from their eyes when it became clear that the guru was after all very much a human being, with feet of clay, but George still to this day will insisted: ‘OK, that’s fair enough, but it doesn’t alter the basic truth,’ by which he means the truths he learned from Eastern philosophies all those years ago.” - ibid (x)

#George Harrison #George Martin #Paul McCartney #Ringo Starr #John Lennon #quote #quotes about George #The Beatles #George and fame #Harrison songwriting #Harrison spirituality #George and George Martin #1960s #Maharishi Mahesh Yogi #et al #fits queue like a glove

[use-your-telescope]

When Everything's Made to be Broken - Chapter 12: Shiny Celebrity Skin

Summary: Theo makes her celebrity debut, with some unexpected results.

Author's Notes: Okay, I grappled with this one for a while - I tried for so long to figure out how to make a certain plot thread work without a certain celebrity appearing at least once or twice, and well… I couldn’t do it. So, uh, I feel weird doing this, but there is a brief interaction with a  fictionalized(!!!) version of Taylor Swift. This is almost guaranteed to be the only chapter where she actually appears in a scene - there are a few mentions of things happening “off-screen” that she’s a part of later on in the story, but it’s not anything that would involve her actively appearing in a scene.

Obviously I do not know her, I do not own her likeness, and I absolutely do not own her music (I’m team Taylor’s version - WE DO NOT LISTEN TO STOLEN MUSIC IN THIS HOUSEHOLD!). And more obviously, Theo is a fictional character who did not help record any of Taylor’s music. And to make it painfully clear, Taylor is not a villain or a hero in this story, and this isn’t meant to be a commentary on her as a person in any way, shape, or form. 

And look, I know some people are not a fan of Taylor. If you’re in that camp, don’t worry! The interaction is brief, and it’s not meant to make you change your mind. Just hang tight - I *promise* this will be worth it in the long run. 

If you enjoy, please reblog!! I'm a lil' blog and reblogs really help me out <3

Content Warnings: alcohol consumption. Discussions of hooking up. 

Word Count: 5,644

Read on AO3 | When Everything's Made to be Broken Masterlist

Song: Celebrity Status - Marianas Trench

I look around, round, look around and look it over, I take it up- up, take it out and, take you nowhere, Trading in who I've been for shiny celebrity skin I like to push it and, push it until my luck is over It never stop stops, never stops, well you better, Think it over prima donna you don't want to sever, All the work to impress, charming girls out of their dresses, And smiling pretty, well pretty will swallow you forever

The celebrity status that came with being an Avenger was exhausting.

Between their public relations team micromanaging every interaction with the press and the constant appearances, it was a wonder there was enough time to actually go on missions. Even if Theo was well-versed in interacting with people in positions of power and putting on a show, it wasn’t how she really wanted to spend her days off.

They had been on a roll - last week, Theo did interviews and cover shoots for two different magazines. The day before, she recorded a 73 questions video for Vogue. In a week, she would fly out to Chicago and feature on Hot Ones.

But before she flew to Illinois, she had a late show appearance to get through. 

It wasn’t until after she arrived and they had a meeting with the production team to run through the order of the show that Theo discovered she was not simply doing a live interview, but she would also be chatting with Chris Anders, an A-list actor who was promoting his newest movie in which he played a combat medic. 

Normally Theo wasn’t thrown off by meeting other celebrities, but even she had to admit she was a bit starstruck. He always looked dreamy in pictures, but in real life he was gorgeous. Like, earth-shatteringly stunning. Bright blue eyes, blond hair, and tanned skin made him the epitome of an all-American guy; if Steve ever traded in his shield for an acting career, he’d probably look like Chris. Theo didn’t typically have a thing for blond guys, and frankly the resemblance to Steve Rogers should have made him appear less attractive, but well… There was something about him that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. 

At least Theo knew she was dressed to kill. The outfit she chose was a far cry from her scrubs: a black cropped tee with a cropped lace bustier underneath paired with an asymmetric leather midi skirt, all Alexander McQueen, and black Louboutin pumps. The confidence boost that came from looking like a badass was much needed, because even Avengers could get nervous when talking to attractive celebrities, particularly when those Avengers were single. 

In real life, Chris was every bit as funny and charming as he seemed. He laughed at Theo’s jokes and asked questions that made Theo wonder if he had taken the time before the taping to learn more about the sorceress. On camera, the conversation was effortless, lighthearted, and just a bit flirtatious; far from what Theo was used to, but it was fun. Chris was a hit with the audience, but it’d be hard not to be with a smile like his.

So when Chris stopped by Theo’s dressing room after taping and asked for her phone number, she was only slightly surprised. Surprised, because well, A-List Hollywood dreamboat who could have anyone he wanted, and he was asking Theo for her number? Theo, with scars on her face and knobby knees and perpetual bags under her eyes? But not as surprised as she could have been, because the conversation was fun and besides, giving him her number didn’t mean there was any commitment. For all she knew, he simply wanted to keep her number handy in case he was cast as a doctor in the future and needed to ask someone about how to approach the role. 

Of course she gave it to him - that was a no-brainer. Not long after, Theo found her heart fluttering when Chris texted her before she even made it back to the tower, asking if she would be attending the Stark Industries charity gala the following evening. 

After such a successful day, there was an extra spring in Theo’s step when she entered the living room. She nearly didn’t notice Loki, lounging with his feet propped up on the sofa and a book in hand, but when she approached one of the chairs so she could sit down and kick off her heels she spotted the prince.  

Loki glanced up from his book, offering Theo a weary smile and nod; if the bags under his eyes were any indication, he hadn’t been sleeping much lately. 

“You’ve returned from your interview; how was it?” 

“It was fine,” Theo shrugged, ducking down to tug off her high heels. “I mean, it’s one thing to give an interview, but they also asked me to do a segment with Chris Anders - the Chris Anders.”

“Ah, yes - if memory serves, he is a well-known actor.” Loki absentmindedly replied, closing his book and setting it aside. “I take it you are a fan of his work?”

“It’s impossible not to be a fan - he's been in just about every major film from the last few years.’ Theo lightly scoffed at Loki’s apathy about the situation. “We watched one of his movies the other day.” 

“Did we?”

Before Theo could answer, Wanda, Sam, and Bucky strolled into the living room, deeply entrenched in a spirited debate.

“— his performance is so nuanced - a video game could never capture that level of emotion!” Wanda huffed, crossing her arms in front of her chest as both Sam and Bucky rolled their eyes. 

“Nuance, Schmuance—“ Bucky retorted, “—the whole point of the game is to shoot aliens! The story didn’t need emotions - all it needed were more aliens!”

“Are the three of you still arguing about your animated game?” Loki interrupted them with an exasperated sigh, massaging one temple with his index finger. “I thought the debate had been settled after viewing the film.”

“Well it was,” Wanda replied, “until they tried to say that the actor playing Tom was probably an asshole. But he couldn’t be - he seems way too nice!”

“Remind me, Maximoff - which actor are you fawning over now?” Loki begrudgingly asked, as if he dreaded the answer.

“—Chris Anders.” Theo rolled her eyes, though she softened the gesture with a smile. “He’s probably the most popular actor in Hollywood right now.” 

At that, Loki perked up rather suspiciously. “The one you met today?” 

“Oh my god, that’s right—“ Wanda exclaimed, turning to Theo. “— You were on the late show with him! How was it? Is he nice in real life?”

“I think it went well?” Theo answered. “I had just finished telling Loki that I ended up filming a segment with Chris and didn’t bomb it, so I’ll call that a win.” 

Loki nodded, flashing Theo a small, timid smile. “Well, I’m certain you charmed the actor just as you’ve charmed the rest of us.” 

“Wait, wait, wait - you not only met Chris, but you interviewed with him?!” Wanda nearly squealed, her mouth agape as she processed the news. “I would have died!”

“You know he’s just a guy, right?” Bucky grumbled, looking wholly unimpressed with Wanda’s fangirling.

“Look, I’ll settle for not putting my foot in my mouth on national television.” Theo chuckled, before coyly adding: “Chris may have asked for my phone number though... And he already texted me to ask if he would see me at tomorrow’s gala.” 

In a tale of two reactions, Wanda looked like she was about to spontaneously combust from the shock and excitement, while Loki looked like someone just told him the sky was blue.

Then there were Sam and Bucky’s reactions in-between, which involved whooping and wolf whistles.

“It seems as though he was rather enchanted by you, then.” Loki cocked an eyebrow, jade eyes narrowing slightly as he studied Theo. “You certainly dressed to impress.”

The comment had some sort of undercurrent that, combined with his piercing stare, made the words seem as if they were not meant to be taken as a compliment. Theo’s heart went from fluttering to stuttering in her chest, her confidence faltering as if she were about to be knocked down from a pedestal.

“Is it too much?” Theo asked a bit too quickly for her own liking; she grimaced as she glanced down at her outfit. 

“No, not at all.” Loki slowly shook his head, tongue darting out to lick his lips. If Theo didn’t know better, she would have sworn his eyes darkened as they roved up and down her body. “It’s different from your typical attire, but pleasantly so. You look… ravishing.”

“Yeah, you look hot.” Sam agreed, elbowing Bucky in the chest as he smirked at him. “She looks hot, right Bucky?”

“Yeah, doll —“ Bucky smirked, “— You keep it up and you’re gonna end up with every guy in this city dreaming about all the things they’d like to do with you.” Despite speaking to Theo, Bucky’s attention and smirk were pointed directly towards Loki. 

Theo’s cheeks flared with heat - partly from Sam and Bucky laying it on thick, though mostly she was relieved that Loki was not criticizing the look. 

When his approval started to matter, Theo wasn’t sure, but she also hadn’t given it much thought. Then again, the prospect of Loki not liking her outfit stung more than the idea of her potential date not being into her outfit… If she was honest, Theo was nowhere near ready to try and make sense of that.

“You can’t leave us hanging - what did you tell him!?” Wanda, having regained her composure, asked the inevitable question. 

“That I was going to be there and a drink sounded nice?” For a moment, Theo wondered if Wanda was going to freak out again. Instead, a smile crept up on Wanda’s face, and Theo could tell something was up. “… Wanda, what are you planning?”

“Well if you’re meeting a movie star for a drink tomorrow, we should probably go shopping so you have something cute to wear…” Wanda perked up, winking at Theo. “Oh! We’ll get Nat to come too - she needs a break from the mat anyways -  and make it a girl’s day!”

Before Theo could point out that she already had a dress, Wanda rushed down the hall shouting for Natasha. Theo glanced at the others — Sam wore a shit-eating grin, while Bucky offered no sympathy. Loki just shrugged, though a glint of amusement reflected in his smile. 

Meanwhile, Theo tried not to scream what the hell did I just get myself into? 

Either way, it didn’t matter - she had a date to get ready for.

When the mirrors and the lights and the smoke clear I’d never guess how we ever could’ve gotten here You can say what you say, when the lights go down So shake, shake, shake and shut your mouth

“Champagne?” A waiter came around with a tray of champagne flutes, offering them to guests throughout the event.

“Yes, thank you.” Chris took two glasses, handing one to Theo and keeping the other for himself.

Across from her, Chris Anders leaned up against a cocktail table. Dressed in a navy slim-fit tuxedo, Chris looked every part of the charming A-List actor that Wanda hyped him up to be. The same charming, boyish grin from the night before was on full display as he drank in the sight of Theo in a black lace gown with beading that glistened and shimmered in the low lights. 

Even if she hadn’t been trying to charm an A-List actor, Theo would have felt like a million bucks. The dress, though more suggestive than what she initially picked, hit her in all the right places and really helped her embrace her more feminine side. The stilettos she wore gave her a precious few inches that made her less likely to feel like everyone towered over her, increasing her confidence.

In some ways, it felt like revisiting her first night in the tower, but this time she knew what to expect. The lack of constant scrutiny from Avengefs and reporters may have also helped. Then again, at the end of the day it turned out that charming people and rubbing elbows with the rich and powerful was pretty much the same, regardless of the realm. 

The idea of spending the evening at Chris’s side was both nerve-wracking and exciting. Theo’s consistent presence and conversation was enough to capture the interest of people she didn’t know, allowing Theo to flex her conversational skills and build her own connections, which in turn made the room full of socialites less surreal. 

Chris was more than easy on the eyes. He said all the right things to pique Theo’s interest. He didn’t ask too many questions, which was certainly a plus, and he easily kept the conversation flowing. With that in mind, Theo wasn’t opposed to cozying up a bit more with him. 

Yet, something in her stomach felt… off.

Maybe it had to do with the non-existent privacy at the event. Wanda, Sam, and Bucky had made a game of lurking nearby, spying on her as the actor talked Theo’s ear off about the film he just finished shooting. Focusing on Chris proved to be a challenge when her friends seemed hellbent on reminding Theo that someone was always watching. They weren’t even subtle about it – all Theo had to do was glance over Chris’s shoulder to see the three of them making kissy faces at her. 

Theo started to wonder if her teammates were going to walk up to Chris and start talking about their movie versus video game debate. She prayed they wouldn’t.

Then again, her friends were far from the only people who kept a close eye on the couple. Frankly, Theo hadn’t truly comprehended just how well-known Chris was until they spent the first two hours of the night constantly interrupted by people trying to get even a moment of the actor’s attention. Even Loki had been observing, though he was far more subtle than her other friends - subtle enough that Theo never noticed that she was the consistent focus of the younger Asgardian’s attention. 

The sensation of everyone watching her was incredibly different from the bars from her first night out with her teammates, when it was easy to fly under the radar. Between being seen with Chris, her rapidly growing social media following, and the recent interview spree, Theo certainly had no shortage of positive attention over the last few weeks.

Chris caught the attention of someone from behind Theo, gesturing for them to come over and join the pair. “Theo, I want you to meet–”

“I was wondering when I would run into you!” Even though it had been years, Theo recognized that voice anywhere. 

Then again, the fact that the voice belonged to the one person at the gala more famous than Chris meant that even if Theo hadn’t known her, she would have recognized the voice. “It’s been ages!”

“Taylor!” Theo spun around, arms already open to greet the popstar in an embrace. “How the hell are you?” In some ways, it was like Taylor hadn’t changed a bit since they worked together: the trademark red lip that highlighted a cheshire grin, long, blonde hair with perfectly disheveled blunt bangs, and an outfit that would undoubtedly sell out the moment pictures were posted online. At the same time, all it took was one close look into her crystal blue eyes to see that she was far different from the Taylor that Theo worked with all those years ago. 

“I’m great,” Taylor leaned back, still half-embracing Theo as she took in Theo’s appearance. “Tell me about you - Clearly you’ve been busy since we last crossed paths!”

“Oh you know, I finished med school. Joined the Avengers. Nothing too wild–”

“--You two know each other?” Chris interrupted the reunion, one brow arched in confusion while he wore a half-scowl as he quickly realized that this was not the introduction he anticipated.

“Oh yeah, Theo played on Red – we go way back,” Taylor answered, barely paying Chris any mind before returning her full attention to Theo. “Speaking of, you’ve heard I’m re-recording my first six albums, right? Would you be willing to re-record your parts on Red?”

The question caught Theo off guard, though in some ways, the request made sense; after all, the goal was to make the re-recordings sound like the originals so whenever someone wanted to license a song, they would have no reason to choose the old recording over the new one. 

But Theo’s parts on the original record were pretty small, all things considered. And up until Theo stepped into the limelight as an Avenger, it would have been much easier to find someone else to record those parts than it would have been to track her down. Besides, Avengers were busy, and so were international pop stars - Theo would have understood if Taylor didn’t want to bother trying to coordinate schedules so they could record together.

“I– uh, yeah – as long as the timing works out, I’m in,” Theo tried to play off her surprise, covering it up with a (hopefully) bright smile. “Just let me know when and where I need to be and I’ll do my best to make it happen!” 

“Perfect.” Before Taylor could say anything else, someone waved Taylor over to join them. She held up a finger, mouthing “just a moment” before returning her attention back to Theo. “Hey, we should grab a drink soon and catch up. Clearly you’ve been busy and I want to hear all about it, ideally when I’m not being dragged around to make appearances.” Taylor winked, taking hold of Theo’s shoulder as she leaned in and whispered in Theo’s ear. “I might have a separate proposition for you, as well…But we’ll save that conversation for another day.” She leaned back, smirked, and cocked an eyebrow at Theo. 

“You know where to find me,” Theo reminded her, returning a wry grin and a wink of her own. It was probably for the best that they didn’t go into catching up at that particular moment, since there was plenty to discuss and in front of Theo’s date was not the best place to do so.  

With that, Taylor waved at another person trying to get her attention and slipped away into the crowd.

“I wasn’t aware you already knew Taylor Swift.” Chris remarked, his attention still focused on the space where Taylor had vanished into the crowd.

“I’m full of surprises, what can I say?” Theo teased, taking a sip of her drink. 

“Well, I look forward to being surprised by you in the future.” There was something about the way Chris spoke that seemed a bit too smooth, too practiced. 

Then again, he was an actor. Performance was at the core of his work, and like Theo he probably reverted to his own acting skills in social situations, especially when he wanted to seem confident. And trying to impress someone on a date was certainly one of the times any sane person would want to feel confident.

“Hey, let’s go dance,” Theo suggested, gliding her fingers down Chris’s arm and taking his hand. As if a switch flipped, the dazzling grin returned as Chris gestured towards Theo to lead the way. Weaving between the couples on the dance floor, Theo waited until they were in the middle of the group before she turned back to Chris, who held his arms in a silent invitation to dance.

“You look stunning this evening,” Chris complimented, pulling Theo close as they moved to the music. “I’m lucky to have such radiant company.” 

Theo’s cheeks burned as she replied with a shy smile. Sure, she trusted her friends’ judgment about what to wear, but that wasn’t what left her flushed at his remarks. He was new, and the intensity of his gaze felt both intoxicating and dizzying amidst the crowd. When Theo looked closely, she spotted a hunger in Chris’s eyes that left her wanting more.

The night flew by. One moment, they were spinning and laughing among the crowd; the next, the DJ announced to guests that it was the last song of the evening. Whether they were ready or not, it was time for the festivities to draw to a close.

The end of the evening did little to dampen the conversation between Theo and Chris as they followed the crowd out the door; if anything, they both slowed down as they approached the exit, stretching out their time together for as long as possible.

Just after they passed through the exit, Chris took Theo’s hand and pulled her aside.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Chris whispered in her ear; his breath tickled, sending a delicious chill down Theo’s spine. “Go back to my place?” 

Behind Chris, Bucky smirked at Theo and Wanda gave her a thumbs up; if Chris hadn’t been watching her so closely, she would have rolled her eyes at the pair. Inevitably, they wouldn’t be the only people who noticed; after all, a plethora of eyes followed them all evening. 

A yes sprung to Theo’s tongue, but just before she said it out loud, she stopped. Realistically, Chris was a stranger to her - sure, she knew the basics about him — the kinds of things someone usually knew about a celebrity — but she didn’t know enough about him to comfortably let her guard down. Being a high profile celebrity was different from being an Avenger. 

For all she knew, he wanted to use her for something; after all, fame wasn’t all people made it out to be. Besides, people frequently sought after Theo’s magic. 

Restraint was best in the situation.

“I appreciate the invite, but I have to work in the hospital tomorrow morning,” Theo covered, her tone light and casual, but quiet enough that any eavesdroppers wouldn’t hear. “This was fun though - I’d love to go out with you again!”

Out of the corner of Theo’s eye, Loki slipped out of the party with dark eyes and a devilish grin. Trailing close behind, hand linked in his, was a woman who had to be a supermodel, based on her absolutely flawless figure, perfectly tanned complexion, and perfectly styled outfit. 

A pang of jealousy unexpectedly shot through Theo at the sight.

“Of course.” Chris immediately masked the split second of surprise on his  face with a polite, albeit benign smile. “It’s probably just as well, because I have to fly back to California tomorrow morning.”

Despite the rejection, Chris bid Theo goodbye with a kiss on the cheek, which certainly was a surprise. After all, she just turned him down; the last thing she expected was for him to be so… affectionate?

Once Chris disappeared from view, Theo took advantage of her familiarity with the tower’s layout to take a quieter route to her suite. quickly slipped away through a back hall The second she was out of sight from prying eyes, Theo let out a breath she didn’t even realize she was holding. 

While Theo waited for the elevator, she couldn’t help but play the evening over in her mind. Chris was charming, handsome, and there was nothing wrong with him — why was she so hesitant? And what was up with her reaction to Loki?

Of course the silvertongue would be able to woo and bring home anyone he wanted without having to think twice about it. Maybe that was the cause of her jealousy — Loki didn’t have to overthink every interaction like she did. 

Shaking her head, Theo dispelled the thoughts of Loki hooking up with some random person; it wasn’t her business what or who he did in his spare time. 

Which brought Theo’s attention back to Chris. Her hesitancy around him didn’t seem like it was just because she didn’t know him very well; something else lurked underneath that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. But as she thought about it, the only reason she came up with was that everything about Chris just seemed too perfect.

In the end, it wouldn’t matter; playing the role of an Avenger was supposed to be nothing more than a means to an end. At most, it would be temporary. Theo needed to remember that.

I wonder why, why, I wonder why, why I oughta, Let you wreck, resurrect whatever you want to I can't depend, in the end you know I thought you were my friend Just stop, just stop, just stop I think I got it Sorry you, sorry me, sorry every in between, Sorry everybody here will never be somebody clean There's a piece of me they're throwing back at us, And they will buy you and sell you for celebrity status

Despite the knowledge that it was smart to not bring a guy home after the first date, Theo woke the next morning and immediately wondered if she played it too safe.  Chris was friendly, charming, good looking, and didn’t act weird about her being an Avenger - how often would she encounter guys like that? Probably never, but Theo essentially turned Chris down. As Theo laid in bed and stared at the ceiling, she debated whether she should reach out to Chris or not. 

On one hand, he made her laugh; on the other hand, they wouldn’t see each other often with conflicting schedules. He was hot, but probably had fans who would hate on Theo for dating him. He was used to the spotlight, but dating an Avenger might put his safety at risk. They had a lot of common interests, but they hadn’t talked about any serious topics - what if he secretly believed in some kind of cult? He was an accomplished actor, but Theo couldn’t promise to be there for awards shows because monsters and criminals don’t believe in days off. 

Ugh, she did not miss dating.

After mentally making the pro-con lists in her head for the third time, she decided to hold off. If she texted him too soon, she might seem clingy; besides, even if he was perfectly nice and charming and fun to be around, that feeling of something being off still lingered.

Theo rolled onto her side and snatched her phone from her nightstand to check the time, only to find a message waiting for her.

“Had a great time last night - want to grab a drink next time I’m in town? - C”

Though pleasantly surprised, Theo held off on replying. If nothing else, she needed some coffee and to wake up more before deciding on how to respond. Outside her window, the sunrise covered the skyline in a golden glow – it seemed like it was as good of a time as any to head up to the roof and enjoy her morning coffee.

Stillness permeated the tower as Theo made her way to the kitchen. With the incredibly early hour and the event that took place last night, she fully expected to be the first person awake. However, a full pot of freshly brewed coffee indicated that someone else claimed the title of first person awake. Theo wasn’t going to complain - that meant all she had to do was find her favorite mug and fill it up before enjoying some peace and quiet outdoors.

Upon arriving on the roof, Theo discovered just who woke up before her: Loki. He sat on one of the sectionals with his back to her. Loose black curls tumbled past his shoulders, swaying slightly in the cool morning breeze.

“Great minds think alike.” Theo greeted him, taking a seat on one of the other sectionals.

Loki simply hummed in acknowledgement of her greeting before returning his gaze off into the distance.

For once, Loki didn’t have a book with him. Hands wrapped around his own coffee, he sat back in his seat, soaking up the relative peace of the morning. Like the morning on the balcony, the silence held no weight, no pressure to force conversation or entertain the other. In the city that never sleeps, something about early mornings - those moments between where one day ended and the next began - felt almost sacred. Speaking, it seemed, might ruin that. 

Amidst the stillness, Theo caught herself studying Loki’s facial features, contrasting the difference from when he slept to how he appeared in the soft morning light.

Of course, there were things that Theo noticed before – Loki’s sharp bone structure certainly topped that list. But that morning, she couldn’t help but notice new things: the hints of worry lines that crossed his forehead, the crease from furrowed brows (an expression which she imagined he’d perfected at this point, along with the eye roll), the way his lips pulled across his teeth when he was close to smiling, but wasn’t quite ready to commit.

Theo knew Loki, besides being Aesir in form, was technically a frost giant and a god, but Loki looked shockingly human as he relaxed on the rooftop. Even in his Aesir form, Loki often looked more divine than mortal. But here… Some was different here. He seemed softer, less guarded. Perhaps it was the way his shoulders relaxed, or the way he stretched out in the morning glow. 

“How was your evening?” Loki struck up a conversation, taking a sip of coffee.

“It was good,” Theo smiled, looking out across the roof. “How was your night?” 

“It was alright…” Loki trailed off, glancing briefly at Theo before returning his gaze to the skyline. “You were certainly the center of attention last night.”

“Me, or the A-List actor that I spent the night with?” Theo’s attention returned to the god sitting next to her.

Loki chuckled, and Theo caught herself appreciating the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. “I suppose both would be a fair answer. He was rather attractive, I must admit. If I had been in your position, I certainly would have brought him back to my quarters for the evening.”

Theo let out a gentle laugh, biting her lip. Yes, Chris was good looking, and he certainly piqued her curiosity… but she couldn’t shake the feeling in her gut that something just wasn’t right. 

“Are you going to see him again?” Loki finally turned to focus on Theo. His sea-glass eyes held her gaze with surprising openness. A hint of sadness colored his words; it was subtle enough that Theo couldn’t quite place what sounded off about his question. 

“Why, do you want to hit him up if I don’t?” Theo teased, offering Loki a wink. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

Loki gave her a wry smile, shaking his head. “Simple curiosity.” 

“He asked if I wanted to get a drink next time I’m in town…” Theo shrugged, finding herself less enthusiastic about the idea than she was when she first awoke. “I haven’t given an answer one way or the other yet. It was hard to really get to know him with so many people vying for his attention, so it would be nice to do something that wasn’t so… public? Then again, if we ended up dating, I doubt I would ever get any privacy again, so there’s that…”

Loki let out a breathless laugh. “Privacy is already in short supply when one is an Avenger.”

Nodding in agreement, Theo took another slow drink of her coffee.

“That’s true, but at least I can set boundaries and choose what I share with the world,” she pointed out, “I can shape the way people see me, how they see my role as an Avenger.”

“That is what we do in some ways, isn’t it?” Loki mused, his brows drawing together in thought. “Play roles?”

“All the world’s a stage and all the men and women are merely players…” Theo took a big swig of coffee, relishing the bitter taste that coated her tongue. “… Or some shit like that.”

Loki doubled over from laughter, eyes wide as he nearly spit out his coffee from surprise. It took a moment to return to his more composed self before he sarcastically replied: “Yes, or some shit like that.” 

The way he mocked her wording brought a grin to Theo’s lips. “Okay, but think about it — how much of our lives are spent playing roles? How often do we get to be ourselves without altering our behaviors because of others’ opinions? Even putting on a brave face or being diplomatic is playing a role.”

Loki pursed his lips, studying Theo carefully.

“How much time do you spend playing roles?” Even if the question wasn’t out of left field, it still felt much more serious than the conversation up to that point.

“More than I’d like,” Theo admitted, glancing down at her cup and swirling her coffee around. “But it has saved my ass enough times that I will never hesitate to do it if I think it will help me.” 

Theo bit the inside of her cheek, cursing herself for saying too much. The answer would probably come back to bite her in the ass, most likely in the form of Loki asking her a million follow up questions. 

Note to self: more coffee before any early morning personal conversations. 

“I suppose we have that in common, then.”

Much to Theo’s surprise, Loki left it at that, and returned his attention to the city around them. While Loki was known to be cunning, Theo got the sense that at its core, Loki’s answer was not rooted in cunning or manipulation, but survival.

And Theo understood that all too well.

Step one, step two, step three, repeat And I pray at the church of asses in the seats To disappear behind the beat…

#loki #loki imagine #loki fanfiction #loki marvel #loki slow burn #when everything's made to be broken #wemtbb #loki x ofc

[perfecttenth]

Hakuga (AnxEyeTea) findings

So there's some more or less interesting stuff in the files.

Oddheader's most recent video about video games tied to cults oOOOooOOOoo showed up in my recommended, and Hakuga was the only game I didn't recognize. The original itch.io page claims that the game was created by the uploader's friend, who took his own life in 2017, and the parents of that friend gave his computer to the uploader, which contained the game in an unfinished state, so the uploader made it playable. Since it was made in Unity, you can extract the game's assets with AssetStudio. The first thing you'll notice upon extracting them is that the game contains actual photos of dead people. Most of them depict the victims of Unit 731, and are completely uncensored. The ones that are related to the unit are used in the "Museum of Shame" area in the game.

There are also some development screenshots ("Offline.png", "hokugescrin.png" and "hkgunity.png"). Note how in the second one the top and bottom are cropped, and in the third one parts of the top are obfuscated.

At some point, I found a file that was dated 2021, which would be 4 years after the creator allegedly passed away. And this graphic has multiple variations.

It wouldn't make any sense for the creator's friend to have put it there, since he said he wanted the game to stay the way the creator left it.

So then I looked at the audio files in the hopes that I could find the source for some of them, at least the ones that weren't taken from SDR2/Persona 5.

I reverse searched this one, and it actually led me to a result:

A soundcloud trap beat. Even though the track is now titled "20", the url still has the original title, which lines up with the filename.

Having looked at the game's files for as long as I did, there were some glaring similarities between them and the cover art. One featured the japanese Shin Godzilla logo that was also used in-game multiple times, another cover was present as-is in the files, another used the same anime girl in the same 3D program and another one had that exact same picture of Renamon uncropped, which was used as a texture. Overall, they had almost the exact same art style as the game.

After this was discovered and shared with the Oddheader discord, a "fixed" version of Hakuga with no other info was uploaded on AnxEyeTea's itch.io, being 57mb smaller than the first version.

The Soundcloud account's last activity was on March 10th, 2021. There's no way this account doesn't belong to the original creator of the game, especially when you consider there was no trace of this game on the internet prior to Halloween 2022. That, and the account has its location set to Japan even though a lot of the comments it wrote were either in English or French. What's noticeable is that 1. The syntax of these comments is typical for a native French speaker 2. There are spaces before exclaimation and question marks 3. The first person "I" is always lowercase And before that, I had already tried to compare the writing styles of the game's creator and his "friend", which were exactly the same. Some of the game's graphics were also titled "sans titre", "téléchargement" and "copie" which would indicate that the creator's first language is French.

This story of "My friend took his life 6 years ago and his parents gave me his stuff so I learned how to use Unity and made this game playable" reeked of bullshit from the start. My first thought was that the creator made up the story of him taking his own life in order to either be shielded from criticism or to make the game seem more interesting by getting people to believe he died.

And finally, by looking up "hakuga reddit" in order to find something else, I found this post. An AMA by the creator, Alex.V/"Akiba Tomoke", hidden in plain sight.

There's a chance this is fake and was made by a data miner or something (considering the "I" is actually uppercase this time), but this account uses the Akiba name that was only used in-game, and its profile picture is a slightly altered version of an image in the assets that I couldn't find a source for:

So there you have it. The backstory was fake, there's no real link to a cult, it was just another edgy ARG.

EDIT: But wait, there's more. Somebody other than the OP replied to the AMA post, claiming to be the uploader.

These were up for about an hour until he deleted one of them and deactivated his account. At the same moment, this was posted to the itch.io page:

Somewhere in that timeframe, the Soundcloud account also got deleted. Strangely enough, the Twitter account from 2018 (which doesn't mention the friend AT ALL despite being created a year after his alleged passing) is still up. An hour after the intial text appeared on itch.io, some sections of it were rewritten multiple times (these are in chronological order, click for better quality):

You can see that after the third revision the archive.org link was removed, and right after that the itch.io download for the game was removed. After the last revision, the seperate page for Hakuga was completely deleted from AnxEyeTea's itch.io.

It should be mentioned that as soon as the "fixed" version of Hakuga was uploaded to the itch.io account, a review popped up on the old archived version, which got edited multiple times. Make of that what you will.

Certain aspects of the now deleted Soundcloud account actually led to the creator's professional design work, some of which still included assets and references to Hakuga. Nowadays he works on music videos, his last one was released in May of this year. I won't link to it here since I assume he doesn't want to be associated with Hakuga under this identity.

The Conclusion

A statement has been made on the itch.io page.

TL;DR: The creator of the game is still alive and well, nobody died. The premise of someone distributing his dead friend's unfinished Unity project was solely made up for the release of the game. Hakuga was a failed (collaborative?) ARG that utilized suicide, war, depression and drug symbolism as well as images of real dead people that were, in his words, intended to denounce and not forget what happened (specifically in relation to Unit 731). The usage of Japanese text is purely stylistic and mostly nonsensical.

Thanks to everyone on Discord and Reddit who contributed to debunking this.

#hakuga #ha ku ga #anxeyetea #oddheader

[2d-dreams]

Hi, happy WBW! (As usual, I am @writeblr-of-my-own, this is my main and apparently I can't switch them).

I am hungry and it's almost lunchtime for me, so for today's question let's talk food! If someone were to come in your world, what would be the best places to eat food there? What does a typical dish look like? Are there differences between cities?

I wanted to follow this with art and lots of details, but my body isn't allowing that, so I'll just answer with what I got.

Flatlanders' diets are mostly made up by vegetables and legumes. They might add fruit and insects – insects are any living being that can fit in their mouth entirely.

Any typical Flatlander dish, from their view, doesn't really look like anything, even to the most intellectual and well-practiced sighted Circles. From above, many different dishes may look near identical.

Flatlanders mostly tell them apart by texture, telling apart different vegetables by the angles or number of bumps in their perimeters. [cooking is too low for any self-respecting Polygon to do, only Isosceles and Women do it, so Feeling the ingredients is fine.] There is also the more delicate recognition by smell [and by extension and quite obviously, taste]

Leafy vegetables, their flowers and their seeds are a staple of Flatlander cuisine because they don't make much of a mess. Some fruit and all animals become a mess when killed, as instead of flesh they only have juices inside, which spill and are a hassle to deal with. Small animals make less of a/no mess or can be eaten in one bite. Big animals aren't worth the time and effort, and are dangerous to keep, so beyond beasts of burden they don't see much use.

The favorite animals for Flatland consumption are bees! They're small enough, and soft enough thanks to their nearly circular bodies. They also keep a unique taste related to the plants they fed on, usually being sweet. They also produce other foods like eggs, honey, larvae, and pollinize crops. They're awesome.

[Fun fact, some of the queens of the species of bees that are commonly kept by 2D beekeepers feed off of the body juices of other animals instead of nectar/etc like their workers. Many Irregulars are fed to the bees...]

They likely have a domesticated cow-like animal exclusively for milk and related products. [And food for the b e e s. and bones. Maybe scrap off the little amount of skin on their perimeters for food.]

Seasoning is usually done through sauces/salsas - you mix whatever specific stuff you want, and add in a special ingredient. You can either wrap the food inside of a string of solidified sesson-sauce like a weird taco or drop it in liquid form into the dish, coating it with the sauce that will quickly semi-solidify on the food. Yes they can be sweet too!

Some of the most common dishes include..

A mix of several different vegetables, flower petals, seeds and legumes. Usually the seeds/etc will be wrapped in a leaf of the vegetable. A dry version is just this, but a juicy version may add dead bees or small fruit. Like a salad. The name translated might be "flowerbed". Like tacos, eggs or toast, a basic nice meal.

Two different types of bread. Flat bread [known as dimbread] and fluffy bread [brightbread].

Flat bread is simple, easy, straightforward. It does not rise like our bread, but its relatively soft.

Fluffy bread is more like ours, filled with little pockets of air that give it the fluff. To make it this way, they put the liquid batter in a closed box at high heat, where it will turn to gas, expanding to all the space inside. When it is gas it must be cooled down extremely quickly.

Theres prob more but its 432 am

#flatland #asks

[tbcanary]

Hiii, I love ur edits so so much!! Was just wondering, how did you edit the last gif for the lucius fox edit? The way the glasses reflected was so cool to me

hello! this is a very good question, and i'm happy to answer it for you. but i feel like I should say to start that this is a pretty convoluted thing, the way i do it. i am almost positive someone else out there does it in a simpler and more straightforward way than i do. that being said, I can show you my process!

the main tools for this particular trick are layer masks and the animation timeline tool. i’ll also be using the movement/selection tools, but those are pretty straightforward I think? we’ll see, i guess!

i’m going to use this catwoman panel as an example.

let's start out by cropping it in and removing all the text bubbles/extra things, just to get a blank slate. i have a tutorial on how I edit panels here, and how I size them here, if that’s something you need. It’s not really necessary for this trick, but I like a clean visual.

i end up with something like this:

now you’ll want to make a new blank layer on top of this one. this will be the one you work on. this part comes down to kind of personal preference/artistic decision making, but you want to fill this blank layer with the sliding effect you want to have. this would be the reflection in lucius’ glasses, or the arrows in this ga/gl gifset.

(it looks very silly, I know. trust the process on this one.)

then, on the layer where I’ve just drawn the white lines, I am going to create a layer mask. select “layer” in the toolbar, find “layer mask,” and select “reveal all.” this won’t change anything about the visual at this point, but it’s necessary for creating this effect.

two things to do right away: unlink the lines from the mask by clicking the little “chain” between the two, and select the layer mask itself to work on.

wrong:

right:

(ignore groups one and two, by the way. those are just old versions of the panel/lines in case i screw up and need to go back to a previous one for some reason. you don’t have to do that; i’m allergic to the delete button.)

use the selection tool to pick the area where you want the affect to appear. for me, that’s all the yellow facets of the diamond, so i’ve outlined it like so:

on the layer mask, fill those sections with black. then hit either ctrl+i or command+i to invert the layer mask, so the white portions become black and the black portions become white. in my case, this makes the white lines… disappear! magic.

basically, what the layer mask is doing is choosing when the pixels on a layer show up. by coloring something in, you’re saying, ‘I don’t want the white lines to show up when they live in this space.’ so because you’ve inverted it, you’ve turned everything outside of the area you want to animate into a no-show zone, and only the area you want to work on is left.

this is probably not a very good explanation. sorry about that. mess around with it on your own and I guarantee it’ll make sense.

we are now done creating the layer mask! click on the layer itself to make sure you’re working on that for this next bit, like so:

this next part is like. actually really hard to explain. but i’ll try my best.

i’ve done a tutorial on how I animate gifs before. some of that might help here, but it does function a little differently. first, you’ll want to go to the timeline at the bottom of your screen.

create a new frame in the timeline with a 0-second delay. then go back up to the image itself, and select the lighting effect you made (my white lines, in this case). move it just a little bit. i’m opting to go just until I can see the first line or two on the diamond.

it won’t look like much. here’s the difference:

you can see (I hope) the tiny bit of “shine” on the upper left corner, where the mask is white and the pixels are visible.

now i’m going to make another new frame in the timeline, and nudge those lines a little more. let’s say six pixels to the right, and two pixels down. now it looks like this:

you will notice the change is almost imperceptible. that’s fine. the resulting animation will be smoother if you do smaller movements, as opposed to bigger ones.

basically… just repeat that. new frame, nudge a little. new frame, nudge a little. over and over, until the lighting effect has moved fully off the area you’re animating on the other side. These edits can get a little long/the number of frames can get huge, so if you catch that happening, wait until you get to the end and then select either all the even or all the odd frames and delete them.

this will double the speed of your animation, but given the very small increments in which we are moving things, it still won’t look too choppy. you could certainly start with bigger movements to cut this off at the pass, but it’s a LOT easier to cut these frames out than to add new ones in if it ends up looking too rough, so I opt for more frames and then remove them later.

once you’ve moved the lighting effect all the way across the image and over the other side, make sure you play it through at least once or twice to get a feel for it. this is what I have:

this is way, way too fast to me. that’s okay! we can mess around with the timeline settings to increase the delay to pretty much anything. I’m going to set it to 0.2 seconds per frame, with a longer setting for the first and last frame to give people a breather between the start and end of the effect. now my timeline looks like this:

and my gif looks like this!

that works better, i think. the more I’ve made gifs, the more I’ve allowed for pauses and slower animations; when I look back at some of the first ones I did, they feel way too fast. but it’s all up to personal preference, really, so mess around with the settings all you want until you get the vibe that you want.

you can also mess around with opacity. if you want something to fade into the background as it moves, use a white-to-black gradient instead of just stark black or white spaces. if you want the shine to be less prominent (not at all necessary here with such a small effect), change the opacity of the entire layer until it's subtle enough for you.

basically, the world is your oyster, and you can mess around with this as much as you want. this is my method; it does not have to be yours.

I hope this helps! happy making <3

#tbanimation #how to #ask.tb #anonymous #sorry for the delay answering this one #i had to sit and think about the best way to walk through it lol and i am still not. entirely sure i got there? #i tried though!!

[starrspice]

Okay since ya offered…

Are sun and moon the same animatronics?? I assume not from the art. Does sun help moony with the trauma he undoubtably has? How did he react to knowing what he did when infected? Did he ever hurt sun while infected, or was it only the kids? I imagine poor soft Moony has to deal with parents getting mad at him for what he did, that must really hurt… to see them get angry with him and act like he’s going to hurt people :(

That is ALOT of questions. All very very very good (and a few I'll have to sit down and draw out because DANG those need visuals)

So I'll start with a verbal answer and give you some art for it later!!!

A long ask means a long answer. SO sorry for the wall of text

So 1. Are sun and moon the same animatronic?

YES. They are in fact the same animatronic. A lot of people don't realize this but when they write/draw Sun and Moon as sharing a headspace and being aware of whats going on when the other is fronting is that its all very DID coded (disassociative identity disorder AKA multiple personalities). I actually have a friend with this disorder and they have 6 VERY different personalities in their head and after having countless in depth conversations about their headspace and shared body I feel like thats very much the way Sun and Moon operate. So there's always one of them fronting and controlling the body, but its also like in their own mind they have their own space as two separate beings and can mentally interact as if they were face to face. So the drawing you're referring to where they're hugging is a private coveraation in their headspace!!! They have a lot of these!

2. Does Sun help Moon with the trauma?

YES as best as he can. He absolutely is facing a similar kind of trauma,knowing that the other person in his body, his other half HURT people. And he couldn't do anything to stop it. Not to mention he has come out once or twice in the aftermath and seen the blood on his hands. So when Moon eventually remembers I feel like they'd both kind of understand that that wasnt REALLY Moon and it wasn't Sun but it was still THEM who did it. They'd both struggle to really feel ok or even talk about it, but it would definitely be a comfort knowing that they have someone who can understand them, especially the one person who's ALWAYS understood them. It definitely involves a lot of long deep talks and Sun getting used to the lights being allowed to be turned off again.

3. How did he react when he realized what he did while infected?

A lot of people see ONE of the drawing pages I made of soft moon but often miss the first where i kind of touch on this. But for the sake of the ask I'll put that cropped snippet here

Basically Moon has a full on panic attack the moment he realizes what he did. The biggest reason being that he realizes that if he killed adults he could've just as easily killed one of the kids, and that thought scares him more than anything. Moon LOVES the kids and the very idea that they were in danger just by being around HIM hurts him so much.

4. Did he ever hurt sun or was it only the kids?

In my particular version yes, albeit unintentionally. Moon was battling the virus, and while infected would struggle with self hatred. He's made to protect kids, he loves the kids, but he's hurt them (mostly psychologically) so he'd probably have some kind of internal struggle where he claws at his face plate trying to get the "other him" (the virus) out. Inadvertently hurting sun in the process.

As for the kids none of them were ever severely injured, not even bruising. The one time Moon ever came close to hurting them is when the virus caused him to grip a child's wrist a little too tightly (but as soon as they said it hurt he immediately let go)

5. Moon having to deal with upset parents

I feel as though Moon would want to deal with the parents actually. To get scolded or cursed at or whatever nasty things the parents might say,because in his mind he deserves it. In his mind he turned into a monster and even though he's better now he can't change what he did. BUT. Until Moon has been returned to work for a decent amount of time with absolutely NO incidents, management wouldn't let the parents anywhere near Moon.

Actually he'd likely feel most upset by the staff being afraid of him. Aside from his patrols he doesn't get a lot of interaction, and people were already wary of him and Sun, so he'd definitely feel down in the dumps about being avoided by the human workers

But i think that covers everything in your ask!!!! VERY good questions indeed!! And i hope that gave you some nice insight into my Sun and Moon!!!

#tw: panic attack #tw: mentions of death #tw: mentions of violence #tw: mentions of trauma #tw: self destruction #fnaf sb #fanart #fnaf sun #fnaf security breach #moondrop #fnaf sundrop #sundrop #fnaf moon #fnaf au #moon fnaf #fnaf moondrop #soft moondrop #princess quest moon #princess quest ending #princess quest #princess quest AU #fnaf PQ au #ask starr #long post #sorry for how long this is

[markantonys]

knife of dreams prologue-chapter 17

GALAD KILLED VALDA AAAAAHHHHHH that scene was so unexpected and so satisfying!!!

this is the first we’ve seen of galad since book 5 if i’m not mistaken. i would’ve liked to see him have more pov throughout so we could get a feel for what it’s like for him among the whitecloaks and see his perspective starting to shift as he realizes that many whitecloaks are not as righteous as they claim to be. i don’t care about sevanna or galina or alviarin or elaida or those random aes sedai hunting black ajah inside the tower or this fuckin ituralde dude or whatever other sideplots have been eating up screentime, i want to see my trakand boys! they are the only secondary characters who deserve pov!

i’m manifesting that this will be the book of trakand boys turning on their Chosen Groups to do what’s right. i know gawyn will find a way out of his pickle and turn on the tower and the younglings and maybe help egwene escape the tower. i know he will! i believe in him! (but since gawyn only shows up in prologues these days and we didn’t get him in this one, what if he’s not in the book at all???? oh perish the thought)

galad describes morgase as “the woman he regarded as his mother” 🥺 “he had thought he would feel satisfaction that his mother had been avenged, but all he felt was emptiness. valda’s death was not enough. nothing except morgase trakand alive again could be enough.” 😭😭😭😭 trakand family reunion when??

galad is now captain commander of all whitecloaks and plans to ally them with aes sedai at tarmon gai’don, though asunawa and the questioners have split off and will no doubt cause problems down the road. i wish galad would just go “the whole system is corrupt!” and destroy the entire whitecloak organization, but that’s asking too much of our Lawful Good boy lmao. makes me curious how this plotline will go down in the show because i’m still feeling the effects of show!whitecloaks being my first version of them, and show!whitecloaks are so vile and evil that it feels unsatisfying and hollow to see galad getting them to help our heroes instead of just burning the whole organization to the ground. much like how it feels seeing rand and perrin prepare to ally with seanchan. i guess it’s all an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” situation and showing how our heroes have to ally even with shitty groups for the sake of stopping the greater evil of the shadow, but still, i don’t like it!

an antagonistic character (suroth) is secretly a darkfriend? groundbreaking.

semirhage has killed the seanchan empress and imperial family and now all of seanchan is embroiled in chaos and civil war. thank you semirhage! if only tuon would conveniently die so then seanchan never gets another empress and can just collapse for good.

bunch of other random shit i don’t care about (and spaced out during the audiobook of) happens in the prologue. too many side characters. my crops are dying.

finally we reach egwene and some life is restored to my crops! she is being an absolute queen about her captivity. unbreakable indeed. she sees the tension between ajahs in the tower and is already thinking of how she can use that to the rebels’ advantage and planning to talk to siuan in TAR. very handy that TAR/dreamwalking can still be done while shielded! “she did not consider herself a prisoner either. she was carrying the battle into the heart of the tower itself. if she had had lips [in TAR], she would have smiled.” that’s my GIRL 😤🥰 maybe i don’t want gawyn to help her escape after all since she doesn’t WANT to escape, she’s got everything under control!

“demandred’s hook-nosed face carried an expression of anger that only made him more striking.” official confirmation that Demandred Is Hot, although maybe this was mentioned already. i’ve seen little of him so far but i feel like he’s my Forsaken Crush. i feel it coming. (we all have a Forsaken Crush, don’t lie.)

“in their own age when moridin had been called ishamael - there was no longer any doubt in [aran’gar’s] mind of who he was” official confirmation that moridin is ishamael! why am i gasping? i already knew that.

so it seems that the suspicion and tension in the white tower and perhaps the split itself is being caused and stoked by the forsaken. kinda don’t like that, ofc the shadow has to be established as a major threat but i wish more of the conflict in this series was genuinely caused by just regular ol human selfishness rather than going “surprise, it was a darkfriend/forsaken behind it the whole time!” so often.

"[aran’gar’s] appetites [for women] had not altered, only broadened [to include men, i think is the implication]” “[semirhage], too, took her pleasures where she found them” and graendal being into it when aran’gar hits on her. the forsaken being the Bad Bisexual Rep we deserve.

no for real there is SO much sexual tension between all the forsaken in this scene (the aforementioned 3, demandred, mesaana) i hope the show maintains and enhances this. just a group of hot evil people who hate and also want to bone every single one of the others.

“‘no!’ moridin snapped, fixing [cyndane] with a steady stare. ‘you would ‘accidentally’ kill him. the time and manner of al’thor’s death will be at my choosing. no one else.’ ... ‘no one else,’ moridin repeated in a hard voice.” “‘that goes for all of you. al’thor is mine. you will not harm him in any way!’” ishamael is not in on the aforementioned sexual tension because he’s too busy having the same one-sided sexual tension with rand he had for all the early books, god bless. (to refresh your memory)

“once, [aram] had seemed too good-looking for a man” usually i think of perrin as the straightest character in the series but then he’ll just come out with shit like this. the Oblivious Bisexual Rep we deserve.

perrin thinks of mat and has a vision of him talking to tuon! confirmed that this happens between the two of them too and not just them and rand. maybe we already saw that in the last book, i can’t remember anything anymore, there’s no room left in wot’s portion of my brain’s memory harddrive.

this is not new information but i have to mention how much i love that perrin’s full name is perrin t’bashere aybara, he and faile both took each other’s names :’)

perrin tells the seanchan that the asha’man know traveling. boy, i sure hope you’re not gonna let them learn traveling from any saidar-users or i swear to god!

“the bearer of this stands under my personal protection. in the name of the empress, may she live forever, give him whatever aid he requires in service to the empire and speak of it to none but me.” love how many different “not to worry, i have a permit [holds up a paper saying “i can do whatever i want”]” official papers there are in this universe jkfgj

faile mentions a fellow (female) gai’shain (arrela) who’s sleeping with a maiden. references to queerness have gotten much more common and explicit in these past couple books, which is nice to see! though always queer women, i don’t think we’ve had anything more than a “maybe that guy doesn’t like women like that” for queer men.

“colors whirled in [mat’s] brain, and for an instant, in his head, he saw rand and min standing beside a large bed, kissing. he stumbled and nearly tripped over his own boots. they had not been wearing any clothes! he would have to be careful thinking about rand...the colors swirled and resolved for a moment, and he stumbled again. there were worse things to spy on than kissing. very careful what he thought. light! the pair of guards...eyed him suspiciously. they probably thought he was drunk...he could have used a stiff drink right then.” JKDJFGKJHJJKDFJG the Disaster Bisexual Rep we deserve. poor mat. poor, poor mat. what a way to find out your lifelong crush has a new girlfriend. also, cinematic parallels to rand being Shook when he walked in on naked mat and melindhra after the darkhounds in tfoh.

now that i’ve moved on from laughing, i’m realizing this is another example of how little interest the characters have in each other these days. last mat knew, rand was romantically entangled with both elayne and avi, yet now he has a vision of him banging min (whom mat had no idea was ever on the table, and honestly i’m surprised he even recognizes her since i think they only met the once in baerlon and his memories of that time are so fuzzy) and doesn’t go “hey, what about elayne and avi?” or anything like that. granted, maybe that’s only because he’s trying not to keep thinking about rand jfkgjh but still. especially now that elayne is his bestie in addition to rand! surely he would have at least a passing care about the state of their relationship, after spending an entire book and a half determined to protect elayne for rand’s sake!

“many among the showfolk were already wondering why mat spent more time with tuon than with egeanin. wondering and disapproving.” you and me both, showfolk.

“with women, you always had to take chances. with a woman like tuon, ten chances a day, and never knowing the odds until it was too late.” or you could just not take any chances. you could just ditch her.

at this point i know i should just accept that this romance is happening and stop beating a dead horse about how ooc and illogical it is, but i literally cannot stop complaining and will make it everyone else’s problem for every recap post for the rest of the series jfgkh

mat waxes poetic about how beautiful tuon is and how much he loves making her smile and laugh and how much he dreams about kissing her. SINCE WHEN??!?!?!?!??!?!!! WHY??!?!?!?!?!!!!??? make it make sense!!!!

“[he dreamed about kissing her] never mind that she called him down as if they were already married.” cementing my theory that, narratively speaking, mat went from genuinely enjoying women’s company to finding them annoying and restrictive because of I Hate My Wife toxic heterosexual marriage culture informing his transition from slut (who enjoys women’s company) to husband (who complains about The Old Ball And Chain)

mat spanking joline 🤮🤮🤮 obviously it wasn’t okay for her to slap him unprovoked, but there is a huge difference in levels of both humiliation and physical pain between being slapped once and being spanked like a child dozens of times in front of people.

and inexplicably, mistress anan and the other aes sedai take mat’s side and say that joline deserved it??? where is mistress anan’s Woman Solidarity Against Mat the one time i actually wanted it?

everyone mat’s with now is making him worse. can you imagine him trying to pull this shit when elayne, nynaeve, or egwene were in the vicinity? they would’ve kicked his ass into next tuesday! although pre-WH mat would never have done this anyway. forget enjoying his plotline, even liking him as a person is becoming difficult at this point in the series. that wall falling on him turned him into a different person. look how they massacred my boy.jpg

“‘do you have any idea how these sul’dam did treat me [teslyn] when they did have me prisoner?’ ‘no, since you’ve never gone into detail beyond moaning over how horrible it was,’ joline replied dryly” it’s so gross how the others treat their stint as damane as a minor inconvenience. mat does this too with his whining about them being So Ungrateful To Him for getting them out of the seanchan’s hands and how he Deserves Their Respect. mat they are incredibly scared and traumatized! they have bigger things to worry about than kissing your ass! is this just the characters who don’t know what being damane is like being dicks, or is the narrative itself trying to retroactively make it seem not as bad in an attempt to excuse tuon and her romance with mat? all i know is that this is a stark contrast from how we saw egwene’s time as a damane treated in tgh. (update: i mention this briefly later in the post but in elayne’s pov we do see the damane system as traumatic and horrific again, so maybe it really is just mat’s pov making light of it bc he’s not a channeler rather than the narrative itself doing so.)

“‘you’ll want to be seeing to your own horses.’ mat wanted no such thing. the most wonderful thing about having coin was not what you could buy, but that you could pay others to do the work.” and what happened to all your disdain for nobles who act like that, mat??? in general i feel that mat’s laziness and hatred of doing work have been exaggerated in recent books. from a later chapter: “just the sight of [the laborers] made mat’s own back ache. they reminded him how much he hated work.” and there was another line in the same vein somewhere in this chapter chunk, but i can’t find it again. the jacket summary for this book says “to get [tuon] to safety, he must do what he hates worse than work” like, to say that in the SUMMARY. a lot of mat’s negative traits have been exaggerated in recent books and he’s starting to feel like a caricature of himself. everyone says that sanderson did that to mat in his books, but rj’s already started doing it if you ask me.

“he had to make her see him as something more than Toy. marriage to a woman with no respect for him would be like wearing a shirt of black-wasp nettles day and night. worse still, he had to make her care for him, or he would find himself forced to hide from his own wife to keep her from making him da’covale!” MAT. THAT IS NOT A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP. JUST DITCH HER AND RIDE AWAY.

i’m thinking about what we were discussing on my last recap about how it would make so much more sense if mat/tuon was an arranged marriage (for example as part of perrin’s deal with the seanchan - mat then would accept the marriage for a logical and in-character reason, wanting to help his friend rescue his wife, rather than just. going along with it inexplicably as he does in canon) and yeah. his whole “since i’ll be stuck with marrying her, i need to find out what she’s like as a person and get her to like and respect me so my marriage won’t be awful” thing would make 100% sense if it was a marriage arranged for political/alliance reasons that he had no choice but to find a way to live with, but the way it is in canon, he completely brought all this on himself by refusing to ditch tuon when given a dozen easy opportunities to do so.

“‘i want you [aludra] to come with me. i know somebody who’ll be happy to pay for making as many of your dragons as you want. he can make every bellfounder from andor to tear stop casting bells and start casting dragons.’ avoiding rand’s name did not stop the colors from whirling inside his head and resolving for an instant into rand - fully clothed, thank the light - talking with loial by lamplight in a wood-paneled room...‘and if he isn’t interested,’ again the colors came, but he resisted, and they melted away” “‘the dragon reborn.’ the colors swirled and despite his fighting them again became rand and loial for a moment. this was not going to be as easy as it had seemed.” mat has SUCH A HARD TIME not thinking about rand compared to perrin, it is genuinely hilarious jfkgh also, i’m still waiting to see where the “mat is a bad friend to rand and always runs away from him” claims come from because even now he’s STILL thinking about going back to rand with new weapons that will help him!

“i will take you with any name you do care to use so long as you be my wife” not bayle domon out here being the king of romance 😭

“he soon told them to stop bringing him rumors about rand. fighting the colors in his head was too much effort, and he lost that fight as often as he won. sometimes it was all right, but sometimes he caught glimpses of rand and min, and it seemed those two were carrying on something awful.” mat is rand/min-phobic too, god bless. like come on, it’s bad enough i have to put up with their relationship in their own povs, now i have to hear about it in mat’s too??? poor mat. poorer me. also, crying over mat having such trouble Not Thinking About Rand that he has to institute a rule where nobody is allowed to talk to him about rand jkjfgh my man that is a CRUSH perrin is rand’s friend and fellow ta’veren too but has NEVER had this much trouble not thinking about him!

“the eelfinn had gathered the memories they had planted in his head, but how could they harvest memory from a corpse?...maybe they created some sort of link to any human who visited them, a link that allowed them to copy all of a man’s memories after that right up to the moment he died...burn him, the bloody foxes were inside his head right then!” okay mat just drew a TON of wild conclusions out of nowhere and i’m bewildered! i’m 99% sure they’re all true from vague things i’ve seen you guys say about the eelfinn, but i have no idea why mat suddenly realized all these things right then (all that happened was that he had a memory of dying and thought “huh, it’s weird i don’t have any memories of other men’s childhoods.”) i thought the memories were his past lives, not just random guys who visited the eelfinn in the past? how does he know this? how does he know the eelfinn harvest memories? how does he know they’re called eelfinn, for that matter? he’s never called them that before!

okay i looked it up and i discovered that the aelfinn and eelfinn were indeed first named in TSR, but it was by birgitte to perrin in TAR. i’m putting on a cone of shame for insisting so adamantly that they’ve never been named before, but in my defense i can’t be held accountable for paying attention to anything that happens in perrin chapters. and mat never heard about that since he hasn’t seen perrin since then, and from what little i could find on google mat first calls the snake people aelfinn in WH and there’s no explanation of when or how he learned that name. i’m positive he called them snaky/foxy people for several books after TSR. positive! surely i’m not just misremembering! maybe birgitte told him offscreen at some point in acos? anyway, i had to read this whole paragraph several times because mat just pulled so much random knowledge out of his ass and i’m still confused where he got it from lmao from what i can recall, he’s never once mentioned anything about memory-harvesting in his previous angsting about the eelfinn and has always thought about the memories as being from his own past lives.

“he was not sure he really wanted to dance away [from tuon] anymore” WHY NOT “but want and wish as he might, he was well and truly caught” YOU LITERALLY AREN’T, YOU COULD DITCH HER AT ANY TIME

“[tuon] saw [the aes sedai as] two escaped damane and a marath’damane, and she had no use for either until they were decently collared. her phrase, that.” mat does not seem bothered by this.

“sometimes [noal] interjected comments on mat’s play, that he was exposing himself on the left, that he was setting a fine trap on the right, and just when tuon looked ready to fall into it.” i love noal, he’s just a weird grandpa who came out of nowhere and just hangs around all the time being weird and awkward. i think i read that he’s jain farstrider, and even if i hadn’t it’s been kinda obvious with the way he talks about jain farstrider in this chunk of chapters and all the info he knows about far-off lands, but i’m interested to see how he ended up where he is now.

the three aes sedai come to tell tuon to return to seanchan and carry out a treaty for peace, and tuon collars all three of them. to his credit, mat attempts to talk her down and takes the collars off himself when she doesn’t listen and later buries the collars so no one can use them again, but he doesn’t react NEARLY as strongly as i would’ve wanted him to, or as the past mat even of winter’s heart would have.

mat watching tuon literally enslaving people: “she looked a bloody leopard staring at three tethered goats. and strangely, more beautiful than ever.” 🤮🤮

“[teslyn] looked as though she could not believe he would actually remove the [collar]” and does that give you a wakeup call about your recent behavior mat? no? okay.

“i want them to stop annoying me, toy.” “i think they’ll agree to that after this. you will agree, won’t you?” when joline says nothing: “‘i could let precious keep you for a few days until you change your mind.’ joline’s collar clicked open in his hands. ‘but i won’t.’” 🤮🤮🤮

like fr tuon tries to enslave the aes sedai for annoying her with attempts to broker peace between randland and the seanchan, and mat acts like both sides were equally in the wrong? he doesn’t even seem to care about the seanchan invading his home. tuon’s comfort is more important to him than the chance of stopping the seanchan, i guess.

mat spends the next day juggling for tuon and telling her jokes, like a fuckin court jester. i am almost at min levels of “please find some self-respect” although i don’t think it would ever be possible for any other character to fall THAT far. on the other hand, at least rand is worthy of being simped for!

some weird thing happens with a dead people sighting and then a peddler gets sucked into the pavement. no clue what just happened so i’m just gonna move on.

random sidetrack: how fun would it have been if mat and elayne had been with the circus at the same time and he got to watch her tightrope act? with her sexy outfit? i wish!!!

“[if aes sedai found out tuon was a seanchan lady] in all likelihood, tuon would be on her way to tar valon before he could blink. as a ‘guest,’ of course, to help stop the fighting. no doubt many would say that would be for the good, that he should hand her over himself and tell them who she really was” me, i’m many “but he had given his word.” UGH mat keeping his promise to rand to protect elayne = sexy! mat keeping his promise to protect tuon = not sexy!

“‘i shall probably make [tar valon] my capital. i shall have you show me the city, toy. you have been there?’ light! she was a tough little woman. gorgeous, but definitely tough as nails.” haha nothing like your girlfriend talking about her plans to conquer your entire continent, am i right lads? what a quirky and sexy flaw!

“‘there’s no need for that, with me or anyone else,’ [egeanin] drawled, bending to take amathera by the shoulders and draw her to her feet. amathera rose slowly, hesitantly, and kept her eyes down until egeanin put a hand beneath her chin and raised her head gently. ‘you look me in the eyes. you look everyone in the eyes.’” so good to see egeanin making a genuine effort to change her ways and treat everyone as an equal! if only tuon could get the same character development. or ANY character development.

“[juilin] disliked any seanchan, for what they had done to amathera.” “there was a hint of a challenge in his gaze. it was clear that to him, egeanin had further to go to prove she no longer saw amathera as stolen property.” JUILIN IS THE ONLY ONE IN THIS GODDAMN PLOTLINE WITH SOME GODDAMN SENSE AND A CONSCIENCE!!! THANK YOU JUILIN finally a solid reason other than “i think his name is pretty” to explain his presence among my list of favorite side characters.

“‘and when [atha’an miere women] are out of sight of land-’ [noal] cut off abruptly and cleared his throat, eyeing olver, who was stacking the snakes a foxes on the board’s corners. ‘what do they do then?’ olver asked. ‘why...’ noal rubbed his nose with a gnarled finger. ‘why, they scramble about the rigging so nimbly you’d think they had hands where their feet should be. that’s what they do.’ olver oohed, and noal gave a soft sigh of relief.” finally someone is being age-appropriate with olver! thank you noal! good grandpa! or actually great-grandpa, since thom is grandpa and mat is dad.

thom finally reveals the letter from moiraine, which is written in the most dramatic and cryptic fashion imaginable, bless her.

“‘my dearest thom.’ who would have thought moiraine, of all people, would address old thom merrilin so?” not any reader, that’s for sure, mat jdkjfgh i’m glad he’s as baffled by this ship as we all are.

“mat may refuse. he does not hold me in the affection you seem to” momraine 💔💔 “if you see lan again, tell him that all of this is for the best. his destiny follows a different path from mine. i wish him all happiness with nynaeve.” 💔 but also ❤️

olver just so happens to remember that birgitte just so happened to tell him that the eelfinn live in the tower of ghenjei, and when noal describes what legends say it looks like, mat just so happens to remember that he just so happened to pass it on domon’s boat in eotw. birgitte also just so happened to tell olver how to get into the tower since there’s no opening. all very convenient.

“he had never really trusted moiraine, or liked her either. only fools trusted aes sedai. but then, if not for her, he would be back in the two rivers mucking out the barn and tending his da’s cows. or he would be dead. and there old thom sat, saying nothing, just staring at him. that was the rub. he liked thom. oh, blood and bloody ashes. ‘burn me for a fool,’ he muttered. ‘i’ll go.’” ❤️❤️❤️ mat truly becomes 10x better the moment he’s away from tuon or the 3 aes sedai.

tuon wants mat to take her to a tavern, which is a long-held matlayne dream of mine! how dare she! tho i will say that tuon going “so when is there going to be a fight??” the whole time they’re there is hilarious jfkgjh

when mat is afraid the seanchan farmers in the town might recognize tuon: “toy, i have met many farmers while visiting the country, but they very properly kept their eyes on the ground even if i allowed them to stand.” mat went into conniptions over Arrogant Nobles whenever elayne so much as lifted her chin too far for his liking, yet tuon says shit like this and he is SILENT, even in his thoughts. i hate it here!!

from a little later: “‘nobles...’ he trailed off, clearing his throat. he could hardly tell her nobles were fools with their noses so high in the air they could not see where they were stepping. she was who and what she was, after all.” and yet you never had a problem saying such things to elayne even though she’s the most down-to-earth noble in the entire series and is your ally and your friends’ friend rather than an invader of your homeland.

when thom talks about how unfortunate it is that people don’t mind the seanchan bc that means it’ll be harder to get them out: “mat glanced at tuon. how did she feel hearing thom talk about her people so?” WHY DO YOU GIVE A SHIT HOW SHE FEELS!!! HER PEOPLE INVADED YOUR HOMELAND!!! GOD!!!!

“[the seanchan] mean to kill [tuon] when they find her [bc they think she’s an impostor]” cool, let them.

“he was going to do whatever was necessary to make sure she was not in danger of being broken. whatever it took.” WHY??!?!?!?!!

mat almost dies because he Can’t Kill A Woman, deep sigh. tuon kills her for him, thank you tuon for having at least a modicum of sense unlike some people.

“even rand was not ta’veren enough to make this happen. the colors whirled, and [perrin] splintered them unformed.” mat: you can stop thinking about rand? perrin: what, like it’s hard?

“‘if this is what happens to you when you get with child,’ aviendha said, adjusting the dark shawl looped over her arms, ‘i think i will never have any.’” oh boy do i have news for you

“the high-canted saddle of her dun pushed her bulky aiel skirts high enough to bare her stockinged legs to the knee” i should’ve been keeping track of the number of times elayne has remarked upon aviendha’s legs being bared while riding. it’s been a Lot of times.

“elayne had insufficient soldiers to hold six leagues of wall” “her greatest fear at present was that [arymilla] would succeed in bribing [mercenary] companies still inside the walls” “‘you [birgitte] don’t have to lead every counterttack yourself.’ ‘and who else is there? my officers are inexperienced boys or else men who came out of retirement...except for the mercenary captains, anyway, and there isn’t one i’d trust without someone looking over his shoulder. which brings us back to: who else but me?’” “she could not afford birgitte falling over from exhaustion. light, she wished gareth bryne were there. egwene needed him, but so did she.” and *i* wish mat and the band were here!!! goddammit!

“this siege hardly gave her time to mourn her mother. or lini, her old nursemaid. rahvin had murdered her mother, and likely lini had died trying to protect her. white-haired and thin with age, lini would not have backed down even for one of the forsaken.” TRAKAND FAMILY REUNION (including lini ofc) WHEN???

“and how would you have stopped me?” “by tying you up and having [aviendha] sit on you” birgitte says as IF elayne would’ve considered it a bad thing to be tied up and sat on by aviendha

“she wished she knew how mat was.” MATLAYNE RIGHTS ❤️❤️❤️❤️ “and dear thom. and poor little olver. every night she offered prayers that they had escaped the seanchan safely.” man i WISH 😭😭

we see elayne having pregnancy-induced channeling troubles, interesting. this will definitely cause problems later.

“smiling, aviendha turned her face up to let the rain run down her cheeks. ‘i love to watch water falling from the sky.’” 🥺🥺

some dude guybon, who is “little short of beautiful,” shows up with 10,000 soldiers and elayne promotes him to birgitte’s second in command on the spot although she’s never met him before. please let the suddenly-and-conveniently-appearing hot guy be genuinely there to help and not a darkfriend, please. also, i can think of another hot young general with lots of soldiers who would be of great help to elayne right now and who would have no chance of being a darkfriend 😤

maybe Woman Solidarity really is a thing, bc while male readers are always complaining about elayne Being Too Reckless and Endangering Herself Needlessly while pregnant, i’m empathizing hard with her frustration over everyone treating her like glass for being pregnant and her stubborn determination to prove that she can still do things and am of the opinion that she has done nothing wrong ever in her life.

i feel like elayne’s mood swings are just normal human emotions for someone under a great deal of stress and poor elayne is just gaslighting herself (and to some extent being gaslit by others) into thinking it’s all pregnancy mood swings.

100x more empathy for damane and disgust for slavers in 1 page of elayne crossing paths with a random freed damane than in several chapters of mat hanging out with his own allies who were once damane.

“men or women, aiel wept unashamed when they felt the need” aiel culture says fuck toxic masculinity 😌

“‘it’s custom in seanchan to strike a girl’s name from her family’s rolls when she’s collared, and the poor woman feels she has no right to the name she was born with. jillari was given with the collar, but she wants to keep that.’ ‘there are more reasons to hate the seanchan than i can count,’ elayne said heatedly.” where is this energy in mat’s chapters where it is most needed????

“elayne reached out without looking, and found aviendha’s hand waiting to take hers, a comforting grip. she squeezed back, unable to imagine the grief of losing aviendha. they shared a quick glance, and aviendha’s eyes mirrored her own feelings. had she really once thought aiel faces impassive and unreadable?” ROMANCE!!!! MARRIAGE!!!!

i hate that warder bonds between 2 women are inexplicably and illogically Different than warder bonds between a man and a woman, and i especially hate that the difference is that the emotion mirroring is stronger and the 2 women are always setting each other off, because Women Be Overemotional And Irrational, of course.

one of the sea folk accidentally blurts out criticism of another sea folk in front of elayne and is then flustered about it. elayne is ta’veren, i tell you!

“elayne threw back her head and screamed as loudly as she could, a howl of pure outrage and fury. she screamed until her lungs were empty, leaving her panting.” JSKDJFGHKJHKJ GOOD FOR HER i laughed SO hard at that. elayne’s primal screams of rage are something that can be so personal. (it happened once before in tfoh at the circus and i loved it just as much then, this poor woman really deserves to Scream on occasion. for that “this piece of media is allowed 1 usage of ‘fuck,’ where would you put it?” meme, i would definitely give the 1 allotted fuck to elayne.)

“‘do you think i should wear wetlander clothes, elayne, since we are going to meet these mercenaries?’ [aviendha] asked in tones of great reluctance...elayne hid a smile of her own, no easy task since she wanted to laugh. her sister pretended to disdain silks, but she seldom missed an opportunity to wear them. ‘if you can bear it, aviendha,’ she said gravely.” THIS IS SO PURE aviendha getting into fancy clothes sparks joy, min getting into fancy clothes does not spark joy. (because avi’s is about her assimilating into wetlander culture and finding things to like about it, and also being given the opportunity to explore her own sense of style for the first time after spending much of her life in the “uniform” of a maiden or wise one, whereas min was happily settled in her own style and changed it purely to mold herself into her idea of what rand would think is hot.)

avi is careless about being naked in front of the maids but elayne adjusts her own towel carefully because “essande saw her in her skin every day, and sephanie too, but it was nothing to let happen without reason” she does not say a peep about any concerns over AVI seeing her naked without reason though 👀👀👀

elayne on pregnancy soreness: “oh, how she wished rand were near enough to share the full effect of her bond with him.” GIRL SAME

in describing the sitting room, elayne mentions the table “where she and aviendha took most of their meals” and all the books in the room, saying that “they often read here of an evening.” the domesticity of it all 😭😭 they’re married!!

avi turns out to have a skill, possibly a Talent, for knowing the function of ter’angreal just by touching them. handy! tho i wonder why this hasn’t come up before bc i think she’s been helping elayne with the ebou dar ter’angreal for a while. also, what happened to avi’s other Talents of unweaving and of seeing weave residues? we haven’t heard about those after their brief time of relevance in POD. i guess that while egwene, elayne, and nynaeve are relatively solid in their Talents, avi’s just a catch-all for whatever random Talents are necessary for the plot at the current moment lmao

“‘oh, light!’ [aviendha] exclaimed, flinging her arms around elayne. ‘i never thought! i have great toh to you! i never meant to endanger you or your babes! never!’ ... ‘you have no toh to me. it was you i was thinking of. you could have died, or burned yourself out.’ aviendha pulled back enough to look into elayne’s eyes. what she saw there reassured her, for a small smile curved her lips.” MARRIED

THE WISE ONES ARE TAKING AVI AWAY FROM ELAYNE NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO this was my LAST ship standing i can’t lose it!!!!! i’m devastated!!!!!!!! how will i survive with NO ships to sustain me??? i know that cauthor and randlayne reunions won’t happen until book 14, so dear GOD the matlayne reunion better be soon!!!!

“aviendha leaped away from the embrace, flushing furiously” “elayne took her sister’s hand in a firm grip, and aviendha squeezed back” “elayne wanted to run after aviendha too, to grasp every moment with her” MARRIED

rand can send letters via asha’man to bael but not to elayne or avi?? good god! MIN got letters from him when he was away in illian, and she already knew where he was and what he was up to (and she whined that it was only 2 short letters and that rand was too busy for her).

avi: “i will try to visit you [elayne] as often as i can.” nadere: “strange to speak casually of visiting from so far. to cover leagues, hundreds of leagues, in a step.” are people finally going to take advantage of Traveling to hang out with each other while in two different locations and plotlines?? too much to ask for rand to do this with elayne, of course. (elayne can’t since she doesn’t know where exactly he is, but he knows she’ll be in caemlyn for the foreseeable future - and he’s just been chilling in that manor in tear for at least a few days and has had plenty of time to pop back to caemlyn for a visit but just hasn’t! dammit!) anyway, i hope we actually will get to see avi visit elayne in the future because i cannot HANDLE the prospect of them ALSO being separated for the rest of the series. my last ship standing dammit!!!

when elayne gives avi angreal to take with her: “‘you shame me, sister. i have no farewell gift to give in return.’ ‘you give me your friendship. you gave me a sister.’ elayne felt a tear slide down her cheek. she essayed a laugh, but it was a weak, tremulous thing. ‘how can you say you have nothing to give? you’ve given me everything.’” ROMANCE!!!! MARRIAGE!!!!!!! genuinely one of, if not THE, most romantic lines in the entire series to date! you could take all of avilayne’s canon interactions and just change “sister” to “wife” and it legit would come across as such a strong romance without a single kiss ever needing to be exchanged. like yeah female friendships in this series are much more intimate than male friendships are allowed to be, but even then avilayne is SO different from and more intense than all other female friendships in the series. not even mat would want to bet against the odds of their relationship being made romantic in the show, now that i’ve seen how INSANELY homoerotic it is in the books, i consider it an absolute guarantee that the show will make the abundance of subtext into actual text.

“tears glistened in aviendha’s eyes too. despite the others watching, she put her arms around elayne and hugged her hard.” we know how huge it is for an aiel to hug somebody in front of others!! “‘i will miss you, sister,’ she whispered. ‘my heart is as cold as night.’” avi’s not gonna let elayne outdo her with romantic lines! “‘and mine, sister,’ elayne whispered, hugging back equally hard. ‘i will miss you too. but you will be allowed to visit me sometimes. this isn’t forever.’ ‘no, not forever. but i will still miss you.’” “‘may you always find water and shade, sister,’ elayne replied. the aiel way had a finality about it, so she added, ‘until i see your face again.’ and as quickly as that, they were gone. as quickly as that, she felt very alone. aviendha’s presence had become a certainty, a sister to talk to, laugh with, share her hopes and fears with, but that comfort was gone.” 😭😭😭😭

****spoilers for the series endgame in terms of me referencing characters who i know survive the last battle**** it has finally occurred to me to be very worried about the future for avilayne. when avi becomes a full wise one, will she have to stay with the aiel permanently? will she have to go back to live in the waste? i am PRAYING that after the last battle enough aiel decide to remain in the wetlands and caemlyn specifically (i mean unless the aiel all die in the last battle since their destruction is prophesized, oh fuck so many things to worry about!) so that avi can be a wise one to the aiel in caemlyn and still live with elayne! rand is included in all this too, of course, but i’m less certain of him ending up in caemlyn post-last battle since iirc the amol epilogue summary i read back in december while the show was airing only said that he was gonna wander the world (pls don’t tell me anything more specific, i already regret everything i DO know about the series endgame lmao i wouldn’t have read the epilogue summary if i’d known i would read the books, i had no intention of reading them and figured it’d take 10 years to find out how it ends once the show got there, and i read a cauthor oneshot that had a brief post-canon scene of mat thinking about rand in a way implying he was dead (yes it was tagged as post-canon spoilers, yes it’s my own fault for going “that sign can’t stop me because i can’t read” and reading the fic anyway) and i was like RAND DIES??? SAY SIKE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW so OBVIOUSLY i had to look up for sure whether it was true, i couldn’t bear it!)

“elayne did not realize her shoulders had slumped until she straightened them. her sister was gone, yet she had a city to defend and a throne to gain. duty would have to sustain her now.” THE FACT THAT THIS IS THE EXACT SAME WAY SHE THINKS ABOUT RAND

“her reasons for not countering [the rumor that mellar is the babydaddy] had changed - she no longer had need to protect her babes, rand’s babes” why not?? they would still be in danger if it was known they were the dragon reborn’s kids. and elayne has known the whole time that min’s viewing said they would be born healthy but this didn’t prevent her initially not wanting it known rand is the dad.

the palace is changing, corridors moving and vanishing and appearing. maybe related to that thing of the guy mat saw sink into the pavement.

“a falcon [map marker] showed where the goshien were. or had been. were they gone yet? [elayne] slipped the falcon into her belt pouch. aviendha was very much a falcon.” ❤️❤️❤️

“‘they’re gone, or going,’ elayne told [birgitte]. there would be visits. aviendha was not gone forever.” 😭❤️

in all rand’s “i’m so dangerous to my loved ones!” fretting, why does he never once think about the fact that hundreds of asha’man, many of whom may well be traitors to him (and darkfriends tho i’m not sure if he knows that much), are right on elayne’s doorstep because he put the school there?

“again someone seemed to think she had answers she did not. but then, that was what it meant to be queen. you were always expected to have an answer, to find one. that was what it meant to be aes sedai.” baby ❤️

“she often found herself staring at a page without seeing a word, thinking of her sister, or starting to say something to aviendha before remembering that she was not there. she felt very lonely, which was ridiculous. sephanie stood in a corner...eight guardswomen were standing outside the door to the apartments...but none of them was aviendha.” elayne misses her wife!!! so do i!! i will say, i’m not pitting avilayne and randlayne against each other bc i love both equally and it’s not randlayne’s fault that the narrative robs them at every turn, but it’s kinda hilarious how elayne is so much more cut up about her “sister’s” departure than her boyfriend’s and babydaddy’s. (granted rand’s departure is no longer fresh and she was much sadder and more worried about him and missing him more in previous books, in this book her entire chapter chunk has been one Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day during which she only thinks about rand to go “burn him for knocking me up!” because she’s in a bad mood.)

elayne cries upon hearing that reanne corly was murdered and chides herself over Pregnancy Mood Swings, sweetheart crying over a friend’s murder is NORMAL! you’re allowed to have emotions!

#wot #wot book spoilers

[ruinakete]

♡ (if you're still taking them!)

WHAT WOULD OUR MUSES' CHILD BE LIKE?・accepting! ( cw for canon character / muse death or murder )

THEY WILL KNOW HIM AS THE WINGS OF GRIEF.

"oh? him? no, he isn't from the village. at least, not what I've been told. neither is he human, by his horns, but oh he's just a darling young man! criminally handsome, i say! when we met, he kissed the back of my hand and offered to walk me home. uh, though, he did mention it was because I looked too incompetent to guide myself... oh, don't worry, he isn't rude all the time. in fact, I'd say he's most peaceful when tending to the pegasi we have. I've only seen him smile around animals actually... he even offers to take up the guardpost nearby to ensure their safety." ━━━ VILLAGE STABLE MAID, about ???

IN-GAME PROFILE,

CLASS: Fell Child

VERSION: specializes in LANCES, emphasizing MAGIC growth and high SPEED, granting him, too, better physical stats than most of his alternate siblings; the ability to transform and utilize BREATH weapons is easy to unlock, too

DESCRIPTION.

the last son of Lord Sombron, Zephia's biological offspring though mothered, too, by her partner, Caeda. many confuse him for a dashing knight; a role he happily takes to heart, as it blankets the weight of being a Fell Child and the burden he carries. though charming, his sharp tongue and sly wit tend to lessen the volume of his sociability; unfortunate, since he is a loving friend once a bond is recognized by him and another. this flaw comes with a cost, as he turns to others to bear the weight of his problems on behalf of being unable to carry the expectation of his bloodline alone. it is the easiest to find him in the stables of a nearby village, brushing the wings of a pegasus or curling against it as it lays to rest. usually, that is where his mothers would find him, asleep in the stall of a pleased pegasus.

APPEARANCE,

as a child of Sombron, his strongest genes would be those of his biological father's. bone-white hair that is kept straight, reaching his mid-back, though he curls the frayed ends every morning as part of his beauty routine. of a lighter tone than Zephia, he matches her in eye color, however, only one of his irises bears the right tint. his left iris is blue with an opposing pink highlight, while his right iris is only blue. ever since he was a young kid, he liked to joke that his bare blue eye was his lucky sight, as it was the same color as Caeda's eyes. to Zephia's strangely happy realization, her son was also born with crescent horns, though his are smaller and a life-changing event of grief snapped both of his horns at the tips.

apparel is a factor of appearance he used both of his mothers as inspiration. as though he were a pegasus knight, the placement of his armor and low-cut skirt are worn similarly to Caeda's own attire. buckles and bands accessorize his thighs, over the bare skin until it reaches his knee and lower leg, which are clothed with padded socks. though, instead of boots, he sticks to low heels, with twin golden charms hung over his ankles. the cuts of his sleeves and the flowy fabric borrowed come from the image of Zephia. he would wear a cropped top if it wasn't exposing such a vulnerable body part.

the virtue of an angel atop a pegasus mirrors that of his image, because of the color scheme and the modesty in which he holds himself. beautifully charming, he is not above using his appearance to get his way. whether it be getting into the stables at night or coaxing a human into trusting him, deception has become a second skin to the light in which he appears to be.

PERSONALITY,

if one was to be poetic, then he is the wolf beneath sheepskin; the monster in a knight's armor. there is no doubt that he has the ability to be better than what his mother has made him, but the question is whether or not he chooses to. as a child, he was a curious little thing, babbling questions as Caeda fed him in her lap or laying his head on the page of Zephia's tome as she read. such curiosity has led him to expect a lot from the world, for it to please and amuse him for as long as he lives.

there is one thing that limits his inherited hunger for power; the memory of Caeda. as he grew from infant to toddler, from kid to pre-teen, she stayed at his side, teaching him the delicate strings of life and the differences between right and wrong. if hurting others was wrong, then the urges he felt were wrong, too. and he kept to that lesson, biting back his instincts and forming them into harmless, blunt words. if he could not be nice, then he should not speak. but, if Zephia said to, the world would not be nice to him all the time. so, when should he appease the hunger in his chest? at every offense of the world, or only to those who asked for it?

his mothers were opposites and, first, he bent to the gentle voice of Caeda's parenting. he idolized her for her courage and strength, her ability to love and be loved. she, in a way, was everything he hoped to be. but centuries bled into centuries and the strict fist of Zephia's parenting would take effect easily in the confusion of his morals. he would take his kindness and wield it until it grew jagged and benefited him in the long run. mother was right, always, and he owed all he was to her for continuing to have faith in him despite his constant failure to understand.

now, as a young adult, his charm and tongue have sharpened naturally; everywhere he walks is a curiosity he commits to memory. to have lost someone has made him appreciate the little things in life, often comparing them to his mothers' taste. he treats everyone he meets as a potential pawn, as a default, useful only in what they can give him. this does not mean they will earn his immediate annoyance; a good person helps others recognize themselves, even if done with a heartless hand. for his heart is shrouded, far beyond encasing in light. only near those he bonded with will ever understand the constant solemn manner in which he condemns himself to.

HOUSEHOLD DYNAMIC,

even before he was born, Zephia and Caeda were at odds with one another. though they would care for each other, well into the Mage Dragon's pregnancy, there was a gap between external and internal love. to Zephia, she was at the top of the hierarchy within the household, but to Caeda, there was no ranking. and, as such, an animosity was unfurled with the birth of their son. when Zephia would handle him, Caeda had reason to worry, as her murmurs of the Fell Church and the burden of heritage began to grow a paranoia within his mind.

the wedge became known, fully, when their son was a kid, hardly in his teenage years. it was obvious that, beneath Caeda's gentle hand, he would never grasp a mastery over recognizing and controlling the hunger blossoming in his chest; only a dragon could teach a dragon how to bear his teeth. and Zephia wished to do just that, promising to deal a heavy hand against their son to show him the dangers of not controlling the weapon he could be.

as noble as her motherly heart, Caeda, dearest Caeda, rose to stop her lover's teaching. and that, in the common area of their home, was where Zephia's patience thinned and Caeda's life was torn from her body. when Mage Dragon left to find her kin, Fell Dragon found the limp body of his mother; his idol. the sorrow was immediate, mixing horribly with the confusion of losing another. this grief would only be recognized a century later, as a teenager, when their son helped a village girl mourn the death of her mother. but then, as a child, clutching onto the stained fabric of his mother's dress, he had only the time to hear Caeda's raspy final wish before an aching pain struck his heart. the day he transformed for the first time was the day he lost both his mother and home forever.

and, without his only familial support, he had to brave Zephia's obligation alone. he kept Caeda in memory for centuries, adopting many of her mannerisms into his speech and always carrying a handful of her ashes in the steel of his necklace, forged in secret by the blacksmith whom he owed. but, in his mother's words, Caeda had to die. it was inevitable. best it be at the hands of her wife and not another, right? right? because there could be no other reason for Zephia to strike her down that he could think of.

they loved each other. they loved him. he loved them. but where had it gone wrong?

QUOTES,

??? about CAEDA, present:

"... i missed her." instinctively, his hand rises to touch the necklace resting against his collarbone, as if to protect the ashes trapped within its steel. "my mother was the strongest person i knew. she... it's been years but, i can never give her my proper thanks for all she's done. watering the flowers near her burial is the least i can do."

??? about ZEPHIA, present:

"she is my mother, just as i am her son. by blood and oath." the words flow evenly, as though this is rehearsed. "i owe her my life, for birthing me and every year afterward. she and... she and my second mother were teaching me the importance of my choice and staying at her side is mine."

ZEPHIA about ???, present:

"my sweet boy," next comes a delighted hum, as though she holds the utmost pride in him, "he has grown well over the years. already he has nearly mastered his draconic form. even after... hmph. i simply hope to pull him from his late-night visits to the stables of the village down the mountain path. he sleeps there as though it is his den."

ZEPHIA about CAEDA, present:

"it was my mistake to fall in love with her." a long pause; her gaze falters and her hands tremble against each other. when she speaks again, it is quieter, as biting as it is regretful, "we are better off without her. she was not suited for the life of a fell child's parent... time would have killed her even if i had not."

CAEDA about ???, past:

"he may be a fell child but i will never let him feel as if that is all he can ever amount to—all he will ever be." she holds a single hand close to her heart. "as long as i draw breath, i will never let him think otherwise."

CAEDA about ZEPHIA, past:

"there is love in her heart, i know it." a warm smile, despite circumstances. despite the efforts she must go to in order to protect her child from grief. "it need only be drawn out."

CAEDA to ???, before death:

"when it's... when it's hard to be a good person, just remember that i l—love you."

#arcaeda #☽ ━━━━━━ ❝ to appease the handmade goddess ・ 【 𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃 】 . #ohhhhh i had so much fun with this one i ( BURSTS INTO TEARS AND SOBS AND HEAVES AND HICCUPS AND SNIFFLES AND CRIES AND #i was waiting for one of zephia's meme lovers to be the first death / kill count and i fear it's mrs fire emblem #IM SO SICK AND ILL I CANT BELIEVE ZEPHIA WOULD DO THIS I HATE HER SO MUCHH #and the idea i have in mind for the zephiaeda kid is kind of sick i'm lowkey obsessed with him #the kind of man to rob you of your money just to show you how weak and vulnerable you are but it's all for good intentions to help you #i lowkey went crazy with this too sorry this is so long

[biblioflyer]

Picard s3e4 reactions: some of the best Trek of the modern era.

I have to be honest, episode three was a bit of a yellow alert for me. It was gloomy, a little contrived, and full of characters behaving entirely unlike the definitive versions that live in my own personal headcanon. Episode three was a hard episode.

And yet.

It set up a lot of stuff I spent the past week noodling about and I spent a fair bit of time speculating as to what I would do to ensure that all of this wallowing in despair had an epic payout.

Not only did it payout, it did so in ways I really hoped it would do it.

Shaw: not just arbitrarily racist against Borg / XB just because. Not just stuffy towards Picard just because. There's history there. Intimate history. And yet! The "dipshit from Chicago" is dry clay of a man but there's some potential to bend and be reshaped there. If Picard season three is about coming out from under the shadow of the past two seasons and their heavy malaise, Liam Shaw, taking one shaky foot down the road to being a hero is in some sense, the Federation, the franchise itself, having been given permission by Strange New Worlds to be unapologetically, unselfconciously joyful.

Picard: says all the right things. That spiel about having one another's backs? A classic Picard monologue. Made me want to stand up and cheer!

Riker: not replaced by a Changeling, not replaced by Tom, but desperate to find a way to live or at least make amends. The payoff for his standoffishness in episode three was executed beautifully.

Seven: given license to work outside the chain of command and forging a reluctant alliance with Shaw as two prickly tellers of uncomfortable truths who genuinely care about the ship and crew.

Jack: is growing layers and nuance. I'm reluctantly softening on my grumpiness about the surprise love child trope. Trope it may be, dissonant with how Picard was characterized in the past it may be, but it is also being extremely well executed.

Some might also call out a minor continuity issue with Picard being greeted by a throng of young Starfleet in Ten Forward eager to ask questions and hear his stories. Supposedly only about a year has passed between each season so this would be squarely in the midst of Picard's malaise and disenchantment with Starfleet. To me this actually shores up the plausibility of the Federation's quick pivot at the end of Season One. Clearly Starfleet still seems to see itself in the same light after Mars as it did before even if Picard is still embittered to it. Picard may be unrecognizable to Starfleet Command's receptionist but he's still a hero to others.

Mayhaps there was a post Mars crop of new Starfleet who never agreed with Starfleet's more inward looking stance after Mars and were champing at the bit to be heroes? And perhaps Picard's feud was never with the rank and file but with the perpetually, even in TNG, hidebound and risk averse Admiralty?

#star trek picard #picard season 3 #picard spoilers #picard s3e4 #first reactions

[sometownie]

sims questions tag.

I was tagged in a few things but I’ve sort of forgotten to do them. This one was from @phoebe-twiddle​​ thank you for the tag ♥

1. What’s your favourite sims death?

I would rather all my sims die of old age, tbh. But I really do like the cowplant death (feed your enemy to the plant and use it to lengthen your own life?? amazing). Also I’ve never experienced the murphy bed death, that’d be fun to see!

2. Alpha CC or Maxis Match?

I’m somewhere between mm and realistic. I love good grunge cc and I have a soft spot for photoskinned jeans, but I also love crunchy bright mm hair colors and I try to use maxis items as often as I can.

3. Do you cheat when your sims gain weight?

No way. The sim either loses the weight themselves or embraces it. However my playing style is very systematic, which means that sims do certain things in certain order during the day, and they rarely do gain weight. Also, talking about this feels a little icky.

4. Do you use move objects?

You can’t even place modular stairs next to a wall without moveobjects, so yeah.

5. Favorite mod?

hmmmmm I don’t think I could live without the first born syndrome fix that’s included in Lazy Duchess’ RPC launcher. I could go fully without mods but you’d have to tear fbs fix from my cold dead hands.

6. First expansion/game/stuff pack you got?

The first expansion pack I got was the House Party exp for TS1. However my base game was the deluxe edition which also had Livin’ Large. And I followed the same pattern with TS2 - Nightlife was the first one I just had to get.

7. Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing?

Alive. You’d call it “Living mode” if you were to pronounce it like that, wouldn’t you?

8. Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made?

*waves hands towards her*

*crowd boos*

9. Have you made a simself?

Yeah, for a tumblr header pic.

10. What sim traits do you give yourself?

sloppy / shy / lazy / neither serious nor playful / nice

11. Which is your favorite EA hair color?

I like the og black, red and brown. In general I don’t like too yellowish blonde hair, but then again....... I just posted a pic of Greta with yellow hair. So. Yeah.

12. Favorite EA hair?

Does the gorgeous store hair count? The one that I used for Babette Black? I have no idea what it’s called :’)

I also really like aline, shorttuckin, and caesar (especially the mtf version).

13. Favorite life stage?

Adult, no question about it.

14. Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay?

I spend a lot of time building, but I still prefer live mode gameplay. Currently building is burning me out so I try to focus on gameplay.

15. Are you a CC creator?

Not a creator but I’ve done some tiny things for myself :)

16. Do you have any simblr friends/a sim squad?

lol

17. What’s your favorite game? (1, 2, 3, or 4)

2 ♥

18. Do you have any sims merch?

Not official sims merch but I do have a clothing patch with a plumbob and the text “Motherlode” and “I wish it worked in real life”. Also a few pins.

19. Do you have a YouTube for sims?

No.

20. How has your “sim style” changed throughout your years of playing?

To be honest...... I don’t think my style has changed all that much. If anything I’m slowly reverting back to my old habits. Here’s a post about this I made.... three years ago.

21. What’s your Origin ID?

I’m not sure but it’s Sometownie something something.

22. Who’s your favorite CC creator?

Okay this is a shoutout to @jacky93sims​​ and @pforestsims​​! I absolutely love the stuff you guys do! ♥

23. How long have you had a simblr?

Since 2010........ I haven’t always been too active, though.

24. How do you edit your pictures?

I got Reshade not long ago so now I only crop the pictures before posting. Makes things so much easier and faster. More time for playing.

25. What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next?

ᕕ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )ᕗ

26. What expansion/game/stuff pack is your favorite so far?

I still do think it’s Nightlife. It’s an integral part of The Sims 2 for me. Of stuff packs I adore Mansion & Garden, a lot of my favorite items/bodyshop stuff are from M&G.

#challenge tag