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trying to fix the plot holes in my fic

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Clver, think about it...shadowire (platonic or romantic) domestic fluff,,, or just fluff,,, angsty fluff? ps this is just my sleep deprived ramblings

Like...

- Post Hourglass Omen being found by Cypher (probably willingly i don't see Cypher going to go see Omen if he'd rather not see Cypher) and just...a talk. Omen venting. Cypher comforting Omen and listening quietly. And then cuddles. A kiss when Cypher leaves Omen be again and an orange, "for luck," Cypher would say (knowing it had no such meaning)

- Pre Hourglass, Omen coming to see Cypher at night, cuddles and physical intimacy mixed with quietness, because if nothing else Over feels just a little more grounded when Cypher is holding him.

- Cypher noticing little quirks Omen has. Sometimes Cypher tells Omen about what he's noticed. Omen enjoys it because it at least means he's still human if nothing else. (I mean, what kind of monster has a preferred sitting position or a certain kind of wool they enjoy knitting the most?)

- Above, but roles exchanged. Omen notices things about Cypher that makes him Cypher and some that makes Amir. It's weird, Cypher thinks, I'd hate being known but it feels natural with Omen. (Inspired mostly by hermit card, which normally means like being known by no one but yourself)

ehh welp thas all i got in the brain goodnight I'm by no means asking you to draw any of these i just saw your ask thingy and went "bet lemme think"

Noooooo stop I stg every single member of the cyphmen community has the exact same headcannons please 😭😭😭

(Not that I’m complaining, that just means more food for all of us)

ANYWAY all of these are wonderful ideas and I definitely want to write all of them!!! Unfortunately I am rather swamped right now bc senior design is kicking my ass and job hunting is harder than ranking up in val, and my current hyperfixation is a game called Noita…

But I’ll definitely get back to writing as soon as my life stops being as volatile as a bucket of acetone.

Also I wrote a short thing for the hourglass thing I hope you like it! I’ll respond to the other prompts later

Post hourglass Omen:

I think he would shut himself in his room for a while and just sit there, completely overwhelmed and not sure where to go or what to do next.

Since it’s cannon that Omen can sense others emotions, I think pre-HG Omen would have already sensed a timid friendship and significant fear from Viper, but it wasn’t until post-HG that he knows why. He’s having this world-shattering realization that one of the few people he has trusted and befriended in this lifetime not only doesn’t return that friendship, but actively fears him, and for good reason.

Imagine learning that your best friend fears you, for an incident you would have never learned of—had you not hired a shady information broker to find it out for you.

Confirming that she sees you as a monster— something you never wanted to be.

Yeah, I’d be pretty lost and upset too.

So Omen is gonna be hiding in his room trying to figure out a path forward and simultaneously avoid thinking about said path forward.

Cypher, being the nosiest man alive, a friend of Omen’s, and also the guy who helped orchestrate the mission in the first place, is not gonna sit there and let Omen feel so alone.

He shows up and Omen really wants to just slam the door and tell him to fuck off, but he really doesn’t have the energy (and also can’t really afford to burn more bridges at the moment). So begrudgingly he lets him in.

Cypher softly says his name, “Omen,” but the shadow doesn’t dare look him in the eye. Instead he stares at the sentinel’s belt. Browth leather. Battle-worn. Probably replaced several times over, like Omen’s own combat gear.

The sentinel approaches, and Omen can feel a protective sentiment befitting his role as a Sentinel. It’s soothing, he’s felt it before, but he really wishes he weren’t the subject of such a keen emotion right now.

Cypher’s gloved hands come up to rest on the sides of his own shoulders. The intent is to be reassuring, but Omen doesn’t find it to be such. What is he supposed to do with his own hands, anyhow? Touch Cypher’s shoulders? His belt, or chest?? His waist???

Well, the chest option is gone, because the next thing he knows Cypher’s chest is pressed against his own. And his arms are wrapped around his back.

Omen always knew humans were warm, but for some reason, he had always imagined Cypher to be cold. Maybe it was the utter lack of skin showing. The minimal expressions in his mask. The way he never so much as brushed hands with anyone else in the Protocol, as if he were a robot like KAY/O. Hell, the literal killer-bot had a warmer attitude than Cypher most of the time. Maybe it was…

Whatever.

Cypher is warm. Like any other human. Embracing him without any reservations at all.

No fear. No pity. No grief.

It makes him feel like, for one moment, that maybe he isn’t a monster after all.

Omen responds in the only way he can think of: he ducks his head down and buries his face in Cypher’s collar, and lifts his hands up to Cypher’s back and pulls him as close as he can.

He smells like bar soap and leather. And something else more organic, musky almost like sweat, but that can only be described as subtle and pleasant.

Alas, their embrace cannot last forever. Poor Cypher is a man, not a scented candle or a stuffed animal that can be basked in or embraced forever. Omen releases him, already missing the warmth and the scents and the textures and the intimacy, but he would rather save face and keep Cypher comfortable than anything else.

Cypher seems�� satisfied.

Omen isn’t sure how he feels.

There’s a long pause.

“I am not my past,” he blurts, immediately wishing he didn’t. He almost says something else to brush it away, but he knows that doing so will only dig a deeper hole for himself. He says nothing more and hopes Cypher will have the courtesy to do the same.

But the Sentinel, as always, has other plans.

“Neither am I.”

Omen’s gaze snaps up at that.

The Sentinel then reaches into a bag of items that he had discarded upon entering, and produces a ball of yarn and a small tin box.

“I have spent the last decade of my life paying for crimes too heinous to be named.” He comes to stand in front of Omen once again. “They called me everything from a villain to a monster to, well. ‘Villain’ and ‘monster’ in more callous terms.”

Cypher chuckled humorlessly. Omen dared not ask who ‘they’ was referring to, but got the feeling that he didn’t need to.

“I am not absolved from my past. I cannot fix the innumerable lives I have ruined or the things I have destroyed.”

Then he lifted the little tin up to his face. “But then again, what kind of monster has a favorite type of tea?”

In his other hand, outstretched to Omen, was the ball of yarn. “Or a favorite type of wool?”

Omen just stared at it. Cashmere imported from India, said the label.

“To the best of my ability— which admittedly isn’t much— I left it all behind.” Cypher somberly bushes the tips of gloved fingers across his masked cheek. “My name. My face. My skin, even.”

Omen tilted his head at that last one. It sounded painful. But then again, what about Cypher’s existence wasn’t?

“Like me, you might carry the legacy of a monster. But that does not mean you are one.”

The cashmere is soft in Omen’s hands. He runs his thumb along each strand, marveling in the gift. On its own, it didn’t feel deserved. But when he looks back sees the tin of tea being cradled in Cypher’s own hands, it does.

Former monsters sitting under a warm roof with their silly little domestic joys: the thought of it almost makes Omen laugh.

Cypher must have seen the way the tension eased from Omen’s shoulders, because now he is chuckling too.

Bastard.

“Omen,” the informant takes the revenant’s hand and says his name with that dratted melody of affection in his voice, “Would you like to knit while I brew us some tea?”

———————————————

Since you suggested an orange:

It’s a very cute idea— I think oranges are for luck and wealth in Chinese culture, not sure about other ones tho.

Unfortunately I’ve come to kind of associate them with mourning. My grandma passed away last summer, and my grandpa and I leave flowers and oranges on her gravestone when we visit. So I didn’t feel like writing that into this little story lol

And yeah I also incorporated your “what kind of monster has a favorite kind of wool?” Thing in here wahoo

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Shoutout to @howidkill for leaving several paragraph long reviews on all my works it means the world to me and every time I upload I wait for your reply/comment like a cat sitting at the kitchen counter waiting for a treat

I love your engagement with my work and please please never stop, it keeps me motivated to keep writing

There’s a fic on fanfiction(.)net that I’ve kept tabs on for years to see if it’s been updated or not. While I’m no longer even in the fandom it’s written for, it just has one of the greatest storylines I’ve ever read. Last time it was updated was 2011.

The other day, I decided to reread the entire thing and leave a very in-depth review of what I thought of each chapter. I also mentioned how I started reading it when I was 13 and am now 21, but always came back to see if it was ever finished because I loved it so dearly.

Today, said author sent me a private message saying that her analytics showed that the story was still getting views even after all these years, but no one ever bothered to leave reviews other than “update soon!!!”, so she never felt motivated enough to finish it. She said that me reviewing every single chapter with lengthy paragraphs made her cry and meant the world to her. She also mentioned that she felt encouraged to write the two remaining chapters needed to complete the story and that she would send me a message the night before she updates the fic.

I’m literally sobbing. I’m so excited :’)

Please always remember to leave a review when reading fanfiction!!! It means a lot to a writer.

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this has seen some fantastic use amongst my friend group

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a black mask with one luminescent eye open and the other eye closed

haloed by a pristine white hat and polished silver armor

altogether embraced by the dark layers of a wraith’s bandages

Together they sit pretty, moon-white coat and a midnight-blue cloak

a man who digs up secrets for a living, and a man searching for secrets about his past life

a spy who faked his death and a soul brought back from the dead

When we meet it is an eclipse:

The same themes in two stories

traveling on different paths, but here they cross for a fleeting moment

Nora may have been your light, Amir, but I am your shadow.

waitwaitwait guys guys guys do u see my vision yes or no

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Good stuff.

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You will see this too

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“And they stood there, side by side, and didn’t speak.”

Song lyrics from “Yui” by Ampyx (2019)

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Ascent after dark

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I understand people have concerns about Clove's identity being steamrolled, but I also feel like it's a Very Weird critique to say they should've been more androgynous to 'fix' that

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If your plot feels flat, STUDY it! Your story might be lacking...

Stakes - What would happen if the protagonist failed? Would it really be such a bad thing if it happened?

Thematic relevance - Do the events of the story speak to a greater emotional or moral message? Is the conflict resolved in a way that befits the theme?

Urgency - How much time does the protagonist have to complete their goal? Are there multiple factors complicating the situation?

Drive - What motivates the protagonist? Are they an active player in the story, or are they repeatedly getting pushed around by external forces? Could you swap them out for a different character with no impact on the plot? On the flip side, do the other characters have sensible motivations of their own?

Yield - Is there foreshadowing? Do the protagonist's choices have unforeseen consequences down the road? Do they use knowledge or clues from the beginning, to help them in the end? Do they learn things about the other characters that weren't immediately obvious?

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the ppl making tierlists abt which agents would and wouldn't respect cloves gender and preferred pronouns are fucking weirdos. respecting someone's gender isn't a personality trait or quirk or hobby it's a basic human respect and decency. esp in a place as diverse as the protocol with so many diff countries of origin and languages and skin colors and sexualities why tf would their diversity and respect for one another stop at gender.

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Any Nighttime in Las Vegas spoilers/hints/tidbits to keep us fed? 👀

Nighttime in Las Vegas - author notes on future updates!!

Okay first of all, thank you for the ask!! I am extremely honored by your investment in the fic 🥰

Note: I am not sure how heavy you wanted the spoilers to be when you submitted the ask, so I kept it on the more vague side. I hope this satisfies what you were looking for!

This work is my most ambitious to date and has been an inspiring and invigorating challenge. The effort I have put into this work has been enourmous, and I am incredibly grateful for all the attention the work has gotten. Thank you!! 🎉💕

More info below cut! Non-spoiler (chapter 5) updates first, then Major Spoilers (chapters 6, 7, and 8) next.

Chapter 5 (most recently uploaded chapter):

- Chapter 5 (specifically scenes 11/Medbay and 12/Brimstone’s Office) currently being re-written. I thought that scene 11 was pretty sloppily written and there was a lot of key info that didn’t get properly communicated, and the changes are intended to communicate the plot line with better storytelling/use of characters and dialogue. The major changes in scene 11 are complete and I am doing minor fixes to scene 12 to keep the story consistent.

- To elaborate on the above, scenes 11 and 12 establish that: 1) Omen was rescued per his Distress Call, and Cypher was not. 2) Omen needed to be revived, and is still injured. 3) Fade has been sent on a Search and Rescue mission for Cypher. 4) in discussion with Sage and Brimstone, it is discovered that the mission Cypher and Omen were on was not approved, and that the documents Omen has access to are not in the database and likely forged. 5) Killjoy performs an assessment showing that there have been no external threats / sources of tampering that could be responsible for this incident. 6) Sage and Brimstone bring up Cypher’s history of secret missions, defying orders, and otherwise sketchy business. 7) Omen insists that he was not aware of this history, and asks to compare his own mission history to that of the database to see what else he has been unknowingly doing. He finds three other missions of suspicious origin.

Chapter 6 (in the works):

- Chapter 6 will begin with Cypher’s return. Brimstone interrogates him about his actions and motivations and Cypher attempts to gaslight gatekeep girlboss his way out of guilt, but it backfires and only makes him look worse.

- He does not tell the entire truth about himself, but he specifies that Omen is innocent. Omen is thus cleared of all charges of treason.

- Omen, having discovered that Cypher has lied to him about their joint missions, is furious. He has conflicting loyalties— one to the Protocol, his home, his entire livelihood; and to Cypher, his mission partner, his protector and protected, and his good friend. To have one betray the other is world-shattering.

- Cypher is placed under arrest at HQ. His duties are distributed among the other Agents including Sova, Fade, and Killjoy.

- Omen overhears a conversation where Cypher is begging Fade to let him go with her to Las Vegas, stating that she knows what happens to him there and he can’t let the same happen to her. Fade brushes him off and says her Radiant abilities will ensure her safety.

- Omen visits Cypher in jail to confront him. An argument ensues.

- At the end of the argument, Cypher tells Omen to bring the Box to Viper. He thinks she can help.

Chapter 7 (not drafted):

- chapter 7 deals with the fallout between Cypher and Omen.

- Cypher is in jail, but as you might imagine, he tries to break out. He manages to escape Headquarters without setting off any alarms, because well, he built them himself and can take them apart just as easily.

- By happenstance, Omen sees him escape through the portal at headquarters but is unable to stop him. He follows Cypher through the portal.

- Cypher reveals some information about his past, i.e. everything he didn’t say during his interrogation.

- When Omen realized that he can’t convince Cypher to come back to the Protocol on his own, he shoots him neatly in the head and princess-carries his body back to the Medbay.

Chapter 8

- cypher realizes he is stuck in HQ jail again. Screaming crying throwing up (RIP babygirl but he did it to himself)

- Omen takes the box to viper. He tells her outright not to lie, he’s already had enough of Cypher’s bullshit.

- Sabine tells him what she knows.

More notes:

I am doing my best to publish chapters that are well-planned and well-refined. Unfortunately, having ADHD + fretting over details 24/7 means I am not a very speedy writer, and I apologize for the long waits between chapters.

The document I have in my computer is much more extensive and includes dialogue and additional scenes, but I’d classify those as major spoilers and didn’t include them here. I also have plot points planned out for the rest of the fic, but those are major spoilers in addition to being undecided/malleable so I didn’t want to set them in stone here.

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VERY IMPORTANT ANALISYS FOR GAYMERS

A while back i felt a lil annoyed that the hit game Valorant with quite the money pool diddn't have a gay agent and so i put my self in the field, by trying to find the gayest agent. Have fun.

I made earlier this year for the R platform but, here the vibes are better

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Nighttime in Las Vegas chapter 5 sketches because brainrot

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Nighttime in Las Vegas chapter 5 sketches because brainrot