#I'm honestly quite proud of this! woo

[caluupin]

ARCHONS TO SEND OFF THE YEAR!!! (kind of a redraw from last year's September)

[king-wyrmwood-art]

Kitsuneisi Art Study!

This is an art study of @kitsuneisi, using mostly references from their tumblr. I wanted to do an art study and was super excited for the new DDVAU update so woo!

I've written some notes in the margins of each drawing and would love to go more in-depth about both our styles and the general process, but this post would be so incredibly long so I'll refrain for now. (I might break it up into separate parts and turn this into a master list one day).

This first three are the base of any art study: leaning the proportions and sketching style of the artist! The first image is from @xmaruu11's first Twitch stream, which I discovered a few days in my study and watched to get a sense of Kitsuneisi's sketching style.

The main difference between our styles is that Kitsuneisi's poses are more fluid and they draw the face first, whereas my poses are stiffer and I drawn the head first.

Kitsuneisi and I use different drawing programs, so I couldn't quite make a brush that matched theirs; from looking at their Valentine's comic (which I chose so that colours wouldn't distract me), I noticed the line variation lent a lot to the fluidity.

Colour theory my beloathed! While I was laying out the colours for the Scar drawing, I noticed that the blue Kitsuneisi used was very warm-toned. In almost all of the light-hearted scenes, they use warm colours or warm-tinted colours, while the more serious scenes use darker or cooler tones.

The lighter, warmer backgrounds in the office scenes/G being a simp give a more wholesome feel, while the darker backgrounds in serious moments give a more intense atmosphere.

Now, all that's great, but it's time to put it into practice!

For my sketch, I tried to use a more dynamic pose and focus on making the face a focal point.

In my lineart, I tried to vary my line thickness.

For the flat colours, I used mostly warm tones and tried to match the colours used in the comics, but my love of cool tones took over the Mother Spore wings. I think it makes a nice contrast, at least.

And the final image! (I'll be posting it separately). The background adds a better contrast and helps Grian stand out despite how dark some of the colours are. I'm honestly very proud of this piece and hope both Kitsuneisi and Maru like it too. :)

[astarion-approves]

Hello! I love your blog! Could you possibly do a drabble with a tav that gets really flustered/panics when flirted with or complimented trying to converse with Astarion?

Even I was swooning

Astarion x Gender Neutral Tav

Summary: They knew that he would just be standing there… handsomely. Flicking through the pages of his book, the contents of which were unknown to Tav but they liked to imagine it was a steamy romance novel. Those flame filled eyes scanning over the pages, uncaring of what anyone else did with their evenings. Until he caught Tav staring that is. (Or Astarion uses cheesy pickup lines to try and woo Tav) Tags: Love Confessions, Flustered Tav, Soft Astarion, Attempt at Humor, Fluff, Bickering, Drabble, Tumblr request, Cheesy, cheesy pickup lines, all of which I'm very proud of, gender neutral reader, 1.2k words

Read below or on Ao3

While, after a day of killing goblins and fighting a hag in a swamp, a night at camp sounded like a relief for most; that wasn’t the case for Tav. They busied themselves, building a fire, carefully stacking each piece of wood while keeping their eyes low and forcing themselves not to look up to where Astarion stood. 

They knew that he would just be standing there… handsomely. Flicking through the pages of his book, the contents of which were unknown to Tav but they liked to imagine it was a steamy romance novel. Those flame filled eyes scanning over the pages, uncaring of what anyone else did with their evenings. 

Until he caught Tav staring that is. 

Each night was the same. Tav would stack spare logs nearby, build a fire on their knees, and help Gale to set up any cooking supplies, all while desperately fighting the urge to look up and lock eyes with Astarion. And each night they failed miserably.  

Astarion knew the moment Tav’s eyes were on him, his eyes jumping up from the pages and staring right back at them, a smirk growing on his lips and he snapped the book closed. Then he would stroll over, running a hand through his hair and swapping that smirk for a charming smile. 

Then the flirting would begin. A different line every night, each one cheesier than the last, but still managing to make Tav blush—

“Is that fire hot? Or is it just you?” 

“I do love seeing you on your knees, darling.” 

“You handle that wood quite well.”

“Is something burning? No? Perhaps it’s just your burning loins.” 

Of course tonight was no different. Tav cursed to themselves as Astarion made his way over. They would always attempt to ignore him, to pretend that they never locked eyes and that Tav didn’t notice him approaching. Gale stood off to the side, the wizard prepping their dinner and already accustomed to the little game that Astarion loved to play. He sighed as he chopped a few potatoes, mumbling under his breath how Tav lasted even shorter than usual. 

The crunching of boots over rocks and dirt signaled his arrival, but Tav kept their eyes on the fire, refusing to look up—

For as long as they could manage anyway. 

“Tav, If you inhale too much smoke, I’ll gladly give you CPR.” 

“What?!” Gale turned from his prepping and tossed his knife to the side. “Astarion, that one doesn’t even make sense!” 

“Mind your business, Gale.” Tav finally looked up to where he stood, Astarion now glaring at Gale with his arms crossed over his chest. “Or well.. I mean.. Honestly, I’m running out of pickup lines here. I’d like to see you come up with something better.” 

“How about ‘Stop, drop, and… roll into bed with me?” Gale offered. 

“Hm. Too forward. I try to be more subtle with Tav, but.. I can understand why someone like you would use a line like that.” 

“Right……. Because offering mouth to mouth is much more subtle.” 

“I’m so glad we could agree!” 

Gale rolled his eyes and turned back to the vegetables. “Just get on with it, would you?” 

Astarion brought his focus back to Tav, silently offering a hand to help them stand. “You know, if you didn’t get so damn flustered I wouldn’t have to do this every night.” 

Tav laughed, their eyes dropping to the ground between them. “I can’t help it… you’re so—“

“—Devilishly handsome, unbelievably charming, an elf with a smile to die for—“

Gale snorted. “A pompous ass—“

Astarion ignored him. “Luscious hair, pouty kissable lips—“

“—Yes, yes, all of those things… Minus the pompous ass,” Tav said and paused. They pressed their lips together, thinking a moment before continuing. “Well, maybe a little bit of a pompous ass.” 

“So then, what’s the problem here?” Astarion gestured between them, his arms waving back and forth quickly. “I like you, and darling, you clearly like me…” 

“Astarion..,” Tav began. “You’re so far out of my league… I can’t help but think there is some kind of ulterior motive for you to be showing so much interest in me.” 

“I assure you, there isn’t. Not… Well, not anymore anyway.” 

“‘Not anymore’?” Gale asked. “What the hells is that supposed to mean?” 

“Gale, why don’t you scurry the fuck along and leave us to it?” Astarion hissed. 

“Oh, I’m enjoying this far too much. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you’re about to confess your love for them, and I’m not missing out on that.” 

“Yes, but—“

“Then confess already, Mystra help you, you’re hopeless…”

“Look,” Astarion sighed and turned his attention fully to Tav, ignoring the laugh that Gale sent his way. “I’ve never had actual real feelings for another person before. I don’t know how to approach a person without the intent of stealing them away for Cazador’s benefit. When I first met you I planned to use you, to have you as some kind of shield if he were to ever find me… But then.. I fell for you. 

“And of course, not knowing how to woo someone without using my body… I went the cheesy pickup lines route. Which I know isn’t exactly endearing, or really attractive… I just didn’t know how else to interact with you! I want you to be comfortable with me, to trust me like I trust you… 

“And darling, since I’m being honest here— you are in no way below me. Do you seriously not know how painfully attractive you are? I’ve been losing my mind with desire since day one. The way you smile at me and make me feel like the most important man in the world, how you run to my side for so much as a hangnail, when you laugh at my jokes, or blush just from my gaze—

“I’ve fallen so madly in love with you, it pains me to think of a life without you, and we haven’t so much as hugged…— um Tav? Are you alright?” 

Their hands covered their face, shaking their head as the heat continued to build in their cheeks. This was too much for them to handle. The occasional flirting was already playing games with their heart, but now? A full confession? “I might— I might need a minute.” 

“I think you broke them,” Gale moved to stand beside Astarion and reached out to poke the back of Tav’s hand. 

Astarion did the same, both of them just poking at the back of Tav’s hands— until they crouched down to avoid them, dropping their head between their knees and muffling a scream into their pants. 

“That was a hell of a confession,” Gale admitted. “Even I was swooning.” 

“Why thank you.” 

“Now what?” 

Astarion hummed. “I’m not sure.” 

“Want me to cast a spell on them or something?” 

Astarion waved him off. “Darling.” Astarion bent down and ran his hand down the back of Tav’s head. “You did hear that I love you, didn’t you?” 

“Yes,” they mumbled. “And I love you too.” 

“Well then, I suppose that’s that.” Gale laughed. “Maybe now they’ll stop melting into a damn puddle around you.” 

“Hah! I doubt it.”

------------

Later~

Gale: Before, you said you wanted to be more subtle.

Astarion: Yes?

Gale: But one night you insinuated that you wanted Tav to give you a blow job.

Astarion: …..

Gale: …..

Astarion: …I didn't want to admit that I liked your pick-up line.

Gale: HAHA! I knew it! I win.

Astarion: One of us has Tav napping in their tent, looking adorable as ever. Who's the real winner?

Gale: …Touché.

[eightmakesonebraincell]

OKAY BUT COACHELLA LAST NIGHT THERE WERE YEOSANGIE NIPNOPS AND HWA NIPNOPS AND SANNIE NIPNOPS AND MINGI NIPNOPS AND I THINK MY SOUL LEFT MY BODY WITH HOW MUCH I WAS STARING AT THEM ALL SO DISRESPECTFULLY BECAUSE THOSE PANTS GENTLEMEN (Addie tries to be a good girl. Tries. I'm only a human woman T-T) No word of a lie though, after the first set of songs I was staring at Woo and Yuyu with their sleeves rolled up over their arms (I'm a sucker for a guy in a button up with his sleeves rolled up, don't @ me for it) and I was commenting how they needed to stop because I was having some very impure thoughts AND THEN HONGJOONG STARTS SPEAKING WITH HIS JACKET OFF AND HIS SLEEVES ROLLED UP LIKE EXCUSE ME CAPTAIN YOU WEREN'T LIKE THAT LITERALLY 30 SECONDS AGO WHAT THE HELL MAN (listen when Captain does little things like that my delulu goes off the RAILS okay) Hwa screaming. Hwa doing rude things with his tongue while wearing a cowboy hat. Hwa kissing the team ring at the end. JONGHO CAN SPIN FLAG WITHOUT GETTING A SAIL MY COLOR GUARD HEART WAS SO DAMN PROUD OF OUR MAKNAE HONGJOONG'S EYES DURING WONDERLAND SIR CAN YOU NOT FOR FIVE SECONDS BITCHES WERE EYEING THEM DURING THOSE PELVIC THRUSTS AND BOOTY SHAKES (it's me I'm bitches) I have a lot of feelings I'm sorry I needed to gush and there isn't a lot of people in the Midwest USA that know Kpop so T-T

ateez and kq quite obviously don't care about the wellbeing of their fans because they were quite literally like

(along with the fact that they dropped a comeback announcement like HELLO??? RELEASE THE TOUR DATES AND SEND OUT THE ANITEEZ MERCH FIRST)

and both my parents decided to watch coachella with me on the ULTRA HD TV so you can imagine how hard it was for me to keep a straight face whilst extremely hot and sexy half-nekid men growled and tried to make the audience bark 👹

but GOOD LORD did they do just as well this week DARE I SAY EVEN BETTER (also coachella really picked up their slack and fixed the camera work and smoke screen like SLAY thanks for blessing us with the wooyo booty twerk zoom 😍🍑) god yes all of them were so [redacted redacted redacted] and i honestly [redacted redacted redacted redacted redacted] and UGH HWA SCREAMING HIS WHOLE SOUL OUT DURING WONDERLAND 👏👏👏 KING 👏👏👏 but also diD YOU SEE MINGI JUMP AND FALL HAHAHAHA i mean um did you see mingi's very artistic stage parkour 🤭

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Reflecting on my work in 2022

As this official Hell Of A Year™ draws to a close, I guess it is appropriate to both reflect on what I've been doing this year, as well as do a bit of plugging for work which I am proud of.

So here's a list of some of the videos I made this year, along with some thoughts on their creation and how I feel about them, some self-criticism, some behind-the-scenes, and a little self-congratulation where it is appropriate.

I struggle somewhat with memory and a clear sense of time - to me, time is more of a continuous stream than a series of delineated moments. This is often frustrating - I get lost in it, and when I look back on a list of my work and activities, it is less an experience of "oh yeah, ha ha, that happened" and more of a "wait what do you mean that happened then? And before that other thing? But after that one? What the hell?"

Worst case scenario, it can be kinda distressing, honestly. It feels out of control, anxiety inducing, like I don't have a handle on my life.

... which is an absolutely fantastic tone to strike for a New Year's list of my favourite videos. 2023, woo!

The Boss Designs of Bloodborne Finale (February)

It took me nearly three months after the penultimate episode of the series to finally put this video out. My The Boss Designs Of series is some of the best work I've ever created, at least I think so. It's certainly some of the most creatively fulfilling work I do, and some of the most challenging too.

I try to walk a line between providing a fresh perspective on the games I've played for the series, but not getting contrarian or off-the-wall just for the sake of it. With Bloodborne, I do think I managed some really good critical contributions to the readings of the game, like my reading of the Blood-starved Beast as a self-sacrificing martyr for the beast community of Old Yharnam, which was apparently quite novel, or my crackpot Parasite Theory of Bloodborne's madness.

And I do think I've gotten better and better at editing gameplay footage too, I think I've managed to learn a good balance between joke-edits and continuity and story editing. I always kinda fret on the one hand that the gameplay footage and my live commentary is too boring to stand on its own, and on the other hand that editing in too many jokes and gags would just be obnoxious and tedious to sit through.

The thing Bloodborne nails more than any other horror game I've seen is the sensation of the nightmare. And not just in its visuals or its monster designs or the surface storytelling, but in the push and pull between extremely specific imagery and story beats and complete ambiguity the moment you scratch at the surface. Bloodborne is on the one hand a fairly obvious story about the abuses of organized religion and unethical science, but then underneath that there's also this deep obsession with the violence done to women's bodies specifically, and how that violence spills out and caustically eats into the humanity of everyone who is complicit in it.

And then underneath that there's an exploration of birth trauma, where the Great Ones are parental figures as incomprehensible to the player as parents are to a newborn child, pushing you here and pulling you there and inflicting incomprehensible violations of your bodily autonomy out of apparent sympathy.

And underneath all of that... it's also about how cool it would be to transform into a werewolf, actually. The themes of self-creation and transformation and claiming monsterhood as self-empowerment are incredibly queer and especially apt for trans readings.

It all flows together in this soup of imagery and meaning that I cannot crystalize into a unifying Theory of Bloodborne, no definitive reading, no comprehensive hot take. Which is frustrating when you're trying to create a video essay, but infinitely compelling when trying to think about it.

I don't know that I managed to capture all of that in the The Boss Designs of Bloodborne finale, but I do know that I tried to, and I'm proud of that.

Melina, the Maiden - Boss Designs of Elden Ring #1 (March)

Staying with The Boss Designs of, here's a video about which my feelings have become decidedly mixed. Not because of anything that is in the episode, mind you, but out of a certain disempowered bitterness I've developed about Elden Ring over the course of the year.

I cannot overstate how excited I was for Elden Ring, and how desperately I enjoyed finally getting to play it back in March. It's a brilliant game, an incredibly immersive world, and one which I badly want to return to.

... and then I didn't get to play the game for nine months. It was partly my own mistake - I tried recording an absolute ton of footage for episodes early, playing as much of the game as I could while it was still fresh, hoping to put out a lot of episodes of the series early while the game was fresh and Relevant In The Algorithm™, and also just out of sheer excitement. In so doing, though, I ended up shooting myself in the foot, because as I began to edit episodes together I also found myself feeling more and more distant from the experience of playing.

The pile of footage in front of me, begging to be converted into episodes, became a roadblock of work looming over me, a source of guilt and stress and frustration, that put extra stress on my mind every time I tried to make any other video and which stood between me and getting to play more of the game I have anticipated more than any other for years.

In 2023, I will get back to Elden Ring, I swear to god I will, but in the meantime I am quite happy with how the three episodes I've made of this series so far have turned out.

Also, the new intro song I commissioned from @trewatsonmusic absolutely slaps.

What's the deal with Zeri and Neon (June)

My ambition for the What's the Deal videos has always been to expand them beyond League of Legends (and I have done videos on characters from other things), but being a YouTuber is also my job, and League of Legends is the moneymaking subject on my channel, at least for now.

Not that I resent that. For all that League deserves the criticism it gets, I still insist that it has one of the greatest casts of characters in modern gaming, underserved and ignored though most of them are by Riot Games. There's so much to talk about once you get even a little bit under the surface, and I do feel like I've been doing a better and better job at doing that in the What's the Deal videos over 2022. Zeri, for example, is a fantastic addition to the class warfare dynamics of Piltover and Zaun, especially in her conflict with Renata Glasc and the themes that could be explored through that conflict. And it's not lost of me the extent to which she was a direct response to the xenophobic attacks on Asian-Americans that have surged out of American politics in recent years, either. There is value to proclaiming that someone like Zeri belongs in the worlds of big pop culture institutions like League of Legends, even if (as always) it is the workers at Riot Games making that proclamation, and Riot Games Inc. allowing it because it serves their commercial goals.

I brought in Nickyboi for an assist on this one as well, which is something I want to do more. I want to do more collaboration. First of all because it's nice to offload work to someone else, but also because this job is fundamentally kind of lonely. I'm just a guy in his office making videos 99% of the time, and collaborating with a fellow creator feels like being part of a creative community in a way that solo work and shitposting at each other on Twitter simply doesn't.

And I am proud of the little fanfiction snippets I've started writing in the The Future segments. One of the points of the What's the Deal videos is to communicate to an audience why I'm excited about a character, why I feel like they're worth giving a shit about, and I think those fanfiction segments have done a better job at getting that across than almost all of my character design and animation chatter. Plus, it's nice to flex a bit of creative muscle in that way now and then.

Speaking of which, I still need to write that happier ending for Kai'sa and Taliyah, don't I? I have A Plan™ for that, it's just about finding the time to make it real...

The 15 Most Beautiful Splash Arts in League of Legends (September)

This one is easily the biggest surprise of the year for me. In the latter half of 2022, I took quite a lot of sponsorships - first of all because they were offered (good lord there was a rush of them in August!), but also because I really wanted to save up and pay down debts.

One of the consequences of that was the extreme delay of Elden Ring, but another was that all of a sudden I had to get content out on a very set schedule. Most of my work is done on the steam of Whatever Catches My Creative Attention At The Time, but with a deadline hanging over my head, suddenly I had to find video ideas whether they presented themselves naturally or not.

I feared that a list-video would be a turn-off for my audience, I feared that it would be seen as shallow and tacky, like a 2010s Buzzfeed listicle. I feared that people just wouldn't be interested in the kind of art analysis I like to do, or would find it pretentious to seek meaning in what is - let's be real - commercial artwork meant to promote game cosmetics.

The benefit of a sponsorship is that the video has already made a profit, whether it does well or not, and I thought that in making this video, I was being self-indulgent and "ignoring" the desires of my audience.

Instead, it's one of the best performing videos ever on my channel, and people have cited it as a favorite among my videos quite a number of times.

Which was really... encouraging, honestly. I didn't expect it, but this video really did give me a confidence boost that the things I care about and find interesting do have an audience, even extra-nerdy rambling about League of Legends cosmetics.

Building a Better Soraka (September)

Building a Better is a series title I sometimes regret a little bit, because no matter how much I try to explain in the videos themselves that there is no such thing as a perfect character design and that my revisions and ideas are not meant to be definitive in any way, I always get comments from people accusing me of declaring myself The God of Character Design and sitting in holy judgment over the work I'm critiquing.

To an extent, I guess that's unavoidable on the internet, but... maybe the series title was a bad gamble on that front.

I do stand by, though, that my designs have a reasonable argument that they are improvements over the originals. Arguments that can be interrogated and criticized, but valid, reasonaed arguments, not mere polemics.

Building a Better Soraka was an experiment in creating the series, as instead of working with a single artist to iterate on design improvements, I ended up commissioning more than a half dozen people for artwork and using different renditions to make my argument. It did hurt the coherency of the video a little, I feel, but it did open me up to a much more flexible way to produce videos like it in the future, which I'm happy with.

Plus, I really do like what I came up with here, and I adore the ways that @sabtherobot, @sinizade and @lekyrin executed my ideas and brought their own visions of the character. Soraka is a character who deserves a lot better than the basic design she's stuck with, and whose story can do so much more visually than Riot is willing to allow it to do.

"Not Without You" - the story of Nasus and Renekton (November)

Of all the writing I did this year, this is by far what I am most proud of.

The video itself did not perform very well, nor did I expect it to, but the reactions I saw from the audience on this piece... yeah. That filled a very hungry part of my heart, I'm not gonna lie.

Writing a novel is a life ambition for me, as it is for many people. Actually writing it is a lot more elusive, though, in part because I struggle to feel confidence that my writing would ever hold up to the scrutiny of an audience. I struggle to feel that I would ever be able to connect emotionally with people, that I would be able to make what I feel sensible through writing.

This story proved that I can. Not to a big audience, perhaps, and I certainly don't have any delusions of genius or grandeur. I do not ever expect to be a famous or fêted writer, nor an important one. But... I do feel like with this story, I proved that I can at least be a competent one, which is frankly all I want.

And Nasus and Renekton were grateful subjects, too. Their story is naturally deeply emotional, albeit strangled by Riot's chronic indifference towards their most compelling narratives, and a lot of what I ended up exploring in there did come from a very genuine place in myself. It was nice to touch that part of my soul, and make something out of it, even if it's only silly fanfiction for a silly video game.

I am cautiously optimistic about 2023

Looking back over the videos I made this year, while I have a lot of work that I am proud of, I also see a lot of videos that I think I made less out of a desire to make them and more out of a fear of not making them. Videos that I made because I felt like the audience expected it, because the algorithm demanded it, because rent is always coming due and I am petrified of ever being broke again.

This is normal and natural, it is to some extent just the nature of the creative process under a capitalist market system where your work must always have some sort of price tag. But... I don't want to keep doing it. If I have an ambition for 2023, it is to make more of the videos I want to make, more videos that I only I can make. To give myself a little bit of a break and ease up on the self-recrimination and stress.

I have so many projects I want to get to, and being in my 30s I am becoming more and more conscious that while I (hopefully) have something like twice my current lifetime left to create the things I want, time is a finite resource, and spending it trying to please a website algorithm probably won't do me that much good in the end.

Anyway, some other things I did which I am quite proud of:

Played through God of War: Ragnarök while telling stories about the mythology of my childhood.

Ran around the world of Eorzea, accompanied by some of the funniest, silliest and most generous FFXIV players a man could dream of.

Finished a Pokémon HeartGold Nuzlocke with possibly the most nerve-wracking finish I have ever had to a Pokémon game

Reviewed every single Gen 1 Pokémon

Finished Great Ace Attorney Chronicles 1, probably the let's play with the most voice acting I have ever done. Some of it is even good!

If you've read this far, thank you so much for your time, your attention, your interest and your indulgence. Your 2023 be a good year, and may the tides of history wash gently over us all.

[neeterloveschenford]

More Thoughts on Tim Bradford

Woo boy! Are we going through it right now fam! I know that there has been a lot of discourse and negativity about Tim breaking up with Lucy last night. And while I truly believe that everyone's thoughts and feelings are valid, I'd like to put mine out there into the void on why I'm going to stand by both my boos even if I feel like the rug got pulled out from under me last night. So here we go......

The thing is, I get where Tim is coming from. Real talk here, my late teens and early twenties I was a mess. While I never went through what Tim went through when he was in the military, I understand that self-loathing he has struggled with for so long. I came from an abusive and neglectful family and still bear those emotional scars. I acted out and rebelled and did things I am not proud of. My family ended up intervening and my aunt and uncle took me to Arkansas to live with them. And then spent over a decade reminding me at every turn how big of a screw up I was. I remember thinking that I would never become a better person and that I was tainted for the rest of my life. Several years after I moved there I decided I wanted to get involved with the girl's ministry at my church and went to my pastor. I told him that despite all of the missteps I had made in the past, I wanted to become more involved with the program and hoped that he could look past the things I had done. My pastor was floored that I thought those things about me. He had actually been thinking about asking me if I was willing to become the director of the program. I had never had anyone make me feel like I was a good person before. It was life-changing. I began to believe that maybe I wasn't an epic failure. I ran that program for two years and during that time I re-connected with my family in Oklahoma. My mother and I had never had a real relationship and after we re-connected she told me she was proud of me. I eventually moved back home and now am quite happy with my life. But it took a really long time and a lot of self-reflection before I got to this point. And honestly I still have my days where I just feel like I'm still that messed up girl. But I have a support system with my mom, my step-dad, and my sisters that reminds me that I am worth it and that I am loved.

So I totally get where Tim is coming from. I don't know how many romantic relationships and friendships I tanked because I thought the other person was too good for me. Tim hates himself for putting his pride in his career first. He believes that his men died because of him. Because he wanted to protect his career and his reputation as a leader. He feels like Lucy is this good and honest person who would never put anyone else at risk to further something as small as a career. I mean she put her own career at risk just to help his. He thinks that her love for him will be her undoing because Tim doesn't believe he is worth the effort. God, it's breaking my heart just thinking about it. Of course, he's wrong. Lucy loves him so much that I think this will almost break her. But he has to realize his own value and worth. He will never get there unless he pushes forward and realizes how much the people in his life love and respect him.

And Lucy's not wrong to be angry at him. He is supposed to be her partner and he is, once again, making all the big decisions in the relationship. He decided that he's not what she needs in her life. While we have seen time after time that he is all that she needs. Tim needs to realize that Lucy's love is different from every other person that has ever loved him. It's unconditional. She doesn't care about his past mistakes. She loves him no matter what and believes he is the best man she knows. I know that one day he's going to have that ah ha moment like I did and see that his past doesn't define his future and he doesn't have to pay for his mistakes for the rest of his life.

Tim also reminds me of two of my all-time favorite characters from the last two fandoms I participated in on Tumblr. Oliver Queen from Arrow and Michael Guerin from Roswell New Mexico. They were both extremely flawed men that finally realized that they deserved their happily ever afters with the loves of their lives. But the people they loved helped them realize just how precious their lives really were. And guess what? Both Oliver and Felicity and Michael and Alex broke up. But they found their way back to each other and got their happily ever afters. So don't give up the faith my friends. Chenford is going to find their way back to each other. I refuse to believe they are any thing other than endgame.

[wint3r-h3art]

Do you have any thoughts/canons on how Attuma would react to one (or a few 👀) of his underlings having a crush on his girl?

Personally I'm quite conflicted about what his reaction would be, given that he can be quite complex regarding emotions. Like, on one hand, he's a man of few words, stand-offish, and cocky even. So he might find it amusing to see his underlings gazing at reader since they are no match to him, could be proud even by the fact that he is courting such a fine woman, whose beauty and power make heads turn. So, in that sense, I think his underlings' pathetic attempts might only inflate his ego and drive him to woo reader even harder?

On the other hand tho, Attuma is incredibly possessive and territorial. He is a primal dom and once he decides reader is his, oh she is his. So the sight of his underlings looking at her and even trying to get her attention would just infuriate him. Not because he feels threatened but because reader is his and the underlings are forgetting their place. He's their fucking General/War Chief after all. I can already picture him catching one trainee getting distracted as reader walks by during training, and trying to impress her with some battle moves or flexing some muscles. Attuma's face would just be disfigured in a mix between disbelief and rage before he lands a clean kick to the underling's chest or a blow with his spear, to remind him of his place and who tf he's looking at.

I'm pretty sure he would just kill all of them either way. Like Namor and Namora walking into the training room and being like WTF HAPPENED TO ALL OF THE TRAINEES??!! lmaoo jk

Anyway, would love to read your ideas on this!

OOOH OK! This is a good one, and I like where you're going with this. It's good to recognize realistic emotions. As a person, we are complex creatures, and we react differently.

Disclaimer that this is my interpretation of the character, and if you do disagree with it, I don't know what to tell you, aside from that this is the vibe I got, and I'm running with it.

I headcanon his personality to be self-assured, and confident to the point of arrogant/cocky. He knows that he's good at what he's doing, and he has the skills to do it--very alpha male mentality tbh. Despite me joking around about him being a himbo, I don't necessarily think he is one. He's clever than that, and also very self-righteous as well. The whole stand-offish thing definitely is just him being prideful. He knows that he can get you if he wants to, and he knows that no one can beat him if he were to challenge. It's just a matter of him wanting to do the courting or not. Obviously, his pride may get in his way just because he doesn't want to be just among your number of admirers.

So I definitely agree that he would definitely laugh it off when his underlings are trying to hit on you. I just don't think he makes it too obvious about it though--again, he's so proud of who he is. It wouldn't look good for him to be among the men that court you.

If he does do it on his term though, the courtship would be something grand, and perhaps lavish. Something that would show how much you meant to him as well as his status among his peers as well. As a war chief, it is probably expected for him to go all out--the grander and the more ostentatious, the better. It would obviously kick everyone off as his competition.

As for his possessiveness, I would say yes and no.

Yes, he will be possessive of you, but only when you are his. He can get all frustrated and angry all he wants, but if you haven't agreed to be his yet, you don't belong to him, and he can't do a damn thing about it, except to win your affection. He can try to scare off other men all he wants, but at the end of the day, you are not his yet.

Doing all those stuff may ruin your chance with you, and I honestly don't think he would unless he wants to try your patience. I think he's clever than that. The battle doesn't always have to be something physical. He can easily manipulate his way to you if he tries hard enough.

I still think he's gonna punish them regardless of what they're doing, just that maybe he's punishing the ones that specifically hit on you more than the rest because #pettyking 🤣🤣🤣

[graphicabyss]

DOS2: A Tale of Frustration

So BG3 doesn't run on my old PC so I turned to DOS2 to fill the void and I finished it out of pure spite. I'm sorry to all the fans but... omg why is it so frustrating? So I'm putting some of the things that were driving me crazy to get it off my chest.

the skill icons on the panel keep disappearing when I try to click them like 30% of the time

the 98 damage types and every enemy has a resistance to each of these

the undead heal from poison damage for some fucking reason

the fucking clouds. poison clouds can be extinguished by fire? makes total sense. Electric clouds? You're fucked unless you know a specific spell.

in half the fights everything ends up on fire, often cursed or necrofire. good luck!

Don't you just love the fights where you start of fighting 3 enemies and end up fighting 12? Not my idea of subverting the expectations.

crafting makes no sense, there are 6834673 items to be crafted and half of them are only useful in early game

how are you supposed to learn the recipes? you get some from dozens of crafting books but it's still only like 30%. How am I supposed to know hammer to a potato makes fries?

I was googleing up quests, crafting, combat and everything else every 5 minutes because I'm tired of going into shit blind but honestly it wasn't enough.

you are free to go anywhere except the areas all have specific levels so you struggle through enemies that are 2 levels higher and then find areas that are 3 levels lower you missed

And what's up with Arx? You expect a chill city phase and end up slaughtered wherever you go. And good luck finding those source points!

Half the quests only work if you have a specific character, specific race or trait and you don't know which. Better prepare for a fight.

Persuasion checks make no sense and you only know the requirements once you fail. Have a fun fight!

Finishing a really tough fight, being really proud of yourself... Looting the dead enemies only to fight... Sir Lora. That little bitch has a deathwish and shall run through necrofire and deathfog like its full of nuts. I redid almost every late-game battle more than once. Goddammit.

I appreciate the immersion but could the NPCs stop pacing for 5 seconds? I need to talk to them! I was running after Hannag for 5 solid minutes and only managed to speak to her after I froze the water making her fall.

The inventory drove me crazy... It's not just gear and potions. You have a pyromancer and the enemies are immune to fire? You better get those scrolls. 97 ingredients half of which you're never gonna use. And I just love putting all my keys into my bag of keys manually.

The armour, man. The armour has physical/magic protection stats, skill points, ability points and sometimes spells. So you wanna swap those gloves? LOL now you can't use 3 spells and are also overburdened.

Faithful Item Set. Just that alone. The set has like 9 items and they're all dispersed all over the map, with the most important parts found on random NPCs! Like, there's no quest relating to it, there are no clues. Just... look in every crate and trade with every single character, bro. Good luck! I got all the items using a very detailed guide... except not. Turns out I got the boots first and sold them off at some point. Woo!

Right-clicking doesn't work half the time. Wanna identify shit or disarm a trap? Nope. Wanna look up that boss that you're about to fight? Don't be a pussy, just hit them and see if it works.

I am using a reasonable number of giftbag perks. I'd probably quit without them by now.

Spent about 260 hours on this game and about 100 of it was just inventory sorting.

The final battle... where do I even start? You get all the spells, all the scrolls, all the potions... only to get one-shot by the fucking Kraken. I expected something epic and received an utter clusterfuck. I only managed to win after about 6 tries and only by drinking invisibility potions, waiting for everyone to murder each other and then finishing Rex.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. Sorry for your time.

[a-non-ymouswriter]

Damn, that's all i got to say. You're quite the ambitious on writer Remix like huh??? You're description really fits you. You ain't icarus flying towards the sun, you're a rocket ship propelling through space in light years per second to destination unknown. Like Three world dimensions you trying to write??? Piglin tribes??? Cultures and politics?! Woo that's sheer dedication. But then again you burned yourself attempting to write it. But alas i am shock to see Theo dying in Remix like it was not on my Remix bingo list. But anyway thanks for trying your best to explain the story in whole detailed, you did good mate. And as a reader I am proud about you. I am glad you're in other fandom writing new stuffs that makes you happy. Thanks again.

yeah i thought i was flying close to the sun but i definitely rocketing myself into the black hole there. i was too ambitious with remix, but i'm still glad i managed to make the outline and give you all a peek as to what could have been.

and thank you honestly, you and all the other readers. honestly nicholaspwildeblog you've been around since the beginning i'm pretty sure and the fact you're still here is amazing so thank you as well for your support :D

[mirror-to-the-past]

Here's some spoilers and discussion about my initial thoughts on Kingdom Hearts 2 below.

Nearing the end of my KH2 journey... I'd say this has probably been my favorite game so far, out of KH1, CoM, and now this. Overall, I'd say I like the composition of the story of CoM a tad more, but goddamn if the intro and outro haven't gone especially hard on KH2 (also has just generally been littered with several moments that have made the characters very endearing). And the gameplay... woo, actually is super fun. I love the love put into the reaction commands, and every fight is like a movie.

I got past the Roxas fight after like... 40+ tries, and was regretting immensely I decided to play in Proud mode. Never got frustrated at my boy, though- was just filled with respect, and it's seriously the best fight in the franchise thus far for me for giving well designed attacks that I felt were effectively telegraphed. I'm not quite sure how/why Roxas led Sora into what I assume was an internal battle, since he already seemed reabsorbed within Sora's being, but I can only assume Axel's sacrifice (since that happened right before this fight) must've reawoken him, in a way ("Tell me why 'he' chose you!") Poor Roxas has been having his life stolen. The Nobody dehumanization is such shit, dude. Roxas banging on Sora's braced keyblade over and over with that level of ferocity is fueled by such obvious rage that it's undeniable. God, he's living in my head unapologetically.

Meanwhile Xigbar was also... a fight. Less filled with respect, more frustrated about that one, lol. (I thought the sniper mechanics were pretty sick, though. Felt like I was doing Orbonne Monastary in FFXIV again). Can't help but assume several of these Organization members may maintain relevance in future installments in some way, since several seemed to have implied information/backstory that remained unrevealed prior to their disappearance (looking at you, Xigbar [casually referencing that there's been other Keyblade wielders before dying with zero explanation] and Saïx). The next game, 358/2 Days, looks like it's dealing with the Organization in what I assume is a prequel, so maybe backstory will be there?

Kairi and Riku have made my heart warm, and the whole trio's love for each other is honestly so sweet. I keep thinking about their reunion scenes and it's just... aaa, I feel crazy about it. When Kairi lowered Riku's hood and saw the face of Xehanort's Heartless and Riku looked so ashamed (then it cut away?? how dare), when Riku shielded Kairi with his body from Saïx's attack, when Kairi hugged Sora and said "this is real" because 😭 girl your abandonment issues and unachievable desire for constancy are making me feel things, and she's been struggling with the phantom sensation of forgetting someone she cared about for an entire y e a r, so having that confirmation... man. *Staring out to the ocean*

Felt so bad for her that Sora was so awkward about the hug she deeply needed, and didn't even realize the absence of the music until Sora reunited with Riku. 😂 And... oh my god, haha, that part got me. Not surprised that the Sixth Sense kid can pack a gut punch, ofc, he's got a long history of films making me weep, but like... "I looked for you! I looked everywhere for you!" While Sora was crying on his k n e e s and grasping Riku's hand like a lifeline was such amazing emotional payoff. Like, I've been joking with friends about Sora's unwavering "Riku, Riku, Riku" throughout the entire game, but damn if that didn't do a good job of making me invested via Sora, goddamn. I'm so happy my kid gets to see his silver haired punk again. And wowie, they're such a power duo? Their limit break "Eternal Session" is legitimately one of my favorite limit breaks alongside Vincent Valentine's "Satan Slam," from FF7 now. The synchrony of the dance where they pass off the weapons to each other, smooth as butter? Them going "back to back" between the different phases of their LB? (Which is adding to my evaluation of the poems from CoM I've had in the back of my head the entire damn game, by the way...) The clash of their keyblades, and the duality red-blue color scheme? Be still, my artistic heart, they're too much. For this, and the honestly impressive expression and facial rigging for what is a PS2 game, I want to give the animators a smooch.

All I want now is to know where tf Riku pulled Kairi's Keyblade from, and how she's apparently a chosen wielder too. Like, okay??? But where? How?

Oh, also would like Riku to see someone about his hand, that doesn't look too comfortable. My guy can be a badass all he wants, but if he doesn't drink his milk, put an actual cast around his wrist, and bit of work leave off from world-saving shenanigans, he's gonna be a certified hero with post-traumatic arthritis 10~ years down his little road to dawn. Apparently working for Ansem the Wise doesn't provide great health coverage.

[domestikhighway58]

✨ 2022 Writing Year In Review ✨

Thanks to @spencer-reids-adventures for tagging me! Woo!

1. Number of stories posted to AO3: 58 (LOL UNINTENTIONAL)

2. Word count posted for the year: 1,099,815

3. Fandoms I wrote for: Criminal Minds, Harry Potter, Parks & Rec (but yo, I don't really count those last two)

4. Pairings: Luke Alvez/Spencer Reid, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid/The BAU Team, couple random outliers in there somewhere. Feel blessed I didn't drop any of my 4 Jeid fics in public.

5. Story with the most:

Kudos: Casimir Pulaski Day with 536

Bookmarks: Casimir Pulaski Day with 262

Comments: And again! Casimir Pulaski Day with 151 comment threads (why is sadness so popular?)

6. Work I’m most proud of (and why):

Honestly? My first ever fic and the thing that got me back into writing. The Eyes Have It literally opened my own eyes to writing again after a decade of not touching a keyboard. I did not think I would make it past 1000 words, let alone the 100,000 words that fic inspired. I had never written dialogue seriously before, never come up with any kind of extended plot, never explored character arcs, or even written creatively past a few lines of poetry. I posted that first chapter assuming I would lose interest or my depression would get the best of me yet again but neither of those things happened. I finished the three-part series three months later and made so many amazing fandom friends through that one fic. Even if it's not my most popular or even best-written work so far, it will always be my favorite.

7. Work I’m least proud of (and why):

OOF. Well, quite a few fit that category but one I'm quite sad about is also just a symptom of my itchy fingers when it comes to writing whatever pops in my head. I deleted it (so sorry) but I plan to return to it one day and make it what I wanted it to be. If you're dying for shitty Highway58 drunkfics, here are these two terrible gems: The Wolf (terrible half-assed attempt at werewolf Spencer, update coming the next time I have whiskey) and my one and only Harry Potter fic, Sequi Mi, where I decided no matter how hard I fangirled on HP in my youth I can't do it anymore now. Maybe one day.

8. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

My very first few comments on my first-ever fic bolstered my confidence like nothing else could. Some were short, some were so long and detailed that they made me cry. I recall two specific commenters who stuck by that crazy story with inspiration and encouragement and they are now in my circle of online friends I never would have found if I didn't keep writing. <3 Every comment I get is an amazing compliment and every single person who decides to take the time to read my bullshit is a goddamned gift.

9. A time when writing was really, really hard:

Several stories I've completed this year spanned a time of my life that I thought was my lowest point. While writing it out through fic was helpful, it was also an outlet that exposed my issues and forced me to face them. The hardest time for me to write was also the time I probably wrote the most, when I was in that lowest space around this time last year. I felt guilty about it when everything else was going to hell but I kept doing it. Ultimately, exploring this side of my creativity allowed me to overcome some of those massive problems I thought were insurmountable.

10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: 

So many. I think I was somewhat surprised to find how much I enjoy writing the OC protagonist from their warped perspectives. I wrote a sadistically evil Doctor, a psychopathic billionaire heiress, and a Wild West warlord this year all within the context of CM and they were SO MUCH fun, I'm sad I killed them all. I also just think it's interesting to explore the potential depths of OCs within the fanfiction genre. So, that was a pleasant surprise when all I anticipated starting on this journey was a new way to explore the characters I already love.

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

Ugh. I dunno. Too many words, but here's this from my first OC I still love and miss: Cheers, Caro, you might be in my first OG novel one day:

"Time to make an offering. 

The clothes and the phone bundled in her hands, she turned to the door. Walked down the narrow stairs, across the empty hall. Pushed the creaking screen door open against a violent night, the storm which had gathered earlier finally unleashing its fury. 

She cradled the phone with the image of those hands frozen, locked against her. Against her. On her. In her. Choking life back into her. 

Edging the rusted gate open she entered the garden. The wildness couldn’t compare with home, but it was something. " The Eyes Have It, Chapter 19

12. How did you grow as a writer this year: 

I think I've expressed this already elsewhere but... I wasn't a writer at all before this year. I dabbled for years in poetry and songwriting before landing at a point where I assumed my creativity was dead beneath the yoke of daily life and responsibility. When I started reading fanfiction, I was more depressed than I have ever been in my life. I buried myself in the words of others and wished I could even come close to that kind of creative expression. So when I finally sat down to write a story, I outlined something that came nowhere close to the story I ultimately wrote--and that's when I learned it's not about planning or hoping to do it, it's just about doing it. So, if anything, I grew comfortable with the idea that I can write and that I should--for myself. Because it helps.

13. How do you hope to grow next year:

I hope to start finishing my WIPs more succinctly and with a bit more regularity. I do think I need to spend less time writing fanfic and more time honing my other skills. It is difficult to find the delicate balance between doing something for fun and doing it because you feel you need to please others. That's the double-edged sword of writing and posting fics--sometimes you feel the guilt weigh heavy when you let. a story lie there for months without relief. So, I want to probably slow down with my writing and be a little more intentional with it going forward. (Though honestly, that pains me to imagine--I love following the faintest whiff of fresh plot wherever it might lead). I do know I have no plans on stopping now that I've started.

14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc): 

This is so hard. I've met so many new people this year who have endlessly encouraged and inspired me. Way too many to list here. I will shout out to @foggyblues-ralvez for being the first person to say Hi to me from the fandom (seriously, my dear Mandy, thank you <3). @masterwords, I love you and writing with you has been a fucking honor (also just hi, you should do this if you haven't yet, ily). @spencer-reids-adventures--endless love for your support and comments and the sprints, literally every step of the way. And then I'll shout out @brillianthijinx because darlin' you bring out a side in me I love and am terrified by lol, in the best way. But again, if I were to personally shout out every single person who has made an impact on me and my writing this year this silly thing would be longer than my ao3 wordcount. No one wants that.

15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

I won't go into detail here, but, yes. I write Spencer as my comfort character. While I sensationalize his issues to suit the story, the emotions are written from repressed experiences I have never explored. Writing is therapy as much as it is an obsession for me.

16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

Just start writing. Don't think. Write. Share it or don't. Edit or don't. Just write. Every damn day, if you can.

17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

Good lord, ALL of them. I hope to finish Casimir Pulaski Day by the end of January. I will be bringing back Signed, Sealed, Delivered in January as well. I want to finish up a few short fics soon and then continue my sequel to Silk Road quite soon. I have several A/B/O fics in the works, including the sequel to Old Town Road. @masterwords and I will of course be continuing our soft Hotchreid saga in Missing Pieces of Sleep. And then, you know, in my spare time I plan to start up part 2 of Finding it Out to explore some complicated Moreid/Hotchreid love triangle stuff within the canon. So, I've got a few things going on, ya.

18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read.

@masterwords @eldrai @goobzoop @tobias-hankel @pandorasdreamings @fortheloveofwonderland

[queeenpersephone]

Hello bestie. First I just want to say that your writing literally converted me to being a hardcore ironwidow shipper and your fics are like a blast of AC in your face on like a 100 degree day when you’re walking in to the grocery store. That’s very specific but honestly that’s how I could best describe the vibe. Second, if you’re in the mood for something a lil tropey—ironwidow hogwarts au?

hi bestie! and omg this is such a kind ask and i love your prompt - i'm sorry it's taken me so long to get to it! i love to convert people to ironwidow and anyone who ships it is an instant tumblr bestie so welcome to the fam <3 this one's not too long but i hope you enjoy it nonetheless! also note: just playing around with house choices guys please do not come for me i didn't think too hard about it. Also this is taking place during OotP

-

Tony Stark meets Natasha Romanoff the two days before the start of his Seventh Year. He's Head Boy, top of his class, having already cinched an Arithmancy apprenticeship after graduation - every Ravenclaw's closest held dream. Still, never enough for his father, whom he told about the position mere hours before his parents' died in a horrible accident this summer. Still, he's going to make his mother proud, even if she'll never witness his success herself. He couldn't give a damn about his father, his portrait locked up tightly in the Stark vault at Gringotts.

When Dumbledore calls him into his office before he's settled into his new rooms, Tony expects just about anything but the Weasley-colored redheaded girl sitting across from the Headmaster, posture perfect. He only has to catch a glimpse of her face to dismiss any Weasley relation - she's gorgeous, with dark green, penetrating eyes and full lips, watching him enter with a polite, fixed smile.

"Mr. Stark, this is Natasha Romanoff. She is a transfer from Durmstrang and will be completing her seventh year studies here at Hogwarts." Tony raises his eyebrows at the mention of the Eastern European school, which famously focuses on the Dark Arts, and rather succinctly cut contact with England at the close of the Triwizard Tournament last year. "You will show her the castle and leave her with Professor McGonagall at the close of your tour; she will have separate quarters this year, quite like the Head Boy and Girl." Dumbledore pauses, peering over his glasses. "I trust you will integrate her with all the alacrity deserved of an individual without the nearby comforts of friends and family."

Tony agrees, greets Natasha who seems to evaluate and dismiss him with a few sweeping glances, and proceeds to give her a tour. She observes every polite formality, but she refuses to engage him in any conversation indicative of overtures of friendship.

When they reach McGonagall's office, she turns to him. "I am assuming that your robes indicate you are in the Ravenclaw House." He nods. "Thank you, Mr. Stark, for the tour."

She leaves with no further fanfare. He dreams about her eyes every night for the next three nights, wondering what he found so captivating. Still, he resolves himself to befriend her and hopefully, take her out on a date or two. He's tired of playing the field, and this Natasha Romanoff is a puzzle he's itching to solve.

Three days later, she meets his eyes before she goes under the Hat, taking approximately thirty seconds before the Hat calls out, in a disgruntled tone,

"RAVENCLAW!"

-

The next day, he sits by Natasha in Advanced Arithmancy, studying her notes - which are far beyond the current curriculum in terms of numerology and mathematics - which decides him. He spends a week cajoling her into being his study partner, and she joins him (and Bruce Banner, usually) in the library every day that year. They become friendly enough, but what keeps Tony from sinking into despair at his unlikely chances of wooing her is the fact that, although she's distant with him and Bruce, she avoids every other student like the plague. She even takes walks with him if he asks her, rambling on about his life and his plans, giving him short, succinct answers when he asks about hers, but asking thoughtful questions about his that prove she listens. She takes his hand when he tells her about his parents, and although the subject matter is grim, he rides the high of her touch for weeks.

Oh, and he can never find her on the weekends. He wonders if the lack of class keeps her in her private rooms, which he still doesn't understand why she needs.

At the end of the year, Harry Potter and company's excursion to the Department of Mysteries brings the news that You-Know-Who is back, and Natasha becomes even more absent. She sits for NEWTs, but she is gone before he can ask her for her new address, hoping to visit or write to her. It might be pathetic, but it's during one of these helpless journeys to her rooms that he realizes he's in love with her. She listens to him like no one else ever has, she's smart, she's powerful, she's beautiful, and he's pretty sure she fled from something horrible at Durmstrang, cementing his theory that she's resilient and strong in her beliefs.

He's getting ready to brave Dumbledore's office to ask for her information, when the Professor finds him first, handing him a letter sealed with the emblem of a phoenix.

It's not a hard decision to join this secret Order. For all his father sucked as a father, the Stark family has been fighting against Darkness for decades. It's a calling, and Tony knows he can turn the tide of this fight with his ideas. He bets they don't have anyone that understands Muggle engineering and mathematics the way he does, nor probably, is as advanced in Arithmancy.

He takes the offered portkey and appears in a House, instantly recognizing the portraits as Blacks, which he quickly reasons, must mean that Sirius Black is involved. He looks around him, recognizing several other faces: the Weasley twins, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, Thor Odinson, Clint Barton, and Carol Danvers among them.

While the rest of them are looking around, Tony steps toward the door at the end of the hall. Before he can open it, it swings wide, and his suspicions are both confirmed and completely exceeded.

Two people stand in the entranceway. The first is Sirius Black, who greets him with a casual handshake and a smirk. The second: Natasha Romanoff, who grins at him with the most genuine smile he's ever seen from her, though it fades into a smirk when his jaw drops. "Hi Tony," she draws, her green eyes sparkling as if she's pulled off some great trick. Even if she has tricked him, he doesn't care.

"Miss Romanoff," he says, quickly getting his bearings back and swooping into a half-bow over her hand that would make his pureblood ancestors swoon. He kisses her knuckles, making sure to maintain eye contact. "Miss me?"

Sirius chuckles from beside them. "You two are gonna be a blast, aren't you?"

Tony grins and puts a hand at the small of Natasha's back, ushering them into the house. Oh, he thinks, watch and learn, Little Lion.

[illusionofwriting]

I typed up the words I wrote during April and what do you know, it did inspire me to continue writing after like a month of not writing at all. Very proud of my estimate of the amount of words too, because I estimated it to be 6.532 and when I'd added everything it was 6.521 longer than before. (Though I did a few edits to the structure so I removed probably a hundred or so words in the process.)

And my gut feeling with this project is very positive atm, even though I know it has huge problems and needs quite extensive editing. But I'm embracing writing a shitty first draft to make it easier for myself to see what I need to do for draft two lol.

And the story as a whole is at 19.3k now, so almost 20k!! Woo! And I'm just at the midpoint turn, so that feels pretty good length wise. I know there are lots of things that need to be cut and merged, but there are also points that I absolutely skipped in the first act and the first half of the second act so it'll probably work out to about the same? Is my theory but I honestly have no clue.

It's weird seeing such a messy draft because I know what the story is supposed to be even if it's not really doing the things I want it to do yet, but this time I can sort of see a way forward where I can make it into what it's supposed to be. Which is very slay.

[sparrowlovesskittles]

OKAY so I've shared a few live reactions from while I was reading River, but here's a general overview of my opinions. I will try my best to keep it in sections but it'll probably be all over the place anyway. Obviously, contains massive spoilers for the whole thing! Also this is a long post, I got a bit carried away

General

First of all, I do like the code changes that were made, and seeing Rootspring tell everyone to stfu and then they actually listen because they respect him was nice. His interaction with Ivypool was neat to see.

The fact that they said 'any cat' may switch clans implies to me that medicine cats are involved?? But I sort of doubt that unfortunately. I can hope though!!

The only thing I see a problem with is that the medicine cat MUST agree with the clan for a leader to be overthrown. That seems flawed to me, because it's not like every medicine cat has good intentions either, or that they can't be bribed or blackmailed. It's strange, but, I mean, oh well.

SHELLFUR IS IN A CROSS CLAN RELATIONSHIP AND WAS BEING XENOPHOBIC AS A COVER UP SO NO ONE WOULD SUSPECT HIM OH MY GOD????

MISTYSTAR AND REEDWHISKER ARE DEAD AS HELL FUCK YEAH?? HALLELUJAH. So Reedwhisker was DEFINITELY murdered. I don't think it was Lightleap, she seems suspiciously unsuspicious for the whole 'good cat accidental murder' thing. She must be involved in some way though, otherwise why would she be mentioned? But honestly thank god, I love that this has finally happened, it's so refreshing. Nothing like this has ever happened in warriors. Everything going on in RiverClan is so exciting, I love seeing them struggle without a leader.

Bramblestar being unfit for his job is insinuated left right and centre and I am HERE for it! I think it's funny that everyone's suddenly noticing how terrible of a leader he is (like seriously guys, he's been like this the whole time) and are almost disappointed now he's back. I really love that he's actually being affected by what happened to him, his relationship with Squirrelflight is still rocky, and that nothing is magically fixed like every cat was expecting.

Love Crowfeather finding it obvious that ThunderClan is struggling and being all sympathetic. Love Squirrelflight not knowing how to take it, and how for a moment she even almost seems like she's going to thank him.

But yeah, Bramble is ABSOLUTELY gonna be kicked out of his role at some point. Epic.

Tigerstar is really great as usual! I love him a lot and even though he's only in a couple scenes he's really sweet, being proud of Fringewhisker, listening to Sunbeam's concerns (or being ready to, at least) and asking if she's okay. Love that he's awkward about it, but seemingly genuine. I think he might be overthrown which is sad but like,, will be interesting as hell.

Same with Shadowsight! His scenes were fantastic, it was cool seeing how he's changed.

Sunbeam

I hate to say it, but Sunbeam is a little bit boring :/ It's a shame because I was quite excited for her, I just don't really think she's got much going on. I hope her and Blazefire end up working because they are quite cute, but I'm not invested in their relationship enough to really care. I also like that Blazefire and Lightleap are friends, it's cute.

I would've liked to see more of her with Lightleap and Spireclaw. I think her mother is pretty interesting. But so far I don't feel she's brought much of anything new to the table? I dunno, I don't really have much to say about her.

Flamepaw

Who we will be calling Flamepaw for now because that's how my brain thinks of him.

Woo I like him a lot!! He's a silly little guy with some big emotions which tend to get in the way of his intelligence. Seriously, I think he's a pretty smart cat, he's got some good ideas about a lot of things, he just tends to let his emotions get the better of him. He's a little emo child and that's actually pretty neat!

His interactions with the kittens were cute. Initially I was annoyed by the failed assessment plotline but by the end I thought it sort of made sense, so I can forgive the face that he is like. As Old as Rootspring and still an apprentice.

I like that he's not sure about ThunderClan. Like he's definitely going to leave at some point (PLEASE not to be with Sunbeam) and that's fair. Good for him. He's a smart kid.

I like the way he confides in Sorrelstripe, and I wish he had spoken to Alderheart, I feel like that could've been cute.

I love, love, LOVE his strained relationship with Sparkpelt, it's exactly what I'd been hoping from them. I love the generational trauma going on here- Sparkpelt acknowledging that being Firestar's kin was hard for her and Alderheart too, but then making it hard for Flamepaw anyway. There's nothing more I can say, I just think this part of his character is brilliant.

Speaking of which, I didn't have high hopes for the whole 'Firestar's Shadow' plotline, but I actually think it was handled very well!

I like his naming ceremony! LOVE Flamepaw just full on rejecting his name, he is absolutely PISSED and that's fair enough! I love how Finchlight stands up for him and calls them out for treating him unfairly. And I like how Bramblestar understands his reluctance because he was named after Tiger(claw)star.

I've been wanting to see the potential negative affects of legacy naming in warrior cats for a long time now. Let him be his own person!

What I didn't like about this scene, was... I would like to say Squirrelflight, but she was sort of consistently extreme all book? I didn't like Squirrelflight in this book. Sorry Squilf.* I guess I just wish that Flamepaw had been allowed to choose his own name. Bramblestar going 'fair enough but actually no, deal with it' is a bit :/

I don't love the name Nightheart for him? I do think it's a little bit funny that he goes 'oh there's Nightcloud, HER name fits her pelt' and then suddenly he gets named Night too. If he likes it though then that'll be fine.

Oh yeah and also EVERY TIME HE INTERACTED WITH SUNBEAM I WAS SCREAMING 'DON'T FALL IN LOVE OH MY GOD' AT MY SCREEN BC ISTG if we have to deal with this shit again,,

*I've kind of come to terms with this. It makes sense for Squirrelflight to be so defensive of her clan and scold Flamepaw for disobeying Bramblestar at the naming ceremony- she's been affected by what's going on too. I still don't like it, but I guess I don't hate it.

Frostpaw

Oh boy, where do I even begin? There's a lot to talk about with Frostpaw, and I love all of it.

I definitely enjoyed Frostpaw's chapters the most, and found myself eagerly awaiting them.

I wasn't expecting to love Frostpaw going into this, and honestly, I don't? I do like her just fine though and I love her chapters. I think I wasn't expecting this whole 'I'm just a kid but now a tremendous amount of responsibility has been thrust upon me and I don't know how to handle it' angle. It's been a common theme across pretty much all medicine cat protagonists and I was hoping for something a little different, but like I said I do love Frostpaw's chapters and she's cute so I don't mind too much.

Her connection with StarClan is pretty suspicious and reminiscent of Shadowsight. Initially I wondered briefly if the green-eyed cat was Juniperclaw, but it seems more mysterious than that.

I love seeing her relationships with Mothwing, Curlfeather, and Splashtail, and I wish we'd got to see more of her siblings.

I LOVE that Frostpaw and Splashtail are friends, it's so so cute, he's so sweet and supportive (except for that one time, but he was probably quite stressed about Reedwhisker which makes sense. and it's addressed and she was salty about it <3)

I do like the way Mothwing has changed recently, everyone's kind of stopped taking her seriously and she's had to deal with several close deaths, and you can actually see how it's affected her. Her apology to Shadowsight last arc was really nice, but now she's just doing the same thing to Frostpaw- which bothers me slightly, but she seems to catch herself every now and then so I think she's trying. Either way I think it's an interesting direction for her character to take.

Curlfeather is in a similar boat, she has high expectations and pushes Frostpaw to do better. It's handled in quite a subtle way, and they have interesting interactions. I'm also glad Curlfeather was chosen for the new leader, and I really hope Minnowtail gets a chance to get into a position of power too.

Oh yeah! And Curlfeather gets fucking brutally slaughtered by dogs, and it's dark and scary and brilliant and I loved every second. Poor Frostpaw literally watched/listened to her mother get ripped apart. And then she's still in danger, she has to push on and escape, and then run home and tell everyone what happened. It's chilling, it's terrifying, and so gripping. Literally my face for that whole scene was just :o

Love that warriors is taking risks lately, and it's paying off! I wish they would kill people off MORE to be honest. We had three important cats die this book alone, and it was so refreshing. We had three important cats die last arc.

Her last words being 'trust no cat' is fascinating for the plot, I do like the whole murder mystery thing going on- though if they make it too obvious and drag it out like they did with the Ashfur twist last arc, it's going to get old real quick.

Conclusion

I can't wait to see how the arc shapes up! We're off to a genuinely exciting start. It is oddly similar to TBC so far, but I'm hoping that'll pass. Honestly I was surprised by how much I loved this book, and a lot of the things I was dreading ended up being my favourite parts!

I love that all the characters have genuinely interesting relationships with the people around them, and I hope that continues.

I hope Sunbeam gets something more interesting to do.

I think Frostpaw might not be in the next book, which is sad because I love the RiverClan perspective and politics. I hope Minnowtail is the new leader.

I'm interested to see what Fidgetflake's gonna do, 'cause right now I think he's boring.

And I'm just happy to see where they go with Flamepaw!

I'm excited for Sky! Just as long as Flamepaw and Sunbeam don't date please please oh my god please do not get together istg please erin hunter i am on my knees begging do NOT let them date oh my god

[hongism]

(1/?) Hi 👀 well so as promised, here I am with my theory. aAAa I don't even know where to start because there are many points to look at but I'm gonna try to divide it on three parts: siren system, Wooyoung and yn's link, and Daichi's weird prophecy

Okay so starting with the first one. We know that sirens have their very own system, so here is a list of what we know:

- Sirens don't have exactly "names" but monikers that seem to be related to their,,,,titles? Idk, but the ones we know are Umiko (Yn's, stated in some of the first chapters that it means child of the sea), Tsukio (Woo's, meaning smt related to the moon I think) and Kazuya (Hwa's, finding the meaning was a little bit harder because ayo, japanese names, and I found many kanjis and meaning can differ thanks to them but I think it has smt to do with sun/fire?)

- There seem to be different "types" of sirens, maybe determined at their birth (by different tattoo patterns??) and they might be very important in their society, even more when it comes to religion and what they will become. For now we know –thanks to yn't flashback in the last chapter– that there are moon (Woo) and water (Yn) sirens. Maybe we have the basic siren abilities and other that are special according to their type? Honestly between Seonghwa's moniker and what we have seen of his abilities I'm not quite sure what type of siren he would be but maybe a water siren too? I'm a bit doubtful about the different abilities part but I'm still gonna leave it here just in case – 🐻 anon

ALRIGHT IM BACK AND READY TO RUMBLE! i'll answer each ask separately since we all know how much i ramble and .... yeah.... i always have too much to say.

okayoakyoKAY let's get into it i have so much energy rn like legit im so excited talking about theories brings out another part of me i swear dgojieoiejo

let's talk sirens aka my favorite part of the lore and story and world building of mists just mmm something im so happy with and proud of and excited to get more into with you guys bc i know too much alone i nEED to share but yes!! the biggest hint that sirens aren't really given names at birth is in the most recent dream yn had where she kept getting called umiko rather than the name we know her by and they each have a meaning and something specific that they're related to. and that's all related to the churches mentioned in that dream as well, but umiko is of course child of the sea tied to a sea goddess, woo is tsukio which is more straightforward and kinda just means moon, then we have kazuya which i believed was mentioned only once in passing but it does go between fire and sun, however in this case as we see that seonghwa has a fire tattoo on his back, it is meant to be more tied to fire than the sun

the hierarchy and methodism of everything behind siren culture is something im so excited to get into bc i personally find it v fascinating but you are correct, we see different 'types' of sirens as indicated by our three known sirens. and religion is actually a hugely dominant feature of siren culture, which was kinda hinted at in that dream with the mentions of the priests and churches, and so far we've seen two sectors of the church - the church of the moon and the church of the sea, but that doesn't mean there are only two sectors of the church (which i'll touch on later in the prophecy bit)

[wonhosbuttflower]

The Quidditch Aftermath

Pairing: Gryffindor San x Slytherin Reader (gender neutral)

Genre: Fluff (with an argument in the middle, though I don't think you could call it angst)

Words: 2.9k

Summary: After a Quidditch match gone wrong, you and San end up arguing about it.

A/N: Okay, so this is my first time writing this kinda of thing, so please bare with me :)

I'm really nervous about actually posting something I've written, but I had so much fun writing this that I just wanted to put it out there and maybe someone else will have fun reading it too ^^

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'I'm glad he's okay.', Jongho lets out in low, dragged voice as the four of you make your way out of the Hospital Wing.

'Heey, c'mon, man. It's not your fault. Even he recognises that.', Wooyoung assures him, putting his arm around his friend.

'Of course he's okay, Jong... The fall wasn't even that bad. Besides, Woo is right, it wasn't your fault.', it's your turn to assure your friend now. You put your own arm over Wooyoung's resting over Jongho's shoulders.

'It's not like you meant to hurt him... You did your job well, Jones was just... kind of dumb... trying to avoid the Bludger.', you add almost in whisper. Wooyoung lets out a loud laugh. Seonghwa gives you a somewhat disapproving look.

'What? I'm sorry but it's true! I mean, I'm not saying he's dumb in general... I'm just saying he made a dumb choice.', you try to defend yourself. Wooyoung laughs harder. You can see a shadow of a smile creeping up on Jongho's face, which makes you happy and a little proud of yourself.

'Fair enough.', Seonghwa says, shrugging his shoulders and smirking. 'I guess it was kind of dumb of him... He could've avoided that ridiculous fall.', he adds.

'You really think so?', Jongho asks him, hopeful.

'Of course, Jong. Y/N/N and Wooyoung are right... This wasn't your fault. Even Jones told you that.', Seonghwa tells him.

'You can't blame yourself for this. You even came here to apologise to him, which is more than most people would do. These accidents happen all the time in Quidditch... You know that better than anyone. Remember when you hit that post and had to stay in the Hospital Wing for like three days?', you let out.

'Outch. Yes, still hurts to think about that.', Jongho says, lost in his thoughts.

'Right, but you didn't blame Adams for it... Even though he was the one who sent that Bludger your way.', you add.

'Well, of course not. I mean, Adams is cool... I know he didn't mean to hurt me, he just had to stop me.', he agrees.

'Exactly!', you and Seonghwa let out at the same time. You punch Jongho's shoulders lightly, in an affectionate way.

'Oh. Yeah, you have a point. And Jones didn't seem too upset about it, honestly... Which is a good sign, I guess.', Jongho says.

'Dude, it was barely even a fall okay? He doesn't even have to spend the night there. I've had worse injuries from classes, Jong. Honestly, don't even worry about it.', Wooyoung says.

'He does have a point... I mean, remember the explosion during Potions?', you ask, making everyone start laughing at the memory.

Of course, you and Wooyoung were in the same class, so you were there to witness the moment. Neither Seonghwa nor Jongho were your classmates though, since the first one was in the year above yours, and the latter in the year below. But the four of you became close friends through being in the Quidditch Team together, so they knew the story all too well. You were all together laughing in the corridor when you notice someone moving your way.

'Oh, there's Choi... Do you think he's too upset about losing?', Wooyoung teases using a low enough volume so that the newcomer can't hear his comment all the way from where he is. They are friends, after all. You and your teammates share a playful smile.

'Y/L/N!', San shouts from his place.

'Oh, he doesn't sound too happy, that's for sure.', Seonghwa comments, giving you a smirk.

'Hey, Choi. Great catch during the game, by the way.', Jongho greets San once he's standing next to your group.

'Yeah, it really was... Shame it didn't really change anything in the end.', Wooyoung says ironically, taunting San. You can't help the smirk that forms on your face. It's nothing new, really... You always tease each other about Quidditch, but you're all still friends despite your differences. But, friends or not, San shoots daggers at Wooyoung after his comment, and then at you, probably noticing your amusement at the remark.

'Don't mind Wooyoung... He's just teasing you.', Seonghwa intervenes. 'You did play really great, Choi, congrats.', he adds, genuinely.

He's not wrong. Gryffindor did loose against you, but it was because the Chasers were rubbish and the Keeper was too easy for you and your friends to beat... But despite that, San really was an amazing Quidditch player. By far the best on his team, and all the games they did win were thanks to him. He was also the best Seeker in school, even better than your own... But Slytherin was lucky enough to have really strong players in the other positions, making yours the best team. No one could argue that. Even though you had had enough points in advance to win today's match, San had still caught the Snitch, and in a spectacular move too.

'At least we don't need to knock other players off to win.', San lets out.

'San!', you cry out his name. You can't believe he said that. He knows Jongho... He knows he didn't do it on purpose and that he must feel bad for it. You can see Jongho looking hurt and you blame San for throwing him back down after you three had just barely gotten him back up. 'Shut up!', you add almost right away.

'I guess that's why you never win, then.', Wooyoung shoots back at San, annoyed at his comment. You can't help but agree with Woo, San had this one coming his way.

'That's enough, Wooyoung.', Seonghwa steps in, warning his friend. 'Hmm, I guess we should go now, before someone says something else they'll regret.', he adds. You also agree with him.

'Fine. We have a victory party to prepare anyway...', Wooyoung lets out in a teasing tone, looking straight into San's eyes with an angry and defiant expression. 'C'mon, Jongho.', he says, pulling his friend along.

'Goodbye, Choi. And I'm sorry for Jones, I really am.', you hear Jongho say as he gets dragged away by Wooyoung. San just stares at them, not saying anything, not reacting. And for some reason that just makes you more mad at him.

'C'mon, Y/N.', Wooyoung calls out for you to follow them.

'You guys go ahead... I'll meet you back at the Common Room. I need to have a word with this one first.', you tell them, gesturing towards San with your head. You don't even bother looking at him.

'Are you sure? We can wait, if you want.', Seonghwa asks you.

'I'm sure... Thanks, Hwa.', you assure him.

'Okay, we'll see you later, then, Y/N.', he says before starting to make his way down the corridor with the other two. You turn to face San, giving him an angry look.

'Now, us. What the hell was that all about? Why would you say that in front of Jongho? You know damn well he didn't do it on purpose! He feels terrible about it and we had just gotten him to see that it wasn't his fault... And you ruined that, you made him feel even worse!', you let out all at once, angrily.

'But it was his fault. He knocked Jones off of his broom!', he lets out.

'No... He sent a Bludger at Jones, and Jones is the one who got all clumsy and flew straight into the Bludger's trajectory!', you set him straight. 'Jongho is a Beater... He was just doing his job. It's not his fault Jones was an idiot.', you add.

'The guy is in the Hospital Wing, for Merlin's beard!', he lets out.

'So what? We've all been there after matches or practices... That's Quidditch for you, it's not exactly an easy, friendly sport, it's fast and it can be quite violent sometimes, that's just how it is. Besides, he wasn't even that hurt... He said so himself. You know, just now when we came to check up on him and Jongho apologised to him for the accident. Which is exactly what it was, an accident.', you tell him.

'Maybe he's not that bad but he could've been seriously hurt!', San lets out impatiently.

'But he wasn't, was he? So why are you going around being a jerk to Jongho for something that could have happened, but didn't?', you accuse him.

'I... I didn't...', he starts but you cut him off.

'Why do you even care anyways? You don't even like Jones that much... You're always going on about annoying he is.', you shoot at him.

'Well, that doesn't really matter, does it? He's still my teammate.'

'Whatever... Are you even actually mad about Jones? Because I think this isn't about that, I think you're just mad because even though you caught the Snitch, you guys still lost to us.', you let him know.

'I don't care about that, Y/N.'

'Okay, now you're just straight up lying. We both know you wanted to win as bad as I did. It's not really your fault the rest of your team sucks.'

'Well, of course I wanted to win... Everybody likes to win but that's not what I meant. I'm not mad that you won, I'm mad at how you won.', he exclaims.

'I don't care why you're mad, San, that's not an excuse... You had no right to speak to Jongho like that. It's one thing to tease playfully, like we always do... It's another thing to be actually mean and hurtful just for the sake of being.', you tell him, still hurt.

'Hey, I wasn't the only one being mean now, was I?', he tries to defend himself.

'And Seonghwa told Wooyoung to shut the hell up, did he not?', you argue. 'But in his defence, you were the one who started it. You came straight up after Jongho and that was a jerk move. You know that. You actually hurt him and he did not deserve that. He's your friend! Hell, he's my friend and I hate seeing him get pushed down.'

'Why are you only defending him, then? You didn't defend me in front of Wooyoung, did you? And I'm your friend too!', he lets out with a hurt look.

'Wooyoung wouldn't have said that if you hadn't attacked Jongho like that. Besides, Jong did nothing wrong to begin with... He only did his job. You would have done the exact same thing if you were in his place... If you were a Beater, you would knock Bludgers at any one of us and you know it.', you tell him.

'I could never do that...', he lets out.

'What?'

'I could never risk doing that to you, Y/N.', he almost whispers.

'Well, I guess that's why Slytherin will always win over Gryffindor then... Because we can separate our personal relationships from what happens on the pitch. It's a game and the fact that your friends are on the opposing team shouldn't stop you from doing what you need to do to win.', you say, maybe a little too coldly.

You didn't mean to attack him, it just came out like that. You can see he looks lost in thoughts and you wonder how to deescalate this whole thing. You have to try to say something to lighten up the mood.

'Well, that and... you know... our team is obviously better.', you add almost instantly in a much softer tone, flashing him a playful smirk.

'I guess I can't really argue with that.', he agrees, smiling slightly. 'I'm sorry... I didn't mean to be a jerk. I'll talk to them later and apologise to Jongho, okay? But I really don't want us to be mad over this.', he adds.

'Good... You should do that.', you tell him. 'And you know I can't actually stay mad at you. Also, I would punch Wooyoung if he ever actually hurt you. Or anyone else for that matter.', you add, smiling.

'I believe you!', he chuckles.

'So... do you want to tell me what this whole thing was really about or what? Because I know you and I'm pretty sure you're not actually mad at Jongho, or Wooyoung, or me.'

'I... I think I was just worried, honestly.'

'Worried? Worried about what, San?, you ask him.

'I don't know... I just don't like seeing you play. I saw Jones falling off his broom and all I could think of was that it could have been you.', he lets out in a low voice, his eyes stuck on the floor under his feet.

'You... were worried about me?', you let out, stepping closer to him to stand right in front of him.

Of course he worries about you, you're one of his good friends. You know that's what he means by that. If only he knew how you always worried about him, thought about him, cared about him. You didn't want him to know how you felt, you didn't want to ruin your friendship.

'Of course I worry about you... I could never stand to see you get hurt. I... I like you, Y/N.', San lets out in almost a whisper, looking up to you only after he finishes talking. You hope to Merlin he doesn't notice the flush of red warming up your cheeks.

'I understand, San... I couldn't see you get hurt either. We're friends so, you know, of course I like you too.', you say with a shy smile, hoping he doesn't see through your expression what you actually mean. 'I would hate to see something like that happening to you. But, you know, we all knew what we were getting ourselves into when we signed up for Quidditch Team, didn't we?', you add.

'What?', he asks, confused. He sighs deeply. 'No, Y/N. You don't get it... I actually like you.', he says. You freeze in your place.

'Wha... What?... What do you mean?', you stutter. He takes a deep breath before stepping forward, his face only a few inches away from yours. One of his hands cups your face, his thumb grazing your chin while his other hand rests on your back, just above your waist. You feel unable to move, holding your breath, your hearts about to beat its way out of your chest.

'This is what I mean.', he simply states before pressing his soft lips against yours. It's a sweet, quick kiss... One that leaves you wanting more. You don't know what to think or say. You just know you've never felt this way before. It's all so new and exciting.

'San...', his name escapes your mouth like a sigh. A good one. He smiles, still holding you tight, your chest against his. You can't help but smile as you notice how his eyes disappear and his cute dimples show up on his cheeks.

'I'll take that smile as a sign that you do get what I mean now. And... I suppose I can try that again...?', he half states, half asks. You nod slightly, agreeing with him.

He kisses you again, this time for longer. It's a more urgent and passionate kiss this time, as if the two of you melt into each other, trying to create something new. You smile into the kiss, as does him.

'Wow... I've been waiting for so damn long to do that.', he simply says when the moment finally stops, still smiling. You can't stop smiling yourself.

'So have I. Wish you had done it sooner.', you let out, making him laugh.

'Well, you could've done it too, no? You didn't have to wait for me to do it.', he jokes.

'Well, last time I checked, you're the Gryffindor, not me... You are supposed to be the brave one here!', you tease back and you both laugh. The hand he had cupping your face lets go of it and he reaches down to take you hand. You intertwine your fingers with his.

'Fair enough.', he agrees. 'Sorry I took so long.', he adds, placing a soft kiss on the back of your hand.

'Hmm... San?'

'Yes, Y/N?'

'You know this doesn't change anything, right?', you question him, looking innocent. He raises his eyebrows at you, worried.

'What do you mean? Do you... not want to be with me?', he asks, genuinely scared that he read the situation wrong.

'No, no, no! That's not it... I do! I want that very much. I... I really, really like you, San.', you quickly assure him, smiling. He sighs slightly, relieved. 'But us... you know... being together... It doesn't change anything. I'll still keep kicking you pretty little ass at Quidditch.', you explain. He lets out the loudest laugh.

'So... You think my ass is pretty, uh?', he teases. You roll your eyes at him, laughing.

'Don't get full of yourself, okay? It's not a bad butt... But I've seen better.', you tease back.

'No, you haven't.', he tightens his grip around you, moving his free hand from your back to your waist.

'Okay, fine... maybe I haven't. But you still won't be able to distract me, Choi. We'll just keep winning.'

'I believe that, Y/L/N.', he says with a smile while his thumb rubs circles on the back of your hand. 'As long as you don't get hurt doing it, I think I don't even mind losing to you that much.', he tells you sweetly.

'Well, that makes winning over you less fun, then.', you pout at him overdramatically.

'Hey, I didn't say I'd go easy on you. I still want to win.', he defends himself with a chuckle.

'Now that's better. Well, I'm a Chaser, so I won't exactly knock you off your broom... But I can't make any promises about Jongho, so you better be careful on the pitch. I'd really hate to have to visit you in the Hospital Wing.', you joke. 'Don't... Oh, please, don't tell him I said that. I was joking. It really was an accident.', you quickly add, making San laugh at your awkwardness.

'Don't worry... It'll be our little secret.', he says, kissing your forehead.

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A/N: As this is my first "work" of this kind, I would really appreciate any thoughts and critiques you would like to share with me because I really wish to improve my stories and writing, so all opinions all more than welcome and my dms are always open ^^

Thank you so much for reading this little story and I honestly really, really hope you enjoyed it :)