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starlightkenobi · 4 years

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Tear You Apart // Anakin x Reader

rating: explicit

warnings: dom anakin, light choking, light hair pulling, mostly just pining tbh

a/n: inspired by the song “tear you apart” by she wants revenge, i love this song and its always given me possessive ani vibes,,, LIKE U WANNA LOOK ME IN THE EYES AND TELL ME THAT THIS ISNT END OF ROTS ANAKIN BEFORE HE GETS BURNT ? YOU GONNA TRY ? YOU CANT !

also: this is the longest thing i have written for this account and i am pretty darn proud of it which is rare for me, so i hope yall enjoy !!! 💕

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　　｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Got a big plan, this mindset maybe its right

At the right place and right time, maybe tonight

And the whisper or handshake sending a sign

Wanna make out and kiss hard, wait never mind

Anakin’s mind ebbed and flowed with the tide of people wandering the room. He always hated these formal Jedi gatherings, usually coming up with some convoluted scheme to get out of attending. Not tonight though, Obi Wan was completely fed up with Anakin’s usual antics. His stern voice still haunted his ears, and remembering it filled him with remnants of dread.

He was so sick of all of it. The annoyingly forced casual conversations, the same people, same faces, even the same damn Jedi robes, save the few senators mingled into the room. All of the people faded into one dull energy, like a black hole draining Anakin’s energy and enthusiasm. He was sure that if he had to choose between this and death, he would pick death without hesitation.

That was, until he layed his eyes on you.

You walked with such presence, such grace, that it was impossible for someone to not notice you. Your robes hugged your figure and flattered you in a way that Anakin didn’t even know was possible. Your hair hung around your head, flowing around you and illuminating your features like a halo. Which was quite possible, Anakin thought, considering you might be an actual angel in the flesh.

Your flesh. Anakin pictured how soft it would be under his touch, the goosebumps that would arise after the cold touch of his metal hand. To touch real skin, to have that real contact...Anakin was touch starved to be sure. But now, he was ravenous, and you were the only meal he’d seen in years.

A voice in his mind screamed at him, a voice that was very stern and similar to Obi Wan’s disappointed father-like tone, if he thought about it. But he didn’t want to think about it, he wanted to ignore the raging thoughts that screamed, Listen to yourself, Anakin. Your being gross and creepy. Calm down.

Luckily, he didn’t need to ignore them. The second you turned around and yours eyes met, he was gone. Those thoughts were drowned out by even louder ones that told him to scoop you up right there, claim you as his, test the feeling of his lips on yours.

Your lips looked so soft, and even from this distance he could almost feel them pressing against his skin, see them falling open in a drawn out moan. And your eyes, sparkling like the stars in the clear skies of Naboo on a dark night. Deep and endless like the expanse of space that he so often saw while piloting his starfighter. Even still, they were flowing with a lifetime of emotion and soul that couldn’t be seen in all of the other Jedi in this room combined.

Emotion, pure and raw emotion. He always felt so wrong and alone, being emotional. Considering he had been told all of his life that emotions were not the Jedi way. But you, standing in front of him right now, were made of pure emotion and experience and feeling, something that could not be put into words, but only expressed.

Anakin’s heart stopped as he realized that you were actually standing right in front of him. In his trance, you noticed him staring and decided to approach him.

“Hi, I don’t believe we’ve met.” No flattery, no pointless and boring casual conversation. You cut right to the chase, and it intrigued him even more.

“We definitely haven’t, there’s no way I would forget meeting you.” A smirk tugged at the corner of his lip, and your cheeks flushed. A lovely, tinted pink. “I’m Anakin. Skywalker.” He added his last name, hoping that you might recognize it.

“General Skywalker...I’ve heard tales of your escapades, and especially of your unusual war tactics.” Your blush begun to fade, but a light pink still remained. It was absolutely adorable, Anakin decided, and he wondered how flushed your face would get with his mouth trailing down your neck.

“Do my unusual tactics bother you?” Anakin asked, and he visibly appeared less tense then he did moments ago. You were so easy to talk to, and your force energy felt so soothing around him. He wanted to be enveloped in it. Maybe it was some circumstance of fate that he was forced to attend this gathering tonight. Maybe it was this same fate that brought him to you.

“Not at all. As a matter of fact, I’m intrigued.” You gave him your name, and reached your hand towards his, expecting him to shake it. However, the soft skin of your hand was too much of a temptation. As soon as he felt your touch, he pressed his lips gently to the back of your hand. Normaly, you would have been annoyed with the flirtatious advances of someone so early into meeting them. But this felt different, it felt new and strange and somehow, comforting.

Needless to say, you were completely drawn in and wanted more.

Late night, and passing, mention it flipped her

Best friend, who knows saying maybe it slipped

But the slip turns to terror and a crush to light

When she walked in, he froze up, believe its the fright

A deep breath of fresh air filled Anakin’s lungs as he stepped out onto the balcony. The crowds of people had been practically suffocating him, and to finally have some peace and quiet alone with the stars felt magical. Maybe this is what the Jedi mean when they say, “There is no emotion, there is peace.” Out here, with nothing but the endless black sky and the stars, Anakin did feel at peace. However, that didn’t stop the torrent of emotions swirling in his gut. So he figured that old, tired saying was bullshit anyways.

“Fancy seeing you out here.” He recognized it immediately. Your voice, like a serene melody, filled his ears. Immediately, he spun around, desperate to see your face again. This time, however, he felt nervous when he saw you. Afraid, even. So many thoughts were flooding his head all at once that it almost became to much.

“I...wasn’t expecting anyone to join me.” Ankain fumbled over his words, staggering to uphold his good impression on you.

“I can leave, if you’d prefer to be alone. I completely understand. These gatherings can get a bit...claustrophobic.” Your voice was softer now, and Anakin could tell that you were trying to mask the hurt in your tone. You would have turned around and walked away without a word, had he asked, but Anakin wouldn’t allow that. As soon as you turned to leave, he reached out toward your hand and took it in his own.

“No!” Anakin almost shouted, and even though he was afraid, he was ready to embrace any new and strange emotions if it meant getting to spend another moment with you. He steadied himself, preparing another sentence. “Your company is more than welcome.”

A smile tugged at your lips, reveling in his hand warming your now cool skin from the breeze. His hands were so much larger than yours, you noticed. Somehow, it made you feel safer, more comfortable. Anakin noticed and gripped your hand tighter.

Standing here, so close to you and in this lighting, he was finally able to see all of the fine detail in your eyes. The little speckles of color forming their own constellations in your galaxy. He could have sworn they were faintly glowing, each star producing its own aura of light.

You turned towards the sky, gazing up at it with all of the longing in the galaxy. Of course Anakin noticed it, he felt the same way about space. “Isn’t it beautiful?” Unconsciously, you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear that had blown out of place from the wind. “Each little star feels like it has a life of its own, it’s own personality and feelings and emotions. I guess that’s why space has always called to me, the stars don’t judge.”

Anakin, still holding your hand, turned to the sky with you. “Yeah. I know exactly what you mean.”

Its cute in a way, till you cannot speak

And you leave to have a cigarette, your knees get weak

An escape is just a nod and a casual wave

Obsessed about it, heavy for the next two days

After that first night together, meeting at the Jedi gathering and talking for hours out on the balcony, the only thing Anakin had in his mind was you. Sure, maybe he was a little obsessed, but you gave him this feeling, something that he had never really felt before. He had felt love before, for his mother and even for Obi Wan, so he knew what that felt like. Maybe, he felt that for you too.

But he felt something else as well, something new and strange. Lust, perhaps, but Anakin wasn’t ready to deal with that yet. Right now, Anakin was perfectly content with the secret meetings around the temple, the constant excuses just to get out of some task and see each other, the longing gazes, the phantom touches.

For a while, it was heaven. It was new and exciting and absolutely perfect. But this went on for days, weeks, and now almost two months. He craved feeling your touch in a way that the council would disapprove of. He wanted to break all of the rules, destroy all of the boundaries set by the Jedi, and he wanted to do it for you.

But he was patient, when he needed to be. If he had learned anything from Obi Wan, it was at least that. So he would wait until you made the first “not strictly platonic Jedi pals” move. He would never do anything to make you uncomfortable, or do something that you weren’t ready for. Maybe you hadn’t even considered breaking the rules, maybe you felt nothing for him. Deep down, Anakin knew this wasn’t true, he sensed your mutual feelings for him all the way back on the day you first met, and every day since.

Still, for you, Anakin would wait a lifetime.

It's only just a crush, it'll go away

It's just like all the others it'll go away

Or maybe this is danger and he just don't know

You pray it all away but it continues to grow

Anakin was struggling. Obi Wan sensed it, you sensed it, practically the whole council sensed it. But no one knew why. No one except him.

Anakin tried meditation, he tried training, he tried joy rides in his starfighter, he even tried sneaking off to a cantina. No matter what he did, he couldn’t stop thinking about you. It became a festering sore in the back of his mind, growing and growing with each passing day. It was getting out of hand, and he understood this. And it was frustrating as hell.

But it also felt so damn good to picture your body splayed out underneath him. He wanted to make you feel good. He needed to make you feel good. He owed that to you at least, for giving him this never ending sense of joy and content when he was around you. He did love you, and could say that with certainty now. And when it comes to love, you would do anything for the other person. That’s what Anakin believed, at least. He just needed to wait a little longer, wait until you confessed your feelings and pressed your lips to his. His waited a lifetime to find someone like you, he can wait a little longer.

But even the most patient person needs to relieve the tension a little bit sometimes.

I want to hold you close

Skin pressed against me tight

Lie still, and close your eyes girl

So lovely, it feels so right

Anakin’s hands dragged up your body, gripping your skin tight enough to leave bruises. You felt so perfect around him, moaning and whimpering and begging for more.

At least, that’s what he hoped you would be doing in this situation. His hands weren’t even really on your body at all. One was fisted in the sheets while the other stroked up and down on his stiff cock. He had been at this for a little bit by now, and was already so close to the edge. He just needed your voice, your perfect voice, telling him how good he felt inside of you to send him over.

“A-Ani...you feel...s-so good, you make me feel so good!”

He could almost hear you, if he tried hard enough.

I want to hold you close

Soft breasts, beating heart

As I whisper in your ear

Streaks of hot cum painted his chest and hand, some even reaching up to touch his chin. His chest heaved, the last images of your body flooding his head. Your breasts painted with his cum was an image he wanted to keep with him, one that he hoped to recreate some day.

It was criminal, the things you did to him. He could only hope that you were feeling like this now too. Still panting and in his post orgasm haze, he closed his eyes and whispered aloud. He called out to you through the force, hoping that somehow you would hear him whisper,

“I want to fucking tear you apart.”

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　　｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Then he walked up and told her, thinking that he'd passed

And they talked and looked away a lot, doing the dance

Her hand brushed up against his, she left it there

Told him how she felt and then they locked in a stare

Both your’s and Anakin’s laughter filled the room. You were both hiding out in your quarters due to currently ditching a Jedi council meeting. Easily and casually, the laughter and conversation filled the room, and you both felt like a bunch of younglings who had skipped a training class.

As the laughter died down, you turned to face him. His laughter was one of the many things you loved about him. It was full and genuine and raw in a way that touched you emotionally. A way that you no longer wished to ignore.

“How long are we going to keep ignoring this?”

Anakin’s traded his smile for the look of a confused puppy. “What?”

You composed yourself, wanting to choose your words carefully. “I mean...the fact that we both have feelings for each other.”

Oh, Anakin thought.

Oh.

He was relieved that you were finally deciding to open up this can of worms, but he was still nervous and frankly, terrified of the possible outcome of this conversation. He looked away from you, unable to bring himself to make eye contact.

Taking it upon yourself to initiate some sort of contact, you tentatively reached for his hand. It brushed up against his, so you gently placed it on top of his and left it there.

“I’m tired of worrying about what the council thinks, aren’t you?” You questioned, still waiting for Anakin to look at you.

Slowly, his eyes met yours. He saw the lack of fear, lack of inhibition. You really wanted this, you wanted him. Your hand tightened its grip on his, your thumb slowly running along his skin.

“I love you, Anakin.” Your voice cane out hushed, as if you were afraid someone else would hear, even though you were alone.

They took a step back, thought about it, what should they do

'Cause there's always repercussions when you're dating in school

But their lips met, and reservations started to pass

Whether this was just an evening or a thing that would last

“Are you sure that you want this? Are you ready to deal with the potential repercussions from the council? I just don’t want to hurt you, and I certainly don’t want to start anything that you aren’t ready for.”

You chuckled at his restraint. Still, you appreciated how much he cared for you. Clearly it was a lot, considering that you felt his desperation you through the force to just take you, but he was holding back anyways. For you.

“Believe me, Anakin. I’m ready. You don’t have to hold back.” You were looking at him with such lust, such need, that Anakin knew this was an invitation, and he accepted it with open arms.

Either way he wanted her and this was bad

He wanted to do things to her it was making him crazy

Now a little crush turned into a like

And now he wants to grab her by the hair and tell her

He pinned you back onto the bed, gathering your wrists into one hand. Frantically, as if he was afraid you would disappear, he nipped and sucked at your neck, leaving marks that he knew the council would notice. Neither of you cared anyways.

It didn’t matter what the council thought, Anakin was ravenous. He wanted all of you, and now with your enthusiastic permission, he was going to take it.

His free hand tangled into your hair and pulled your head back, giving him easier access to your neck. You were squirming, whining, you needed to be touched. You had waited for this just as long as he had, so he would keep the teasing to a minimum.

He let go of your wrists and hair, shooting you a warning glare. “Keep them there.” His voice was deep, dominant, and it shot daggers through you. This sent a shiver down to your core.

I want to hold you close

Skin pressed against me tight

Lie still, and close your eyes girl

So lovely, it feels so right

You were both stripped down now, his eyes traveling up your naked body. You were more beautiful than he could have ever pictured. His lips crashed forcefully against yours, and he slowly grinded against you. He needed to feel your skin pressed tightly against him, hust kike he had pictured before. Except this time, you were real. He was really feeling your skin against his and it felt so perfect and right and better than any sort of peace and serenity the Jedi talked about.

“Close your eyes, baby.” Anakin said in a hushed tone as he pulled away from your lips. Immediately and with a whimper, you obeyed. Anakin chuckled at this, your eager obedience. “Good girl.” He growled. A soft moan fell from your lips as you squirmed, but still keeping your hands firmly placed above your head.

I want to hold you close

Soft breasts, beating heart

As I whisper in your ear

One hand finally made contact with your throbbing clit, while the other went to play with your breasts. Your heartbeat was so strong and quick that Anakin could feel it when he played with your breast.

“Your heart is beating so fast, like a little bunny.” He pinched your nipple, somehow knowing the exact pressure to use and how much to tug it to make you moan.

A finger slipped inside of you, giving you some sort of realese of the pressure building in your cunt. Suddenly, Anakin’s breath was fanning over the side of your face. It tickled your ear and made you squirm more than you already are.

Gently, he placed a loving kiss to your cheek, before moving his hand from your breast to your throat and lightly squeezing, while he whispered in your ear,

“I want to fucking tear you apart.”

#ok so before anyone says anything i know that rabbits arent technically a thing in star wars #BUT i thought of that line and thought it was really hot so i used it anyways #anakin skywalker #star wars #fanfic #the clone wars #smut #anakin x reader #anakin smut

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1morefairytale · 3 years

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LFRP – Saachi Medvyed

A cheerful, naive, runaway noble on a mission to become a hero. Saachi has spent so much of her life tucked away from the world by an over-protective (and incredibly shady) father figure that, now that she’s run away, she intends to see the world for what it is and for what it one day -could- be with her help.

THE BASICS –––

Name: Saachi Medvyed

Age: 22

Nameday: 3rd Sun of the 4th Umbral Moon

Race: Raen, Au’ra

Gender: Female

Alignment: Neutral Good/Chaotic Good

Marital Status: Smitten with a guy in a big @dumb-hat. Certainly not married.

Server: Balmung

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE –––

Hair: Saachi’s natural hair color is a vibrant forest green. It is long, straight, and often pulled back into a braid (or down with multiple braids woven through it) or clasped with pretty bows.

Eyes: Saachi’s eyes are a dark yellow/gold with a lighter, brighter yellow limbral ring around them.

Height: 62.4 inches (5′2″)

Build: On first glance, Saachi might look deceptively frail. While tall for a female au’ra, she is still petite. She wears very feminine dresses, skirts and blouses that, while very pretty, hide that beneath the delicate fabrics, big skirts, and puffy sleeves she’s actually quite strong. Saachi believes very strongly in hard work and discipline and her toned, muscular body shows this.

Common Accessories: Saachi is always wearing some kind of jewelry (usually gold): rings, necklaces, hair combs, anything she finds pretty. She carries a traveling bag with her with medicine kits inside, a good book to read (fairytales and adventure stories with plenty of drama and romance are her favorite), something to snack on, and usually flowers that she’s gathered or toys that she’s purchased from vendors to give to children she encounters. She also carries either a staff or a wand with her for conjury purposes. She is learning to swordfight and, being intensely dedicated to anything she chooses to pursue, it is likely she will start carrying a sword with her as well.

PERSONAL –––

Profession: Saachi currently helps run a daycare in the Mist and also volunteers her time as a midwife and healer for refugees that do not have access to city doctors. She will say that being a ‘hero in training’ is also her profession, but it is usually greeted with polite chuckles and pats on the head rather than being taken seriously (she takes it very seriously).

Hobbies: Daydreaming, reading, playing harp, working on a book she hopes to one day publish about Eorzean folklore, researching this book by looking into any reports of any peculiar monsters or beasts to verify if they are real (and fight them if they are causing problems), offering her assistance to anyone in need, building sand castles on the beach, flying kites in windy weather, dancing barefoot in the grass. The usual.

Languages: Common

Residence: She currently lives in a free company based out of The Mist that serves as a healing clinic and daycare.

Birthplace: She doesn’t know where she was born, but she was raised in Ul’dah by a politician/money lender named Aban. She has also run away from him and he’ll most certainly be trying to get her back.

Patron Deity: Oschon, the Wanderer. Saachi intends to see and explore every last bit of this world.

RELATIONSHIPS –––

Spouse: Saachi has hardly had a boyfriend for that long; she is not thinking about marriage

Children: None of her own; she just helps care for ones in the daycare when she is there.

Parents: Her real parents are a mystery to her but she was raised by an over-protective, emotionally abusive, shady adoptive father figure.

Siblings: None that she knows of.

Other Relatives: Unknown.

Pets: She has a pet rabbit named Nym

TRAITS –––

* Bold your character’s answer.

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between / Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION –––

Smoking Habit: Nah

Drugs: Nah

Alcohol: Sure!

RP HOOKS –––

Naive runaway: Saachi had a very controlling father when she was younger. She wasn't allowed to go anywhere unaccompanied, she had no close friends, she went nowhere dangerous. 5 years ago she ran away and she's learned a lot since then, but 5 years is still not very long in the grand scheme of things. She trusts extraordinarily easily and does not always immediately recognize signs of danger or cons.

Hero worship: While she didn't have many friends as a child, she did have a great deal of books. Her father let her read as many fairytales and myths as she wanted and it became the blueprint for what she'd begin to think of the world: It's a place full of dangers and people who need help. She wants to be that help! She'll recklessly throw herself into danger if it means being a hero.

Protector of children: Since discovering that she did not have the childhood she should have, she has made it a life's mission to make sure that other children do. She runs a daycare near the beach and her mission is to give the children there as much space to build their imaginations, creativity, and selves as they need. If a child is in need, Saachi is going to do everything she can to help that child.

Midwife: Saachi has been under the tutelage of Stillglade Fane since she ran away from home. She's a practicing conjurer and while she's always looking for an opportunity to protect allies in battle with her spells, she spends just as much time caring for pregnant refugees who do not have the access or funds to established doctors. She provides this service for free as she finds the opportunity to help those in need more meaningful to her than gil. If someone really wants to offer payment, she accepts donations to Stillglade Fane or to the daycare.

Law? What law?: Saachi does what she thinks is right no matter the consequences. And she tends to it in the most dramatic manner possible (that's what they'd do in books, after all). If local authority has laws in place that get in the way of her helping someone, she will ignore that law. If it's in the way of helping, it shouldn't be a law anyway, right? This often puts her at odds with local governments and with the Fane.

CONTACT INFORMATION –––

Contacting me here on tumblr or finding me in game is the best bet. If you see Saachi out in the world, please say hi!

I do have a Discord and I do RP on it. I don’t give that information out right away though. I’d like to interact in game or through tumblr a few times before I feel comfortable giving that information out.

I have craaaazy work hours. I work the night shift M-F. That means that I’m on very early in the morning and sometimes in the late afternoon/early evening. I’m usually not on very late unless it’s a weekend.

Notes –––

Saachi will be excited to meet new people… and I will too! Nym (her bunny) will be timid and wary, but he’ll get over it. Follows come from @luck-and-larceny- a character blog for a thief character of mine named Malika. I also have an alt at @matter-of-a-pinion named Livana (Liv). They both have LFRP and Carrds pinned to their pages so feel free to check them out too if you like!

#FFXIV #LFRP #lfrp balmung #lfrp crystal #Saachi #FFXIV LFRP

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blueskittlesart · 4 years

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Can you walk us through the prossess you go through when drawing backgrounds?

yes but i talk too much all the time so click the readmore if u want bad advice :)

hmm im not entirely sure that im the best person to go to for advice on this lol. i consider myself a character artist first and foremost, hence why a lot of my art doesn’t have real backgrounds.

when i draw backgrounds, i’m always thinking mostly about how they affect the character, who is usually the focal point of the drawing in my case. how am i planning to light the character? would this lighting make sense with my background, or do i have to adjust it to allow for the affect i’m going for? I also try to think about composition, which usually involves arranging the background so it leads the viewer’s eye to the focal point of the drawing. a lot of this comes naturally to me now, but if you’re having trouble with background composition i would recommend reading up on the elements of composition. i had them drilled into me in 8th grade and my art is definitely better because of it!

when i sketch out backgrounds, they are usually only gestural lines to give me the idea of the space. where the character needs to be fully rendered to be recognizable, i can easily fill in details that aren’t in my sketch with color later, and since the background is usually secondary to the character anyway I don’t need to go into as much detail with it. i don’t have any examples at the moment because i usually delete my sai files to save space once theyre finished, but hopefully you get the idea. after that it’s just a matter of defining the space with color. I work very sequentially which every art teacher in the world will tell you is Wrong And Bad, so don’t take this as the best way to do things in any way, but i usually fully color my backgrounds before moving on to the character on top of them. this tends to help me because with the background fully rendered i can see how light and shadows would fall on the characters more easily, but some people find it easier to block in flat colors and then shadows for the whole drawing at once.

like i said, i rely on color a lot to make my backgrounds look less like messes. I usually use a LOT of references for both color and light, because coming up with pleasing color schemes is not really something i can do on my own yet lol. I also abuse the hell out of sai’s filter tools to adjust the color until it meets my qualifications. once i have the whole drawing colored, I adjust the colors of the lines with clipping groups so that they seem more seamless with the background. at this stage, i usually merge all my layers, which is a bad habit i picked up when i was first doing digital art and my shitty pc couldn’t run with a sai file open that had more than 5 layers. you really don’t need to merge all your layers. then i choose what i call the Extreme Highlight Color, usually white or a very light yellow or blue, and, using the same brush i used to sketch, I add a few especially bright hard highlight lines over my soft shading. if there’s anything I want to highlight in the drawing at this point that isn’t standing out the way I want it to, I can use these highlights to draw the eye to it, because they’re the lightest color in the drawing so they’re what the viewer will be inclined to focus on. the extreme highlights can also be used to seperate background elements that are blurring together, etc.

the final step for me is to overlay! i choose my light color, almost always yellow but occasionally a blue or pink. always very light and not super saturated. on a new layer, I create a gradient from whichever direction the light is coming from in the drawing and fade the light color out to transparency. then i go to the layer’s mode and change it to overlay, and adjust the color and opacity until i get the desired effect. I do the same from the shadowed edge of the drawing, but with a dark color, usually a blue or purple. That explanation barely made any sense so here’s my best image reenactment:

and that’s pretty much it! i realize this probably wasn’t super helpful but that’s how i do it lol

#asks #Anonymous

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lunafeather · 4 years

Note

9 for the kiss prompts?

Hey I don’t know if you saw that I posted my response to this on AO3 (I was taking a break from tumblr at the time!), so I totally forgot to answer this ask and shit, I hope you saw it on AO3.... I’ll post it here, too, just to be safe haha

9. Fuck You Kiss

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

It becomes a routine:

Put the kids to bed, stay up prepping their lunches for the next day, entertain Dean until he finally collapses onto their air mattress, then sneak out when he’s dead asleep.

She usually drives to Boland Bubbles in silence, her mind whirring, picturing the numbers in her head and rearranging them in a way that’s believable, but profitable, in a way that her husband won’t catch on -- not for a long while, anyway.

The parking lot is empty as she pulls in, the building ominously dark. She knows its dumb, but she wedges her keys between her fingers anyway as she leaves her car and treks to the employee side entrance and lets herself in. The motion sensor lights flicker on as she makes her way down the hallway, peeking into the warehouse to make sure it all looks kosher, doing the same with the break room and then the mood room, her eyes sweeping through the one pink tinted light they leave on for good luck, and she’s just about to turn away --

She screams when she notices the shadow looming in the corner of the room, hands in its pockets, seemingly staring into the hot tub they always have filled for customers to test out before buying.

Rio meanders closer, into the light, and Beth should have known it was him, of course it’s him, it’s always him. Still, she presses her palm to her chest, against the harsh thudding of her heart.

His eyes track the movement with interest.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she hisses.

He smirks, that dumb, handsome, terrible and infuriating smirk. “That any way to greet your boss?”

Beth rolls her eyes and stalks away, not waiting for him. He won’t answer her, and he’ll eventually follow her to the office planted in the center of the show room. She doesn’t have the time nor the patience to entertain him.

He appears in the doorway a few minutes later, leaning his hip against the frame, and she has to resist the urge to look up from the papers in front of her to properly take him in -- but she can see him in her peripheral, sees the black beanie tugged low over his ears, the charcoal grey button up shrouded by the black coat with the one white button hole, the loose black jeans and the black and white sneakers.

He’s found a color scheme he likes and stuck with it, and she can respect that -- her brain chooses to focus on this thought instead of the overwhelming surge of want that flows through her, the frustration prickling at her skin -- frustration with everything that’s happened between them, frustration with this business not being hers, not really , frustration with how fucking beautiful he is. He’s taken to sporting a full beard lately, trimming it instead of shaving, and it drives her to distraction when they’re in the same room together, many times Rio just staring at her while she tries to fight the blush at the memory of that beard against her thighs, of her fingernails running through it.

The worst part is that she’s convinced he knows exactly what it does to her.

All of this lust, all of this attraction, had been a lot easier to keep at bay when she was convinced he was going to kill her at any moment, reap his revenge with three matching holes -- his and hers -- blasted in her body, and when she was consumed with the desperation for survival, convinced she needed to get rid of him first to save herself.

This stalemate of theirs makes it too easy to slip.

So she ignores him.

She can feel him smiling at her.

Still, she’s the first to break the silence.

“How did you get in?”

Rio shrugs, doesn’t answer.

She didn’t really expect one anyway.

“You worried about bein’ all alone in this big warehouse in the middle of the night, baby?”

He smiles when she glares at him.

“Maybe if you told me how you got in, I’d be able to keep the place more secure.”

His eyes are dark, framed by those thick, long lashes. “Nah, where’s the fun in that?” he murmurs.

They stare at each other for a moment.

“Well, if you didn’t need anything, I’ve got some work to --”

“Why you keep coming here at this hour anyway, Elizabeth?”

Her brows furrow. “How did you --”

He tilts his head, gives her a look.

“Are you still having me followed?” she splutters.

He shrugs again, faux nonchalant, sticking his lower lip out and then pursing his lips.

“I thought we moved past that.”

“Oh, what, you think I’m s’posed to trust you, after everything?”

Beth tips her chin in defiance. “I mean, I did bring you this idea--”

A bark of laughter, devoid of amusement. “Nah, sweetheart, that’s not how it works and you know it.”

Her mouth settles into a hard line, and she lets her expression go blank. “Fine. But if that’s all --”

“You never answered my question.”

She can’t help it, she squawks, indignant. “I’m sorry, when the hell have you ever answered --”

“Why you keep comin’ here in the middle of the night?”

“Will you let me speak?” She’s not proud of losing her temper, never likes to let her emotions slip around him, especially not now, so she balls her hands into fists in her lap and tries to channel her anger into them.

Rio watches her, waits for her to say something else, but she doesn’t have anything else, was mostly annoyed at him cutting her off. His eyebrows hit his hairline.

“Oh, that it?” He takes three long, slow steps towards her, his fingers sliding along the edge of her desk -- well, Dean’s desk, but just for now, just until she can wiggle her way in -- stopping at the corner and leaning over it, hands splayed. “Cause I thought maybe you were gonna tell me why you sneakin’ around your business, fudgin’ numbers. Why your husband still thinks he runnin’ the game and callin’ the shots.”

Beth swallows. “I told you, it’s going to take some time for me to convince him to let me handle the books. He can’t know you’re involved, or he’ll --”

“He’ll what?” Rio sneers. “Go runnin’ to the cops, the FBI? He still refusin’ to see you’re the one who bossed up and pays the bills, huh? Guess what, darlin’, I shot him once, nothin’ stoppin’ me from doing it again.”

She’s not sure what reaction he’s expecting, but she has a feeling that her cool indifference isn’t it. He squints at her.

“If you let me take care of him, it won’t come to that.”

“I ain’t got time for you to try to pussy whip your dumbass husband --”

“Excuse me?”

“You should be pullin’ in way more cash than you are, so I’ma need you to stop gaggin’ on Dean’s dick and get your shit together --”

She’s up and in his face before she realizes what she’s doing, jabbing her finger into his chest. “How dare you!”

Rio snatches her hand and holds it away from them both. “Don’t.”

His voice is rough, a warning, but she doesn’t catch it, blinded by her fury.

“You don’t know anything about my marriage, about what I’ve had to do, what I’ve had to sacrifice!” Flailing wildly, she yanks her hand from his and goes onto her toes to get onto his eye level, waving her hand in his face and prodding him again.

“Elizabeth,” he growls.

“I will not let you degrade me, or treat me like --”

And then his mouth is on hers, effectively shutting her up. The kiss is rough, angry, desperate and filthy -- Rio’s hands cup her ass and lift her onto the desk, then slide up her back to mold her body against his, her breasts wedged against his chest and spilling out over her v-neck sweater. Beth wails into his mouth and clings to his shoulders as he steps between her thighs. He ravages her mouth, alternating rubbing his tongue against hers and sucking on it. She sinks her teeth into his lower lip hard enough that she thinks she tastes blood, and he groans and twists his fingers into her hair to yank her head back and expose her throat.

“You think about my tongue in your mouth when you kiss him, mama?” he says against her skin, sucking a hickey below her ear.

She scratches her fingernails against his scalp, helpless in his arms and writhing against him. One of his palms lowers to her ass to hold her in place, not allowing her to seek out any friction.

“You close your eyes and pretend its my cock fillin’ you up, makin’ you beg?”

Beth moans as his voice vibrates against her ear, pleasure singing down her neck and across her shoulders, threading through her spine and pooling at her tailbone. He grinds his hips into hers, and she can feel how turned on he is.

“He can’t make you come like I can, huh, baby? Gotta wait til he’s passed out and touch yourself, but your fingers aren’t enough, are they? Can’t reach inside you the way mine can.”

Those fingers clench in her hair, forcing her eyes open to meet his stare, his eyes dark fathomless, drawing her in and smothering her. She tries to lean forward, to kiss him again, but he keeps her still.

“He ain’t me,” he growls. The words tumble out from his lowest register, like he pried them from deep within himself, from a place he never lets see light, dripping with possessiveness and pride, and maybe even hurt.

She shakes her head. “He’s not you.”

Almost like he doesn’t want to hear it, like he’s already said too much, revealed too much, he crushes his mouth to hers again, and this kiss feels like a punishment and a plea. Beth lets it consume her.

And just like that, he’s releasing her, both of them panting as he steps back, putting some space between them and looking at her like she’s hexxed him, woven a spell to lure him, tempt him. And then the mask is back in place.

“You got a week to get your husband in line,” he says as he wipes their spit from his chin with his sleeve. He turns to leave, but stops in the doorway and looks over his shoulder. “And you better get a gun if you gonna be spending this much time here alone. Need to protect yourself.”

She arches an eyebrow at the implication under those words, that she needs to protect herself from him.

Beth’s got a feeling that his intentions are a little less murderous and a lot more carnal.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll empty the clip this time?”

His responding grin is slow, feral, like he’d been hoping she’d say that.

“Nah.”

And then he’s gone.

#Brio #NBC Good Girls #I still have like 10 kisses to do so I won't link the prompt list #sorry for taking so long to answer this!#I wrote this on the 9th then forgot I should have answered the ask haha #my fic #Luna writes #inyoursheets #ask answer

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jaehyun-eclipsed · 4 years

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Before I Met You | Eleven

Updates: Sundays

Pairing: NCT (Jaehyun, Lucas, Mark, Jaemin, Johnny) X Reader/OC

Genre: Romance, Angst, Coming of Age

Summary: Four. There were four people before I fell in love with you… Here are their stories.

Author’s Note: I apologize that my updates have not been at the time I had originally designated. I’ll still be posting on Sundays (except this week since it’s after Sunday. I’m sorry!), but there will no longer be a specific time. Thank you!

Before I Met You Masterlist

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Sunday evening, I open the door to my house and walk in to hear chatter and laughter amongst my housemates. My new home was previously a frat house, but had been renovated to serve as general student housing. There were fifteen separate rooms – one to three people in each room and shared common rooms and a kitchen downstairs. The color schemes of the dining room and living room were atrocious interesting – dark blue walls opposite tan and mustard yellow ones with a series of white trimmed windows. The dining room was paired with dark brown dining room tables, a pool table, and several granite-top bar tables. The living room was no better with oddly color-blocked couches and chairs and an ancient piano that desperately needed to be tuned. The dim yellow lighting throughout the house created a nice atmosphere for relaxing, but was absolutely horrendous for late-night studying. Perhaps the lighting was purposely horrible to make it so dark you couldn’t see how terrible the design choices were. Despite this strange mesh of interior designing, it still managed to create an all-around cozy environment.

The first week of classes had just ended and I was returning from a dinner outing with my former roommate.

As I head towards the spiral staircase, I briefly look to my left to see three boys playing pool and some others doing homework in the main dining room. I recognize one of the boys from our move-in meeting; he was quiet, but had a very soothing voice when he spoke. His name was Ren – Ren-something?

My room has a much simpler design compared to downstairs; grayish walls with the same white trimmed windows as downstairs, a mini-fridge, microwave, and simple wooden furniture staples for two people. Though boring, at least it didn’t give you eye strain.

The light in my room is on when I enter and my new roommate, Jia, is sitting at her desk watching a Chinese reality show and eating dinner.

“Hey!” she greets. “Where did you go?”

“I went to dinner with my roommate from last year,” I say. “What are you eating?”

“I ordered some Chinese food.”

Jia is an international student from Beijing, double-majoring in statistics and business. She came to the U.S. when she was fourteen to attend high school on the east coast. As a result, she’s been quite sheltered, a lack of life experience and hints of naivety evident when you speak to her. Having been sent here for school, she was expected to work hard to get a good education and hopefully, a well-paying job. That’s what her focus has been all her life: jumping academic hoops.

As I place my purse and jacket on my desk, I grab my water bottle and head back downstairs to the kitchen to refill it.

As I step foot into the dining room to get to the kitchen, the three boys shooting pool immediately stop playing and look up at me. I pause upon making eye contact with the boy who caught my eye at our meeting and hesitate for a moment before offering a half smile. He stares at me, remaining expressionless. I quickly look away, regaining enough composure to continue walking towards the entrance to the kitchen. But as soon as I have my back to the three boys, a wave of discomfort pulses through my body. I can’t explain why, or how I even know considering I don’t have eyes on the back of my head, but I can feel that one of them is still watching me as I’m walking away – and it’s not the one from the meeting.

When I reach the water dispenser, I shake my head in dismissal, attributing the sudden feeling of discomfort to a figment of my imagination. You couldn’t even see him. They just looked at you because you entered the room. That’s all.

When my water bottle is half full, I hear the three of them walk into the kitchen and begin pulling out several pans and other kitchenware out of the cabinets next to the stove. The water dispenser is on the other side of the kitchen, so I keep my back to the them, but am unable to shake the feeling of the one that was standing next to the shy boy with the nice voice. I quietly huff in frustration. Why do I keep feeling like he was looking at me? Does he… think I’m attractive? Hyojin did say I get looked at a lot when we hang out together. Maybe I’ll talk to him.

The three of them start cooking, walking back and forth between the stove and the sink that’s several feet away from me. While screwing the cap back onto my bottle, I turn around and immediately lock eyes with the boy in question as he walks towards me. He stares at me for several more moments before breaking eye contact and bringing his gaze back towards the ground.

My eyes narrow. Okay, that was kind of weird.

I walk over to the large refrigerator in the middle of the kitchen, reaching into my reusable grocery bag sitting on the second shelf to pull out an apple before heading over to the sink to wash it.

A moment later, the boy with the nice voice walks up next to me to wash a pot. I take a step to my right to give him more space, grabbing a paper towel from the dispenser and wrapping it around my apple. I continue to stand there awkwardly, over-drying the fruit while contemplating on whether or not I should introduce myself.

I decide to bite the bullet.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Renjun. What’s yours?”

“Y/N.”

There’s a momentary pause, the sound of running water filling what could have been a very awkward silence. Renjun keeps his focus on the pot.

“What’s your major?” he asks.

“Uh, biology. Yours?”

“CS and math.”

His responses are very quiet. Even in tone. Emotionless. I look at him as he rinses the soap off of the pot and his face remains expressionless. Do you ever smile?

“Oh, nice,” I remark. God, even I’m boring.

“Where are you from?” he asks.

“Oregon,” I reply.

“Portland?” asks another voice.

I flip around and see that the boy who had just stared at me is standing in the middle of the kitchen with a polite smile on his face.

“Medford!” I say.

Huh! You were listening to our conversation…

I’m a bit dumbfounded when he nods and walks back over to the third boy standing at the stove, wondering why he didn’t continue to talk to me considering he was clearly interested enough to listen in on my conversation with Renjun.

My eyes flicker over to the wooden dining table near the window, a collection of bright colors having caught my eye. Coupon books. Maybe Suji will want one of these. She has a whole stash of them in her desk.

I take out my phone and look around briefly to make sure no one is watching particularly the weird staring boy while I snap a photo of the coupon book to text to Suji to see if she’s interested. While waiting for her response, I grab one of the coupon books and flip through it to see if there’s anything in particular she might want.

Pizza, ice cream, sandwiches, dentist…

I place the book back on the table and look up as the boy walks towards me; he’s staring at me again.

Opportunity has arrived.

I look back at him, briefly narrowing my eyes in curiosity. “What’s your name?” I ask, completely skipping the formalities.

“Jaemin!” he says as his eyes shoot open in surprise. “And you?”

“Y/N.”

“Well it’s nice to meet you, Y/N,” he says with a smile.

I smile back at him.

“Um –” he tilts his head and looks at me thoughtfully “– why were you taking pictures of the coupon book?”

Shit. Someone was watching me. I specifically checked to make sure no one was, especially YOU.

I chuckle nervously. “Oh, uh, I didn’t think anyone was watching,” I murmur to myself. “I was sending a picture to see if my friend wanted one.”

“Oh!” he remarks. “I thought you were taking pictures to try and save paper or something. Like why not just take one?”

“Oh, no.” I bite the inside of my lip before smiling out of embarrassment. “Yeah, I was seeing if there was anything my friend might want.”

I guess I’m not imagining anything. You are, in fact, watching me.

“Ah.” He gives me an understanding nod, quickly choosing to move onto another subject. “So what’s your major?” he asks.

“Biology. How about you?”

“EECS.”

“Oh, nice.”

He looks at me quizzically, apparently surprised by my lack of being impressed. Most people were fascinated when they met an EECS (electrical engineering, computer science) major as that was the hardest major to be accepted into at the university. It was also one of the most rigorous majors, which led to an onslaught of jokes about EECS students only showering once a month and being too nerdy to get into a relationship.

“Yeah, you always wonder what people’s responses will be, you know?”

“Yeah…” I say slowly, offering a courteous smile that doesn’t fully reach my eyes.

I’m guessing he wasn’t satisfied that I don’t seem impressed.

“Are you pre-med?” he asks.

My eyes widen in horror. “Oh dear, no.”

“So what do you plan on doing?”

“Research. I never wanted to go to medical school.”

“Huh, interesting. Why?”

“I don’t like blood.” I crinkle my nose. “I also don’t really feel like being in school forever. Granted, I have to go to grad school and will be in school forever anyway.”

“True.” He chuckles. “So what do you think of this place?” he asks, referring to the house.

“I actually really like it!” I grin at him. “Despite the questionable design choices, I like it. It’s quiet.”

“Yeah, it’s quiet, but I think it’s kinda… antisocial.”

“True.” I shrug. “I don’t know, it kinda works for me. If I want to talk to people, I can. If I don’t, I can do that too. I don’t talk to that many people… not the friendliest person,” I say with a small smile.

He looks at me skeptically. “You seem pretty friendly to me.”

“Depends on who I’m with,” I reply with a shrug.

“Ah, yeah, oh –” He quickly turns his head towards Renjun, suddenly realizing that he hadn’t been helping out his roommates with their dinner preparations. “Hey, Renjun, do you need help?”

“No, it’s fine,” Renjun curtly responds.

He nods once and turns back to me. “So what are your plans for the rest of the night?”

“Uh, probably just catch up on some work.”

“You’re so productive.”

“I’m trying to keep up with everything to do better this semester.” I frown. “But the problem is that I’m really bad at physics.”

“Oh, I’m taking physics too!”

“Are you in the one specifically for engineers?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, okay,” I reply. “I’m in the other one. I’m just frustrated because we’re doing kinematics and I used to be really good at it in high school and now it’s like I’ve completely forgotten how to do it.”

“That’s what happened to me with circuits. I did it in high school, but I can’t seem to do it anymore.”

I smile at him, unsure of what to say as he leans in towards me, putting his weight on the back of a kitchen chair.

“I could probably help you with physics sometime,” he offers.

Oh! Well that’s nice of him. I could use the help.

However, there’s an… unsettling feeling in my chest. Suspicion – that’s what it is. Suspicion that this isn’t just a friendly offer for help.

“That would be very helpful! Thank you!” I respond, trying to keep my tone even to avoid giving away my intuition.

“Do you just do work in your room?”

“Uh, sometimes. I hate the chairs we have in the room, so I normally just work on my bed or I go downstairs to the piano room.”

“Ah, yeah. I should probably go downstairs or something because I don’t get anything done in my room.”

I pause for a moment, contemplating on whether or not to say my next immediate thought. My goal for this year was to make new friends and I had begun to develop a habit of offering open invitations for people to spend time with me. In a split second decision, I reasoned that this was no different. It’s not like I was interested in the guy. It’s also somewhat of a personal experiment to see if my intuition is correct: that he actually is interested and would take up my offer.

“Well, if you want company, I’m almost always in the piano room! I usually go down there because if I work in my room, I just watch TV,” I say.

“Oh, what do movies do you watch?”

“I actually watch television shows, but I’ve been watching the Justice League until my shows come back.”

“And what shows are those?”

“Uh, NCIS, Castle, The Blacklist, and The Flash.”

“Oh. So superheroes, some mystery and action.” He nods in approval. “Those are shows I’d be into if I watched them.”

“Oh nice! Yeah, it’s pretty easy to get distracted and just watch in my room. It’s very relaxing.”

“Well, it’s quiet.” A smirk forms on his face. “So it fits with your personality, right?”

The corner of my mouth raises in amusement. “Right.”

I take a good look at him. Jaemin is tall, relatively slim, and fairly attractive. Though, it’s interesting. He looks young and innocent, but there’s something about his eyes. They’re playful, but there’s mischief behind that playfulness. He’s quite charming and that look in his eyes is enough to tell you that he knows it too.

“Which room are you in?” he asks.

“202.”

“Oh, I think that’s down the hall from me. I’m in 206. But yeah, whenever you need help, just –” he makes a weird gesture with his hands “– knock on the door.”

I nod, but a thought crosses my mind. “Actually –” I pull out my phone from my back pocket and hand it to him “– why don’t I just get your number? Then I can just text you and won’t have to worry about bothering your roommates.”

“Hey, Jaemin.” Renjun places a plate of food on the table. “This is yours.”

Jaemin gives me back my phone and smiles at me. “All right, well, I’m gonna go eat dinner. It was nice meeting you!”

“Yeah, you too!”

I take a bite into my apple and walk outside to sit on the porch, dialing my dad’s number for our nightly call.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” I sing. “So I met this guy. His name is Jaemin and he seems pretty friendly.” I click my tongue. “Though, I got this weird feeling that he thinks I’m cute or something because… he kept staring at me and then later he offered to help me with physics.”

“What’s his major?”

“EECS.”

“Are you interested in him?”

“No,” I say. “He’s cute, but he’s not really my type. It was really weird though because I walked into the dining room when he and his roommates were playing pool and they all stopped playing as soon as I walked in and watched me until I left.”

“Are you going to take him up on his offer to help you with physics?”

“Yeah, probably. I actually do need help.”

“It’s nice of him to offer, but he probably does have something for you.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Guys don’t just offer to help you in physics if they’re not interested.”

I chortle at my dad’s response and with a slight hint of sarcasm, respond with, “Are you sure? You don’t think he’s just being nice?”

He scoffs. “Nice? Uh-uh, sorry, I don’t think so.”

I continue giggling when he asks if I’m going to work downstairs tonight.

“Yeah, later after I clean up a bit. I told him I’m usually downstairs so I guess we’ll see if he shows up.”

When I arrive downstairs, laptop and books in hand, both of the work tables have been claimed by other residents. I turn to my right, figuring I’ll work at the coffee table instead. To my surprise, Jaemin is sitting on the couch, hunching over his laptop and a notebook he placed on the coffee table. There’s a flash of amusement in my eyes, but I bite back a smirk when Jaemin looks up and waves.

Well, well, well, what do we have here? Looks like the personal experiment has given us some confirmation…

To say I didn’t feel a sense of satisfaction from Jaemin actually taking up my offer within a matter of a few hours would have been a lie. It’s flattering.

I walk over to where he is and set my things down before sitting on the floor across from him. “Hey.”

“Hi,” he greets. “Doing work?”

“Yeah, I’m going to the marina with my roommate tomorrow so I need to finish up some things before Tuesday.”

While waiting for my laptop to boot, I grab my phone to send a text.

Me to Dad [8:56 PM] Guess who came downstairs?

Dad [9:00 PM] Does that mean he’s interested? 😉

Me [9:01 PM] I guess so?

“I think you have the right idea,” a voice says.

“What?” I ask, looking up at Jaemin in curiosity.

“Sitting on the floor,” he replies as he starts moving from the couch to the floor.

I open an internet browser and habitually log into Facebook instead of my physics homework assignment. There’s a message notification from Hyojin regarding some video she saw.

“Hey, Jaemin!” Renjun’s voice calls from the doorway. “Want one?”

“Oh sure!” Jaemin stands up and begins walking over to Renjun. I hear a loud smack when Jaemin catches something with a plastic wrapper. “Thanks!”

As I type a response back to Hyojin, a teasing voice elicits an embarrassed smile from me for the second time that night.

“That’s not studying.”

I look up at Jaemin as he glances down at me. A playful smirk has formed on his face, bringing back that mischief in his eyes.

“Want some?” he asks, holding up a small bag of chips.

“No, thanks.”

There’s a comfortable silence between us as we complete our individual assignments. I seemed to be having an easier time making acquaintances this year. The first week of school, I had made a personal goal to talk to five new people every day and I am happy to say I achieved it. I was learning to take the initiative with introductions and with the couple people who introduced themselves to me first, I realized that everyone is just as afraid as I am to talk to someone. But really, it’s not a big deal. No one thinks you’re weird. Unless you start your interactions by shamelessly staring at them like Jaemin. Mark will definitely be interested in hearing about this.

I huff in frustration as I fail to obtain the correct answer to my physics problem for the second time. I had three chances; so I needed to get it right this time.

“Hey, Jaemin?” I call.

When I look up, I meet Jaemin’s gaze. He’s staring at me with a blank expression, as if he’s in some kind of trance. It’s unsettling to a degree – the way he’s looking into my eyes, like he’s trying to read me with a precision equivalent to breaking down the walls of my mind and learning every secret that’s behind them without any difficulty.

Um… I tilt my head and narrow my eyes at him. “Jaemin?”

“Hmm?” His eyes widen and he shakes his head as if I’ve pulled him from some reverie. “Sorry, what’s up?”

“Is there –” I press my fingertips against my cheek “– is there something on my face?

“What?” His voice is a tad loud. “No, no! I – I just zoned out for a second.”

Right…

“Uh huh…” I remark skeptically. “Um, can you help me with this physics problem?”

“Yeah, of course!”

I flip my laptop around for him to read the question. A small smirk creeps up on my lips as I watch him scribble equations into his notebook. I feel so smug.

Oh, you definitely think I’m cute and you’re not even trying to hide it. Mark is definitely gonna want to hear all about this.

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Before I Met You Masterlist Masterlist

#nct #nct 127 #nct u #wayv #nct dream #superm #jung jaehyun #nct jaehyun #jaehyun #lucas wong #wong yukhei #nct lucas #nct mark #mark lee #nct jaemin #na jaemin #nct angst #nct fluff #before i met you

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ofcloudsandstars · 4 years

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IMBOLC was so MAGICAL!! Oh my goodness!!

It's a bit of a long story and I don't want to leave out too many details but I am so glad it all turned out more than ok!! I did not have enough time to put everything together easily and I had to whip up a ritual last minute and I was staying at a coworker’s BOUGIE apartment that is BEAUTIFUL and Ideal for an Imbolc setting (the color scheme is like all white, gray and cream with TALL ceilings, Huge french windows, fluffy white carpets, fireplaces I could put white pillar candles in, long sheer white curtains, you get the point lol) but literally I had a witch gathering party at his place while he was away and I had to make it look like nothing. ever. happened.. the next morning.

I bought these string candle-lights which everyone was laughing at how in theme it was but I strung some across window sills and over the fireplace that I've stuffed white pillar candles in. I stuck tea lights everywhere and found some silvery tealights at a corner shop that were "spa scented" which sounds weird but!! They smelled fantastic and made the space feel calmer. I topped those with sage leaves. I used vanilla incense sticks and this other scent called 'Divine' (that stamford masala incense brand you might see at every spiritual shop) that really elevated the space and made it feel calm and angelic. The whole apartment felt very angelic, light, white and fluffy. On their large screen TV I made a visual playlist on youtube of timelapse videos of nature thawing into spring and frost melting or flowers sprouting from the ground. I played a lot of winter meditative tracts and purifying binural beats.

I pulled strings to get out of work early so I could run to my coworkers place, feed his cats, and get to cooking!! I made a spread of cheese, (mostly brie), coconut cheese, cheese infused crackers and poppyseed crackers, black sable grapes and blueberries that I sprinkled silver bonbons in.

I prepared 3 tonics as a welcome drink that my witch friends could choose from to what potion will aid them for the seeds they are sowing and the cycles to come. They were syrups that were agave based and infused with herbs overnight. There was one for clarity to know what steps to take to achieve goals and that was an infusion of sage, juniper berries and rosemary. There was one for inspiration and sudden muse or creativity to help complete projects and that one was an infusion of valerian root, chamomile, blue poppyseeds and caraway seeds. (Seeds were also symbolic in this one lol), then lastly there was one for inner fire and a wake-up call to get the drive going to get tasks done. That was a black breakfast tea leaf with a sprinkle of pepper in it. They were mixed with Gin (gin being a juniper infusion actually has an interesting history with being used as a cleanser and medicine though its obviously not used that way anymore) and tonic so they were all really herbal and refreshing (non-alcoholic drinks were just gin-free) and they all had a pretty light golden clear color. The clarity one was the most popular though I wish I drank some of the wake-up call one myself.

For food I made baked macaroni and cheese with mozzarella, sharp cheddar, brie, sweet sauteed white onions, black pepper and truffle oil. The plant-based option was stuffed cabbage rolls made with this BEAUTIFUL cabbage I had no idea existed (it caught my eye in the store) called sweetheart cabbage. It was snow-white colored and each large leaf was somewhat heart-shaped. I stuffed it with a sauteed combo of white sweet onions, white mushrooms, chopped parsnips, cauliflower rice and coconut cheese. Lastly I made a salad of chopped fennel and the smaller leaves of the sweet heart cabbage and raw parsnips.

The whole table's food had a white and beige theme lol. We all caught up about our lives and ate food and coo-ed over the cats. When everyone arrived we got to the ritual which I dressed his coffee table in different tea lights and bigger candles. Since I am WIZENED from many previous disasters with candles on tables and witch shenanigans, I put SEVERAL covers on his glass coffee table which consisted of 1- bamboo mats, 2- a white blanket as table cloth (mostly for aesthetic) 3- a coat of aluminum foil 4- 2 layers of cream table cloths. Just to ensure nothing could damage his table.

I am not the biggest fan of leading ritual cause it feels uncomfortable to me to 'lead' everyone's energy but its nice cause this is the third sabbat in a row I've hosted and I guess my friends get the gist now so they all kind of contribute their own parts to it which is.. WHAT I WANTED IN THE FIRST PLACE lol. I take initiative to host sabbats or gatherings or create a community so sometimes people think I am a leader cause I am initiating something but honestly I just want to hold space for others. Anyway the ritual started off with us cleansing baggage from our previous cycle so we can move into the next one purified. I had a juniper bundle I bought in glastonbury that I smoke cleansed everyone with.

Then we spoke about what Imbolc meant for us and how its also reflective on the cycle of life and death when the spirit enters the womb and how seeds of life and hope are stirring. I asked them each to take a tea light and visualize it as a goal or project they wanted to accomplish for this year and to dress it in herbs and oils. I had sage for clarity, rosemary for abundance, blue poppy seeds for growth and inspiration, tea tree oil for protection etc and they could carve in symbols to their candle or whatever. When they were working on that I read everyone's spirit's incarnation crosses from their human design since I knew everyone's birth time lol. The incarnation cross uses some astrology to take into consideration the position of the planets during your third trimester when it’s believed that the spirit enters the body in the womb. It’s to illuminate what your spirit’s intention in this incarnation seeks to fulfill.

Before we lit the candle my best witch friend took us on this AMAZING guided mediation that was so creative and visual and wonderful. We grounded ourselves but she took us on this story-telling guided meditation journey of us being deep in the earth and smelling the damp soil but having our goal be this light or seed within us that grows and expands until it pushes us up and out through the soil into the wintery forest air. I really felt like some reborn forest faerie sprite after that like she should record meditation podcasts.

We then lit our candles and we used the flame to light the biggest pillar candle as our combined hope and it lit ABLAZED. One of my friends couldn't get her candle to light and we did divination for her to find out what was blocking her and did a road opening spell for her so that she could overcome the obstacles.

After we wanted to do some candle scrying so another friend who does these amazing sound healing ceremonies (I went to glastonbury with her) lead the candle scrying and Y'all.. it was INSANE Like none of us were READY for the fucking adventure.. Basically we thought we'd all be staring into a candle in a trance quietly but it literally felt like something took hold of her like a greater spirit used her as a vessel and it was incredible. She told us all to hold hands and we closed our eyes and did some breathing. We all had to pulse each others hands and visualize a white thread locking us together for protection and creating a circle. She then called on to our higher guides to protect us and create this link to our higher spirits to open a channel so that we may see and allow the fire to guide us. She then was speaking so fast but also with such precision on how the light is opening a door and whatever we will see will help us unlock our true potential and see how we are the light etc for what felt like 6 minutes nonstop and it was so hard to stay on cause I had the WORST PAIN come up in the center of my back where my heart was and I was feeling like it was the culmination of energy being blocked (I have been doing sound healing there to help my heart energy but its been a rough journey), and the fire just felt like it could not channel through me cause of that blockage, but though the knot still hurts even as I type this, I could not break the circle lol. My best friend to my right was staring so intently I knew she was off like astral projecting into this fire, and as I would catch glimpses of others around me everyone was just like.. ON a Journey. I felt like it was like that scene in Harry Potter when they took the port key like we were all locked in and spiraling through time and space and I just had to wait until it was done. I looked at my friend to my right and she was beaming with TEARS covering her face, and my other friends looked windswept for some reason?? We were all like goddamn.. Everyone had Some Shit they've seen in the fire. Even if some of us didn't see something we saw a lot of colors which I mostly saw since I was really focused on the pain in my back. My friend leading the scrying said that the back area I pointed out was a channel that was blocked and is connected to my throat energy so once I fix that it can be aligned/opened but its like.. healing is so hard guys haha.

Anyway we grounded ourselves after the ritual with dessert! :) There was cheesecake (of course) I decorated with white chocolate star sprinkles and the same silver bonbon sprinkles and pavlova that could be topped with blueberries. I also had a cookie spread of butter cookies, white chocolate chip sugar cookies and white chocolate twix bars. The rest were mostly vegan desserts which were lovely. I bought coconut rice pudding but my other friends got vanilla cupcakes with thick white vegan buttercream, there was vanilla soy icecream that was really creamy and light and my aries witch friend I went to Berlin with made home made vegan tiramisu which was fantastic! She also bought red wine.

We spent the rest of the evening chatting, playing with the cats and laughing about whatever, my Aries witch friend was upset I made the dresscode all-white but she was wearing her 'artist' shirt she does painting in so she didn't care that she got tiramisu ALL OVER IT lol. (which we pointed out that no one else had stains on their white outfits but I mean she's an Aries what do you expect), and when we were all getting drunk and sleepy I asked my best witch friend if she wanted to tell a story and Oh My God she fucking DELIVERED

Basically she took us on this adventure retelling the story of Baba Yaga cause it was a tale that does also have to do with crone passing power to a maiden and a cycle re-continuing. Plus it's a midwinter tale involving fire and illumination. Anyway I used to think about how sad it was that back in the day people didn't have movies and had to like tell stories and shit but she was so good at telling this story I was like damn I get it now why people just used to sit around and tell stories together cause this shit is lit.

Before everyone left I forced people to take home food (I mean I had to get rid of all evidence of anything happening in my coworkers house) and I made everyone white paper lanterns with goodies inside and I stuck an electric tealight in it so it glows. I put a bathbomb in there, white chocolate, mint crumbles, buttermints for the non-vegans and tiny spell-jars filled with salt flakes.

When I was finally alone and had to do cleanup it took me nearly three hours but I was also drunk at that point lol. I now have left-over mac and cheese for days but gladly my aries witch friend is vegan and took the cabbage rolls with her and everyone helped take everything else.The cleaner came in the morning and essentially all evidence of anything ever occurring in that apartment was cleansed away...

I hope everyone else had a fantastic Imbolc!! It was on such a perfect moon phase too since it's the first quarter moon!!

#imbolc #personal #the story is long but filled with details #it was a magical night #all I could have ever wanted

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ryseresidence36-blog · 4 years

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Re-decorating & Selling Your Rental

If you are planning to sell your rental and are dreading getting it looking forward to the market - relax! The item couldn't be easier in comparison with it is now! More than ever before, typically the vogue in interior decorating is definitely favoring simplicity.

Every bedroom can be painted white as well as cream or beige having silver gray or black beige detailing. The use of this kind of color scheme will allow your prospective buyer know that your house has been decorated very not long ago.

This type of decor is perfect for a muslim, as it automatically adds spaciousness to a fairly compact spot. In order to prolong the ample feel, do not change the colour of the paintwork from the dinner area to the living place or hallway. Paint all of open areas in the identical tone, unless you have a filter wall that you wish to work with as an accent. Ryse Residences price

Only change colour, if you want to, when you reach a place that is totally separate, elizabeth. g., the bathroom or master bedrooms. If you do change it, you should even now opt for the neutral white, treatment or gray natural colours as color is stringently passe at the moment.

Experts propose that any pictures you put for the walls should be in support frames that actually match the duco, which is a new concept. As a way not to break up the unrelenting flow of the paint color, it is strongly recommended that drapes or shutters are also in the same colouring.

The type of drapes that grant a loan to themselves best to this new search are the gossamer sheer voiles; with blinds at the same eye-port you can keep the sheers available and be assured of comprehensive privacy.

A paint employment is not very expensive, but it can produce a very large difference to the overall look of your condo. What on your floors? Are they carpet as well as they wooden or hardwood flooring? Is the color of these people one of the shades that will firmness with the gray or beige detailing?

If you have a shiny floor and you feel that to modify the floor is too extravagant and also labor intensive, think of buying a substantial rug. Think of this before you opt for the color scheme because it is commonly easier to buy a rug with cream than in gray. A substantial off white area rug will go far toward the simple look that you'll be aiming for. Pasir Ris Central new launch

However , if your carpet will tone with the interior decoration, resist the urge to place a small area rug under the coffees table. An uninterrupted vista of floor space will increase the opinion of roominess.

One of the perceived problems of condo dwelling is the lack of storage space. New condo buyers who want to go a three bedroomed house into the one bedroomed condo will likely be checking to see if your place appears to be spacious. You do not want to focus on the perceived lack of safe-keeping by having a load of your own litter lying about.

If you have not by now rented one, then I comprehensively recommend that you rent some sort of storage unit now. It will likewise help you to move. Use it correctly and pack all your finest ornaments and china in boxes and cart these individuals off to storage. (The more ornaments you packs away the better - assume 'clear spaces'! ) Stop working all your out-of-season clothes along with shoes and all your activities gear that is unseasonal in addition to cart that load away from to the storage.

Already your own personal condo is looking very commodious! How about all the photos, newborns first pair of shoes and the children's grade 3 painting involving Grandma? What else would you do without until you unpack it in your new household?

If you have a balcony therefore you keep a few things located on it - think of going them into storage. Nevertheless , if you have summer rattan pieces of furniture packed away then buy it out now and pay for it on your balcony. Aim to keep the furniture to each edge, so that you can still look out often the screen doors and see the view outside the window.

Buy some tall arms if you have non-e, and put just one each side of the patio entrance doors on the balcony. It appearance very effective if you stand precisely the same size plants inside your courtyard doors as well, in the same position.

If you have a small wall, and can afford a new wall to wall looking glass, it really does enlarge your personal room! It also reflects excess sunlight, so choose a wall membrane that catches the sun, whenever you can. If you do decide to go with that idea, do not place a substantial piece of furniture right in front of the item.

Sometimes a narrow divider encloses the front entrance, whereby a small console is ample space to drop your take a moment and bag. It is efficient to keep the front entrance seeing that roomy as possible as you may typically be welcoming four persons at one time, especially when selling.

When you are moving into a different condo, just about any for you to consider: buy two-seater love seats as nobody ever sits in the middle of a 3 seater anyway; buy an oldtime sea chest to convert to a coffee table (loads connected with storage inside! ); invest in a car locker to attach into the wall of your parking position for lots of extra safe hard drive.

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ryseresidence17-blog · 4 years

Text

Redecorating & Selling Your House

If you are planning to sell your house and are dreading getting it looking forward to the market - relax! That couldn't be easier as compared to it is now! More than ever before, typically the vogue in interior decorating will be favoring simplicity.

Every area can be painted white or perhaps cream or beige together with silver gray or darker beige detailing. The use of this kind of color scheme will allow your prospective buyer know that your home has been decorated very just lately. Ryse Residences

This type of decor is perfect for a loft apartment, as it automatically adds spaciousness to a fairly compact spot. In order to prolong the ample feel, do not change the colour of the paintwork from the eating out area to the living place or hallway. Paint just about all open areas in the very same tone, unless you have a filter wall that you wish to make use of as an accent.

Only change area, if you want to, when you reach a space that is totally separate, at the. g., the bathroom or bed rooms. If you do change it, you should continue to opt for the neutral white, ointment or gray natural tones as color is totally passe at the moment.

Experts advise that any pictures you put around the walls should be in casings that actually match the exterior paint, which is a new concept. So as not to break up the unremitting, unrelenting flow of the paint color, experts recommend that drapes or shades are also in the same shade.

The type of drapes that loan themselves best to this new seem are the gossamer sheer voiles; with blinds at the same windows you can keep the sheers wide open and be assured of full privacy. Ryse Residences showflat

A paint career is not very expensive, but it can produce a very large difference to the physical appearance of your condo. What of your respective floors? Are they carpet as well as they wooden or to pick from flooring? Is the color of these people one of the shades that will sculpt with the gray or beige detailing?

If you have a vivid floor and you feel that to alter the floor is too extravagant in addition to labor intensive, think of buying a huge rug. Think of this before you choose the color scheme because it is typically easier to buy a rug inside cream than in gray. A huge off white area rug will go a considerable ways toward the simple look you are aiming for.

However , if your flooring will tone with the design, resist the urge to chuck a small area rug under the java table. An uninterrupted area of floor space will increase the impression of roominess.

One of the identified problems of condo existing is the lack of storage space. First-time condo buyers who want to proceed a three bedroomed house inside of your one bedroomed condo will probably be checking to see if your place appears to be spacious. You do not want to point out the perceived lack of safe-keeping by having a load of your own chaos lying about.

If you have not previously rented one, then I carefully recommend that you rent some sort of storage unit now. It will help you to move. Use it sensibly and pack all your very best ornaments and china in boxes and cart these individuals off to storage. (The more ornaments you package away the better - consider 'clear spaces'! ) Clean up all your out-of-season clothes as well as shoes and all your athletics gear that is unseasonal and also cart that load down to the storage.

Already your own personal condo is looking very commodious! How about all the photos, child's first pair of shoes and the children's grade 3 painting involving Grandma? What else is it possible to do without until you unpack it in your new residence?

If you have a balcony and also you keep a few things kept on it - think of shifting them into storage. Still if you have summer rattan furnishings packed away then obtain it out now and set up it on your balcony. Make an effort to keep the furniture to each aspect, so that you can still look out often the screen doors and see the lovely view.

Buy some tall arms if you have non-e, and put one particular each side of the patio entrances on the balcony. It appearance very effective if you stand the identical size plants inside your deck doors as well, in the exact same position.

If you have a small wall, and can afford a new wall to wall hand mirror, it really does enlarge your personal room! It also reflects added sunlight, so choose a wall membrane that catches the sun, if you possibly can. If you do decide to go with that idea, do not place a huge piece of furniture right in front of that.

Sometimes a narrow divider encloses the front entrance, in that case a small console is enough space to drop your tips and bag. It is useful to keep the front entrance since roomy as possible as you may usually be welcoming four folks at one time, especially when selling.

Should you be moving into a different condo, below are great tips for you to consider: buy two-seater love seats as nobody ever sits in the middle of a 3 seater anyway; buy a classic sea chest to convert in to a coffee table (loads connected with storage inside! ); get a car locker to attach for the wall of your parking area for lots of extra safe hard drive.

Ryse Residences by Allgreen. Hotline 61009963. Get Discounts, Direct Developer Price, Floor Plan, Price List, Brochure ; More. New Launch Pasir Ris Condo in Singapore.

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annakie · 4 years

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An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part Five

Will we make it off the Citadel in this update??

List of Posts: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Flux is my favorite bar in all of the first game, I know there’s not many to choose from, but I like the music best, everybody’s clothed, everyone’s having a good time, there’s slots upstairs for entertainment, there’s dancing, and plenty of space to chill out in. Also the color scheme is great. It looks particularly great now with the graphics mod improvements.

Doran gets a nice glamour shot here.

I’m a tattle tale who always turns this guy in. I agree with Kaidan...

Also I really love Rita’s quest with her sister. She loves her sister, Jenna wants to be helpful, even Doran’s like “Hey I’d love to give her her job back.” Everyone here is pretty wholesome. And Jenna gets one of the best surprise appearances in ME3 if you do things right. ME1Recalibrated fixes the bugs with her quest, too!

Speaking of bugged quests, Hello Conrad! ME1Recalibrated fixes Conrad’s bug, and even if it doesn’t, ME2Re does. The only bad thing about that is it makes his apology for accusing you of something you maybe didn’t do make no sense.

Everyone else was sure Conrad would turn out to be evil, too, right? Instead making him into just a big lying dummy with an advanced degree was a great move. I was kinda hoping he’d show up in the Citadel DLC.

Harkin is JUST the FUCKING WORST. I’m always tempted to let Garrus cap him in ME2 because what a waste of air he is and doesn’t learn his lesson.

This is also maybe the most overt place where FemShep experiences sexism. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s some pretty shitty sexism sprinkled throughout the games (as discussed a bit last post) but ugh this guy, if I could shoot him this game, I might. At least on renegade playthroughs.

Speaking of Garrus...

Finally, an alien who wants to hang out with us.

As primarily a Kaidan-romancing gal, who tends to keep up with the Kaidan Alenko tag, especially back in the heyday of tumblr, for a while, loving Garrus was... difficult.

In October, when I was finishing up my latest ME3 playthrough and also cleaning up my blog, and also rewatching Doctor Who and thinking a lot about Rose Tyler and Martha Jones, I posted a long thing in a post about Kaidan and Garrus and badly behaving fanbases, which I don’t feel like typing again. Here’s the whole thing, but I’m going to pull a part of it into here.

I love Garrus, so much. And I was thinking with this whole parallel DW rewatch / Mass Effect replay think I’m doing right now how both Rose Tyler and Garrus Vakaraian are characters that were ruined for me for awhile due to their respective… overly enthusiastic fanbases who a small percentage of were dicks to people who loved other characters. The Kaidan tag (and from what I understand Thane got some of this too, but not nearly as bad) was a pretty hostile place for awhile (and yeah I used to regularly check the Garrus tag too and there was a small amount of tag-invasion there but uh, like 5% of what the Kaidan tag got) which made loving the character of Garrus a lot harder for awhile. But when actually watching seasons 1 & 2 / the end of 4 of Doctor Who, or actually playing the ME games, those characters are awesome.

Fanbases can be amazing or terrible, and time and time again I think you start to realize that no matter how great a fandom is, there are going to be a few people who can only enjoy themselves by feeding on drama, or on lifting up what they love by stomping on other people/characters/plotlines.

It’s not fair to characterize everyone who loves a popular thing as someone who does this. It’s also hard to avoid completely because there will always be jerks, or young/new people who don’t realize what bad form they’re showing. I did learn by trying to fight it for a year or two, that responding might help that one person not do it again, but it’s not going to stop overall.

Anyway, don’t be a dick about the things you don’t like.

It’s sad that even thirteen years past the release of ME1 and eight years past ME3 some people still need to have this fight online. It’s basically impossible to enjoy like, any non-curated Mass Effect space online because of pissing contests or people spouting the same boring opinions. Which they’re entitled to. I’m just real tired of “Kaidan is boring!” “Ashley is a racist!” etc with no further depth of thought being given.

The ability to mute / block people and get away from the worst of it is one of the reasons I’m still on tumblr. Especially always mute/block “confessions” blogs. Yeesh.

---------

I’m glad Garrus is here, and I’m glad he’s on the team. What’s funny though, is that people tend to forget that Garrus like, wasn’t really all THAT popular of a character before ME2. I know I was only in the fandom for a year before ME2 but I dug in pretty deep in that time.

It wasn’t until he gets his face blown off and starts talking about Old Times that a lot of people started to REALLY like him. He’s still great in ME1, but not like, elevated to god-tier that so many people did post ME2 release. But in ME1 he IS neat because he’s really malleable. Probably the companion who can have the biggest personality shift depending on your choices.

Also, I remember a time when the people who wanted to romance Garrus were like... outliers? I remember thinking “GARRUS? As a romance? That’s... weird. Who would do that!?”

OH HOW I WAS WRONG. But that was before reach and flexibility.

Hey I even have a Shep that romanced Garrus in ME2 and ME3. And I loved it!

Were I to replay a different Shep, she’d be my first choice.

So yeah, I love Garrus, I keep Kaidan in the squad all the time in ME1 and the other spot I try to rotate everyone else somewhat evenly, but you’ll see plenty of him. Then ME2 he’s by my side most of the way. And an awful lot in ME3, too. But I’m happy for him to get crushed on by Dr. Michele and glad to see him and Tali find happiness in ME3. SO that’s the path we’ll be going down if we get that far here.

I love the Destiny Ascension flyby moment on the Citadel, and it’s so easy to miss. Also really hard to get good screenshots of. Thanks Flycam. Don’t pay attention to the untextured wall in the first pic, just look at the pretty lights!

Let’s go get another squadmate! This time, a not-as-initially-friendly alien!

What an amazing entrance for Urdnot Wrex.

“Do you want me to arrest you?”

“I want you to try!”

Hell. Yeah.

Here’s where the somewhat in somewhat evenly comes in. I probably do favor Wrex and Ashely in the squad in ME1 a little because... well you know what’s coming for Ash and Wrex you get the least amount of time with by far of the other companions. Also, he’s just... great? A tank, with some biotics and a shotgun... okay well so am I as a vanguard, but Kaidan has just enough tech powers for us to muddle through where we need to when Wrex is in the squad and he’s so much fun to have around. His “Fuck you, I don’t care” attitude is great, and his growth story throughout the trilogy is one of the best arcs a character gets, imho. I just really love Urdnot Wrex.

This is a real nice flight control office you’ve got here, C-Sec. It would be a shame if someone planted a bug in it later, since literally anyone can just walk on up here uncontested.

This entire area really is so pretty though.

I always pump points into Paragon as much as possible from as early on as possible, and saving these poor guys’ lives is one of the big reasons. They don’t need to die.

Ash usually still stays in the party up to this point, though sometimes it’s Garrus. Fist is still a dick in ME2 but he doesn’t need to die here, sorry Wrex.

...raise your hand if you still occasionally forget to pick up Emily Wong’s evidence and have to reload. I remembered! ...once I was almost out of Chora’s Den and had to turn around this time.

Kaidan? Kaidan my love? My darling... perhaps YOU shouldn’t be the one standing in the middle of the corridor with no barrier or protection? (I suppose I could scooch over but then I’d look less badass for these screenshots. Naaah.)

It’d be a shame if someone properly lit the corridor so we could see what’s going on.

But hey... TALI! Tali Tali Tali! The first quarian we see, and only one for... awhile? Is there another quarian in this entire game? I’m trying to remember and seriously can’t think of one.

Anyway, I love Tali, but another character you really need to ignore their most rabid fanbase portions of. Yikes, Talimancers were really something back in the day. The biggest problem I have with Tali being in the squad is that normally she’s REALLY useful against Geth and... not so much against just about anything else. She gets sidelined on my team more than I wish she would. Especially since she doesn’t show up until very late in ME2 and late-midway through ME3.

Finally, the proof we need. And the game continues to introduce new concepts to us with the Conduit and we hear the word Reapers for the first time. We also get a loredump on the quarians and the geth.

Tali’s voice doesn’t have quite as heavy of an accent in ME1 as it does in 2 and 3. I guess we can assume she’s lost part of it while on her pilgrimage? Picking up the local dialects a bit? The next two times we see her she’s just spent a lot of time with her own people.

Tali’s suit and omnitool look SO GOOD with the updated textures.

I swap Ash out and Tali in at this point, and usually finish up a few more quests along the way.

Ah, Septimus. You lovesick fool.

Honestly, the very best thing with Septimus is to bring Garrus here if you’re gonna romance him, have Garrus laugh at him for coming undone for love and then... well, ME2 and especially ME3 happen. But still. Septimus... always needs a kick in the pants but will get around to doing the right thing.

Hey here’s a cool thing ME1Recalibated does -- Morlan carries a Squad Iconic Armors stock, so you can always find tier-appropriate default look armor for you and all the squad. Very cool of you, Morlan. You are currently my favorite store on the Citadel. Now stop sending me spam, I didn’t sign up for your mailing list.

Look, I have questions about what exactly Xeltan told the consort and how... all that... works... but... I don’t think I actually want to ask them. Just.. let’s all shut up about all of it, it’s over now.

BTW, according to one of the novels, Councilor Anderson finds Ambassador Cayln super annoying. I need to re-read that book.

OK fine... I’ll go talk to the Council.

Coming at ya with Actual Proof and a quarian tagging along to back up the claims, the Council is ready to listen. And while not surprising that it’s finally time to become a Spectre, the actual ceremony is really well done. With the swelling theme music blaring, and all three councilors stressing what a big deal this is and what will be expected of you, you really feel the weight of this moment. People take notice. Although apparently later, Kaidan or Ash get an entire televised event around becoming a Spectre, I guess there’s no time for that right now.

It definitely feels like the game so far has been building towards this moment, not only with POUNDING it into your brain about who Spectres are and why they’re so important and letting you know you’re being evaluated... but it feels like there’s been a shift in the game after this moment. It’s A Big Deal.

I didn’t finish all the sidequests on the Citadel yet, they can wait, I’ve been here long enough. Let’s go check out the new cool stuff we can buy.

ME1Recalibrated adds in this Spectre Armor. Eeehhhhh... no thanks. We’ll stick with Onyx.

I did cheat myself in a bunch of credits and picked up Spectre weapons though. This ain’t no tryhard playthrough.

Well OK, we can finish ONE more quest. Thanks, startlingly loud and triumphant music queue that’s never used again!

Man, this would be SUCH a good pic of the Normandy if... the airlock didn’t go straight through the ship.

We’ve got a ship of our own! And most of our squadmates to put on it!

Sucks for Anderson to be sidelined, though. We already love you, Anderson!

It’s cool to get a bit more of the Saren & Anderson backstory here for real. Still, I enjoyed the book more. Maybe I’ll do a re-read of all the ME books here soon.

Udina... just keep being you, I guess.

WE HAVE A SHIP!!!

Okay, whew... we made it off the Citadel. Now I gotta actually play some more to have more updates to post. Might be a few days. Have to actually go back to work tomorrow. :p

Let’s probably do like one sidequest then go get us an Asari!!

#mass effect #bioware #kaidan alenko #garrus vakarian #urdnot wrex #tali'zorah #annakie's mass effect stuff

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adamatomic · 4 years

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Design of Doom Eternal

Wanted to jot down some thoughts while they were still fresh, and I hate writing threads on Twitter, so, here we are.

(Surprise! Male game designer has DOOM OPINIONS. BEHOLD LOL)

First, disclaimers: what follows is super subjective, pretty picky, and likely unjustified. I love a good mobility shooter - Doom 2016 and Titanfall 2 are the only western shooters I really enjoy, and each do super interesting things spatially, mechanically, etc. However, I’ve never worked on any kind of FPS type of game, and never worked on a AAA game, nor shipped a game during a global pandemic, and there’s a lot that I don’t understand about what goes into making this kind of thing, much less how it’s even possible. Making a followup to a well-loved and hugely successful game is also a terrifying prospect. Finally, I am about to "dwell” on what I perceive to be “negative” things about the game, which is pretty unfair, because there’s a LOT of positives (it’s fun, it’s gorgeous, the load times are crazy short, the vistas slay again, amazing accessibility options, perfect audio, etc etc). But I think this is a game where a lot of the positives are really in your face, and what again I personally perceive to be the negatives are a little bit harder to put your finger on. And this isn’t a review, and definitely isn’t yucking anyone’s yums. This is me trying to figure out why this one feels a bit different to play. Hopefully the unanimously positive reception of the game by literally everyone everywhere (including myself) balances out whatever acid might be in these queries.

OK!

Jungle Gyms Versus Canyons

Ok, so. Doom Eternal is structured a lot like 2016 in that it’s corridors linking big wave-based arenas, which is a good structure for a game about shooting all the things. Arenas can be flat-ish or tall-ish. Tall-ish arenas seem to roughly come in two flavors: jungle gyms, and canyons. Jungle gym arenas are the ones that I feel like took centerstage in the marketing and gameplay of Doom 2016, as a way of showing off the double-jump / ledge grab / launchpad vertical mobility stuff, and because they make narrative / thematic sense in the human-built oil rig environments that comprise much of Doom 2016′s level architecture. Jungle gyms are distinguished somewhat from canyons by generally having what feel like distinct “floors”, or solid planes creating multiple separated levels of combat. Canyons, even if they have some transverse traversal elements, are more open and chaotic, with less concrete divisions between elevations. I’m belaboring this essential difference because it has a bunch of second-order effects on gameplay - jungle gyms allow you to jump from skirmish to skirmish, you can use your mobility options to “interrupt” combat, while canyons are more continuous. Jungle gyms usually have more obstacles (like the aforementioned distinct floors) which make it slightly harder for long range enemy attacks to land, which reduces the overall ambient damage-soak.

The key thing about all these arenas - flat open spaces, distinct jungle gym environments, and canyon style playgrounds - is that you definitely want all of them in your game, because the strategy and tactics for playing these fights changes a lot based on these constraints. When do you want a roof over your head? When do you not? When do you want your back to a wall? These are valid and important differences for these games specifically, especially when basic resource management strategies in these encounters is pretty similar, and because the enemy behaviors and attacks have so much variety.

So far, though, Doom Eternal feels like it has a WHOLE LOT of canyons, and NOT a whole lot of jungle gyms. It’s possible that this changes later in the game, so take all this with a big grain of salt. But the first 3-4 hours of gameplay are really dominated by canyon-style vertical arenas, which isn’t necessarily ideal in terms of variety (and makes you angst a little harder for the wall-run affordances of other mobility shooters). They also tend to be slightly same-y, outdoor, rocky environments, versus the more oil rig-inspired, recognizably human-scale mining structures of 2016 (I’m sure this changes later in the game too). The oil rig-inspired stuff also lends itself to jungle gyms a lot more naturally, so I feel like these choices of arena shapes and environment types are kind of an interconnected and difficult problem.

None of this would really even qualify as a problem, either - this is nitpicking nitpicks, at this point - except relying on canyons so much exacerbates some of the “fussiness” of the combat changes (those are next). For me, anyways - I’m not sure anyone else is feeling like these are problems haha. And it’s a big game, so I’m not sure how much this stuff changes across the whole campaign yet!

Tactical Ballistics

A Doom thing I adored in 2016 and am continuing to enjoy in Eternal is the way ammo, health, and other arcade-style upgrades are thoughtfully placed around the arenas. It’s a nod to the strongest parts of Vanquish’s level design, and goes all the way back to using coins in Super Mario to lure players out to new places they might not explore otherwise. It’s a huge part of what gives the nu-Doom arenas their “chess-like” feel, and shifts the fights away from Serious Sam-style battles and makes them into four-dimensional puzzles. 2016 doubles down on this tactical approach by leveraging a kind of resource triangle of chainsaw kills, glory kills, and just plain firefights.

A lot of Eternal’s design seems committed to upping the ante on all of these strengths. Lower ammo capacities puts more pressure on the chainsaw kills. There’s a new technique called “flame belch” that turns the resource triangle into a resource square to accommodate armor. Monsters have “weak points” now, shortcuts that change their behavior or get you fast glory kills. It’s a pretty compelling jigsaw puzzle of abilities.

It also places a lot of strain on player attention and cognition, because all this is running on top of straight-up arena-wave firefights (with 7+ enemy types at a time, all with unique behaviors and optimal strats) AND beefy mobility controls (swinging, dashing, double-jumps, ledge grabs, launch pads, etc). It’s kind of a lot. But I don’t think this is necessarily the place for saying “this is DOOM, man, you got to keep it simple, just shoot the monsters, how come there’s even upgrades” or whatever. For so many reasons, but the primary of which is that most of this stuff rules, and throwing it away would suck. So what do you do?

I want to focus on two small, specific things that really stand out to me - I’m not totally sure that they’re actually “bad”, but I think they have a lot of weird secondary and tertiary effects that contribute to some perceptions of “fussiness” in some of the battles.

Weak Points

This is a big enough change that it is repeatedly tutorialized through video on every loading screen, after every game over, and after every new enemy is introduced... so I know it was on the designers’ radar haha. And it's an interesting addition - chess fights in Doom are already about hierarchies, and adding another tiny hierarchy within an existing hierarchy is a NICE bit of tension to add, it gives a kind of scrambly feeling that is good overall. The issue for me arises from an apparent or perceived damage scaling issue around these weak points. For example, the optional sniper rifle upgrade to the heavy cannon and the optional sticky bombs upgrade to the shotgun insta-wreck the arachnotron and revenant enemies’ weak points, while sustained plasma rifle fire doesn’t seem to ever do the job. Which makes sense on paper - this is a nice way of putting pressure on the player’s weapon choices and ammo, which is what it’s all about. Although I guess you could argue that it’s also all about movement, and that this particular combat pressure has a pretty tenuous relationship with mobility in general.

Either way, it means you spend a lot of time squinting at your weapon wheel mid-battle to see how many shots your shotgun still has, because you ran out of chainsaw fuel a while ago, and are still being actively bombarded at a pretty long distance (because its a canyon and not a jungle gym). I know, I need to git gud, trust me, i KNOW. But check out the weapon wheel ammo display size in Doom 2016 versus Doom Eternal:

I love the new color scheme and ammo icons in Eternal! But it’s 3-4x harder to read the actual, very important ammo counts.

All these small changes add up to something that feels like a pretty different gameplay experience compared to the more spatial (read: movement-based) and literally easier-to-read resource management stuff from 2016. Which, it’s a sequel - failing to sufficiently differentiate it is its own huge risk. And, to be fair, 2016 had its fair share of fussy (though more legible) weapon switching. But when you add this stuff up, the matrix of considerations in moment-to-moment combat in Eternal is pretty different from 2016, and I think it largely comes down to the damage scaling around the weak points. While you can technically choose to play through battles without leveraging weakpoints (thus sidestepping most of these cascading issues), this approach is heavily incentivized by the major behavior changes that happen after you hit weak points (in addition to the constant tutorializing) and the waves appear to have been balanced around taking advantage of these things. Whether or not these are even flaws, technically, whatever they are is exacerbated by the UI design of the weapon wheel AND the relatively popularity of the relatively unobscured canyon arenas. So it’s hard for me to judge weak point damage scaling in a vacuum.

Overall, these new combat options make the arenas feel more constrained and more prescribed. Design is a nightmare this way: sometimes by giving people more choices, you’re actually giving them less. My pitch for a small tweak that might engage with some of these issues would be to keep weak points, but get rid of the damage scaling and maybe make the hitboxes a little bigger. The goal here is NOT to make weak point enemies easier so much as to open up options about what weapons you can use against them, thereby reducing wheel squinting, thereby freeing up more attention to movement and all the other stuff that ruuuules about nu-Doom in general.

Also, I should clarify that it’s entirely possible that I completely imagined the weak point damage scaling, and am a big dummy with bad aim.

Flame Belch

This is a pretty small thing, there’s this new “flame belch” move, intended to complement the existing chainsaw and glory kill moves as a way of “farming” resources from combat, one of the things that really defined Doom 2016. It differs in one huge way though, in that it has to be committed to BEFORE killing a monster. Chainsaws and glory kills ARE kills. Flame belch adds a status instead, which is “cashed in” later when you do the kill. If chainsaw kills and glory kills and BFG shots are Super Mario jumps, Flame Belch is more like a Tony Hawk jump - it starts early and is carefully calculated. Which is pretty dope!! But in this environment where weak point damage scaling and canyon layouts are already putting huge strains on the player’s attention, it feels like a big ask. The “triangle button” mechanic from 2016, the BFG, was a kill move with cool-down, so really I’m just suggesting stuff they already tried anyways. There’s no way this is news to anybody, much less the developers haha.

But... I would love to play a build where flame belch was totally a thing, just it was a finishing move, not a status thing. Let it plug into that reload-replacing resource-farming punctuation pacing flow. That shit rules.

Of course, I have to wonder what the unintended secondary and tertiary consequences of these suggestions would be. Good action games are often tenuous and deeply interconnected things where results are really hard to predict. Maybe they already tried these ideas and they sucked, or they know their own game a lot better than I do, and have a big stack of reasons this stuff would suck for most of their player base.

But wait...

Where The Hell Am I?

Last section, I promise.

I am extremely not going to weigh in on whether or not Doom games need “Story” or not, or what that even means.

But...

If you are driving a monster truck, it is probably pretty fun to see a big line of cars in front of you, and know that you are about to drive all over those cars, and that at the end is a really big fancy car... and you are going to drive over that too.

The general conceit of Doom 2016, that you are on one end of a Mars base, and you need to get to the other end, and in between is a whole lot of cars demons, is a good one. It has good monster truck-ness.

So far this is something that I’m struggling to extract from Eternal. I’m not really sure who any of these grumpy folks are, or where it is that they are, or why I am going down this corridor (aside from the very Doom-like fact that it is the only corridor around).

The problem for me is decidedly NOT that I don’t understand the slayer’s emotional whatever, or that I haven’t been painstakingly expositioned into the specific hierarchies of the demon universe, or anything that I think would normally be described as a “narrative”. For me, it’s that I don’t get to sort of soak in the anticipation of the loooong line of cars I’m about to crunch.

Does Doom need a story? Idk. Doom might need a lot of about-to-get-crushed cars though.

Finally finally finally, and this is highly subjective, but I think the slayer is just more fun when he’s an X factor or a rogue agent. NPCs recognizing the slayer feels sort of weird to me? The feeling that he is a fly in the ointment I think is stronger and sexier when he’s like... outside the canon, almost. I’m not totally convinced that having him Kratos around is as fun as having a bunch of demons and priests both confused and terrified of what this dude is doing.

I need to get back to family stuff. They let me sit here and type this out, which was very kind of them. Only five tantrums so far. Either way, I’m looking very forward to playing more Doom Eternal...

...just as soon as I finish designing 17 more shirts in ACNH.

Hope everyone’s staying home and staying safe! Rip and tear, friends. Rip and tear <3

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ramheavenandhell · 5 years

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The Worth of a Morty

AN: This story was actually inspired a long time ago by many, many fanfics where Morty gets terminally ill and Rick tries to cure him. However, I decided to make mine a platonic take of that kind of premise…and also give it a sad ending. So, you have been warned. Also, many, many thanks to @rickxoxomort for drawing this precious cover art <3 You're da best! Warning: angst, character death, OOCness, probably some spoilers if you haven't read the comics Summary: "It's okay, isn't it? I mean, it's not like it really matters, right Rick? Isn't that what you always say "nothing matters"? So, this is nothing. It's just a small blip on the radar of the universe. I'm just one Morty and you always keep reminding me how disposable I am. My life holds no worth. And Mortys die every day anyways, right? It's just infinite minus one. Doesn't really matter on the grand scale. Nothing does. I'm just another Morty, who didn't make it now…"

The Worth of a Morty Many things were said about death. Some say it comes swift and unexpected. Others said it would slowly creep up on you. Rick Sanchez was a man that wasn't thinking much about death. Or rather, he was thinking too much about it. The realization of his own mortality and the futileness of his existence on the universal scale. The knowledge that after his death, he would be soon forgotten and the universe will just keep expanding as if he hadn't existed to begin with. The thought that with death everything was just over and there was no paradise in heaven or fiery pits of hell. No afterlife and no rebirth. There was nothing. You just drop dead and that was it. It was these realizations – that his own existence didn't matter – that made him choose to drown his own thoughts in alcohol every so often. It was also the reason why he choose to live his life to the fullest every day while still abiding to the natural struggle of staying alive for as long as possible like every other living being. However, while the thought of his own death was something that he liked to avoid as much as possible (though in his old age, it was still constantly in the back of his mind), he didn't really feel bothered by witnessing the death of others. How could he, seeing, as he himself was often the demise of entire species, planets, even solar systems? As equally unmoving did he feel about seeing his own corpse, which also wasn't as much of a rare sight as one might think. Seeing, as there were infinite dimensions, one Rick Sanchez was just bound to stumble across one or two dead versions of himself eventually. And how could that bother him really? In the grand scheme, it didn't really matter anyway and there were still plenty of him around. It was just infinite minus one or two, really. So, he didn't feel anything when seeing himself die or dead. He also didn't feel anything when seeing other versions of his family finding their end. And the same went for Mortys. He had certainly seen as many dead grandsons as he had seen dead versions of himself. Sometimes, he was even the cause for their death. It meant nothing to him. After all, there were still plenty around. However, the question was if he would be equally unbothered if it was about his own grandson – the Morty from his dimension. He was constantly busy saving the boy from trouble that he brought upon himself (though in truth, Rick was the one, who would get him into that sort of trouble to begin with). And while the occasions were rare, he went out his way to even sacrifice his own life for him. However, while he was usually successful in his rescue missions, eventually there had to be one time that even Rick Sanchez had to fail. It all started slowly, so slowly creeping up on them that it hit them unexpectedly… "R-Rick… I don't feel so good…" Morty groaned softly as he stumbled to keep up with his grandfather's long strides. Rick didn't stop or even look back. "Quit your whining, Morty." He had important stuff to do and didn't care about whatever Morty was complaining about. If the boy really got sick, he would just make him a cure when they got home. At the moment, it was more important for him to get those rare crystals, which he would use as a new power source for his space car. He wasn't just going to stop because his grandson started to get a cold or something stupid like that. However, for as tame as their hunt after those mysterious crystals went even before their adventure ended, Morty was more exhausted than ever. "C-can we please… take a br-break… Rick?" the boy asked between panting breaths. "No way, Morty." Rick said, as he looked the crystal in his hand over to make sure that they really found the right ones. "These crystals don't harvest themselves. So grab a bag and start plucking." With shaking hands, he caught the big brown sack that his grandfather threw at him and started to collect the crystal that glowed in a turquoise color. Of course, it wouldn't be a real Rick and Morty AdventureTM, when things would have just continued to stay as peaceful as that. Their happy-crystal-harvest was quickly interrupted as Morty accidentally woke up the creature on which's back the crystals were growing and not soon after were they chased through the maze-like tunnels of the cave that they were in with a dinosaur-like alien on their heels. While they fled, Morty was slower than he usually was in a situation in which he had to run for his life. The monster was steadily gaining up on him. Worse came to worst, when the boy stumbled and fell to the ground. "Argh! Dammit, Morty!" Rick cursed as he, too, sharply stopped and dashed back to pick up Morty by the back of his shirt. "Will you stop acting like a virgin in a slasher movie for once, Morty? It gets really repetitive when you fall down every time that we're being chased." There was no comeback from the boy as he continued to hang limply in Rick's grasp. Rick only grunted in annoyance that he had to lug his grandson around while they were still being chased. Eventually, he managed to escape from the beast and opened a portal, which brought them back home – inside the garage and Rick's personal workshop. He let the boy finally drop unceremoniously on the ground as he started to ramble on about how Morty had once again managed to ruin everything as they returned empty-handed now. "Goddammit, Morty! I already had those crystals and then you-you-you had to wake it up and now I've got nothing." Rick kept on ranting for a while before he stopped. Something was weird here. Usually, Morty would protest back that it wasn't entirely his fault that their adventure had ended like this or he would complain about something or another, but he had oddly stayed silent through the entire time that his grandfather had been verbally ripping into him. "Morty?" Rick actually turned around to the boy to see him still laying on the floor where he had dropped him. "Morty!" He rushed over to the boy only find out that he had been so silent the entire time because he was passed out. It made Rick panic a little bit before he remembered that Morty had complained about not feeling too well before. He had been also trembling, panting and sweating a lot even though they hadn't really walked all that much. Maybe he had caught some sort of alien flu or something? So, Rick decided to cure his grandson – also for the sake that he wouldn't be a whiney bitch about this after he woke up again. He picked Morty up and brought him down to his underground laboratory where he placed him on an examination table. Rick took a blood sample and started to run several tests. However, the more he tested and looked over the results, the more confused he became. In the middle of the examination, Morty had come to again and looked quizzically up at his grandfather as he looked once more over the results. "Have you found out what is wrong with me, Rick?" he asked weakly. "That is the thing, Morty. There is nothing wrong with you." "What? But I feel so weak." Morty couldn't believe that it was true. Rick sighed. "You're probably just exhausted, Morty. You should go to bed and sleep." The scientist decided to give up and could only assume that the boy was just tired. Maybe he should avoid pulling him out of bed around 3 AM for a while, he figured. Morty still found it hard to believe, but followed Rick's advice and went to bed early. True to his word, Rick had avoided waking Morty up in the middle of the night to take him on an adventure. He didn't even bother the boy at school and generally laid off for a while. However, it seemed that over time instead of getting better, Morty's condition just got worse. The only things that he complained about was just being tired all the time and feeling nauseous though. When the boy eventually became too weak to even walk on his own anymore, Rick examined him once again… and once more, he was not able to find anything wrong with him. Being at the end of his medicinal knowledge, he decided that he needed professional help. "Oh c'mon! Just get your ass over here!" Rick practically yelled into his mobile phone while Morty watched him queasily from the examination table. "Haven't you sworn an oath to help all Mortys or something like that?" Whoever Rick was talking to, replied. Unfortunately, Morty wasn't able to hear what was said. "As I told you before, I can't bring him over to you. I'm pretty much sure that I'm not welcome on the Citadel anymore after destroying it and killing everyone in charge." He was silent for another moment as his conversational partner replied. Then, "Yeah, see you." With those last words, he hung up. Morty wanted to ask whom Rick had called, but before he could even get the first word out, a portal suddenly opened. "You better remember that home visits aren't cheap, C-137." The Rick who entered through the portal said as a greeting. He wore a blue-green top with inflated see-through plastic sleeves and a white smock. Teal-colored latex gloves were also adorning his hands. The white headpiece on his head kind of looked out of place on him though. It was something that Morty would have expected a nurse to wear, but not some kind of Rick doctor. The doctor, who was known as Surgeon Rick, also had a large briefcase with him. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Will you just go and take a look at him already." Rick waved towards his Morty, not really caring about money at the moment. Surgeon Rick went over to the examination table. "Why, hello there, Morty. Where does it hurt?" "I'm not really hurting. I just feel really weak." Morty said, feeling a bit uncomfortable as he always did around doctors even if this one was a Rick…or maybe especially because this one was a Rick. Surgeon Rick hummed as he opened his briefcase and removed all sorts of tools that he had brought with him. The sight of some of them made Morty sweat and swallow heavily. Hopefully, the doctor wasn't planning on using all of those on him. Just like Rick C-137, Surgeon Rick began to run several tests on the boy. Looking with a frown at his results, he began to question the boy. "Morty, did you eat something before you started to feel like this? A plant or fruit or did you put anything else in your mouth?" The boy shook his head. Surgeon Rick hummed. "Did you get bitten by an animal or another creature or stung by something?" "No. Nothing like that. I just started to feel really tired from one moment to the other." Surgeon Rick hummed once more before he turned towards Rick C-137. "Where did you say again did he catch this?" "We were on planet Cyrumlon in dimension B-622C. Could you find out what he has?" "Gonna set that one on the red list so other Ricks won't bring their Mortys there." Surgeon Rick said as he made an according note on his tablet pc. "It seems your Morty's muscles are deteriorating by the way." "Yeah, I already figured out as much! I want to know what's causing it or preferably how to cure it!" Rick was pissed. He hadn't gone out of his way to bring this asshole of a professional medic here just to hear from him what he already knew. "See, that's the thing, C-137." Surgeon Rick started and moved a bit farther away from the Morty as if he didn't want him to hear the conversation even though the boy could still hear them. "Your Morty is a hopeless case. There's no way to cure him." "You can't be serious!" C-137 protested. "Just telling you as it is. There's nothing that I can do for him. You know as good as I do that at this rate, he's only got a few more hours or may one to two days at best. Just give up and get yourself a new one at the Citadel's Reassignment Center. Better get going soon 'cause, you know that they have long lines and it takes a while to get a new one." Surgeon Rick started to pack his stuff together. "Oh, if you like, I can put him out of his misery right now." "What?! No!! Get the hell out of here!" Morty felt queasy as he followed the conversation especially when the doctor offered to put him out as if he was just some pet. This was it though, wasn't it? If a Rick Doctor of all people said that there was no chance of recovery for him then he was really done for. He wasn't sure how to feel about it. Though, he had never liked to imagine it, he had been thinking how it probably must be for people when they were diagnosed with cancer and were told that they only had a few more months to live. He'd always imagined that if it was him, he'd probably freak out, get really angry and start throwing things around or just break down and cry, but now he just felt numb. "Here's your stupid money and now get out you quack." C-137 practically shoved the money into Surgeon Rick's arms and pushed him through the portal. He didn't like to hear the news, but in the end it only confirmed his fears. Even the medic couldn't find the cause for the disintegration of Morty's muscles and therefore a cure for it. Rick knew there wasn't much that he could do anymore now. Sure, he could try to stimulate the boy's muscles with electricity and use some other stimulants on him, but in the long run the only good it would do was buy them some more time. Eventually, the muscles in Morty's body would completely stop working, which in turn would mean that his heart would stop pumping blood through his veins. It would just stop beating and the boy would die and even if he tried to give him a pacemaker, his other organs would also eventually fail to function. Completely bypassing the fact that Morty would be bedridden and not be able to take care of himself anymore… "Hey, Rick?" Morty interrupted his dark thoughts. "Since you lost the free voucher when I had been kidnapped by those drug lords, you'll probably have to wait a bit before you get another Morty…so you should probably do what the doctor had said and go to that reassignment center right now." Morty actually hoped that Rick wasn't too angry about that time. They just happened to forget the voucher there after all that chaos. The boy could still remember how Rick had handed him the piece of paper before he had been abducted. "Here." Rick said, as he handed him the slip that Morty quickly identified as the voucher for a free Morty that Rick had received after he had been falsely accused of Rickicide by the Council of Ricks. "While I'm on the toilet and produce something worthless, you can think about your own worth, Morty." "Wha-wha-what are you saying, Morty? You're not gonna die. I'll fix you back up again, all right buddy?" Rick tried to smile reassuringly at his grandson. "Grandpa's got this, Morty. I'll fix it. Ju-just like always, Morty." They both knew that it was a lie. "It's okay, Rick." No, it wasn't okay. It was anything but okay. But what could Rick do about it? There was nothing that he could do. He was the most intelligent man in the entire universe and yet there was nothing that he could do to save his grandson. "Morty…" Rick started, his tone sounding apologetic. Rick Sanchez never apologized. Morty interrupted him though. "Hey, Rick? Can you do me a favor?" "Sure, Morty. What is it?" At this point Rick would do anything for him. Well, maybe with a few limitations, but as long as it wasn't too whack, Rick would grant him his wish. "I would like to see Vensenulon 7 one more time." "Sure, Morty. Is that all you want?" That request sounded too simple. Rick would have expected that Morty might had wanted to do more than just that before he… Maybe eat so much of the best ice cream in the multiverse till he exploded. Or hang out in Blips and Chitz. Heck, he would have even understood it if the boy wouldn't have wanted to die as a virgin and asked him to bring him to a dimension where Jessica had the hots for him and would let him do the do with her. Because that dimension totally existed out there. "Yeah, I just wanna see it one more time." Morty nodded. Rick grabbed his portal gun and inserted the coordinates. Meanwhile, Morty tried to get up from the examination table by himself, but his weak arms failed to heave his upper body up. Trying the next best thing, he rolled over on his side and let his legs dangle over the edge before he placed his feet on the ground. As soon as he tried to put his weight on his legs though, he collapsed and fell on the ground. Rick quickly went over to him and picked him up, carrying Morty in his arms. It was sad to see that the boy was already too weak to walk on his own. As they went through the portal, the beautiful sight of a lush meadow, a violet sky and a giant mountain from which spewed sparkling water in the distance opened up in front of them. For some odd reason Morty could only remember this place fuzzily, but he didn't know why. It was almost as if he had forgotten something important about it, but he couldn't place his finger on what it was. Yet it still looked as paradisiac as he could recall from his murky memory. "Um, Rick? Could you bring me over there please?" Morty shakily pointed to a spot that was a bit closer to the river. Rick didn't complain and carried him over to where he wanted. "Here?" "Yeah, this is a good spot. Please let me down here." Rick let Morty down, who then sat in the grass and looked over the water. His posture was a little slouched as he struggled to maintain his seated position, putting more effort and energy in it than he ever remembered doing before. Even though it was still afternoon, it really was a good spot from which the sunset could be viewed perfectly. For a moment, neither said a word. "Well, you should probably go and pick up your new Morty now." Morty finally spoke up. "You can just leave me here." "But, Morty…" "It's okay, isn't it?" Morty smiled sadly. "I mean, it's not like it really matters, right Rick? Isn't that what you always say "nothing matters"? So, this is nothing. It's just a small blip on the radar of the universe. I'm just one Morty and you always keep reminding me how disposable I am. My life holds no worth. And Mortys die every day anyways, right? It's just infinite minus one. Doesn't really matter on the grand scale. Nothing does. I'm just another Morty, who didn't make it now…" Morty remembered the many dead Mortys he had already seen in his life. Whether it was his own corpse that he had to bury in the backyard, the countless bodies as his Rick had warped the entire Citadel of Ricks into the high security prison of the Galactic Federation or the Morty that he had shot as he was on his fascism hunt. He was just one of those Mortys now. As equally as important as all of his dead alternate selves who didn't amount to anything. Maybe, it was finally now that he understood Rick better than ever before, he thought. "M-Morty. I just can't leave you here." Rick protested. He wasn't just going to leave his grandson all alone in his last moments. Morty blinked back up at him. "Oh, if you have the need to bury my corpse or something, you can still come back later to do that. You don't really have to wait here." In Morty's opinion that made sense. Wouldn't it be even more efficient for Rick if he would just bring his new Morty and let him do the digging? He knew if he were the "new Morty", Rick would have made him do it. Rick suddenly knelt down behind him and wrapped his arms around him, hiding his face in Morty's neck and making it impossible for Morty to look at him now. The action surprised the boy. Rick had never done anything like this before. The scientist wasn't really one for cuddling and hugs were maybe not completely absent, but they were still pretty rare. "Don't you want to say goodbye to your family or something?" Rick mumbled against his neck. "Wouldn't it be weird if I did that when you're going to show up with a new Morty later on?" Morty argued back. "Besides they weren't my real family anyways. My family is in dimension C-137 and I don't think that they would care much if I showed up now. I've been probably dead to them since we left that dimension behind…" He remembered how they had acted the last time that he had seen his original family when he had brought his "current" Summer there. A sob rang suddenly through the air. "R-Rick? Are you crying?" Morty asked as he heard unmistakable sniffling. "Why are you crying? Did you get hurt or something, Rick? If you're hurt you should take care of it. Or-or-or go and see a doctor in case it's something serious…" "Will you just shut up, Morty!" Rick ground out angrily and pulled the boy even closer into his arms. Morty was confused by this behavior. Surely Rick wasn't crying because of him, right? No, he couldn't be crying over Morty because in a few hours, he would have already picked up a new Morty anyways. And then Rick would just continue to live his life like he had done before. He would probably not even think about him anymore or even remember him. And why should he if he had a new Morty at his side? The sobs had subsided after a while and both just sat there and watched the sun slowly set behind the mountain. Since it became too exhausting for Morty to even sit up, the boy just laid down on the soft grass while Rick continued to sit close beside him. They watched how one of Vensenulion 7's many moons rose and admired the night sky still in silence. Morty started to shiver. "It's gotten cold." His voice was barely audible, it was so weak. "Yeah, you're right." Rick said. It wasn't true though. It wasn't cold at all. The nice warmth from the day still hung in the air and radiated from the soil and the close by water. Still, Rick took off his lab coat and wrapped it around Morty. "Thank you." The boy mumbled and Rick merely shrugged it off. It was rare to see Rick being so nice to him, but Morty didn't mind it. It made him smile. Silence settled between them once again as they both continued to look up at the stars. They both thought about all the adventures they had shared together… and all the ones that they wouldn't be able to have together. Rick had always thought if one of them would have to die first, it would be him. Obviously, with his age and all. That was the natural order of things and no grandparent should have to live through the death of their grandchild ever. His zero risk-awareness would have probably also furthered the odds of him being the first to go, too. So why wasn't he? Why did he get to live while Morty had to die?

The universe could be so fucking unfair, cruel and unforgiving sometimes…

Morty thought somewhat similarly about the order of their deaths though he always thought that they both would die on the same day. He had always been expecting that Rick would die first and then leave him behind in some crappy, alien-related, dangerous situation in which he would die without Rick's genius and technology then.

To see it come to this felt almost ironic.

"I…feel so…tired…" Morty's voice was so faint that it was merely a whisper anymore.

"…then sleep, Morty. And tomorrow we'll watch the sunrise together." Rick also whispered.

Morty hummed in response though if it wasn't for the small vibration his body created with it, it would have gone completely unnoticed. The boy slowly closed his eyes.

Rick bit his lower lip. Of course, he knew that it was a lie. Morty wouldn't see the sun rise again.

Not much later Morty's breath became fainter before it was gone completely.

Rick checked his pulse, but there was nothing.

Morty was gone for good. He wasn't going to wake up again.

Rick hugged the body of his grandson close to himself and sobbed again. He had failed Morty.

He knew what he needed to do. He needed to let go and go to the Citadel to pick up a new Morty. There were so many rickless Mortys there that waited for a new Rick to pick them up.

But Rick couldn't do it.

He couldn't let go of Morty and just continue to live on as if this had never happened. Not again. This boy hadn't just been a Morty. He had been his grandson – his grandson from his original dimension. And no one – no other Morty – could replace him. Ever!

"What had happened to Rick and Morty a hundred years?" Rick mumbled against Morty's still body.

No, he wouldn't let go. Never!

He would never fail his Morty again!

A Rick and his Morty where walking around on Vensenulon 7, searching for one thing or another. "Wah!" unsuspectingly, the Morty stumbled suddenly. As he looked down to see what he had stumbled over, he shrieked loudly. "What the heck are you screaming like that for?" his Rick asked. "Th-th-there's—it's our corpses!!" Rick walked over to take a look for himself. "Yeah, that's a dead Rick and his Morty from another dimension." He commented nonchalantly. The Morty was still frazzled. "But why? What did they die from?" He looked around in a panic as if expecting to find what had caused their deaths to be still lingering around and attacking them any moment. Which was kind of stupid because if they had been killed by some kind of animal, it probably would have eaten them and not just let the corpses lay around untouched like that. "Hmm." The Rick kneeled down a little to look a bit closer at his dead self as he analyzed the possible cause of his death. "This Rick must have died from dehydration." The signs were obvious enough. "What? How can that be? There is a giant river right over there?" The Morty gestured over to the body of water as he said that, not feeling one bit better at the revelation. "His Morty seemed to have died a while before him." The Rick ignored his grandson as he stared at the dead alternate of the boy that was held in his own dead counterpart's arms. The boy's corpse had already started to decompose. "It's hard to tell what he died from though. There's no wounds on the outside that would suggest an attack. And if it had been poison there should have been some discolorations on his skin." The Rick stood up again. "Can't really tell without autopsying the body." "I still don't understand what has happened here." The Morty was as confused as he was in the beginning. "Well, I'd say after his Morty died this Rick just gave up and waited here for his own death." He already turned away from the bodies and resumed his walk. "Which is really stupid. He could have just gotten himself a new Morty on the Citadel. There's plenty around." The Morty still stood over the corpses and looked at the strange picture. A Rick holding his Morty close to him even in death. Despite the grotesqueness, the sight looked oddly sweet, showing a sort of affection that he had never felt between himself and his grandfather. "Morty! Hurry up if you don't want me to just leave you here and get a new Morty." The Rick reprimanded him. The boy hurried to catch up with his grandfather, knowing that he probably would make that threat true if he got lost here. After all, he knew how much he was worth to his Rick. His grandfather had made it clear for him often enough…

#rick and morty #ram #rnm #rick #morty #morty smith #hopesfanfictions #fanfic #fanfiction #sad ending #character death #angst #drama

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ty-talks-comics · 5 years

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Best of Marvel: Week of September 11th, 2019

Best of this Week: Moon Knight: Acts of Evil Annual #1 - Cullen Bunn, Ibrahim Moustafa, Matt Horak, Mike Spicer and Joe Sabino

It only makes sense that Kang and Khonshu would have some history together.

One of Kangs many aliases over time is that of Rama-Tut, a man that once ruled Egypt before his many, many jumps through time. Khonshu is a God of the Moon and more than likely would have been someone that Rama-Tut worshipped or spat in the face of given Kang’s own ego, but the way that their relationship is developed here is amazing and fantastic, setting up a long and storied history for Moon Knight on par with that of Hawkman.

Beginning in the Egyptian Age of 2,500 BC, the Moon Knight of that era and his followers do their best to keep three artifacts away from Kang and his men as he will no doubt use them to mess with time, a power that they feel should only belong to Khonshu. In just a few short pages, we see just how far back the legacy of the Moon Knight mantle goes as this unnamed warrior fights just as valiantly as Marc Spector in the modern day. As Kang makes short work of the followers and begins to make his way through time, Moon Knight throws a few Moonerangs at the Conqueror, damaging one of the totems, casting all three through time and space.

One of the more interesting things to happen is that Khonshu takes time to visit Kang in the time stream, asking why his child has chosen to do something so horrible to his church. Kang reacts with an anger that we don’t normally see from the cold and calculating villain, suggesting that any worship he may done for Khonshu left him feeling weak and that his own mastery of time proves that he is far superior to the Moon God. Khonshu leaves him with a warning that his other Avatars will continue to stand in Kangs way through time.

From this point on, we’re planted into a modern day that is somehow changed to fit Kang’s will with the only deviation being possibly Marc Spector’s Moon Knight and several followers of Khonshu. They lead Marc through a tear in time and this takes him to the first of many locations throughout time. I won’t go through all of them, but there’s so much future story potential here for any number of Moon Knight tales and their many interesting routes. There’s a Moon Lawman of the West, to a Moon Knight that could have fought with The Invaders in WWII, a Chicago gangster that I refer to as Moons Malone and finally the first Avatar of Khonshu, a woman from Mesopotamia.

Each of these characters are different in personality and yet serve the same purpose and ferocity that we see from the modern moon Knight. Horak and Moustafa do their best to make each one of them distinct and of their times while maintaining that Moon Knight style The actions scenes that are presented are a wild and dynamic ride seeing Marc jumping around and superhero landing or kicking damn near everything in sight. One of the best shots in the book is a panel that stretches between the staple pages with World War Moon Knight punching a Nazi as Marc crashes through a ceiling window, causing glass to fall on a Nazi officer. The blur placed on Marc as he crashes down with terminal velocity is unintentionally hilarious, but also showcases just how crazy he is.

Mike Spicer did an excellent job of coloring this book in such a way that no matter what background was drawn, Moon Knights white color scheme stood out all the time. The same can be said for Kang’s green and purple, but in a more gross and “why does he wear these awful colors way.” He also does extremely well with things that give off energy, making them seem more vibrant and cool. The best examples of this are the moments when The Scarab totem is showcased with a red outline, even in the smallest situations it is absolutely eye catching and the moments when the ther Moon Knights are summoned from all over time to fight Kang and their poofs appear in bright purples and greens.

One of the other panels that stands out is the first appearance of the Mesopotamian Moon Knight. Her mask, crouch pose and makeshift bone claws make her look like a serial killer, especially with the MANY bodies of Kangs through time around her. While looking to be the most intense, she is also the most dedicated as she ends up sacrificing her life to ensure Kangs ultimate defeat at the end of the book. She doesn’t die, but she has to concentrate to keep him trapped for as long as she can so that he cannot try to use the artifacts to change time again, placing her out of time with even her God Khonshu.

This is a really interesting take on belief vs. faith as both Marc and Khonshu have differing points of views on her actions at the end. Marc, being a modern man finds it difficult finds it hard to see her as a priestess without a God. Khonshu see a dedicated follower that is only her faith, knowing that a long as she has that, then she will need nothing else. It’s hard to see whose point of view is more correct, I mean, it should be that of Khonshu right? Given that her actions are the only thing keeping the world from falling into a hellscape ruled by Kang, does that mean that she should really do nothing but concentrate on keeping the Conqueror contained?

One other development that comes out of this is the idea that Marc is starting to become disillusioned by Khonshu’s actions and disregard for the lives of his followers. At the same time, this also may make little sense in the grand scheme of things as Marc, at least by the time of Jeff Lemire’s Moon Knight series, has already conquered Khonshu for control of the legacy. He hasn’t been at the mercy of Khonshu for a long time, but who’s to say how canon this is anyway?

Either way, I loved this book and Moon Knight’s continued storied existence, high recommend.

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Runner Up: Silver Surfer: Black #4 - Donny Cates, Tradd Moore, Dave Stewart and Clayton Cowles

Don’t read this if you’re high, Tradd Moore’s visuals are far more trippy and beautiful than any of the previous issues and this is a WILD ride.

After discovering the incubator of Galactus buried within the body of a young Ego the Living Planet, The Surfer has to make a choice of whether or not he should kill the destroyer before he is able to cause the sheer number of genocides that he will become feared for in the future, all the while his Power Cosmic is fading as Knull encroaches further on the hero.

There are so many intricacies that make Tradd Moore’s art so exciting in this issue. Moore has a particular style where everything seems quite a bit distorted and stretched. His art flows like water and allows the eyes to move gracefully from panel to panel, even in the most trippy of pages because clear lines are drawn to attract ones sight through a page. The Surfer, looks smooth, mostly thanks to Moore's use of shining techniques and dark inks for reflections.

There are grand portions of the story where you feel like you're peering into dimensions that your mind just isn't prepared for. One such scene is when the Surfer takes Galactus' incubator to a white dwarf star to absolutely destroy it. The sheer scale and magnitude of this thing was almost overwhelming, speaking nothing of its brightness as well.

At a point, The Surfer decides to enter Galactus' incubator to see into the dying days of the last universe he inhabited before this new one as he went to try and kill him. The Surfer almost looks as if he's melting upon hearing the dying screams of millions. He's heard similar cacophonous bellows of terror, but from Galactus these screams are multiplied many times over and the next half of the page is coated in a bloody red of fear.

Dave Stewart's colors are also a main contributor to this spectacular look. Stewart has an amazing history of great stories that he's colored and Silver Surfer: Black takes this to a whole new level. After the Surfer enters Galactus' mindscape, we are met with a torrent of blood, fire and Galactus' menacing shape standing above it all, acting as a warning to the Surfer. The shading of reds in the blood ocean, the flaming skies, Galactus' towering figure and the HANDS REACHING UP FROM THE BLOOD OCEAN are absolutely amazing and terrifying.

The Surfer stands out as being the only silver thing on this double splash page which speaks to Stewart's sense of page awareness as we're clearly able to start from where he appears and then work our way up to the massive Galactus up above.

Special hell yeahs given to Clayton Cowles and his expert lettering, capturing my imagination with how each bubble is used. Ego's in particular resonate with me for the choice to have purple letters offset by a background of yellow and purple that creates a hazy, 3D look. It's a small detail that ultimately gives the book and the Living Planet far more character, making them stand out very well.

Not only is the art some of the best I have ever seen, but the story told here is phenomenal as well. I have almost never seen The Silver Surfer so conflicted over something he was absolutely sure about just moments before. He meets Galan before he becomes Galactus and they have a conversation. Though the Surfer would avoid the death of thousands or more worlds, his hands would still be stained of blood, the Universe itself would face massive consequences and he will have used murder to justify his actions, making him a villain.

This is amazing storytelling in that it is not too often that we see The Surfer speak to his master with a clear mind, even more so when he knows the outcomes of his actions and has to choose between the future he knows or a potentially better future or far worse one. The conflict gives an already layered character even more layers and guilt given the action at the end of this book.

With the next issue being the last of this miniseries, I hope that the ripples of this story will continue to be felt throughout the continuing Guardians of the Galaxy and Absolute Carnage storylines. The Silver Surfer has been around for decades and is in great need of some change and if losing the Power Cosmic through the spread of black on his body is the way to do it, then I am all for it. High recommend.

#marvel comics #marvel #comics #moon knight #kang the conqueror #acts of evil #cullen bunn #ibrahim moustafa #matt horak #silver surfer black #silver surfer #galactus #ego the living planet #donny cates #tradd moore #dave stewart

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