#so much rambling in this post because i had more downtime than planned and i reread it all and highlighted stuff and was FULL OF FEELS

[greenhorn-art]

Castles in the Sky by Shadaras @shadaras

Fandom: 全职高手 | The King's Avatar

Rating: General Audiences

Category: Gen

Relationships: Chu Yunxiu/Ye Xiu

Words: 36 613

Here are two truths and a lie: Chu Yunxiu is Misty Rain’s captain. Chu Yunxiu is dating Ye Qiu. Chu Yunxiu is happy to have the Shu twins on her team. Of course, a lie can become true if you believe in it enough… (A Chu Yunxiu character study.)

About the book:

FONTS: Alegreya [Google Fonts], Raleway [Google Fonts], Catchy Mager [purchased from MyFonts], Segoe UI Emoji

IMAGES: Clouds from Rawpixel (ID: 9581058); Misty Rain logo from The King's Avatar Wiki (stretched slightly horizontally and traced)

MATERIALS: Domtar Earthchoice multipurpose copy paper, cream, 11"x17" cut in half to form short-grained letter size paper; Recollections' Gilded Ink paper pad; Cialux bookcloth, black; heat transfer foil, gold; 2mm binder board; waxed linen thread, 30/3 size; wheat paste (this time I used 1:4 flour to water ratio, and heated until conditioner-like consistency. An improvement over last attempt.)

PROGRAMS USED: typeset in LibreOffice Writer; title page mocked-up in Procreate then designed in GIMP; imposed with Renegade's Community Imposer.

I spied this fic towards the top of the kudos and kept it in the back of my mind while trawling for more HanYe fics. Thought, well it's gotta be there for a reason so should be good! ooh look aroace queerplatonic relationship 👀👀 Definitely bumping up to top of Read Next!

The amazing thing I've found about The King's Avatar is that the CP possibilities are endless! The characters are both friends and rivals, there's respect and history and it all mixes and clashes creating more possibilities and chemistries than I've ever seen in a fandom before. The fact that AllYe is so popular (and not just in an NSFW way) is testament to it, and also, in part, what drew me to this fic. Asexual representation is scant, aromantic even more so — especially in fandom (in my experience of it at least).

If I were to add a tag to describe Castles in the Sky it would be 'heartwarming'. Shadaras' writing and characterization is wonderful, and I really enjoyed the both the story and the aroace representation. They took a character with relatively little content (in comparison to others in fandom. I have not read the source material) and gave her a voice, dreams, and made me really care about her. I was touched, and after finishing it I jumped to my laptop and set about turning it into a physical book.

So, onto the details.

The thing that stuck out and stayed with me the most about the story was the aroace aspect (Shadaras fed my smol aroace heart so well), so that's what I focused on design-wise.

The title page features a large black ring, referencing the black ring worn usually on the middle finger of the right hand as a symbol of asexuality. The colours of the asexual pride flag are also represented: the text is purple; the clouds colour the page in shades of white and grey; and the ring is black. For the endpapers/cover backing I chose paper that mixes green, purple, and blue: green for the aromantic pride flag; purple for the ace. I also found the green-blue mix of colours to be rather fitting, inspired by the description of Misty Rain's HQ with the "cool blues and greens of Misty Rain's walls" (chapter 5: Transformations). While I personally find CYX's relationship with YX significant, her relationship with her team is just as important.

When choosing which cover each endpaper goes on, I thought about how the story begins with CYX and YX's relationship, and about how after it's established we see her team and it's future at the forefront of her mind. Following that line of thought I put the paper with more purple on the front cover (purple for aroace CYX), and the more green-blue paper on the back (Misty Rain's colours).

The process of foiling the cover took me 3 hours (the length of the movie RRR — good movie actually, would recommend. Which is surprising because I usually find Oscar movies rather boring). The foiling was done with a heat pen. Three hours is not the norm: first, I had the foil backwards and foiled my template instead of the cover; then, my power banks kept dying, so I had to take charging breaks, and I also went over everything again just to make sure that I didn't miss a spot; and of course I was also watching a movie while working, so that ate up some time too.

I had initially planned to bind it as a casebound book, but I didn't have enough time to do it (I was about to go on vacation and wanted to read the book in my downtime). Instead, I did a Coptic binding. The covers were pulled from the press and foiled leaving me 5 hours of sleep to spare.

I went simple on the outer covers to contrast the fun paper on the inside of the covers. I used black Cialux bookcloth instead of my green-blue 'petrol' Iris bookcloth for the contrast, and because it picks up the black from the title page. The text foiled onto the cover is a simple sans serif (Raleway, the same as used inside), and the image is Misty Rain's logo from the donghua. (Image came from The King's Avatar Wiki. It was stretched slightly horizontally because it seemed a bit squished compared to other versions seen on Google, and then traced). Using the colourful paper inside was a practical choice: I couldn't get two covers out of one sheet of paper, but one sheet would do the inner covers with some material leftover.

The sewing and construction of the book was done while camping — I'd packed up what I needed and brought it with me: the signatures (folded and punched); the finished covers; thread; a needle; and an awl. As for the actual sewing, it's supposed to be Coptic but don't look too closely. This was the second time I've tried Coptic stitching and I didn't have any instructions with me. (My first Coptic binding was a thin 2-signature notebook I did a few weeks ago. It was for taking notes at the event I was at, Pennsic War 50).

Book is primarily set in Alegreya. It's currently my favourite body font, and has a matching sans serif family. The fonts used in the title page are Raleway and Catchy Mager. Raleway is also used for titles, headings, etc. Segoe UI Emoji was used for any emojis that cropped up throughout the text (Pretty sure they're the same emojis as seen while reading on my phone and laptop). Catchy Mager was purchased from MyFont. (The first and only font I have ever bought, but I saw it used in a fic's title art and fell in love.)

Lastly, onto The Comedy of Errors, or: When-You-Finally-See-All-the-Typos-and-Mistakes-Once-You're-Done-and-Can-Only-Laugh-While-You-Cry-Inside.

Appendix's footer says 'Epilogue', so I must have missed something with the paragraph style for the Appendix heading.

Forgot about using Segoe UI Emoji font and did not include it in the About the Book.

Missed fixing the archive info for gnomen in the Author's Notes — the copy/paste of metadata into Notebook to remove formatting also removed the commas and spaces between tags.

Because I hadn't planned cover materials/design before printing, there isn't a section for that in the About the Book. Also the reason why the artwork on the cover is not credited in it, as I had not planned to use it.

[stormblessed95]

Happy new year Storm! I hope this ask isn't too long and sprawling. These events took place when I was younger, a bit more foolish about how to behave online as a fan. But it might be illuminating for some of your more aggressive anons, lol.

This thing we keep being pummelled with (about Jikook 'not being sighted together' so therefore not being together) is so tiring.

I remember a few years back I had spent some time in a forum dedicated to another 'are they, are they not' queer couple. Western celebrities, nothing to do with kpop. I was a fan of both these people independently, so I got very curious and intrigued about the idea of them together. On this forum, there was a lot of trying to line up dates of official events/second hand accounts from friends of friends who said they had seen Person A with Person B but never got pics, etc. It was like trying to pin down water in some cases, which frustrated people on the forum who were desperate for 'solid evidence', real confirmation.

One day, a very-famous good friend of Person A, perhaps more famous than either member of this speculated couple, came into my place of work, which was pretty darn exciting on its own. It also contradicted some narratives held on that forum regarding who was where and in which countries at what times. And that made me wonder how many other times that had been the case.

Now naturally, my initial plan was to report back to this forum and tell them about briefly meeting Famous Friend at my work. This was a Mild Scoop after all, another piece to the puzzle, a correction to the records. But a few things stopped me from doing it. I had no photo evidence that this person had been there at all, so it was another 'useless' unverifiable sighting.

But much more importantly, I realised if I posted ANY SPECIFICS WHATSOEVER about who it had been and where it was, then fans with fewer boundaries than I would be able to use my information to stalk. A very determined person could probably even have used the information to figure out whereabouts Famous Friend lived. Famous Friend was apparently a semi-regular at this place, on this occasion they had been with what seemed to be an older family member, and they were clearly dressed to go incognito. Hat and sunglasses indoors, etc. My place of work was somewhere they felt safe enough to go to repeatedly in their downtime, in the knowledge that they wouldn't be bothered or harassed by fans. I didn't want to be the person who ruined that small bit of normalcy for them.

So... I never posted anything to the forum. I just held onto the knowledge in my head that one particular thing wasn't true - Person A and Person B definitely DIDN'T meet with Famous Friend in Countryland at that point, because Famous Friend was in Placecountrytown at my work. I would simply never be able to prove it without compromising the privacy of people involved. And again, I wondered how many other times this could have happened with other people. Maybe this was why it was like trying to pin down water. Maybe that was a wonderful thing, actually.

Going back to Jikook - this is why it seems SO ENTIRELY BELIEVABLE to me whenever we hear that K-Army has stuff and keeps it LOCKED DOWN. That they see them a lot, but rarely let it leak to the international fanbase. That they know stuff we don't and will probably never know. The stakes are so much higher for Jikook if their relationship is a thing. I have no trouble at all believing that there are people all over Korea who have seen them out and about, but not wanted to be the weak link in the chain that breaks their bubble of privacy.

And not hearing about them going places, not seeing photographic evidence of friendships - does NOT mean they are not close. It means that people are doing the decent thing and saying nothing.

I know you know all of this already, but it seems some of your recent anons don't. Sorry again for the rambling message! 😶

I mean, the most recent and prime example is when that white Day photo leaked. Of Jikook with some friends out at a restaurant. K army was PISSED and so were so many other people. Fans started flocking to the restaurant and asking about jikook being there. Servers confirming that they used to come there and had gone there many times. But that they hadn't been coming back lately. And we had never heard of them going there before that leak, when staff stated that they had been coming multiple times before that. They stopped going once that photo was leaked. It was no longer a safe private place for them. Someone compromised that security for them and so they stopped going there. And for the most part k army (and j army too) are VERY protective of BTS, all 7 members. And I'm glad they are. I can't imagine the amount of exhaustion that comes from constantly having your privacy invaded and never knowing who is going to treat you normal or stalk you with their phones out whenever you leave the house. I'm positive all 7 of them, not just jikook, have safe places they like to visit and go to that give them that privacy and security too.

It's incredibly disrespectful to continuously invade their private time and their private life. And it's also incredibly disrespectful to assume they don't have one you aren't apart of because they are so famous. They will have their safe spaces and they deserve more of that. And they shouldn't have those spaces compromised.

[and-the-universe-said-au]

I wasn't actually planning on posting anything until I had the prologue and the opening page for Chapter One done, but I'm actually so so hyped about making this?? This is just going to sit in the depths of the Legundo tag no doubt, I don't think much is gonna happen over here, but like. Have some planning ramblies, just a handful.

Obviously, beware spoilers ahead?

I LOVE worldbuilding, and I should very clearly be given base rules and set loose more often because I have ideas all of the time, so The Choir is a fun little bit of that, I suppose. I'm both happy, and a little sad, to note that the original level of involvement I was planning for is a lot lower now, so instead of a 6 or so on a scale of 1-10 it's closer to a 2 or 3? The Soloist is still plot relevant, but the plot is more "protag vs situation" than "protag vs antag" now, which should be fun!

On another note, this is going to be long as hell, just for pacing and everything. I'm looking at a rather ironic 100 chapters or so? Each chapter won't be incredibly long, some will be longer and some will be shorter, but because of the way I've built the world, there's going to be some fun downtime chapters which is where I'm hoping the whole "audience participation" part of this will come in the most

Technically this can actually run as a "normal" comic, but I'm still going to hope at least one person decides to add onto it every so often.

On yet another note, I'm going to have an outrageous amount of fun with The Other Characters, because I know i said it in the pinned post, but theres more than just Legundo's in here eventually. I love character dynamics. And angst. I feel like I need to mention this, I'm a sucker for Problem Causing and while I don't like being involved in drama, damn do I like hearing about it. Or writing it.

On yet another note, I'm going to drop what I reckon the first few chapters will be. I have done them in the order of How Excited I am to actually make them, because I'm ramping up my own excitement as I go.

PROLOGUE - THE CHOIR, ONE - THE HUNTER, TWO - THE CAPTAIN, THREE - THE MERCHANT

It's roughly the first half of what I reckon the first kind of 'arc' will be, mostly because four and five are the ones I'm kinda most excited to do.

On another note, a poll I put on my main, which has so far been unconnected to this blog, has had a bit of an interesting effect on the details, because I started planning for one thing because it seemed to be going one way, but it slid to the other last minute so we'll see exactly how that goes, and also how I'm gonna have to adapt based on what I find out when I do some digging. Research, in this context, just means Several hours worth of minecraft videos. Fun!

Though I'm forever going to be holding up a sign that just says "WARNING, POTENTIAL CHARACTER MANGLING, I WAS MEDIOCRE IN ENGLISH CLASS" so. Who knows!

[l-e-morgan-author]

Writing Newsletter #3: May 2024

Still not figured out website hosting, so this is still on here. I also haven't edited the two stories I plan to provide as a signup gift, so that's not ready yet. Anyway, if you want to be on the taglist for this monthly newsletter, say the word and I'll add you.

Writing update

As of yesterday, I finished drafting Patience, Changing. I wrote Hannah's death and it was hard, but I think what I have, while not particularly good, is a building block for the next draft. It's been a lot of fun, and now I'm putting away the project as a whole, ideally for at least a month. I have a lot of fragments as well as the main draft and novellas; they'll need some tidying, and various bits will probably be worked into longer pieces, but I want to give myself a break from the whole project. Word count wise, the novel itself clocks in at 84k (was planned to be 81k), and the total word count is 144k, having added around 29k since last month.

I had originally intended to go back to Metamorphosis of a Girl (Hadassah's story) once I was done with this, but there's a whump challenge I want to write for and the only one that will satisfy that is Hands Made for Gentleness. I'm considering making that my main project, at least for now, and also starting to work on To Kindle a Flame in the background again. I had conversations the other day that made me reread a scene; I unexpectedly really liked what I had, and the writing wasn't as clunky as I'd expected. I'm considering scrapping the 2020 draft completely and working solely from the 2021 draft and the notes I've made since.

I have worked a little (to the tune of 3k) on Hands Made for Gentleness this month. Looking back at my statistics, I actually wrote the most I've written for it so far in February 2023, when I wrote just shy of 10k. I always think I've written more for it than I have, partly because of how important every single word is to it. I need to write more downtime between them, I think; it's always so intense, and while that's kind of necessary to the kind of book it is, it's in its present state not something I personally would sit down and read in one sitting. I think I need to dial the intensity back just a little, so that the moments that are intense can really hit the spot. That's probably a revising-me point, though. I'm missing so much from this draft that will need to be added in later drafts; indeed I'm starting to be slightly nervous about the idea of tackling it, because of the sheer number of notes I've left for myself already, and I'm only 33k into the draft (plus a few thousand of assorted other stuff, including the prequel I want to revise at some point.... it takes it up to a combined total of 41k).

Reading update

I've been reading a handful of memoirs this month. First I read A Grief Observed (reread, specifically for handling Hannah's death in Patience, Changing), then Bones: Anorexia, OCD and Me (first time read, and I won't be rereading it: I don't recommend it), Girl, Interrupted (not as good as its popularity would suggest to me), and As I Disappear... (a very short poetry thing). There were also a few that didn't get onto my goodreads because I gave up on reading them before I actually bought them (all ED focused). I'm currently reading the same books as I was reading last month (Cry of the Raven, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, and Walking on Water) as well as starting a reread of Pat of Silver Bush. Thinking of rereading Pride and Prejudice presently.

Ramble

Oh uh. I note that last time I wrote that my mental health has been comparatively amazing lately, which is... still true? Which is Impressive? I still need to work out motivation and that kind of thing which I'm not very good at still, but oh well. I guess I'm still as forgetful as I was. I realised recently I haven't been posting on my website all year. I need to do that more.

Drabble

As We Sail Into Hell

“I’ll go anywhere you go, so that makes us equal.”

“‘You are a gentleman, I am a gentleman’s daughter, so far we are equal,’” she misquoted cheerfully. “The fact that we’ll follow each other into—well, anywhere—doesn’t negate the fact that you have to choose where we’re walking right now.”

Nathan sighed. “I wanted you to make a decision,” he complained.

“I know. I shan’t. I know your tricks.”

“At this rate we’ll never get married because neither of us will ask the other.”

She grinned. “That’s your job. If you really want it.” But her expression was merry.

Photo

A collage from yesterday's walk. Ignore that I shared it on my main yesterday. The weird beastie in the bottom left is a wombat.

Fun fact

I title all my drabbles by either writing them off a song directly or by thinking of a lyric from a song. This one's from Durham Town, by Roger Whittaker.

[vampireantihero]

This Weeks' Newsletter

Good morning, y’all! I hope that you all had a fantastic weekend and, if you celebrate, a good Easter. It was a nice weekend here, so my husband and I took care of a bunch of outdoor errands and responsibilities this weekend. Sometimes the snow can linger until May in our area, so it’s nice to be able to be outside for a real spring. Before I get too far into my rambles for the week, let me post this weeks’ schedule:

Twitch Hiatus

As you can see from the schedule, Twitch streams are suspended until further notice. I’m going to be handling them on a week by week basis, but as it stands right now I’m desperately needing a little bit of downtime. There’s a few reasons for this, but it boils down to this — I do not have a lot of time right now. Between personal commitments, freelancing, and other things that I’m doing, I’m often working far more than I should be. The only down time I’ve had has been regulated to a few hours on Sundays, (to the point that we’ve been eating dinner at about 10pm on weekdays because of how busy we’ve both been) so I’m taking time for mental health reasons (I need a break). Responsibilities and commitments to other things have been ramping up as well.

Until I get my time and stress levels a little bit more under control, Twitch is going to be hit or miss for me. If you want to cancel subs, I totally understand. I will still be active with art, and potentially pop up with art streams if I feel inclined to, until I end the hiatus. Keep an eye on the weekly schedules; I’ll be updating them still and I will include whether or not I plan to pop up on them, as always.

My Little Brother

For those of you who have been following along, you know my little brother was diagnosed with cancer and had a surgery to remove the tumor at the end of January. From what I know, he’s still in a wheelchair, but he is doing well and still currently going through treatments for the type of cancer that he has. More information can be found at my mother’s gofundme, here.

Other Commitments

If y’all have been following along, then you also know my theatre troupe has come out of hiatus. We’re working hard on a new show that goes up in June, and we’ve hit the point of the year where we need to build stage props, source ones we’re not making by hand, create PR and marketing materials, and other such things.

Another thing that we have to do before our show goes up, is paint the space we’re currently renting for the show. We do our theatre in a black box, in the round, instead of pro-scenium. What this means, is that instead of being on a raised stage with all the audience on one side of the performance, our stage is in the center of a series of chairs. The room is also usually black with sparse set design. We offer small shows, with a maximum seating of around 25 people, which allows us to rent smaller spaces. The space we’re currently rehearsing in and due to perform the play in is currently painted an extremely saturated yellow, and we need to paint it black. We’ll be doing that this week, but with how big the room is, it will likely take a while!

Here are some pictures of the room:

Honestly, I can’t wait to paint this room. It’s going to be a much nicer space when we have it the color that we need. As you can see, the vinyl is taped off at the bottom already (my husband and I prepped the room on sunday, and our troupe should be starting to paint Tuesday.)

Portfolio Redesign

Lastly, I’d like to touch on the fact that I’m starting to redesign my portfolio. I haven’t done much finished work lately because of having my hands in slightly too many pots, so a lot of my work right now is outdated and/or studies I’ve done in the last few months. Some of the bigger illustrations I’ve done lately, I haven’t done to the quality of work that I know I can do. Because of that, I’m taking the last few drawings I’ve done and re-doing them. I’m also taking time to actually draw out planning stages of some of the items I’m drawing in such a way that shows my thought processes, as well as drawing certain aspects multiple times and variants of designs.

I’ll be sharing these as I finish them, and I’ll also be sharing high resolutions on Ko-Fi available to members. I also may be putting together some tutorials/walkthroughs/paint alongs with some of the things that I draw, though that is something that’s entirely dependent on whether or not I have the time to compile something with decent quality.

Closing Thoughts

So, that’s everything that’s going on this week! I’m sorry for the lack of Twitch streams this week, hopefully I can be back to it next week, but that depends on time and energy levels. I’m excited to see where my journey takes me, and I’m happy if you choose to follow along. I’m going to tack on to my usual sign off here and add — give yourself grace, and give the people around you grace. Things are hard for a lot of people right now, and the world is really crazy. So, as I always say with these things, I hope that you all take care of yourselves. Drink your water, and do what you can.

I love you all.

(Quick reminder that if you’d like to get this straight to your inbox, you can sign up for the newsletter here.)

[adenei]

Ron is insecure that Hermione may get bored of him post-wedding day and leave him for someone else. Hermione comforts him and tells him that none of it is true.

Hi anon, So I kind of already wrote this (at least it’s very similar to this), but I added some to the end to show a more specific portrayal of her comforting him in the letter. Thanks for the ask!

************

Day of Doubts (with a new section at the end!)

Ron was pacing the floor. The ceremony was supposed to start in an hour. He hadn’t seen Hermione since the night before. He’d spent the night at Harry’s, and now they were getting ready. 

“You alright there, mate?” Harry asked him. 

He was so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he didn’t hear him.

“Ron?” Harry said again.

“Yeah?”

“Are you alright?” 

Ron stared blankly at him. His head shaking from side to side. “Are we doing the right thing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Hermione and me. Should we really be doing this? What if she’s just with me because it’s easy and she’s settling. Maybe I’m not the best person for her. I’m always risking my life with the Aurors and what happens if I die? I can’t leave her all alone! That’s not fair to her. And what if we start fighting all the time like we used to in school? What if she backs out on me and I’m left at the altar. Oh my god…”

“RON!” Harry grabbed him by the shoulders. “Look at me. You sound mental right now. If there were ever two people in this world that were meant to be together, it’s you and Hermione. Did you drive each other and me nuts in school all the damn time with your constant bickering? Of course, you did! But you two have grown out of it. The only other people I’ve seen love each other more are probably your parents. Even Ginny and I don’t hold a candle to you two. Fuck, don’t tell her I said that.”

“But what if-”

“No, Ron just stop. She LOVES you. She wants to be with you! It took you two idiots seven years to realize how the other felt, and you danced around each other for at least four years, but probably more if I really think about it. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to see her in an hour and think yourself mental for all these thoughts right now.”

Ron looked at him weakly as there was a tap on the window. He went over to let Pigwidgeon in. “Pig, what are you doing here?” He pulled a letter off of his leg, and opened it.

“What’s it say?” Harry asked him.

“It’s from Hermione..” Ron said as he was reading through the letter. Harry saw Ron’s eyes start to water. Oh, shite, what could it say…

“Ron?”

“She- She loves me and last night was awful and she can’t wait to see me soon. She’s never wanted anything more than to become Hermione Granger-Weasley, and she regrets that we didn’t elope like we joked about,” he was chuckling to himself.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. “See? I told you..” Ron waved him off. “Oh, don’t even, you were just on the verge of a mental breakdown. You trust your fiance’s letter, but not your best mate who’s known the two of you as long as you’ve known each other?”

Ron laughed. “Sorry, Harry...old habits die hard.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Let’s go get you married, shall we?”

“Never heard a better plan!” Ron said as they went to go find his brothers.

**************

They were lounging in bed on their honeymoon, and Hermione had fallen asleep. She’d never been one to take naps, but the afternoon sun had made her drowsy. Ron carefully reached around her, and took a letter out of the wallet on his bedside table. He quietly unfolded it and read over the words for what felt like the hundredth time.

Ron,

We’re getting married today! It’s actually happening! I can’t wait to see you. Luckily, the day’s gone by fairly quickly, but that’s only because I’ve been so busy with everything. We finally had a moment of downtime, and that’s why I’m writing this now. I wish we were close enough so I could just sneak out to see you, but Ginny and Fleur are keeping a close eye on me. Not to mention our Mums would be mental if they knew we saw each other before I walked down the aisle.

This is going to sound silly since there won’t be enough time to answer me back, but how are you doing? You’re not having second thoughts, are you? You better not be. I really can’t believe we’re here right now. There’s been so many times where I never thought we’d be alive, let alone finally sort things out between us. And yet, here I am, marrying my best friend. The same boy who’s driven me crazy since I was 11, yet am completely in love with.

I’m sorry, I’m rambling, I know. I just want you to know how much I love you, how much I care about you in private before we’re in front of our family and friends. I can’t wait to start this life with you. You’re the only person I could ever want by my side. Less than an hour now, I better send this. I love you, Ron.

Your almost wife,

Hermione

Wow, Ron thought. To think I’d been freaking out moments before about whether this was the right decision. He supposed that everyone had similar last minute jitters, but Hermione knew him so well. She knew he’d needed that letter to calm him, reassuring him that they were meant to be together. 

Ron looked back at her sleeping form. When they got back to England, he’d write her a letter of his own, letting her know how much he’d needed to see that, and how much it meant to him to have her words etched on parchment, the constant reminder he needed to know he was the only one for her. He folded the paper up and placed it back in his wallet for safekeeping before kissing Hermione on the forehead and settling in for his own afternoon snooze.

[oversimplify-it]

Story Process Tag by @herpixels​

I was tagged by @dynastiasimss​ - Thank you so much for tagging me!! 😊💖💗 This will most definitely get a bit wordy because I’m terrible at explaining things concisely! 😂 Also, I’ll mostly be talking about my process for 2.B.A Grandmaster but I’ll touch on my process for Erin in San Myshuno too!

I’m also going to get tags out of the way up here so that no one has to scroll all the way through this ... absolute novel that is under the cut LMAO so I tag: @cyansimblr  @x-simss @matchacake and any other simblrs who wanna do this!! and feel free to skip if you want!

1. Your writing process My writing process is very, very chaotic, and changes with the wind... Erin in San Myshuno doesn’t really have a process, I just play the game and then put in some dialogue based on the events. None of it is guided by my hand at all though! 2.B.A Grandmaster on the other hand is written in part based on what happens in game and in part by my own creative vision. Most of the time, I let stuff happen, and then fill in the blanks in between events. I go in game, play Sims as I normally would (skill build, take care of needs, go out to venues, etc.) and then watch what weird and interesting things happen. For example, Augusta’s meeting with Xavier in the beginning was completely the game’s doing! He was the only one to show up for the Welcome Wagon event, so I rolled with that. Scenes like Kaitlin’s meeting with Maverick and those sort of things are planned by me, as they’re necessary to create a more full narrative! It’s like collaborative storytelling, but my “partner” is a game that is weird and random and crazy. 😂 After stuff happens in game and I get screenshots, I then actually write for it. I chose to write novel style for the series because - as some of my long-term followers may remember - I had another story that was just screenshots with dialogue on them? And it was very hard, LOL, it didn’t suit my workflow very well and I ended up dropping it after a month or so. I wanted 2.B.A Grandmaster to be something I could post consistently, and so I opted for a style that I was more familiar and experienced with!

2. Scene building For the most part, I just work with what sims gives me, but as I mentioned above, some scenes I actually go to the trouble of setting up. For those, I still use the sims animations mostly (I’ve used poses about 3 times in 2.B.A Grandmaster so far) but I do usher my sims around the "set” as I see fit. I build a lot of my own lots and locations for 2.B.A GM because I tend to get a vision in my mind of what I want and refuse to settle for less. 😂 One such case is the scene where Maverick meets up with Octavia--

I made the alleyway we see here - it’s two entirely empty buildings sandwiched side by side on an otherwise empty lot in Oasis Springs. The only part I bothered to decorate was the alley itself because I knew I wasn’t going to use the rest of the area, but maybe we’ll revisit it sometime and I’ll finish the two buildings! I actually loved making this set and like how it turned out, LOL~

Then I just have whatever sims are involved in a scene interact with each other for ages until I feel like I have enough screenshots to make a scene. I usually have a vague idea of what’s going to be said in any given scene - especially the ones I actually planned out beforehand - but I get some excess screenshots to be safe. I try lots of different interactions and pause like every few frames to get interesting expressions and stuff, LOL. Lots of “Complain about Cold Weather” and “Give fake bad news” ...

3. CC/Pose making I don’t actually make my own CC for 2.B.A GM specifically (I’ve made a couple eyeshadows but I don’t use them super frequently) but there is a scene coming up in the future that I plan to make poses for. I have a very clear image in my mind that includes a lot of subtle expressions and very specific things that I doubt I could find poses for, so I’m gonna have to brave the terrifying landscape of blender in order to make it a reality. 😧

4. Getting in the zone I don’t have any sort of “ok, show time” ritual like some people do but I wish I did, because my motivation waxes and wanes so unpredictably. Some days I just don’t feel like doing anything, and other days I edit and write for 5 posts in a row! I am always listening to something though, usually music, every once in a blue moon a video with lots of talking. 5. Screenshot folder

UGH... 

6. Captions I don’t do captions on 2.B.A GM posts, but for my city living gameplay I do! I keep them simple, because I don’t want to make it too much work for myself. Erin in San Myshuno’s style of editing is 100% based around ease, because I wanted something to post often that didn’t put too much of a strain on me. Verdana in white, typically 35-40 px, with a gradient border. Each sim we encounter has a different gradient color, usually based on their outfit or just the ~vibe~ I get from them. Erin’s gradient is Hot pink to ... gee, what would you call it. Sonic the Hedgehog Blue LMAO-- I chose that gradient because that’s the color of the overlay, which I’ll talk more about in the next section!

7. Editing My two ‘series’ - and I use that term loosely LMAO - have different editing processes, so I’ll try to summarize them both. Basically, for 2.B.A Grandmaster, I touch up the saturation and brightness depending on the scene. If it’s evening in the shots, I usually won’t touch brightness, and if it’s night, I might even lower it a bit for more accurate lighting! Once that’s done, I blur everything but relevant elements of a scene, usually the character we’re following or who is speaking. I have to select the character from the background manually which takes a bit, but other than that it’s very minimal.

My shots aren’t super glamorous, but I prefer simple screenshots and actually being able to keep up with a story schedule as opposed to what happened with my last story. 😬 As for Erin in San Myshuno, barring captions which I only do when I feel it’s necessary, it’s literally just an overlay on otherwise untouched screenshots. 😭 I would do more, but again, it’s supposed to be an easy downtime sort of series for me so~

This goes over top all screenshots on the “Add” setting at 20% opacity. It brightens things up and softens them, as well as making the colors slightly more harmonious! If anyone wants me to go more in depth on editing, or maybe captions, please let me know! I’m happy to talk about it if it’ll help anyone, and I know that a lot of tutorials cover how to do stuff in Photoshop, whereas I use FireAlpaca (which is 100% free btw! It’s more of an art program, but not bad for editing) 8. Throwback!

Oh boy, so this is one of my first posts on simblr. For starters, I didn’t know about camera mode at the time, so that’s the first thing I would change obviously LOL. 😬 The framing I did at the time was ... cute, but it makes the pictures feel kind of cramped and small in my opinion, so I did away with that for all of my later stories. Also, Amy and Gemma aren’t very well centered in this picture! Other than that, this isn’t actually terrible I don’t think, so aside from maybe blurring the background as I do on 2.B.A GM now, I wouldn’t change too much! Thankfully, I had observed other people’s stories before making my own on here for a little bit, so I wasn’t starting with absolutely no idea what to do, but I still think I’ve improved since I made these. 😊

This was a ton of fun!! If anyone has questions or wants more info on anything I covered in here, absolutely feel free to ask, and thank you so much if you actually read through all of this - I know I rambled for quite a while!! 🙏

[the-pen-pot]

Changes.

Before I begin, I'm pretty sure you guys all know I'm unemployed and have been for yonks. I was self-employed running an online jewellery store and a SAHM until Brexit. Since then (about 2016) I've been privileged enough to be able to adjust family finances so my spouse brings in the money and I keep the house ticking over. Sort of. Just to give you some idea of why an actual JOB never seems to feature in my ramblings)

As some of you know, I battle with depression. It hit me hard after finishing Gilded Cage back in about 2015, and while I've been medicated and had therapy since (both of which I no longer have access to), it's not the kind of thing that is ever really cured. One of the areas of my life that it's had the biggest impact is in my creativity. Writing is hard. Not while I'm doing it, but just getting started. I've developed a few different coping mechanisms, but the problem (which in my head I call inertia) is pretty persistent. It exists in other areas of my life too (tv shows, games etc): just finding the energy to *start* the thing is hugely challenging. Most days I manage it, but some days I don't get out of bed.

I think I've spent the past five years trying to get back to "normal". At first, it seemed a sound enough strategy, but it's pretty much time to admit that maybe I need to ditch that idea. This year in particular has shown everyone, I think, how much of an illusion normal is (and probably given us all an intense hatred for the phrase "new normal" which I hear all the time and it makes me want to beat someone's face in.)

So, I need to stop comparing what I'm doing now to what I've done in the past. I've been collecting fears because they're pretty excuses ("You'll never write anything as successful as Gilded Cage again. You've peaked; give up. No one will like it so why bother.) and I do like to cling to them as I give myself another reason to stay in bed all day. I need to acknowledge that different tactics worked for me in the past, but they'll no longer cut it, and I really need to find new strategies. Which, of course, is a mess of trial and error, some success and probably a dollop of crash-and-burn failure too.

So what's the plan?

Good question. I've already implemented some changes in my life to help since finishing The Riven Crown in 2017. (That was pretty much pure escapism and denial of my issues fic and I love it to this day because it let me completely ignore the issue for 18 months and didn't turn out too badly).

I started my patreon to help boost my self-esteem. To prove people were listening/caring/wanted what I write and were also willing to pay. (One of the neuroses from my upbringing is if you're not earning any money doing the thing, then that thing (and by extension you) is worthless. This is UTTER BULLSHIT and I know it but my psyche doesn't do logic). Patreon's been successful beyond my wildest dreams. Not only does it provide a good argument to my internal whinings of worthlessness, it provides my writing life with some external pressure. Before, all of my pressure came from me "You gotta update every week." which was challenging because I am simultaneously a hard-ass and a soft touch. I'd let myself miss my self imposed deadline and then loathe myself intensely for doing so. Not cool. Patreon allows me to externalise that a little bit more, which helps.

It also gives me fresh ideas, opportunities, and is an excellent way to connect with people who really, really like my work.

I also started using 4thewords to help with the inertia. It didn't. Not with the inertia bit, anyway. I still struggle to START THE THING, but what it does do is keep me going and keep me coming back, because by gamifying my writing, I'm giving myself other, smaller goals than "finish the chapter/story/thing" which, as we all know, makes a big goal easier to achieve. I'm not staring down the barrel of "Write 8 chapters and a smutty epilogue". I'm staring down the barrel of "Write 700 words to kill the critter and get cool gear" which is infinitely more do-able and also, I get cool gear. It feeds the positive reward feedback monkey brain and monkey brain likes that.

I need to do more, though, and mostly I think that comes down to trying out new strategies in the way I live my life to find a happy balance between getting things done and feeling worthwhile, and also getting the rest/downtime/whatever my neurochemistry needs to function. This is especially hard right now because I recharge through solitude. Like, utter solitude. Ideally, an empty house. Which has not happened since lockdown began in March. My home is currently also my husband's work and my kid's school, and that's not changing until at least September. I deserve a medal for not murdering anyone in the depths of an introvert-forced-to-socialise-constantly fugue yet, if I'm honest.

So next week (July 20th to 26th-ish) I'm taking a week off writing. (Sounds dead simple, doesn't it? But actually it's not.) What that means is I won't write during that week unless there's a project that's really captured my imagination and I'm compelled to do so. Will I still be posting? Yep. I'm angling this so that, hopefully, there'll be minimal delays to any scheduled postings.) After that I plan to gently increase the amount of writing/editing/actual "work" I do during the week. At the moment it's a bit hodge podge. I normally write a bit in the morning. 2000 words on a great day. On a not great day, maybe 100. I'd like to build that into something more consistent and productive, Monday to Friday. The idea is that roughly one week in every four, I'll take off from writing. 

It seems excessive. Even me looking at it right now, I'm like "that's a LOT of time off", but I think I need it. At least to start off with. I need time to just lie in bed and read fic if I want to. Time free of the constant, internal nagging of: "You should be doing x". Pre-planned, guiltless, time-off.

My hope is that it will help stabilise my productive/not productive patches into something workable that leads to a happier life for me, and more fic for you guys =D

Thanks for listening to me ramble!    

[ngame989]

SVTFOE: A Retrospective

Happy Mama Star Day!

OK, first and foremost, a quick update on TGG: I plan to have something ready for at least one of the major anniversaries coming up, and hopefully will resume slightly more regular updates from then forward. Thanks to everyone for your continued support, it’s been a rough year so far for me personally and for everyone in in the current pandemic situation. The anniversary of both STH and Mama Star seemed like a fitting time to get some things off my chest, both good and bad, so I’ll do that now and get it out of the way to focus on bigger and better things in the future. Fair warning, this is gonna be long and rambly and personal more than it is any sort of serious show analysis. If you’re looking for fun, feel-good celebration of what definitely were some of my favorite moments in the series, I’m not so sure this is gonna be the post for you.

It goes without saying that Star vs the Forces of Evil, for better or worse, is incredibly important to me and has been without fail for years. How are you supposed to feel when something that important lets you down so hard? Is having such strong, mixed emotions and attachment better than having nothing you care about at all? The past year hasn’t answered these questions for me, and this post certainly won’t either. There’s no thesis or likely any kind of closure here, just me baring a bit of my soul here on tumblr dot com.

It’s been a rough year or two for me. I don’t want to get too much into the specifics, but let’s just say I hit a crossroads where the entire path I’d envisioned for myself in life came into serious question, and I had been spiraling into depression and paralyzing anxiety over a complete lack of any fulfillment in my “professional” life for months before I even recognized it for what it was. Season 3 finished airing around the last few months of my undergraduate degree, which (while obviously it significantly emotionally impacted me) was a generally happy and stable time in my life. As things started to change and get worse for me, SVTFOE S4 was my ray of hope. I’m not kidding when I say that some days in the hiatus leading up to it, the thought of S4 delivering on its potential for emotional fulfillment and Starco goodness (consistently, not just at the end) was the only thing that got me out of bed in the morning and the only positive thing I could see in my future. 

When we got the S4 we got, it shattered me, utterly and completely. This isn’t an attempt to dunk on S4 in some “objective” manner - hell, I even like a lot of the things about it that the fandom despises (the ending prioritizing character closure over lore, the upheaval of the political structure rather than just having Star become the Goodest Queen, etc). I’d still make the argument that a lot of the character development was very flimsy and poorly paced, a very clear effort to force the relationship resolution to be delayed until the end at all costs, but that’s not the point here. Life felt dull and lonely and warm fluffy Starco was my vicarious escape from that, and the season we got left me so completely hollow insid that it felt like I couldn’t breathe for its first more-than-a-dozen episodes, and I was so burnt out that I couldn’t even properly enjoy the parts that were genuinely good.

Even earlyish on, I was already fearing that things wouldn’t be resolved till the end and that there’d be almost none of the content I actually longed for from the show. As I’ve mentioned before, The Greatest Gift was born the morning after Lake House Fever’s late night release, out of salt and spite and a need to give myself something good to look forward to, even if it would be something I’d be making myself. I completely removed myself from even passing conversations with my best friends in the fandom because it hurt too much to even think about. I even had Seddm give me summaries of episodes before I watched them so I could take some time to emotionally prepare (at least until the 2nd to last week). And to the show’s credit, its last few weeks of episodes (with some exceptions) tried their absolute damnedest to right the ship (pun intended) and bring back the sorts of things I wanted with a vengeance. I was smiling like a complete fool for 12 hours straight after Here to Help. The ending didn’t fix my issues with the show, not by a fucking long shot, but it at least left me on a positive enough note that there was a feverish enthusiasm to continue it further on my own.

But it’s been tough. Have you or a family member/friend ever gotten bad food poisoning from a restaurant you really liked, and the smell of it makes you queasy afterwards even though you do really like it? That’s probably the best analogy I can draw to a lot of my relationship with SVTFOE since it ended. PLEASE NOTE I’M IN NO WAY TRYING TO EQUATE THE MAGNITUDE OF MY IRE WITH A CARTOON WITH SERIOUS DISORDERS THAT PEOPLE SUFFER FROM, but I’d almost be tempted to liken it to PTSD. Seeing reminders of the painful parts can put me in a bad mood for hours, and on some days even just dwelling on the show in any way will invite creeping negativity and “why the fuck couldn’t it have just-” types of thoughts taking over. There have been some days writing TGG where having to draw inspiration from or reference events/dialogues in S4 was so emotionally taxing that I had to stop writing for the night. I blocked Seddm’s entire askbox tag because I’d find my own emotions frothing into a rage over things in the show people would bring up. I’ve lost acquaintances and potential friendships over my bitterness. I instantly block anyone who posts even a hint of Tomstar/Kellco content in the Starco tags on any site because it induces such palpable negativity in my heart - I think I’m up to 1000 accounts blocked on Instagram right now, which is why Toxic runs the TGG page over there. If you’re one of the people out there that tried to strike up a conversation with me over a shared interest in the show and I vomited bile into your DMs, I sincerely apologize. And to anyone who got wrapped up in the brazen high hopes I put forth here every day as S4 approached and came crashing down with me as a result, I’m sorry for that too.

And yet... I can’t say there’s not a genuine love I still have for a lot of it. I still have my little shrine of stickers and pictures that I’ll sometimes just get let myself get lost in. There was a recent postcanon fic started by someone who just caught up on the show that brought such a depth of warmth into my chest that I’m smiling like an idiot just now thinking about it. I haven’t watched even a clip (let alone a whole episode) that Star and Marco’s voices in my head feel distant and abstract, but when I’m writing chapters I can still get emotional imagining them saying and doing things out of their devotion to one another. I’ve made no secret that I (to put it very very very lightly) have a strong distaste for the vast majority of this fandom, and yet the joy of knowing I could make people’s days or lives brighter gives me a satisfaction I can’t put words to. Don’t get me wrong, writing quickly just isn’t my thing normally anyway - I’m not trying to suggest that the sole reason for TGG downtime is that I’m driving knives into my own heart and pouring my blood onto the page. Just that that’s part of it, and it takes its toll. 

The last few months, although I have missed the joy of brewing up fluff ideas and seeing them come to life, have admittedly been a welcome reprieve just not having to think about this stuff so much. In the last few weeks I’ve finally been coming around to a bit of a better place where the good bubbles up without bringing as much of the bad with it. It will likely still wax and wane, and I can’t guarantee if or when TGG will fully finish. And this isn’t my entire life - I have MMOs and card games and all kinds of other hobbies that suck up lots of my time, so don’t worry about me just lying in bed sobbing over S4 for 12 hours a day. I don’t know if the day will ever come when I can truly be at peace with it all, but I don’t want to toss out the good with the bad. All I can ask is for your patience as my own journey evolves alongside my writing, until the day comes when perhaps this story can finally come to a close. Thanks for reading, and stay safe.

Ngame

[terrifyingtiny-t-rex]

WIP Wednesday 👩‍💻

Got tagged like a week ago by @thatsoneginger, put it off, and now we’ve almost come around to the next Wednesday so here we go.

I’m planning on rewatching The Man From Uncle (2015) tonight because 1. It’s a good movie, and 2. need some more inspiration for the next chapter of Take My Whole Heart, Too, which I have been neglecting for too long. But here’s what I have in my drafts so far:

They’re shipping out for America tomorrow, but until then they have some downtime. Gaby had disappeared into her room with her tools and a salvaged transmitter a while ago, and he can faintly hear the radio through the wall.

Napoleon is ignoring him in favor of a drink and this morning’s paper, and Illya is growing increasingly frustrated as he paces back and forth, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.

It’s been a little over a month since Napoleon had last held his hand, and he’s no closer to figuring things out than before. He’d tried to initiate more physical contact between him and Napoleon, and Gaby as well. When Napoleon’s leg bumped against his as they sat next to each other, he didn’t move away. When Gaby poked and prodded him, he let her, and when she grabbed his arm to drag him somewhere, he didn’t shake her off. He tried mimicking Napoleon’s usual post-mission clap on the back, but it was so awkward he didn’t try it again.

He knew they’d noticed, because Gaby kept/started giving him knowing looks and Napoleon grew bolder with his touch, slinging an arm over his shoulders as well as Gaby’s as they walk away from a job well done, sitting closer to him. He’d tried stealing his hat again, coming up behind him while he was sitting at the coffee table, and Illya had caught his wrist without looking and pulled him over the back of the settee. The other man had let out a startled grunt and tumbled over into his lap. Illya had frozen, then shoved him off. Napoleon had merely laughed, seemingly unaware of the tension. “Buy me a drink first, would you?” Illya had flushed and scowled and turned back to the chess set, but he couldn’t get the image of Napoleon laughing in his lap out of his mind for the rest of the day.

Everything had changed after that. Just the memory of the other man’s touch helped calm him, but now a memory was all he had, because every time he so much as looked at him, something in his stomach wriggled and he had to fight back a blush. Napoleon was his partner, his friend, why on earth should he be embarrassed by a causal touch? He withdrew again, and Napoleon’s looks became concerned–and slightly hurt, though he tried to hide it–while Gaby’s turned exasperated.

Back in the present, he stops his pacing and stomps over to the couch. “Give me your hand.”

Napoleon looks up from the paper and raises an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

Illya thrusts his own out, palm up. “Your hand.”

Napoleon sets his drink down and closes the paper, eyeing him suspiciously. In the other room, the music shuts off. “Why?”

“I am not going to hurt you,” Illya growls. Napoleon stares at him for a long moment, and then, in a remarkable show of trust, places his left hand in his. Illya takes it carefully, turns it over and back, flexes the fingers, compares it to his own. He knows what he’s doing is foolish, but he hates that he still doesn’t know why the other man has this kind of power over him, and he’s running out of patience. His episodes are a weakness, he knows, and the fact that Napoleon can stop them could easily be exploited.

Desperately looking for a beta! HMU if you’re interested or just want to ramble about napollya with me >;3 I tag anyone who wants to do it!

[olicitysecretsanta]

Convergence

For @swiftletinthecloud 

Hello! We have never met or spoken before, but I am so happy to have you as my giftee because now we have! I was so happy about your response to my anon ask about what kinds of fic you like, because so many of your interests are also mine. It was actually a problem because I had too many interesting ideas for fic that were inspired by your suggestions. Now I just have more fic to write, I guess. 

Anyway, I decided to write this idea for you because it was the SHORTEST of all the ideas I had. You can see how well that turned out. What is below is 2 out of 3 total chapters. The last chapter still needs editing, so your gift will be fully complete when I post this to AO3. Until then, please enjoy these first two chapters of season 1 alternate canon!

Much love, @allimariexf

Title: Convergence

Warnings: No warnings apply

Relationship: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak

Tags: Arrow season 1, alternate canon AU, episode tag 1x21 (The Undertaking)

Chapter 1

Oliver Queen moved like a panther through the underground casino, a sleek and beautiful predator at home among the understated opulence. His eyes strayed around the room, a careless smirk masking his close assessment of the security.

Two pit bosses, a floorman, and six armed guards, two of which flanked a hallway that must lead to Dominic Alonzo’s office. If he was going to get in there, he needed to come up with a distraction.

His mind went back to the document he’d found saved on his computer. Like all the previous messages he’d gotten over the past seven months, it took the form of a simple text file, saved prominently on the desktop of his computer in the foundry.

December 12, 2012: Harold Backman deposits $2 million to Cayman Fidelity on behalf of Dominic Alonzo, known kidnapper.

Also December 12: Walter Steele goes missing.

Coincidence? I don’t think so. 

I know I normally don’t agree with your “shoot first, ask questions later” policy, but I’m willing to give you a pass on Alonzo. He seems like just the kind of low-life someone would pay to kidnap Mr. Steele. How many arrows do you think you’d need to put in Alonzo before he gave up Mr. Steele’s location - probably a lot, right?

Never mind, forget I said that. Alonzo’s private records are offline - likely stored in his office in his base of operations, an underground casino with basically its own private army. Not the best odds, even for you. But I have a plan that doesn’t involve arrows or any other pointy objects, so sit tight and I’ll contact you tomorrow. 

The corners of his lips lifted at the memory. The anonymous hacker who’d been helping him certainly had a way with words, and in their months together she’d often surprised him with her uncannily insightful observations. But if she honestly thought he’d sit back and wait when they finally had a solid lead on finding Walter, maybe she didn’t know him as well as he sometimes suspected. Not when Walter had been missing for almost five months and the likelihood of him being found alive decreased every day. Not with the recorded evidence John Diggle had collected that seemed to confirm his mother had something to do with Walter’s disappearance - and that it was all connected to the List. 

Oliver was tired of waiting for answers. This was something he could do. It just so happened that this time, he needed a bespoke suit of Italian wool, rather than green leather in order to do it.

Eyes tracking the movement of the guards, Oliver positioned himself at a well-situated roulette table. Several wealthy patrons crowded around the dealer, including an elegant brunette who instantly met his gaze. 

“You’re Oliver Queen,” she purred, reaching out with graceful fingers to draw him toward her. Slipping easily into the role, he let his eyes travel down her body as she trailed her hand down his arm. 

Choosing not to answer with words, he winked and held out his dice for her to blow on. It was enough to maintain the part he was playing, and in another life he would have taken her up on the unspoken invitation written in every line of her body. But as his eyes slid down her lithe frame, he barely saw her. Instead, he was seeking something else, some spark of her. 

Huli jing. 

His anonymous hacker ally. 

His thoughts turned to her, as they had increasingly done over the past several months. Who was she, in her normal life? Where was she, what was she doing? When he mingled among the residents of Starling City by day, could she be right next to him, without either of them realizing it? Like always, the possibility sent a thrill of excitement through him.

Part of him was acutely aware that it was futile, even ridiculous, to entertain those thoughts, but as long as they only existed on the fringes of his mind, he indulged them. His life was his mission, and there was no room for anything else, but there was no harm in letting his mind play with the idea of her in his downtime. Not when there was no chance they could ever meet. So when he put in his appearances at Verdant, when he met up with Thea at her favorite cafe, when he picked up his mom from Queen consolidated, he allowed himself to wonder. And if his eyes caught on long red hair, a charming smile, or a long length of exposed thigh, he’d mentally compare the woman in front of him with his mental picture of her. But none of them ever had her unique, undefinable spark. And somehow, by comparison, every woman he saw seemed somehow less because they were not her.

She had contacted him for the first time seven months ago, though “contacted” hardly felt like the right term. He’d arrived at the foundry and booted up his computer one night only to find the entire system had been upgraded, and simple text document saved to the desktop:

I’m truly stunned that no one managed to trace the redistribution of Adam Hunt’s funds back to you. No one else, I mean. 

Now that I mention it, I’m even more surprised you managed to steal that $40 million in the first place. Your system looks like it’s from the 80s.

(And not the good part of the 80s, like Madonna and legwarmers, to be clear.) I maybe spruced things up a little bit while I was in there. Seeing a network that poorly set up hurts me in my soul. Seriously it was like you left a crying infant on my doorstep, except it was like a 30 year old baby and it wasn’t my doorstep, because I was the one who kind of broke into your house. But my point is, you have a severely neglected computer setup, and I guess my maternal instinct kicked in. So to speak.

Oliver had barely finished reading the note before he’d ransacked the bunker, searching for evidence of a breach. When he found none, he read the note several more times, seeking hidden clues as to what the infiltrator knew, what they wanted. The program he used to take Adam Hunt’s money was something he’d taken from ARGUS, and no one should have been able to track it. Deeply alarmed, he read the note again and again. Not until the sixth time did he finally consider the playful tone of the note might be sincere, and only then did it occur to him that there might not be a threat buried in the message at all.  

He remained on heightened alert for several days after that, but only on principle. The improvements she’d made (and she was a she, he was sure) to his system made his ARGUS programs run faster, and while using compromised equipment was normally a risk he would never take, his gut told him there was no danger. For reasons he didn’t examine, he found himself rereading the note, until he had it memorized word for word. 

When he didn’t hear from her for three weeks, he told himself the sense of disappointment he felt was only because lingering questions felt too much like unfinished business. Not because he was intrigued by the hacker. Not because her note had made him smile the way no one had since he’d returned from the island. 

He was starting to think of the incident as an amusing, but ultimately harmless one-time stunt when one night, after an afternoon of failing to get data off of Floyd Lawton’s computer and an evening taking his frustration out on a slum lord, he returned to the foundry and discovered a large data dump open on his computer - along with another note. 

Blueprints to the Exchange Building, where the Unidac Industries auction is scheduled to take place. Gonna be a pretty target-rich environment. For the person who is trying to eliminate bidders in the auction via assassination, I mean. Which, to be clear, someone IS trying to do, according to the SCPD’s unreleased records. Anyway, do with this information as you wish. (Not “as you wish,” as in code for “I love you.” Obviously, I don’t even know you. Though from the captured video footage of you, I can say with confidence that you can really wear a pair of leather pants. Anyway, speaking of Westley, the papers are calling you “the vigilante” or “the hood,” but maybe you should consider adopting Dread Pirate Roberts. A name that inspires fear, so that you don’t have to do so much arrowing in order to get your point across. You should consider it. Good luck with the auction.

Oliver huffed out his nose, struck by her abrupt topic changes and her particular, rambly way of putting things before it even occurred to him to wonder how she’d managed to pull any information off Lawton’s damaged laptop. Or question whether she had any ulterior motive in doing so.

It was unusual for him to trust anyone so quickly, especially someone he knew virtually nothing about. But somehow, he did, and when her tip about Lawton proved sound, he found he wasn’t surprised at all. 

After that he began to seek out her help, adopting her habit of communicating via text document saved to his computer. With each tip she left him, she proved herself invaluable to bringing down another of the city’s worst offenders. He could tell that she was brave, fearless even, and before he knew it, they had developed a rapport. And while it wasn’t exactly a partnership, it worked. 

If I’m the the Dread Pirate Roberts, who are you? He asked finally, against the advice of the inner voice that cautioned him that the more he knew about her, the harder it would be to one day give her up.

But in answer, all she said was, You can call me Huli jing.

The Dark Archer, Ted Gaynor, Count Vertigo, Ken Williams, and the list went on. The notes came more frequently, and Oliver found himself looking forward to them, the first thing he’d check for every night. Even having never been there, she filled the dark, dank foundry basement with a bright presence that was just as tangible as John Diggle’s reliable support. 

What do you think keeps these bad guys up at night? Probably not worrying about that one time they accidentally stared at a man for two full minutes while they were busy trying to figure out what the Cylons’ plan really was. They said they had “a Plan,” like capital P PLAN, you know? Anyway, despite what that guy probably thought, I was NOT creeping on him. But to my point, now that I think of it these criminals probably just close their eyes and get a full 8 hours every night. Sometimes it really sucks to have a conscience.

As the months wore on, he learned that she wielded a formidable intelligence, a sharp sense of humor, an unerring sense of justice, and, somehow, an unshakeable confidence in his mission. In him. She became a voice in his head that he couldn’t tune out. And he found, more and more, that he didn’t want to.

Anyway, while I’m at it, did you ever think about not killing some of these thugs? Look, I get it - they’re taking shots at you and you’re just trying to stay alive, but on the other hand, they’re just hired guns and you’re…you know. You. All I’m saying is, with your aim - which I have seen evidence of, so please don’t start with the false modesty - you could just as easily be shooting these guys in the hand or leg or something, you know? Anyway. Just a thought.

Before he realized it, she had come to haunt his thoughts. When he was wrestling with a problem, he found himself playing out imaginary conversations with her, unerringly channeling her firm conviction and steady support. 

He didn’t even know what she looked like, but he couldn’t get her out of his head. Sometimes he thought he was half in love with her. No; that was ridiculous. It was the fantasy, the not knowing, that fascinated him. The idea that she could be anyone. He told himself didn’t want to know who she really was, because there was no way the reality could live up to the fantasy he’d built up in his mind.

A rough voice, intentionally pitched to grab his attention, cut into his reverie. “Is that Oliver Queen?” 

“No, couldn’t be,” came a loud, theatrical reply, drawing closer toward him. 

“Why not?” the first voice asked from somewhere right behind him. Oliver turned his head to present the speakers with a careless smirk.

“Because Oliver Queen wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this,” the second man sneered, pressing a gun against his back.

The gun cocked. “Well then I guess he has a death wish.”

So much for blending in, he thought as they dragged him toward the back hallway.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Felicity stilled her frantic movements to free herself from the ties that were cutting into her wrists as the door abruptly opened and a man was pushed inside. She tried not to gape as her captor stepped in behind him and roughly zip-tied his hands behind his back, exactly as he had done to Felicity not ten minutes before. 

Despite her situation, she couldn’t stop the flow of words that spilled out of her mouth when she saw who had joined her. “Oh, great. It’s you.” The newcomer whipped his head up and she locked gazes with a pair of striking blue eyes. 

Strangely, the first thought that crossed her mind was that if she had known her curiosity about the hood was going to lead to crossing paths with Oliver Queen, she would never have tried to solve the mystery of Adam Hunt’s $40 million in the first place.

Though to be fair, her interest in the Hood pre-dated the article that mentioned Hunt’s missing money, so she couldn’t entirely blame her entanglement with the vigilante on her compulsive need to unravel knotty mysteries. And it wasn’t just the allure of a dark and brooding man who could pull off leather, either. Something about his single-minded dedication and passion, at the risk to his own freedom and safety, was simply irresistible. 

It was curiosity that first led her to him. Maybe boredom. Her job was monotonous and unchallenging, something she’d sought out after her brief brush with hacktivism had backfired so spectacularly. When she first read about the Hood, she dismissed him as some whacko loose canon. But she followed the story - and the police reports - for lack of anything better to do. But when she read that Adam Hunt claimed the Hood had stolen $40 million, Felicity was intrigued. A crazy person couldn’t - wouldn’t - pull something like that off. So she hacked into Hunt’s accounts, following the trail back to a program that emptied the money and redistributed it to Hunt’s victims. It was shockingly easy, like following a flashing neon sign, and she was legitimately stunned that the police hadn’t managed to do the same. They also had no idea that the missing money had been returned to its rightful owners. On impulse, she erased the digital evidence. 

She could have left it at that, but the mystery was too compelling. She told herself she just wanted to make sure she hadn’t just enabled a psycho or terrorist to do even more psychotic and terrifying things, but the truth was, the fact that he’d quietly returned Hunt’s victims’ money to them cast him in an entirely unexpected light. She needed to know more.

She found that his system was alarmingly, disturbingly unprotected. And primitive. Really, it wasn’t even tolerable for the tiny amount of poking around and passive monitoring that she planned to do. Which is why she discreetly updated speed and capacity as much as she could without added hardware, then added a few dozen security protocols, because anything less was begging the police to come find him. 

Then she established several monitoring programs and alerts, and waited. Just a few weeks later, she got an alert that an unprotected device had been plugged in - a quick remote in revealed that it was one of those Tuff laptops, with a damaged system. It was clear that the Hood hadn’t been able to access the drive, but Felicity was curious, so she remotely cloned the data and opened it on her own system. When she discovered the blueprints of the Exchange Building on the drive, she remembered that the Unidac auction was shortly going to be held there, which naturally reminded her of recent news that one of bidders, James Holder of Holder Group, had recently been murdered. Which naturally then led to a little bit of unsanctioned poking around the SCPD’s internal files, and before she knew it the she found herself composing a message to the Hood before she’d even consciously decided to get involved.

After all, she didn’t actually want to be involved. She was just an IT girl, and she intended to keep a low profile. But the possibility that she could help prevent another murder weighed on her conscience, so she left a message pointing him in the right direction, hoping her suspicions were false. 

When she heard about the shooting at the auction, she poured herself a glass of wine - well, a bottle, really - and gave herself a talk. It wasn’t that she wasn’t glad she’d helped prevent an even greater catastrophe, because she was. It was just that the reality of the situation finally hit her, and she was faced with a choice.

Get involved, take a stance, use her powers in the real world again? She’d been down this road, she’d seen what her interference was capable of. She’d played with fire and hadn’t just gotten burned; she’d burned down her entire world - and Cooper’s. 

But the Hood wasn’t Cooper. He wasn’t innocent. He wasn’t naive to the forces he was playing with. She wasn’t sure what he was. He’d killed, and he would kill again, she was sure. 

But as much as she couldn’t condone the killing, she also couldn’t ignore the good that he’d done, and she realized she already didn’t have a choice. Something was happening in her city, the signs were all around her, and choosing to do nothing would only make her complicit. 

From then on, she kept tabs on the Hood’s activities, always leaving documents on his desktop explaining, briefly, what he needed to know. It wasn’t long until he began leaving notes of his own.

Through unspoken agreement, they never asked each other personal questions, but between the lines, she gained a sense of the man he was. Compassionate. Loyal. Selfless.  

When Oliver Queen was arrested as the suspected Hood, Felicity instantly dismissed the idea. She knew about the arresting officer’s personal grudge against Oliver Queen, which explained why he pursued him like a dog with a bone. But Felicity knew it was impossible; she knew what kind of person Oliver Queen was, and there was no overlap with the kind of person the vigilante was.

Aside from that, she purposely avoided speculating about who the Hood could be. If she had wanted to know, she could have found out easily enough, but she didn’t want to know. She told herself it didn’t matter; that the work he was doing was what was important. She didn’t want to put a face to the hood, because then she would begin to worry about him.

More than she already did, that is. Despite not knowing his name, she felt a connection with him that sometimes felt stronger for their mutual anonymity. His notes were always brief, especially compared to hers, but she learned to read what he didn’t say. And when he was repeatedly crucified in the media while his quietly heroic actions went unnoticed, he never complained, never faltered in his mission. He never even acknowledged the subtle tones of praise layered into her notes. She would almost suspect him of being a robot if it weren’t for the clear passion that underscored every action.

So when Walter Steele gave her the notebook that turned out to be filled with names that correlated with the criminals the vigilante was confronting, she didn’t say anything. There was too much she still didn’t know about the notebook to risk jeopardizing their relationship over it. Because if there was one thing she did know, it was that she trusted him. 

When Mr. Steele went missing, however, she had to break her silence. Without giving away details that could expose her own identity, she presented him with digital evidence of Moira Queen’s involvement of the events that likely got her husband kidnapped, and asked him for help. 

Which was how she now found herself in this hideously decorated criminal lair staring into the supremely beautiful face of Oliver Queen.

Chapter 2

“Oh great. It’s you.”

Oliver looked up at the sarcastic words being spoken by a stunning blonde. Even as he was roughly manhandled, his hands being zip-tied behind his back, he couldn’t help but be a little offended at her tone. “Excuse me?” Beautiful women treating him like some kind of disease was something he’d never experienced before, and while he wasn’t the same person he used to be, he had to admit his ego took a hit.

She stared at him silently, eyes flashing with undisguised contempt, until after Dominic Alonzo’s minion had left the room.

“Oliver Queen?” she finally answered distastefully, tilting her head at him in an exaggerated motion, as if his name was explanation enough. “Entitled billionaire and general asshole?” 

Her stomach swooped as his eyes searched her face. Disturbingly, and contrary to the cool attitude she was projecting, Felicity found his presence a little overwhelming, not quite matching the plastic and glossy picture presented by the tabloids. Rather than being some kind of smarmy Trust Fund Ken, in person he was exquisitely human. Felicity had always suspected she was immune to the appeal of a man in a suit, but on him, the tapered line from broad shoulder to narrow waist suggested an essential masculinity that awoke a deeply primal response she’d never experienced before. In contrast to the brutal strength of his body, his eyes were startlingly expressive; his chiseled jaw was complemented by soft, sensual lips. In short, he was utterly, unfairly beautiful in a way that affected her immediately, physically, and urgently. 

“Wow, okay,” Oliver scoffed, unaware of her internal struggle. “Most people lead with ‘Are you okay, Mr. Queen?’ ‘How did you survive all those years alone, Mr. Queen?’ ‘What does it feel like to be the only survivor in an accident that killed your father, Mr. Queen?’” He spoke harshly, wielding the crude words like a club. While he usually found the subject too intrusive to mention to anyone, let alone complete strangers, something about this woman’s fiery disdain was really getting under his skin, and extreme measures were called for.

Felicity smiled insincerely, holding on to her irritation like a shield from the confusing wave of sympathy that, along with his sheer attractiveness, threatened to undo her. This man slept with his girlfriend’s sister, she firmly reminded herself. “Well, I’m sorry, but my concern didn’t really seem necessary, given the fact that you seem utterly unaffected by what you went through. I caught your appearance at the opening of Queen Consolidated��s Applied Sciences building,” she added witheringly. “You seemed perfectly okay. Or at least as okay as you ever were.” 

Oliver crossed his arms, bothered by her words even though the image she described was the exact public persona he’d been purposefully crafting. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he couldn’t stand the idea that this woman found him so completely and vehemently offensive. Shaking his head, he tried a different tack. “Have we met before? Have I done something to offend you?” There was something compelling and almost familiar about her, but he was pretty sure he would remember if they’d met.

She scoffed dismissively. “No, definitely not.”

“Well, you sure have a lot of opinions about me for someone who doesn’t know me.” His eyes ran over her again, trying to figure out why she seemed so familiar. She was undeniably beautiful, with delicate features animated by a streak of passion that was not characteristic of the type of woman he’d have gone for before the island.

“Oh, I know all about you, Oliver Queen. If it’s on the internet, I can find it. Not -” her eyes flew to the ceiling as she turned pink, “not that I’ve looked into you!” Her sudden lack of composure was completely unexpected and disarming, and Oliver was intrigued and charmed by the new side of Felicity it revealed. And, if he was being honest, gratified by the suggestion that maybe she was not as immune to him as he originally thought. “It’s just that I work for your company,” she continued, straightening her shoulders and meeting his eyes again as sarcasm crept back into her tone, “and it’s a little hard to avoid hearing about all your little…adventures and mishaps.” 

“Hmm,” he answered, covering the dismay he felt at hearing her refer to his past actions when he suddenly, illogically, wanted her to know that he wasn’t that person anymore. “You work for Queen Consolidated?”

“Yeah, I do.” She pinned him with a fierce look. “But don’t go getting any weird ideas. I don’t work for you.” 

Felicity rolled her eyes to illustrate how distasteful she found that idea, and to cover up the effect his nearness was having on her. This was Oliver Queen, Frat Boy Extraordinaire, Professional Heartbreaker. She should not be flattered by any interest he showed to her. Anyway, he was probably just talking to her because there was no one else to talk to, as they were both literally imprisoned together. Speaking of, she needed to stop being distracted by Oliver Queen’s whole overwhelmingness, and start figuring out a way out of her handcuffs so she could carry out her plan to infiltrate Dominic Alonzo’s computer. She was lucky that when they caught her counting cards they brought her here, at least. Though she would have preferred that she hadn’t gotten caught at all, so she could have found her way here without the zip-tie cuffs, as she had planned. But dammit, she was new to this. She didn’t know anything about going undercover in an underground casino. As evidenced by the very great misfortune of finding herself trapped with Oliver Queen, of all people. Well, at least his presence solved one problem. “So anyway, how is it that Oliver Queen ends up handcuffed in the back of an underground casino?” she asked, deliberately toning down her attitude in the hopes that he’d prove cooperative.

“I could ask you the same thing, Miss…” he trailed off in question, a clear indication that she should fill in her name, as he tried to figure out how to respond. 

The truth was certainly not an option. Even if he could trust her with his secret - and for some inexplicable reason, he did feel generally inclined to trust her - doing so would put her at risk. He couldn’t even tell her a half-truth. Sure, the whole city at this point knew that his step-father was missing, possibly kidnapped, probably dead, but there was no good reason why Oliver Queen would be investigating that. Or that he should have figured out that Alonzo was the person who had him kidnapped. 

Felicity met his eyes warily, aware that she didn’t have an acceptable explanation for being there either, and they came to a silent agreement not to press each other for information. For now. “Felicity Smoak,” she supplied.

He smiled. She stared back, refusing to be charmed, even though she detected a hint of dimple.

Needing to get him to stop smiling at her, because she was much more susceptible than she wanted him to know, she hastened on, “It’s good that you’re here, actually, because you can help me.” 

Oliver raised his eyebrows. “Help you?” Help her do what? He didn’t expect his co-hostage to have any sort of plan; rather, he was busy trying to figure out how he could convince her to stay calm, and possibly hide in a closet, while he dislocated his thumb, got out of the zip-ties, searched through the office, and then called the police to come rescue them. 

It wasn’t an ideal plan; he considered all the variables, all the things that could go wrong. Getting made definitely hadn’t been part of his plan. He’d hoped to sneak in the back without being noticed, not get thrown there with the attention of Alonzo and his thugs. And Felicity proved an even bigger problem. While he could easily hold himself back and take a beating if necessary, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do the same if they threatened her; and if it came to a fight, he wasn’t sure how he was going to preserve his secret. 

“Help me get out of these zip-ties,” Felicity answered, taking a deliberate step toward Oliver. Her heart was pounding at what she was about to suggest, but she schooled her expression to appear nonchalant, annoyed by the necessity, even. Not flustered. And definitely, definitely not turned on by the prospect. She took a deep breath. “I need you to get the knife out of my bra.” 

Oliver blinked. No words could have been more unexpected coming from her mouth. “What?” 

She rolled her eyes to distract from the fact that she was blushing. Eyes firmly locked on the ceiling, she elaborated, “There is a pocketknife in my bra and we can use it to cut our binds.”

Oliver stared at her in wonder, steadfastly ignoring the primal thrill that ran through him at her suggestion. It seemed he had severely underestimated Felicity Smoak. His mind was racing with questions, but the one that he blurted out was “Why do you have a pocketknife in your bra?”

“Mr. Queen!” she flared, exasperated nerves causing her to meet his gaze. “Do you want to get out of here or not?”

Oliver’s mind was suddenly reeling with images of what she was proposing. In an instinctual stalling tactic, he said the first words that came to him. “Mr. Queen was my father.”

Felicity gaped at him.

Oliver shook his head at himself, saying nothing as he attempted to get his head on straight. He considered her plan rationally. Aside from the question of why it was so important to Felicity that she get out of her cuffs, and the mystery of what she planned to do once she was free of them, the fact of the matter was that going along with her plan would free him to search the office without having to dislocate his thumb. Deciding to continue their no-questions truce, he nodded. “Okay. But…,” he trailed off, throat dry as he looked looking down into unexpectedly near wide blue eyes.

Felicity was pretty sure they were both imagining what he was about to do. “Yeah,” she exhaled, suddenly very aware of the cadence of his breaths, his intoxicatingly masculine scent. Throughout the course of their discussion, he had moved closer to her, and now his expressive eyes fixed on her, waiting. “You won’t be able to see what you’re doing, but if you’re standing, I can kneel behind you and you can kind of…feel around.” 

Oliver’s eyes widened as she spoke, her matter-of-fact words making the situation more real. More shocking. It wasn’t that he hadn’t done more with women he’d known for less time in much less dire circumstances, but something about touching Felicity in these circumstances felt wrong, like a violation, and he suddenly, irrationally found himself wanting to get to know her first, and to tell her about himself, about the real him.  He briefly reconsidered his original plan of dislocating his thumb. 

Mortified by Oliver’s reaction to her words, Felicity tried to cut the tension. “I mean, I know it’s not ideal, but I figure it’s gotta be better than the alternative.”

Caught up, Oliver automatically asked, “What’s the alternative?”

Her eyes dropped involuntarily to his lips and she swayed a little toward him as she whispered, “Using your mouth.” But when her eyes flicked up to meet his, neither of them were laughing. 

Oliver’s mouth fell open in surprise, his gaze dropping to the deep vee of her bodice, before dragging back up to her face. The action pulled him even closer toward her, and a rush of heat washed over him as he fully took her in for the first time. The red chiffon dress clung to her curves, outlining a deeply feminine, lush  body. She was a study in contradictions, watching him through darkly-lashed eyes that were somehow both innocent and knowing; her face lightly dusted with freckles that contrasted alluringly with a sinfully soft mouth. She watched him with dilated pupils and parted lips, and his cock twitched in response. 

But then reality crashed back in on him as she interrupted, “Not that I’m suggesting anything! I’m not coming on to you or anything.”

Oliver blinked, trying to regain control by reminding himself where they were and why. Catching her gaze, he nodded in an attempt to reassure her. Hoping that she didn’t pick up on just how affected he himself was. 

Felicity took a deep, centering breath. It didn’t make any sense that Oliver Queen was having this effect on her. He was just some shallow billionaire, a douchebag womanizer. None of it made any sense. When he looked at her, it was like he saw her. And as much as she told herself it was impossible, it looked as if he wanted her. No. She had to be projecting. And she didn’t want him to want her, anyway. Sure, he was gorgeous. So, so masculine and touchable he smelled so good, with an essential manliness that was softened by those eyes…but no. He was still Oliver Queen, and the fact that she was so attracted to him only explained why so many women had given in to his appeal, despite the long list of reasons to avoid him. She might have judged those women in the past, but now she could not. 

She squared her shoulders, trying to clear the attraction from her mind and prepare for what had to happen next. “So, okay?” She chanced a look in his direction, not quite meeting his eyes. 

Oliver nodded, and Felicity took refuge in remembering her mission. After all, she was here to help the Hood, and she could not have her sudden weakness to very handsome men - or rather, one specific very handsome man - getting in the way of that. 

“All right, just turn a little to your right,” she directed hoarsely, nodding encouragingly as he complied. “Okay, stop there. I’ll position myself so you should be able to locate the knife relatively easily.” She lowered herself to the ground behind him as she was speaking, her voice only slightly wavering with the awareness that Oliver Queen was about to feel her up. “It’s on the left side,” she rambled, masking her response to the feeling of his surprisingly rough fingers dipping below her bodice, carrying on as if this were normal, as if she were directing someone to the library, as if Oliver Queen’s very large hands weren’t currently sliding along the sides of her breasts…her words tapered off and she bit her bottom lip, concentrating on not moaning out loud because oh god, his fingers brushed against her nipple and her body responded as if he was tugging on a string tied directly to her thrumming core. 

Oliver squeezed his eyes shut, trying to be quick, methodical, and clinical, but he had felt enough breasts in his life to know that Felicity Smoak’s were a rarity. As much as he tried to stay on task,he found himself getting distracted, unable to stop the picture that drifted through his mind. Perfect breasts, not large, but extremely full; firm but very soft, with tight nipples that his fingertips couldn’t help brushing over repeatedly as he wedged his large hand into the tight space of her bodice. Tight, very sensitive nipples, he corrected unhelpfully, judging by the way she gasped softly in response to his inadvertent touches. As her voice trailed off, he remained aware of the soft catching of her breath, and even with his back to her, he he felt completely in tune with her, much more intimately than if they had only been having sex. Finally, his fingers touched upon warm metal, and even though the entire encounter lasted less than fifteen seconds, he was out of breath as he withdrew the pocketknife and turned to meet her eyes. His dick was rock hard, and the look she returned him said she was equally affected. 

She was staring up at him, speechless, so he took the lead, flipping open the knife and directing her in a soft voice, “Turn around. I’ll cut your ties.”

Felicity nodded silently, turning so that they were back to back and trusting that he wouldn’t cut her as he twisted around to line her zip-ties up with the blade. “Okay,” he told her when the knife was in position, “try an up and down sawing motion,” and they easily and wordlessly fell into a rhythm that quickly parted the plastic around her wrists. 

“Oh thank god,” she exhaled as her hands came free. She instantly started rubbing her wrists, then silently turned to take the knife. 

Oliver felt her warm hand close around his wrists, steadying him as she positioned the blade against his ties. He took a steadying breath as she freed him. “I probably shouldn’t do this,” she commented, “since my plan is to maintain the illusion that we’re still tied up and that would be easier to do if you actually were still tied up, but I have to admit that I’ll feel safer if your hands are free.” With a final tug, the plastic came apart, but she didn’t release his hands immediately. Inexplicably, her words inflated him with a disproportionate sense of pride and purpose. He liked that she felt safe with him, that even without knowing his alternate identity, and despite her pre-existing opinion of Oliver Queen, she somehow trusted him. He was struck with an acute desire to be worthy of that trust, and a deep yearning to prove to her that it was not misplaced. 

After a long moment, Felicity dropped his hands, taking large step backward in a move designed to decrease the tension. Truthfully, she was a little impressed by Oliver Queen. He was a lot more gentle, sensitive, and thoughtful than she would have thought.  She had expected him to be obnoxious, entitled, and immature, the type of person who, finding himself in this situation, would either panic or make a joke of the whole thing. Either way, she’d have expected him to be throwing his money around trying to save himself, not quietly and calmly following her lead. And no way would she have predicted he was capable of being so respectful of her body. Probably more respectful of her body than she was being of his. Not that she had forced him to feel her up…but she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t enjoyed it. Fleetingly, she wondered if it counted as sexual harassment to get turned on when a man was merely trying to locate a knife in your bra so you could escape a kidnapping situation. 

For his part, Oliver’s admiration for Felicity was growing exponentially. She was much more resourceful and level headed than he would have expected anyone to be in her situation. From the moment she opened her mouth, she’d already proven herself smarter and more sensible than most people in his experience - she had a cautious,  strategic manner that he was unused to in other people. 

“So now what?” he asked, caught up in the intelligence in her eyes, the mystery of her presence. Even though he was the one with a plan and she was technically just an inconvenience, he momentarily set that aside because he just wanted to know. He wanted to know what she was planning to do. He wanted to know her. “You mentioned you have a plan, one that requires your hands be free,” he prodded, hoping she would fill in some pieces of the puzzle.

“That’s for me to know,” she countered playfully, holding his gaze as she reached into her bra, pulling something else out, “and you to find out.”

His eyes widened and dropped to her chest before snapping back up, unsure if she meant anything by it. Again, it was the last thing he expected. And again, it set his heart racing. 

“Or, I mean, not to find out. There will be no finding out, from you. Just stay there and look pretty.” Her eyes grew rounder. “Not that you’re pretty, it’s just an expression. Just sit there.” She backed away until she ran into the desk, and then she dropped to the ground and started feeling around underneath it.

He watched her with amused eyes, interested in her actions and utterly captivated by her. “I’m not pretty?” he pressed, curious to know how she would react.

Her head popped up from the other side of the desk, sending him an exasperated look. “No! I mean, yes! Very pretty like, really very attractive, objectively speaking I mean, I’m not coming on to you. It’s science; you’re scientifically pretty.” Her head disappeared again beneath the desk.

Oliver stood up, drawn to her, until he was leaning over the desk looking down at her ass protruding from under the desk. “Scientifically pretty?”

Felicity visibly startled, then took a deep breath, then carefully, and with as much dignity as possible, crawled backwards and rose out from under the desk, smoothing down her hair. She arched her brow at him. “Don’t tell me you’re one of these anti-science climate change denier people.”

Oliver guffawed, unable to come up with a fitting response. She was unlike anyone he’d ever come across. Instead of answering, he watched as she sat herself at the desk and instantly penetrated the password protection, diving with singular focus directly into the files on Alonzo’s computer. “What are you doing?” he asked after a moment, fascinated by her actions. He knew time was precious, that he should be taking the opportunity to riffle through drawers, search filing cabinets, etc., but rather than pursue his mission, he couldn’t help but pull at the loose thread that was Felicity Smoak. 

She lifted distracted eyes to him, giving the distinct impression that he had yanked her out of a very deep concentration, despite the fact that it had only been twenty seconds since she’d sat down. He expected her to crack another joke, but instead she blinked and said seriously, “It’s better you don’t know,” before returning her attention to the computer. 

Surprised, Oliver slipped off the desk he’d been casually leaning against, the hair raising on the back of his neck; her words were like a warning, almost ominous. Who was she? Why was she here? What was she involved in? Habits shaped over the past five years forced him to question her motives: honest people rarely found themselves involved with guys like Dominic Alonzo; he had to consider that Felicity might not be as innocent as she seemed; he had to wonder if she might even be on the list. But as soon as the thought surfaced, he dismissed it. His five years away had also taught him to trust his instincts, and every single part of him was shouting at him to trust her. 

“Okay,” she announced a few seconds later, “I need you to come here and keep an eye on this feed.” 

Oliver stepped up beside her to where she was pointing at CCTV footage in a corner of the computer monitor. “What is that?”

“Security feed, showing the corridor just outside. This way we can know ahead of time if anyone’s coming.” Her eyes returned to the screen, where she was still methodically searching through the computer’s files.

“Felicity,” Oliver said firmly, coming to a decision even as his eyes obediently remained glued on the feed. 

“Hmm?”

Oliver took a deep breath, his racing mind rapidly drawing conclusions that he couldn’t quite believe were true. But every objection he came up with was easily disproved; rather, every detail about her only seemed to confirm the picture that was forming in his mind. 

Huli jing.

“Felicity,” he repeated, and this time the name felt familiar on his tongue, like he had been saying it his whole life, like he had been born to say it. “You need to tell me why you’re here.” 

He knew. There was no denying it; when she spoke, it was with the voice he’d been hearing in his head for seven months. When she smiled, it was with the unique humor that had amused him like nothing else had been able to do since returning from the island. And when she looked at him, it was with eyes that perceived all the things he didn’t say. It was her. But he needed to hear her say it.

“Oliver, look,” she began, unexpectedly turning to meet his eyes. He was nearly flattened by the look of sincere regret and conviction in her eyes. “I’m sorry about before, what I said.”

His eyebrows draw together in confusion. 

“When I said you hadn’t changed. I was wrong. The person the tabloids make you out to be - that’s not who you are. And I’m sorry I misjudged you.”

Oliver’s lips parted in surprise. “That’s not -”

“No, it is necessary,” she pressed, misunderstanding what he was going to say. “I made assumptions, and they were completely unfair.” Over his protests, she continued, “I don’t know what you did out there to piss off the casino bosses, but I’m really sorry you’re caught up in this. Please,” she emphasized, “just believe me when I tell you that the less you know, the safer you’ll be.” She reached out a hand but started to pull it back before it made contact with his chest, and he caught it between his own before she could fully withdraw.

“Felicity.” He fixed her with a steady, knowing look, and he heard her breath catch, and felt her pulse pick up under his fingers. “I need to ask you something.”

Felicity’s eyes widened at his sudden, inexplicable intensity and focus. She had no idea Oliver Queen was capable of such depth and sincerity. His large hands were cradling her, his thumb soothing over her wrist, and she had long ago surrendered to that penetrating look in his eyes. “What?” she breathed, not knowing what Oliver Queen could tell her that required so much intensity and passion, but suddenly very much wanting to find out.

His words were the last thing she expected to hear. “Are you here because of the Hood?”

Her stomach dropped. “What?”

Before he could respond, he caught sight of someone on the security feed walking up the hallway. “Someone’s coming!”

She turned to the feed, then instantly went to the computer and, with a blur of hands on the keyboard, logged off and put the monitor to sleep. There was no time for anything else, so without thinking any further, Oliver reached around her body, pressing her wrists together behind her in an approximation of being handcuffed, secured his own hands behind his back, then pressed his mouth to hers in an urgent kiss.  

Felicity gasped in surprise, and he instinctively used the opportunity to deepen the kiss, coaxing her lips open, his tongue seeking hers. After a stunned moment, she responded with ardor, the passion exploding like a match to dry tinder. 

Kissing her was like putting the last piece of the puzzle in place. 

For seven months, he had been drawn to the woman with intriguingly contradictory parts: a dizzyingly sharp partner who amused and irritated and charmed and inspired him. 

For seven months, the more space he allowed her in his mission, the wider the empty hole that only she could fill had become in his life. He hadn’t allowed himself to acknowledge it, but meeting her face to face meant he could no longer deny how he felt about her.  He had been drawn to her since he saw her, his body seeking any excuse to touch hers. Everything about her provoked and challenged and called to him; her passion, her intelligence, her humor, her bravery, and the glimpses of vulnerability. 

She was the woman he’d been waiting for, and if the way she was responding to him was any indication, she’d been waiting for him too. 

He bore down on her, covering her with his body, and it was everything he could do to keep his hands behind his back. The need to touch her is like electricity in his veins, and he forgot everything but the urgent need to be close to her.  

“What’s going on?” The voice broke into the moment like a bucket of cold water. 

Oliver’s lips released Felicity’s reluctantly, and she met his eyes as she pulled back. Her pupils were nearly black, her lips parted and swollen, and the sight sent a jolt through his body to his already throbbing dick. 

“Oliver Queen, you really can’t control yourself, can you?” asked Dominic Alonzo, striding into the room. “I’d almost be impressed if you weren’t such a pain in my ass.”

Oliver glanced once more at Felicity, and the last thought he had before turning his attention to Alonzo was that she looked utterly shell-shocked.

…to be continued…

[vios-rockland-corner]

Rockland: Zeitgeist pre-release thoughts PT 14

The date of this post is 8/24/19.  Please note that information revealed at this time via Patreon or any of the creator’s blogs may be subject to change after this date.

Here I am again rambling about Cain because I’ve entered a state of confusion.

(Spoilers below for BTD2 and Zeitgeist demo)

Why is Cain kidnapping the MC?

I know that seems like a dumb question, one that’s technically already been answered:  He’s bored.

Here’s the thing though: This was a question that was so much easier for me to answer with BTD Cain.  BTD Cain was a straight up evil guy.  He was a torturer and seemed to enjoy that work, but he was also a prisoner in hell who eventually became a fugitive.  The guy was portrayed as up to no good essentially, possibly being a threat to humanity.  He was dangerous, but I’m sure also still had to make sure he didn’t get caught while he was on the run.  When you’re a sadistic character cooped up all day in your hideaway, I can definitely see one getting bored.  Possibly even a little lonely.  So picking up humans/creatures every now and then to torture and likely kill in the end doesn’t seem all that surprising to me. Sometimes when you have a character clearly defined as a villain, there’s not too much you have to explain.  There’s not always a super complicated motive.  As horrifying as it is to hear someone say a character is just receiving pleasure from causing harm to someone else, we know people like that exist.  

Rockland Cain is starting to cause me some more confusion though.  First of all, it doesn’t sound like this version of Cain is going to be presented as a fugitive.  Not unless it’s an INCREDIBLY recent development in the story.  Otherwise, it sounds like Cain works with the other angels as a normal part of the fold.  Not necessarily a prisoner who they just bring out when they need him.  Yet, he is still confirmed as a fallen angel, and there are still hints that he will be a threat at least to the MC.  At the same time, some of the other people or angels who know him also seem to think of him fondly.

 So I’m comparing evil fugitive BTD Cain vs. office worker Rockland Cain?  I know that sounds hilarious calling Cain an “office worker.”  Honestly, until I figure out what exactly the fallen angels do, I guess I’ll just keep saying that the angels work together in an “office” of some sort.  Now, we did get confirmation that Sam IS still a reaper in this canon.  Supposedly, their boss should also be Lucifer/Luke Morningstar.  You know...the first fallen angel?  Usually depicted as the ruler of hell?  So I think a safe answer to “What are the fallen angels in charge of,” is judgement and placement of people’s souls when they die.  They collect and decide who’s bad or not, and possibly even determine torture based on one’s crimes.  There may be some other work they do.   For example, Michael Volkov in previous canon was the angel of war/chaos.  Certainly doesn’t sound like a “heavenly” duty, but nevertheless sometimes part of the world order.  So that job I can see being giving to a fallen angel as opposed to...whatever their lighter counterparts could be.

Now to get back on track, I have two problems then with determining Rockland Cain’s thought process.  First, why is he bored?  And second, is he even allowed to kidnap the MC?

BTD Cain I already said was basically by himself on the run, and before that he was just kept a prisoner unless he was needed.  He had plenty of reason to be bored and have a disregard for the lives of others.  Rockland Cain though may not have AS bad a disposition as BTD Cain based on some of his relationships with other character.  Not only that, if he’s got the freedom to walk about as he pleases even after work, then what about the way his time is spent has him bored now?  Maybe the angels work 24/7, so Cain wants a break from the monotony?  I did fancy the idea before that this game could also be an origin to Cain trying to break off from his regular duties and do as he pleases.  If he also has positive relationships with characters though already, is that still appealing to him?  Speaking of which, if he’s in contact with more people, there’s less of a likelihood that he’s lonely here.  LESS, but not completely.  Sometimes you can still get lonely even when constantly surrounded by other people.  I guess “boredom caused by loneliness” is still a possibility, but it’s less likely here at least than it was for BTD Cain is all I’m saying.

Now, the reason I ask “is Cain allowed to kidnap the MC” is because I have no idea if the fallen angels have a strict code to operate under.  At first I might have guessed that they could be forbidden from meddling with any human affairs and just stick to their duties.  There may also be a strict rule about interfering in human lives that may affect their judgement later.  However, you do see angels like Sam and Damien just mingling about in the human world for no special reason.  I guess that answers my question, “Do they work 24/7?”  Looks like they do have some downtime, and they seem to even like to spend it acting like normal people.  Does Cain himself ever try this I wonder?  Does he still have some restrictions because of his original sin I wonder?  Perhaps he’s a little frustrated that while he’s not locked in a cage, he can’t mingle among the humans like some of the others.

Then again, maybe Cain can walk among regular humans like the others.  But then I wonder, if he can mingle, is it alright for him to do as he pleases with them?  I’ve mentioned this before, but maybe the angels act frivolous and don’t really care a lot about humans since they live in different worlds.  Not really having any animosity towards them, but also if they just feel like messing with someone, who’s going to stop them?  There was clarification recently on what was classified as a fallen angel.   Basically if they defied god and lost their graces, they become a fallen angel (though there are some unusual cases).  The angels with darker wings have done worse and probably whatever their doing is not for the benefit of god’s will or their job either if I had to venture a guess.  I’m..assuming Rockland Cain has black wings?  I’m trying to remember if I’ve seen a new official sprite art with him and his wings 0.0  Holy cow, I don’t even know if they’re fully black still.  Hmmm, I’ll guess that yes they still are based on his past sin at the very least.  Being the first murderer (and killing your own blood) is a pretty high felony honestly.  If his wings aren’t completely black, that will certainly raise some questions.

In that same discussion, it was mentioned that not a lot of the angels are really even that bad.  Truth be told, I know very little about most of these angels.  Come to think of it, the only “bad” one I keep thinking to compare Cain to is Michael.  In previous canon, he was portrayed as a character that also would have no qualms doing horrible, horrible things to people.  Now?  I don’t think there’s been an official update on Rockland Michael, so I don’t know if he kept that personality.

With all that in mind, is there still really a rule or not whether any of the angels can torture, maim and/or kill a person as they please?  Again, if there’s no rule against it, then Cain kidnapping the MC might not be a big deal to the other angels.  It’ll be interesting to see how the other characters react to news that Cain has been keeping a person hostage.  There’s the added flavor that the creators dropped hints that Cain taking you already marks you as “dead” or something.  At least that’s how I interpreted it.  I still won’t know what that means until the game comes out.  Is that going to be an issue for the other angels or no?  The only hint that Cain has done SOMETHING troublesome, is Sam doesn’t seem all that thrilled that Cain has marked the MC.  We don’t know what the mark means and why Sam’s concerned, but it leads us to believe that things might be complicated now.

 What I’m interested in seeing is how Cain lives on a regular basis.  Why is he experiencing unrest?  Does he ever walk about the human world like the other angels?  Is this the first time he’s kidnapped a single person?  Does he only have wicked plans for the MC?  Do the other angels care if Cain carts off a human just like that?  Does Cain’s relationship with the other characters have anything to do with what’s happening?

[stuffandnosense]

Back To You - Chpt 5

Chpt 1 | Chpt 2 | Chpt 3 | Chpt 4

Description: Post A/L breakup after season 7, Pidge and Lance are JUST starting to, maybe, figure something out. But then a mission gone wrong leaves Pidge unable to feel emotions, unable to act on the feelings they were barely sure they had, and the condition may or may not be permanent.

***

Allura is in uniform when she emerges from the bathroom again, just pushing a final pin into her hair that’s now up. Lance is still at the table, trying to stave off the last of the shivering running through him with the blanket the princess settled around his shoulders before she went to get dressed.

“So you have everything you need now?” he asks.

“I believe so,” she says. “How are you doing?”

Lance lets out a breath and gets to his feet, leaving the blanket behind. A final shiver runs through his shoulders, but with a deep breath it seems to finally have stopped. “I’m okay. I should get out of your way. I um...just...thank you.”

She pulls him into a hug, and he isn’t going to say no to that. Not now.

“Of course,” she says.

“How much time do you need? When do you think you can try…?”

Allura shrugs as she releases him. “Soon. We’ll be arriving at the gas giant we’re planning to study later this morning; we’ll be out most of the afternoon collecting scans and samples. But perhaps tomorrow? That should give me enough time to collect my thoughts.”

“You think so?”

“I’ll speak with Pidge and her father and the doctors. Shiro as well. If everyone agrees I don’t see why not. After all, the sooner we can have Pidge back in her lion, the better.”

“Yeah…”

Allura tilts her head at him. “You should try to get some rest before we reach the gas giant.”

Lance winces. “Maybe. I’m gonna hit the showers at least.”

***

When Lance comes out of Allura’s room, it’s still relatively early. He expects to be alone in the corridor.

He isn’t. He looks up as the door closes behind him and Pidge is there, just coming out of her own room. Staring at him. His cheeks color immediately, horribly of aware of how this probably looks. He opens his mouth to say something, but she’s already turning and walking away.

“P-Pidge, wait!” He takes quick strides to catch up, reaching out as he goes. He nearly grabs her arm, but at a brush of her sleeve she turns back silently to look at him. “Pidge...th-this isn’t what it looks like, I swear.”

“What does it look like?”

“I…” He makes a face. “Never mind. But it isn’t! I was just helping Allura—“

“You don’t need to justify yourself to me.”

“Yes, I do!”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to think Allura and I are...together again, or anything. It’s not like that. She had to finish looking around in my head and everything so she can help YOU.”

Pidge shrugs once. “You only recently ended your relationship with the princess; it would be reasonable of both you to want to give it another try, especially considering the current circumstances.”

“We’re not! I told you, that’s not what—circumstances?”

She’s silent for a moment before she answers him. As if assessing if it makes sense to say what she says next. “That I may never be able to return the feelings you have for me.”

Lance isn’t sure he heard that correctly. It takes him a moment to remember to breathe. “The...what? You...you know? How…?”

She faces him more fully, nodding a bit. “It’s been clear for some time now. Until what happened I was too quick to dismiss it as wishful thinking due to my own, but it’s easier to see now.”

Lance reaches out to the corridor wall for support. “Pidge…?” She knew? And she…?

“I understand that your feelings were likely what you didn’t want to tell me about last night.”

“Yeah…”

“I apologize; I seem to have upset you.”

It hurts. He should be happy. Elated. A week ago this would have been the moment he’s been waiting for for...only weeks, really, but somehow...for so much longer.

But now it just hurts. His other hand clenches at his side; part of him wants to be angry, but it isn’t her fault she’s so blunt. She’s not completely tactless even this way as it is. At least she’s apologizing for the sudden...whatever just happened.

“You’re saying...you have...had...f-feelings for me. Too. Before? And-and you knew that I—?”

“I was under the impression you were aware of it, too.”

Lance swallows. Maybe he had been. “That’s why you came last night.”

She knew. Was she trying to keep him from being hurt later? Maybe it’s only logic to her now, but it had to have come from somewhere. Thoughts or knowledge or instincts she had...before.

“Yes,” she says. “Was I not straightforward enough then?”

“No, no, you were pretty clear, I’m just…I’m just an idiot, I guess.”

Pidge raises an eyebrow. “You may not be at my level, admittedly, but you’re certainly not lacking in intelligence at all; the Garrison would never have admitted you if that were the case, and I can personally attest to your quick and creative thinking.”

Lance straightens in surprise. “What?”

“I said—”

“I heard what you said.” He laughs weakly, blinking to push back the sudden dampness in his eyes. “Pidge, I...look, I still hope we can get you back to normal soon, but there ARE a few things I kind of like about this you.”

She doesn’t seem to know what to do with that. “Will you be all right? I should be going. I’m meeting my dad for breakfast. He seems concerned that I might become too ‘disconnected,’ as he puts it. He’s insisted on a certain roster of social activities.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be okay; you should go.”

Pidge nods and heads off for the cafeteria, leaving Lance in the corridor. Not for the first time since all of this started.

But this time it hurts just a little less.

***

When Lance makes it back to the cafeteria after showering and changing, he doesn’t find many people he knows. Again. It’s too late for breakfast for most people. Again. Just like yesterday. And he hasn’t seen much of Keith and Hunk in a day or so. He isn’t sure what they’re up to.

There’s no sign of Pidge, but Sam is still here—at a table in the corner with empty dishes still spread in front of him, staring at nothing and seemingly lost in thought. But Lance knows that look. He’s seen it in the mirror enough the last couple of days.

He finds himself drifting that direction. “I thought Pidge was meeting you here earlier.”

Sam blinks up at him, as if surprised to be interrupted. “Oh, she did. She left not long ago to get back to her lab; I’m just...here,” he sighs.

“Oh.” Lance knows that feeling, too. This Pidge doesn’t mean to hurt anyone; she’s just straightforward, focused. Sometimes the things she says without thinking can be good, but sometimes not. How quickly she moves on to the next thing on her list can hurt, too. “I uh...mind if I join you?”

Sam gives him a brittle smile. “Of course not.”

Lance slides onto the bench across from him and eats in silence at first. Sam seems more comfortable going back to staring off somewhere, and for a while that’s best for both of them.

“Katie told me about your run-in this morning.”

Lance freezes with a bite of waffle halfway to his mouth. His hand falls back to the table. “She knew,” he says quietly. “I mean I should have known she knew; we kind of all...knew, I guess. I know you did…” He trails off and winces when he realizes he’s rambling.

“Sorry. I can’t imagine how hard this whole thing is for you; I don’t want to add to that. Just...ignore me.”

“I brought it up.” Sam leans over his arms on the table. “Lance, when I told you you were family, I meant it. That doesn’t just apply to raiding my refrigerator during midnight gaming sessions with my daughter. You can talk to me. Or I hope you feel like you can, anyway.”

Lance manages to answer this time; he couldn’t a week ago. “Thank you…”

“Besides,” Sam says. “Who else am ‘I’ going to talk to out here? No one other than you kids...no one else on this ship cares about her as much as I do.” He winces. “You’re her family too. You understand.”

“I...yeah. Yeah. You can talk at me as much as you want.”

***

There are a couple of hours of downtime before the mission, and Lance isn’t sure what to do with them. He heads back to his quarters, thinking maybe he should take Allura’s advice and try to get some more rest, but when he rounds the corner Keith and Hunk are outside his door as if they were looking for him.

“There he is…” Keith says.

“Guys? What are you doing? Where have you been, anyway?” Both of them are in rumpled uniforms. “You don’t look much more awake than me..”

“We’re definitely not,” Hunk snorts. “Anyway, come on; you need to see something.”

“Like what?”

They drag him to Hunk’s workshop, where no fewer than five computers are working and bits of disemboweled technology are strewn everywhere. He recognizes a few small pieces from the planet where Pidge was poisoned.

“What have you been doing in here?”

Hunk shrugs. “Trying to decipher as much as we can from the chips and stuff we managed to grab from that planet before we had to high-tail it back to the lions. And I’m telling you even with MY skills and Pidge’s translation algorithms it has NOT been easy, but…”

Keith sighs. “Remember what I said? Back in the infirmary?”

“Not really; there’s kind of been a lot going on.”

“About...why a civilization might have tried to create something that would do what that toxin did to Pidge.”

Lance blinks, but he can’t remember anything specific. He’s just...too tired. He shakes his head. “I don’t, what?”

“That maybe it wasn’t a weapon. Maybe they were trying to do it to themselves.”

Lance makes a face. “Why would anyone want to do that?”

“The Vulcans purposefully created a society where they suppressed all emotion the majority of the time…” Keith trails off at they stare at him. “What?”

Hunk snickers. “Okay, A) they’re fictional, and B) you watched Star Trek?”

“My dad had a child with an alien; what else was he going to watch with me!”

“Okay, guys?” Lance asks tiredly. “As much as I’d love to debate Kirk or Picard—”

“Kirk. Obviously,” Keith huffs.

“Mullet, my brain is literally going to explode if you don’t stop.”

Hunk makes waving motions to get their attention. “Yeah. Could we not explode Lance? Okay listen. Actually, from what we’ve been able to decode, I think this species may have been telepathic.”

***

“Telepathic?” Allura says. Half a varga later and they’ve dragged her to the workshop to go over it all again.

“Yeah,” Hunk sighs. “The details we’ve been able to make out are sketchy, but it’s like...they were trying to stop war from happening or something. They...fused their science and their telepathy and...made this stuff. Somehow.”

Lance’s stomach is twisting with anxiety. There’s more to it than that--pieces of detail here and there Hunk and Keith pointed out to him earlier. Failed versions of the experiment. Mentions of the wars that led to it. The thought processes of those behind it. Even after everything that had happened, to plan to do that to their own people...

“Sorry, reading alien languages isn’t really my specialty,” Hunk is telling Allura. “If you and Pidge helped we could probably get more of it, but we wanted to find out if any of this stuff was useful to begin with.”

Allura leans over the desk, studying the strewn data pads. “It’s all right, Hunk. This is helpful already; it’s only...now I’m concerned. Telepathy does not necessarily mean magic, but it could. And that might explain how the toxin survived thousands of years. But in either case, what they seem to be saying here about their telepathy...using it to fuel the experiment…”

“It means it might not be just a medical or mental problem that needs to be fixed,” Lance says with a wince. “Doesn’t it?”

“Correct…” Allura rests a hand on his arm briefly. “But I will still try tomorrow, as we’ve planned. This does not have to mean that helping Pidge will be more difficult. I am somewhat concerned because it may, but this does not mean it has to.”

***

“You seem distracted.”

Lance sighs and punches up another scan display to be sure the data is recording correctly and they’re on the course Pidge plotted for them. Behind him, Pidge is cross-legged on the floor of Red’s cockpit with her computers.

“Because I am,” he says. “I mean, if I’m gonna do it I guess this is a good mission to do it on. Pretty straightforward. Collect the samples. Scan the...stuff. Anyway.” Lance squints out Red’s front dash at the gas giant and the colorful nebula that surrounds it. Coran had been going on about it having some interesting properties or something.

“I used to get so excited every time we saw something like this. Like...when I first got into the Garrison I felt like I was never really sure I’d make it through the program and ever get to go to space in the first place, and then I was seeing stuff like this every day. Now I’m just...it’s almost like it doesn’t matter. Is that bad?”

He glances back at Pidge, who raises an eyebrow.

“Sorry, you’re not the best person to be asking that right now, I know.”

She shrugs. “It’s perfectly normal for the human brain to become accustomed to certain things.”

“Yeah, but...nevermind.” He sighs. Maybe it’s because he’s still anxious about tomorrow. But she knows, now, and she’s agreed, but of course she isn’t…

“Lance?”

He doesn’t mean to flinch. But the way she says his name is as close to normal as she’s sounded since all of this began.

“Sorry, what?”

“Are you all right?” It’s not asked in the same way she would usually ask it. It’s a mechanical question. Habit.

“Yeah. I mean...no. No exactly.” He lets out a breath. “Hey. Did you…? Did you mean what you said this morning?” The ache in his gut twists, asking him why he’s asking that. Does he just want to hurt MORE? But…

“I have no reason to lie to you,” Pidge says, barely looking up from her screens.

He swallows, even as a strange warmth floods through him. “Then...I mean how do you know that? How you felt, I mean. Before this happened. What’s…? What’s that like?”

Now she picks her head up, thoughtful. “I don’t know that I could explain it to you; you don’t have an adequate frame of reference.”

“Humor me.”

She goes quiet for a moment. “My memories aren’t impaired,” she says, slowly. “Of course I remember having feelings. And why I had them. But thinking about them now, I can be objective. I don’t have an emotional reaction to remembering the reactions I had then. I don’t know if that’s helpful.”

“A little, maybe. But anyway, you’re still okay with Allura fixing it?”

“It’s what’s best for Voltron.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“For me, it does,” Pidge says. “That’s also part of it. What matters to me, without emotion as a factor, is what is objectively better for the most people.”

Lance sighs. “You matter too, Pidge. Even Spock figured that one out eventually.”

“Isn’t it true that you would prefer for me to be the way I was?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

Pidge is quiet for a moment. She goes back to her computers, and Lance thinks that might be it until she speaks up again.

“Then I want that as well.”

Lance looks back, attention pulled away from his scans again. “What?”

She isn’t looking at him, but she elaborates. “Or perhaps I should say I’m aware that I should. If my past feelings are any indication, I would have wanted that. If I were to accept your premise that my personal opinion on the matter is also important—which I am not saying I have accepted—I would have to concede that I should want this change corrected as well.”

Lance smiles weakly. “Well that’s something, I guess.”

His Pidge is in there. Somewhere.

***

“Hey, man, did you sleep at ALL last night?” Hunk asks.

Lance thinks about lying, but his friend’s hand is at his back, pressing in and warm, and he doesn’t have the heart to do it. “I uh...no. Not even a little.”

He’s afraid he looks it, too. His meticulous routine has gone by the wayside since the accident. He ran a comb through his hair this morning and his uniform is technically clean, but he doesn’t want to guess how large the bags under his eyes might be.

He feels cold and achy with exhaustion. Like reality isn’t real. But maybe, in a little while, everything will make sense again.

They’re all here. Crowded into a room in the infirmary in case anything goes wrong. Allura and Pidge on the edge of the examination bed. Sam at his daughter’s side and Shiro beside his old friend. Coran, Keith, Hunk, Veronica...they’re all here. Allura started a few minutes ago and she warned them it might take a while and…

Waiting is hard.

Hunk rubs Lance’s back as if trying to massage away the exhaustion, maybe just because none of them really have anything to do anyway. Lance is almost afraid he’ll fall asleep on his feet if Hunk keeps it up, but it’s nice. And If it keeps Hunk distracted, well. He’s not gonna take that away from him.

A few more minutes, and Hunk is just clinging to him. Probably as anxious as he is.

Allura opens her eyes. “I...I know what it is.”

She doesn’t look happy about it. Why doesn’t she look happy?

“Allura?” Sam asks.

She swallows. Her fingers have not left Pidge’s temples, and the soft blue glow hasn’t died away, but it dims as she redirects some of her concentration to talk to them.

“It’s...it isn’t a physical problem. Some of it may be manifesting physically in the form of the clouded areas we’ve seen on scans, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is telepathic. Hunk and Keith’s findings were correct...somehow this species was able to infuse telepathy and quite possibly magic into a physical toxin.”

Sam shifts closer to Pidge. “What does that mean…?”

No…

“It means...I don’t have the tools needed to fix this. I-I have magic, but I am not a true telepath. I know enough to nearly understand what is wrong...to find the telepathic barrier that’s been put in place, but...I can’t remove it. Not alone.”

“W-what are you talking about?” Lance says. “You can do this. I know this isn’t Voltron, but you can do it. You...you always can…”

“Lance, it isn’t about power, or believing. I don’t have the right ‘type’ of power.” She looks at Sam, too, and Pidge, who has opened her eyes. “I am so sorry...perhaps if we found a powerful enough telepath…”

Lance doesn’t realize he’s swaying backwards until Hunk’s arm is pressing into his back again, keeping him upright.

“Easy, buddy…” Hunk says quietly. His voice is tight, and Lance doesn’t blame him. His head is spinning.

“Thank you, for trying,” Sam is saying. He sounds sincere, but dull. Pained.

“Wait,” Allura says suddenly. “There is one thing I may be able to do now. If Pidge will allow it.”

“What?” Pidge asks.

“I...Lance may be right. I may not be able to remove the barrier because I am not a telepath, but I do have magic. I do have a certain amount of power, and it counts for something. I may be able to...lift the edge, for lack of a better term. Temporarily negate the effects.” She winces. “Very temporarily. Only for a few moments, most likely. But…”

The room seems to take a collective breath at that.

Pidge shrugs slightly. “I’ll allow that if anyone wants it.”

Of course they do. They all do. But Lance leaves it her father to say so. Allura nods and nudges for Pidge to shift to face out on the edge of the infirmary bed. Allura shifts back, carefully changing the position of her fingers without entirely breaking some kind of contact, so that she’s reaching around Pidge’s head from the back instead of the front.

“It will be easier for the others this way,” Allura says, when Pidge looks at her quizzically.  

They settle, and Allura and Sam are already crying silently before Allura even does anything else. Lance isn’t sure how he’s breathing.

Pidge closes her eyes as the glow from Allura’s hands brightens again. As Allura closes her own to concentrate. But Lance can still see the moment when something changes. When Pidge’s face scrunches in confusion and then a kind of pain.

Her first breath after that is a sob. “Dad…?” Her eyes fly open and she’s reaching out for Sam. “Dad…! Oh god, oh god…!” he pulls her in closer, wrapping her up in his arms as tight as it looks like he can without breaking Allura’s hold on her temples.

“Katie…”

“I’m sorry,” she cries. “I’m so sorry—”

“It’s not your fault. It’s not, Katie.”

“I-I don’t want to be like that anymore! I’m not ME, I...i-it’s so wrong…” She sniffs into his coat. “I love you, Dad. I love all of you…”

“We know.” Sam stands back from her to let the others close. Shiro, Hunk, even Keith goes in for a quick hug, while they can, while Lance is rooted where he stands trying to breathe.

His face is already wet. Of course it is. By the time Pidge finds him and meets his eyes he’s crying, and he really wishes he could have done better but he can’t. He can’t do it. He’s shaking and he can’t help that, either. Not even when she reaches out first from where she sits, and takes his hand.

“Lance…”

“Pidge,” he gasps.

Her eyes are wide with the fear of how little time they have now. “Kiss me.”

Lance doesn’t have time to question her. Or to think about the fact that Sam and Allura and Shiro and the others are there and looking at them. He ducks forward, cupping her face with his free hands and pressing his lips to hers. Uncertain at first, but she tugs him in closer by the front of his shirt.

He sobs against her cheek when the kiss has ended. “We’re not giving up. I-I’ll never…”

“I know,” Pidge whispers.

Lance all but stumbles backward, giving Sam the space to have another moment before Allura has to stop. Before she can’t do it anymore.

“I love you,” Pidge is saying to Sam again. “Please...please t-tell Mom, and Matt. I...just in case I-I can’t...I…”

“Katie…” Sam leans down to look into her eye, taking her shoulders in his hands. “Katie, listen to me. Love isn’t just a feeling. Remember that. It’s a choice. Even if you can’t have these flighty things we call emotions, you can still choose to care for someone - to...to count their well-being as important, or to protect them or...you see?”

“I-I do right now; I hope I will when—“ She cuts off in a sob. “Dad, I’m scared.”

Sam pulls her in again, and Allura is trembling. Running out of energy. Pidge buries her face in her father’s jacket.

Allura all but collapses when she lets go. Coran is there to catch her. Faintly Lance thinks he should have been there, too, but he feels like he might collapse, himself. Hunk is crying beside him, but it’s still his friend keeping him upright, really.

Pidge is the only one of them who doesn’t look upset, of course. As she sits up and unburies her face. She looks around at them all her eyebrows go up.

“I’m the cause of all this. I should apologize.”

Sam sobs quietly and wraps himself around her again. She doesn’t bother to return the embrace this time, but at least she doesn’t seem to have anything against it. “No...it’s not your fault.”

Lance doesn’t know what to do with himself. Hunk is still crying and Keith looks unsure, too. Shiro is looking at them. All of them. Probably trying to decide who might need him more, because that’s just Shiro, but right now Lance...can’t.

He starts to back away from everyone and Hunk calms enough to ask after him. “Lance? Man?” he asks weakly.

“I-I’m just...gonna…” He turns for the door, and something about the movement hurts. In his head. How long since his head started hurting again? Or did it really ever stop?

He reaches out for the doorframe, suddenly dizzy. He knows his other hand goes to press at his head and he can vaguely hear one or two of the others calling his name, but they’re so far away now…

Then the floor is getting very close very fast, and someone is grabbing at him, but everything goes black before Lance can find out who.

Read Chpt 6 >>

[gotgifsandmusings]

Unnecessarily Dramatic (maybe? Is it?) SM Update

Oh hi. I have no idea how to start this, lol.

So...it’s not exactly subtle that I’ve had a downturn in content and posts lately. And this was something that I was really debating whether to even explicitly talk about, because a lot of times posts or videos about dialing back from social media always feel very dramatic to me? Or self-serving in some way. Like, “Oh yes, I must be that important to necessitate this.”

But idk, the more I thought about it, I really really do appreciate anyone who’s read/commented on my writing, or followed me, or sent me thoughtful asks, and whatnot. I think it’s cool that we’ve been able to engage with each other over media, and that platform has allowed us to really delve into a ton of issues. Remember when I wrote a sourced series of essays on tropes in GoT Season 5 through the framework of ambivalent sexism just ‘cause?

And even though sometimes that engagement is me you know, being snotty to a rude anon, for the most part my writing analysis online, then fanfic, then podcasting, then building up a website and a community for thoughtful analysis, and even a youtube video here and there has been something really meaningful and rewarding to me. The fact that it’s maybe touched others? At least enough to the point where I’m getting anons saying, “hope you’re okay”? That’s very humbling.

So yeah, I do feel like I want to loop you in on what’s been going on, which I will do below the cut. (Apologies those on mobile.)

I’m starting to feel like a dishonest cars salesman here. “Oh yeah, I’ll totally write about that! I’m definitely going to have this piece then!” Even just the number of answered asks, most of which are incredibly good and insightful, you know, pains me that I can’t get to them. Hell, my drafts folder has about 40 partially answered asks. One is even about Sondheim! Why can’t I finish it??

Here’s the deal. For the past...6 months (maybe? A year?), I’ve kept saying, “when life calms down.” Or “Life has been a bear lately”...whatever that means. And I’m only now at a point where I’m realizing, my life isn’t going to calm down. In fact, my life—that being my primary career, my situation where I am, and my relationships to friends and family—sort of needs to be a priority for me.

Full confession: the reason I’ve been so prolific up until this point was due to the fact that my previous “day jobs” as I called them, while in line with what I studied and cared about, were something I could do in about 15 hours a week, if that. There was a finite amount of work, I was decent at it, and I really didn’t have an ambitious drive at these jobs because they really weren’t as focused or meaningful as I would have liked and the environments were not conducive to my personal professional growth.

So what did I do? I mailed it in. I found more personal fulfillment with what I was writing about online. It began with the Legend of Korra finale, which had excited me so much that I actually wrote my first rambling thoughts about it during work hours. At the time, it was on a Friday going into the “Christmas Break” where I’d be working from home, so it seemed okay to push work off. But I got a taste for that, got in a pattern of doing the bare minimum, and then focused my efforts on the stuff I actually wanted to be doing—chatting about media.  

And part of that was also due to the fact that I was in a major social rut. I was pretty isolated since I tend to have a smaller group of close friends rather than a large bunch of friends, and our career paths just kind of scattered us. I’d maybe get together with people once a month? I also loathed the dating game. I was, for the most part, working at a small startup with two middle-aged ladies and no options there, which left me with tinder and cupid. I laugh because I’ve gotten asks like, “wow you must have been a busy bisexual bee.” Yeah...3 or 5 months would pass and I’d realize I hadn’t gotten laid, so I’d worry that was a sign I was depressed, and I’d go on some random cupid date to have tangible evidence that that wasn’t the case.

My point being, writing about media and engaging with tons of people online was really appealing, and became an outlet for me in a way I never could have anticipated.

But that entire situation changed. For one, I began dating my now-fiance (as much as I hate that word) over a year ago. It was long-distance, so not a huge change at first. Then my sister moved home and in with me last fall, and my family commitments dialed up (3 cats and a baby!). Which was fantastic, it really was. But I think you probably noticed I produced less and less as this went on.

And then, finally, I moved my ass halfway across the country because long-distance wasn’t making any sense anymore. I wasn’t willing to move without a job lined up, so job hunting began to focus me again on my professional career. While I love writing and analyzing, I’ve never seriously considered this as a career path for myself. Which is no knock on anyone who does—it’s just pursuing that life formally is not for me. I have an engineering degree and a Masters in environmental policy, and the latter is truly what I’ve always wanted as my focus. I was finally able to hone in on a job that made sense for me with my background, not just a job that was around when I needed one.

I found it, I moved mid-April, and I absolutely love what I’m doing. The job, the workplace, everything has so exceeded my expectations in every way, and for once I have like, career aspirations where I am. This doesn’t mean I’m any less passionate about analyzing media, but it does mean that professionally, I won’t mail it in anymore to make time for that. My job has to be my focus, and in fact I’m likely going to be working 50 hour weeks to do accomplish what I want here. And don’t worry—there’s amazing work from home policies and PTO, so it’s not a “work you to your grave” kind of deal. I legitimately want to be doing this, because I care about what I’m doing and feel like it matters.

What does that mean though? Well, it means I have to take a step back from the amount I’ve been doing. I can’t be copyediting every night for The Fandomentals, I can’t be writing a weekly piece, and the GoT rewatch, and two podcasts, and longer retrospectives, and other planned co-analysis, and fanfic, and answering all the asks I want to, and checking my site email to organize and manage our team of contributors. Certainly not if I want to sleep, work out, keep up with the news, be around family and friends, and have some semblance of downtime. That I was able to do all this stuff this long is actually probably not the best sign, you know?

So I’m trying to really focus my efforts. I plan to keep both podcasts going, because I really love doing that. The GoT rewatch is going to keep on keepin’ on as well, as planned. Julia and I will still finish out our retrospectives for S7, and I’ve even already rewatched the Dragonstone scenes. But my weekly pieces in addition to all this are going to stop, unless I’m super excited by something. I have no idea about my fanfic, to be honest, and I think that’s going to have to be a situational mood-based judgement call. With regards to the asks and social media interaction...I will do what I can, but as you’ve been seeing, it’s just not something I have a ton of time for. I haven’t even gotten back into my gifcapping funky flow!

For my LoK blog, god, I don’t even know how the definitive rankings are going to end up. I want to try, but really who knows. Because the other thing is that I come home from work and am actually like...intellectually tired. I need a break. I feel like such a boring drudge now, but it’s true. (Also BOTW is a great destresser.)

So yeah, there’s really no good way to end this. I’m just letting you know why I’m going to be sparse. But that also I’m doing well, so no worries there, and thank you so much for anyone who’s sent something caring about this.

And I’m still me, of course. If some GoT spoiler comes out or promo pictures or something, you can bet I’m going to be memeing like normal, and probably having stupid back-and-forths with some bellicose anon. If I feel like ranting about some movie or comic for 15 minutes in a video, I’ll likely do that. But I just can’t keep placing expectations on myself to do more next month, and it’s not fair to you to keep saying “when life calms down.” Life isn’t supposed to calm down. It’s not an inconvenience that gets in the way of me talking about my feelings on a piece of media. And moving forward, I’m going to do what I can to have a more balanced approach to all of that.

[neioo]

SUMMARY: They thought it was over once the ‘Plan’ was completed. Time had passed. Most of their wounds had healed, but unknown to them, there were still other Nations, forgotten Nations, who continued to be tortured and experimented on.

All until one man, also forgotten, decided to rescue them and craft his revenge.

His actions cause the secrecy of the ‘Plan’ to crumble. Those who were involved are exposed. And as their punishment, they’re forced to work as pawns. Their ideals are again challenged—their humanity put to the test. Are they doing the right thing? Who can they trust? But most importantly:

Are they to blame?

This book is a Sequel to Are we humans? THE BOOK is available for purchase (HERE) or (HERE) as well as can be found (here) on AO3. As it’s a sequel, AWH can also be found (here) on AO3

Thank you so much for sticking with me! A bunch of rambling about this novel and updates on WDWW under the cut ^^

It’s done. It’s finally fucking done.

I mentioned this when I posted the proof, but my spring semester was rough, and then I catapulted myself into a study abroad in China for two months, which was very labor-intensive (10+ hours of work every day, not to mention going to 5 hours of classes)

I’m alive, though, so that’s cool.

I think DFU after being editing is way better than when I started. Are there still mistakes? Probably. Typos? I hope not, but…I was trying to go really fast at the end.

But Maddie, shouldn’t you stay with DFU and release it when it’s perfect?

I’m one person who’s doing this in their free time and at this point, I’ll be pissed if I find something wrong, but I’ve just come to accept it. If you purchase this or read on AO3 and see something, I apologize.

My editor really helped a bunch, so thank you so much. DFU is better because of you ^^

Updates:

Sorry for not touching WDWW in a month (I needed to focus on DFU and I needed a break as people do every now and then). I have an outline for the next two chapters, and I’ve already started writing the next

Ha ha.

I think I planned too many chapters. 6 (yes 6) seem unimportant so I’ll probably be scrapping them, making the total to 15 chapters. idk I’m not sure if this’ll be longer than 45k. That’s either cool or not cool. I’ll be done it soon! But I’ll also be done the AWH AU soon so.

Still gotta edit the fucking thing, though. You’re not free of me quite yet

In all honesty, I want to go back and edit AWH more too (I know jesus), but that’s still up in the air

Once WDWW is edited and done, I’m not writing any more hetalia fanfiction. I’ve done my support for the fandom. 再fucking见

(nah I’ll probably be sad and have an identity crisis but considering I’m only on chapter six as of now, and then I have to edit, we have at least 5 months before that happens)

What’s afterwards then? Probably OC work. I do want to get a novel published one day. And this blog? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ maybe I’ll go into the void like George deValier . you son of a gun George

o/

Goodies! Or whatever. 

Here’s what I posted at the back of DFU that you can read here if ya want:

I was a freshman sitting in my high school’s library, named the ‘Knowledge Commons’ because the school was a newly opened IB only high school within my school district, and I guess the ‘Head Master’ felt the need to be pretentious. I was the only kid in there. It was the first year and there were only two grades, and most kids had class while I opted to take a free period. My friend Simran got out of orchestra early and ran in there to find me.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

I was probably fucking around on YouTube, looking up anime OSTs, but it’s hard to remember. “Nothing.”

“You should watch this new anime I found!”

I frowned. “Yeah, but I’m watching Soul Eater right now.”

“No, trust me. Have you ever heard of Hetalia?”

“Vaguely. I was thinking I might watch it next.”

“Watch it now! The episodes are only 5 minutes, and it’s on YouTube.”

I shrugged. “Okay.”

And that’s the story of how I sold my soul.

Simran left me in the middle of me watching the first episode. I don’t know where she went—the bathroom? But I was left alone and confused as all hell.

But I kept watching.

I never did finish Soul Eater, by the way.

I immediately got sucked into the Hetalia universe, and with the 2012 Olympics approaching; I started daydreaming weird scenarios with the characters. That summer, I was also working at a horse camp, and the times when I was doing mind-numbing manual labor work, I would also daydream.

It was somewhere in late 2013 that Are We Humans? was fully laid out in my head. The universe started with the single scene of Spain and Prussia rescuing France from Nazis (which I’ve never even written yet), and then expanded into…this.

It was in late 2013 when I was taking a shower that I finished daydreaming about how Prussia was rescued and happy, realized that: “I could make this a complete novel,” and then immediately got irrationally angry. I had told myself I would never write fanfiction because then I could never get it published.

So I refused to write it.

I focused on OC work, but then in my junior year of high school, we started learning about the Second World War and the Cold War.

Before this, I never cared for history class, but I started paying attention for the sole fact that I could ‘make my Hetalia daydreams more historically accurate.’

In May 2015, I graduated high school.

And I was bored.

A few weeks passed, and I tried to entertain myself. It was on June 9, 2015 that I dug through my computer to look at my old writings.

On that fateful day, I found something I wrote in 2014.

I was at an internship for school—if you could call it that. It was a three-day thing where I went to a company, interviewed people, then sat around and tried to bide my time. It was in one of those down periods that I desperately tried to entertain myself by writing.

AKA, I wrote the first two chapters to Are We Humans?

It was in first person. The last OC novel I wrote in was that, so it only seemed fitting at the time. But on June 9th, 2015, I knew that people hated reading fanficion in 1st person, so I change it to 3rd, posted it online, and then shut my computer for the rest of the night.

The first comment I ever got, was “Nice drawing :)” back when I posted my own artwork with the fic. I was immediately flabbergasted, thinking no one would ever comment on it, let alone read.

Since then, the entire series grew. I finished Are We Humans? in a little over six months, and after doing so didn’t think I would write a sequel. But then, somewhere in March 2016 I was walking laps outside my dorm, and came up with this entire idea. Honestly, I wasn’t going to write this either until I got bored, yet again, in summer 2016.

Shout out to my job, which was mind numbing but had enough downtime that I could furiously write the chapters to DFU in a notebook.

I’ve singled people out on AO3, so to those who I expressed my gratitude there, thank you so much again. This universe has been enjoyable for me to write. I may never be able to officially publish it, but at this point this project is just a labor of love, and to have these paper copies are enough for me.

Prussia was always going to die. Even if I never wrote the sequel, I was trying to hint at that he would die in Are We Humans? If we’re being real, this universe was invented around him. He may not be the central focus 100% of the time, but nevertheless, I’m happy I got to explore his character.

Er ist mein Sohn, und ich liebe ihn. Vielleicht ist er tot, aber er lebt immer in meinen Herz.

Again, to all those who have read, thank you. It’s your support of the fic that pushed me to finish and expand this universe.

And to my brother, who used to make jokes about how Prussia is dead, look at what you did. If you, dear reader, wanna blame anyone, blame Steven, who’s begrudgingly listened to me ramble about hetalia for 5 years now.

[turtlesinreview]

TMNT Mirage Comics Issues 2-7

Since I read all these together I’m reviewing them together. I may or may not do this by arc or by issue in the future. I’ll see how it goes.

To me, at least so far, the closest thing I could think to compare the writing style of TMNT to is ‘If Axe Cop were written by grown men’. I don’t mean this as an insult in the slightest either. Eastman and Laird are a pretty clever and hilarious comic making duo, and these comics prove it. There’s this tinge of absurdist humor throughout the overall plot while the in-character humor is witty and natural. It has yet to feel like a chore to read, even the parts that are essentially expositions dumps.

Because those exposition dumps are fucking insane.

This is what I mean when I say it makes me think of Axe Cop. The plot gets more and more absurd with each passing page. It feels like the whole thing is taking you for a ride, but it also doesn’t feel like it has a horrible case of ADD either. The plot is always progressing, and there’s even a bit of downtime here and there to build up the characters. It’s great!

Where the style greatly differs from Axe Cop is about everywhere else. Like I said we get to know the characters a lot better. The mood is usually ‘gritty’ while still being clever and comedic, and while you may often find yourself surprised that something is happening, it never feels unnatural for it to happen. You go through the whole experience going ‘okay, this makes sense’, and there’s always a sense that what’s happening is a danger to the characters, no matter how ridiculous it may seem.

Essentially, the comic takes itself just seriously enough, making it a pretty enjoyable read, at least so far.

From this point on I’ll try to divide topics. I’ll keep writing out of the mix since I just went over it above, but I’ll add it in its proper place for future reviews/rambles. I’m still getting a feel for what I’m trying to do here.

Story

Let’s see if I can do this without going into ‘overly detailed’ territory. I have a bad habit of doing that.

The turtles, through watching TV, learn about these mobile mousetraps called mousers, which Splinter is concerned over since they’re apparently meant to rid the city of the rat problem. This means they may make their way into the sewers.

Turns out Baxter Stockman, the mousers’ creator, is actually using them in robberies around the city and plans to hold the whole thing ransom with his mousers. Apparently he was going to cause his own little 9/11 by destroying one of the twin towers. He tries to get his assistant April in on in, but when she refuses he tries to fucking kill her ass. The turtles save her and a new friendship is formed.

After Baxter announced his plan to the public, April and the turtles go back to his lair to stop him. There’s this tense moment where April and Donatello are trying to shut down a self-destruct program while the others fight off the mousers. They save the day and April becomes their buddy. The boys head back to the lair and that’s when shit really hits the fan.

After a bit of panic the boys get a hold of April and she agrees to house them. Due to some crazy-ass mixup the cops go after April’s van and a fucking insane chase scene ensues.

Afterwards the boys stay at April’s for what I think is a couple weeks if I remember correctly. We get a lot of nice little character scenes here. Anyway after fighting some rouge foot soldiers out for revenge the boys run into a building called TCRI and it induces a flashback in them.

They go to figure out shit about their past and find Splinter in the process. Unfortunately they ALSO run into some aliens and are accidentally teleported to another planet/dimension. I think it’s planet.

They meet a robot named Honeycutt who...well I posted a bit of his origin earlier. It’s convoluted and I love it. He can make a teleporter, but he refuses to because he doesn’t want it being used for evil. This leaves the turtles stranded and also means two opposing forces, the Federation and the Triceratons, are trying to get their hands on him for their own purposes. Chase scenes and a fight in a bar ensues.

Eventually the Triceratrons get a hold of Honeycutt and the turtles stowaway on their ship, where they somehow put themselves into a stasis via meditation where they don’t need oxygen.

I don’t think that’s how that works.

Anyway this results in them betting captured and put in gladiatorial combat. After they win the fight they hold the Triceraton ruler captive, but he gets stupidly shot down by his own men leaving them with no collateral. It works out fine though because they get teleported back to the TCRI building at just the right time.

On Earth April is worried about them, and apparently everyone saw the big ray of light the teleporter (or transmat as it’s called in the comics) let out when the turtles were sent to that far off planet. No one’s been able to get inside TCRI so the government has been called to storm the building.

The turtles are reuinited with Splinter and he and the aliens explain they they were just trying to get off the fucking planet. They explain their chemicals are what transformed them all into who they are today by accident, and it’s thanks to Splinter being a talking old rat that they ultimately didn’t destroy the turtles and even tried to bring them back. Okay so there’s more to it than that but I’m condensing it here.

The transmat needs to charge and be repaired again, but the government is starting to storm TCRI. Honeycutt and the aliens work on the transmat while the security system (with the help of the turtles if I recall) try to fend off against the feds so they don’t discover their alien allies.

The arc ends with the turtles and Splinter teleported into April’s tub, and I have no idea what became of everyone else.

Characters

One of these days I’m going to write a looooooooong essay about how much I enjoy the design evolution the turtles went other. Y’know, once I’ve seen enough of each series to warrant such an essay. I honestly think the turtles tend to look better with (almost) every iteration, and it should be somewhat obvious where I don’t.

I bring this up in this section and not the art section because in some parts of the comics I’m ashamed to admit I can’t tell which fucking turtle is talking when. While their voices are starting to become more distinct, the only way to visually tell them apart is what weapon they’re holding, or if they’re doing something a specific turtle would do.

A big example was before the bar fight. The first time I read it I assumed it was Michelangelo buying the beer, but upon rereading it I realized it’s probably actually Raphael.

But does that also mean Raphael was the one hitting on this space babe? Because that seems more like a Michelangelo thing to me!

Y’see, I assume THAT’s Raphael because I know that Raph’s the first one to use the ray gun, and I’m pretty sure he was standing next to Honeycutt at the time.

Of course in that panel Leo has moved to the other side of Honeycutt, so maybe they’re just relocating every fucking panel. The point I’m trying to make here is forgive me for getting the turtles mixed up sometimes. Especially Mike and Raph whose weapons I can’t use as stronger indicators to their identities.

Anyway, the returning characters, I.E. the turtles, are pretty fucking great in this. They’re starting to show and develop their own unique personalities, and it’s nice to watch the evolution as it happens. Leo is about the same as he was before, and has seemed to change the least, for the time being at least. I do like the little ‘If Raphael can fire a laser then I definitely can’ moment because it’s an early establishment of the rivalry they’ll probably share throughout the series, or if nothing else the rivalry they share in other iterations of the story.

Otherwise Leo was just as kickass as he was in the first issue, leading the team and being the badass ‘fight with honor’ brother for the most part. He was also the level-headed one when it was clear Splinter was MIA, as opposed to Raphael.

Speaking of Raphael, he had a lot of great moments in these issues, and it sure shows why this version of him is pretty damn beloved and used (I mean besides it being the initial/canon version).

The moment that stood out to me was how despite Leonardo’s protests and insisting he help clean up at home, he decided ‘no fuck that I’m going to find Splinter myself’ and just left and came back whenever the fuck he felt like it. It’s the moment that cemented him as the impulsive hothead, a trait I feel guilty for hoping will come back and bite him in the ass later.

Another highlight was when he was sizing up April after he took a shower. Nothing of note here. Just thought the scene was funny.

Also holy shit. Sometimes I forget just how short the turtles are. I guess they are still teens. Moving on.

Donatello was the one I usually identified as ‘the one who isn’t doing anything’ in this comic, but that’s pretty unfair. He actually does a hell of a lot. Combat aside, we also get an indication of his techy side in the first panel of the second issue.

Donatello was my favorite turtle in the ‘87 series. It was because he was sensible and intelligent, and back then those were the types of characters I liked. Oh an he was purple. I like purple. Anyway, he comes up with a few good battle strategies, and holds his own in combat pretty well in these issues.

His best moment so far is probably in the second issue, though, where he’s helping April reroute the mousers and deactivate the self-destruct system. He pretty much establishes himself as the brains of the team.

Michelangelo establishes himself as the carefree and cocksure brother during all this. He was eager to be a distraction for one of Donatello’s plans, and he even had some smug comments for a certain Triceraton guard.

That’s probably my favorite scene with him.

April’s really cool. She quickly establishes herself as the surrogate mother figure for the turtles, but sadly she’s under utilized in the latter issues I read where she mostly just hangs around New York worrying about the turtles. I’m sure she’ll have more to do later, but it’s nice that they have a ‘normal’ friend as well.

This is my first exposure to Honeycutt, and I can say while he has the dumbest origin ever, I really like him. He’s a man(bot) that sticks to his convictions, even if it risks the safety of himself and his friends (though he does CARE about said friends). I have a lot of respect for him, and I hope he shows up more after this arc.

I don’t have much to say about everyone else. Splinter was barely in this set of issues, and the alien race that Kraang is based off of...well, so far I like what other series have done with them more. Hopefully this isn’t the last of them though, so my opinion may change.

The Federation and Triceraton were...neat? Funny? I liked ‘em, but the races didn’t wow me too much. I liked the random extras in the background more.

Art

Issues 2 and 3 were a leg up from the first issue. They even used what I think is charcoal for the shading. That said, the people still looked pretty gross, at least in my opinion.

That said, I think the style is truly established in the fourth issue. Less is more really applies here, and that shows as the comic goes on. I think the overly detailed shading, while not terrible, was an overall detriment to the first few issues. Four through Seven look leaps and bounds better than the first three, at least in my opinion.

Not only that, but the art gets a lot better with each passing issue. I think one of the ideal comparisons for this is April. I’ll put an issue 2 image of her against an issue 7 image and let you be the judge. Hopefully you can see what I mean.

Not only April, but the turtles also look a lot better. They’ve become much more expressive, have a lot more motion to them, and their beak-noses aren’t doing that awkward crunching thing as often after the third issue. As before, I’m very excited to see the direction the art goes in the coming arcs.

Final Thoughts

I’ll admit, it was hard to resist the urge to read more of the comic while I was writing up this review. That’s probably going to be the most painful part of updating this blog. However, that should tell you how enjoyable this comic is. It’s hard to put down, and engaging all the way through.

This arc was pretty neat, and I’m excited to see what happens next. I know I said that last time, but I have a feeling this is how I’ll feel for a while if the quality remains this consistently good. Only one way to find out!